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                 Episode 76:  World of Pain
                 Written by:  Slicer

                 MTCFF Ultra Created By:  Twoflower


	Alone, in a little girl's room, a woman cried for her loss.
This is by no means a new occurence; in a world with custody battles,
accidents, war, and kidnappers, it is all too common.

	But when the woman has thousands of IQ points, the little girl
holds the key to the universe, and the kidnapper is one of the most
despicable men ever to be born, the situation can be rightfully said
to have become an unlikely disaster.

	Washuu did not bother asking herself where she had gone wrong.
She _knew_ where she had gone wrong. All the children's stuff, all
the stories.. she had tried to censor, to control Mary's mind, and
in that respect, she was no better than Sephiroth. Her attempts to 
protect her, to shield her from evil influences in any shape or form,
to treat her as the child she looked like, had simply backfired. What
did she think she was doing, playing Princess Maker?! Of course Mary
would escape it all sooner or later- what would stop her? "You're
pretty stupid for the universe's greatest scientist.", Washuu said
aloud.

	Studying her- in any form- hadn't helped either. How dare any 
scientist place personal curiosity above the fate of the universe in
such a way?

	And the biggest mistake of all was that she had never told Mary
what she really was, and now a man who had tried to take over
everything
was doing it for her. Of all the idiocies, this was the biggest.
What  if her instinct to be helpful had failed her? What if someone
had pushed her too far, and she had simply lashed out without any 
realization of her power? Was that possible? How could anyone know
for sure that it wasn't?

	Washuu wanted to know what she was thinking then, as she
replayed the Metatron's original VHS over and over, listening to
the image of Skuld lecture her. She wanted to know why she hadn't
explained to Mary why people like Sephiroth wanted to be with her.
She wanted to know why she didn't explain to her the concept of
power or the abuse thereof. She wanted to know why she had been so
foolish as to thinkthat she was above the Godhead. But at the
moment, Washuu would have traded all the answers to those questions
for the answer to just one:

	"Mary... where are you?"


----------------------------------------------------------------


	At that moment, the answer would have been, "Somewhere on
Earth." She had spent the past week with Sephiroth, much of it on
a grim vacation through the problems of humanity. Showing her
images on a screen would not be enough- she had to see it for
herself in person, see the misery which she has inherited. During
that through all the human depravity and misery of the industrial
world's major cities and suburbs. But that, Sephiroth knew, was
not where the greatest amount of misery was to be found.

	Sephiroth had pulled a small globe from underneath his
cloak, and every time Mary was sick of looking at one place, he
would offer it to her to choose another. They had first been
above the Pacific Ocean- nothing to see there. Then Antarctica-
again, nothing but penguins to wave at. She had then selected a 
random part of northern Canada, and except for trees, a handful
of snowed-over buildings, and a far-off jet plane, there was
nothing to see or hear.

	"This is boring," Mary pouted. "Let's go somewhere with
more people."

	"Very well. How about here?", the Son of Jenova said,
pointing to a spot in south Asia.

	"Okay." She then pulled them through space, right to the
exact spot under the very tip of Sephiroth's fingernail.

	And she saw people, lots of them. Too many of them.
Congested and rather polluted, New Delhi is a place filled with
humans, most of whom are desperately poor. "Is this enough people
for you?"

	The sight was something Mary was unfamiliar with. She had
seen crowds before, but this was entirely different. Dirt-covered 
children ran through the streets. Toothless beggars sat on the
road, trying to protect their gains from passers-by. And, she
knew, many of them were sick- sick with diseases that would
eventually kill them. On the surface, it was repugnant; as one
looked closer at the untreated sores on their bodies and the
squalor in which they lived, it became revolting.

	"I didn't mean these people!", Mary shouted.

	"So they are of no consequence to you?" It would be
interesting, Sephiroth mused, if she were to say yes.

	"I didn't say that, I.." Sephiroth could have pressed the
issue, but he did not. Manipulation, especially that of children,
is a delicate balance, and he was manipulating her- however little
he wanted to admit it to her or himself.

	"Tell me, who is at fault here? By whose malice does this
poverty occur?" They were not being starved- most of them had
enough to eat, and places to sleep. They simply had nowhere to go,
nothing of value to do except reproduce themselves in ever-greater
numbers. 

	"No one's.."

	"That's right, Mary. Malice is not required for suffering.
People can suffer their whole lives without ever having any malice
risen against them, or committed any sin. And yet, people in other
places can commit infinite amounts of sin, or no sin at all, and 
yet still remain happy."

	"That's not fair."

	"Who decides what fair is?"

	Mary thought it was a rhetorical question and did not answer
it. "Let's just go somewhere else."

	Sephiroth pointed to an island in the Pacific Ocean. When
they arrived, Mary felt her heart leap into her chest- there was
a lava flow, and it was rolling over people one by one as they 
failed to outrun the burning, molten rock as it headed towards the
main village. Everyone who had not managed to evacuate it would be
incinerated.

	"Who is causing that suffering, Mary?"

	"No one.."

	"But who is being blamed for it?"

	"God.. they're talking to me.."

	"Would you like to save them?"

	"Yes.. yes I would!" And she did, instantly. The volcano was
still active inside, but the lava flow had its internal temperature
decreased to the temperature of the rest of the island, halting it
absolutely. Sephiroth smiled. Saving people was not his concern, but
causing the young messiah to use her vast power at his direction-
for any purpose- was certainly a step in the right direction.

	"What are they doing now?"

	"They're.. praising me."

	"There are others who need saving, Mary. A great many others."

	"Where?"

	"How about here?" he asked, pulling out the globe and pointing
to a place a bit west of the horn of Africa. As soon as he moved his
finger, she pulled them there.

	The Ethiopian villagers clustered together, some too weak to
move. At first, Mary just thought they were all born very thin- when
she looked more closely, she gagged. Sephiroth simply floated in
silence, as Mary recoiled in horror.

	"Are they cursing you, Mary?"

	"No.. they don't even know I exist."

	"Why don't you tell them?" She could have blown them all to
pieces with lightning and Sephiroth would not have cared a whit. But
she did not, instead choosing to bless them with a horn of plenty, 
dumping a great mound of burritos, milk cartons, and freshly-baked
bread. And they did praise- they praised whatever had bestowed upon
them the gifts from heaven.

	"What I have shown you is merely the smallest sample. The
entire world is filled with people who know nothing except pain and
death. I can show you a place where many, many people need you
immediately."

	"But where...?" Sephiroth answered her by pulling out the globe
again and pointing to somewhere in the southern area of Eastern
Europe. She pulled them to the exact spot under the tip of
Sephiroth's fingernail...

	...and covered her ears against the explosions. She had made
them both invincible and invisible, but she hadn't changed their 
senses any. Sephiroth looked down at the melee with a cool
diffidence; Mary shrieked and replaced the palms of her hands with her
forefingers jamming into her ears. "What is this, Mr. Sephiroth?!"

	"This", Sephiroth casually stated, "is a war." Mary turned off
part of her hearing, forcing the sounds of explosives not to reach her
ears at all.

	"But I didn't think there were any wars happening right now!"

	"Most people don't like to call war what it is," Sephiroth 
scoffed. "Listen to them carefully, Mary. Listen to what these people
have to tell you."

	And Mary listened. Women shrieking for their husbands. Crying
children with shrapnel in their legs, to be rescued in days and never
to walk again. The shouts of teenage soldiers as they pressed
ever-onward towards their hollow victory. The sound, unhearable by
most mortal ears, of souls leaving bodies. And above all, the
prayers- the prayers for victory, the prayers to not get hurt, the
prayers for an end to the fighting, the prayers that the invading
soldiers would never open the closet where a family had hid its 
children, the prayers for death as a way of making the pain stop.

	Most striking of all were the prayers of the commanders, and
some of the soldiers- the prayers that the enemy be exterminated so
as to firmly secure a better life for the society of the invading
force. They were on God's side, they were sure of it, and they wished
for God to help them. Mary covered her ears again and forced herself
to stop hearing the people as well.

	"They're calling to you," Sephiroth said. "Would you like to
answer them? Who do you want to love you, Mary? The good or the
evil? I assure you that the evil will love you if you allow them to
conquer. This invasion could be stopped with a single word. You
already know that suffering can occur without sin. Why do you allow 
any sin to make things worse?" There was an answer to that- she was
sure of it- but she didn't have any idea what it was.

	"But I... they.." Mary sputtered out, reaching for something,
anything to cry into. It happened to be Sephiroth's cloak, and
Sephiroth smiled; this was working out better than expected. As she
did so, she felt an unnamable fear- something inside her told her
to run, to just get out of there, to head back to more familiar
territory. "Can't they make themselves better?"

	"Themselves? Better? As in better humans, in a better society,
without overpopulation, starvation, or war?" Sephiroth gave a dark
chuckle. "Would you like to see what happens when they try? Or maybe
when they think they've succeeded?" Some time travel should finish
this, he decided. Once she realizes that humans are incapable of 
improving themselves and end up committing genocide and atrocities
when they try, the logical progression will be for her to take 
direct power herself and do what no human could: forcing them to
become better- in every sense of the word- in the eyes of God.
And he would be her servant, willingly purging the unrighteous
from the world in her holy name. All he ever wanted was her 
blessing.

