He dreamed.
And remembered...
----
-Shadows From The Past
"...That's it lad. Never let your guard down.
Always remember, you'll find few friends and
far too many enemies on the path you've chosen.
You can't *ever* afford the luxury of believing
you're safe."
"Hai, Conner-sensei. I'll figure
out a way to counter your techniques
one of these days, just you wait
and see!"
The indignant mock glare he shot at
his teacher and friend caused Conner
to chuckle in rueful amusement.
Although there was no malice in his
student's words there was no mistaking
the very real determination behind them.
"I'm sure you will, Ranma."
The older man offered a hand to his student
who was sprawled painfully on the cracked and
blackened earth. The morning's training had gone
well. The boy was finally starting to hold his own
against his teacher's straightforward and relentless
combat style after only a few months, truly astonishing
for one so young.
"Yes, I've no doubt that one day you will."
The two of them rose from the ground and hovered
briefly in midair as they reoriented themselves
toward the direction of their camp. As always
Conner was amazed at the uncanny affinity his
apprentice had for the sky, it seemed to come
to him as naturally as breathing.
But the wily old man had a few tricks here too.
"Ready for your next lesson?"
In response Ranma groaned halfheartedly.
He knew what was coming and it wasn't
going to be pretty. And he used to think
*Genma* had been a tough teacher!
"Alright, but this time we stick to sub-sonic!"
"Complain, complain. A real man
would try to overcome his limitations."
The young CosmoKnight snorted rudely.
He wasn't falling for that one again!
"So says the one who can break Mach 10
without even breaking a sweat."
Conner just looked faintly amused.
"Ready?"
Resigned to the inevitable,
Ranma nodded reluctantly.
"Yeah."
"One for the money, Two for the show,
Three to get ready, and Four to..."
Zip. Zoom. Zing.
"..go!"
Both went from a cold start to over 900 mph
before he even finished. Only the fact that
Ranma had been expecting exactly this sort of
behavior from his sneaky sensei gave him any
chance at all. It was a race of skill as much
as speed, their positions were only a few meters
from the ground itself and the countless canyons
and numerous rocky outcroppings made it a challange
to avoid running into anything. Although it wouldn't
actually hurt either of them too much, it would serve
to slow them down and they were already neck and neck
as it was.
But that was also what made this so much fun.
For the rest of his life Ranma would
remember this all too brief time as
the first where he had ever been truly
happy since arriving in this strange
dimension. Perhaps because now there
were others like him and here he was
no longer alone.
But the peace wasn't destined to last.
All too soon, the horror found its way here.
~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: It's the disclaimer that never ends,
It just goes on and on my friends,
Yes, it's the disclaimer that will never end,
Going on and on till your brain goes insane,
It's the disclaimer that never ends-*BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*
"Got lamb?"
~~~~~~~
-Eclipse
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
The watcher's cold eyes studied the scene
again, he had been doing little else for
the past three days.
Scientists, technicians and soldiers all
hurried about behind him. The massive
fortress was a bustle of excited activity,
but the watcher paid them no heed. All of
them were less then worms to him, to be
extingished at a whim when their usefulness
finally came to an end.
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
It had taken nearly a week for his operatives
to recover the data stored in the cybernetic
spy-drone, partly because the person who'd
attracted his interest had also been
responsible for taking out several of his
best agents.
But when it's memory had been finally decrypted,
the results recorded inside had exceeded his
wildest expectations.
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
The crucial scene played out before him once more...
Sagat, the former Thai kickboxing champion,
executed his deadly Tiger Uppercut perfectly.
There were few fighters that could ever hope to
avoid such a powerful blow even had they known it
was coming. With the element of surprise on his
side it should have been all but impossible for
anyone to dodge, let alone counter.
But that was not how it played out.
His opponent seemed to 'shift' position in mid-jump,
slowing his descent at the very moment Sagat began
his attack and turning impossibly to the side,
avoiding the strike by mere centimeters.
Then the youth's leg flashed up and out once,
coming down on Sagat's collarbone in a
devastating axe kick. His coordination and
flexibility defied both the laws of gravity
and physics. As for his strength...
The kickboxer went crashing down into the
mud with all the grace of a load of bricks.
One arm lay twisted and broken in the muck while
his single good eye lolled about in unconsciousness.
Medical facilities would later report that nearly
three quarters of the bones in his body appeared
to have broken on impact.
A leer that was not entirely sane seemed to have
become permanently affixed to the watcher's face.
Such deliciously brutal power.
Power that would soon belong to its rightful master.
Bison.
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
~~~~~~~
Chapter 3 Finale: ...The Season of Darkness
~~~~~~~
-Ill Tidings
"What's wrong?"
Katrina gave the guide a look of concern.
Nick was the one who answered her.
"It's a Naruni Repo-bot. And that particular
model is Kehal Ridge, one of Naruni Enterprise's
top assassins."
"I take it that he doesn't
usually enter this establishment?"
He almost cracked a smile. Almost.
"Damn right. That walking arsenal of death
never hangs around places like this. Only
reason that he'd come here would be if he's
looking for something."
A disturbing thought came to Sun.
"Or someone."
Croaker nodded, but his eyes never strayed
an inch from the dangerous cyborg.
Katrina's companions weren't the only ones
in the bar unnerved by the presence of the
notorious assassin.
Chairs shifted uneasily as uneasy patrons moved
their hands closer to various concealed blasters and
other weapons while sliding back just enough from
their tables so that it wouldn't get in their way
should they suddenly find the need to take cover.
But none of them was stupid enough to try and make
the first move. Repo-bots were feared for a very
good reason, they were state of the art killing
machines outfitted with the most advanced offensive
and defensive systems that Naruni Enterprises had to
offer. The regular Class I A.P.E. (All Purpose Elimination)
models were a match for an entire squadron of power armors.
Kehal Ridge was a Class II A.S.S.I.S.T. (Advanced Strategic
Stealth Interrogation & Sabotage Type), a design that was
*far* superior to the Class I. Although the exact details of
his armament and defenses remained mere speculation and rumor,
it *was* known that Ridge had once killed two Mature Adult
Great Horned Dragons singlehandedly for defaulting on payments
to Naruni Enterprises.
Any sentient being unlucky enough to have attracted his
attention here was to be pitied...from a safe distance away
(preferably another planet if possible).
~~~~~~~
-Run, Do Not Walk, To The Nearest Starship!
Sophisticated thermal sensors picked out the Fealnach's
image from the rest of the crowd almost immediately.
When agitated the body temperature of the pathetic scum
nearly doubled, making them easy prey when one was
searching for information. It also helped that the vermin
were spineless cowards, having evolved to sentience from
a species of Eurycotis.
Ridge took the most direct route toward his target,
ignoring the wild scramble that took place as various
terrified individuals scrambled to get out of his way.
While the Repo-bot paid no attention to the rabble,
his onboard combat computer was tracking every
movement with a watchfulness that bordered on
paranoia. Over half a dozen concealed weapon
systems waited on hair triggers for even the
slightest hint of a potential threat.
Kehal had not survived seven hundred years
of corporate infighting by being careless.
Especially now, as he attempted to pick up the
trail of one the most dangerous individuals in
the galaxy. If that wasn't enough to make
him more cautious than usual, Naruni Enterprises'
Black Op files had also revealed that he wasn't
the first representative to be sent out after
this particular troublemaker.
Three full teams, including four fellow ASSIST
Repo-bots had been dispatched in the past year.
All of them had been wiped out down to the last
agent. Ridge had no intention of sharing their
fate.
With calculated force one heavily armored arm
slammed down on a table to corner the cowering
Nach.
"I require some information in your possession."
"Anything! Just please don't kill me!!"
It was almost amazing how effective a properly worded
request combined with the right amount of tactical
demonstration was at getting the desired results from
such a normally unhelpful source.
~~~~~~~
-Check Please!
"Time to go."
As much as she would have liked
to disagree with Nicholas, Light
couldn't refute the logic of his
words. The longer they stayed here,
the more likely it was that the RepoBot
would identify either herself or her
Rebel contact, although she had no
recollections of ever having dealt
with Naruni before, something in her
head warned the Leyline Walker to be
careful around them. The guide had
already made tracks, no payment was
worth his life.
"Agreed, is there a back way out of here?"
Nick rolled his eyes despite
the seriousness of their situation.
"This is a respectable Spacer Bar.
Of course there's alternate exits
to slip out of."
Kat grinned sheepishly.
"Silly me."
~~~~~~~
-Shades of Starlight
A figure half-hidden in the farthest
corner of the room dumped a few
cred chits on his table as he abandoned
both it and his untouched drink in favor
of following after the two who had just
left.
His prey had always favored females with spirit,
it seemed that his patience had finally paid off
this time.
What might have been a twisted parody of a smile
passed beneath the watcher's ragged hood.
"Soon Saotome...my revenge against you
and your master will be complete."
~~~~~~~
-Dispatched
"Apepi, Anhur. You know what to do."
From the shadow of his throne came
a beastial roar of acknowledgment.
"Raagghh! By your leave, Lord Set."
On the other side materialized a large
figure dressed in warrior's garb.
"..."
The Jackel God's eyes were cold chips of black ice.
"Do not fail me."
Diamond hard scales scraped harshly against
the obsidian floor. The monstrous form trembled
from the effort it took to restrain its natural
instinct for blood and death.
"Shrissshhh. We go."
"..."
Assassin and beast vanished into the darkness.
Alone once more, Set's animalistic features
turned savage as he clasped his fingers together.
{How can a mere mortal manage to evade my
loyal followers at every turn for so long?!}
It was a question that had frustrated him for years.
His minions had been hunting what seemed the human
equivalent of smoke. The boy always seemd to be on
the move, never staying in any one place long enough
to be identified and terminated. By the time most
bounty hunters or assassins learned of his presence
he was usually already long gone, leaving nothing but
chaos in his wake. To this end, he had been forced to
send his two best killers out on the cold trail.
In a way, the diabolic fiend was almost envious of
Ranma's affinity for destruction. Thanks to the hero's
interference many of the evil deity's rivals and even
his allies were now at each other's throats. To be
outdone in trickery and bedevilment by such a lesser being,
it was an insult that simply could not be tolerated.
{You will never escape me, Saotome. Even if
it takes a thousand years, you will pay...}
~~~~~~~~~
-Things Can *Always* Get Worse
It was a somber group of Senshi that
met in the Cherry Hill Temple. Today
hadn't been one of their better showings,
they'd been caught with their tactical
pants down around their ankles.
Worse, innocent civilians had nearly paid
the price for their screw up. And screw up
they had, big time. Not since first accepting
the responsibility of being Sailor Senshi had
they ever done so poorly against the enemy.
The majority of the Inners had had their
collective Sailor butts handed to them on
a silver platter by a foe they'd thought long
vanquished. The Outers weren't in any position
to boast either, especially seeing as they'd
done a fair job of mucking things up themselves.
It would have been embarassing if the situation
hadn't been so serious, instead it was terrifying.
But of even more pressing concern for the
girls was this mysterious new element that
had entered the field.
"He's strong."
Makoto started the ball rolling,
for once temporarily pushing aside
her love-starved romantic side in
favor of a more necessary tactical
objectivity. It wasn't much fun,
but given how close things had
gotten today she wasn't about to
start complaining now.
