Mar-Sa The Ultra-Girl Book One/Part Three The Girl of Tungsten Steel A HEROINE IS MADE, NOT BORN by Jim Robert Bader September 4, 2001 (First Copyrights Only) 00000000 000 000 000 vvvvvv 000 000VVVVVVVVVVVV000 000 VVVVVVVVV 000 000 VVVVVVV 000 000 VVVVV 000 000 VVV 000 00000000 Mar-Sa, The Ultra-Girl by Jim Robert Bader Book One/Part Two The Girl of Tungsten Steel Chapter Twenty-One. Sensei "Now then," Katie said formally to her students once they had completed work upon the dojo, "Where to begin? You've both done well and have worked hard to create this dojo, and I hope that you will remember to honor it as a place where you train and master the basics of what it means to be a martial artist." Mar-Sa and Phoebe sat facing their new Sensei with almost identical questioning looks in their expressions. Since Katie had insisted that they both wear heavy white cotton outfits called "gis," which consisted of a pair of pants and folding tops held together by strings, they each had a curious uniformity to their basic appearance, which made their contrasting differences in size and complexion them all the more striking. Phoebe, nearly half the size of her golden-skinned companion, seemed uncomfortable sitting on shins and knees upon the hard wooden surface while Mar-Sa was finding the posture somewhat difficult to manage in spite of being impervious to both fatigue and the strain of her weight upon the very surface which she had so recently sanded smooth with her bare hands. Before them lay a pair of thick white cotton belts folded up neatly in a curiously formal manner that added to the odd sense of ritual that attended this first official day of their formal lessons. Katie, by contrast, wore a heavy black gi with a double-sized belt tied around her waist, held in place with a formal knot that left two ends dangling slightly. She sat stiff-backed and rigid in a posture of absolute uprightness and seemed as poised upon her knees as another person might be on the balls of their feet. She faced ramrod-straight ahead and regarded her two pupils with a placidly serene expression that commanded their attention by the very air of authority that she projected. Her short dark hair and vivid green eyes stood out markedly from the fair hair of her two students, and as she waited to take notice if her words were having the right effect or no, she seemed to be studying them with more than just her obvious senses. "Now then," Katie began once again, "I want you both to study the room around you carefully and commit everything to memory. This school is now the center of your lives and while you are in here you will eat, sleep, drink and practice the martial arts day and night until you have convinced me that you are worthy of going beyond these basic lessons. Off to your right you will see a shrine---do not turn your heads! Study this without needing to use your eyes. The shrine is dedicated to my Sensei, who has given me the authority to pass on to you both the benefit of his instruction. It contains the ashes of a great Master who came before him, in whose memory we will come together to teach and practice The Way, just as it has been for our Ryu since the founding of our school many centuries ago. Now, see the symbols mounted on plaques above and behind me on the wall? These are the Iroha fundamentals that are the guiding principles of our school. Commit them to memory for they are the truths that you will make centermost in your being as martial artists: 'Truth, Justice, Fidelity, Harmony and Balance.' Don't worry that they're in Japanese right now, you'll learn to both read and speak the language before too long when all instruction will then be taught in the mother Language." "Um..." Phoebe raised a hand, "Can I ask a question?" "You just did," Katie pointed out, "But go ahead, Seito." "Why all this fancy Japanese rigmarole stuff?" Phoebe asked, "Is it really necessary?" "It is if you want to learn the right way to master the art, Student," Katie replied, "Don't forget that I learned in exactly the same kind of formal way, only I didn't have to build my own dojo from scratch the first time around. I learned how to do that much later in my lessons." "I don't mind learning things formally, Sensei," Mar-Sa assured, "But I am curious to know the significance of all of these various cultural rituals that you are employing." "I'll explain it to you one step at a time," Katie assured, "But for now...humor me a little. You know I won't have you do anything if it isn't in your best interest." "Is that why you had us doing all the hard work while you sat back and just coached us?" Phoebe asked. "Not exactly," Katie answered, "There is a reason for making you do the hard work in exactly the manner that I've been coaching you these last three days. I will demonstrate why now. Marsha-san? Stand up and step forward." Mar-Sa complied with her instructions, moving to her feet with some awkwardness before coming to stand in the space separating them from Katie, who also stood and confronted Mar-Sa with a formal bow, then, without further warning, threw a punch in Mar-Sa's