	The fear in Mary's heart coalesced with an intense feeling of
wrongness, the feeling a physicist would get if he found out that 
airplanes are held up by strings or that the sun is fueled by wax. 
"NO! I don't want to see if it's bad! I don't want to try to make
people better if it doesn't work! I don't want to end up hurting 
people when I try to help! I don't want to be like them, or you!"
she screamed, tears running down her face.

	Mary disappeared before Sephiroth could speak again.

	And the Son of Jenova did utter an obscenity.


----------------------------------------------------------------


	Lei Wulong stared into his coffee, hands on his forehead,
notepad to his right. He had gone over everything- physical
evidence, interviews, everything. The physical evidence was
almost nil- just a smashed apartment and a dead Cage, sitting on
his chair. No fingerprints, no DNA- all of the blood on the walls
was Cage's- nothing. And the people he had interrogated were
either completely open or completely reluctant, the reluctant
ones either being the quiet type in general or completely
unwilling to speak to anyone even remotely involved with the
police, and the open ones often stating their own motives for
getting rid of Cage.

	And that was the thing that bugged him the most. Almost
everybody had a motive. Cage was almost universally loathed in
Ultra- everyone from Marlo ("Heh, pussy sunglasses-boy got what
was coming to him.") to Ash ("That two-bit moron? Why'd anybody
waste time killing him?") had reasons, usually revolving around
the fact that Cage was too weak for Ultra or a nuisance in
general.

	But Lei could narrow things down. It wasn't anyone with
enough power to just obliterate him, which cut most of the Omega
fighters out. There weren't any telltale signs of magical attack-
it had been a straight up fight. Which left still far too much of
Ultra open to his liking.

	A woman sat next to him, and Li paid attention to her. Then
again, men tend to pay attention to women whose endowments are as
large as Naga's. "Yes?"

	"Just wondering if you found him yet," the White Serpent
said.

	"How did you-"

	"Give it up. Come on, everybody knows you're a cop, and you
can't possibly ask questions without someone figuring out what
you want."

	Lei sighed. "So, do *you* know anything?"

	"Not a thing. Been wondering myself. This whole
murder-mystery thing is sort of exciting, and it's better than
following Lina's wild-goose chase." She took a breath and Lei
watched her chest move in and out. Focus, he told himself. On
what she's SAYING! "Cage just seemed beneath everybody's radar. I
don't know why anyone would consider him important enough to
kill."

	"You think maybe he knew something?"

	"Cage? Know anything? I doubt it. The only person I could
think of who'd waste time with him is Bison, and Bison's in
prison."

	"Well, thanks for your help. And don't let anyone know why
I'm here."

	"All right, see ya." She left the table and he went back to
his drink.

	She couldn't have been coming on to him, could she? 'No,
no way,' he told himself. 'She's a powerful sorceress, and you're
just a cop who needs to get back to his job and find this jerk.'

----------------------------------------------------------------


	Nabiki sighed. She looked over the booking card in her hand
and sighed again, loudly, her elbows coming down on her desk and
her head gradually sinking between them. "Jack, I'm just asking
you to rethink this."

	Jack simply leaned against the wall. He liked to have these
discussions in *his* office, but that was being moved at the
moment. "Sorry, Beekers. I'm telling you, it's BOOKED! Finished!
That's it! I'm not going to turn around and tell any of these
guys that the matches are being changed."

	"Look, can't you substitute..?", Nabiki said to her desk.

	"Who? Nabiki- just what do you have against Vega, anyway?"

	She looked up at him angrily. "Jack, you KNOW, okay? We just
can not afford to book a guy like Vega in this Reboot! Do you know
how many young girls are in there?"

	"Oooohhhh. I get it," Jack said with an exaggerated knowing
wink. "I know what *you're* worried about." Nabiki sighed once
more and reached for her bulk-purchased headache medicine. Jack
obviously did not 'get it', and he probably never will.

	"Jack.." Nabiki just threw her hands in the air. "Forget it.
Just.. get out of my office. You're the booker, fine. Just.. go
away."

	"She can take care of herself, Beekers."

	"OUT!" Jack left before she could find something heavy to hit
him with. Great. How could she possibly hope to explain this to
him? That would be more than just a few girls. That would be her
sister out there, heavily disguised. What if Akane got hurt? What
if some real screwjob like Vega... Nabiki just made herself stop
thinking about it. Maybe she'd get a miracle. Or maybe he'd get
sick with ebola or something. Or maybe she could find some way to
keep him out after all...


----------------------------------------------------------------


	In a tiny pocket of nothing-space outside the realm of
reality, Mary wept to herself. The people were suffering, and
some of them were monsters. So many of them, calling out to her
in vain. All of them, good and bad, loving and hating, calling
out to any God they could for what they wanted or needed. And she
could answer them as they chose, dispensing justice as she
wanted, allowing Sephiroth the privilege of doing it for her
when she needed it done...

	And what if she did? What if she gave in? What if she
became the God Sephiroth was telling her she was? She could 
give so much, to so many.. she could cause the masses to see
the light.. she could purge hate and evil from the world,
destroy the armies of the unrighteous with a thought, begin a
campaign to cleanse the world of sin. And yet, it would be evil
of her to do so, if she enforced her divine Will upon the world,
because that would be the same as forcing everybody to do what
she liked at the barrel of a cosmic gun. She was terrified of
doing that. Ultra's filled with people who let their power get
the better of them- they become mean, cruel, unfair.

	It was then that she realized that Sephiroth's question
had not been rhetorical after all. Who decides what fair is?

	She was not prepared to answer that yet. She fled the
solitude of thinking and went to a place she knew well.


----------------------------------------------------------------


	'He makes himself intentionally difficult to find,' Yaga
thought. 'Constantly he does this. Is he trying to hide from me,
or is he just silly?' Of course he's just silly, Yaga realized.
Non-silly people don't talk to rubber ducks. Asking people he met
where Jack's office was hadn't gotten him very far- none of them
knew. The This Old Dojo crew would know, but they weren't there.

	Shortly after last week's fight, Yaga had thought about
his next match. He knew he would have to book himself- who's to
say what he could find himself facing if he didn't? A rematch?
Certainly not. That.. girl.. was taught all his moves, was
specifically selected to fight him, and possibly wasn't even
human. A fight with Li Ping? No. No, he wouldn't waste his time-
Li had proven himself a total idiot with his ridiculous
imitation of Johnny Cage, and Yaga would have nothing to do with
any idiot in this federation except Jack. Then who? Some punk,
he decided. One of the loudmouth punks who strut around the
halls here, one of the punks who think they're tough just
because they can toss around magic or do special moves or other
little tricks. Like that kid who isn't old enough to drive, but
can summon huge monsters.. yeah, *that* kid would be perfect.
The fans hate him, which means that Yaga would probably be
hailed as a hero once he grabbed Ash and blew him out of his
size 7 shoes with one good punch. The only shame about it was
that Yaga couldn't box the ears of the fool who gave him those
giant monsters in the first place.

	And the only problem with booking the match was that Yaga
could simply not find Controversial Jack Lysias. The ex-wrestler
knocked on the door to the office of Nabiki Tendo. She has at
least some degree of sense. 

	"Come in." Nabiki's mannerisms were courteous and formal
until she saw who it was, whenceupon they became dismissive and
agitated. "You're looking for Jack, right?"

	"He better not be on vacation.", Yaga said. "We had an
agreement."

 	"Oh, he's here," Nabiki said, opening her desk and pulling
out a walkie-talkie made out of cheap yellow plastic. Static
spewed forth from the receiver as soon as she turned it on-
she made a note to talk to Fischer-Price about product quality.
Yaga took it from her hand, disgusted.

	"Jack, I want to talk to you in person," Yaga said, the
transceiver echoing static back at him with his every word.

	"No, I haven't heard of it," Jack replied.

	Yaga just tried again. "Jack. I would like. To talk. To
you, in person."

	"Oh! No, it's fine. But thanks for asking."

	Yaga ground his teeth, and saved himself six dollars by
clenching the hand not holding the device. "Controversial.
Jack. Lysias. I. WOULD. LIKE. TO. TALK. TO. YOU. IN. PERSON."

	"Then. Come. Meet. Me. On. Top. Of. The. Dome." Yaga
facepalmed, and muttered something about a desire for lightning
and strong winds. Nabiki dug through the closet and offered
him an instruction manual and a motorized climbing device
with suction pads.

	Yaga stared at the device. There was no way he could
attach that bundle of wires to himself. He wasn't a climber,
and what if his fans saw him? "Absolutely not," Yaga said.
"The terms of my contract clearly state that-"

	"The terms of your contract clearly state that you are to
tell the Head Booker about your decisions. And what is your
lawyer going to say, that you couldn't manage to make it to the
office, which was clearly within Ultra property lines? Besides,"
Nabiki offered, pointing to the cheap walkie-talkie, "you can
always use that."

	Yaga grimaced at the choice. He would either have to climb
up a sports dome- a thing he had absolutely no experience doing-
or talk through a cheap walkie-talkie to a man who would take
the greatest pleasure in misinterpreting him. He could hear it
now: 'I thought you said you wanted to be burned to ash!' He
slammed the yellow plastic on Nabiki's desk and stalked away,
gear and manual in hand, cursing.

