Disclaimer: I don't own Tenchi Muyo or any Marvel-related material in this fic. And for your information the Marvel timeline in this story is set after the Dark Phoenix saga in Uncanny X-Men.
Chris Oddland presents: Tenchi Muyo Hellfire and Earth
Wrath of the Crimson Phantom.
Crimson Phantom suppressed a sneer of malice as eyes once again fell on Ryoko through his scope. "After all these years you're still as beautiful as ever." He spat out in disgust.
He had already readied his sniper rifle a long time ago and was now training it on the upper torso of Ryoko who was walking down the streets holding plastic bags filled with groceries for Sasami whom she earlier had accompanied to town. He knew that it was more lethal to aim for more vital spots like the head but the chances were also slimmer when it came to hitting.
No one could see the smile behind his blood-red veil as he pulled the trigger.
"It's time to say 'hello'," was all he said.
The streets were filled with panic as the crowd became audience to the sound of a rifle being fired.
Ryoko screamed as a high-powered bullet made from an alien metal from another planet pierced her left shoulder and dropped the bags, spilling various vegetables and spices on the street.
"Ryoko!" Sasami managed to cry out before Ryoko instinctively pushed her down to the ground and began to shield her with her own body as bullets began to rain close to them. The bullets burrowed themselves into the concrete as they struck the ground.
Suddenly the shootings stopped. Ryoko raised herself from the ground while clutching her shoulder with her right hand, trying to stop the flow of blood. She gritted her teeth as she mentally tried to shield out the pain. It was something she had learned from Kagato in the past after sustaining wounds that would have killed any ordinary person on the spot. Kagato had made her - , no forced her into trying to block out the immense pain in her chest and other parts of the body for several hours before he finally rejuvenated her body using the medical equipment on his ship to heal her severe wounds. She was glad he was dead now.
She realized that someone had missed her on purpose with the following shots. Her lips turned into a mocking smile as she teleported herself high up in the air.
Scanning the rooftops after her attacker, she failed to see the kick striking her from behind. Ryoko gritted her teeth as she was struck with the force of a jackhammer and slammed through a window and crashed into a bathtub.
(How did that happen?" Ryoko mentally exclaimed to herself, feeling a tinge of shame. She prided herself of being one of the best warriors in the galaxy, and someone had just managed to hit her from behind as if she was just a rank amateur. After recovering from the impact she soared like a high-speed rocket out of the ruined window.
(Where is he?)
Her question was answered with a blow to her face, striking her nose dead on. A cracking noise was heard as her nose became broken. She didn't even have time to howl out in pain as another blow caught her in the stomach, making her wheeze after breath and feeling pain anew.
"Hello gorgeous." A figure hovering in front of her said cheerfully. His tone then turned darker as she nonchalantly said: "Goodbye!"
People could only stare in shock as a cyan-haired woman crashed through an apartment building and crashed through the other side before halting in the air and flying towards the direction she came from.
Ryoko screamed a demon-like warcry as her energy sword manifested in her hands, intending to split her enemy's head like a ripe melon.
As fast as she was her adversary matched her as he parried her blow with his own energy sword. Thus began a flurry of blows as both tried to slash through each others defences using ripostes and feints to find openings. They seemed evenly matched as neither managed to obtain a foothold over the other.
Minutes later they were both hovering a few metres from one another panting of exhausting their energies on their duel.
"Your getting sloppy, Ryoko, even a half-dead Yosho could take you out in ten minutes," was the insult coming from the red-clad and veiled person attacking her. From the tone of his she could identify him as a male, and the insult was filled with enough emotion to enrage her.
Ryoko screamed as her sword began to take on a darker colour than the normal orange hue it usually had - and sped towards him in an attempt to decapitate him with a single powerful swipe.
He answered by turning her back to her and flying away with inhuman speed.
"Oh, no you don't!" Ryoko cried out as she gave chase to her prey.
Crimson Phantom suppressed a grin beneath his veil as Ryoko took the bait. (This is too easy.)
He dodged an energy blast hurled from him by Ryoko. The blast struck a building with a small, violent explosion.
He could sense a light being extinguished for all eternity as a pile of rubble crushed a person to death. He wondered how many people had met the same fate when Ryoko ordered Ryo-Ohki to open fire on various worlds, exterminating all traces of life. His accomplice was doing almost a too good job with her.