direction. Mar-Sa was surprised at how tightly focused the older woman's stance was as she had literally not seen that punch coming, but she had time enough to automatically move her hand to block the thrust that would have otherwise struck her in her solar plexus, knocking Katie's hand to the side with an ease that fully surprised her. Katie threw another punch, this one harder, faster and with even more focus behind it, but again Mar-Sa reacted automatically to place her own arm in the path of the oncoming fist and promptly knocked the blow aside without effort. She paused a moment, half-fearing that she might have used a little too much force and possibly risked breaking the arms of the other woman, but Katie just smiled and stood back from her then bowed from the waist again and said, "You see now how easy that was? And that was merely a sample of what you've been learning." Mar-Sa blinked as she stared at the smaller woman, then she looked at her hands with surprise, not having anticipated that she would react to the attack without having to think first about it, and much more smoothly than she normally could move under such circumstances. Then Katie raised both palms and showed them to Mar-Sa before moving one in a clockwise circle, then the other one in a counter- clockwise direction. "Sand Floor Right, Sand Floors Left," Katie said as she demonstrated how the circling motions of her hands could equate to the defensive gestures, "The basic motion has been practiced by you exhaustively over three days' time, so much so that your brain now treats the gesture as if it were second nature. You see...that's the core to the physical side of the art, learning to condition the body so that certain types of motion are now as instinctual and second-nature as breathing. In time you will learn to make your body do as you command in a lot of ways that you presently can't even imagine." "Whoah," Phoebe said with rounded eyes, "You mean...that's the reason you've been micro-managing everything...do this, move this, move your arm like that, breathe in, that sort of thing?" "Hey, it worked, right?" Katie turned to Marsha and said, "Sit down and observe. Phoebe-san, now it's your turn." "Ah..." the blonde said nervously, getting up with even more difficulty than Mar-Sa had demonstrated, "Do I have to? I mean, we all know you could kick my butt without half trying, Katie." "This isn't about me and what I can do, Phoebe-chan," Katie replied, waiting patiently as Mar-Sa sat down where she had been before while Phoebe took her place in the center, "Now then...hold still." All at once Katie attacked her erstwhile roommate with an overhead down-warm chopping motion, but Phoebe reacted faster than she could blink and brought her own arm up to block the blow at the wrist. No sooner had she done this than another punch came forward, prompting Phoebe to slap it aside with another downward motion by her other arm, which surprised Phoebe every bit as much as it did Mar-Sa. "Do you see it now?" Katie asked as she paused only inches away from Phoebe, their arms still locked together, "Nothing we do around here is without a purpose and everything we do counts as training. Now, sit down and allow me to resume my lecture." Rather than wait for Phoebe to do this, Katie easily disengaged her hands and moved a palm forward to lightly "shove" her former lover backwards, causing Phoebe to stumble and fall back onto her rump with a somewhat bruising "thump" that briefly caused the blonde haired girl to give a soft, painful exclamation. "Phoebe?" Mar-Sa had felt the impulse to help her beloved friend, but instead found herself warned against such a motion by a stern glance from their Sensei. "Ow!" Phoebe complained, "Katie...!" "You're all right," Katie insisted, "But you need to work on your landings." "That's not fair!" Phoebe protested, "I wasn't ready!" "You can't expect to have an enemy wait for you to be ready, Seito," Katie informed her, "You have to react instinctively, intuitively, automatically, with as little actual thought involved as necessary. We're going to be getting very serious about learning the basics, Students, and you have a lot to pick up in a very short amount of time, so don't expect to get coddled just because we've been together a long time and you were at my side when I had Abby." "Gee, thanks for letting me know I mean that much to you," Phoebe growled in mild resentment, rubbing her arms and her fanny. "You mean a lot to me, Phoebe-chan," Katie replied, "But in here you are my student and I am your teacher, and if I have to kick you around and beat some sense into you to make you behave like a student should, then believe me, I'll do whatever is necessary to insure that you respect both me and my teaching, do you got that?" "We do, Sensei," Mar-Sa said on behalf of Phoebe, whom she could sense was still smoldering behind the way that the lighter bodied girl moved herself back into a "proper" sitting position, "Please continue with the lesson." "All right then," Katie sat down and resumed her authoritative posture, "I just wanted to make sure that