	And so he chose a spot where the fewest people would see
him, strapped on the pads, read what he thought were the most
important parts of the manual, and slowly sss-popped his way up,
one pad at a time, at a third of a meter per second. "I'm going
to get Jack for this," he said to no one within earshot. He
wanted to *hurt* Jack. The absolute gall of making one of his
most experienced Gamma fighters, if not _the_ most experienced,
climb like a lizard to his office. How hard would it be for Yaga 
just to grab him when he finally did reach the top, and casually
chuck him off? 'Oops, he slipped.'

	Finally, he reached the deranged booker's makeshift office,
with everything, Jack and Mr. Duck included, tightly strapped
down. Jack had torn up several cardboard boxes to make a ceiling,
had a statue of the Six-Fingered Hand of Chaos upon his TV, and
was playing some wacky N64 fighting game with his fondest friend.

	Yaga began cursing again. He would either have to continue
to use the climbing gear on the surface of the curved dome-
leaving him prostrate before Jack's feet- or risk slipping off
to a gruesome end of blood and concrete. So he compromised,
pulling his hands from the front pads, and trying to rock his
feet into a position that would look more like a squat than a
kneel.

	Jack only smiled at him, in his usual friendly controversial
way, as Mr. Duck beat him for the twentieth time in a row. "Yaga!
Just the man I wanted to see." Liar, Yaga almost said. "I'm afraid
I can't get you a rematch- Roxy's out of town this week."

	"I do not" Yaga stiffly stated, "want a rematch. My next
match will be against Ash."

	Jack blinked. Ash? He wants to fight Ash?! The psycho kid
with the steel Pokemon? Well, sure, no problem, if he wants to go
through what will end up as a meatgrinder, Jack was more than
willing to accomodate him.. but there was an aesthetic reason to
not let Yaga get the whooping he deserves.

	"Sorry, no can do."

	"Why not? I KNOW he's HERE, Jack." 'What sort of tricks is
this maniac going to pull this time?' the ex-wrestler almost
muttered aloud.

	"He's here, he's ready to fight, he's looking for a match..
but I can't do it. It would just be bad booking." Yaga's brow
knotted in confusion and anger. "You're both heels."

	"I" Yaga deliberately said, "am not a heel." Speaking of
heels, Yaga's ankles were really beginning to hurt from trying
to squat in his position.

	"Mr. Duck, is he a heel?"

	*Squeak!*

	"Sorry, two against one. Why don't you go ask the fans?"

	Yaga had long since ran out of patience. "I am a heel when
*I* say I am a heel, and I am a face when I say I am a face. Do
you understand me, Jack? I am booking this match. If you do not
honor my decision, I will find a way to sue you in an American
court!"

	Jack had also ran out of patience. He had been wracked by
strange sensations all week, and he felt another one coming on. 
"Fine. You want it, you got it. You against Ash, this week,
first event, ordinary Gamma rules. Done. By the way, how much
time do you have left?"

	"Time?"

	"On the Gecko." Jack gestured to the climbing device's
right front pad, where a digital clock displayed '5:23' on its
LCD screen, ticking down by seconds. "You *did* read the manual,
right?"

	"Jack.. you disgust me," Yaga spat out, as he scurried
down as fast as he could, which was unbearably slow. Jack waited
until he was out of sight before beginning to laugh. Ash! Of all
the Gamma fighters, it had to be him. This wouldn't be a contest-
it would be a smackdown. Jack just hoped Ash wouldn't say
something like 'Steelix, bite this jerk in half!' That would be
a mess in every sense of the word.

	Yaga, for his part, was trying to avoid becoming a mess by
reaching the ground before his fuel ran out; he didn't quite
succeed, as his pads gave way when he was twelve feet above the
concrete. He instinctively squinted his eyes shut, and put his
hands in front of his face to protect himself- he felt some soft
friction along his body- and he hit the ground with the softest
of thumps.

	Lucky, he thought. I got real lucky.

	"Don't get mad at Jack, Mr. Yaga," a little girl said 
somewhere around him. "He's just trying to be who he thinks he
is."

	"And who *does* he think he is?" Yaga retorted. He had been
meaning to ask _that_ question for some time now. But he was
talking only to the air; there weren't any little girls around,
or anyone else for that matter.

	"...I need a beer."


----------------------------------------------------------------


	Ranma grimaced as he performed his fast-punching Chestnut
Fist, attempting to score hits on the fighter in the white gi and
the black belt, as he had for the last hour. The guy just kept 
blocking, and Ranma could never hit his arms hard enough to
cause any appreciable damage.

	And then there was that killer footsweep again- Ranma jumped
over it, but was quickly caught by Ryu's spinning kick, and sent
to the mat once more. 

	Ranma groaned. Ryu was so fast, so strong. How could he ever
hope to even begin fighting somebody like that? And yet, he had
to, because if he couldn't put up a fight for long against Ryu,
Sagat would bash his head in.

	And once more he felt the anger rise within him, the
frustration. But he pushed it down, knowing that if he got angry,
he'd do something so foolhardy that Ryu would just knock him back 
down again with one solid punch. He tried to focus the anger as he
had done before, but.. there was some mental block in his way.
Maybe it's because I know I can't beat him, Ranma thought. Or even
knock him down. Damn it! Ranma struggled once more into a
semblance of focused anger. If this was Ranma's best, he knew he
had no chance of winning in the ring against the Muay Thai Gamma
belt-holder.

	He rushed Ryu again, but not with too much momentum, because
he was worried about all the tricks the street fighter might pull
out. Kicks, punches.. blocked, all of them! He might as well have
been trying to fight Goku for all the good this was doing him.
There, he's going to block that one, and that one, and- Ranma knew
that one was going to be blocked, but he was so annoyed that he'd
do something to those blocks. He reached around with his other
hand, grabbed the blocking arm, and threw Ryu.

	I threw him, Ranma thought. I finally managed to bring him
down.

	"So," Ryu asked, "how did you manage to do that?"

	"I knew where your arm was going to be."

	"That's right," the white-clad fighter said, hopping up to
his feet. "You knew what I was going to do." Of course, Ranma
thought. Prediction. He had to know what the other guy had in mind.
That's how he could beat Sagat- by anticipating his moves, and
being somewhat unpredictable himself. Invigorated, Ranma
continued sparring, and found that he had much more of a chance
when he realized that he had one at all.

	"You'll get it if you really want it!" a little girl's voice
shouted from somewhere nearby. Ranma and Ryu looked first at each
other and then around the training dojo, but saw nothing at all.


----------------------------------------------------------------


	She's good, Ken Masters thought, sitting cross-legged in his
red gi as Akane Tendo practiced the Shoryuken. Real good. She had
taken to the powerful Dragon Punch like a fish to water- watching
her do the ki-fueled jumping uppercut continually made him smile.
She was made for that kind of attack. All the techniques of
throws, leg-rolls, blocks, punches, kicks- especially aerial
kicks- had all been absorbed by his pupil readily.

	Yet there was still one thing which she had not learned and
claimed she never could. Ken, having searched far and wide, had
come upon his answer to her problem.

	"Stop," he said, as Akane finished her fiftieth Dragon Punch,
sweat soaking her training gi in a way that would cause nosebleeds
among trainers of lesser fortitude. "You have mastered it. At this
phase in your training, there is a crucial thing you must do."

	"What is it?"

	"You must push a bell to ring it." Akane looked at him
incredulously as he proceeded to wheel the heavy bell into the
center of the training room. *Push* a *bell*? He directed her
exactly where to stand- a point two feet from the bell. "Close 
your eyes." She did so, wondering what this was supposed to teach
her.

	"Stand still. Don't lean forward. Ring the bell." She pushed
with one hand, her strength easily ringing the bell. She heard him
move it away from her, and he gave the same three-sentence command.
She had to reach to push it, but she could still get her palm at 
it, and it rang again.

	"Stand still. Don't lean forward. Ring the bell.", he said
again. Without leaning forward, she could get her fingers on it- 
and she was strong enough to ring it. She heard him move it again.
How far could he possibly move it? Her arms, after all, are only
so long. He intoned that same command again, and she did touch it-
with the very tips of her fingers, and she didn't ring the bell.
Ken didn't move it, but merely repeated the same command again.
She used both hands, and put all her muscle into it- she felt it 
move farther, but the bell still did not ring. How was she supposed
to ring this stupid bell with only the tips of her fingers, anyhow? 
And again, that same irritating command from Ken, which was
starting to sound to Akane's ears like water torture.

	Fine, Akane thought. I'll stand still, I won't lean forward,
and I'll ring this stupid bell. She pushed her arms as hard as she
possibly could, put her power into it, felt her aura come to life, 
and managed to barely ring the bell. She heard him move it farther 
away. _Farther away_?! She could barely touch it before!

	Determined and annoyed by Ken's repetitive command, Akane 
threw her arms forward- and completely overbalanced herself, not 
merely leaning forward but falling forward, grabbing the bell on her 
way down. "Keep your eyes closed," Ken said, as he placed her feet 
into the spot she had been standing in before. "Stand still. Don't
lean forward. Ring the bell."

