< "I'm only saying that the Mesopotamia had good reason to take such action after forcefully being separated from the one person it loved," Cherry repeated for what seemed like the twentieth time.

"And I'm only saying the thing was defective from the start," Blood Berry growled back.

Lime, Cherry, and Blood Berry were nearing the familiar gates of Japones now, fresh from stopping the war machine that had been known as the Behemoth, and then the creator of the beast, the Mesopotamia itself. All three had clearly seen better days. Burnt skin coverings, exposed cabling, and sparkling joints cropped up in random spots between the group, but that hadn't stopped two of them from their usual arguing session.

"If you'd listen to what I've been saying for once, I've told you that the Mesopotamia was only crazy because it was bonded to Lorelei."

"So, what? Are you saying I'm crazy because of my destiny with Otaru? You're crazy too I take it, then? And Lime?"

Saying the name caused the two to suddenly remember their other companion. Lime didn't seem to notice, looking at the ground like she was always doing lately. She didn't seem herself. Usually, the marionette would be wearing a clueless smile, bounding along at a pace that they would be hard-pressed to catch up with. Now it was too fleeting, coming in brief moments of joy and then siphoning off as quickly as it came.

"I'm not saying we are," Cherry lowered her tone while carefully eying Lime. "I was just pointing out how easily we could have been. Think of how many times we've come close to losing Otaru-sama. And if it had happened..."

Blood Berry considered it, then to the other's dismay, dismissed it. "If it had happened, Cherry, and that's a big if. Nothing's gonna happen to him as long as I'm around."

Cherry finally gave up, her silence giving no signs of struggle in the least bit. Was she alone in her thoughts? Lorelei had designed the Otome Circuits and the Mesopotamia, and as such it would seem natural to be somewhat bonded to it. There, in that bowel of cold death, facing the main computer once again, she had felt strange feelings that she couldn't describe. Not of absolute love, like she had for Otaru, but another, unexplainable attractive force. Blood Berry was ripping the machine apart, and at the same time, unknowingly ripping away at Cherry. Within, she had felt a piece of her die with that being.

A shiver ran through her, despite the warming beams of Terra's sun high above. The circuits were originally designed to complete the mind of that starship. Created to correct its stability. Together, the three Otome Circuits and the Mesopotamia's core created a complete being. What if they remained apart, though? Were the circuits stable, or would they fail as the core apparently had?

"It's good to be home," Blood Berry sighed. "It's finally over."



SABER MARIONETTE J vs M

EPISODE 14

"NOT OVER YET! STRIKE A TRUCE!"


by Baka-Matt-Su


"Wake up, Otaru Mamiya," the lifeless voice pulled him from the darkness.

Otaru made a strong effort to see, but everything came out black. He squinted, becoming aware that he was restrained. Otaru could feel his circulation thinned, and his arms were numb. He must have been hanging for some time.

Then the memories flooded in. The marionette who had tried to kill Lorelei had then gone after him. What was his name again?

"Kenji," the marionette sounded, as if reading his thoughts. "I can't remember if we were fully introduced, but Kenji is my name."

The room filled with light and there the machine stood, his garments folded carefully across his chest, his face chiseled in grim resolve, and his sword resting idly against his shoulder.

This marionette had also sent Lime, Cherry and Blood Berry to their deaths. A rush of adrenaline had Otaru grunting against his restraints in his best efforts to lash out at this figure who had single-handedly extracted the only meaning from his life.

Kenji dropped his sword to his front, the katana taking on a new sheen in the dim light. He fingered the edge of the blade with a gentle caress. "A sword is an intriguing being."

The other simply shot him a dark look, so he continued.

"A sword is emotionless. It is cold, unfeeling, uncaring, if you will. It could care less what or who you cut with it. It's been tempered that way. No matter how hard you plea to the blade itself, it will never listen to you. A sword will always be a sword, and nothing you say can change that."