I had your complete attention here. This training is going to be long, hard and intense, and you are both going to work a lot harder than you have ever worked at anything in your young lives, so expect me to push you both up to and beyond the point that you now think of as your limits." "Okay, we got it already," Phoebe replied, "You don't have to beat it into our skulls that you used to be a drill sergeant." "Actually, I've been a great many things in my time," Katie remarked, "And it all began when I was just a little girl, perhaps no more than six, living in New York in one of the poorer sides of town, the Queens. Actually, it all began one day when I was going home from school and got jumped by a bunch of older kids who beat me up and stole my lunch money..." "They do that sort of thing?" Mar-Sa asked with a much-surprised expression. "That and a lot worse," Phoebe sniffed, "You should have seen the 'Hood where I grew up...tough guys were considered sissies..." "Actually," Katie stressed the point a bit more archly, "It was when I was laying there in the gutter of that alley that I found myself looking up at a pair of feet that appeared only a yard away from my head, and then I looked up to see a man bending over to check me out and I guess I kind of flinched away, afraid he was gonna finish the job the other guys had started. Instead he spoke softly to me, encouraged me to get up on my own two feet, then had me walk to a local delicatessen, whereupon he asked the proprietor to call for my mother to come and get me. That was how I met the man who was soon to become my Sensei." Mar-Sa suddenly had a mental image pop into her mind of an middle-aged-yet- distinguished looking gentleman with a round, pleasant face, oddly lidded eyes and a calming manner that inspired confidence without much effort. He was dressed in some unusual type of cotton suit similar to what Katie was now wearing, had sandals on his feet and spoke with a very distinctive accent. "The next day," Katie resumed, "I got jumped by the same gang of kids who wanted to repeat the act of stealing my lunch money, but rather than give it to them, like they expected, this time I fought back and got beat up again, but not without inflicting a few bruises on my attackers. They knocked me down and were about to hurt me worse than before when my Sensei showed up and put a stop to things, chasing off the bullies after doing something that sent two of them home crying to their mommies. This time he didn't take me to the deli but instead took me home to his place and offered me a wet cloth to clean myself up with, and only then did he call for my parents...but not before he talked to me, and then explained that he was impressed with my fighting spirit. He asked me if I wanted the bullies to leave me alone and I said yes, so he offered to teach me how to make them stop hassling me, and when my parents showed up he got their permission for him to become my Sensei." "Just like that, huh?" Phoebe asked, "And you became the Karate Kid in your neighborhood, right?" "Not automatically," Katie replied, "It took several years before I was good enough for Sensei to give me permission to fight, but up to that time his teachings gave me more confidence and showed me that I didn't have to be afraid of anyone who was bigger and stronger than me. That makes all the difference when you go up against a bully...deep down they don't want a fair fight, they'd rather not take a chance of getting hurt by fighting somebody who's stronger than they are, they'd rather pick on somebody who's easy. By not showing fear or backing away when challenged I gradually learned to drive the bullies off without having to raise a finger, and that's before I even knew ways of using my finger as a deadly weapon." "Fascinating," Mar-Sa said, "And what is the name of this style of combat that gives you such an edge over a much stronger opponent?" "I'm getting to that, Marsha," Katie assured her, "The point is...for twelve years I studied under my Sensei and learned everything he had to teach me, both armed and unarmed combat methods and lots of other stuff that you'd find quite amazing. Then I turned eighteen and got an urge to see the world, so I enlisted in the Air Force and got trained as a flight Nurse, only somewhere along the way I got picked up to be a translator due to the fact that I can speak fluent Hebrew and Japanese. Came in real handy one day when I was assigned to Camp David and got drafted in an emergency to sub for an official translator, who came down with a case of the cramps. Believe it or not I wound up acting on behalf of the President in classified discussions with an Israeli representative during one of the Peace talks, and I got to work in close with a real idiot of a politico who didn't know the first thing about the Middle East and needed a crash course in the politics of that region." "Wow!" Phoebe blinked, "Which president was that?" "I'm not naming names here," Katie replied, "But the senile old bastard was a real ham who couldn't figure out how to tie his own shoelaces without a script. Anyway, that