Ryoko hurled barrages of energy blasts at him which he dodged with ease. Several people didn't even have time to scream as they were incinerated by a stray blast. Some died when the blast hit building and piles of debris collapsed on top of them, crushing them like insects. Explosions also followed - maiming and killing people through the explosion itself or shrapnel.
(Carelessness was always your trademark, Ryoko). He thought grimly as he turned on his internal com-link.
"She's taken the bait, sir" A man said, his headset transferring his words to Crimson Phantom via the advanced com-system.
He was but one of the many technician observing the fight through several monitors and helping co-ordinate the battle. The room was filled with the best technology Earth could offer, and was purchased by their employer Terrence Matthews. Several instruments were already scanning the battle and various screens began to display Ryoko while revealing information and measuring her powers, pulse-rate and heartbeats.
"Excellent, how are the death-rates?" Crimson Phantom asked worried.
"Rising slowly and steadily, sir?" the technician remarked with the same calculating manner of an empiricist.
"I need the location of the closest area where civilian casualties will be minimal." Crimson Phantom said while dodging another blast.
Several machines began scanning the city after seemingly empty areas.
"Keep her distracted, and we'll come up with available locations." The head technician said as he digested various pieces of information given to him by the machines.
From a seemingly normal street café a man sat outside, enjoying a nice cup of tea as he telepathically observed the carnage created by the thread he so carelessly pulled.
He wore casual street clothes and dark sunglasses; his black leather jacket lying on another chair beside. He picked up the teacup that lay on the small table outside and drank a little tea calmly as if nothing was happening.
Around him people were panicking.
Terrence Matthews suppressed a sneer as he closed his mind to the chaotic thoughts flung back and forward. Despite that he could feel the empathic traces of fear coming from the people around him.
Utilizing his powers, he calmed the people down, making their retreat less chaotic and more disciplined and calmer. Seeing people trampling each other to death in panic would spoil the nice satisfaction of his meal he thought as he bit into the sandwich.
He had done as Crimson Phantom told him.
(The rest is up to him now.) He thought calmly as he savoured the taste of his meal.
"I think it's time I take the offensive, space pirate!" Crimson Phantom cried out as he struck out with his fist dodging the sweep of Ryoko's energy blade and striking her hard in the solar plexus. He missed as the cyan-haired woman suddenly disappeared.
He swore loudly in an alien language, ignited his own energy sword. The sword was of a simple metallic construction, imitating more the Shi'ar energy blades than the ones praised by the arrogant Juraians. The colour of this blade was blue in contrast to the red colour which covered him. He did a sharp turn and blocked a blow from Ryoko's blade, gritting his teeth under the veil as the blades struck with incredible force.
(That blow would have killed me,) he thought grimly as they fought on, (Despite being locked up for seven centuries she still has over one millennia of experience in almost any kind of combat. ) He quickly reacted by racing away from Ryoko without turning back to her, holding his sword in both hands in a simple defensive stance.
Ryoko grinned a devilish grin that many men and women had seen before they met their fate at her hands. (This is too easy!)
She recognized the intent of the stance and the strategy behind it. And she had also managed to devise several techniques to neutralize it completely. She charged at him, soaring through the air, intending to fake a brutal onslaught of attacks, but instead using this as a ruse and then thrust her trusty blade between her adversary's ribs.
Her adversary responded by holding up his open hand at her - and Ryoko screamed as pain engulfed her, making her sword dissipate, forcing her clutch her head in pain as she felt blood running from her ears. Her ears overloaded with sound.
Crimson Phantom grinned as his sonic projector bombarded Ryoko with a vicious sonic assault that rendered her almost incapable of concentrating properly. He knew that it would keep her too busy from teleporting around, but she still retained her ability to fly despite the inhuman pain she went through. He increased the sound intensity, seeing that he had neutralized Ryoko.
Ryoko screamed began to sound more like the agonized howl of a dying animal as she lost control of her flying. Rapidly she descended from the air hitting a parked car. Making her cry out sharply as she impacted against the metallic surface of the car's roof.
"Oh, my god!" Sasami cried out as Ryoko chased after her unknown assailant. "What's happening?" The outburst was more a question to herself than to any bystander.
She didn't even get time to react as a black-gloved hand clamped around her mouth and she felt a sudden pain in the neck before all turned black.
Her assailant smiled as he withdrew the syringe needle from Sasami's neck, the entire content of the syringe emptied.
