Notes: I've been getting a few complaints that I should use my own mind instead of the series because of the prelude, so I would like to inform you that the prelude was pretty much just to explain about how Ranma got onto the ship, hence the little changes like the Van-Box. In this chapter, the story starts to veer off from the original story line, thank you. In addition, I'm trying to figure out who I should pair Ranma up with, so give me a holler.
AmericanPie5745@aol.com
Seross: I have been asked by a few people to continue this story, so I've been working hard on the first and second chapters.
Seross: Well, here's the next chapter...........
Vanguard Dragon Claw
By Xion Fang
Chapter 1: Baby On Board
**************
The pigtailed boy was blinded by light as he woke up.
'What am I doing here?'He asked himself,'And for that matter, who is I?'
He sat pondering this and a name came to mind.
'I am Ranma. Woah, that came out of nowhere, stupid head stop hurting!'
Ranma groaned and looked around. He could see a girl with blue hair that was tied into a ponytail and dressed in a black and white plastic-like suit hugging a boy with a black and yellow bandana around his head, a black shirt and a brown and yellow vest over that plus a pair of brown pants.
For some reason, that girl brought back memories. He groaned louder as the pain of a few million unfamiliar memories forced themselves into his mind.
Many scenes flashed in his head in rapid succession, each with their own bundle of feelings.
*********************
About a minute ago....
Hibiki pushed through the crowd and landed in the side of the awakening girls' body. As she opened her blue eyes and he started to get up, a hologram was projected from her earring. It looked like a little yellow blob.
After she recognized Hibiki, she smiled,"Oh, I have found you, my lord prince!"
He jumped up and glomped him.
"My..."Started Jura, her face contracting into a scowl at the girl who was attached onto Hibiki.
"Lord..."Continued Barnette.
"Prince?!" Finished Dita.
*Present*
A groan interrupted them they turned around to see the black haired boy stand up and hold his head.
While she held onto Hibiki's head, the blue haired girl stopped putting pressure into her hug and transformed her look into one of confusion.
"Who are you?" She asked him.
He flicked his pigtail over his head and adopted a confused expression himself.
"I'm Ranma, sorry bout' this."
With that, he crumpled in a dead faint.
Hibiki looked at the scene.
'Why does my life have to be like this?!'He asked himself.
The blue-haired girl clutched her head and went over to the closest place she could sleep, which was the cryo-tube of the van-box.
She closed her heavy eyelids and fell back into the embrace of sleep as the cargo bay erupted in action.
B.C started to give orders.
"Duro, get these two down to sick bay!"
The longhaired man nodded, starting over to the fallen boy.
B.C turned to Parfait.
"Parfait, first, I need those two info tubes, then I need you to crack that shell of a ship!"
Parfait stood up,"Yes mam!"
Pai Way looked on, writing in her notebook, then spoke.
"Things are going to get very exciting from now on, Pai check!"
************************
A little while later.........
Dita looked around for Mr. Alien, a frown on her face.
Why did that alien hug Mr. Alien? Why didn't he get angry, as he did with her?
She walked into the galley, found Ezra eating there, and sat down at her table.
"Hey Ezra....."She said glumly, propping her head on her hands, starting to brood again.
Why was all this happening? It was starting to make her head hurt! She thought back to the two new additions to the crew.
That blue haired girl, Misty as the doctor had informed everyone later on, she didn't like her. She seemed to be after Mr. Alien, and she was still a person none of the other occupants on the ship knew much about.
Then she turned her thoughts on the black haired boy, Ranma.
Misty had wanted to know who he was, so it seemed as if he didn't come from the same place as her. In addition, the commander had said he had used a Taraaku distress signal, did that mean he was from Taraaku too? If he did, then what happened to him?
Her thoughts were halted by a gasp of pain from Ezra.
She looked at the pregnant woman and saw her wince with pain.
Ezra spoke up,"My baby.... It's time....." She managed to get out.
*****************************
Medical bay........
Duro frowned as he looked at Ranma, who was still asleep in the medical corridors.
Why did he seem so familiar? If he was from Taraaku, he must have been a third-class citizen, but how did he get access to a Van-Box and how did he get all the way out here?
He studied him.
Ranma was dressed in a kind of armor. The armor covered a red silk shirt and black training pants, which were his inner wearings.
The armor started in a chest and back pad and had two protrusions that stuck up near his neck, like a large collar. On the sides of the collar were the two letters engraved in gold: DC. Two shoulder pads were carved on his shoulders so that it didn't limit Ranma's movement, and also had the golden letters engraved into them.
It also had arm bracers and gloves that started about three-fourths towards his hand from his elbow. The gloves he wore only went to his knuckles, and had a few small pads hooked onto the back of each finger.
The chest plate went down until the bottom of Ranma's abdominal muscles, molded to look like the muscles it covered. It had a silver belt that had a few things that looked like hooks protruding form it. Knee bracers went all the way down to the black and gray almost slipper like padded boots, which matched the rest of the black and gray armor.
As Duro looked at Ranma more closely, he discovered a tattoo on his left eye. It was green and started in a slim triangle on the center of his cheek until his eyelid. It ended on the top of the in two three-inch lines that stacked up on top of the eyebrow. He had seen before that his eyes were a blue gray, very uncommon on Taraaku.
As he brooded on this, he noticed something on the back of the boy's neck.
As he looked closer, he saw engraved in black, the words:
DRAGON ONE P.T.
He thought about it for a while more, then he decided to stop, he had gotten a headache.
Nevertheless, he had a few ideas of who Ranma might be.
He heard a beeping noise, which alerted him to a problem.
**************************
Halls, earlier........
Dita helped Ezra towards the elevator.
As she struggled holding her up, she contacted Duro, to tell him about the baby. He asks a few questions and she tells him the answers.
After she got into the elevator, the captain started to talk to her, probably because of her experience.
"Dita, how long in between contractions?"She asked the bubbly redheaded girl.