event got me promoted and set up in a cushy Washington office for the next two years, right up until we had a sudden change of administrations, at which point I decided to move on and explore my roots a little, and so I moved to Israel and offered my services to their elite forces, the Golanis." "Golanis?" Mar-Sa repeated. "The toughest bastards ever to drop from their mothers' loins," Katie said almost proudly, "They're the best of the best, recruited out of the toughest hellholes imaginable. Just about everyone in Israel has to do some mandatory military service, but the Golanis are specially picked from units that have the worst discipline problems, namely guys on the wrong side of the law, and the recruiting offer is always the same in their cases: either six years mandatory service or twenty years of hard time in a military prison." "They hire criminals?" Mar-Sa blinked. "Mostly," Katie replied, "And believe me, most guys get the offer, they prefer to do the hard time because basic training with the Golanis is brutal. Lots of guys drop out mid-way through the training...which is a fancy way of saying they drop dead in training, but if they survive their first few weeks they usually go on to be as mean and efficient a unit of killing machines as any military force upon the planet. Of course guys like that need nursing care as much as any other human, so I got to hang out with these boys and soon became an unofficial mascot for the unit...and it's about that time when I met Ariel and Ali." "Huh?" Phoebe blinked, "You mean Ariel was one of those Special Forces creeps?" "Wasn't a creep around me," Katie replied, "He was Captain, and he earned the rank the hard way. Of course he wound up on the wrong side of a military review board after striking a fellow officer...from what I hear the bastard had it coming, something about abusing a civilian. Anyway, Ariel isn't his real name at all, it's a name he took to using rather than go around with his real name of Williamson. Guess he's kind of got this thing about his family back in England and all, and if you knew his father you'd know why. I met the old coot once and...that was more than enough." "Family ties," Mar-Sa sighed, "How very different is the concept on your world..." "Yeah, well, families...take 'em or leave 'em, I always say," Katie shrugged, "The point is...I had a blast hanging out with the Golanis, even if I had to show them that I was just as tough as the best of them and could keep up with their hard training regimen. Good thing my Sensei always insisted on a high standard of physical conditioning, because there ain't no environment on the Earth as hard and brutal as the deserts out there. Of course all good things come to an end and I eventually transferred back to the states after doing my time and completing my nurse training, and I think Ari got plucked out of our unit and transferred to MOSSAD on account of some bigshot thinking he'd make a great secret agent, and...we kind of drifted apart for a couple of years. Eventually I went back to New York and attended college there after renewing my ties with my own Sensei. Of course I also met up with Sensei's daughter, who used to train with me, a lovely thing named Yuki who became my roommate in college...and from there became my first real female lover." "Oh yeah?" Phoebe said with interest, "Care to describe her?" "You'll meet her one of these days," Katie smiled affectionately at the blonde, "She's quite a little charmer. Of course Sensei knew about our little affair but never said two words on the subject. Guess he figured it was just a passing phase for the both of us or something, but around this time he made a decision to take me with him on a trip to Japan so he could show me off to the rest of his family. Yuki and I traveled first class all the way to Kyoto where we were met at the airport by a stretch-limousine, which ought to give you some idea of just how rich their family is. Heck, if I could've married Yuki I'd have been a millionaire easy...but that's getting ahead of things a bit. The real story takes place after the family took me home for a stay at their castle..." "Castle?" Phoebe blinked once again, even as Mar-Sa got a mental image of a large walled structure with a pagoda-like building in the center. "That's what I said," Katie replied, "I was welcomed into the family as an honored guest and given the royal treatment and everything, and then I was formally greeted by the family patriarch during which we held a private tea ceremony. It was a lovely affair that could take hours to describe to you, but the upshot of it was that this ceremony was to provide the family a chance to welcome my Sensei back into the fold, at which point they were going to discuss the extent of my involvement in what they termed as the family 'business.' I didn't have a clue at the time what all was involved in this, but what I did know was that, at the height of the ceremony, the Patriarch began to look tense, and then I saw him clutching for his chest and knew right away that the old guy was in the early stages of a heart