Standard Disclaimer: I don’t own the Dirty Pair. I don’t claim to either, so don’t sue me. Sakura Tenjo, Natsumi Ogawa, and Bloody Mary are original characters who may not be used without my approval. Thanks, and enjoy the show.

Cycle Three:

BTR Regional Headquarters was a massive complex the size of a small city, an entire Eco-system contained behind high walls and a transparent domed roof. Not that many of the people inside ever saw much of it. The people who worked in the name of the development and classification of all "dangerous" technology were always busy.

This was partly because the BTR had a hand in most of the workings of society, not just technology. It had put out feelers in politics, the entertainment industry, trade in most of known space, even the religious circuit. All this was done in the name of the preservation of human society. Some of the people who worked for the BTR even believed this. Most however were in their current job for reasons less honorable, to say the least. One such person was BTR troubleshooter Kevin J. Sleet.

Sleet was, in the words of his more polite co-workers, not a nice man. In the words of his less polite co-workers, he was a slimy, cold-hearted bastard who would calmly turn his own mother over to BTR Security for "questioning" if it meant a chance at personal advancement. In his own words he was "a highly motivated upwardly-mobile person". By anyone’s standards, even his own, he was not very pleasant. He was tall, but skinny. He had long black hair that fell to his shoulders, and always managed to look slightly greasy. Beneath chromed glasses there lurked a superior sneer that never seemed to go away. Not even Sleet was sure when the last time was that his face had held any other expression. But to such an "upwardly mobile" person, such minor issues were of little to no consequence.

At the moment though, Sleet was anything but upwardly mobile. If anything, one could say he was distinctly downwardly mobile. In plainer words, he was aroused. To be accurate, one should say he was massively, thunderously, immensely aroused. There were three reasons for this.

The first was that he was watching a very pretty, very sweaty girl work out. The second was that he knew her to be a distinct sadist on a number of levels. Sleet liked that. The third was that she was currently beating the living hell out of her unlucky sparring partner in the BTR facility’s gym. Sleet really liked that.

The girl in question was fellow troubleshooter Mary Latimer, commonly known to her few friends and numerous enemies as "Bloody Mary". Sleet had often wanted to ask her if the rumors that she had killed her first lover when he broke her hymen, one of the reasons for her nickname, was true, but he didn’t care to be hurt in the process. Another rumor was that the last person who had asked her that had ended up shitting into a bag taped to his hip for the rest of his life.

And that was the other source of her nickname, this one unquestionably true: she was, simply put, psychotic. There was always a slew of such bizarre and sordid rumors flying around her, the most common ones running along similar lines as the former. It was said that when the first man she was with sexually took her virginity, she reacted badly and killed him. It was rumored that she had previously worked for BTR Security as an interrogator, but had been fired for becoming emotionally involved with her work. This, Sleet doubted. He had also heard that she was attributed with personally slaughtering all 1,500 nuns in a convent, for accusing her of being demonically possessed while she was on a manhunt that took her to their doors. This rumor Sleet was slightly more inclined to believe. But despite it all, Sleet was massively attracted to her. Maybe it was because of her dangerous persona that he liked her so much. Sleet certainly didn’t care. Whatever his reasons, he sat on the sparsely populated bleachers and watched her spar down on the mats with a considerably larger man.

That was one of the other reasons Mary was regarded so fearfully. She looked like an over-sized Cupie Doll come to life. She barely scraped past five-foot-one, had fair skin, Goldilocks-blond mopsy curls, an adorable face, and the biggest sky-blue eyes most people she met had ever seen. The