She wasn't *always* obsessed with finding a man.
Really. Why would I lie?
"He seems to possess exceptional offensive
and defensive tactics, suggesting that he
also possesses an above average intelligence
as well as some prior knowledge about the
enemy."
"Huh?"
Everyone sweatdropped and stared at
the now blushing blue haired girl.
"Um, he's a good fighter and he's
probably done this kind of thing before."
"Oh!"
Trust Ami to make a
GIANT understatement!
"Sneaky."
This came from Micheru as she shot a
rueful look towards her partner and
fellow Outer. The disgusting goo had
finally evaperated from them both some
time ago, but not even a through
scrubbing had managed to completely
dispel the clinging aroma of sun-spoiled
vegetation.
"Not to mention fast."
Haruka's eyes narrowed as she
replayed the fight in her head
again. She was the quickest one
in the group and he had still
run rings around her without
even half trying.
"He's trouble."
Setsuna finished with a sharp snap
of finality. She pointedly refused
to meet the curious eyes of the
other girls.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hot. So very hot.
Other presences nearby.
Strangers.
Need to rest.
Tired, just tired.
No, something's wrong.
Where am I...
-----
-Old Wounds
The ancient Cosmoknight had never had
a student demonstrate such promise before,
the young man absorbed in hours what normally
took weeks or even months to instill into
other beginning Knights. He had already
passed on several lifetimes worth of
knowledge to him, not all of it having
to do with battle. The seeds of the past
would indeed be carried into the future.
Yet Conner also knew that their time together
as master and apprentice was fast coming
to an end. Ranma's place was not here.
They each had a duty to fulfill, one
that neither of them would ever shirk.
Such was the fate of the Cosmoknight.
That fact saddened him. For he suspected
that their paths would never cross again.
"Brooding again?"
The teasing voice of his lifemate was
a welcome interruption from his gloomy
line of thought.
He looked up in time to see his wife
descend a few meters in front of him.
Her armor flashed out of existence to
be replaced by her favored mode of dress,
tight jeans and t-shirt. Although physically
appearing to be only a petite little flame
redhead in her early 30's, Sarah Hawthorne
was only a few centuries younger then her husband.
The relative difference in age mattered nothing
to either of them, their feelings for each other
had lasted through thick and thin for more then
ten thousand generations.
Although such unions were rare, they were not unheard of.
Immortality all too often proved to be a lonely fate,
and even the CosmoKnights were not immune to love.
But only with an equally long lived spouse was there
any real hope of sustaining such a relationship.
Conner had been one of the lucky ones.
His partner understood him, accepted
where his duties lay as he did with hers.
Theirs had been a true matching of hearts.
{Beloved, I was never truly alive until I met you.}
A rare smile found its way to his face.
"Ah ha! I bet you're thinking about something kinky!"
Conner fought against the blush
that threatened to swamp over him.
He *still* hadn't quite gotten used
to her occasional bawdy remarks,
something she delighted to rib
him about whenver an opening arose.
Then he noticed that someone was missing.
"Where's the young lad?"
She smiled back with just a hint
of mischief in her expression.
"He's resting."
The old Knight raised an eyebrow.
"Do you always have to keep knocking
him unconscious when you're training?"
Sarah punched him lightly on the shoulder.
"You're a fine one to talk."
She started snuggling up against him,
and for a moment Conner had his hands
full trying to keep her out of all sorts of
interesting but also highly inappropriate
places. Not that he was trying very hard,
but it wouldn't do much for his dignity
if Saotome were to suddenly fly up just
in time to see his teachers rolling around
in the grass like a pair of hormone crazy
teenagers.
"Meanie!"
"Oh hush. What if the boy were to see us?"
"Pooh! It'll be at least another fifteen
minutes before he's even able to think about
getting up."
He winced inwardly. Sarah never exaggerated
when it came to assessing things like that.
Of course the amount of injury needed to be
bio-regenerated for that long a time would
have to be...
{Ouch. I'd better get some caffe ready for
when he gets back. I suspect my poor student
is going to need it!}
"Ranma is something though, isn't he."
Surprised by her sudden change
in topic he let her curl up close
alongside him.
"Hmm?"
His wife looked thoughtful as she tried
to phrase what she had sensed during
their training together into words.
"He has the gift...I've never seen it so strong in one of us before."
Conner's eyes grew troubled, the concerns
he had kept hidden from his eager pupil
now coming to the fore.
"I have. Once."
Unbidden, the memory arose of another time so very
long ago, when there had been another young man that
the Forge had held equally high hopes for. One of
their greatest, whom they had believed was the
one intended to fulfill the prophecy of the First Ones.
They had all been wrong. So terribly wrong.
{We should have seen the signs. But our hopes
blinded us to the truth until it was too late.}
That mistake had nearly destroyed the Cosmoknights
and everything they stood for. And even worse,
it created their most terrible foe, the Ravager.
~~~~~~~
-Painful Decisions
"He's still burning up! Belldandy
there has to be *something* we can do!!"
Urd had never felt so helpless before.
For all her power, healing wasn't her
forte and she could only watch as
convulsion after painful convulsion
rocked her rescuer's fevered body.
Blood trickled sluggishly from where
the wrappings around his chest had
come loose, and the deep wounds
stubbornly refused to clot on their
own.
"I've done what I can, Urd.
His wounds are too severe for
my simple healing spells and
anything stronger in his weakened
condition will almost certainly
kill him."
The younger goddess looked exhausted,
the past several hours had not been
kind to her. Despite her best efforts
the young man's vital signs continued
to deteriorate at an alarming rate.
It was almost as if his body was trying
to *voluntarily* shut itself down. Every
bit of magic she'd tried to use to stabilize
his lifeforce had been savagely rejected by
his body, almost as if it didn't recognize
that she was trying to heal him. This made
no sense at all. She knew exactly what was
necessary to treat a human thanks to Keiichi,
but this time it wasn't working.
{What's wrong with him?}
~~~~~
His body fought against the alien forces
interfering with the healing trance even
as his mind battled the ghostly phantoms
of days long gone...
-----
-Reap The Hurricane
Defeated. Again.
"He did it to me again!"
This was starting to get repetitious.
"Damn it! It's going to take
forever to clean this mess up."
He hated to lose.
"Peel *how many* potatoes?!"
Scratch that. What he *really* hated was
getting stuck with all the chores as a
result of losing.
"More fire wood?!! Are we planning on
starting our own little forest fire or
something?!"
At least it served as good motivation
to do better the next time.
And he was learning. Slower then he liked
and much too painful even for his taste,
but he was definitely starting to make
some progress.
"Ow...*note to self*,
'When your instructers tell you not
to overdue it, listen to them!!'"
Of course Ranma Saotome had never
been known for his sense of patience.
He knew that it wasn't their fault. But
it was just so incredibly frustrating,
after more then a decade of martial arts
training he had to start over and learn
everything again from the basics up.
It sucked, but he didn't have any other
choice. He was more of a danger to himself
right now then to any enemy.
Normally most fledgling Knights had little trouble
adjusting to their new status, but the problem was
that Saotome had been *too* good a martial artist
before his transformation into a CosmoKnight.
While his new body was taller, stronger, faster,
tougher, and better in every way over his original
one, the newly added height and weight had initially
left him feeling gangly and awkward. His center
of gravity had shifted, making even the simplest
of techniques problematic at first. All of his
reflexes had been completely out of synch,
unbalanced by the sudden changes in reach
and spacial position.
What had made him a master of the Art
wasn't mere strength or speed, it had
been knowing, not assuming, but *knowing*
his entire body was in state of perfectly
balanced harmony. Ranma had spent almost
his entire life training in order to
achieve that extraordinary level of
self awareness.
And then he had lost it all in a single night.
It had been hard, suddenly being reduced to
the martial arts level of a rank beginner.
Even now his skill was still only a fraction
of what they had been before. All this power,
so much he could actually feel it flowing
through his veins, and it was totally useless
because he couldn't use it properly yet!
There were some battles that could be won
through sheer brute force alone. But not
against opponents of Conner and Sarah's
caliber. They had quickly proven that
from his very first day with them.
Conner's fighting philosophy
consisted of only three things.
Hit Hard.
Hit Fast.
And Don't Stop Till You're Standing And They're Not.
Simple, but effective.
Unfortunately for Ranma, the old man was
very, *very* good at practicing what he
preached. He also believed in what Saotome
privately referred to as "The Genma Style
School of Hard Knocks as the Best Teacher".
Needless to say, while this approach did
indeed work, more often then not it also
left the young man lying flat on his back
for hours at a time waiting for broken
bones and torn muscles to regenerate.
Conner didn't believe in
pulling his punches...much.
Sarah was even worse (or better,
depending on your point of view).
While nowhere near as strong as her
husband, the lady was unbelievably
fast. She might not hit as hard
as his other teacher, but she was
able to get in twice as many attacks
in only a quarter of the time.
Ranma now knew how Wile E.
Coyote felt when facing the
Roadrunner.
Her 'Starlight Dancer' technique
made him feel like he was standing
still in comparison.
For the first time in his life he
faced someone who's reflexes were
even better then his own.
Put mildly, it wasn't a pleasant experience.
On a good day he might, just *might* last
more then 10 minutes. On a not so good day,
he was sucking turf before he even realized
that she'd begun to move. At least he was
learning not to blink during a fight.
{I suppose it's not really fair to blame them.
They've both got more combat experience under
their belts then anyone I've ever met. Heck,
Conner was talking about fighting in the First
Anvil Horde War, and that was over two hundred
THOUSAND years ago!}
It was more then a little intimidating,
being in the company of individuals who
were older then certain *civilizations*.
{I'd love to know how they deal with that
kinda stuff. It makes my blood run cold
just trying to imagine living a fraction
as long as they have. What must it be
like for them, having seen and done so
much? Where do they find the strength
to keep on going like they have?}
A shadow appeared overhead,
blocking the warmth of the
orange sun.
It was followed by a perky cheerful
voice he was beginning to dread hearing.
"Breaks over, bucko! Up and at 'em."
Ranma winced. She and Conner must have
had quite a night if that vixenish smile
was any indication. He was going to be
in for a whole 'nother world of pain shortly,
he had noticed that Sarah was always more
energetic the day after *that*.
{Why me?}
~~~~~~~
-Fools and Folly
"Damn you Saotome..."
As Ryoga Hibiki trudged through yet another
thick and twisted forest that his lousy sense
of direction seemed to always inevitably lead him
he remembered once again the events that were
responsible for his bitter and twisted mission
of vengence. It had all started back in junior high.
He had been the strongest.
Unable to navigate any distance greater
then what he could see in front of him,
but still the strongest boy in the entire
district.
The IQ of a rusty doorknob, but still no one
had dared to laugh at him. Because they had
known what would happen to them if they did.
He had commanded respect back then.
Even if that respect had come from
fear, it had been enough.
And Ranma took it all away from him.
---(Become One With The Flashback)---
Welcome to the Kyoto Academy for Boys,
one would be hardpressed to find a more
wretched hive of scum and villainy.
"That bread is mine!!"
Young Ryoga Hibiki leaped for the
prized last curry bread of the day.
Although the other boys jostled and
quarreled among themselves like a pack
of wolves at the lunchcounter, all of
them made sure to give him a wide berth.
All of them except for one.