Closing the distance between them, Kenji lifted the blade to the others throat, the cold metal clashing against his body heat. "A human on the other hand, is an even more intriguing case. Humans have emotions. No matter how unfeeling or hateful they may try to become, deep down they are far more than that. They can only cut so far, only so deep, until they retreat with remorse. They are temperamental, able to be bargained with, begged or bribed. An ear to listen and heart to contemplate, humans are in constant change."

Otaru remained silent, the other pressing the flat of the blade against him forcefully.

"I am neither a sword nor a human, Mamiya. I have come to realize this. There was a time when I believed I was a sword. In this moment I thought I could handle everything, cutting down anything in my way."

He called back the katana to the sheath at his side.

"But I was wrong. I'm not that way." He rolled his fingers into a fist. "Lorelei. I was supposed to kill Lorelei!"

"Then why didn't you, you murderer?!" Otaru could no longer contain himself, unable to sit by idly and listen to the marionette's rant. "Why didn't you finish the job you started with Lime and the others? Kill me already, dammit! Isn't that what you want to do?"

Kenji's eyes shifted about the room. "What I want is to remove the stink of humanity from my nostrils, to thin them from the ranks of the populace. At least, that is what I thought I wanted. There, with Lorelei in my grasp I was able to begin my first step into the future."

The marionette stared at him, meeting up with a gaze that rivaled his own. "But I didn't take that step. It wasn't time."

"Do you think I care? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? If you think you're ever going to get any sympathy out of me, you're mistaken."

Kenji walked his fingers across the other's chest. "There's something about you, Otaru. There's something that made those marionettes bond with you on a level beyond reason. It extends beyond mere circuitry, I can be sure of that."

He flattened his palm, "What then, is it? What makes you so special?"

"Maybe it's the fact I don't go around trying to kill people," Otaru answered cynically.

Kenji half-laughed. "I will have my answer, Mamiya. One way-"

In a quick flash Kenji's sword whipped around from its sheath cutting across Otaru's shirt, a hair's length from his skin. "-or the other."


"Why do I feel like everyone likes to use us as decoys?" Blood Berry grumbled.

Lorelei blinked from the bed she had been restricted to. She was physically all right after Kenji's attempt to kill her, but emotionally, she was still somewhat in shock. "It was all my fault."

"We're not placing blame on anyone, Lorelei," Cherry reassured her. "The important thing left to do is find Otaru."

"Back and forth, Back and forth. I feel like a slinky, dammit," Blood Berry cast her gaze out the window. "This Kenji is gonna pay."

"You're not leaving again already?" Lorelei pleaded. "You can't be running on more than a quarter of your energy reserves! Not to mention taking the full impact of a high level explosive!"

Lime swung her feet back and forth under her chair, head down low.

Cherry knew what Lorelei had said was out of concern, but everyone present already knew what course of action they would take nonetheless. "Lorelei, we have to. Every moment that passes is a moment in which Otaru-sama could..."

"Otaru Mamiya was taken beneath the city," Baiko's icy statement cut the air, reminding the others of her presence. "The marionette evaded us, but we have tracked him that far. You three no doubt wish the honor of pursuit."

"Honorific terms aside, we're sure as not gonna let him get away with this," Blood Berry shot back to Baiko, afterwards giving Lorelei a reassuring wink. "And don't worry about us, Lorelei. We've tangled with the worst and gotten away with it. Take a quick nap, leave this to us, and by the time you wake up we'll already be back."

The four left the human woman's bedside, lightly sliding the door shut.

"The undercut of Japones was built with highly dense material," Baiko uttered, glancing over the silent Lime and her companions as they strode down the seemingly endless hallways of the castle proper. "Our scanner systems are unable to penetrate it. That is how it has been concluded that the marionette exited through that route. It is the only probable way in this scenario."

As the emerged from the building, Cherry turned to the guard who had remained in the doorway. She earnestly bowed. "Thank you, Baiko."

