Chapter 1
Contact.
Unlike the encounter between Sailor Moon and Galaxia, the universe didn't even deign to notice this particular event ... it being a rather minor encounter which had been occurring with depressing regularity to the individual so affected. The event itself was a simple and uncomplicated application of a liquid medium to a relatively solid but moveable object; and whether the contact occurred during the bright daylight hours or - in this particular case - in the dead of night, the result of the contact was always the same.
"Stupid tomboy," Ranma complained to him ... no, make that herself. "Stupid puddle, stupid oyaji, stupid curse, stupid KAMI FORSAKEN LIFE!" The currently-redheaded martial artist remained seated in the puddle which was the latest destination from his short flight through the Tendo-ke roof. "Just 'cause my boobs are bigger than hers is no reason for her to get so snippy ... dammit, that frickin' hurt." She gingerly inspected the top of her head with her hands, wincing each time her fingers brushed over one of the many lumps and bruises which had been added over the last hour by her irate fiancée. She sighed, knowing that she would end up with a splitting headache in about fifteen minutes now that she'd changed forms. Ranma had heard from a number of different sources that girls were supposed to be able to tolerate pain better than boys were, but she knew from first-hand experience that it just wasn't so. Her girl-form was much more sensitive in just about every aspect and it felt pain with a much greater intensity than her boy form ever did.
When it came right down to it, Ranma really didn't really mind her girl-form. That didn't mean she especially liked it either. It was handy at times - especially when it came to conning extra portions from the various food vendors in the area - but there were entirely too many drawbacks in being a girl while trying to cope with her day-to-day life for her to enjoy the few benefits it brought.
She held her right hand out in front of her and stared at it under the flickering streetlight. It really was a beautiful hand - if it belonged to someone else. The skin was smooth, the fingers long, thin, delicate ...
... weak.
They certainly were NOT the fingers of a world-class martial artist, and no matter how hard she worked at it they never would be. Ranma did not enjoy fighting as a girl - not at all. She had never been able to toughen up her girl form in the traditional manner - calluses would simply not form - and had to resort to shielding her body in a layer of ki whenever "she" had to fight. It was difficult, it was tiring, and it was simply infuriating not to be able to go all out as a girl because she had to worry so much about protecting herself.
Ranma shivered, suddenly aware of the chill of the night and the ...
She quickly stood up. "Idiot. No wonder you're freezing your stupid ass off, sittin' in a puddle o' cold water in the middle o' the night feeling sorry for yourself. Gah." She looked briefly in the direct of Tendo-ke and then winced. The damned headache showed up a lot quicker than she had expected.
"Feh. No way I'm puttin' up with Pop's snoring tonight, not with Mom comin' over tomorrow morning. Tanaka-san told me I was welcome any time; wonder if he'll let me crash there tonight." She turned in the opposite direction of Tendo-ke and started out at a brisk jog. It was a good twenty minute run from here to the Azuma Shirahige shrine by ground; roof-hopping being entirely too dangerous when she couldn't concentrate properly.
Well, at least she got some exercise out of the situation, even if she felt totally miserable everywhere else. She would have spent the rest of the night sleeping out in one of her favorite trees if she wasn't so damned wet and cold - hopefully Tanaka-san would have a spare yukata she could borrow. Ranma looked up at the massive torii gates which marked the entrance to the Azuma shrine. She was looking forward to a quiet evening - it always felt so peaceful here.
She had met the elderly Shinto priest about six months ago after a particularly difficult fight with the old letch, and he had been kind enough to patch her up afterward without asking for anything in return. She had run into him several times afterward over the following months - once almost literally as the result of a poorly-dodged Happodaikarin - and always at the end of some sort of fight. Each time he had simply given her a hand and a sympathetic ear, and he had never freaked out once after seeing the ...
Come to think of it, Tanaka-san never had run into her as a boy.
Damn.
Oh well, it couldn't be helped. She'd just have to stay in her girl-form for the rest of the evening. She walked around the main shrine building to the back where the living quarters were located and was glad to see there were still a couple of lights on inside. Good - that meant she wouldn't have to worry about waking him up. A slim hand reached out and rang the gong hanging next to the outer genkan doors. A few moments passed before she heard the soft sound of shuffling steps approach the door from the other side. The genkan's fusuma doors slid open a few seconds later.