"Sweet dreams kiddo," he said as the sound of an ambulance was heard. He smiled at the simple cover-up. The ambulance personnel were in reality fellow mercenaries like him dressed up as humble hospital workers. The panic around him made the crowd ignorant of his little stunt.
Sasami was lifted up by two men and placed in a stretcher in the back of the ambulance.
"Sleeping like a baby," one of the men dressed as member of the ambulance team commented smilingly.
"Maybe it's because of the drug I pumped into her. That stuff could even put a rampaging elephant to sleep in a few seconds." The black-gloved man answered as he entered the back of the ambulance and closing the door behind him. The driver started the vehicle and seconds later it rushed past a couple of real ambulances racing to various areas to take care of the wounded and injured.
"We've found a suitable location a couple of kilometres away from where you are," the technician reported him through the comlink. "It's a park that shows few signs of activity at the moment."
"Thank you." Crimson Phantom responded as his internal computers received information setting up several waypoints to his new destination. He hoped stopped tagging Ryoko with his sonic blaster the moment she fell like a brick and had simply observed how she impacted against a car without any passengers inside of it.
He knew he wasn't Ryoko's equal when it came to both power and skill combined, but despite all her advantages he still had some tricks up his sleeve. And what he managed to just now proved that the space pirate who terrorized the galaxy was not invincible. You better be good children, or Ryoko will come and get you. That had been something parents for centuries had told their young ones to make them behave - and it worked almost every time.
He ignored Ryoko as he began to fly in the direction of the park, while his computers still recorded that Ryoko's life-signs were still strong. His computers estimated that it would take approximately two minutes for her to recover.
He increased his speed, the park coming rapidly into view. He had only a few seconds before she came after him.
The car suddenly exploded and a cyan-haired woman hovered over the remains. An aura of immense energy crackling turbulently and brutally like an out-of-control storm.
She gave out a savage sound which made several people around the block paralyzed of fear at this inhuman sound which promised painful death. Then the figure began to fly like a streaking comet through the sky after her prey.
She was going to kill him.
She was going to make him suffer.
She was going to make him beg for death.
A part of Ryoko was brutally shocked over such savagery flaring up in her again. Turbulent emotions she had thought she finally had buried with the death of Kagato at Tenchi's hands. The euphoria she had felt when she murdered without remorse. The thrill of ending a life without any sign of mercy. The screams she heard through her speakers as she ordered Ryo-Ohki to open fire on the planets and colonies and her beautiful and cruel mocking laughter as she beheld the deaths of men, women and children. A part of her shuddered at thought of those memories re-surfacing again.
Her thoughts were interrupted as gunshots were fired in short succession from an area nearby. Ryoko followed the sounds and found herself standing in the middle of an empty park filled with numerous trees.
"Fight me like a man, you coward!" she cried out.
"Against you? Not likely!" A voice behind her said and delivered a chopping knife-hand blow to her neck. Ryoko was sent to the ground, pain coursing through her nervous system.
"You know: normally a blow like that would break a man's neck easily." A kick struck her in the face, making her spit blood.
"Did you think that Jurai dissolving your warrant after killing Kagato made people forget what you did? Did you think it redeemed you?"
Several kicks connected to her chest and ribs until she finally caught his foot, using his momentum as she twisted it to trip him to the ground beside her.
"How dare you judge me?" Ryoko roared out rage as she instantly manifested her blade and pounced on him, trying to pin him to the ground.
Then she felt pain as a gun fired - striking her in the chest with tremendous force. She sprawled backwards. Four more shots followed, each hitting an area of her upper body.
"Normally bullets would just bounce off you like water, Ryoko, but this baby's been made especially to kill the likes of you."
"Who are you?" she managed to stutter as she managed to stand up, blocking out the immense pain coursing through her chest.
"A ghost from the past, space pirate," he answered, training his gun at her while preparing himself for a surprise attack, "The one who will finally make you pay for the numerous lives you took. The planets you destroyed and the suffering you have inflicted upon others."
Another bullet was fired. This time it pierced through her leg.
"I am Crimson Phantom - Your angel of death!" he said coldly.
As he said that - Ryoko unleashed a high-power energy blast that struck him with the force of an artillery barrage. And the park was set ablaze as trees caught fire.
"If you think I'm going to let a second-rate clown like you kill me, you're sadly mistaken buster!"
Out from nowhere a flash of blue crashed down - and Ryoko screamed as her right arm was severed from her shoulder.