With that, Lime, Cherry, and Blood Berry disappeared from her visual scan, leaving the guard in thought. She was slightly uncomfortable with her system. It had no handlers for a situation so obscure as this. It was certainly doubtful for the group to be able to stand up to any real threat in their damaged state. At the same time, notwithstanding, this marionette couldn't be left alone.

Walking back into Lorelei's room, she could see the woman in deep sleep, more likely caused by absolute fatigue than will. "Rest well, Lorelei. For I am ever at your side."


"It certainly smells down here," Blood Berry frowned, overturning a pile of rubble at the side of the walkway.

Cherry had paused to choose a new direction, faced with a fork in the tunnel, and ultimately choosing one. "These service tunnels aren't that high above the drainpipe systems, Blood Berry. Coupled with the fact that they haven't been used for quite some time and the fact that they aren't cleaned very often, I would have to agree with you."

Lime slowly dragged from behind, barely noticable.

"But they have been used recently," Blood Berry contended. "Or need I remind you why we're here?"

"Yes," Cherry granted her that much. "The walkways have seen some recent use. It's obvious from the disturbed particles in the general area."

"Of course," Blood Berry rolled her eyes while wrapping her arms behind her head. "It's so obvious."

Cherry swiveled to confront her. "Blood Berry! We're not here for your amusement!"

Blood Berry grinned impishly. "Then stop being so easy to make fun of, Cherry. Every time we go off somewhere, your eyes get that distant look, and you start speaking off in your own language like it makes sense or something."

Her eyebrows twitched, and she bit her lower lip in frustration. "My own language? What are you talking about?"

Blood Berry lit her eyes up in an uncanny resemblance of Cherry, toning her voice to match. "Oh! Blood Berry! Adjust your sensitivity filter to the tenth degree! Switch your fiber optics to neutral mode! I think we've stumbled into a phase demodulation field, and this is so obvious from the lack of efficient particle warp combustion arrangements!"

"That's nonsense!"

"So you agree, then?"

"No! Quit manipulating me! I sound nothing like that!"

"Maybe when you're not in your fantasy world calling out for Otaru. But every other moment you are!"

"Leave Otaru-sama out of this!"

"Why should I? The only time you make sense is when he's around."

All at once the other broke off the feud, Cherry tilted her head backward and her face darkened. "Quiet, Blood Berry. Do you hear that?"

Blood Berry looked dumbfounded for a moment, but then complied, raising a hand to her ear. "It's faint, but definitely something. Up ahead, right?"

Cherry nodded, sliding up against the wall while motioning the others to do the same. Blood Berry stood across from her, Lime fitting in a little further back. They waited while listening, half hidden in the shadows.

Time passed, with none of them hearing anything more.

"Was it just the sound of the structure settling, Cherry?" Blood Berry whispered across from her.

"I think so," she resounded, uncertain.

The two stepped back into the middle of the passage, peering ahead. At the far end the tunnel opened up at the sides, presenting a larger room with idle pumping machinery. Outdated and replaced with the newer drainage systems, the equipment showed signs of age and decay. Still, the large tubes and conduits mottled up the chamber, each protruding from the darkness in its own unique shape of antiquated self worth.

At the far end, the tunnel narrowed again. The three headed in that direction.

"It's a mess down here," Blood Berry commentated. "There's so much laying around underneath the country that's just waste."

Cherry wheeled about, sharply staring past one of the larger pumps.

"Cherry!" Blood Berry shouted in alarm. "Did you see something?"

Almost immediately after her question was posed, the machinery behind her burst into shards of metal, a figure within striking out at her from the dusk.

Spiraling back around, Blood Berry was taken off her feet and hit the floor with a solid thud. Cherry veered in shock at the apparition's appearance. "Blood Berry!"

A small explosion pushed her back to the sideline, smoke hazing her vision. The light played across Blood Berry's opponent and the redhead immediately realized her opponent.

"Saber Dolls!" she hissed, looking up at her attacker, firmly holding her to the ground.