The new kid had just arrived
that very morning. At first glance
he seemed to be nothing special,
except for the sissy little pigtail.
Ryoga had dismissed him almost immediately
as being beneath his notice and the other
students had quickly followed his example
and ignored this "Ra-something" character.
So far all the newcomer had done was watch
everything around him with a wide eyed
fascination, almost as if the dummy never
been in such civilized surroundings before.
Fangs bared in a predatory grin of
anticipation as he closed in on the prize.
*BONK*
A sudden weight on his head pushed his face
down at a sharp angle, pain erupted from his
neck as it protested this unexpected change
in its workload. Then the heaviness on his head
disappeared and Hibiki found himself plummeting
toward the cafeteria floor.
*SPLAT*
Unable to comprehend what had happened to him
at first, all he had been able to do was lift
his head and stare in disbelief at the person
responsible for this humilation.
It was that scawny snot-nosed little punk!
Even as he watched, that bastard *smirked*
at him and took a bite from what was supposed
to be *his* curry bread!
Worse, he could hear the whispers passing among
the other students about his defeat. He wasn't
someone to be taken seriously anymore, "see how
easily that little guy kicked the mighty Hibiki's
ass".
It was starting...
The laughter, that hated laughter!!
NO!!!
Nobody mocked him! Nobody!!
{I'm going to crush him!! It's all *his* fault!!}
But first he needed to know his opponent's identity.
Only then would he obtain total satisfaction
when he finally beat the runt into a bloody pulp.
"What is your name?"
Then came the words that would haunt
his nightmares for years to come.
"I'm Ranma, Ranma Saotome."
That *name*, that disgusting,
vile source of all his misfortune!!
In that moment Ryoga realized
that he had met his mortal enemy.
"Ranma Saotome, I will NEVER forget this offense of the Curry Bread!!"
'But things didn't work out that way, did they?'
He had spent two weeks fruitlessly searching for
the Saotome boy, two weeks lost in places like
Yokohama and Hikaido. By the time he finally got
back it was lunch again. Deciding that his enemy
must have chickened out by now, he put aside his
search temporarily in favor of getting the last
melon bread of the day.
But that wretched Saotome...
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Melon Bread!!"
And two weeks later...
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Meat Bread!!"
Again.
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Cutlet Bread!!"
And again.
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Noodle Bread!!"
'And every time he still beat you no matter how hard you tried.'
Ranma made his life a living HELL!
Finally Ryoga just couldn't take it anymore.
He had challenged his archnemesis to
a duel in the lot behind his house.
But when he finally arrived on the fourth day...
All he found was a note.
[Waited three days for you to show up.
Couldn't delay anymore, me and Pop are
going to China. Guess this means I win.
-Ranma ^_^
P.S. No hard feelings.]
And this time nothing could silence the
contempt of his peers. The entire school
had known about his appointed duel with
Saotome. His reign of terror among them
had been broken. Now they branded him a coward,
an outcast, not a man but a lowly crawling
worm to be shunned by all.
'Yes, Ranma destroyed your life. If he hadn't
run away you would have crushed him like an ant
and regained the respect of the other boys.'
It was Saotome who was the coward!
Ranma was the one who ran away from him!!
If Saotome was dead then all of this
humilation would go away!!
And so Ryoga vowed then and there that he
would spend the rest of his life to hunt
down and destroy his enemy! Only after
he had torn Ranma Saotome limb from limb
would his destined future happiness be
assured!!
---(Let Go Of The Flashback Already!)---
'Together we can put an end to Ranma.'
"Yeah! Hey, wait a minute!!"
He wasn't going crazy after all! There
really had been a voice talking inside
of his head all this time!
"WHO ARE YOU?!!"
'An ally who can make you
powerful beyond your wildest
dreams.'
"GET OUTTA OF MY HEAD!! I'LL KILL YOU!!"
The voice abruptly went silent.
Ryoga grinned evilly, believing
he had scared away the teasing
woman that had been speaking
inside his twisted little mind.
From inside his shadow, the diabolical
image of Pantha Zo'a smiled as well.
~~~~~
-Pass the Sake
From her current base of operations a slightly
scorched Demoness (1st class, unlimited) polished
off another bottle of sake. It joined a growing
hill of empty bottles as she attempted to dull
the extra crispy treatment she'd gotten when the
building she'd been spying from had gone up like
a gasoline soaked match thanks to that crazy
Sailor psycho.
{And to think that people call *us* violent. Sheesh!}
Unfortunately there were some drawbacks to this place.
"Hey! Are you going to just sit around and get drunk?!"
Number one being the building's owner, Sayoko Mishima.
Mara didn't need this, with today's plans blown
up in her face all she wanted to do right now
was get good and drunk. Besides which her head hurt.
"Not sho' loud!!"
"Kami-sama! You look like you've
gone through a garbage incinerator!!"
She winced. When was that damn girl going
to remember not to use the "K-word" around
her?
"Jus' a lil' scratch. A'l be *hic* fa'n."
It looked like her treatment was finally working.
{Well Mara ol' girl, looks like it's
back to the drawing board. I do hope
they didn't kill him.}
Surprisingly the demoness found that she
actually meant that. Even if she was one
of the bad guys it didn't mean she got her
kicks by torturing people, at least not in
the physical sense. Messing around with their
heads and causing mischief was fun and all,
but even *she* had her limits. If she'd
known those nutcases were actually going
fry him instead of just kicking him around
a little bit Mara would have dropped the entire
plan and just made her offer to him in person.
"At leash then I'd a ha've a dinner date inshtead
of being stuck in the ol' witch's place."
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!!"
Oh hell. This was just not her day.
~~~~~
-Imperial Battle Cruiser "Dark Impaler"
"My lord, we have arrived at our destination."
"Excellent. Prepare my shuttle and two wings
of Intercepters immediately."
"As you command."
The aide turned and left at a quick trot, you did
*not* run in the Ironclaw's presence. And it had
only taken 34 aides to get that point across to
the survivors.
[This is a waste of time!]
Jarenz didn't need to turn to
know who dared to question his
strategem. There was only one
soul aboard that could get away
with such insolence without fear
of instant retaliation.
His Rune Weapon, Infernal Retribution.
Although the emity between Jarenz and Saotome
was fierce, it paled in comparison to the
state of overwhelming hostility that existed
between their respective Rune Weapons.
Ironclaw's Impaler contained the soul of
Volsai Lezlod, a vile being which had once
been one of the most feared Demodand Princes
in Tarterus. Ironically, Volsai's downfull
and subsequent enslavement had been the result
of losing a powerful artifact he had coveted,
known as the Crystal Shard.
Volsai and Ishtar *HATED* each other
beyond all reason, and their feelings
toward their adversary's owner were
only slightly less volatile. This mutual
enmity was partially due to the fact
that they had been old enemies long
before becoming entrapped within the
Weapons that now housed their souls.
In fact, it had been Ishtar who was responsible for
thwarting Volsai's possession of the Shard, banishing
the evil device to the Etheral Plane in hopes that it
might be lost within the eternal mists for all time.
Her plans ultimately failed in the end,
but not before leading to Lezlod's downfall.
He had never forgotten that.
The Impaler had been obsessed
with finding a way to destroy
its most hated enemy once and
for all. It took centuries of
waiting and scheming, but the
hateful soul finally found a
way to strike back at her.
It had been Volsai who directed the
attentions of the Splugorth toward Ishtar,
setting off the chain of events that had
led directly to her capture and imprisonment
inside the artifact known as the "Key".
To this day the fiend was still trying to
find a way to truly get rid of its most
hated enemy once and for all.
[I want to frag that bitch
and her puke faced protecter!
Rip them to pieces!! Tear out
their still beating hearts and
eat their livers!!]
"Patience Volsai, we shall
deal with them both soon enough."
In the contest of wills Jarenz was
always the victor. He ruthlessly
quashed Lezlod's attempts to try
and assume control of their bonding.
Ironclaw was the absolute master of his domain.
That was always the way of things.
{You've hidden yourself well this time, Saotome.
My spies have not discovered anything so far,
nor do I expect them to. To evade even the eyes
of Imperial Intelligence requires assistance of
a considerable level, beyond even that of your
most powerful allies. The question then is how
did you manage to get this aid?}
With the failure of conventional resources
of information he was now forced to resort to
alternative means in order to secure badly
needed intelligence on his old foe.
Time was working against him. There were
already far too many others also searching
for Ranma. Sooner or later one of them might
get lucky, and he could not allow that!
Saotome was *HIS* to defeat!!
{Now we shall see if the Delphian Oracles
are truly as learned as their reputation
indicates.}
~~~~~~
-Falling Star
He was enjoying a rare afternoon
off from his nearly constant scheduale
of training when the first signs of
catastrophe made themselves known.
{I gotta admit, this planet may be
dull as dirt but the sunsets are
so gorgeous that they almost make
up for it.}
Lying back against one the short
and stubby blue trees that made up
the majority of the native foliage
here, Ranma was amusing himself with
an old child's game he had used to
play during that lonely training trip
with his father.
{That cloud looks like a okonomiyaki
with all the trimmings. And that bunch
of mountains over there reminds me of
those dumplings on Gemini II.
Boy, those were great!}
(Somewhere a cow moos.)
...
...Well let's see you try and come up with
something better when *Genma* Saotome was
the only adult responsible for most of your
upbringing!
The fledgling Knight had just identified a
full six course dinner using just the sun
and a barely visible sea to the west when
a shooting star caught his eye.
"Hmmm?"
Intellectually he knew it wasn't really a star,
most likely it was just some random space trash
that had been caught in the planet's gravity
well and on its way to burn up in the upper
atmosphere. Amazing what a little *enforced*
learning could do for a guy who'd never even
had a chance to properly attend school his
entire life.
Idly he tracked the object's descent, trying
to gauge its mass and velocity in order to
guess how long it would take to flare out.
Judging from the size and dark purple glow
he didn't think it would be very long at all.
{Five minutes. Six tops.}
Then all of a sudden it changed course.
"What the?!!"
That wasn't a metorite!
"Oh geez, Sarah and Conner are
going to want to know about this!"
{So much for my night off.}
Choosing discretion over speed,
Ranma fixed the object's current
heading into his memory and then
started jogging back toward the
camp at a respectable 200 mph.
~~~~~~
-Shattered Trust
"Team 2 report! Respond,
damn it!! That's an order!!"
General Skythe glared impotently
at his silent wristcom. Something
was very wrong here, and his people
were caught square in the middle of it.
{Someone gets to the governor first,
and now the entire command net is
down. Coincidence, or is there
something else going on behind
them both?}
His gut was telling him it was
the latter. It was just too neat.
The communications network was of
Alliance design, featuring numerous
safeguards and redundant backups
to prevent just such a blackout.
Which meant that this had to have been intentional.
"I can't get anything either. Everything's dead."
Hsi-Feng banged her unit against the wall,
frustrated as her grandfather was at the
now useless piece of equipment.
Dennis's first impulse was to order
his squad to take her back to base.
But he knew that the little pain in
places best left unmentioned would
never agree with his reasoning, and
trying to force her to go would only
end up with somebody else getting hurt.
{Why did Ranma have to go and teach her
those damn fighting tricks for her birthday
instead of just getting her a regular present
like *normal* people?!}
"Sergeant!"
"Yes, General?"