"Around two minutes!"She said, "But she's in pain!"
"That's normal,"Said Magno, "Now do just what I say, I'll walk you through the process."
"Ok."Replied Dita.
**************************
The bridge..........
"Big news!"Said one of the crew"Ezra's baby is being born!"
Pyro stood up from B.C's grasp."I've got to see Pyro 2!"
"No!"Said B.C"Messages first!"
Before he could escape, B.C put Pyro into the message interface and then inserted the message that had been with Ranma.
Pyro's screen seemed to emit a red light that washed over her, than dispersed.
"Sorry commander, this is a message for Ranma only."Said Pyro.
B.C frowned,"So I can't access it?"
"No, commander,"Said Pyro,"The message has a DNA lock on it, only Ranma's DNA can unlock it."
B.C frowned again. That meant either that what was in it was important, or it was classified. She decided that she'll get to that message later and took it out, then inserted Misty's message in.
She saw the screen show a password encrypted display, then went black, as well as almost everything else on the ship.
*****************************
Elevator..........
Dita felt the elevator lurch, then stop.
"What's happening?!"She asked, panic in her voice.
"Dita, be calm!"Comforted Magno"The power's out, you'll have to deliver the baby right there."
"What?!"She exclaimed.
"Nothing will go wrong, accepted for if the enemy-"
The elevator shook violently, throwing Ezra into Dita.
"Attacks."Finished Magno.
Dita then heard her ordering all defenses up.
**************************
Bridge............
B.C ordered a status report.
"Mam!"Said a bridge member,"It's an attack force! Very large, and the worst thing is that we can't defend the ship with shields!"
B.C nodded, this didn't seem to be good odds for them, but there were other times it wasn't good odds, and they had come out on top, let's see if we can do it again.
"Crew,"She said on the comm. to everyone,"Battle stations!"
**************************
Hibiki's room (The Brig)......
Hibiki shot up in his bed, as did Bart as they heard the order for the crew to get to battle stations.
"All right!"Exclaimed Hibiki,"Time to crush some cubes!"
He ran out of the room and Bart ran to the bridge, though he wouldn't be needed there.
As Hibiki ran down the hall, he smirked to himself.
'Time to show them what we can do, time to prove my existence, again.'
He increased his speed towards the launch bay.
**************************
Launch Bay......
Hibiki arrived at the bay to find a mess of chaos, everyone working to get the Dreads out to battle.
"Hey, stage hand,"He turned to see Gascogne talking to him, while loading weapons into a dread,"Let's get this show on the road!"
Hibiki smirked and ran over to help,"Can't do anything without us men, can ya?"He said jokingly.
"No time for that now, we need ta get the dreads out there, we have no sheilds!"Said Gascogne, pushing a hook into place.
"Right!"Said Hibiki, placing another hook into place,"Let's do this!"
As he worked Hibiki heard that Dita had been trapped in an elevator and doubled his efforts, not knowing exactly why.
However, what he knew was the faster they defeated the enemy, the faster he could go help Dita.
He loaded up a dread, then called out,"Ready!"
**************************
Medical Bay...........
Ranma woke up, looking around.
Why was everything dark?
The light was then lit with what he surmised as the emergency power system and saw a man with long dark hair which covered part of his face who was wearing standing next to an old woman in a dark purple coat who was talking into a microphone, and a girl who looked to be around twelve who was in a nurses outfit and had two long pony tails and dark purple hair.
He heard a female voice coming from above where they were talking into.
"The elevator's stuck, and Ezra's in a lot of pain!"
The old woman nodded,"It seems she's going into labor then."
He walked past them and they didn't seem to notice.
*************************
*In the elevator*
Dita looked at Ezra and smiled comfortingly, wishing that Mr. Alien was here, but he was outside in battle, and she needed to be strong.
"Ezra, it'll be okay! Just do as the doctor says!"She said to her, offering a smile.
Ezra smiled painfully,"I will Dita."
Dita turned back to the com. "What next?"
Instead of the doctor, the captain answered."Dita, when the baby's head shows, you must help it out, do it carefully!"
Dita nodded and gasped as she saw the head.
"It's here!" She screeched.
"Ok,"said the captain,"Now pull gently."
Dita took the baby's head and pulled and Ezra pushed, soon........
"WAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The baby cried as Dita gave it to Ezra.
A new life was born.
****************************
Medical Bay.
Duro looked around and noticed that Ranma was gone.
Where was he!? He better not let this get out to the captain, or he'd be in big trouble!
He saw the captain leave and started to look for his patient.
As he looked for one, the other had awoken due to the cry of the baby.
Misty heard a crying noise as she woke up.
She whispered a few words; her eyes only open a little.
"That noise......"
**************************
Bridge......
B.C looked at Pyro as she heard a beeping noise and his screen displayed:
Password accepted
B.C looked surprised.
A baby's cry was the password?
****************************
A few minutes later, bridge.
"So a baby's cry was the password, fascinating......"Said the captain.
B.C looked up at the captain and nodded,"Yes, it seems that way."
The ship shook. Hibiki's face followed by Jura's appeared on the display.
"We need help, these guys are tough!" He told her.
A few other people checked in and agreed.
"How's Dita doing?"Magno asked B.C.
"She's ready now, captain. She was left untouched by the elevator incident due to Pyro's intervention."Replied B.C.
The captain turned to Hibiki,"Then help's on the way!"
After the channel was turned off, she turned back to B.C.
"Any progress on the search for our missing guest?"She asked
"None."Said B.C.
*****************************
Near Engineering........
Ranma lifted his head as he saw the lights go on.
He looked out a window and saw the battle that was going on.
He saw fighters and one robot that looked like a crab facing off against others.
Their opponents were what he was really interested in. The most common were some kind of red ships that looked like a circle with four arms sticking out from each of its sides.