"You're the fool here!" he hissed. "You always judge your enemies by their power, not their skill. What I lack in raw power I make up for in combat skills."
Crimson Phantom looked like he had been through hell and back. His cracked blood red armour and torn red veil were partially burned by her attack. Sparks erupted from various parts of his body. Ryoko could also see that where normally flesh should be, there instead was metal.
"If you think chopping my arm off will make it easy - then you're even dumber than I thought!" Ryoko responded hotly and proudly.
"If you're referring to the battle where Tenchi cut off your hand, then I know what you're talking about." Crimson Phantom said.
Ryoko was taken aback by that answer. No-one outside of the Masaki home had never found out what took place that night on the grounds of Tenchi's school.
"You're worse off than me, pal." She then said. "So why don't you be a nice boy - and die!"
(She's right. Even without all her power gems that blast should have incinerated me if I hadn't partially dodged it… and my armour took the brunt of the blast.) The thought raced through his mind while he tried to focus and remain calm despite knowing that even without her arm, Ryoko was even better off than him.
"Maybe you are right. Do you intend to find out?" he arrogantly replied back at her. "Or do you rely on that pathetic child Tenchi to save your life all the time?" he added, grinding more salt on her injured pride.
Ryoko let out a bloodcurdling roar, flying at him full speed, an orange blade of pure energy raised.
Crimson Phantom answered by activating his sonic blaster - bombarding her with intensified sound-waves meant to kill.
(Checkmate, bitch!)
The space pirate curled to the ground screaming in pain.
As Crimson Phantom increased the output - the device suddenly short-circuited, sparks erupting around a red-covered, metallic arm. He swore loudly as Ryoko continued to lie there.
He was interrupted as a voice was heard through the static com-link.
"We-Wee… go-gooot… hh-hee-er! Retu-uurn t-too ba-baase…" Crimson Phantom could nearly understand what the technician said through the damaged instrument.
"Affirmative," he responded.
"It looks like this match is a draw, Ryoko." He answered in a slightly content tone, not knowing if she could hear him due to her temporarily scrambled hearing. He took off from the ground, flying slower than usual, but still fast enough to maintain up to almost Mach 1 speed without effort.
In the pocket dimension anchored to the vicinity of the Masaki residence - Washu Hakubi suddenly screamed as her senses were assaulted with inhuman pain. Feeling that her eardrums were about to burst.
Minutes alter she found herself on the "floor" of her lab, feeling blood pour out of both her ears. Managing to stand up, feeling her body scream in protest as she through her own willpower raised herself, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. Wiping the blood away, she quickly assessed the situation.
Something had happened to her daughter.
Through their psychic link she had experienced the pain of her daughter as she just re-connected the link she had temporarily disabled for scientific purposes.
True she had never been really close to her daughter as she had been to her first child. Even sometimes misusing her for her own cold, calculating experiments without a second thought. But despite that she still retained some of her maternal instincts, feeling a strange bond to her second child. Understanding her in a way she could never understand herself.
Activating her holographic computer which was linked to her vast and colossal computer network, she quickly opened a dimensional rift through time and space itself; teleporting her daughter immediately to the laboratory.
Washu gasped in horror as she saw her daughter. The mutilations deliberately and knowingly inflicted on her with cold precision.
"Just hold on Ryoko," she said as she punched in several commands to her computer….
Moments later Ryoko Hakubi was enclosed in a giant glass cylinder, several monitors monitoring her brainwaves and her physical body functions. A strange alien liquid engulfing Ryoko sped up her natural healing process. Washu could even see damaged tissue heal before her eyes as she operated several mechanical surgery instruments from her computer.
Using her vast medical skills when it came to near-perfect surgery, Washu managed to remove several bullets that were imbedded through Ryoko's chest.
She hissed in disgust as she read the medical report from one of the holographic screens beside her. The damage to her ears and brain were intense. If it hadn't been for Ryoko's ability to heal almost any damage, she would have become permanently deaf.
"I'm sorry, Ryoko." Washu said as she mentally entered through her daughter's unconscious mind using the mental link she used to read her daughter's thoughts and memories. Probing through the recent memories of an unexpected battle that rendered Ryoko incapacitated. Seeing the veiled face of a man dressed in red. A man calling himself Crimson Phantom. The memory of intense pain as her ears were overloaded by painful sound.