	Akane growled and decided what to do. If she could barely
even nick it, it would come back to her, and she could get more of 
a hold on it each time, and the bell would eventually ring, and
maybe Ken would cease this annoying nonsense and get back to her
real training. She pushed, out, as hard as she could, with both 
hands, and accomplished nothing. She pushed again- almost dislocating 
her arms, but still not managing to touch the bell. She scowled,
grimaced, and tried as hard as she possibly could, her battle aura
flaring to life once again- but she didn't ring it at all. Then, 
with her arms still extended, she felt the bell touch her fingertips.
She pushed it with them and seized the opportunity to make it ring. 
Ken moved the bell back farther still. That bastard, Akane thought. 
He's swinging the bell back at me when I punch hard enough.

	Upon his next command, she extended her fingers and struck 
again, as hard as she could. Nothing. And that same phrase again: 
"Stand still. Don't lean forward. Ring the bell." Is he intentionally
trying to get on her nerves? If it is, it's working. She tried 
again, with her battle aura flaring- the bell never came back to 
her. The phrase again.

	Akane was getting so ANNOYED, so ANGRY, so PISSED at this WHOLE
SORDID BELL-RINGING BUSINESS, that she just flared up her arm and
struck with her hand as hard as she possibly could, hoping that he'd
throw it back to her after that, whenceupon she'd stand still, not 
lean forward, and cram the bell up his-

	The bell rang. What? He might throw it back but he wouldn't
ring the bell for her.. "Again," Ken simply said, and she heard the
happiness in his voice. She pulled back to strike in the same way.
"Eyes open!" he shouted in mid-strike, and her eyelids flicked open 
as.. she..

	As she rang the bell without touching it, her ki energy flaring
out of her hand to do the job for her. Ken hadn't been throwing the
bell back after all. He laughed and clapped as she stood in shock. 
>From there, fireball-throwing would be simply a matter of practice;
the important thing is that she had finally learned how to make her
energy leave her body.


----------------------------------------------------------------


	Lina Inverse, sorceress and bandit hunter extraordinaire, let
out an extraordinary sigh in the office of Nabiki Tendo. The Godhead
was *HERE!* She knew it! She had sensed it moving all week, and now 
it was here, in Ultra! She felt it- so CLOSE!

	"I told you, Lina, just let it go," Nabiki said, looking at the
red-haired woman casually.

	"Let it GO?! This is the Godhead we're talking about here!"

	"And if it were in the hands of some evil person, we'd both be 
dead by now. Just let these things play out! If you can't find it, 
you can't find it. Simple as that. You will know eventually."

	"Don't you understand? I have to find this thing!"

	"I understand that you've been going around in circles all 
week. Lina- maybe it doesn't WANT to be found, you ever think of 
that? If whatever you've been doing hasn't discovered it, more of 
the same probably isn't going to help any." Nabiki did not know magic,
 but she did know logic, and Lina couldn't argue with that. "Just sit
down and watch the show. Maybe it'll turn up there," Ultra's owner 
said, picking up her notepad. And Lina agreed with that- after all, 
it's been on the show many times already.


----------------------------------------------------------------


	All energy is measurable.

	Hiroshi had to know just how well he was doing. How loud
did the crowd get every time something happened? Did things
really get louder for certain fighters or was that just the
impression?

	With his Ultrocity Meter on the table, Hiroshi could now
be sure.

	"Are you ready... for some... ULTRAAAAAAAAAA-VIOLENCE?!",
he shouted into the mike.

	As the fans screamed their earth-shaking response, Hiroshi
pressed a button on the meter, calibrating it to exactly 1.

	"And do we have some FIGHTS for you TONIGHT!", the manic 
announcer shouted. "Our first match is a GAMMA fight! Ladies and
Gentlemen, here he comes, the one, the ONLY, ASH KETCHUM!!!"

	Enter Sandman poured through the speakers as the Ultratron
focused on Ash's set face and leather-and-metal, jet-black, Team
Rocket Enforcer clothes. Red fireworks spurted out around him,
making him look like a young devil. The boos were expected, but 
Ash didn't care. He had an old, stupid fatass to knock around.

	"And he's fighting Yaga," Daisuke calmly said, as Hiroshi
did his level best to look as bored as possible. Yaga walked down 
the ramp, amazed- there was no music, no fireworks, and the 
announcer hadn't even cared. Even the fans had gone quiet. The
 Ultratron wasn't even really focused on him; it was focused on
a section of the fans, with Yaga only being visible from a small
corner.

	"JACK!!!" Yaga bellowed. "This is NOT a fitting introduction!"

	"Oh!", Jack's voice came through the speakers. "You want some
music? Well, here you go!" Picking up exactly where Marlo left off 
last week, the speakers around the ex-wrestler proceeded to play
Jethro Tull's Aqualung at maximum volume.

	Almost everyone laughed. Ash laughed. Backstage, Marlo
laughed. The fans laughed. Jack laughed. Even Lina and Nabiki
laughed. As Yaga bellowed in pure rage, Mary was enlightened as to 
how much enjoyment people get out of tormenting other people.

	Yaga just walked into the ring. Showmanship be damned. He'd
just show everybody here who was the better fighter- everyone
respects a winner.

	Ash hopped up between the ropes and bounced a Pokeball in
his right hand. "So why are you even in this federation, anyway?",
he asked the wrestler. "No one likes you. Even Jack thinks you're
full of it. Why don't you get your fat butt back in your wheelchair
and use the last of your money to hire somebody to push you to
the nearest nursing home?"

	The audience replied with a traditional that-insult-was-cold
"OOOOOOH!!" and Yaga's eyes lit up.

	"Kid, if we were in private, I'd bend you over my knee and-"

	"I know you want to bend me over, but I don't swing that 
way." As the audience went back to oohing, Yaga looked around for
the ref. He wanted to get this match started, so he could take 
that kid's smart mouth and shove his fist into it so far that-

	The opening bell rang.

][ GAMMA MATCH
][ YAGA vs. ASH
][ FIGHT!

	Ash threw out Steelix as soon as the fight began, and tried
to hide behind the giant, metal Pokemon so that the imposing Yaga 
wouldn't get a hold of him. "Steelix! Tail attack! Whack him 
around!" 

	"STEEEL!!!" And now Yaga had to dodge the huge snake's tail
while trying to reach Ash. No good. There was no way he could
continually jump out of the way and rush the boy at the same
time. Furthermore, he was getting backed into a corner, and
he'd either be driven out or smashed against the ropes or the
turnbuckle.

	"And Ash is trying to CRUSH Yaga!", Hiroshi shouted into
his microphone.

	Yaga grimaced and clenched his hands. He would not let this
stupid excuse for a movie monster stop him! But there was that
tail overhead again, and from the other side.. Yaga dived out of
the way as the massive attack passed him by. That thing was big-
too big! 'Too big to not hurt both of us if I get a hold of that 
kid.' And Yaga decided that going out with a bang was better than
being corralled like an animal, so he just rushed to the corner 
where Ash was relaxing, disregarding the giant tail.

	The tail came anyway, and Yaga simply vaulted over it,
grabbing the startled Ash with both arms and squeezing him like
a tube of toothpaste. "And it's ASH who's getting the SQUEEZING 
tonight!" Hiroshi exclaimed, for the benefit of the terminally 
clueless.

	"How do you like THIS, huh?" the wrestler asked, as his
brute strength almost crushed the boy's arms and ribcage 
outright. "How's this invalid for ya?" Ash screamed in pain, but
he wasn't about to give up so easily.

	"Steelix- TAIL attack- throw us BOTH out of the ring!" And
Yaga and Ash were both taken up by the beast's great tail. Yaga 
thought that it would throw them maybe a few yards, or into the
lower portion of the fans.

	Instead, Steelix threw both of them as hard as it possibly
could, sending the two of them into the upper portion of the fans,
into the nosebleed section. The impact against the forcefield 
protecting the audience seperated them, and both Yaga and Ash 
rolled down the invisible barrier, tumbling ungracefully. Yaga's 
nose became bloody and a few drops helped the audience know 
exactly where the barrier was.

	"That's going to hurt in the morning," Daisuke helpfully 
pointed out. Hiroshi just watched in caffeinated shock as the fans
got a very close view of the combatants. Protected by his leather 
jacket, Ash didn't receive so many bruises as the bare-chested 
wrestler- however, it was the final impact into the Spanish 
announcers' table that mattered. Both of them hit it at exactly
the same time.

	'That's the last time I only throw out one Pokemon at a
time,' Ash thought before he blacked out.

	Yaga, rubbing his very sore body, staggered back into the
ring and was immediately declared the winner by the referee, who
made a point of running away as fast as he could afterwards. What
a coward, he thought, as the fans booed him to .85. "You have ALL
just LEARNED who the better fighter is tonight!" The meter rose to
.9. "You have ALL just SEEN the FURY of the Greeaaaaa..." Yaga's
speech was interrupted by Steelix lifting him into the air, Yaga's 
arms struggling to keep its great mouth from swallowing him whole
or biting chunks out of him. This Old Dojo employees, security 
forces, and the referee all rushed to the wrestler's aid. Yaga
cursed himself for believing that the Pokemon couldn't act
independently of their owners, as he pushed the beast's mouth 
apart.

	"Cut to commercial already!" Daisuke shouted.


----------------------------------------------------------------


	The yellow pantsuit-clad man held up several green and blue
orbs in front of the camera, the low-quality footage and the 
inside-store backdrop being the result of an incredibly low
advertising budget.