The next ones looked like a dozen mechanized dragons in shape, but instead of a regular mouth, there was an addition of two black pincers that jutted out from either side of the mouth. These monsters seemed to spark a red fury from within Ranma, though he didn't know why.
That was something that had been his case a lot lately and something he didn't like happening. His vision lingered on the view port for a bit long then he promptly went back to searching, and found the source and origin of the pull he had felt before and opened the door labeled: Engineering
****************************
Place Unknown, Time Unknown.
A blue glow encompassed Ranma's vision.
"Wha?!" He exclaimed.
His exclamation seemed to echo all around him.
"What is this?"He asked.
A girl with blue eyes and blue hair that was cut short who was wearing a blue and white outfit appeared in front of him.
"Why are you here? Who are you?"
"I don't know!!" He screamed, twisting around.
"What do you want?"
"I want........"He stopped thinking about it;"I want....to exist."
"What do you exist for?"
Ranma now felt like he was a spectator in his body, because the next words weren't his.
"To fight."His face hardened.
"Then fight."The girl said, a blue glow engulfing him.
*****************
Cargo Bay, Present.
A blue glow surrounded the van box and in a flash, a figure was seen next to it.
Ranma looked at the box, the glow now gone, and no proof that it had ever been there.
Why had he said those things? He didn't know. Did he really exist to fight?
Well, there was only one way to find that out and was to fight those monsters out there. However, he needed a weapon, for to fight, you must have a tool, to fight with, right?
He walked up to the box and reach out to it as though it was a new-born baby, lightly brushing his fingertips across the surface of the Van-Box, leaving a glow where they had touched.
He stepped back as the box started to stir, the cryo ship unhooking from the top of the Van-Box which then after started to glow a soft bluish hue, the glow flashing across odd lines that ran over the hole cube from bottom to top, making a sort of clanking sound, as an unlocking safe.
The sides of the box made a hissing sound and ejected steam, then the sides of the cube started to fall to the floor, slowly revealing what was within.
Then, with a metallic clang, what was inside was revealed to Ranma.
He looked at what was inside, and then smiled, "Let's go."He said softly, then started to walk towards the newly revealed weapon, picking things up that had been stored on the sides of the Van-box, led by a past memory.
*********************
The battlefield, a few minutes ago.
"RAAAAAAA!!!!!"Screamed Hibiki as he forced one of his wrist swords into the head of another Dragon Beetle as they had been designated.
Dita sat on his lap hoping for the best.
They had only destroyed two of the DB's so far, they had liven up to both parts of their namesake. It had taken constant fire focused on one place and a lot of dodging lava-like plasma beams to actually destroyed one, and a repeat of the process to destroy the second one.
There was about ten left.
She was getting worried that the Nirvana wasn't going to make it out of this battle in one piece, if not at all.
She was interrupted by a conversation of the bridge crew.
"Mam!"She heard someone say,"Someone's requesting leave via the cargo bay!"
That surprised Dita, who could want that? There wasn't anyone that she knew that had a dread to be launched, for sure not a Van-Type, nobody's gonna pilot one of those other than Mr.Alien willingly.
Maybe this was their miracle, she wasn't sure.
***************************************
Bridge.....
"What?!"Exclaimed B.C, looking at the blonde who had addressed her.
"Yes mam, that's what I said, we have video comunication."She said pressing a few buttons on her console.
At that, a video window appeared in front of everyone, showing a very familiar face and gray-blue eyes.
"Ranma?!"Aksed B.C, actually, she pretty much shouted it.
The face, accept for the black and gray bandana he wore around his head, keeping his hair out of his face, was the same as when they had first saw him come out of the cryo pod.
The face on the video window smirked at her,"Yeah, I'll be helping your fighters out there commander."
"No you won't!"Said B.C to the window,"Your still weak from your stasis in the cryo-pod."
The face glared at her,"Yes I will."
"No, you won't."Said B.C.
"Will!"
"Won't"
"Will!"
"Won't!"
"He will B.C!"Another voice declared.
B.C turned to Magno, a shocked expression on her face,"Captain?"
The Captain smirked under her hood as she addressed the person in command of the ship, second only to her.
"B.C, first of all, that won't matter if this ship was destroyed. Second of all, we need all the help we can get."She turned to the blonde,"Open the cargo bay doors, let's see what our new addition to the crew can do."
"Yes mam." Said the blonde, engaging the cargo bay doors.
What flew out of the bay shocked them all.
Its armor was painted red and everything else was painted black. It looked like a dragon out of one of those old frontier movies, reign of fire, accept that it's wings looked like they were a metallic kite that was shaped into a dragons wings.
Vent like boosters protruded from where the wings started, and a red crystal was propped over the two dark pools of black that were the beasts' eyes.
Then they heard the words,"Dragon Claw, battle mode!" and the dragon started to change shape.
****************************
In the cockpit..........
Ranma felt familiar, yet unfamiliar things start to change around him. Then he felt a cold wet feeling over his whole body and looked down.
A silver metallic substance was molding it self over his whole body. That was all he was able to see before his vision was briefly obscured by the substance washing over his face.
Then light entered his vision again, and he looked down.
His armor now was silver and as he looked over his cockpit, now a shiny metallic color, he saw that his marks over his left eye had turned silver as well.
He moved his right arm, and saw the cockpit erupt in blue and felt the machines right arm move as well, and a quartet of screens appearing in front of him, displaying the status of his mech. as well as the outside of the cockpit.
*****************************
The bridge......
After the bright blue light had subsided, the bridge beheld a new behemoth.
The head was vaguely the same of Hibiki's, but it was red and had the to of a dragons head propped up on the top of its head and two curving bone-like tusks moving from the left and right sides of the head towards the middle.
It's body had, with an exception of the arms, the same shape as Epyon, an old machine they had seen on an old cartoon on their planet, accept the letters VDC PT 0X were printed in gold on the sides of each of it's arms and the chest and abdominal area was shaped more life-like than a machines.