"Good evening, and welcome to the ... Ranma-chan?"
"Hi, Tanaka-san," Ranma replied with a weak smile.
"Good lord, child, you'll catch your death of cold like that," Tanaka Kotaro replied in a worried tone. He stepped aside and motioned for her to enter. "Come in, come in. You should warm up before you get sick; the furo's still hot and I'm sure there's still something of Yohko's around you can borrow until we can get your clothes cleaned up and dried."
"Thanks, Tanaka-san. 'Preciate it." Ranma nodded wearily in thanks as she trudged past the silver-haired priest on her way to the side of the house where the ofuro was located.
Ranma sank into the steaming hot water with a grateful sigh. He shuddered once as the change washed through him before relaxing against the side of the tub. No matter how many times he experienced it or how prepared he was, the wrenching, twisting shift of his bones and internal organs always left him feeling fairly nauseous for a good ten seconds after the change occurred. It was something he doubted he'd ever get used to; furthermore it was something he didn't want to get used to. He could easily imagine how bad it must be for Ryouga, Shampoo, and Mousse when their cursed forms weren't even human; that was one of the reasons he had kept silent about "P-chan" even after Ryouga had dishonored himself so thoroughly.
Well, that and the fact that Akane would kill both of them if she found out what Ryouga had been doing over the last year.
He started when he heard the doors to the changing room outside slide open.
"Ranma-chan," Tanaka said from the other side of the ofuro doors, "I'm afraid the only thing I could find of Yohko's was a pair of pajamas and a spare robe. I'll leave them on the shelf right next to the doors. Please try to not fall asleep in there; I'll come back in a half an hour just in case."
The raven-haired martial artist relaxed again when he heard the outer doors close. He spent the next thirty minutes trying not to relax too much.
"C.c.c.cold," Ranma exclaimed, shivering as the final rinse water sluiced off her now-shortened frame. She grimaced briefly as the familiar nausea churned in her stomach, but was thankful that the headache had finally dissipated. She toweled off her hair vigorously for a minute and then wrapped the towel around her torso. She spent the next couple of minutes combing the tangles out of her hair with her fingers before braiding it back into its customary pigtail. She'd have to finish working on her hair later when she went back home; this would just have to do for now.
She quickly finished drying herself off and dressed, frowning briefly at the ... excessively cutesy ... print panties Tanaka-san had included in the pile of borrowed clothes, but she had occasionally worn worse and the distinct scent of hot shoyu ramen soup wafting through the doorway quickly overrode any faint objections she might have had. The pajamas were roughly her size, the yukata was soft, and there was even a pair of thick fuzzy ankle socks to keep her feet warm - what more did she really need?
Food. What a silly question.
Ranma quickly made her way to the main room and slid the doors open. Tanaka-san looked up from the book he was reading and smiled briefly at her before returning his attention to his book; the empty cushion opposite his place at the table and the large bowl of steaming ramen waiting for her was invitation enough. She walked over and sat down, then tried really hard not to simply inhale the food set in front of her. She succeeded only in part - the ramen bowl emptied far too quickly for her liking. She set the bowl back down on the table with a small sigh.
"Feeling better, Ranma-chan?"
She looked up and gave the elderly priest her best smile. "Yes, thank you, Tanaka-san."
Tanaka closed his book and set it aside, then turned his sight to the buxom red-headed girl seated opposite him at the table. Ranma fidgeted a bit at the attention; the elderly priest wasn't really all that imposing in a physical sense, being roughly the same size and build as her male-form albeit a good four decades older, but the full weight of his personality always shone directly through those dark brown eyes and Ranma couldn't help but feel totally exposed underneath the priest's powerful gaze. The spell was broken suddenly when Tanaka's eyes softened visibly and a slight smile graced his lips.
"I'm pleased to see you again, Ranma-chan. Your smile always enriches an old man's life and your presence can't help but brighten up these lonely walls. I trust you have been doing well over the previous month since I saw you last?"
Ranma's own smile slipped noticeably. "Yeah, I guess. At least it hasn't been any crazier than usual."
"I suspect that there's quite a tale hidden in there," Tanaka replied with a small chuckle. He stood and started gathering the dishes from the table. "Perhaps you would be kind enough to indulge this old man in a game of Go before the evening is over, Ranma-chan?"