	"Hi! I'm Discount Bob, and I want to tell YOU where you can
get your magic CHEAP. Bob's Discount Materia!"

	The camera cut to somewhere in California.

	"Power crisis got ya down? Our Bolts have all the electricity
you need here at Bob's Discount Materia!"

	Some stock footage from somewhere in the Arctic.

	"Having trouble getting that fire started? We're stocked with 
Fire here at Bob's Discount Materia!"

	Some more stock footage, this time from the Sahara.

	"Can't keep yourself cool? Fridge on the fritz? We have Ice 
galore at Bob's Discount Materia!"

	The camera returned to the salesman, who had replaced his green
orbs with purple ones.

	"Personal improvement. Help with your magic. Even powerful 
summoning spells! We've got it all! Bob's Discount Materia, at the
address on your screen! Call today for a price quote on any of our 
fine products."


----------------------------------------------------------------


	"And we're back!", Daisuke said to the camera, which then 
revealed a ring conspicuously devoid of steel Pokemon or any 
evidence of Yaga.

	"And we've got a SPECIAL NEW TEAM tonight!", Hiroshi
exclaimed with his usual fervor. "A team from the wilds of North
America, a team that will blow you away.. LADIES and GENTLEMEN,
WE GIVE TO YOU..." Synthetic drumrolls poured through the Ultra 
speakers. "TEAM CROCKETT!!!" As the Ultrocity Meter reached 1.1, 
Hiroshi covered his microphone to speak to his partner.

	"...but they aren't even Americans, Daisuke."

	"At least this name isn't going to get them sued. Might get
them beaten up, though."

	Pseudo-Yankee music poured through the speakers, and green
spotlights came on to illuminate the 'new' team. Jessie and James,
decked out in identical coonskin caps and loose tanned-leather 
clothing with way too many tassels, waved to the cheering crowd 
as they strutted in lockstep down the aisle. An amazingly large 
number of their fans were similarly outfitted, waving their $300
faux-coonskin caps in the air; Nabiki Tendo had found a gold mine.
Only a few fans had signs, most saying "Remember the Alamo!" or
suchlike.

	"PREPARE FOR TROUBLE!"

	"And make it double!"
	
	"To explore the land and boldly go!"

	"To help protect the Alamo!"

	"To defend against the savage hordes!"

	"To keep the fans from getting bored!"

	"JESSIE!" Her hands-on-hips pose would have almost looked
imposing if she hadn't picked such a ridiculous costume.

	"JAMES!" The odds of James looking imposing are roughly that 
of a shotgun's buckshot coming out in a smiley-face pattern.

	"Team Crockett will win this fight!"

	"And never will accept a slight!"

	"And it looks like Team Crockett is ready to... to..." 
Hiroshi fumbled with his words and his microphone.

	"Go out hunting for furs and build log cabins?" Daisuke
offered.

	"Erm.. yes. ANYWAY, in the OTHER corner, please WELCOME 
their OPPONENTS: MOUSSE and TASUKI!!!" Lots of jeers and boos
greeted the two as they casually made their way down the aisle,
the Ultrocity Meter hitting 0.8.

	"Where's your crowd this time?", Tasuki asked his partner.
"Where's that intelligent minority you pointed out before? And 
for that matter, where's mine?" They were nowhere to be found. 
Even most of the Mousse fanatics had given it up after his
treatment of Sakura. Instead, there were fans with signs saying
"Mousse looks better as a duck" and "Rekka Shinen THIS!"

	Mousse pondered telling him that no intelligent minority
in the world would give a crap about Tasuki, but had learned from
all his dealings with Shampoo that he didn't want to anger his
partner before the beginning of the match. So he said something
else instead. "You think they're pissed now? They're going to be 
really mad after we take these losers out." Mousse flung his
chains wildly about, pretending to knock the audience around, 
flinging them to and fro like the death throes of a mutant 
octopus.

	Tasuki said his trigger phrase again, and created a giant
flaming middle finger for everyone in the arena to see, causing
Nabiki to groan and write something in angry strokes on her pad. 
He entered the ring and casually leaned against the ropes.

	Jessie also climbed into the ring, struck a few poses, and
immediately called a Bulbasaur next to her before the match began.
It was something they had talked about with Nabiki, and so long 
as they could keep the things under control and have them not 
attack before the opening bell, they could summon all they liked.

	The opening bell rang.

][ LAMBDA MATCH
][ TEAM CROCKETT vs. MOUSSE and TASUKI
][ FIGHT!

	"Bulbasaur! Vine Whip!", Jessie shouted, still trying to
mimic an American accent, and immediately Tasuki was set to
dodging the reaching tentacles.

	"And it looks like Jessie is going to lasso and hog-tie 
him just like the real Crockett would!", Hiroshi shouted.

	"Err, 'Roshi, Crockett wasn't really a cowboy.." said
Daisuke, who had gotten an A+ in his History of the Western World
class.

	In response, Hiroshi pressed a button on his portable MP3
player, and his favorite catchphrase came out. Daisuke grabbed the
player, smashed it upon the edge of the desk, and handed the 
remains back to a frightened Hiroshi.

	Tasuki was not used to fighting Pokemon, and continued to
dodge the tentacles as he looked for a weak spot. "Hey Mousse, 
what do you do against these things?"

	"I hit them with stuff. You should just be able to torch
it," Mousse said, visibly unconcerned.

	"It's really that easy? No weird defenses or anything?" he
asked, leaping out of the way of Bulbasaur's next attack.

	"Yup, it's that easy."

	Tasuki leapt towards the plant Pokemon after its next 
tentacle attack, fan outstretched. "REKKA SHINEN!", he shouted, 
simultaneously whacking and flaming it, blasting it out of the
ring to land in a heap. Jessie recalled it, and threw another
immediately, its yellow-and-black stripes reminding Tasuki of a
bee.

	"AND it looks like Team Crockett's brought out some NEW
POKEMON they've never used before!!", Hiroshi shouted.

	"Team Crockett's supposed to be new, remember?" Daisuke 
reminded his partner.

	"Worrr..." Hiroshi looked into the eyes of his dour partner.
They were the eyes of a man about to be pushed too far. "..d up,
Daisuke!" he exclaimed. Daisuke groaned. First an afro, and now 
the possibility of THAT becoming a new catchphrase. In comparison,
'Work with me' really wasn't that bad after all..

	"Electabuzz! Thundershock!" Jessie shouted, her American 
accent faltering greatly. "Lecta.", the ugly-looking Pokemon 
acknowledged, beginning to charge up electricity, the fans'
cheering rising with its power.

	"REKKA-"
	
	"BUZZ!" it shouted, blasting the unwitting Suzaku and 
sending him against the ropes, dazed. The Ultrocity Mete
 reached .9.

	"And what a surprising move by Jessie! Will Mousse and 
Tasuki be able to pull through?"

	"The only thing surprising is that Team Crockett managed
to score a hit, and yes, I think they'll pull through.", Daisuke 
deadpanned.

	Mousse pushed his partner out of the ring. "You have got
to get used to the weirdness, my friend," he said, pulling out
a heavy wooden bat from underneath his shirt. Realizing that
Electabuzz would probably get knocked out immediately, Jessie 
recalled it. 

	Naturally, that proved to be a mistake, as she now had to
deal with Mousse alone. She ran around the ring, Mousse following 
her, screaming all the while, struggling to dodge, her panic 
keeping her head one foot away from being bashed in by the solid
Louisville Slugger. Her coonskin cap fell off, and a cacophony of
boos emanated from the audience. Against serious combatants,
Mousse would have pulled out other weapons- Team Crockett hardly 
qualified as 'serious combatants'.

	"And Mousse is CHASING Jessie! Oh, the humanity!" Hiroshi's
caffeinated throat shouted.

	"TAG! TAG!", James shouted, his hand reaching out as Jessie
leapt over it every time she passed him. But the hand that met
flesh was Tasuki's.

	Mousse sighed and climbed out of the ring, as his partner
flipped over the top rope, fan at the ready.

	Jessie had time to throw another pokeball. "So what are you 
going to do now?" she taunted, her fake American accent in full
nausea mode. "Charmander likes fire, HA! You can't top my 
ingenuity!" She struck a haughty pose, her hands on her hips and
her nose in the air, causing every flash camera in the stadium 
to be used at the same time.

	The Suzaku warrior darted forward with a burst of speed
and football-punted the fire Pokemon, sending it sailing between 
the ropes and bouncing off the floor. Jessie's haughty pose
turned into a frantic rush for another Pokeball.

	She almost had it out of her hand when Tasuki moved his fan
low, shouted "REKKA SHINEN!", and torched her breeches. As the
nosebleed section lamented, the leather was not simply burned up-
instead, it was burning slowly from the calves upwards. Basic 
fire safety would have informed her that the correct course of
action was to either find something to extinguish the fire (such 
as the large sweatdrops appearing on James' head), or stop, drop,
and roll.

	Basic fire safety is among the wide variety of things that
Team Crockett has absolutely no clue of.

	"Wait! Jessie!" James called out, running after his partner
 who was screaming up the aisle as fast as she possibly could, a
trail of smoke following her. "You need to make the.. tag."

	"And it looks like Team Crockett's blasting off again.",
Daisuke said, as the Brand X referee held up Mousse and Tasuki's
hands for the victory.