It's right arm looked like a red and black version of Hibiki's Vanguard and held a tail-whip that had a small beam of energy protruding from the end of its pincer-like tip. The start of the tail whip jutted over the hand of the mech., obscuring it from view as well as protecting much of the lower arm. Its left arm depicted a mirror of another mech. of the old cartoon, which was a red and black version of a bot's named Nataku.
Two black and red wings, a copy of the dragon mode of the machines' protruded from the back of what would later be called Vanguard Dragon Claw.
Silence was a familiar of the bridges' shocked crew.
*************************
Battle Field...............
"What's that?"Asked Dita, turning to Hibiki.
Hibiki stared at the newly revealed dragon Vanguard.
"Whatever it is........"He started,"I hope it's on our side."
Dita turned to look out at the battlefield and gasped.
"Meia, watch out!"
***************************
Inside Meia's cockpit....
Meia looked behind her at the sound.
It was a good thing too, because there was a Dragon Beetle on her tail.
She fed full power to her thrusters and started to maneuver, trying to get the enemy off her tail.
"I can't lose him, requesting assistance!" She shouted into her communicator.
******************************
Bridge...........
Everyone watched in silence as Meia tried vainly to get the offending fighter off her tail. It's plasma blasts were getting closer.
Then a red line (from their viewpoint) shot through the DB and retracted, right before the DB exploded.
***************************
Meia's cockpit.......
Meia looked around her veiwport, searching for her savior.
A voice flowed through her speakers;"Need some help there, D-1?"
"Who?"She asked, looking at the speaker.
A face appeared on her screen, one she recognized. It was the guy they had found in the Van-Box, what's his name, Ranma.
"How did you-"She was interrupted by Ranma's voice.
"No time to talk, three more DB's are separating from the group, they're coming our way, get prepped for combat."
Meias face hardened as she said,"Roger."
Vanguard Dragon Claw flew by her side as they headed towards the enemy DBs. Then she split off from their formation and sped towards Jura, who was trying to get a dragon beetle of her back.
****************************
Inside VDC's cockpit.......
Ranma sped towards the DBs.
He swiped at one with his claw but it dodged, he got ten hits in return, sending great trauma through the link he and his mech. shared, making him cough up a little blood.
"Little buggers, you adapt fast don't cha'. I guess it's time we change tactics then."
He blasted backwards and down and as the DB came past, stuck his claw up into the unprotected underbelly of the large mechanical reptile, digging through the armor and igniting it power-reactor, obscuring him and his Van from view.
He felt his skin burn and growled out a few words.
"You........think...that this'll........stop me?.....You're wrong!"He screamed, a light red outlining his silver nerve suit.
"Dead wrong!"He screamed, flapping silver wings that formed on his back.
Fire disappeared and a smoking Van was left, it's eyes and body looking like they were burning red, giving the Van a demonic appearance.
******************
Elsewhere in the battlefield Vandread Dita was fight a trio of DBs.
Hibiki screamed as he ripped off both of one DBs wings, engulfing them both in a blossom-like explosion.
The other two DBs seemed to look around for their target in confusion when blue streams of light poured out of the blossoming explosion, destroying one dragon, and severely weakening the other.
"Yeah!"Said Hibiki as he flew Vandread Dita through the explosion and stabbed through the damaged DB.
Dita looked up at Hibiki."Mr.Alien, there's still some more coming!"
Hibiki looked at her arrogantly,"Then let them come!"
He turned towards the two rapidly approaching DBs.
"Who wants some!"
*******************************
Across the field, Ranma was having his problems with the other four remaining DBs...........
Ranma growled as he looked at the DBs, two of which were badly damaged.
"Why won't you die?!"He screamed as he shot forward, scattering the DBs.
He swung around and yelled out his attack holding both of his hands up over his head, palms open.
"Dragon Flare!!"
Vents opened up on the sides of his hands and the tail whip and spewed out little gouts of fire, and two rings of fire started to spin around his palms, rapidly expand, until both fused into one.
The Van and pilot brought their hands down as one and a beam of fire blasted through the four DBs and off into the vacuum of space.
"I'll.....finish.....this......now!" Breathed out Ranma, holding up the hand with the whip and pointing it towards the man ship of the enemy fleet.
His boosters came to life as he rocketed towards the large ship. The ship looked like a half size version of one of the five main ships of the enemy fleet.
**************************
Bridge.........
"What's he doing?"Asked B.C to no one in particular.
"Is he going to ram it?"Whispered Magno, to herself.
They looked on as a corkscrew of crimson corkscrew of energy started to form around the new Van.
*************************
Battlefield........
The harvesters had predicted Ranma's plan and had positioned their forces at the front of the ship, so it wasn't a surprise to them when Ranma stopped before their front line.
What did surprise them was that he started to raise his whip, red energy collecting into it.
**************************
Vanguard Dragon Claws' Cockpit......
Ranma smiled as he looked at the enemy.
"Just where I wanted you........"He chuckled and smiled as he rose his right hand, a hologram of the tail whip forming around it.
He brought it behind him, and, with both hands, brought it down.
"Plasma Energy Whip!"
*************************
Bridge.............
Everyone looked one with awe as the tail whip unleashed its' energy at the enemy, obliterating them all in a blossoming explosion as a shockwave passed by the mech. and the ship, lightly rocking it.
After the explosion, the shadow of the red mech. was still visible, floating through space.
B.C brought up a channel to Gascogne,"Gasco, could you pick up our new crew member?"
"Sure."She said and winked at the bridge as the channel went off.
After a few seconds of silence, they whole bridge erupted into sound and action.
**********************
Out in space in the cockpit of the new Van, a smile could be seen on the face of it's pilot.
***********************
Author's notes: So that was the first chapter to VDC, as you saw, the storyline has veered off and with Ranma on the ship, there'll be a lot different things happening. Sorry that chapter was so small, e-mail on your opinion.