"Take the rest of your people back to the secondary
rendezvous point and try and see if you can
restablish communications with the others."
"Right away, General!"
The non-com gave her leader a thankful look,
relieved that the "Hotheaded Firebird" was
*his* problem now.
Dennis checked the charge on his weapon.
Seeing how low it was he slipped a fresh
E-clip out from his belt and switched
magazines. A small digital readout on
the side of his rifle now read a
green "100%".
"Come on squirt, lets go and
check out that control room."
Hsi-Feng grinned and briefly
stuck her tongue out at him.
Together they started to make
their way toward the ominiously
silent Central Control.
~~~~~~
-Bitter Fate
Conner's face was deathly pale
when Ranma finished reporting
what he'd seen.
"So, he's finally found us."
Sarah clutched her husband's side
with a strength born of anger and
concern.
{It's not fair!! Why now?!
After all this time how did
he finally manage to discover
this place?!}
Her fears were not for herself,
but for the man she loved. He
had told her enough for Sarah
to know that Conner would be
the prime target.
The old Knight took a deep breath
and then exhaled slowly, taking a
moment to gather his thoughts.
{No matter how far we run,
the past still manages to
catch up to us.}
He had known that this confrontation
was inevitable, but Conner wished with
all his heart that he'd been given more
time with Sarah. Somehow he knew that
this would be the deciding ground.
{So be it.}
He would face the Ravager one last time.
Puzzled by this strange behavior,
Ranma looked back and forth at
both of them. He had never seen
his teachers like this before.
{What's going on?}
Why were they so afraid?
He opened his mouth to ask when
Conner's harsh voice suddenly cut
through the uneasy silence.
"Take the boy and get out of here."
He would try and buy them whatever
time he could, but Conner knew this
foe all too well. None of them were
safe from the CosmoKnight's Bane,
The Ravager of the Dark.
"I can help!!"
Ranma's natural stubborness kicked in.
It wasn't in his nature to run away from a
fight. Especially if it meant deserting his
friends, he would rather die then abandon
people he cared about!
"You're not ready to face him! Go!!"
Conner didn't have time to argue,
every second was precious now.
"But!"
He couldn't run away! He just couldn't!!
{I won't be like my father!!}
"Get him out of here!"
The Knight met his wife's grieving eyes,
they both knew what had to be done.
"Look out!"
Instinctively Saotome turned
toward the apparent threat before
realizing where the real danger was.
"guhh..."
Ranma bent forward, eyes wide with
a sense of betrayal as his trusted
teacher sucker-punched him.
{Why...}
He heard Sarah whisper softly
into his ear as she caught him.
"I'm sorry."
Then he knew nothing more.
~~~~~
-For the Want of a Nail...
She was the pride of the Free Worlds, over three miles of
heavy armor and weapons, the infamous 'Doombringer' class
Super Dreadnought. Renamed "Hopebringer" after her capture
by the first Rebel forces over a hundred years ago, she
now served proudly as the flagship of the main Rebel fleet.
The Hopebringer proudly carried the scars of countless
engagements on her hull. So many attempts had been made
by the Imperial Navy to destroy this ship that her entire
frame was permanently stressed at numerous points and
filled with thousands of micro-fractures. Despite this,
she continued to carry on the fight for freedom against
the Transgalactic Empire.
It was from aboard this ship that the invasion of Ristmoth
was being coordinated. Harried communications officers
sweated visibly as they transmitted orders and updates
from the chain of command out to the entire fleet,
calling in up to the minute status reports, and otherwise
trying to keep the whole bloody operation straight and
organized.
So it was understandable that a strange but
insignificant report from one of the fleet's
corvettes was not exactly high on their list
of priorities to deal with.
Understandable and unfortunate.
By the time message traffic
cleared up enough to deliver
the message, it was already
too late.
~~~~~
-Curtain Call
Her voice was hard with tightly
controlled anger as she met her
grandfather's eyes.
"I've found another one."
Skythe swallowed a useless curse.
"That makes ten so far."
Ten more families he would have
to write to, explaining why their
sons and daughters weren't coming
home.
{When I get my hands on the bastard
responsible for this they're going
to wish that their *parents* had
never been born!!}
The cause of death was simple enough.
The corpse's throat had been slit from
ear to ear, leaving a thin strip of
skin and bone attached between the
head and body.
"Poor guy never had a chance,
the sonvabitch used a goddamn
vibro-blade!"
Once the two of them realized that
nothing more could be done here,
they moved on toward the central
control room at an angry pace.
But when they entered it Skythe and
Hsi-Feng found the place was already
occupied.
"What the...?!"
"Hold it right there!!"
There was a scary moment as both sides
pointed their weapons at each other,
fingers on hair triggers.
Then Skythe slapped his free hand
against his forehead in disgust.
"You?!"
The General flicked the safety on his
weapon and holstered it. There was
no sense in tempting fate any more
then he had to.
{I don't believe this!!}
"What are you two doing here?!"
Standing in front of him was half of
the entire leadership of Rismoth's
Rebellion.
They were both human, heavily scarred from
years of covert warfare against the
Empire and having a slightly gaunt
look that spoke of moderate malnutrition.
The years had not been kind to any
of the people on this planet who
didn't belong to the .00001% of the
population holding high rank in the
Imperial Service.
Rusty, the leader of the Southern Factions,
was a former planetary peaceforcer and almost
a quarter cybernetic due to injuries he had
received both before and after his defection
to the Rebel's side. Over 2 meters high and
weighing at least 250 kilos, he also had the
distinction of having one of the most intimidating
appearances on Rismoth.
Sharra, head of the Rebel Intelligence Network,
had started life as the daughter of a slave in
one of the thousands of hellholes that mined the
planet's mineral wealth. She had clawed her way
out of that deathtrap and used her hunger for
revenge against her oppressers to turn herself
into a brilliant and devious strategist that
delighted in tricking Imperial Troops and
leading them to their doom at every oppertunity.
Tall and wirey, her thin frame possessed a
steel-like strength that few could believe
until they experienced it firsthand.
"We were about to ask you the same question."
Sharra's gravelly voice, the result of a childhood
spent breathing crushed ore and vaporized smelting
residue, sounded even more ill tempered then usual.
Beside her, Rusty nodded in silent agreement.
In one smooth motion he shouldered the heavy
rail-gun that he had been aiming at Skythe.
"There is something strange going on."
Hsi-Feng snorted rudely before
lowering her rifle as well.
"You ain't just whistlin' Dixie!"
~~~~~
-Cold Comfort
When he finally regained consciousness
it was to find that night had already
fallen. A hint of nausea from his
midsection let him know that he still
hadn't recovered completely from being
hit by Sarah. The second thing Ranma
noticed was that she was carrying him
in a most uncomfortable position over
her shoulder. Third was the realization
that his teacher was traveling at an
airspeed well past the supersonic level.
His stomach lurched in protest
of the last two little bits of
information. Prudence won over
valor as Saotome remained still
with his eyes closed, fighting
down the sickening sensations
through sheer force of will.
{Wait...this could be my chance,
if I can catch her by surprise
then maybe...}
"Don't even think about it, Ranma.
Not unless you're looking for another
instant nap."
He froze. How had she...?
"I felt your pulse quicken through
your hip when you woke up. As for
the rest of it, the way your train
of thought works is *very* predictable
after awhile."
{Shit!}
"Now we're almost there. Give me your
word of honor that you won't try something
incredibly stupid like going back to
help Conner and I'll let you loose."
Stubborn silence.
"Otherwise my only other option
to make sure you get to the
sanctuary is another lovetap."
Sarah gave him less then a
minute to think it over,
knowing that if he didn't
accept she was in for quite
a struggle.
No matter how much she sympathized
with his feelings, even though she
wanted to go back more then anything
else in the universe, she knew with
a stark certainty that both of them
together wouldn't be able to help
Conner. Their presence would only
distract her husband and slow him
down. The odds were already bad
enough for him as they were.
{I'm sorry Ranma. But there's nothing
either of us can do. Conner's right,
you're not ready. If only we'd been
able to complete your training...
then...but that's just wishful thinking
now.}
"Well?"
The look Ranma shot at her was mutinious,
as every fiber of his being cried out for
him to go back and help his teacher.
To simply abandon a comrade in arms
went against all he had been taught
and believed in.
"You can't ask that of me!!"
But he also knew that if it came
down to it, he didn't stand a
chance against Sarah in a real
fight. And she *would* make good
on her threat if he refused.
Cosmoknights never bluffed.
They didn't need to.
Ranma had never felt so helpless.
His rage at the trap he now found
himself cornered against burned
impotently inside of him.
{Damn you Sarah!! Why?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!!}
A resigned sigh finally escaped
from his tightly clenched lips.
{Damn you...}
In the end, the only choice was really no choice at all.
"...alright."
True to her word, she let him loose.
He immediately dropped like a rock.
Then the Cosmoknight focused his innate
flight ability and his descent stabilized.
It took him only a few seconds to rise
back up and join her under his own power.
Sarah nodded, satisfied that
he was recovered enough to
fly without any assistance.
"Now that that's settled, we have to move
quickly. We've wasted too much time here
already."
{I only hope that someday you'll be
able to forgive me for doing this.}
Her heart heavy with grief and guilt,
Sarah didn't look back as she led her
charge away from the coming battle.
{Because the Forge knows, I won't.}
~~~~~~
-Troubled Skies
"This is Angel One to Papa Horse,
looks like clear sailing from
here on in."
"Acknowledged, Angel One. The
transports are preparing to drop
now so we can take it from here.
Your new orders are to patrol
intervention sphere Zulu until
relieved, take Angel Two and proceed
there posthaste. Eagle 1 and Eagle 2
are already running suppression
on secondary objectives."
"Roger that. But personally
I'd be a lot happier if a few
Imps were still left up here.
All this waiting is getting on
my nerves!"
"Nothing we can do about it, Yukio.
High Command's running this little
show and they want to capture this
world as intact as possible."
"I know, I know. A girl can dream, can't she?"
"Well if you do find anything...Good Hunting."
"Thanks Tania. We're heading out there now."
Two Katana starfighters broke off from the main
convoy and began their descent into Rismoth's
atmosphere. Their sleek predatory lines glowed
slightly from the residual heat of friction as
thousands of individual air molecules impacted
against their forcefields at several times the
speed of sound. Night black with starburst
patterns all along the top and bottom of the
arrowhead shaped craft, they were nearly
impossible to spot with the naked eye in deep
space. But on a planet where the sun shone
high overhead they stood out like a pair of
sore thumbs.
Though these fighters appeared to be almost
identical to their original design specs,
a closer inspection would discover several
unsettling anomalies. The first being that
the frames of the fighters had somehow been
worked on in the front to accommodate a second
particle beam cannon in addition to the standard
main weapon already built into the hull. Second
would be the medium gravity rail gun mounted
snugly below the nose of each Katana. The third
discrepency was the addition of an auxillary
booster under the main drive. Most of the
rest was more along the lines of subtle
modifications and tinkering that slightly
improved the crafts' maneuverability and
overall performance.
But the most important difference between
these two fighters and the standard Katana
were the modular weapons pods that they carried.