attack..." "So what did you do?" Mar-Sa asked. "What I was trained to do," Katie replied, "I vaulted over the table used in the tea ceremony and went to work performing CPR to keep the old guy from kicking the bucket. It took fifteen minutes before the paramedics could arrive, at which point I had my patient stable and conscious, and then I traveled with him all the way to the hospital to make sure he stayed that way by helping the medics. Of course, a short time after this, when the family convened a little meeting in the waiting room after seeing to the Patriarch's care, my Sensei asked me why I had violated the sanctity of the Tea Ceremony, a big no-no in the customs of Japan, and I answered that I had taken an oath to preserve the life of anyone afflicted with a medical condition, other than one inflicted upon an enemy at wartime. This was judged an honorable enough reason to justify my actions, and so at once the family convened another meeting back at the castle, and that was where it was decided that I was to be formally adopted into the clan as a full-fledged member." "Pretty nifty," Phoebe said, "You saved the life of their grandpa and they made you a family member." "But would they really have allowed this patriarch to die if you had not had a justified reason to save him?" Mar-Sa asked. "Hey, the family's big on traditions, but they're not that fanatical," Katie assured them, "They may be able to trace their ancestral roots back over twenty- five generations but they live in the modern world and fully accept the ways of the West as being as viable as Eastern beliefs and practices. Anyhow, that's how I became a member of Clan Raven, and that's why I'm authorized to practice and teach the arts that are the clan's entrusted legacy, the ways of the shadows and of silence, what in the West goes by the common misnomer as...Ninjitsu." "What?" Phoebe blurted, "Are you telling us you're a...?" "Kunoichi," Katie replied, "A female Ninja...and I don't mean any of that Hollywood stuff, I'm talking about the real deal here. The arts of espionage, invisibility and assassination..." "Assassination?" Mar-Sa repeated in surprise. "It's one of the darker aspects of the art, Marsha," Katie replied, "Ninjas, after all, are taught how to kill people, but never for a dishonorable or evil cause. Our clan is very strict about the conditions under which it will sanction the taking of a human life. It's part of the Code of Bushido that guides our actions, the way of the Samurai, the way of the Sword and the Mind. Some Ninja clans are not honorable and do not practice a form of Budo, but we do out of both tradition and necessity. After all, real Ninja can only continue to exist in the modern age if we not discovered by the authorities, and random killing tends to bring down the wrong sort of attention." "I don't believe this," Phoebe shook her head, "Six years we've been together, Katie, and you never told me this? Why?" "Because it's a secret, Dummy," Katie smiled with real affection towards her longtime companion, "What kind of a secret do you think it would be if I went around blabbing to everyone that I'm a Kunoichi? Actually, I'm not even really that most of the time since part of the discipline of a Ninja is to hide your identity and pass in normal society as if you were the same as everyone else. Ninjas can exist for years living perfectly ordinary lives without giving themselves away by their actions, but when the clan demands it, they act, and by posing as ordinary folk with regular jobs most times we make perfect sleeper agents." "Yeah," Phoebe said, "Totally...until you get the urge to put on a mask and go out to kill people." "I've done that a few times...where needed," Katie replied with a somewhat aloof expression, "But I've never taken the life of an innocent and I'll swear by the Goddess that every guy I've ever killed definitely had it coming." "So...you are not just a teacher of fighting systems, you are an elite warrior, similar to an Ultra-class Security agent," Mar-Sa duly noted. "Yes," Katie agreed, "Only I'm not working for any government agencies these days, unlike Ari, who seems to have his own private agenda. Anyway, all of this was years before I crossed paths with Phoebe, and somewhere along the lines Ariel and me got together again, fell in love all over again, and even talked about getting married. Then his Dad over in Kent went and nixed the deal...didn't think I was good enough to marry a blue-blooded son of nobility and all that, so we had a fight and broke it off, and then after wandering around for a couple of years I made the colossal mistake of marrying Roger, my ex-husband." "Oh yeah," Phoebe made a face, "That creep. Way to go there, Katie..." "Hey, we're all inclined to make a few mistakes every incarnation," Katie shrugged, "Had two kids by the bastard, although I think the second one might be Ari's. Early into my second pregnancy I walked out on Roger and went to live in 'Frisco. A short time after that Phoebe moved in with me, and...well, one thing led to another and the two of us wound up sleeping together. Roger found