AmericanPie5745@aol.com
Next Time: Revelations
Ranma's Vanguard has been introduced, but what about its mysterious pilot? What's on those two messages and what effects might they have on the crew? All this and more, plus the enemy attacks again.
Xion Fang,
Signing Off.
AmericanPie5745@aol.com
Seross: I have been asked by a few people to continue this story, so I've been working hard on the first and second chapters.
Seross: Well, here's the next chapter...........
Vanguard Dragon Claw
By Xion Fang
Chapter 1: Baby On Board
**************
The pigtailed boy was blinded by light as he woke up.
'What am I doing here?'He asked himself,'And for that matter, who is I?'
He sat pondering this and a name came to mind.
'I am Ranma. Woah, that came out of nowhere, stupid head stop hurting!'
Ranma groaned and looked around. He could see a girl with blue hair that was tied into a ponytail and dressed in a black and white plastic-like suit hugging a boy with a black and yellow bandana around his head, a black shirt and a brown and yellow vest over that plus a pair of brown pants.
For some reason, that girl brought back memories. He groaned louder as the pain of a few million unfamiliar memories forced themselves into his mind.
Many scenes flashed in his head in rapid succession, each with their own bundle of feelings.
*********************
About a minute ago....
Hibiki pushed through the crowd and landed in the side of the awakening girls' body. As she opened her blue eyes and he started to get up, a hologram was projected from her earring. It looked like a little yellow blob.
After she recognized Hibiki, she smiled,"Oh, I have found you, my lord prince!"
He jumped up and glomped him.
"My..."Started Jura, her face contracting into a scowl at the girl who was attached onto Hibiki.
"Lord..."Continued Barnette.
"Prince?!" Finished Dita.
*Present*
A groan interrupted them they turned around to see the black haired boy stand up and hold his head.
While she held onto Hibiki's head, the blue haired girl stopped putting pressure into her hug and transformed her look into one of confusion.
"Who are you?" She asked him.
He flicked his pigtail over his head and adopted a confused expression himself.
"I'm Ranma, sorry bout' this."
With that, he crumpled in a dead faint.
Hibiki looked at the scene.
'Why does my life have to be like this?!'He asked himself.
The blue-haired girl clutched her head and went over to the closest place she could sleep, which was the cryo-tube of the van-box.
She closed her heavy eyelids and fell back into the embrace of sleep as the cargo bay erupted in action.
B.C started to give orders.
"Duro, get these two down to sick bay!"
The longhaired man nodded, starting over to the fallen boy.
B.C turned to Parfait.
"Parfait, first, I need those two info tubes, then I need you to crack that shell of a ship!"
Parfait stood up,"Yes mam!"
Pai Way looked on, writing in her notebook, then spoke.
"Things are going to get very exciting from now on, Pai check!"
************************
A little while later.........
Dita looked around for Mr. Alien, a frown on her face.
Why did that alien hug Mr. Alien? Why didn't he get angry, as he did with her?
She walked into the galley, found Ezra eating there, and sat down at her table.
"Hey Ezra....."She said glumly, propping her head on her hands, starting to brood again.
Why was all this happening? It was starting to make her head hurt! She thought back to the two new additions to the crew.
That blue haired girl, Misty as the doctor had informed everyone later on, she didn't like her. She seemed to be after Mr. Alien, and she was still a person none of the other occupants on the ship knew much about.
Then she turned her thoughts on the black haired boy, Ranma.
Misty had wanted to know who he was, so it seemed as if he didn't come from the same place as her. In addition, the commander had said he had used a Taraaku distress signal, did that mean he was from Taraaku too? If he did, then what happened to him?
Her thoughts were halted by a gasp of pain from Ezra.
She looked at the pregnant woman and saw her wince with pain.
Ezra spoke up,"My baby.... It's time....." She managed to get out.
*****************************
Medical bay........
Duro frowned as he looked at Ranma, who was still asleep in the medical corridors.
Why did he seem so familiar? If he was from Taraaku, he must have been a third-class citizen, but how did he get access to a Van-Box and how did he get all the way out here?
He studied him.
Ranma was dressed in a kind of armor. The armor covered a red silk shirt and black training pants, which were his inner wearings.
The armor started in a chest and back pad and had two protrusions that stuck up near his neck, like a large collar. On the sides of the collar were the two letters engraved in gold: DC. Two shoulder pads were carved on his shoulders so that it didn't limit Ranma's movement, and also had the golden letters engraved into them.
It also had arm bracers and gloves that started about three-fourths towards his hand from his elbow. The gloves he wore only went to his knuckles, and had a few small pads hooked onto the back of each finger.
The chest plate went down until the bottom of Ranma's abdominal muscles, molded to look like the muscles it covered. It had a silver belt that had a few things that looked like hooks protruding form it. Knee bracers went all the way down to the black and gray almost slipper like padded boots, which matched the rest of the black and gray armor.
As Duro looked at Ranma more closely, he discovered a tattoo on his left eye. It was green and started in a slim triangle on the center of his cheek until his eyelid. It ended on the top of the in two three-inch lines that stacked up on top of the eyebrow. He had seen before that his eyes were a blue gray, very uncommon on Taraaku.
As he brooded on this, he noticed something on the back of the boy's neck.
As he looked closer, he saw engraved in black, the words:
DRAGON ONE P.T.
He thought about it for a while more, then he decided to stop, he had gotten a headache.
Nevertheless, he had a few ideas of who Ranma might be.
He heard a beeping noise, which alerted him to a problem.
**************************
Halls, earlier........
Dita helped Ezra towards the elevator.
As she struggled holding her up, she contacted Duro, to tell him about the baby. He asks a few questions and she tells him the answers.
After she got into the elevator, the captain started to talk to her, probably because of her experience.
"Dita, how long in between contractions?"She asked the bubbly redheaded girl.
"Around two minutes!"She said, "But she's in pain!"
"That's normal,"Said Magno, "Now do just what I say, I'll walk you through the process."
"Ok."Replied Dita.