Despite doing this in the past, Washu still felt some small amount guilt in her heart over invading her daughter's privacy and analyzing her thoughts like a scientist observing a lab rat. She suppressed that guilt like she had suppressed most of her emotions a long time ago, using various internal logical arguments to justify it.
She sighed as she summoned Tenchi, Ayeka and Ryo-Ohki to her lab. Hoping that Mihoshi wouldn't by some freak accident appear and wreck parts of her carefully constructed lab unintentionally as she sometimes did.
"Is that the best you can do?" Ayeka laughed mockingly to the Juraian Guardians Azaka and Kamidake as they resumed their attack patterns. Despite looking like harmless blocks made out of wood, the two biological robots were formidable warriors against almost everything.
The Juraian princess gracefully avoided an energy blast flung by Kamidake and vaulted over Azaka, using the guardian to propel her motion towards Kamidake and delivering a powerful kick that struck the centre of him. Kamidake crashed into the ground as Azaka rushed to Ayeka from behind. The sudden appearance of a force field made him impact against a seemingly invisible wall.
"You two are getting sloppy." The Princess commented matter-of-factly as she gazed critically at them both. She wore her Juraian combat armour and the war paint.
Despite of Ryoko mocking her of being the perfect "daddy's little girl" all the time and a prissy, spoiled brat compared to her the so-called great and not to mention beautiful space pirate Ryoko - She still could give a mean left hook.
Ayeka knew that she had to prepare for the future if some intergalactic clown with too much power and a too large ego came knocking on the door.
Creating a dense force field around her arms, she delivered a powerful blow as she made a lunge forward, striking Azaka simultaneously as she instinctively expanded her force-field, creating a battering ram effect which sent Azaka straight at Kamidake like a cannonball.
As the dust settled, two guardians lay on the ground like fallen domino pieces.
"I win this round." She simply answered showing a small smile. It had been hard for her in the beginning, but the moment she managed to split the two up minutes later, she knew she had them.
As single units both of them were formidable. But that also meant that there was a minimal chance to exploit the fact that they weren't using teamwork to take her down.
"Bloody great workout, don't you thinks so boys?" she said to her Juraian guardians, retaining some of her politeness that royalty on her planet considered proper for girls like her.
Her father would probably have frowned at her usage of words and then told her that this was no way for a proper lady to act and maybe scold her, and her mother would probably be her overcheerful self as usual, while Aunt Funaho would remain calm as usual.
She walked over to a thermos. Opening it she poured some still warm Earl Grey tea into a cup. As she drank it she heard clapping sounds from the background.
She turned around and saw Tenchi and Ryo-Ohki with astonished and impressed looks on their faces. It looked quite funny and cute seeing Ryo-Ohki clap her hands in her cabbit form.
"That was impressive, Ayeka," Tenchi said, "Where did you learn to fight like that?"
"You'd be surprised how much you learn when you watch the news Tenchi."
"The news?" Tenchi answered surprised.
"She's referring to the footages of super-powered beings 'duking it out' on television." Kamidake explained to him.
"Learned some new moves and techniques by watching Daredevil defeat some crooks a while ago." The purple-haired woman shrugged as she wiped away the sweat and the war paint with a towel that lay nearby the thermos.
It had become a way for her to deal with her rivalry with Ryoko over Tenchi, and also a frustration outlet and the perfect opportunity to exercise her rusty combat skills.
All three of them were completely unprepared as the world around them suddenly became distorted and brightened as if they had looked into the blitz of a camera; as their eyes recovered they suddenly realized that they were now in Washu's lab.
Ayeka gasped as she beheld her rival in the healing tank, wondering who the blazes was dumb enough to actually attack Ryoko Hakubi. While she still bore some old grudges against the former space pirate, she still felt some kinship with her due to the fact that both of them were in the past moulded into something they never wanted to be. She was forced from a young age to behave demure, polite and proper like any royal princess of a galactical empire should. Ryoko on the other hand was brainwashed into becoming a self-willed extension of Kagato. His private assassin and executioner. Capable of independent thoughts and actions, but still subservient to Kagato due to the intense brainwashing and whatever torture he let her go through the centuries to forge her into his private weapon as a means to unlock the many secrets of Tsunami and the mythical Light Hawk Wings.
Tenchi was equally horrified, seeing Ryoko's injuries as she floated unconsciously inside the large tank.
"Oh my god…. Ryoko!" he simply whispered.
A horrible realization came over Ayeka as she calmed herself down from the shock.