Not satisfied with the models currently available
to the general public, the Twins had convinced
Silvia to *tweak* their payloads. But still unhappy
with the limitations of even the tricked out pods,
they had finally gotten the eccentric engineer to
*design* new weapons pods customized exactly to
Akiko and Yukio's specific tastes.
The end result was nothing short of terrifying.
Two state of the art starfighers, armed with
enough firepower to devastate a small continent,
were in the hands of a pair of slightly crazy
action junkies ready and eager to take their
vehicles beyond any limits ever conceived of
by the original designers.
"Let's rock and roll! Full burn!!"
"Right behind you, sis!!"
The only consolation the Alliance had was that at
least these maniacs were flying on *their* side!
~~~~~~
-Have A Nice Day
Two figures dashed through the strangely
quiet streets. Every now and then one or
the other would take a quick glance behind
them. It only confirmed what they had
suspected since the moment they'd left
the bar.
"We're being followed."
Nicholas nodded as he continued to scope
out potential ambush sites and possible
sniper positions. In Phaseworld it
wasn't "*were* they out to get you",
it was *where* they're going to get you.
"Can you figure out how
many of them there are
out there?"
Katrina made a "no can do" gesture with
her free hand, as her other was now firmly
grasping the handle of her holdout blaster,
a gift from Ranma during their travels in Africa.
"They're staying just outside of my detection range.
But there's at least two of them back there."
"Oh? How can you tell?"
"One of my psychic probes smacked into a mind-block
before they backed off. But at the same time I also
picked up traces of a different presence nearby.
The funny thing is, I don't think that they've
noticed each other yet."
"Great, maybe they'll all kill each
other and save us some trouble."
She looked at him strangely for a moment,
unable to tell whether or not he'd been
serious with that remark.
"I hope you're armed with something a little
more effective then your sense of humor."
Nick gave her a small smile as he produced
a handheld video camera from somewhere on
his person.
"So what do you think?"
Sun stared at him.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?
What are you planning to do? Make home movies
of us being chased by whoever's back there?!"
His smile widened.
"Not exactly."
Nick thumbed the 'pause' button on
his camera. The moment he did so
the innocent looking device underwent
a startling transformation.
The camera turned a liquid silver color
as the lens began lengthening into a
solid barrel while the rest of the main
body compacted to reveal its true identity.
"I think that this should be effective enough."
Croaker held up a now fully morphed
Daisho-10 laser sub-machine gun.
Then he took another look behind
them and his smile vanished.
"Oh damn."
Their pursuers had finally abandoned any
pretense of stealth. Nick was finally able
to get a good look at them.
The trenchcoats, pulse pistols, and
ominious sunglasses of the Imperial
Transdimensional Secret Security
Infiltration Network were unmistakable.
"I.T.S. S.I.N.!"
Katrina assumed from his unhappy tone
that these guys weren't good news. Her
suspicions were confirmed almost instantly
as the Rebel Operative began to spray laser
fire down the street, forcing the figures
chasing them to scatter.
But that was of secondary concern,
Sun was already concentrating on
her spell.
~~~~~~
-Extreme Measures
Urd paled as she saw what her
sister was preparing to do.
"Belldandy, You can't be serious!"
For once the brown haired goddess
didn't smile when she addressed her
older sister.
"We've run out of options, Urd.
And he's running out of time."
Even Blessed Bell, her normally cheerful angel,
had a worried expression on her face.
The simple fact that Belldandy felt Bell's
presence was neccessary was enough
to give her older sister the willies.
Angels were only brought out for the most
dangerous of the White Magic spells. They served
as a kind of celestial grounding unit, ensuring
that the magical power required by these spells
didn't also cause the caster to explode from
a Mana overload.
"I'm going to try a Complete Ritual of Full Restoration.
But I need to ask you to serve as the conduit, your
shields are stronger then mine and I'll need all the
power I have just to complete the spell and keep
him alive long enough for it to take effect."
"But if you use too much of your lifeforce trying
to revive him your material form could dissipate
for hours, maybe even days!!"
"And if I don't do this, he'll die.
This man saved Skuld's life. Now its
our turn to repay that debt."
Seeing that nothing was going to change her mind,
Urd nodded in reluctant agreement. Belldandy was
right, as always.
And deep inside the heart of the Goddess of Love
was a small voice whispering that maybe this guy's
fate was more important to her then she wanted to believe.
Of course she ignored it.
Since when did Urd listen to *anybody's* advice?
"Just...just be careful. Okay, sis?"
Belldandy finally smiled.
"Okay."
~~~~~~
-Regrets
The figure ran blindly through the pitch black forest,
every now and then he stumbled and slowed on the
treacherous terrain, but not once did he ever stop.
Nor did he ever dare turn to look behind him.
To do so would only confirm what his instincts had
been screaming at him for the the last few hours.
He was being hunted.
Above him the rumbling sky threatened
to finally unleash the fury it had been
building up to for the past several hours.
It was nearly midnight and he was tired,
cold, and though trying desperately to deny
it, afraid. Somewhere behind him, lurking in
the hostile darkness, was the nightmarish figure
that his friends had tried so desperately to
stop. They had tried so hard to protect him.
They'd failed.
His eyes burned, but the time for tears
would come later. For now, all he could
do was keep moving and try to stay ahead
of his relentless pursuer.
Ranma was determined to make sure their
sacrifice had not been in vain. He had
to keep believing that, otherwise that
would mean he'd thrown away his honor
for nothing. And if that was true, then
there was truly nothing left for him in
this life but madness and death.
His destination was a mountain chain a few kilometers
away, hidden there was the small scout ship that he'd
used to get to this planet. Although capable of surviving
in a vacuum, his control over his powers had not yet
matured to the point where he could leave a planet's
atmosphere unaided. There was no safety anywhere on
this world now, but in the vastness of space even the
most determined hunter had no more a chance of finding
him then they did of catching the end of a rainbow.
Deep in his heart Saotome longed to
just to turn around and face his enemy.
But Sarah's last words to him kept echoing in his head.
"Run! Get away from here!! Finish what
you have begun, find your destiny!!"
And like a base coward he had fled, the last
pained but determined expression on her face
seared forever in his memory like a burning coal.
He had left her behind, knowing somehow that she
didn't stand a chance against whatever was chasing
them. In doing so he had broken the oldest and most
important promise to himself Ranma had ever made.
He had abandoned a friend. Even knowing that there
was nothing he could have done to stop her, that
damn her eyes she'd been right, the guilt threatened
to crush him beneath its unbearable weight.
{There had to have been another way! I should have found one!!}
But the cruel truth was that there hadn't been.
Conner had known that, and so had Sarah.
There was always a price to be paid,
and hope carried the steepest one of
all.
~~~~~~~~
-Fight Or Flight
The most dangerous thing about magic-users
isn't the power of their spells. It's how
their devious minds come up with such nasty
ways to use what's available to them.
Case in point, the incantation Katrina was
casting was a second level spell known as
"Grease". Not possessing much power in and
of itself, but simple and easy to cast
quickly. More importantly, Kat knew
*exactly* how to use this spell for
maximum effect.
"For the foe who runs on steady feet,
find now no purchase upon the street!"
A clear viscous liquid appeared underneath
the feet of four of the approaching Imperial
Agents.
The result was almost comical to watch.
"Waaaggh!"
"Look out!!"
"Augggh!!"
"Can't stop!!"
This was immediately followed by the
sound of several high speed collisions
as soft flesh impacted against very,
*very* hard Mega-damage walls.
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
*SQUISH*
*SNAP*
"...medic."
Having successfully dealt with a
third of their pursuers, Sun turned
her attention to the rest of them.
{Heh! Next...eh!}
And promptly ducked as a pale yellow
particle blast cut through the air
where she'd been standing.
"Keep your head down!"
Nick punctuated his advice with a
well placed shot from his submachine
gun. The beam drew a curse from an
overly daring agent that had exposed
his arm in order to fire.
"Sonvabitch!"
Dark plasti-armor sizzled as the laser
burned deeply into it, stopping just
barely short of the actual arm itself.
"That outta give those idiots some
second thoughts about taking us on.
I don't suppose you've got any other
tricks up your sleeve?"
Kat turned to look back at him.
"Actually, I was going to
ask you the same thing."
Nick grimaced.
"Sorry, miracles aren't my specialty,"
Her blaster soon joined his
Daisho-10 in keeping the rest
of the Imps from trying any
similar acts of daring.
For a few heated minutes the
situation remained a bitter
stalemate.
But then at last came a noise
that Croaker had been dreading
all along.
Not from the front, but *behind* them.
"This way! Cut them off!!"
The sound of Imperial reinforcements.
"Oh hell, we're in trouble now."
~~~~~~~~
-Further Complications
The communicater's visual display
crackled as an excited SIN agent
reported their quarry's current
status.
"This is Team 1, we've found them!
Currently under heavy fire, requesting
immediate support from all available
units to Port Junction 9, Section 35!!"
But the woman that owned this
was already long past caring
about such things.
"Target One positively identified
as Packrat. Target Two is an
unidentified female believed to
be connected to Objective Mustang.
Treat with extreme caution, we
believe she may possess dangerous
psionic...*zzzt*..."
A dark metal heel ground both communicator
and the cooling wrist it was still attached
to into the ferrocrete.
Everything was going as planned.
~~~~~~
-Death Ground
The first icy drops of crimson rain finally began to fall.
As a byproduct of this planet's unusually high concentration
of iron deposits, everything on this world was tainted
by the oxidized material.
Ranma ran on.
The endless line of trees was starting to thin,
he was finally coming to the end of the forest.
{Only a few more hours until I reach the ship...}
And then he felt it. The Knight froze where he was,
not daring to move even an inch as a chill ran down
through his suddenly tense body.
{!}
The air had gone completely still, an unnatural
silence broken only by the falling rain. Now
more then ever it reminded him of freshly shed
blood.
{I'm being watched...}
The hair on the back of his neck
rose as he anxiously looked into
that dreadful darkness, desperately
searching for any sign of the hunter's
presence.
{Where?!}
To go out in a blaze of glory protecting
others or in the defense of life, freedom,
and honor, that was an end he did not fear.
But to be brought to ground in an empty
wilderness like a prize stag, he didn't
want to die like this.
{Not like this!}
Despite his best efforts, he could find
nothing out the ordinary. No explanation
for the expectant hush that draped over
this edge of the woods. His nightvision
was keen but severely limited. With only
the ambient light from stars and an
occasional play of distant lightning
from the approaching storm the Cosmoknight
could barely make out anything past fifteen
meters in front of him.
Everything seemed to look as it had before.
Only his instincts told him otherwise.
{He's here...somewhere.}
The attack came from the left.
Only a high pitched humming at
the very last second gave him
any kind of warning at all.
*zummm*
He was still trying to make sense of the noise
when his left eye exploded in white hot agony.
{Aaaagghh!!}
Clutching his torn face with a bloody hand,
the Cosmoknight dived for cover even as his
free arm came up in retaliation.
An incandescent bolt of blinding light lit up
the night as it disintergrated a dozen trees
and two mossy boulders in its path before
finally expending the rest of its barely
diminished energy on a craggy overgrown
steppe just under a mile away. The blast was
so destructive that the steppe didn't even
explode, it simply vaporized.
His action had been born of pure reflex,
but he regretted it almost immediately.
{Damnit! Shouldn't have done that!!}
Ranma had just made a *BIG* mistake.