"I was hopin' you'd ask that," Ranma said as she stood up herself.
It only took Ranma a minute to retrieve the board and set it up on the small game table in the corner of the room. She was looking forward to the challenge; Tanaka had taught her to play the game when she first met him and she had been practicing to beat him ever since. She hadn't succeeded yet - he had years of experience compared to her mere months - but she thought she might be able to finally give him a decent challenge for once. The game required a fascinating combination of patience and aggression and a good eye for dynamic patterns, and she had found numerous parallels with the forms of thought she routinely employed in her fights.
Besides, her practicing gave her some much-needed quiet time during the week. None of her friends or fiancées ever thought to look for her in the back of the Nerima Municipal Library where the head librarian's research computers were located, and she fully intended on keeping it that way. Going to and from the library was one of the few times she routinely employed the Saotome Forbidden Techniques. Ranma wasn't about to jeopardize free access to the burgeoning internet and the Go lessons the librarian was giving her, especially when all it cost her in exchange was answering various questions on some really esoteric aspects of the Art. She didn't understand the librarian's fascination with the weird American game called "Trivial Pursuit", but she certainly wasn't going to complain about it either.
She only wished she could share any of her new enthusiasms with her fiancée, but she knew better than to even try. Showing skill in any new field would just set off that damnable temper right away. Damn it all, what was wrong with the stubborn tomboy, anyway? Was Akane really so desperate to "win" at anything against her that she now had to resort to making things up? She had to buy a new bra because her boobs got bigger. Yeah, right. Not if that "fitting" Happosai tried to force on her at the onsen earlier was any indication; damn it, that hurt even worse than normal.
She growled at the memory of the earlier events. One of these days she was going to stuff Happi's "frilly somethings" so far up his ass he could choke on it. Ranma shook her head and sighed dejectedly; that little dream wasn't going to happen anytime soon if things kept up the way they were going. The little freak was just too damn quick and too strong in ki for her to challenge like that - and it was even worse when she was forced to fight him as a girl. Ranma still hadn't figured out how to prevent his girl form from reacting to certain types of stimuli in the way she had for her guy form. She had long ago learned how to make her guy form "Shampoo proof", much to the lusty Amazon's continuing frustration, and knew every counter to every "instant hard-on" pressure point the old ghoul had taught the purple-haired bombshell. She'd even figured out how to shield those points with her ki, making it all the more difficult for Shampoo to try and invoke any visible reaction from her guy form as a result of her forcefully gross "affection". Unfortunately, the same could not be said for her girl form, and both Shampoo and the old letch took great pleasure in unmercifully tweaking reactions out of "her" whenever possible. None of her guy form techniques worked for her girl form, inverting ki flows didn't work either, and she hadn't been able to develop any leads on where such knowledge could be located. Pops didn't know and furthermore didn't care to know, while the letch and the ghoul undoubtedly knew but would never teach her those techniques even if she dared to ask.
The whole situation sucked, big time.
Things were only going to get worse, too. The old letch was slowly but continually getting bolder in the "liberties" he took with her girl form, and Ranma didn't like the looks of the pattern that was starting to emerge. Happi hasn't tried raping her while she was sleeping ... yet. She wouldn't bet on it not happening within the next year, though, and her potential reaction to that event occurring frightened the hell out of her. Finding ways to prevent her girl form from "reacting" would help considerably by removing the ever present temptation.
Of course, being able to relieve her own frustrations would also help a lot. She had learned better than to even try, though - her last two attempts to do even a little "tension relief" had resulted in total disaster. She still had to figure out a way to properly "thank" Nabiki for her oh so kind "help" a couple months back.
Maybe she could sell the bitch to the same brothel in Hong Kong that Nabiki tried selling her to last year. Talk about poetic justice.
Yeah, like she'd really be able to do that for real. The rabbit on the moon pounds mochi for free every week, too. Ranma slumped in her floor cushion. She wasn't pouting, honest! World class martial artists do not pout. Sighing and grimacing, though - that was legal.
"Ranma-chan?"
Ranma nearly jumped out of her skin. She quickly straightened up and noticed that Tanaka-san was already seated opposite her at the Go table. She tried not to fidget and ended up briefly rubbing the back of her neck with one hand instead. "Err ... sorry 'bout that, Tanaka-san."
Her companion smiled and shook his head once. "That looked like quite a conversation you were having with yourself."