"Where's Sasami!" she gasped in horror.
Sasami stirred as she opened her eyes, remembering a slightly painful prick in her neck before passing out.
Her sight still blurry, she managed to realize that she was sitting on some sort of chair, confining her arms and legs. Squinting her eyes she managed to focus on the view in front of her.
She saw that she was in a sombre, metallic room with modest enough furniture. And that her arms and legs were confined with metallic bands which held her in place to a chair made of metal. She also felt that some sort of weird circlet had been placed on her head.
"It's for preventing you from contacting Tsunami, 'your highness'," an unknown voice explained to her from behind. She couldn't see him despite turning her head slightly to the side too see who was talking to her.
"I see you've recovered from that little drug one of my men gave," she heard the voice continue as she heard footsteps nearing her from behind, "The dose you were given would have knocked out an elephant in an instant, you know. If the dose had been higher I doubt you would have survived and I couldn't let that happen, could I?"
"Who are you?" Sasami asked him, hoping that the question would stall him long enough so that she could contact Tsunami. In her mind she felt a void of emptiness instead of the feeling she usually had when Tsunami was forced to act through her, she could feel traces of something familiar at least, but it was like a voice far away. As she concentrated on that familiarity, her mind was filled with immense pain. And Sasami howled out in agony.
"I told you that wouldn't work, kid," the voice chuckled maliciously as he appeared before her.
She recognized him immediately. He was the man who attacked Ryoko. She also observed that the armour around his torso was black instead of the red colour she had seen in the city; but still he wore the burned and torn blood crimson veil, hiding all but his eyes and the big scar over his eye.
"As you can see your friend almost became the winner of our little skirmish." He commented casually as he looked at his right hand. A cybernetic hand constructed entirely of metal and covered with small cracks. "But fortunately for me I'm harder to kill than most people she slaughtered in the past. Did you know she liked to blow up orphanages just to watch small children be torn to pieces or burned alive?" he then added darkly. His gaze towards her filled with disgust and contempt.
"You're lying!" Sasami cried out angrily in response at what he just said. "Ryoko's not like that! And we all know that Kagato controlled her!"
A slap silenced her. She felt stinging pain on her cheek as angry eyes stared at her.
"Maybe that's what others want you to believe." He hissed but then calmed down.
She could also feel him sadistically smile behind his veil as he said: "The stories I could tell of her…"
If there was one other person Ayeka cared almost more for than Tenchi, it was her little sister.
"What do you mean you can't find her?" she roared to Washu.
"I told you I've scanned the globe over twenty times and there's still no trace of her." Washu spat out as she continued monitoring the various holographic display screens while punching in several commands to her computer.
"Have you tried looking for her in space?" Tenchi asked the self-proclaimed intergalactic genius.
"No I've been trying to make a nice cup of cappuccino…. Of course I've been trying to look for her in space, you dolt!" she spat out furiously in rage.
(Sasami, where are you?) Ayeka thought worriedly as she felt some kind of empty space inside of her that her younger sister had filled.
"You're lying!" Sasami screamed, her eyes red after crying as her captor described graphically and callously of how Ryoko dismembered, tortured and killed in the past. How the former space pirate took great pleasure in inflicting pain upon others.
The frantic sobs coming from the little girl was like music to his ears. He wondered what Tsunami was thinking now, knowing that the entire cell was constructed to block out and distort the link between her and Sasami. He also knew that the goddess was experiencing the same emotional torment as the little princess.
Crimson Phantom stopped talking about Ryoko and told her: "I'm not lying, girl. I'm simply telling it from my point of view."
He then looked at her with contempt as he then said, "Since you won't believe I guess I have to resort to the vast collection of records and footages from Ryoko's colourful past with a nifty little holographic projector I'm going to fetch. Or how about watching the news today and see the destruction caused by your so-called friend?"
He would enjoy torturing this little brat. His reasons were simple: to hurt his enemy through their loved ones. And the irony of it all was that he was going to destroy her with the truth of all things. If it had only been that fool Tenchi who was the love interest of Ryoko instead of Sasami strapped to that chair; but alas it was Terrence who had claimed that privilege.
Sasami looked at him in horror as he walked out of the room.
A week has passed.
All of them were worried sick over Sasami being kidnapped. And worst of all there were no traces of her anywhere and no clues to follow, not even any red herrings to lead them astray.
