1:

There was a knock on the door.

Calyx's eyes slid open. The first thing she saw was Chuchu, lying on 
her pillow a small distance away from her face and snoring
peacefully. It didn't seem likely, somehow, that he had made the 
intrusive noise. She lifted her head to look at her clock, which 
indicated that it was twenty-three minutes after one in the morning.

A second knock came from the door as she gazed blearily at the clock. 
This time it woke Chuchu up. The monkey's large ears twitched. 
"Chuuuu?"

"I dunno," Calyx said quietly as her wits reasserted themselves. "But 
I think you might want to hide just in case it's someone with an 
unhealthy interest in you, okay?" She lowered her gaze from the door 
to look at him.

He'd already vanished.

"Nice reflexes."

"Chuu chu," replied a voice, the source of which she couldn't 
determine.

Shaking her head, she got up and headed for the door to activate the 
peeper. The door-mounted screen showed an image of what was on the 
other side -- in this case, Hima, wearing his black silk trousers and 
an Osaka Tigers jacket instead of his uniform, looking very nervous.

"Whaddaya want, Hima?" she asked bluntly, not bothering to lower her 
voice.

He, on the other hand, whispered. "I really need to talk you. It's 
really important."

Sighing, she deactivated the lock and swung open the door, only to be 
very startled when Hima was preceded into the room by a slightly 
taller, dark-haired trenchcoated man with a moustache, and a red 
haired woman that she recognized as Hima's "cousin" Sheila Tenkai. 
Hima quickly shut the door behind him as he entered.

"Come on in," Calyx muttered. "Make yourselves at home."

"Not for all the tea in China, kid," wisecracked the man.

She glared at him, opening her mouth to deliver a blistering rebuke
of all men, men who referred to eighteen year-olds as "kid" in
particular and this particular man in specific. He met her gaze with 
a level, faintly amused expression that seemed strangely familiar ...

Abruptly she realized who he was.

"Uh ... Mr. Saotome," she began, wondering somewhat wildly what one 
ought to say to the father of the boy one dumped when one outed 
oneself.

He waved a hand wearily. "Call me Ranma. You're not gonna want to be 
callin' out `Mr. Saotome' when it comes to a scrap. And it's gonna 
come to a scrap. Trust me."

She looked at Sheila, who had sat down heavily on the edge of Calyx's 
bed with her face in her hands, then turned to Hima. "I take it you 
found one of them?"

"Sort of," he replied. "I called Dad about the situation a little 
while after we spoke last, and he came down here about an hour or so 
later. Asked me if I'd checked their quarters. When I told him that 
I'd knocked on the door and gotten no answer, he made me take him 
there and knocked himself. Just like before, there was no answer.

"So he kicked the door in."

"Nothin' like the direct approach," Ranma noted, looking with
interest at one of Calyx's pillows, which presently began to shake as 
though something was trembling as it hid beneath.

"We found Sheila in the room, lying on her bed, and Dad got a story 
out of her --"

"That confirmed some stuff that Serenity told me a while ago," Ranma 
interrupted. "That let me know just how much trouble we were all in."

"What kind of trouble?"

"End of the world type stuff."

"Oh," Calyx replied, not knowing what to say to that, either.

The youthful-looking demigod opened his mouth to say something else, 
then closed it as he looked at Sheila. "Do you wanna tell her what
you told me, or should I?"

"Does it matter?" Sheila answered in a muffled voice. She still
hadn't looked up.

Calyx could see sympathy in Ranma's eyes, but his voice was empty of 
it. "Yeah, it matters. I think we're all a little tired of gettin' 
dragged into things without enough info about what we're facin'.
We're gonna be askin' for this young lady's help, and she'll be 
better equipped to give it if she knows what we know."

Now she looked up, giving Ranma an angry glare. "I told you, I don't 
need anyone's help."

"Ah." Ranma nodded, his voice thick with sarcasm. "*That's* why you 
were lyin' on your back and starin' up at the ceilling when me and
the boy found you. I wondered. Do you want me to tell her, or will 
you?"

She sighed, then turned to look face-on at Calyx. She studied her for 
a while, frowning ... then understanding dawned in her eyes and she 
answered her own question. "I saw you at the Budokai. You were the 
fencer."

"Yes," Calyx replied, feeling a surge of pride to be remembered that 
way.

"All right. I'm going to tell you a story now, one that I'm not 
particularly proud of. I've made a mess of things. I *can* set them 
right, if I get a chance ... but I'll admit that I could use some 
backup."

"Right ... so what happened?"

                                TBC