"So I get a chance to finish you off, after all," Panther sneered, her long blonde hair running down past her face. She smiled, seeing Blood Berry weakly attempting to throw her off, and increased the pressure of her hold on the marionette.

Cherry defensively turned back to where she had noted movement earlier. A low comment behind her made her jump. "It seems you Japones stay out of practice."

"Lynx?"

The other smiled at her name, each finger delicately gripping a tiny glowing dart. "These aren't the friendliest of circumstances, wouldn't you say so?"

Panther's eye began glowing in tune with her flaring emotions. "Funny how easy it was to get the drop on you. I had come to the reasoning that Tiger gave herself for Faust-sama's sake, but if hadn't been for you three it wouldn't have happened that way."

Blood Berry stared her down. "So you're saying I'm the bad guy here? Don't fool yourself. Faust never cared for any of you. He just used you."

The saber doll lifted her up and bashed her down forcefully. "Shut up! You can lie all you want to me! Faust-sama thinks far more of us than that!"

"Blood Berry!" Cherry called out again.

She could feel Lynx watching her every move. "You'll not want to do that, Cherry. Make one move in any direction, and I'll finish you."

Cherry grunted angrily, helplessly watching Panther continue to pound the life out of Blood Berry.

"Not so smart now, are we Blood Berry?" Panther bit out in a gap between her strikes.

"Stop it!" A new voice disjointed them. "Stop fighting!"

It was the first time Lime had said something all day. Panther had forgotten the other marionette's presence, her fisted grip on Blood Berry releasing, and her face relaxing slightly.

Cherry and Lynx both did similarly, forgetting the current scuffle after taking in the other marionette desperately shaking in their midst.

Unmistakable tears came from Lime's eyes as she looked at them all with a pleading face. "Everybody's always fighting...everyone's always ready to hurt people...why doesn't everyone see how bad it is? Why can't everyone just stop?"

"Lime..." Cherry trailed off.

"You..." Panther stammered, confused. "Why are you crying?"

"Dawn didn't have to die! Mesopotamia didn't have to die! Otaru can't die!"

"Dawn? Mesopotamia? Otaru-san?" Lynx wondered aloud. "What is she talking about?"

Cherry relaxed herself. "You don't know?"

"Otaru..." Lime sobbed dismally.

Panther got to her feet. "All we know is we're here to take back Faust-sama!"

"Is that what this is all about?" Blood Berry muttered, dusting herself off while restraining herself from the marionette who had taken her by surprise moments past.

"Hand him over or I'll give you another whooping!" Panther gnarled, her eye glowing again.

"Settle down you big beast," Blood Berry sneered. "We don't know a thing about your 'Faust-sama'. Haven't seen him since you all took off. I was hoping I wouldn't have to see any of you again, but apparently you didn't agree with me..."

The other lost her temper. "Japones is the last place I'd ever choose to go! And seeing your ugly face again just reinforces that fact!"

"We tracked Faust-sama's attacker this far," Lynx explained in an opposing friendly manner. "Whomever is responsible for his kidnapping is definitely hiding out here. Apparently it isn't you three."

Cherry's left eyebrow cocked in emphasis. "Apparently?"

"Terribly sorry," Lynx shrugged it off as if almost killing them were an ordinary occurrence.

They turned to where Blood Berry and Panther were relentlessly staring one another down. Sternly, Blood Berry turned away, crossing her arms. "I suppose we're both after the same target then. Otaru was taken as well."

The four recalled Lime's attendance, turning to look at her as the marionette moaned silently to herself.

"Fine," Panther sharply crossed her own arms in reply. "You're off the hook this time, Blood Berry. After all, Faust-sama is far more important than you any day. We'll just have to settle this after we take out this extra little piece of trash."

"Lime?" Cherry affectionately stared at her. "Are you alright?"

"Mesopotamia..." she sniffed, wiping her nose. "Mesopotamia wasn't a bad guy, was he? He...he loved Lorelei, didn't he?"