out, hired a detective, and used the evidence as proof that I'd be an unfit mother, and that's how he got custody of my two Angels..." "How awful!" Mar-Sa exclaimed, "How could the legal system do that?" "Conservative justices," Phoebe replied with a snort, "Some old prude who thought Lesbians were all Sodomites probably thought we'd teach the kids how to do the naughty." "I don't even get visitation rights to see little Sharon and Abigail," Katie looked and sounded depressed, "Who knows what bad things that worthless son of a Shyster's been teaching them in that love nest of his he's got set up in Seattle? I tell you plainly, kids, there ain't no justice..." "How well I know this," Mar-Sa sadly agreed, "I am very sorry to learn about this, Sensei..." "It's all right," Katie made a dismissive gesture, "And it doesn't have a thing to do with your training, but...I just wanted to get that thing out into the open. It hurts less if you don't carry things all to yourself, you know...sometimes just talking about it makes it a little easier to accept..." "I am not sure that I could ever accept this," Mar-Sa replied, "Back on Wolframa..." "Ah!" Katie sharply raised a finger, "None of that again. Remember what I told you?" "Oh...yes," Mar-Sa replied, slightly crestfallen. "Anyway," Katie heaved a sigh and got back to the subject, "As I said, these days I'm not actively into performing field assignments...I'm getting just a wee bit old for that, so instead I've taken up a slightly more respectable position as a Clan procurer. I'm sort of like a agent who acts as a go-between between a client and a fully active Ninja. I take the assignment, discuss terms, decide if it's worth our time or not and take a standard fee in due consideration. The fee is shared with the clan and I receive my percentage, and the fee is automatic whether or not the clan agrees to go through and perform the task so requested." "And...uh...how much do you charge for a hit?" Phoebe asked in a somewhat disquieted manner. "Standard fee begins at one million US dollars and goes up from there," Katie explained, "My ten percent is more than enough for my needs..." "A hundred thousand dollars?" Phoebe squeaked, "Heck, for that amount of money, I'd go out and kill somebody myself!" "Really?" Mar-Sa asked as she turned a surprised look towards Phoebe. Her lover sighed, "Marsha...you've gotta learn when I'm joking or not. I wouldn't really kill anybody for any amount of money..." "Oh," Mar-Sa subsided, "That is good." "Of course," Phoebe amended, "I'd think about it first..." "Good to hear you be so honest, Phoebe-chan," Katie smiled, "But this is again away from the subject of your training. Now that you know what I am and what I do for a living, and not just my surface guise as a Software technician, you are better prepared to understand the sort of world that you are about to step into. Marsha...you are a creature of the light...the sun is your benefactor and you use your powers for the benefit of others. Phoebe, you are inquisitive and daring and very much a child of the light yourself, but to begin this training is to take a long step into the world of the shadows, to learn how to use night as your ally, even a weapon. You will be living double-lives from here on as creatures of both light and shadow, and you must learn to balance these two sides of your being in order to become whole and perfect warriors, even more as integrated human beings. I'm warning you of this because I don't want to hear any complaint later on that I never gave you any such warning..." "But why teach us at all if this stuff is so dark, Katie?" Phoebe asked, "I don't want Marsha to turn into some cold, unfeeling killer..." "That is not the intention of the art," Katie replied, "Being a Ninja is not about death, it is about life and staying alive. If a Ninja kills then it must be to protect the lives and welfare of others, and killing by itself is never the objective. It is a means to an end when the end is deemed worthy, but the means count just as much as the ends in the final tally. The trick, therefore, is knowing when to kill and when to abstain from killing, and that is the task of a warrior, a Samurai of the Night, who protects and defends those who are in need of his or her protection." "Those are noble words," Mar-Sa replied, "But can there ever be a justification for killing?" "You've killed three times by accident, young lady," Katie replied, "Would you have avoided killing those times if you could have?" "Of course," Mar-Sa answered. "Killing by accident is worse than killing by intent," Katie replied, "It is sloppy and wasteful and shows a poor discipline and a lack of respect for your own abilities. When you killed the first time it was unavoidable...you did not see the truck in time to avoid it..." "Yes," Mar-Sa replied, "And because of me a soldier died..." "A soldier is trained for the possibility of being killed suddenly, Marsha- chan," Katie assured her, "I'm sure he wanted to live just as much as you do, but fate often gives us very poor choices. You were struck by him in that accident, not