The flash from his blast burned into
his own retinas, effectively ruining
his night vision. While with his training
the time he would normally need to recover
from this would only be a few minutes,
those were minutes that he didn't have.
Because with that shot he'd also just
given away his position to whoever was
out there.
{Damn it Saotome, get your
ass in gear and MOVE!!}
Scrambling to his feet, the knight
abandoned his position in the mud
not a moment too soon.
*zummm*
The deadly hum sounded again,
grazing his head an inch above
his right ear. Fighting down
the panic that threatened to
erupt, Ranma rolled and twisted
again as something sharp sliced
through a branch somewhere in
front of him.
*Zuuummmm*
{Where is it coming from?!!}
He recognized what that sound was now.
A Malkovitch Death Disk. An exotic, highly
illegal weapons system used only by
professional killers and a fringe of
eccentric weapon collecters. Galactic
society in general considered the Death
Disks highly abhorrent, even hardened
criminals usually wanted nothing to do
with these sadistic killing devices.
Small, lightning fast and nearly impossible to destroy,
they were armed with a miniature contra-gravity generator
and jagged mono-molecular blades, the disk worked as a
flying buzz-saw. They homed in on their targets through
a sophisicated laser targeting system and then slashed
them to pieces. Humans and similar 'soft' races were
usually cut in half after one pass. Even Mega-damage
body armor couldn't stop them most of the time.
The only real drawback of the weapon was that it
required a line of sight in order to hit anything,
giving it a maximum range of about five hundred feet.
There were plenty of other weapons that could have
taken him out from further away, which meant that
this Hunter *wanted* to have to close with his
intended prey.
{He's toying with me...}
First being hunted like an animal, now this.
Only someone that enjoyed seeing their victim's
blood liked using a Death Disk for the kill...
...it was the final straw.
He had been pushed too far.
{NO MORE!!}
Something deep inside of him snapped.
The chilling fear fled, in its place
began to burn an all consuming rage.
{I'm through running. Whatever happens, I am
a Cosmoknight. I will not disgrace the vow of
loyalty I took. This ends now! One way or
another, IT ENDS!!}
The bleeding Knight ceased his evasive movements
and came to a deliberate halt. His ears alert
for the telltale whine of the deadly disk,
he began to wait.
A warm feeling started building in
his stomach as he closed his useless
eyes. His hearing flickered for a
fraction of a second before suddenly
sharpening to where he could now
distingish the sound of individual
raindrops striking the forest floor.
The rich smells of a living ecosystem
filtered through his nose, the sharp
tang of rust overlaying them all.
The chill of the night seeped through
Ranma's wet skin. He accepted it without
complaint. Concentrating instead on the
flow of the air around him he waited for
his chance.
*zzz*
It was coming again.
*zuuu*
Closer. Not yet. He needed to strike
at the very last second in order to give
its AI no chance to evade his attack.
*zuuu-*
It was closing fast, the distance
disappearing with every heartbeat.
*-mmmm*
The moment came.
*zzzissh--*
Ranma's hands blurred as he used
the speed enhancement technique
that Sarah had taught him only
a few weeks ago.
"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!!" (1)
Most of his punches missed. But he was throwing out
hundreds of them and the laws of universal probability
declared that at least some of them would connect.
One of them did.
*CRACK*
Mega-damage alloys and micronized electronics
shattered, bits and pieces crashing into the
brownish-red mud. In return its deadly
blades slashed deeply across the knuckles
of his right hand.
He ignored the pain, it was a small price to pay.
Opening his one good eye, the Cosmoknight was
rewarded with a whole bunch of dark blurs instead
the big light blur that he'd been seeing. But Ranma
would be damned before he'd let that stop him now.
{Let's finish this!!}
He dropped into a fighting stance and
yelled angrily into the silent night.
"Come out and face me like a man!"
'ssshhhh'
A stray breeze moaned softly as the
surrounding darkness grew even colder.
"I am Ranma Saotome, Heir to the Anything
Goes School of Martial Arts and Protecter of
the Cosmic Forge, if you want my life so badly
try and take it from me!!"
At first there was only the wind.
But then came the cool voice that would
forever haunt his darkest nightmares.
"Brave words, boy."
Overhead, the storm finally broke. For an
endless moment a gigantic jagged bolt
of lightning filled the cloudy skies
with savage azure fire.
"Brave, but foolish."
Although still fuzzy at the edges,
Ranma's vision was clear enough
for him to finally see his enemy
for the first time.
{!!!}
He could only stare at first,
paralyzed with shock from what
he saw.
{It's impossible!! He's...he's...!!}
"I fail to see why those stubborn fools
tried so hard to shield such an insignificant
weakling from me..."
Ranma bristled defensively.
{Gotta keep it together, I need to stall him
long enough to regenerate a little. No matter
what he says I can't let his words get to me!}
There was a brief pause as
the blurry figure stepped
closer.
"...Conner must have gone senile
in his old age..."
Ranma could taste blood from
where he bit deeply into his
lower lip.
{No, it's just what he wants!!}
"...And that woman of his was just
as stupid to believe in him."
{!-!-!)
"SHUT UP AND FIGHT!!"
Boundless contempt dripped from his lips as
the Ravager responded to the crude challenge.
"As you wish."
And the battle was joined.
~~~~~~~
-Escape
"Here they come again!"
"Tell me something I don't know!!"
Nicholas pulled a fist sized grey capsule
from his belt and pushed down on the center.
*beep*
He tossed it over the totaled
hovercar they were using for
cover.
"Fire in the hole!"
The anti-personnel grenade peppered the area
with deadly shrapnel, hitting everything
within its radius indiscriminately.
It bought them a few extra seconds.
The two of them used the time to abandon
their position and quickly scrambled down
a blind alley. Sun got a mouthful of her
own hair as she put on an extra burst of
speed. The Leyline Walker quickly spit it
out in disgust.
"Where are the cops when you need them?!"
"They don't get involved in these kinds
of offworld affairs, we're on our own."
"Well that's just GREAT!"
Their pursuers had recovered and
were once again on their heels.
"If we can make it to the starport,
we'll be able to lose them."
The shouts and cries were getting closer.
"Got any ideas on how to do that?"
Long distance energy blasts began flashing by.
They were missing so far, but every shot brought
the range closer to their targets.
"As a matter of fact..."
They were finally entering a more active section
of the level. The few pedestrians scattered and
ran as soon as they realized that a running battle
was coming through. Nicholas paid them no heed,
having more important worries at the moment.
Besides, he was more interested in the *vehicular* traffic.
An unlucky hoverbiker chose exactly the wrong
moment to stop in front of a nearby bar for a
quick drink.
A swift kick deposited the lanky humanoid
onto the ground in a rougher fashion then
it had been expecting.
"Gloorrrl?! HOKOSHO!! BRAELNE!! BRAELNE!!"
Nicholas wasted no time in mounting the now
riderless vehicle. Katrina quickly realized
his plan and scrambled up behind him. She gave
the owner a look of apology.
"Sorry, we need this more then you do!"
The Rebel agent spent a few seconds to
familarize himself with the controls.
Once satisfied that he could fly this
oversized mechanical monster, Nick
tossed back a quick warning to his
fellow passenge.
"Hang on!"
That was when Kat realized there
weren't any safety harnesses on
this thing.
"Wa-Wait!!"
*VAAAVAAAVAAAVOOOMMM*
Croaker and Sun were treated to
an acceleration from standing
rest to 250 kilometers per hour
in the span of three seconds.
"Aaaaaa!!"
Without the benefit of seatbelts.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
That's more like it.
~~~~~~~
-Duel Of The Fates
He fought bravely, using every technique,
every bit of skill at his disposal.
"Bakusai Tenketsu!!" (2)
He fought tenaciously, never attacking the
same way twice. Learning almost instantly
from every move, successful or not, and
adapting his style accordingly.
"Mizu Dai Geki!!"(3)
He fought with the certainty of youth,
believing in his heart of hearts that
justice would prevail.
"Aaaagggh!"
Ranma fought...to no avail.
"Uwwaaa---!!"
The air was blasted out of his lungs as
another one of the Ravager's attacks
smashed through his defenses and sent
him hurtling straight into the side of
a rock ledge. The stone shattered where
he impacted, and as Ranma struggled to
get back up he vomited a mouthful of
blood onto the hard surface.
{He's...too...strong...}
His knuckles were raw and swollen from
countless failed attempts to strike his
enemy. His left kneecap had been smashed
in, and his one remaining good eye was
swollen almost completely shut. Half his
ribs were crushed, and blood ran freely
from dozens of ugly wounds all over his
body.
"Is that the best you have to offer?"
"Nngghh....shut...up!!"
Slowly, painfully, Saotome started to claw
his way back to his feet. He managed to get
nearly halfway up before an armored heel
smashed into his left kidney and sent him
crashing back down.
"Pathetic."
A second kick struck him from behind and
Ranma felt his left arm snap like a brittle
twig. Flashes of blinding white flooded
his vision as wave after wave of indescribable
agony flooded through him. Helpless tears of
impotent rage clung to the edges of his half-blind
pupils, stubbornly refusing to fall. Still he
continued trying to fight back. Instead resisting
the imparted momentum he rolled with it, redirecting
most of the force into a desperate low kick. His
form was almost perfect, even with the injuries
slowing him down. Exactly like how he'd practiced
in training.
But 'almost' wasn't good enough.
"Too slow."
His attack was stopped far short of its mark.
The Ravager had an advantage in power and
reach that Ranma couldn't possibly hope to
match with just his bare hands. And Saotome
had already discovered firsthand just how
strong his opponent was.
{Damn...you...!}
A wet explosion marked the swift
destruction of his right kneecap.
"...!!"
There was nothing left in
his lungs for him to scream.
But even worse then the physical pain
was the coldly indifferent expertise
that the Ravager was using to take him
apart.
Methodically, efficiently and brutally
the fledgling knight's moves were
countered, his strategies nullified,
his hopes crushed.
{Conner...Sarah...I'm sorry...I tried...}
There were a hundred moments in the battle
where his enemy could have finished him off
but did not, choosing instead to continue
to break him. His healing factor was stretched
to its limits as each new wound sapped away at
his diminishing strength.
Dying by inches.
And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
His limp body landed on a rocky outcrop that gave way
under the violence of his landing. he tumbled down the
rough slope, leaving a crimson spattered trail in his wake.
"And to think those fools believed you would be worthy of
the Key. As if a weakling could succeed where I did not."
{What...what is he...talking...about? Key...?}
It took everything Ranma had left and more to
arise from he'd fallen. But somehow he managed
to get back up one more time. His wobbling legs
threatened to give way, yet he still stood on
his feet.
"I grow tired of this farce."
Battered by injury and exhaustion, his mind started
to slip in and out of awareness. He was beginning to
react instead of think as his tenuous grasp on
consciousness loosened with every passing moment.
{The g-good guy's...supposed to win...}
He felt cold, so very cold. Ice gripped his pounding
heart tightly as he watched the dark specter approach.
{Why...can't...I...beat...him?!}
Desperately, hopelessly, he stumbled foreward and launched
one last punch, throwing away every bit of his remaining
power into that final blow.
"DAMN YOU!!"
It was an attempt doomed to failure.
But he had to do it anyway, anything less would have
meant he'd given up. And a Saotome never gave up, ever.