"Ahhh ... I've just had a lot on my mind lately."
"Obviously," Tanaka replied, his eyes twinkling with amusement. "Perhaps we can distract you from your troubles with a subject of vastly greater importance. I believe you had managed to reduce your spot to four stones the last time we played, correct?"
"I think so." Ranma looked down at the board and the four white stones Tanaka-san had already played out for her. She swept the stones off the board and placed them back in her stones dish. "I'd like to try it straight up this time, though."
Tanaka's only response was to cock an eyebrow in her direction.
Ranma growled to herself. Give him a decent challenge, huh? She'd be lucky to capture any territory at this rate.
"Ranma-chan, I'm afraid we must call the game a draw at this point. Tomorrow morning rolls around far too quickly and I'm certain we could both do with some rest."
She looked away from the board is disgust. As much as she'd like to disagree ...
"Yeah, I guess you're right."
"Ranma-chan?" The priest's soft voice commanded her attention. His eyes were deep pools of warmth and compassion. "A house divided against itself cannot stand. When you are capable of sharing your troubles, I will be here to help as I'm able."
Ranma nodded jerkily. "Thanks."
"In the meantime, we had best retire for the evening." He stood and waited for her to follow suit. "The guestroom is available for you as always; I've even managed to locate an extra toothbrush and whatnot for your use tonight if you wish to stay."
"I'd ... really appreciate that, Tanaka-san. Thank you."
Tanaka sat on the end of his futon in meditation. His young friend was more troubled than he had ever seen him before; the mere fact that Ranma had accepted his offer for shelter spoke volumes to the elder priest. He had not cared for the rapid play of emotions which had crossed his young charge's face before the start of the game, either - there was far too much pain on display for him to ignore. Unfortunately, the youngster still refused to talk voluntarily about what was currently troubling him.
The priest shook his head. He had been observing the young martial artist on and off for nearly half a year, and had no illusions about the cause of some of the more obvious problems Ranma faced on a daily basis. A large number of those were a direct result of Ranma's own actions, and the apparent fact the youngster couldn't see that he himself was making things worse could be chalked up to the elder Saotome's teachings. Being taught all his life to be a bully, a thief, and a liar had done the boy no favors. Ranma was no paragon of virtue, no indeed - he was often petty, inconsiderate, and thoughtlessly cruel at times - but his basic nature, his karmic principle, was still inherently good underneath it all. Tanaka was becoming more and more convinced that the hesitant and indecisive behavior the youngster exhibited in public was neither forced nor faked, but rather was a result of his basic good nature being in constant conflict with his training and upbringing.
Unfortunately, that self-same upbringing held predominance more often than not, and brought with it the potential for endless grief. The whole insane situation with his mother was a perfect example of that. Not that Ranma didn't have cause to worry - he did; Tanaka knew from the times he had conversed with Ranma's mother that Saotome Nodoka held some highly twisted and horribly archaic notions on what exactly constituted "honor" and "responsibility". Still, the situation could have been avoided nearly in toto had the young man taken a different and more honest approach at the very beginning.
A brilliant light interrupted the priest's cogitations. Tanaka opened his eyes, relaxing at the sight unfolding before him. No matter how many times he had observed it, the arrival of the shrine's patron kami was always a joyous and eerily beautiful event to behold. The pinpoint of brilliance hovered briefly in the exact center of the room, and then settled majestically down onto the floor. The instant it touched the surface it blossomed into an immense crystalline flower whose petals cupped protectively around its central glowing pistil. The pistil writhed and morphed, growing in stature while drawing the petals into itself at the flower's base as sustenance for its rapid growth. It quickly assumed the shape of an upright column which suddenly sharpened into a crystal statue of a woman of outstanding beauty. The glow from the statue's torso flashed briefly to near-blinding intensity before disappearing entirely.