**************************
The bridge..........
"Big news!"Said one of the crew"Ezra's baby is being born!"
Pyro stood up from B.C's grasp."I've got to see Pyro 2!"
"No!"Said B.C"Messages first!"
Before he could escape, B.C put Pyro into the message interface and then inserted the message that had been with Ranma.
Pyro's screen seemed to emit a red light that washed over her, than dispersed.
"Sorry commander, this is a message for Ranma only."Said Pyro.
B.C frowned,"So I can't access it?"
"No, commander,"Said Pyro,"The message has a DNA lock on it, only Ranma's DNA can unlock it."
B.C frowned again. That meant either that what was in it was important, or it was classified. She decided that she'll get to that message later and took it out, then inserted Misty's message in.
She saw the screen show a password encrypted display, then went black, as well as almost everything else on the ship.
*****************************
Elevator..........
Dita felt the elevator lurch, then stop.
"What's happening?!"She asked, panic in her voice.
"Dita, be calm!"Comforted Magno"The power's out, you'll have to deliver the baby right there."
"What?!"She exclaimed.
"Nothing will go wrong, accepted for if the enemy-"
The elevator shook violently, throwing Ezra into Dita.
"Attacks."Finished Magno.
Dita then heard her ordering all defenses up.
**************************
Bridge............
B.C ordered a status report.
"Mam!"Said a bridge member,"It's an attack force! Very large, and the worst thing is that we can't defend the ship with shields!"
B.C nodded, this didn't seem to be good odds for them, but there were other times it wasn't good odds, and they had come out on top, let's see if we can do it again.
"Crew,"She said on the comm. to everyone,"Battle stations!"
**************************
Hibiki's room (The Brig)......
Hibiki shot up in his bed, as did Bart as they heard the order for the crew to get to battle stations.
"All right!"Exclaimed Hibiki,"Time to crush some cubes!"
He ran out of the room and Bart ran to the bridge, though he wouldn't be needed there.
As Hibiki ran down the hall, he smirked to himself.
'Time to show them what we can do, time to prove my existence, again.'
He increased his speed towards the launch bay.
**************************
Launch Bay......
Hibiki arrived at the bay to find a mess of chaos, everyone working to get the Dreads out to battle.
"Hey, stage hand,"He turned to see Gascogne talking to him, while loading weapons into a dread,"Let's get this show on the road!"
Hibiki smirked and ran over to help,"Can't do anything without us men, can ya?"He said jokingly.
"No time for that now, we need ta get the dreads out there, we have no sheilds!"Said Gascogne, pushing a hook into place.
"Right!"Said Hibiki, placing another hook into place,"Let's do this!"
As he worked Hibiki heard that Dita had been trapped in an elevator and doubled his efforts, not knowing exactly why.
However, what he knew was the faster they defeated the enemy, the faster he could go help Dita.
He loaded up a dread, then called out,"Ready!"
**************************
Medical Bay...........
Ranma woke up, looking around.
Why was everything dark?
The light was then lit with what he surmised as the emergency power system and saw a man with long dark hair which covered part of his face who was wearing standing next to an old woman in a dark purple coat who was talking into a microphone, and a girl who looked to be around twelve who was in a nurses outfit and had two long pony tails and dark purple hair.
He heard a female voice coming from above where they were talking into.
"The elevator's stuck, and Ezra's in a lot of pain!"
The old woman nodded,"It seems she's going into labor then."
He walked past them and they didn't seem to notice.
*************************
*In the elevator*
Dita looked at Ezra and smiled comfortingly, wishing that Mr. Alien was here, but he was outside in battle, and she needed to be strong.
"Ezra, it'll be okay! Just do as the doctor says!"She said to her, offering a smile.
Ezra smiled painfully,"I will Dita."
Dita turned back to the com. "What next?"
Instead of the doctor, the captain answered."Dita, when the baby's head shows, you must help it out, do it carefully!"
Dita nodded and gasped as she saw the head.
"It's here!" She screeched.
"Ok,"said the captain,"Now pull gently."
Dita took the baby's head and pulled and Ezra pushed, soon........
"WAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The baby cried as Dita gave it to Ezra.
A new life was born.
****************************
Medical Bay.
Duro looked around and noticed that Ranma was gone.
Where was he!? He better not let this get out to the captain, or he'd be in big trouble!
He saw the captain leave and started to look for his patient.
As he looked for one, the other had awoken due to the cry of the baby.
Misty heard a crying noise as she woke up.
She whispered a few words; her eyes only open a little.
"That noise......"
**************************
Bridge......
B.C looked at Pyro as she heard a beeping noise and his screen displayed:
Password accepted
B.C looked surprised.
A baby's cry was the password?
****************************
A few minutes later, bridge.
"So a baby's cry was the password, fascinating......"Said the captain.
B.C looked up at the captain and nodded,"Yes, it seems that way."
The ship shook. Hibiki's face followed by Jura's appeared on the display.
"We need help, these guys are tough!" He told her.
A few other people checked in and agreed.
"How's Dita doing?"Magno asked B.C.
"She's ready now, captain. She was left untouched by the elevator incident due to Pyro's intervention."Replied B.C.
The captain turned to Hibiki,"Then help's on the way!"
After the channel was turned off, she turned back to B.C.
"Any progress on the search for our missing guest?"She asked
"None."Said B.C.
*****************************
Near Engineering........
Ranma lifted his head as he saw the lights go on.
He looked out a window and saw the battle that was going on.
He saw fighters and one robot that looked like a crab facing off against others.
Their opponents were what he was really interested in. The most common were some kind of red ships that looked like a circle with four arms sticking out from each of its sides.
The next ones looked like a dozen mechanized dragons in shape, but instead of a regular mouth, there was an addition of two black pincers that jutted out from either side of the mouth. These monsters seemed to spark a red fury from within Ranma, though he didn't know why.