"Idiot."
A gleam of darkness.
A sudden burning sensation from his right wrist.
Then a fountain of blood erupted forth as his
clouded eyes stared dumbly at the stump where
the arm now ended as his cleanly severed hand
dropped to the ground below.
~~~~~~
-Shock Therapy
"Now!!"
Pure mystical power geysered forth from Belldandy's
glowing form. A stream of unadultrated psychic
energy that channeled directly to her older sister.
Urd grimaced as she absorbed the intense charge.
It was a little like being plugged directly into
a nuclear reactor. Even for her, the power was
almost uncomfortable to retain.
{If this doesn't get him up, nothing will.}
Loooking down at his broken faceplate, she
brushed back a stray strand of black hair
that was showing as she whispered a short
prayer for the unconscious young man.
"Please...please let this work."
Then she let it loose.
~~~~~~
-Destiny
Clutching his right arm in disbelief,
he stumbled backwards. Dimly, he could
sense himself uncontrollably trembling
from the sheer shock. It was too much.
{I...}
It seemed he was only human after all.
{I want to live...}
A weak azure glow began to illuminate the area.
But he couldn't see where it was coming from.
Ranma could barely see at all now, but he could
still feel the icy bite of the blood red rain
beating down upon him. He was going perish here,
on an alien world so far from home.
{no...}
All alone.
{No...}
Disgrace, defeat and now death.
{NO!!}
The glow grew brighter.
"Now it ends."
A shadow fell over his form.
Ranma looked up into the
face of his executioner.
{I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!}
And suddenly the light became
blindingly bright. Beyond
anything he'd ever known.
"What? What is this?!"
He could hear surprise in
the Ravager's voice as if
from a great distance.
Then everything vanished
within that searing light...
~~~~~~
-Reaction
Scarlet lightning erupted from the center
of their patient's chest, catching Urd and
Belldandy completely off guard.
They were thrown back by sudden violent outburst,
the hellish glare forcing them to shield their
eyes.
"What's happening?!"
Belldandy had no answer for her sister.
Ranma's body jerked forward.
As his head came up he screamed.
But instead of sound, a beam of solid
white shot up toward the temple's roof.
The weatherworn stone vanished as if it had never
existed, a moment later the light struck the mystical
barrier that the three goddesses had spent so
much time to erect.
At first it seemed that their work would be in vain
as the beam impacted. Colors of the sea flared up as
the two forms of energy battled for supremacy. As
the raging force expended itself against the fiercely
glowing shield it threatened to break through.
But the Ward held.
And just as abruptly as it began, the outburst ended.
The Knight collapsed back onto the futon.
To all outward appearence he seemed completely lifeless.
"No!"
The bronze skinned goddess dashed toward him,
her features betraying unexpected emotions.
Urd started to pound on his chest,
refusing to believe that they'd lost him.
"It can't end like this!"
She froze abruptly, afraid that her
imagination was suddenly playing
tricks on her.
But there it was again.
She wasn't mistaken.
Slow, but steady.
A heartbeat.
"Thank goodness..."
She looked down upon his
half-hidden face and gently
cradled his head in her lap.
"You idiot...don't scare me like that."
Watching from the side, her sister smiled knowingly.
~~~~~
The pain eased as his body finally succeeded in
expelled the alien contaminents that had been
poisoning his system.
With the enormous drain on his system gone,
a flicker of awareness flared to life...
~~~~
-Heart of the Sword
Darkness.
Different this time, but familar.
In his mind's eye he saw again the
battle against the two minions on
the streets. Something about their
powers, something important...
'Negaforce.'
A growing sense of recognition tickled
at the very edge of his mind.
'Evil beyond forgiveness, beyond redemption.'
His kind had faced this somewhere before.
But where? And when?
'Remember.'
From deep within the Cosmoknight's subconscious
a name stirred on the fringes of his awareness.
A collective memory shared by all of the Forge's
Chosen.
'One of our most ancient foes, a vile entity
we believed destroyed so very long ago.'
At last he recognized his enemy's true nature.
Called the Deceiver, the Betrayer, and more
then a thousand other names in a hundred
dead languages, her true identity had been
lost to the rest of the galaxy long before
the birth of modern civilization. Only the
Cosmoknights and the Forge still remembered
the truth.
'Finish the task that our brethren started.'
A single word escaped his unconscious lips.
"Metall'a."
~~~~~~~~~~
-The Negaverse (Our motto: How may we kill you today?)
THIS COULD NOT BE!!
But the images brought back by
her minions were unmistakable.
The old memories of pain and humilation
stirred once again as the vile being
studied the revolting projection.
"After all this time...one of those
digusting meddlers has finally
found their way here..."
A Knight of the Cosmic Forge.
On Earth.
The silent mental roar of mindless anger and pure
unbridled hate shook the palace to its very foundations.
Every one of Metall'a's minions cringed in pain and
terror from the sheer force of their mistress's outrage.
{Of all the infernal things...why one of *THEM*?!*}
Over a thousand millenia had passed since the
Dark Star Kingdom, which had spanned the furthest
reaches of the Anvil Galaxy at its height,
had been destroyed by those wretched beings.
The crowning achievement of her power,
brought down by those cursed pawns of
the damnable Forge.
They had slaughtered billions of her minions
and sent the badly wounded Intelligence fleeing
to the farthest reaches of the Multiverse.
It had taken over seven hundred years for the
injuries to heal, and longer still for the
entity's pride to recover from the bitter
taste of defeat.
Metall'a would *never* forget.
{revenge...}
By the time the Intelligence finished healing,
Metall'a had found herself too low on psychic
energy to risk returning to the Three Galaxies
or any of the known dimensions. In her weakened
state she would have been easy prey for any of
her rivals. Only the strongest survived in the
merciless ecosystem of the Alien Intelligence.
And so she was forced to remain in exile. Years
passed into decades, decades turned to centuries,
and the centuries began to fade into the obscurity
of millenia.
Still she had waited for an opportunity to rebuild her empire.
Her chance had finally come when those first strange
emanations reached her, power that she later learned
originated from the Imperium Silver Crystal.
And she had been so close!
Once again Metall'a cursed Serenity and all of her descendents.
If only they hadn't interfered time and time again!
Even now, a thousand years later, one of the Royal
Family had appeared and thwarted her attempts at conquest.
To be defeated by a clumsy, simpleminded, scared little crybaby...
With an effort she pushed aside the old frustration.
She could not afford such distractions now.
{Revenge.}
The Sailor Senshi could wait.
She would never be safe as long as this
Cosmoknight lived. He *had* to be eliminated
quickly, before he discovered the truth.
Metall'a knew that if the Knights ever
discovered her presence again that this
time they would hound her to the very ends
of the universe until either she or they
were completely annihilated. Those stubborn
do-gooders were all but impossible to stop
once they set out to do something.
{REVENGE!!!}
It was incredibly difficult to kill a Knight of the Forge.
But not impossible.
For the Intelligence was well aware of the one
chink in their nearly impenetrable defenses.
Magic. The ultimate bane of the Cosmoknights.
Metall'a had learned to exploit this weakness
to its fullest early on during the war against them.
Enchanted weapons and spells of power could slay any
of those fools as easily as a simple mortal and even
the most venerable Cosmoknight was still vulnerable
to the lethal kiss of a Drinker of Souls.
Unfortunately, almost all of her items of power had
been lost during the Great War. Her enemies had been
very through in their efforts to find and destroy
the Intelligence's hidden caches of weapons and
magical artifacts. Most of what she'd managed to
spirit away had been wasted during her many attempts
to seize control of the ancient Silver Millenium.
And with her reserves depleted so heavily,
she could not risk a direct attack on him yet.
She just needed a little time.
Time to plan, to discover how much this
one already knew. Was he alone, or were
there others watching and waiting?
And most important of all, time to
gather what remained of her strength.
For if worst came to worst, she might
have to deal with this matter *personally*.
Though her powers had weakened from her long
exile, still they were more then a match for
a single knight no matter how experienced he
might be. Especially if the choice of battle
grounds was hers to decide.
The entity's features cortorted into a grotesque
approximation of smug anticipation as she stared
at the hateful image in front of her.
A few weeks to prepare, no more. Enough for the Intelligence
to marshal her forces, yet far too short for the
Knight to confirm her presence here.
And then the battle would truly begin.
She could almost taste her long awaited vengence.
And she found it sweet.
~~~~~~~~
-On A Lighter Note
She shook her head at the sight before her.
"Oh you girls, I can see I've got my work cut out for me."
Yohko and her two friends were sprawled out
cold on the floor. Trickles of drying blood
on their faces indicated that nosebleeds
of considerable proportions had taken place
recently.
She easily spotted the culprit.
It was lying in plain view for
anyone to see.
{Only on chapter 1? This could take longer then I thought...}
After making the girls more comfortable
Nodoka grabbed her sword as she headed
for the family dojo. She needed to relieve
some stress in preparation for the task
ahead. It was during these times that
she missed her husband Genma the most,
he had been so *good* at relaxing her.
~~~~~
-Paying The Piper
Sasami beamed at her fellow passenger
as their blonde driver raced along
the winding roads that led back to
the Masaki Valley.
"There were some scary parts,
but I had a lot of fun today!!"
Kiyone was not normally a religious person.
She'd been assigned as Mihoshi's partner
for far too long to believe that a benevolent
deity was watching over her. But as they drove
back to the house she was praying up a storm,
hoping desperately that Princess Ayeka had *not*
found out about Sasami's little *adventure*.
Especially given the fact that Kiyone and Mihoshi
were supposed to have been responsible for watching
her.
{Oh please, oh please, oh please!! I'll never
ask for anything else for the rest of my life!!
I'll even stop badgering you every night about
getting me a transfer off this third rate planet!!}
The little princess's tale of what happened when
she went off on her own had almost given the teal
haired detective a stroke when they finally found
her. Kiyone knew perfectly well that if Ayeka found
out about this she would blow a gasket, not to
mention what she would do to the Galaxy Police
Officers!
"We're almost home!"
Mihoshi's innocent cheerful tone
did nothing to soothe her partner's
worries. Far too soon for her comfort,
the house started to come into view.
So did a steaming, larger then life
First Crown Princess of Jurai with
both Guardians in tow.
And boy, did she look unhappy!
Detective First Class Kiyone paled.
"We're dead."
~~~~~~
-A Quick Review
Trying to pry useful information out of
the Guardian of Time is like using your
bare hands to pull teeth from an irritated
grizzly, a fact that the rest of the
Sailor Senshi were fast discovering
to their dismay.
"Tell us!"
Rei's simple direct approach didn't work.
"No."
"C'mon! Just one little hint!!"
Minako's adorable puppy eyes
also failed to budge her.
"No."
"Please!!"
Even Usagi's ear-torturing whining
was of no use, Setsuna's iron
resolve remained firm.
"Absolutely not."
This argument was now going into its third hour.
The Princess and most of the other Senshi wanted
to know what Setsuna was keeping from them. It was
almost painfully obvious to all by now that their
oldest member knew more about the strange warrior
then she was saying. Even Haruka and Micheru were
siding with the Inners on this one, they hated being
kept in the dark just as much as the others.
"Spill it Setsuna, what is it about this guy
that's got your tail in such a twist?
The Time Guardian raised a single graceful eyebrow.