Tanaka basked in the brilliance of his kami's beauty. He did not avert his eyes or genuflect before her as others would - those behaviors having been forbidden to him by her previous command. He simply ... appreciated ... the glory of her female form in all its unearthly perfection. She was tall but not excessively so; always appearing in a form roughly one hundred and seventy centimeters high. Her gown was made of a material which could only be described as woven moonlight given substance and showed her figure to perfection; the strapless sheath leaving her shoulders and arms completely bare while softly hugging her torso down to her hips, then falling straight down to her knees where it flared out in an elegant tulip shape. The gown sported a graceful train which began just below the small of her back and cascaded down to the floor in a supple waterfall of gentle gathers. A bow with a large golden crescent moon brooch modestly concealed her ample bosom; an even larger bow with extended streamers graced the back of her waist at the start of the gown's train. Her regal face was ... exquisite. Her large, luminous eyes were expressive pools of liquid sapphire, her mouth small, her cheekbones high. Golden jewelry in the shape of crescent moons adorned her ears; another golden crescent embedded itself in the center of her brow, framed by two locks of platinum hair whose outline formed the shape of an open heart. More platinum locks framed her face from her brows down to her ears. The rest of her hair was worn in two immensely long silken ponytails which began from two large odangos and cascaded in twin waterfalls of spun platinum all the way down to the floor. It was a highly unusual hairstyle, but on her it was simply ... perfect.
"Serenity-sama," the silver-haired priest acknowledged with a nod.
"Greetings, my friend," his kami replied, her melodious voice carrying with it the full weight of her name.
"You grace us with your presence tonight, milady. How may we be of service to you?"
"I would speak to you of my Champion, Kotaro-kun. How does he fare?"
Tanaka suppressed a grimace. The use of his first name meant his kami wanted his opinions and deductions in addition to the usual facts and observations. Fortunately, she had proven in the past that she truly wanted those honest opinions when she asked for them. Other kami might respond well to flattery and blatant dissembling - she did not. It was a trait of hers which the priest appreciated for its full value.
"Ranma is ... troubled now more than usual, milady. He continues to hold all of his pain inside, so I can only hazard a guess as to the cause of his current distress. I believe his father's perverted Master is to blame this time; rumors of another "incident" at the local onsen were rampant earlier this evening." Tanaka sighed. "He arrived on my doorsteps tonight cold, wet, physically beaten, and female. While his wounds were relatively minor - they healed themselves while he was relaxing in the furo - his concentration has been virtually non-existent since he arrived. I tried distracting him with a game of Go, but I was forced to call the game as a draw after he failed to execute a simple ladder attack for a third time in a row. I take measure as to the level of his disturbance from the fact that, not only did he not object even in the slightest to my calling off the game, he also accepted my offer of shelter for the first time since I met him. 'She' is currently asleep in the guestroom."
"I see," Serenity replied with a slight note of ... disapproval. "One would almost think he enjoys the constant chaos which surrounds his current life."
"That may be true in part, milady, but I do not feel it can explain the whole. Thanks to his father, he is ill equipped to deal with any social or personal situation which does not involve immediate physical combat. The constant and random gender changes from his curse further confuse the issue - I cannot imagine how he maintains even a semblance of sexual identity. Children of that age are confused enough as it is by their hormones; being forced to experience that self-same confusion for both genders on a daily basis is simply mind-boggling."
"Do you think he could cope with his current life if he consciously controlled Jusenkyo's Gift?"
"Possibly." Tanaka briefly thought through all of the things he knew of Ranma's daily life before continuing. "It would certainly help. For one it would instantly resolve the insanity involving his mother, and I could certainly see how it could help in several other ..."
The priest's eyes snapped wide in shock. "Milady, I very firmly believe he is not capable of accepting your blessing at the present time."
"I thank you for your honesty, Kotaro-kun. Unfortunately, I can no longer afford to shield my Champion from his destiny. A new darkness approaches - one that will require all of his considerable skill and strength of will in combat. My previous Champions have become exhausted with too many battles over too short a period of time. While victorious in their last conflict, they are no longer capable of opposing those who would seek to lord over all of creation from the depths of the void. They require a considerable amount of time to rest and recuperate, and time is something I do not have in sufficient quantity at the moment."
Serenity waved an elegant hand in a definite yet unrecognizable pattern. A small mound of vari-colored crystals appeared in front of Tanaka in addition to an old-fashioned sealed scroll.
"Please present this scroll to my Champion before he departs on the morrow; it will provide answers to his most pressing question when he awakens. The jewels are my gift to him as well; however, I would strongly suggest you handle the details in converting their value to a more current form. I would be most distressed to discover that his fiancée's elder sister had appropriated their worth without recompense by preying on his nature."
"It shall be as you say, milady."