	"I just want everybody to KNOW" Tasuki said to the crowd,
which was booing him with the ferocity of a million ghosts, "who
the REAL CHAMPIONS are here tonight. We're sick of fighting 
against LOSERS who don't know SQUAT about SQUAT! We want to fight 
some REAL COMPETITION! SOONER or LATER, we're going to TAKE the 
Lambda belt from whoever WINS it tonight, and we're going to WAVE 
it in ALL of your FACES!" He picked up Jessie's fallen cap and 
put it on his head, he and his partner strutting out of the arena.

	"AND Tasuki gives it to the crowd! What could have inspired 
him to make those BOLD STATEMENTS tonight?!" Hiroshi yelled into
the microphone.

	"...the fact that they might actually win it?", Daisuke
asked the poster boy for Jolt Cola. "Remember, fans, Tasuki's a 
flamethrower, Mousse is the Master of Hidden Weapons, and both 
have good fighting skills. But we're not sure who they'll be 
fighting because..." He kicked back, knowing that he had set
Hiroshi up well.

	Hiroshi pounced on it. "We've got an AMAZING battle for the
LAMBDA TITLE for you TONIGHT! We present to YOU, two people who
NEED NO INTRODUCTION, the FURNITURE SAVIOR and the POKEMON MASTER..
the RETURNING CHAMPIONS... MARLO!! AND!! GARY!!!"

	'One of these days, he's going to swell his throat with
laryngitis so bad, he won't be able to breathe,' Daisuke thought, 
cleaning out the packed wax from both of his ears.

	'He really likes exciting people like that,' Mary thought
to herself. And he was very good at his job. The Ultrocity Meter 
hit 0.95, but it was made up mostly of shouts and boos, except 
for the Furniture Worshippers and the sizable number of Pokefreaks
(one wearing a shirt with Pokeballs over her breasts) who were
trying to make up the difference.

	Marlo was relieved. At least the announcer had learned his 
lesson about that idiotic 'Defenders of Youth' crap. He half-hoped
that next time, Yaga would book himself against him in a Gamma
fight; Marlo would bury him in an entire elementary school's worth
of cheap chair-desks, and settle this old/young rivalry once and 
for all, if he didn't have to similarly smash Haohmaru and
Morrigan with a two-child bunk bed. But then he turned his thoughts 
towards his current opponents, the two who would start doing lame 
things like fooling around with the flow of time. Jerks. There's 
no skill involved in doing that. Save it for Omega, would you?

	Gary had another card in mind, the one they had most recently
gained, the one that had no business being in their deck at all. He 
fingered his solution to that problem nervously, hoping he'd get the
chance to use it. They had talked about this fight. It had been
agreed that the Lambda belt was more important than that one card, 
and that Gary's Pokemon were not to be directly staged against
the Captors' more powerful, more versatile Cards; Pokemon can get 
knocked out, but Cards cannot. Thus, most of the fighting was going 
to go to Marlo. And they had agreed on something else- this was
going to be a very tough fight.

	"And their challengers, the RISING STARS of the federation,
SHAORAN LI and SAKURA KINOMOTO, TEAM CARD CAPTORS!!!" The Ultrocity
Meter hit 1.

	Team Card Captors were in typically unusual costumes, bright
colors shining. Sakura looked like a modern artist had enjoyed 
splashing paint on a white outfit for ten minutes. Shaoran looked 
like a rainbow had gotten into a fight with a really bad fashion
designer and lost. Keroberos, being a plushie, had escaped Tomoyo's 
insistence on strange-looking clothes. But for once, fashion was the
least of their worries.

	They, too, had discussed the fight previously. It was accepted
that Marlo was very, very dangerous; he had lots of furniture, a bit
of bloodlust, and a bad habit of beating people up- this would be
nothing like their recent bout against Team Rocket, and they knew
it. Sakura had insisted on going first; Li had agreed, knowing that
his strength and abilities wouldn't be enough to stop the Furniture
Warrior's arsenal. He just hoped that her cards were enough to do it.

	The opposing teams' first picks climbed into the ring at the
same time. "I'm going to warn you, this is going to hurt a lot. Why 
don't you get your boyfriend in here instead?" Marlo asked the
young Card Captor, who just narrowed her eyes in response. Keroberos
had made sure that she wouldn't let some real jerk like him psyche
her out.

	The two of them stared at each other until the Generic Referee
(TM Generic Referee Corporation, a Daikotuji Company) signaled the
opening bell.

][ LAMBDA TITLE MATCH
][ TEAM CARD CAPTORS vs. MARLO and GARY
][ FIGHT!

	"Wind, toss my opponent into the stands! WINDY!" Sakura
shouted, having remembered what had happened when Ash and Yaga had
gone at it. And that probably would have ended the fight right there, 
if Marlo didn't have the ability to pull heavy objects out of
nowhere.

	Grabbing a king-size bed out of FurnitureSpace, Marlo shielded 
himself against the blowing attack, quickly turning the bed around 
to block whichever way the wind came from. Sakura groaned. With the 
ability to protect himself with heavy objects, wind and water
wouldn't work.

	Undaunted, Sakura pulled out the Fight card, proceeding to
attack Marlo with a flurry of punches and kicks. Marlo again 
shielded himself with the bed, trying to make sure she couldn't
pull it out of his hands, trying to get it in her face as he judged
her enhanced power. How much stronger did that thing make her?

	"And Sakura pulls out the WHOOPASS!" Hiroshi shouted, as the
fans got the Ultrocity Meter back up to 1. "Is she going to just beat
up Marlo?!"

	Daisuke said nothing. He had to be impartial, and if he started
talking, he would have said something like 'YES! She's going to
knock his block off! Go, Sakura!'

	She's just a tough fighter now, Marlo concluded. And Marlo had
beaten lots of tough fighters before. He dropped his bed and pulled
out a steel chair, going on the offensive, trying to batter the young 
girl from the sides, watching her small hands make dents in the chair.

	Sakura jumped back, shaking her head. The Fight card wouldn't
help her that much, so she pulled out another one, and Gary pumped
his fist in joy.

	"Pikachu, I choose you!" she shouted, and the Pokemon appeared
from THE PIKA. "Pikachu, Thundershock!"

	"Pika!" the yellow rodent squeaked, charging up. Marlo held the
chair out, as if to protect himself- and then, when the electricity
finally did flow with a squeak of "Chu!", he threw it out of his hands
as fast as he could, letting the blast flow through it and onto the
floor. Grinning, he picked up the bed, and smacked the startled
Pikachu with a leg.

	That was when Marlo felt a hand slap the back of his ankle, and
Gary pulled out a Pokeball, ready to throw- but it was in vain. Sakura
had anticipated him and recalled Pikachu. Frustrated, he slapped
Marlo's ankle again.

	Sakura looked back at Shaoran, and reached out to make the tag-
when a hundred and fifty pounds of wooden bed, steel springs, and
fluffy mattress slammed into her from the side, knocking her to the
mat. She looked up to see Marlo holding the huge furniture above his
head, ready to strike.

	"Give up?" he asked. She's fast, he knew, but he seriously
doubted she could dodge that. It would have been beneath even Marlo
to smash a girl that young with something that heavy, without asking
for a concession first.

	"No, never!" "Yes."

	Sakura looked at her partner incredulously. "Yes, that's it.
We surrender. You win. Match over." Her mouth was wide open, tears
were welling up in her eyes, and she stared at Shaoran as if he had
stabbed her in the back. "He had you, Sakura. Come on. Let's go
home." Angry beyond belief, Sakura got up, ran past Shaoran, up the
ramp, and out the exit she came from. Shaoran shook his head and
jogged up after her. Gary also shook his head. Like almost every 
ther Pokemon trainer, he had wanted a Pikachu!

	"And the girl runs out on the guy for the second time tonight.",
Daisuke observed. "What is this, Anti-Valentine's Day?"

	As the army of marks proceeded to boo Marlo and Gary and the
Generic Referee held up their hands, Marlo grabbed the
always-available microphone and addressed the fans.

	"HEY! Tasuki! You said you want this belt, huh? You said you can
just take it? Well, I'd like to see you try! We're ready for ya,
jabroni!" The fans booed him louder, as if to say that Marlo and Gary
didn't deserve the belt at all.

	On the ceiling of the Dome, a man muttered to his rubber duck
about the problems with booking even more heels against each other.
The duck, unsurprisingly, agreed.

	"And what a spectacular match that was!", Hiroshi shouted as 
Marlo and Gary strutted back up the aisle amid a chorus of boos. "The
sheer excitement! The-"

	"-fact that it was basically a 1 on 1 because Marlo didn't let
Sakura make the tag?", Daisuke interrupted. 

	Hiroshi just sighed and went on to the next item. "And NOW, for
our OOOOOOOOOOO-MEGA match, we have, WITH US TONIGHT, THE ONE, THE 
ONLY- DAAAAAAAAAAAAN HIIIIIIIIIIIBIKI!!!" he yelled, taking a careful
look at the Ultrocity Meter, which reached 1.3 thanks to the 
exuberance of the pink-clad Dan fans.

	"And his OPPONENT, the MIGHTY, the POWERFUL, the GIANT OF LIGHT-
ULLLLLLTRA-MAAAAAAAAAAN!!!" Ultraman's Ultrocity rating was almost
exactly the same as Dan's.