Ayeka and Tenchi had finally gone to the police a few days ago, despite Washu's comment about the primitiveness of the police on Earth.
The Juraian princess knew that this was no time for her squabbling with Ryoko over Tenchi and was concentrating all her efforts to stay calm despite the nagging fear inside her chest.
To their surprise Mihoshi was also at the station, arriving there before them. She had with her extensive Galaxy Police training given them a description of the little girl and had convinced the chief to put some of his best men on the case after Mihoshi impressed him with her skills as a police officer of exceptional rank.
Ayeka look tired as the three exited the police station, her eyes filled with worry over her little sister. All these days she spent little time resting, eating and drinking using whatever resources she had to find her.
Tenchi looked reluctant at her as they continued their slow pace to the bus stop. He had avoided asking her this question in fear of what he might hear to confirm some of his fears. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves down and the conflicting feelings inside. "Why don't you ask your father for help?" he asked Ayeka.
Ayeka looked at him seriously as she said: "Because I fear the coming of reprisals from Jurai against Earth if this comes out. It might give certain influential members of Jurai who have always hated Yosho for not being a pure Juraian an excuse to either invade or destroy it."
"You're serious?" Tench answered in disbelief.
"Yes," was the only word Ayeka said almost whispering as she looked towards him.
As a young girl she had deep inside her known that her half-brother was treated differently than other children - often scorned and despised by those who considered themselves pure-blooded Juraians. Despite not showing it towards either her and their parents, she knew the Yosho always hurt deeply inside for being different to them. Even when Yosho finally disappeared from Jurai after Ryoko's attack, the hatred didn't dissipate. Many wanted to obliterate Earth to show their contempt towards the planet they considered degenerate by their standards.
"Don't worry, Ayeka," Mihoshi assured her as she placed her hand on her shoulder, "we'll find her."
Mihoshi knew that it was hard as hell to keep the Juraian princess from falling into despair over the disappearance of her little sister, and it was also hard to keep up her usual cheerful façade as well. Knowing from her intuition as a GP officer, she knew that Sasami's abduction was connected with the attack on Ryoko.
She sighed sadly and closed her eyes as she thought about the beautiful, cyan-haired woman. She knew she could never compete with Ryoko and Ayeka when it came to physical attractiveness, charm, intelligence and strength.
(If only you knew my feelings for you, Tenchi…) she thought sadly as she gazed at him while he wasn't looking at her
The planet reminded of an image from hell. Corpses of men, women and children lay strewn everywhere. Burning and crumbling ruins decorated this dead wasteland of a planet while the two remaining fought.
Crimson Phantom gave out a triumphant roar as he decapitated Ryoko with a desperate blow from his energy sword.
"Danger Room, end combat sequence," he said wearily.
The holographic battle scenario and Ryoko's corpse disappeared, replaced now by a large metallic room.
Crimson Phantom fell on his knees, supporting himself by placing his hands on the metallic surface of the floor.
"You knew that you still haven't recovered completely from Ryoko's attack," Terrence Matthew's voice chided him from the speaker system. "And the technicians still haven't repaired everything to one hundred percent efficiency."
"Stay out of this." Was the growl coming from Crimson Phantom as sparks began to come from various areas around his body.
"And now you strained yourself to the limit as usual." Terrence Matthews sighed. "Those people aren't exactly cheap, you know."
"I have enough money, Matthews. What I do with it is my own business." Was the reply coming from Crimson Phantom as he suppressed the pain.
"It was quite a masterstroke of you to have Black Bishop duplicate the X-Men's Danger Room and also equip it with Shi'ar technology to make it even more effective by creating holographic scenarios and settings were you pit yourself against lifelike simulacrums of your most hated enemy." Terrence applauded him as he observed the man he had both found and then turned into one of his most potent
Terrence Matthews observed the various combat data inside the control room that monitored and controlled the entire Danger Room. He knew that his pawn improved almost every time he fought the various holographic simulacrums of Ryoko Hakubi, sometimes making fatal mistakes several times, but also improving him mentally and physically for the final encounter.
(I just hope you know what you're doing.) He thought worriedly as Crimson Phantom exited the Danger Room and headed to the infirmary.)
He knew that the next time Ryoko and Crimson Phantom would clash - only one would survive.
In the next chapter it will be a final duel to the death between Ryoko and Crimson Phantom. Only One will survive this deadly outcome!
Next: Time to Die! Part 1 of 2