the other way around, and only by the grace of your being what you are did you survive instead of that driver." "But still..." Mar-Sa hesitated. "The second time you struck a man to drive him away from Phoebe," Katie continued, "Your intention was to protect her, but you did not properly appreciate your own strength when you hit him with your palm. In the future you will need to be aware at all times of just how much force you are applying to achieve an objective so that you do not kill casually and thus become a menace to others." "I...understand, Sensei," Mar-Sa soberly nodded. "The third time...well...that was instinct on your part," Katie smiled almost kindly, "I won't say that it was the right thing to do under the circumstances, but if you hadn't taken that clown out then he would have continued to randomly spray bullets your way, and that means a lot of innocent people would probably have been hit by the ricochets. You instinctively drove that table into his path to prevent this from happening, and if you happen to have used just a little too much strength...well...these things do happen." "Never again," Mar-Sa shook her head, "Never by accident..." "And that is what we will teach you," Katie replied, "Never to kill by accident, but never to hesitate to kill if it means the difference between life and death for yourself and others. Now...think hard on this, Marsha...why exactly are you being trained in the martial arts here?" "To defend myself and to better refine my control over my powers," Mar-Sa answered. "And what are you defending yourself against?" Katie asked. "My own carelessness," Mar-Sa replied, then paused before adding, "And...the Agent that the High Council will send against me..." "Precisely," Katie replied, "The Agent...another Wolfrman, male, who will be a trained soldier in the service of your people, either a cop or an assassin, who will attempt to overpower you and take you back to his world for trial and execution." "No way," Phoebe scowled, "They can't take our Marsha..." "They can do whatever they like, Phoebe," Mar-Sa grimaced, "Or they believe that they can do so. They are the High Council." "And what happens after they take you home?" Katie asked, "Will they leave the rest of us alone?" "No," Mar-Sa said quietly, "A world this rich in resources? I do not think so." "So, there you have it," Katie declared, "You are fighting to defend yourself, but you're also fighting to protect the rest of us against your own people. So...what do you recommend we do when faced by a member of your security forces?" "Run and hide," Mar-Sa answered, "There is no way that even you could stand against a man with his level of training. He will not be the easy target that I have been, he will know how to deal with his enemies, and he will not be gentle." "So then," Katie summarized, "What do you intend to do about it?" Mar-Sa was silent for a very long time before she answered, "There...is no choice at all to be made. I must defend myself and defeat the Agent...even if it means that I must...kill him." "Exactly," Katie grimly nodded, "And for that you need my training. I won't just teach you how to wound or disable him, Marsha-san, I'm going to teach you how to kill a fellow Wolframan. You're going to have to decide for yourself if that is too much for you to handle, and if you choose to back out now, I won't hold it against you..." "No," Mar-Sa said, raising her head, "I cannot run, and I cannot back away. You are right about this, Katie...Sensei...I have no choice but to learn to defend myself...even if it does mean killing." "I...guess that means I'm in this too," Phoebe reluctantly agreed, "One way or another...I won't let anyone hurt Marsha." "That's exactly what I wanted to hear, young ladies," Katie smiled, "Killing isn't always right but it is sometimes necessary, and when it comes down to a matter of survival, then you'd be amazed at what you can do with the right motivation. Now then, since we've gotten the preliminaries out of the way, what say we get to work on your training." "I am ready," Mar-Sa nodded. "Bring it on," Phoebe confidently boasted. "You asked for it," Katie's smile took on more disturbing connotations, rising to her feet once again while motioning for her students to remain seated, "Just wait there and I'll be right back with the rest of your training equipment." "Training equipment?" Phoebe asked with a dubious expression. She and Mar-Sa watched as Katie opened up a wooden trunk and then knelt down to pull out a number of shelves until she revealed a compartment further down inside its holdings. A moment later she pulled out a number of heavy objects, which same she deposited upon the wooden floor with an audible "thunk," and then she put the rest of the shelves away and closed up the trunk once again before straightening up and grabbing the selected items by their strap-like handles. To the considerable dismay of both of her students, Katie dragged these items back to the middle area of the floor and deposited them before Mar-Sa and Phoebe, then with a friendly nod said, "There you are, put them