That was something that had been his case a lot lately and something he didn't like happening. His vision lingered on the view port for a bit long then he promptly went back to searching, and found the source and origin of the pull he had felt before and opened the door labeled: Engineering
****************************
Place Unknown, Time Unknown.
A blue glow encompassed Ranma's vision.
"Wha?!" He exclaimed.
His exclamation seemed to echo all around him.
"What is this?"He asked.
A girl with blue eyes and blue hair that was cut short who was wearing a blue and white outfit appeared in front of him.
"Why are you here? Who are you?"
"I don't know!!" He screamed, twisting around.
"What do you want?"
"I want........"He stopped thinking about it;"I want....to exist."
"What do you exist for?"
Ranma now felt like he was a spectator in his body, because the next words weren't his.
"To fight."His face hardened.
"Then fight."The girl said, a blue glow engulfing him.
*****************
Cargo Bay, Present.
A blue glow surrounded the van box and in a flash, a figure was seen next to it.
Ranma looked at the box, the glow now gone, and no proof that it had ever been there.
Why had he said those things? He didn't know. Did he really exist to fight?
Well, there was only one way to find that out and was to fight those monsters out there. However, he needed a weapon, for to fight, you must have a tool, to fight with, right?
He walked up to the box and reach out to it as though it was a new-born baby, lightly brushing his fingertips across the surface of the Van-Box, leaving a glow where they had touched.
He stepped back as the box started to stir, the cryo ship unhooking from the top of the Van-Box which then after started to glow a soft bluish hue, the glow flashing across odd lines that ran over the hole cube from bottom to top, making a sort of clanking sound, as an unlocking safe.
The sides of the box made a hissing sound and ejected steam, then the sides of the cube started to fall to the floor, slowly revealing what was within.
Then, with a metallic clang, what was inside was revealed to Ranma.
He looked at what was inside, and then smiled, "Let's go."He said softly, then started to walk towards the newly revealed weapon, picking things up that had been stored on the sides of the Van-box, led by a past memory.
*********************
The battlefield, a few minutes ago.
"RAAAAAAA!!!!!"Screamed Hibiki as he forced one of his wrist swords into the head of another Dragon Beetle as they had been designated.
Dita sat on his lap hoping for the best.
They had only destroyed two of the DB's so far, they had liven up to both parts of their namesake. It had taken constant fire focused on one place and a lot of dodging lava-like plasma beams to actually destroyed one, and a repeat of the process to destroy the second one.
There was about ten left.
She was getting worried that the Nirvana wasn't going to make it out of this battle in one piece, if not at all.
She was interrupted by a conversation of the bridge crew.
"Mam!"She heard someone say,"Someone's requesting leave via the cargo bay!"
That surprised Dita, who could want that? There wasn't anyone that she knew that had a dread to be launched, for sure not a Van-Type, nobody's gonna pilot one of those other than Mr.Alien willingly.
Maybe this was their miracle, she wasn't sure.
***************************************
Bridge.....
"What?!"Exclaimed B.C, looking at the blonde who had addressed her.
"Yes mam, that's what I said, we have video comunication."She said pressing a few buttons on her console.
At that, a video window appeared in front of everyone, showing a very familiar face and gray-blue eyes.
"Ranma?!"Aksed B.C, actually, she pretty much shouted it.
The face, accept for the black and gray bandana he wore around his head, keeping his hair out of his face, was the same as when they had first saw him come out of the cryo pod.
The face on the video window smirked at her,"Yeah, I'll be helping your fighters out there commander."
"No you won't!"Said B.C to the window,"Your still weak from your stasis in the cryo-pod."
The face glared at her,"Yes I will."
"No, you won't."Said B.C.
"Will!"
"Won't"
"Will!"
"Won't!"
"He will B.C!"Another voice declared.
B.C turned to Magno, a shocked expression on her face,"Captain?"
The Captain smirked under her hood as she addressed the person in command of the ship, second only to her.
"B.C, first of all, that won't matter if this ship was destroyed. Second of all, we need all the help we can get."She turned to the blonde,"Open the cargo bay doors, let's see what our new addition to the crew can do."
"Yes mam." Said the blonde, engaging the cargo bay doors.
What flew out of the bay shocked them all.
Its armor was painted red and everything else was painted black. It looked like a dragon out of one of those old frontier movies, reign of fire, accept that it's wings looked like they were a metallic kite that was shaped into a dragons wings.
Vent like boosters protruded from where the wings started, and a red crystal was propped over the two dark pools of black that were the beasts' eyes.
Then they heard the words,"Dragon Claw, battle mode!" and the dragon started to change shape.
****************************
In the cockpit..........
Ranma felt familiar, yet unfamiliar things start to change around him. Then he felt a cold wet feeling over his whole body and looked down.
A silver metallic substance was molding it self over his whole body. That was all he was able to see before his vision was briefly obscured by the substance washing over his face.
Then light entered his vision again, and he looked down.
His armor now was silver and as he looked over his cockpit, now a shiny metallic color, he saw that his marks over his left eye had turned silver as well.
He moved his right arm, and saw the cockpit erupt in blue and felt the machines right arm move as well, and a quartet of screens appearing in front of him, displaying the status of his mech. as well as the outside of the cockpit.
*****************************
The bridge......
After the bright blue light had subsided, the bridge beheld a new behemoth.
The head was vaguely the same of Hibiki's, but it was red and had the to of a dragons head propped up on the top of its head and two curving bone-like tusks moving from the left and right sides of the head towards the middle.
It's body had, with an exception of the arms, the same shape as Epyon, an old machine they had seen on an old cartoon on their planet, accept the letters VDC PT 0X were printed in gold on the sides of each of it's arms and the chest and abdominal area was shaped more life-like than a machines.
It's right arm looked like a red and black version of Hibiki's Vanguard and held a tail-whip that had a small beam of energy protruding from the end of its pincer-like tip. The start of the tail whip jutted over the hand of the mech., obscuring it from view as well as protecting much of the lower arm. Its left arm depicted a mirror of another mech. of the old cartoon, which was a red and black version of a bot's named Nataku.