She was speechless, a new understanding for Lime coming to light. It had been eating away at her as well. The same question of just how attached to the Mesopotamia their Otome circuits were. This whole time she had been in mourning, deciding whether such grief was even justified.

"I...I don't know, Lime."

"Mesopotamia?" Lynx echoed.

"The same," Blood Berry took on a serious tone. "It wasn't destroyed when we rescued Lorelei. This whole mess is somehow related to it."

"But what does this have to do with Faust-sama and Otaru-san?"


"Gerhardt Von Faust," Kenji addressed his captive. "Don't get too comfortable. Your saber dolls are on their way."

Faust sternly brushed the side of his chair. "I trust you have a reason for all of this."

"Yes, Faust, I do."

The marionette kicked a pile of maintenance equipment from a nearby table, taking a seat on it. His sword fell neatly across his side. "I must say you look very young for a three hundred year old man."

"I eat a well-balanced meal," he answered with a straight face. "What's your point?"

"We're two of the same, Faust. A dying breed of man. Unfortunately, you've had far more time than I to realize this. I'm confused, Gerhardt. And this confusion makes it that much harder to reach my goals."

"You're far from human, you worthless piece of scrap. If you can't accept that, then it's no wonder you feel confused."

"Of course," Kenji conceded easily. "But in being so, I think I've proved myself somewhat superior."

"Superior," Faust annoying repeated the word with much contempt. "The truly superior beings don't get where they are through force or trickery."

"Funny you should argue with that point." The marionette reached down to the floor, pulling up a glass-encased flower. Displaying the small rose, he pantomimed a great inhale. "A beautiful rose, Gerhardt."

It was unreal. A perfect semblance of a plant he recognized from more than three centuries prior. A memory gashed in his mind forever. He could still see the haunting form of the Earth burned onto his retina as he looked out the viewport. She had been at his side, then. "It's name is Lorelei," he breathed both in his memory and aloud.

The marionette somehow managed to stir him back to reality.

"Yes, Lorelei. It became a race, Faust. It became a struggle to be the first one to capture the maiden's heart. The Mesopotamia lost."

"And then turned on us," he spat, remembering the chaos that insued. "Taking her away from me forever."

Kenji lifted the glass frame from the planted, setting it aside, and sensitively rolling the rose in his hand. "Forever? You sound as if you've given up on her. How long does real love endure, Faust? What would you say? One generation? Two? Or is it everlasting?"

"It's fleeting," Faust replied. "You have a moment's notice to grasp it before it escapes you."

The other disregarded the exposition he had made. "Does it last beyond death even, transgressing time and space? An interesting question, no?"

"If such things amuse you."

Kenji snapped the stem of the plant in a clean jerk of his hand. "Oh, but they do. They amuse me greatly, Gerhardt Von Faust."


"What is it?" Panther inquired.

The rest of the group had been thinking the same thing, peering in at the large basin before them.

"Some kind of chute," Blood Berry offered. "Doesn't look all that deep."

"Maybe even an entrance of some sort," Cherry concluded. "What do you make of it, Lynx?"

The other nodded. "It's far too accessible to pass up. The floor plans of the maintenance tunnels I have on hand show that it leads to an old shelter escape for emergency accommodations."

"Floor plans? How do you have floor plans for this place?"

Lynx smiled softly. "We didn't come unprepared to Japones when we served Geltland. Our intelligence spies were quite productive."

Cherry secretly shivered in thought of just how massive the Geltland spy network had been if it had time to search out long abandoned passageways such as this.

"Then, are we going down?" Blood Berry asked impatiently peering down the end of the large opening.

She leaned into the opening, falling backwards as a noisy dark cloud flashed out from the chute, nearly engulfing her. The group dropped flat to the ground immediately, hearing the opening slide solidly shut and lock into place. Spreading out to fill the room, the dark mass opened into thousands of tiny robots.