	The Ultratron focused on one fan who had brought a suit with its
right side as Spacesuit Dan and its left side as Ultraman, with each
side rooting for its respective team.

	"Wow.", Daisuke said. "These guys are pretty evenly matched in
every sense," he lied. "Ultraman's got a lot of power, but Dan won't 
go down easy." Of course, it was just that that Daisuke was worried
about- they hadn't had a particularly long fight all evening. If
Ultraman smacked down Dan like the announcers feared, their jobs just
might get harder...

	"So Ultraman's going to lose because he can't stay on Earth?" 
Hiroshi asked, playing along.

	"..do you even read the fight cards anymore?" Daisuke replied.
"They're not fighting on Earth."

	Indeed, the Ultracam provided a panaoramic view of a crystalline
world with a few meteor strikes scattered around its surface. Both 
Dan Hibiki- in the gaudiest pink spacesuit ever to exist- and Ultraman
were already standing there, waiting for the fight to begin.

	"Looks like Ultraman's gone human size again," Daisuke offered.
"Maybe he's learned something from last fight with Shockwave Alberto."

	"You may be strong, Ultraman!" Dan Hibiki shouted in his
beefiest voice. "But you are no match for TAUNTING LEGEND DAN HIBIKI!!
OYAJI!!!" Dan stuck a shaking forearm out at Ultraman, who only made
some sentai poses in reply.

	Ifurita raised a flag to signify the beginning of the match.
If there is nothing else that can be said about Dan and Ultraman, it
is that they will both gladly fight head-on. The two combatants
rushed each other, Ultraman pulling back a red-and-silver fist to
plunge into Dan's face.

	It never connected. "SHIN GADOKEN!!" Dan bellowed, his
short-range fireball smashing into the silent hero, flinging him
across the crystal landscape. "OOOOSHA! You cannot defeat the 
TAUNTING POWER of the SAIKYO MASTER!! Yahooo-eeep!" the one and only
Saikyo Master shouted, dodging the giant Specium Beam.

	Dan charged up with ki and rushed Ultraman again, taunting.
"YOSH! You cannot stop the mighty manliness that is DAN! DAN DAN BOOT
TO THE HEAD!!" Dan's manly foot flew into the air, headed straight 
for Ultraman's head- and impacted solidly with a laser shield. 
"OOSHA! You think your puny shield can stop the MANLY FOOT OF DAN
for LONG?"

	"Hey, 'Roshi, you think Dan's ever going to realize that 
Ultraman can't hear him on an airless planet?" His partner looked
completely shocked. "Great, you didn't know either..."

	Ultraman reached his hand out, as if he wanted to shake Dan's.
Dan, not being a *complete* idiot, reached out to shake the hand, but
was prepared to throw him by the wrist...

	...but that wasn't possible, as the hand- and the rest- of
Ultraman became giant, grabbing Dan's entire body in one hand,
reaching up into the blackness, and ** SLAMMING ** Dan with
ridiculous force several yards into the crystal surface, turning
quite a lot of it to shards and sending huge cracks down the
landscape. The fans, even the Ultraman ones, winced.

	"And WHY didn't DAN learn from ULTRAMAN's LAST fight?!" Hiroshi
asked the microphone, tears in his eyes that were more caffeine than
water.

	"Dan? Learn?", Daisuke asked.

	"..okay, you got me there."

	Mary inaudibly gasped. Dan was hurt! She'd heal him, she'd..
no, she wouldn't do anything. She'd let the fight continue. She
didn't *want* to heal Dan, there was something wrong with doing so..
but what?

	The titanic foot of the red-and-silver giant raised itself
above Dan's miniscule form, intending to further blast him into the
crystal surface. Mary almost reached herself out to help him, but
didn't. And this time she knew why.

	It would be interference.

	Dan Hibiki, ever-tough to defeat, sat up, ripping off the outer
layer of his spacesuit, which had somehow become attached to the
crystal. He looked up to see several tons of giant foot come crashing
down on him. "Dan Hibiki shall never rise again," Daisuke said, not
sounding distressed in the least.

	Slam. There was no way Dan could get out of the way. Even more
cracks appeared in the landscape, and even more shards of crystal 
flew into the airlessness. Mary *would* heal him, she'd just wait
until Ifurita made the ten-count...

	...but that's not what happened, as the relatively tiny Saikyo
master grabbed the several-thousand-ton foot and THREW it, and the
rest of Ultraman, across the smooth crystal. The fans exploded, and
so did the Ultrocity Meter, reaching 1.6 before shattering. Mary was
happy that Dan could win without her interference after all.

	But she had actually been interfering all week. After mistaking
the first for a muscle sprain, Dan Hibiki had interpreted all the
Godhead-caused weird sensations as the voice of his late father. Not
understanding it, he had simply done what he believed his dad wanted
him to do: train and become more powerful, in the Saikyo style. And
since the Saikyo style drew upon an almost completely untapped source
of energy- all the annoyance in the universe- hard training had done
quite a lot of good for Dan Hibiki.

	"YOSH! YAHOOIE!!" Dan shouted, jumping out of the crater and
ripping off the outer layer of the calves and feet of his spacesuit
as well. "I AM DAN AND I AM MIGHTY!!!" Dan watched the sun come up,
almost as if in response. And then he saw the speeding form of
human-size Ultraman block his view of it, answering his self-
proclaimed mightiness by tackling him. Dan tried to throw, but was
himself lifted from the planet, and the two tussled for a while
above the surface.

	Ifurita was becoming less concerned with the actions of the
fighters than the crystal planet itself. Hovering a few yards above
the surface, she noticed the cracks weren't quite as spread-out as
she thought they were.. and what about the meteor hits? She looked
to the east, at the rising, Sol-class sun 50 million miles away, and
wondered what the heat would do to the fight and the planet.

	She had her answer quite rapidly. The planet was starting to 
*move*. The craters left by both the meteors and the fighters started
to simply vanish. But what about the solid rock of the meteor? It was 
gone, too. The technique-copying android frowned. Something was
definitely wrong here.

	Grappling with Pink Manliness incarnate, Ultraman found himself
looking down at the planet, which was almost starting to boil- and
then some tentacles reached out of it, growing ever-larger due to the
nearby sun's energy, sensing the presence of moving things, reaching
around to grab and assimilate. That was when the galactic hero
realized just what kind of a planet this was. He pushed himself off
Dan, sealed himself in a red ball, and flew away from this cursed
place.

	Ifurita said "Technique #132: Flame Shield." to melt any piece
of the planet that would try to grab her. She'd call this match
regardless.

	The Ultracams, having a Washuu-programmed sense of danger,
simply flew higher.

	Dan flared up and flew after Ultraman via the self-taught
technique of Bukuchouhatsujutsu (Flying Taunting Technique), which
allowed him to fly like an inebriated cross between a hummingbird 
and a vulture. "YOU cannot RUN from the TAUNTING MIGHTY MANLINESS of
DAN!" he shouted, having absolutely no clue of the danger beneath,
and ignoring the alternating feeling of heat and cold on his back
and lower legs. "OOOOOOOOSHA!!!" He continued to chase Ultraman until
both of them were out of sight.

	"This match is a draw," Ifurita intoned, the tentacles
continually reaching her only to melt. "Both combatants have left
the arena." A portal opened a few hundred feet above her and she flew
through it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

	B-Ko, heir to the Daikotuji empire, was rather upset. This was
not because she was hurt or angered- rather, it was because her
darling Sephy was. And Sephiroth wasn't upset at any puny mortal or
any Godhead-containing child- he was upset at himself.

	"Such foolery. Such mockery of the true power she wields!" he 
said aloud, not having moved from his standing position for the
past three hours. Usually, when Sephiroth is standing on the balcony, 
he is silent- this time, his rage caused him to speak words to the 
sky that no one except B-ko was close enough to hear.

	"Darling, it's okay, I'm sure you can get her back..", B-ko
said. In reality she hadn't a clue whether or not he could- she 
had arranged Mary's lavish room and that was about all the
dealings she had with the girl. Sephiroth had forbidden her to be
around Mary for very long- it was as much for her own protection
as the girl's. If she took what he said to heart too soon, she
may have become violent.

	But instead, she did the exact opposite, attemtping to
avoid things instead of solving them. "Curse it! I have offered her 
nothing but suffering and hopelessness. She needs to see more, 
much more. She needs to see all the good she can do, all the people
who can be made to see her light, the righteousness she can create,"
he proclaimed to the winds. "She has not yet even attempted even a
trivial amount of her power!"

	In reality, the abstractions 'good' and 'evil' meant little
to Sephiroth. This is because he understood that good and evil can
be redefined quickly. What the Godhead sees as good should be taken
as good, and what she sees as evil should be stricken from the
earth. And evil, Sephiroth knew absolutely, was his to eradicate 
upon her request. And once Mary realized that the sins of the world
were evil regardless of the people committing them, she would gladly
use him as a tool to annihilate the unrighteous and bring peace- 
his and hers- upon the Earth. The only other person he even remotely
cared about was B-ko, and he promised himself that the least he
could do is let her live forever.

	But without the messiah, all of that was lost. "Is that cursed
fighting show over yet?!", he asked, trying to avoid his words 
becoming a snarl.

	"It's just finishing up now, honey."