on." "Huh?" Phoebe asked as she noticed that the items in question were strap-on weights for both the wrists and the ankles, along with belt-weights and other assorted heavy objects, "You've gotta be kidding..." "I said before, I'll say it again," Katie replied, "Have you ever really known me to kid about a thing like this, Phoebe?" "Ulp," Phoebe winced, "No..." "How do these go on?" Mar-Sa wondered, then paused while Katie gave her a few helpful suggestions, after which Mar-Sa got the basic idea and proceeded to strap on the five-pound weights to her wrists and ankles before fixing the belt around her mid-section. With some trepidation of her own, Phoebe reluctantly complied and began attaching the lighter two-pound wrist and ankle weights to her own body. Katie waited patiently for both students to finish before instructing them to rise to their feet, at which point she knelt down and picked up the two cotton belts, saying, "This is how you tie this around your hips. Watch carefully and practice this on your own." Both women did watch and study the method by which Katie tied the white belts around their waists one at a time, first doing it for Phoebe then copying the process for Mar-Sa. When she finished she stepped back and said, "Now then...how do you feel, Seito?" "Weird," Phoebe said as she moved her weighted arms around, "These things are heavy..." "They slightly encumber movement," Mar-Sa observed as she tested out her own weights, "To what purpose do we wear them?" "You'll figure it out in time," Katie replied, "But for now...let's just say I want you both to get accustomed to operating with the weights dragging down your bodies. After all, Marsha, you say you come from a heavy gravity world, and this lighter gravity must feel pretty relaxing, which means your body isn't putting as much stress on your bones and muscles. You could lose calcium that way, so I want you to train for now using the weights to simulate the pull of gravity on your body." "It won't matter so much for me as it would with Phoebe," Mar-Sa replied as she flexed her arms to test the effects upon her movements, "The Biosolar energy compensates for whatever I'm wearing..." "Just humor me for now," Katie urged, "You'll see what I'm getting at in a few weeks..." "A few...weeks?" Phoebe blanched. "Hey, Rome wasn't built in a day and you can't expect to learn Ninjutsu without a few weeks of routine preparation," Katie responded, "Now...enough of this. Time to start your out on a new routine. Just remember to keep the weights on and we'll start to train in newer, more advanced techniques...but first...we're gonna do a little housecleaning." "House...cleaning?" Phoebe blanched. "Your least favorite words next to Celibacy, I know," Katie replied, "But that's the drill, take it or leave it." "We will do as you instruct us, Sensei," Mar-Sa nodded. "Just doesn't mean we have to like it," Phoebe grumbled. "Fine," Katie turned and pointed at a far wall, "Then grab a dust-mop, Students, and let's get started. This place may be brand new but the house itself isn't, and with all the cobwebs I've been seeing lately..." "Some Ninja," Phoebe grumbled as she and Mar-Sa went off to fulfill their instructions, walking a bit carefully as the weights affected their mutual sense of balance, "Our first assignment's to kill vermin." "I'm starting you out at the basic level," Katie informed them, "And if you do a good job then I may give you a real tough assignment...gophers." Neither one of her students raised much fuss over this statement, though Katie smiled as she sensed many days of interesting fun ahead of them as she thought up some new and creative ways to teach her students how to fight like Ninja, all the while thinking to herself that her Sensei would smile upon her now, the fond memories of her own youthful training slowly rising to the surface unbidden. If anything she had been even louder in issuing her protests than Phoebe, and yet somehow the old man had been patient in offering his guidance to a hot-tempered young Yenta from the Queens, which prompted Katie to wonder exactly how the tough old buzzard had ever survived the ordeal of her training. Time enough to muse and reflect upon that, she thought as she went to issue her instructions to her charges, all the while imagining what fun was to be had with the golden-hued Mar-Sa and her yellow-haired Phoebe, and exactly how long it would take for Katie to nail them both in the sack for a very different kind of "training..." Ah yes, life was good, and the Kunoichi mistress of Raven clan started humming a bright and chipper tune in expectation of some very good days that were shortly to follow... For comments and criticisms contact me at: shadowmane@ridgenet.net X Page 138 of 138 Mar-Sa, the Ultra Girl Book One/Part Three By Jim Robert Bader Chapters 20-27 First Copyrights Only -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If you wish to check out my other works, Please check out my Fanfiction webpage at: http://s11.sexshare.com/~jbader/jimbader.html All related chapters of this series can be found there along with my other works.