"It's times like this that I think Japones should hire an exterminator," Blood Berry sounded under the horrendous buzzing. "It's got a real BUG problem."


_______________________________________________________________________________

AUTHOR'S NOTES: And now, another edition of "I'm Sorry!" No, get back here right now, I promise this isn't another one of those note sections where I go on about how slow progress is going, how time-consuming life is, etc, etc. This time, it's a lighter note, of how I'm sorry that Search Engines today are so defective. Not a lovable defective, either, like Lime would have it. It's more of a logical defect than anything else. The major search engines nowadays employ "bots"...automated programs that skim through the vast internet collecting just about every word there is an compiling them in their databases. This can get some strange results when you take pieces of the net, such as fanfiction, which consist of thousands of words. The end result? You can end up searching for something, and get lists of sites that having nothing to do with what you want. Looking at my logged site statistics, I will apologize myself for letting the bots catalogue some of j vs m in some strange search references, since apparently, a few folks have wandered into them whilst looking for something entirely different. Case in point, here is my list of six of my fics where the "topic" search engine keywords were not quite "on topic"... Don't believe me? Fire up a search engine and fill in the searches quoted below! I used Google, and almost all of these made the first results page! Three were even 2nd from the top! (Now if only my hit was so high from fanfic searches...)


1) "Fight to the Finish! Unforgiven Battle!" I'm sorry to say I don't offer any real artwork, so to those searching for "smj cherry's clothes", who turn up this episode very high on their site matches. I'm afraid I'm not much of a designer :p


2) "Cherry the Detective." This one really stumped me in two ways. First off, what does my story have to do with a "free japones toilet", and secondly, what weird Otaku out there is actually looking for one on the internet? Ewww...


3) "Two Limes = Two Headaches!" I wonder if the same people who couldn't find information on cherry's clothing ended up with this one after typing "japones design dress" in their search engine? One again, I'm not a designer or a tailor...so I suppose you'll have to look elsewhere...


4) "I Love You, I Love You Not." Here's a real interesting search. I wonder what the other sites that turned up had to say... "otaru marionette home address" (Psst! People! These characters aren't real! So whatever you're mailing them won't get there!)


5) "Otaru, I Love You?" I'm disappointed here. I had to flip through a few pages of sites before I found my fic listed here. But what can you expect from my competitors, offering much better "balloon bra" than me? Oi! I better watch what I make the characters say in future fics, or I'll have demands for really strange lingerie in the future...--*


6) "Changing Sides: The Raging Behemoth" Not only can some people not find good sites from searching...but they have trouble spelling too...They're "tuning japones", yes they're "tuning japones", at least I think so?




*NEXT EPISODE*


Hello, I'm Cherry. It seems we've made it to the hideout of this awful Kenji. Still, we better get back Otaru soon. Lime isn't herself anymore, and I'm worried that soon something terrible may happen. In any case, we'll never give up! Next time, on Saber Marionette J vs M, "Mesopotamia's Legacy: The Ones to Carry On" Otaru-sama, here we come!


*NOTES REGARDING THE SERIAL*


This series is a Fan-fiction serial. Serial is how some books used to be written, or radio programs were broadcast. That is, they were released chapter by chapter, much like some on-going television series. The benefit for a serial over a regular novel is the allowance for change from the original plot line. In a serial, readers can write in to the author with ideas and requests in order for the story to go in the direction they would like it to go. So what am I blubbering about? If you enjoyed what you read, let me know, and tell me what you'd like to see in an upcoming episode. Mail me at emmaworshiper@hotmail.com, and put SMJ somewhere in your subject... Oh, and SMJvsM takes place after the original 25 episodes, but prior to 26 (J Again)...Finally, I have only knowledge from those two series, and a bit from J to X, so don't complain if some of my information may be inconsistent. I'd love to hear from ya, so drop me a line. See you next time!



Copyright (c) 2002, Baka-Matt-Su
Last Updated: January 28th, 2002