	"Very well." His tone softened. "Please make sure the Lord's
room is clean for when she returns." With that, he vanished into one 
of his black portals, and B-ko looked at his image on the camera
before ordering the mechanical servants to ensure that Mary's room
would look refreshingly like home upon her arrival.

	My darling Sephy, B-ko thought. He'll make a wonderful
husband.

----------------------------------------------------------------

	"And that's all for tonight, folks!" Hiroshi shouted. "Good 
fight, good n- what?"

	A crackling black portal opened, and the One-Winged Angel
stepped through it, into the middle of the ring.

	"Not HIM again," Daisuke groaned. Hiroshi just sighed and
hoped that Sephiroth wouldn't take longer than a few minutes. His 
caffeine was running down.

	"I know you can hear me.", the white-haired swordsman said
to the cameras. "What do you fear? Me? The world? Yourself? You
need not be afraid. I still have so much more to show you. If you
do not take me from here now, you know where I shall await." 
Mary's mind was a boiling mess of emotion. No, she decided. Not 
now, at least. Maybe she'd come back to him later after she's had
time to think.

	Nothing happened for the next fifteen seconds, and Sephiroth
left whence he came.

	"And another SURPRISE appearance by the ONE-WINGED ANGEL!",
Hiroshi shouted. "Let's give it up, folks!" They gave it up, but 
the Ultrocity Meter was broken. "Good fight, good night!!" 

	Nabiki Tendo turned the television off, and groaned. "Lina,
that guy is really beginning to become a pain."

	"Tell me about it," the red-haired sorceress replied. "I
wonder what he wants?" 'It better not be the same thing I've been 
looking for.'

	"Me," a small voice piped up, making herself visible to both
Lina and Naga.

	"Mary?!", Lina shouted in surprise. Washuu's daughter, here?
After being missing for a week, this girl suddenly pops up here?
That's got to be the second weirdest thing happening, aside from
all that Godhead flux going on.. wait a minute. "Mary.. please just
stand still for a moment, okay?" This wouldn't prove anything, of
course, but it would allay the weird suspicion she's been having.

	"A simple light, that is the hope of others in times of
darkness..." the sorceress incanted.

	Mary giggled as the power flowed out of her body and into
Lina's hands. "HEY! That tickles!" Lina recoiled and the spell 
ceased, the power visibly returning to its source. Nabiki looked 
like she was going to say something- Lina stuck her palm out at
her, expressing 'Whatever it is, don't say it!' All Nabiki did was
turn off the walkie-talkie; there are times for Jack, and there are
times for tact. This was obviously one of the latter.

	Mary looked up into Lina's face. "Are you scared of me?"

	"No! Just a little.. startled. Ah-heh." And that was really
all she was. Humongous amounts of power have always been Lina's 
element, and she's *been* God. She was also a bit relieved- she 
wasn't going crazy, the Godhead really had been flitting about
Ultra. "So.. ah.. where have you been, Mary-sama?"

	"Sephiroth's been showing me things."

	Lina gasped. Now it all made sense. Sephiroth would never do
anything without some ulterior motive in mind. What had he asked the
girl for? What had he shown her in an attempt to give it to him? 
What had he tried to get her to give him? Why didn't Washuu tell her
or somebody else capable of stopping this?! Even Dark Schneider 
would be preferable to Sephiroth. Washuu must have been too upset,
she didn't want to give it away, she still wanted to protect her
child, even though the girl was in the hands of a psychopath. Lina
figured that everybody might as well be told- the concept of trying
to protect a child with the Godhead has to end up ridiculous sooner
or later.

	"That silver-tongued snake." Lina's voice grated in her throat.
"That cobra." He had tried for it AGAIN! Even when it was in a form
that was supposed to be inaccessible to him or any other two-bit
overlord, he had tried to seize the Godhead anyway. Lina felt her
fists clench. He wanted power? She'd give him power, all right.
First, she'd tickle Mary a bit, then she'd open up on him with all
the power he'd ever need..

	"Do you hate Sephiroth, Lina?" Mary's question, Lina knew,
would accept no lies as answers.

	"Yes. Yes, I hate him. Do you want to know why?" Mary simply
nodded. "He's manipulative, low, evil, a scoundrel, nefarious, a 
jerk, a murderer, blackhearted, burned a village down, likes trying 
to take over the world, a bandit of the worst order, and a COMPLETE,
UTTER, TOTAL **HEEL**!" Lina would have also added 'pedophile', but
she only suspected and couldn't be sure.

	"So you don't like him because of all the bad things he's
done.", Mary said. "That's the same way he feels about all the mean
people in the world. He says that I can solve most of the problems
if I just get rid of the bad people, all the sinners." This would be
terrifying at base to a normal human. But Lina knew that Mary had
nothing to be afraid of- even if Sephiroth whipped out a Godhead-
empowered Masamune and started slaying people en masse, Mary wouldn't
have to worry a bit. So Lina tried a different approach.

	"Is that right? You can solve problems by getting rid of all
the bad people? Then why don't you start with *HIM*?!" Don't become
exasperated, Lina told herself. If Sephiroth thinks he can sneak his
way into Mary's mind by opening the door partway, Lina would just
have to pull the whole thing all the way open. "You got away from
him, Mary. Why did you do that?"

	"Because.. I.. didn't feel right."

	"That's because it wasn't right, Mary-sama. You can let him
show you all the nastiness he wants, but giving power to known 
villains isn't right."

	"But who decides what right is? Who decides what fair is?"
Mary asked, glad to have found someone that probably knew the
answer.

	Lina Inverse thanked all her spellcasting experience just 
then. Spellcasting had taught her that there were only a handful
of right words and lots of wrong ones. "You do, Mary. You decide
what right and fair are. No one else." Thank whoever had created
her that she has a sense of justice, Lina thought. She'd be an 
unstoppable monster otherwise. "And I, and Washuu, and probably
everyone else in Ultra, even most of the heels, don't want you to
think that it's right to give any power to one-winged lunatics."

	"So it's just for you.."

	"Us and the rest of the world. How many people on Earth do
you think haven't committed sin, Mary? Where do you think Sephiroth
would stop? At repentance? With his reputation?" Mary was a bit
upset, but didn't show it to Lina. Sephiroth cared about her, and
she knew Lina cared about her too. How could Lina hate him so much,
even with all the bad stuff he's done?

	"He can go only as far as I let him."

	"So please don't let him go very far. And he's not going to 
show you everything. No one can do that. It's up to you to see for 
yourself. But you should probably go back home to Washuu and let 
her know you're okay."

	"She wants to tell me what to do."

	"So what? You *are* the godhead. Almost everyone wants to tell
you what to do. It's just that none of us _can_." 

	Lina's words triggered a memory in Mary's mind. "If their
purpose comes from man, then they are doomed to failure! But if it
comes from God, then nothing can stop them!" Who had said that? It
sounded like Sephiroth but she knew it wasn't him..

	Then the Godhead smiled, her face brightening with understanding.
"Okay. You're right. Mommy does miss me. Bye, Lina!", she said, 
vanishing in a flicker of golden light. Lina shook her head. Had she
managed to talk any permanent sense into the girl? Nabiki Tendo exhaled
for what felt for the first time in an eternity, and turned the 
walkie-talkie's transmitter back on.

	"Can you guys hear me now?" Jack's voice was rather annoyed.

	"Yes, we can. Unfortunately," Nabiki said. "Sorry about that,
but.."

	"I don't care about that. I've got a whole porta-potty full of
crap up here! If I had known Sephiroth was trying to get closer to
Mary, I woulda dumped the whole thing on his head because I wouldn't
have to worry about him killing me! Aww, man.. I MISSED the
opportunity of a LIFETIME for some SERIOUS controversy!"

	And the sweatdrops did appear.

EPISODE 76 RECAP:

][ WASHUU curses herself for her mistakes
][ MARY escapes from SEPHIROTH's clutches
][ LEI WULONG makes little headway
][ YAGA and CONTROVERSIAL JACK still dislike each other
][ AKANE learns how to use ki attacks from KEN
][ RANMA is trained by RYU
][ YAGA defeats ASH
][ MOUSSE and TASUKI defeat TEAM CROCKETT
][ MARLO and GARY defeat CARD CAPTORS, retain Lambda belt
][ DAN HIBIKI and ULTRAMAN draw
][ MARY is growing up
][ CONTROVERSIAL JACK is insane
][ SLICER vows never to do anything like this again

Author's Notes:

Dear Mary. What have I gotten myself into? My writing speed is
approximately two kilobytes an HOUR, and that's not even counting 
research. 

I don't watch television, and I haven't even touched most of the 
games. Until I came to start reading Ultra a few seasons ago, the
vast majority of these characters were completely unknown to me- 
so I had to do extra grunt-work figuring out just who the hell I
was dealing with. Ugh.

Ultra has drank up my time like nothing else. I feel like an entire 
week has just disappeared out from under me. You have to be at
least somewhat crazy to write Ultra, which is why I'm surprised
2F didn't get more applications.

And then there's the fact that I tend to tell more story in fewer
sentences than other authors, smashing my length down to a minimum,
which is probably why I write so slow. This thing's only 80k.

In short: Writing with other people's characters was fun, but I
think I'll get back to my own now.

-Slicer

http://www.pcez.com/~slicer/