"Thank you, my friend," Serenity replied with warmth. Her figure began to fade from view, its internal light dimming in unison. "My blessing on your house, always."
And then she was gone.
Serenus shook her head and chuckled, safely hidden behind the cloaking field. "The things I have to put up with to comply with the sector rules." She translated over to the dwelling's guest room and smiled. "Perfect. He couldn't have made it easier for me than if he had tried." It took but a moment to erect the previously prepared defensive wards around the room and attach a somnolentic unit to the youngster's forehead, both being extremely necessary precautions. Serenus relaxed a touch - with the shields in place she could work virtually undisturbed, and it would take the near-total destruction of the entire quadrant to interrupt what she was about to set in motion.
She extracted the Ginzuishou from its protected storage container and gave it one last status check. Nodding in satisfaction that the core fusion matrix continued to remain stable - her little sister's calculations were precise as always - she placed the significantly enhanced artifact on the redhead's chest. Opening her primary terminal resulted in a complex array of glowing force-pads and status displays to appear around her. Serenus enabled the Ginzuishou's primary control channel and reviewed the attachment sub-logic once more. She always prided herself in not making stupid and avoidable errors by instituting a rigorous system of cross-checks before making any significant move in the on-going games, and though she might fail to anticipate an event on occasion, her system of redundant double-checks had prevented potentially-serious errors from occurring several times in the past.
She found no errors here.
Smiling, she enabled the attachment routine. The Ginzuishou began glowing with an ever-changing polychromatic light as the artifact along with its embedded power cores powered up. Filaments of force extruded themselves into the youngster's body, each glowing briefly before fading to invisibility as they located their designated attachment points. Serenus closely monitored the ever-growing web of force lines from her terminal but did not find it necessary to modify the process; all of the variables had been properly accounted for. Approximately ten minutes passed before the crystal phased and sank slowly into the redhead's heart. The glow ceased as the enhanced Ginzuishou powered down.
Serenus disabled the artifact's control channel before enabling the comprehensive bioscan diagnostic suite. The initial scan was fully automated and resulted in a small list of recommended corrective measures. One of the items was flagged critical; fortunately it was the only serious condition found. She downloaded the major corrective routine into the Ginzuishou's data core for extended internal implementation, the rest of the corrective measures could be done immediately by the external suite's standard medical library. It took less than twenty minutes for this set of tasks to reach completion.
Serenus closed her primary terminal, disabled the web of defensive wards and stored them back in their transport container, and finally removed the somnolentic unit from the girl's forehead. Enabling her personal transit recall command, she ported back to her primary base in a brief flash of sparkling lights.
Beryl was waiting for her at the transport pad. "How did it go?"
Serenus smiled. "Perfectly. There were no problems with the initial attachment and not a trace of psychic rejection. We are now officially back in the game. Did you prepare the message cube for the Arbiter?"
Beryl smirked. She handed over a small translucent object.
Serenus quickly reviewed the contents, making sure the revised deployment plan was properly encoded and encrypted. She closed the cube and sealed it with her personal signature. Sealing the cube automatically invoked the transit recall to the Tiarrizian Arbiter's office - the cube silently disappeared.
A quick check of the universal chronometer confirmed that they had beaten the Arbiter's redeployment deadline by a good quarter of a rotation.
OMAKE
Serenus smiled as she enabled the attachment routine. The Ginzuishou began glowing with an ever-changing polychromatic light as the artifact along with its embedded power cores powered up. Filaments of force extruded themselves into the youngster's body, each glowing briefly before fading to invisibility as they located their designated attachment points. Serenus closely monitored the ever-growing web of force lines from her terminal but did not find it necessary to modify the process; all of the variables had been properly accounted for. Approximately ten minutes passed before the crystal phased and sank slowly into the redhead's heart. The glow ceased as the enhanced Ginzuishou powered down.
Two objects of identical phase cannot occupy the same space at the same time. The results were explosive - and messy.
Serenus stood there in shock at the destruction of all her plans. Their program code had been perfect. Growling, she pulled up the system monitor and started laboriously tracking the execution threads through the system debug log. She eventually traced the bug to one of the Ginzuishou's built-in library functions.
There, between two critical lines of code, a comma had been entered where a semi-colon should have been.
Serenus groaned. She really should have known better than to trust OEM hardware drivers.