Two black and red wings, a copy of the dragon mode of the machines' protruded from the back of what would later be called Vanguard Dragon Claw.
Silence was a familiar of the bridges' shocked crew.
*************************
Battle Field...............
"What's that?"Asked Dita, turning to Hibiki.
Hibiki stared at the newly revealed dragon Vanguard.
"Whatever it is........"He started,"I hope it's on our side."
Dita turned to look out at the battlefield and gasped.
"Meia, watch out!"
***************************
Inside Meia's cockpit....
Meia looked behind her at the sound.
It was a good thing too, because there was a Dragon Beetle on her tail.
She fed full power to her thrusters and started to maneuver, trying to get the enemy off her tail.
"I can't lose him, requesting assistance!" She shouted into her communicator.
******************************
Bridge...........
Everyone watched in silence as Meia tried vainly to get the offending fighter off her tail. It's plasma blasts were getting closer.
Then a red line (from their viewpoint) shot through the DB and retracted, right before the DB exploded.
***************************
Meia's cockpit.......
Meia looked around her veiwport, searching for her savior.
A voice flowed through her speakers;"Need some help there, D-1?"
"Who?"She asked, looking at the speaker.
A face appeared on her screen, one she recognized. It was the guy they had found in the Van-Box, what's his name, Ranma.
"How did you-"She was interrupted by Ranma's voice.
"No time to talk, three more DB's are separating from the group, they're coming our way, get prepped for combat."
Meias face hardened as she said,"Roger."
Vanguard Dragon Claw flew by her side as they headed towards the enemy DBs. Then she split off from their formation and sped towards Jura, who was trying to get a dragon beetle of her back.
****************************
Inside VDC's cockpit.......
Ranma sped towards the DBs.
He swiped at one with his claw but it dodged, he got ten hits in return, sending great trauma through the link he and his mech. shared, making him cough up a little blood.
"Little buggers, you adapt fast don't cha'. I guess it's time we change tactics then."
He blasted backwards and down and as the DB came past, stuck his claw up into the unprotected underbelly of the large mechanical reptile, digging through the armor and igniting it power-reactor, obscuring him and his Van from view.
He felt his skin burn and growled out a few words.
"You........think...that this'll........stop me?.....You're wrong!"He screamed, a light red outlining his silver nerve suit.
"Dead wrong!"He screamed, flapping silver wings that formed on his back.
Fire disappeared and a smoking Van was left, it's eyes and body looking like they were burning red, giving the Van a demonic appearance.
******************
Elsewhere in the battlefield Vandread Dita was fight a trio of DBs.
Hibiki screamed as he ripped off both of one DBs wings, engulfing them both in a blossom-like explosion.
The other two DBs seemed to look around for their target in confusion when blue streams of light poured out of the blossoming explosion, destroying one dragon, and severely weakening the other.
"Yeah!"Said Hibiki as he flew Vandread Dita through the explosion and stabbed through the damaged DB.
Dita looked up at Hibiki."Mr.Alien, there's still some more coming!"
Hibiki looked at her arrogantly,"Then let them come!"
He turned towards the two rapidly approaching DBs.
"Who wants some!"
*******************************
Across the field, Ranma was having his problems with the other four remaining DBs...........
Ranma growled as he looked at the DBs, two of which were badly damaged.
"Why won't you die?!"He screamed as he shot forward, scattering the DBs.
He swung around and yelled out his attack holding both of his hands up over his head, palms open.
"Dragon Flare!!"
Vents opened up on the sides of his hands and the tail whip and spewed out little gouts of fire, and two rings of fire started to spin around his palms, rapidly expand, until both fused into one.
The Van and pilot brought their hands down as one and a beam of fire blasted through the four DBs and off into the vacuum of space.
"I'll.....finish.....this......now!" Breathed out Ranma, holding up the hand with the whip and pointing it towards the man ship of the enemy fleet.
His boosters came to life as he rocketed towards the large ship. The ship looked like a half size version of one of the five main ships of the enemy fleet.
**************************
Bridge.........
"What's he doing?"Asked B.C to no one in particular.
"Is he going to ram it?"Whispered Magno, to herself.
They looked on as a corkscrew of crimson corkscrew of energy started to form around the new Van.
*************************
Battlefield........
The harvesters had predicted Ranma's plan and had positioned their forces at the front of the ship, so it wasn't a surprise to them when Ranma stopped before their front line.
What did surprise them was that he started to raise his whip, red energy collecting into it.
**************************
Vanguard Dragon Claws' Cockpit......
Ranma smiled as he looked at the enemy.
"Just where I wanted you........"He chuckled and smiled as he rose his right hand, a hologram of the tail whip forming around it.
He brought it behind him, and, with both hands, brought it down.
"Plasma Energy Whip!"
*************************
Bridge.............
Everyone looked one with awe as the tail whip unleashed its' energy at the enemy, obliterating them all in a blossoming explosion as a shockwave passed by the mech. and the ship, lightly rocking it.
After the explosion, the shadow of the red mech. was still visible, floating through space.
B.C brought up a channel to Gascogne,"Gasco, could you pick up our new crew member?"
"Sure."She said and winked at the bridge as the channel went off.
After a few seconds of silence, they whole bridge erupted into sound and action.
**********************
Out in space in the cockpit of the new Van, a smile could be seen on the face of it's pilot.
***********************
Author's notes: So that was the first chapter to VDC, as you saw, the storyline has veered off and with Ranma on the ship, there'll be a lot different things happening. Sorry that chapter was so small, e-mail on your opinion.
AmericanPie5745@aol.com
Next Time: Revelations
Ranma's Vanguard has been introduced, but what about its mysterious pilot? What's on those two messages and what effects might they have on the crew? All this and more, plus the enemy attacks again.
Xion Fang,
Signing Off.