Haruka shrugged in response, determined not to
let Setsuna divert her with the old "switch to
another subject" mind trick.
"Hey, I may be violent but I'm not
stupid. Now answer the question."
"No."
"Arrggh!!"
This was really getting nowhere fast.
But while everybody else was busy in
their futile efforts to get something,
*anything* besides a denial out of Meiou,
Ami was quietly working on her slightly
scorched VR visor and mini-computer.
Somehow she knew intuitively that these
held a key piece of the puzzle that now
faced them.
What Mizuno was trying to do was not
especially original, simply connect
a two-way data feed between the pieces
of equipment. This would allow her to
replay today's earlier battles for everyone
else and give her computer's more powerful
electronic 'brain' a chance to analyze
the huge influx of data that had caused
her VR visor's systems to crash. The
operation wasn't hard, simply time consuming.
*shnick*
A final circuit clicked into place.
*Beep*
The blue haired genius smiled
in tired satisfaction.
"There! All done."
This finally attracted the
attention of the other girls.
"What have you got there?"
Ami started typing in the needed commands.
"Some answers, if we're lucky."
The screen of her mini-computer flared
to life and began to project a three
dimensional scene in front of the
curious Senshi.
The response was immediate.
"Hey, that's him!"
"Ack!! How come nobody ever
told me my thighs are that
big?!!"
"..."
Everyone took a moment
to stare at the suddenly
bigsweating Minako.
"Never mind."
Fortunately for her, the miniature
battle playing out in front of them
quickly recaptured their attention.
Usagi and Rei blinked and swallowed heavily.
This was the first time that they had gotten
a chance to see what all the others had been
making such a big fuss about.
"....wow."
"Ami, why are you fast forwarding through this part?"
"I'm not, Usagi. This is playing back at a 1:1
ratio. He's actually moving that quickly."
Usagi paused in mid-bite of a cracker and paled.
"And Setsuna wants us to fight *him*?! Has she gone completely bonkers?!!"
Heads turned toward their oldest member.
Or rather, where they'd last seen her.
An empty chair met their eyes.
"How does she keep doing that?!"
~~~~~~~~
-Eyecatch of the day
~Fade In~
(Ranma running away "Road Runner" style from the
normal mob of girls trying to get a piece of him.)
Ranma: AARRRGGGH!!!
(The chase goes back and forth through the streets of
Nerima/Juuban/Osaka/*insert Japanese province of choice*)
Ranma: I've gotta find a way to get away from them!!
(A light bulb pops up over his head)
(Ranma runs into the nearest phone booth and pulls a curtain down)
*Sounds of frantic changing of clothes*
(Door opens and out pops Oogumi Ichirou [Sakura Wars])
Ranma/Oogumi: Heh, they'll never spot me in this getup!
(True to his words the girls pass him by, completely fooled)
Ranma/Oogumi: Yes! Free at last!!
*BOOM*
Ranma/Oogumi: OH NO!! NOT THEM!!!
(Several beautiful women with assorted weapons and a cute twelve year old surround him)
Members of the Hanagumi: Hold it right there! You have to decide which one of us you really like the most!!
Ranma/Oogumi: Uh, can I get back to you on that?
Sakura/Orihime/Kanna/Sumire/Kohran/Maria/Iris: NO!!
Ranma/Oogumi: In that case...RUN AWAY!!!
(A second chase ensues)
Ranma/Oogumi: Let's try that again!
(He runs, hides, and switches appearances again)
Ranma: Ta da!
(Trouble Contracter Kane Blueriver [Lost Universe] steps out)
(The Imperial Flower Division passes him by)
Ranma/Kane: Whew! Finally ditched all them.
(An ominous rumbling overhead seems to contradict that)
Ranma: It *can't* be....
(Four girls pop up)
Milly: There you are!!
(Milly pulls out her trusty oversized energy pistol)
Melrina: How dare you try to run out on us!!
(Melrina also pulls out a gun)
Karin: Little lion, it's time to play.
(Karin pulls out her energy whip and charges it up)
*Wh-ppishhh*
Canel: You've been a very *bad* boy!
(The Sword Breaker starts aiming all of its 200+ guns at him)
Ranma/Kane: help me...
~Fade Out~
~~~~~~~
-Portents & Omens
Setsuna Meiou collapsed onto her bedroom
floor as soon as her teleport finished.
While not the most powerful of the Senshi,
she was unquestionably the most experienced.
Pluto had never been reborn like the others
and so retained full awareness of her powers.
Normally she would have known better then to
tap into that power while in civilian form.
The strain it placed on her body made such an
act impractical except for the most dire of
emergencies. But after seeing the replay of
the first few minutes of the first battle she'd
gone into shock.
{Impossible. It's impossible...}
Her first instinct had been to run and hide.
{I've finally gone completely mad.}
It was the only explanation her
tormented soul could come up with.
Rationality was submerged beneath
the need to keep her deepest secret
from the others. They would never
understand, and the shame of them
finding out was unthinkable.
Because she recognized that fighting style.
Setsuna had held some suspicions during their battle earlier,
but the way he had been holding back (and she realized
now that he had not been engaging them seriously at all)
had prevented her from confirming the uneasy feeling of
familarity that had plagued her during the brief melee.
But now there was no mistaking that graceful and utterly lethal
dance of quicksilver strikes and teasing dodges that defied
any attempt to define a pattern.
{Ran...}
She had thought that any remaining feelings for
him had died long ago. It shocked her then, the
maelstrom of conflicting emotions that now arose
from the possibilty that somehow he had survived
the Silver Millenium's destruction.
"I hate him! I...hate him. I..."
Confusion ran rampant through her mind,
she wasn't sure about anything anymore.
How? How could he have survived?
And then she realized...
{I attacked him. I hurt him...maybe even killed him.
Wasn't that what I always wanted? But...}
She recalled with stark clarity using her Chrono-Trigger
technique against the Knight. She had dreamed of making
Ran pay for his crimes, wanting to hurt him as much as he
had done to her. But now the satisfaction that she
had always expected to feel was not there. Instead
there was a simply an aching emptiness within her breast.
"What's wrong with me?! I thought revenge would make
the pain finally go away...why? Why won't it stop?!"
An unexpected voice answered her.
"Perhaps it is time you started listening to your heart
instead of burying yourself within your duties, Puu-chan."
Setsuna froze as that familar regal tone
penetrated through the haze of despair and
bitter loneliness. She turned to see a tiny
spark of silvery white light pass through
the bedroom window. It hovered for a moment
at eye level and then slowly coalesced into
a figure the Guardian of Time had not seen
since that dark day over a thousand years ago.
Barely a foot tall, the spirit of the
former monarch might have been mistaken
for a fairy queen. Her silver hair and
transluscent wings shimmered with a
faint unearthly light that gave her
tiny form an almost tangible presence
of undisputed authority.
"Queen Serenity!"
Setsuna hastily knelt before her beloved ruler.
"Your Majesty."
A brief look of mild irritation crossed Serenity's features.
"Stop that, Setsuna. You know I always hated going through
the formalities in the Moon Kingdom. I didn't put
up with it then and I won't put up with it now."
The Guardian of Time scrambled back to her feet.
She was pale from the multiple shocks to her system
but still managed to hold herself steady in the face
of her Queen.
"But, Serenity-sama...how?...why? I don't..."
Serenity gave her a small sad smile.
"Hush. My time here is short. I have delayed my
final journey long enough. This will be the last
time I will ever be able visit this world again
and I have no intention of wasting this opportunity."
Setsuna was left in a stunned silence.
"Much better."
The spirit nodded in approval
even as her eyes softened.
"I know that these past centuries have been
hard, but it is long past time that you
stopped blaming yourself for what happened."
Setsuna's head came up in protest.
"But Highness, it was *my* fault that Beryl
managed to launch her surprise attack!
I neglected my duty by letting my feelings
interfere with the oaths sworn to you
and the entire kingdom. I let my guard down..."
Nothing could have softened the anguish in her voice.
"...and the Silver Millenium paid the price for my failure."
Serenity shook her head.
"No. All you did was fall in love.
There is no crime in that."
Setsuna laughed dryly, a small hateful sound
full of self condemnation and loathing for
her sheer stupidity.
"I loved him...and in return he sabotaged our defenses,
killed the Senshi of Uranus and Neptune, and banished
me to the Gates of Time...I should have killed him when
I had the chance."
The Queen's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
"Do not judge what you have yet to understand."
"Serenity-sama?"
Confusion was writ on the Setsuna's face.
"Let it go, Puu-chan."
Serenity was not indifferent to her friend's plight.
There was so much that Pluto didn't know,
and though the spirit wanted to comfort
her she also knew that she could not. Indeed,
she *dared* not. Serenity was only one tiny
thread in the tapestry of Destiny. She understood
the necessity of the final grand pattern, but that
didn't mean she had to like it.
{If it were possible I would spare you the pain
you must soon face. But life has never been very
fair to you, old friend.}
Her face revealed none of the sympathy
she longed to give, leaving only the
steel will of the Queen for all to see.
"Heed my words, Guardian of the Gate."
The green haired woman stiffened as she
heard herself being addressed by her
full formal station.
"Between the Darkness and the Light stands the sleeping knight,
He will be known by the Blood of two Worlds,
Heir to the Dragon's Sword,
Marked by the Wings of the Endless Storm,
A Promise of Life that might or Death that will,"
Suddenly there was a tugging sensation on her
remaining energy, one that grew stronger by the
second.
{No! It's too soon!! I need more time!}
"Past and Future will soon come full circle,
The Destined are called to fullfill past vows yet to be sworn,
Old Enemies will meet again,
Opposing sides of the Coin,
Hope and Curse intertwined,
Two Students inherit their shared Legacy,
But only One shall claim their Destiny,"
Setsuna started to move as she saw her liege's
image begin to fade but was halted by the warning
look on her face.
With an almost visible effort of
concentration the Queen managed
to briefly stabilize her vanishing
form.
But only for a moment.
"Beware of the Beast that hides within the Man,
Beware of the Deceiver that lives in the Shadows,
Beware of the Coveting Heart that shuns the day,
For only a Blade of Truth will be their End,
Seek out the Soul that holds no Lies,
Heal the Void within the Child of the Stars,
Return the Key of Life to the Soul of Origin,
To Unlock the Seeds of the Past,
And Open the Gates of the Future."
The spirit's nearly transparent form started to
shiver weakly as she fought to stay there just
a little bit longer.
{I owe her this much at least!}
"Remember this well Pluto. Those who choose
to challenge their destiny...do...not...
always...lose..."
And then she was gone.
~~~~~~~
-What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
A certain news broadcast hit the
international community of Earth
with all the subtlety of a bull
in a china shop.
The repercussions were immediate,
although most of them would not be
discovered by Ranma until much later...
~~~~~~~
-Amazon Village, China
""
Cologne blinked. After 300 years
there weren't much left capable of
surprising her.
This was one of those memorable moments.
The video feed was shaky and of poor
quality due to interference from the
surrounding mountains but the image
was unmistakable.
""
HOW had that person gotten his hands on such
an advanced Amazon special technique?!
Only the village elders were supposed to possess
them, the techniques were so difficult to master
that of the entire village only Cologne and a few
other grandmasters were able to do more then just
remember the names of those ancient special attacks
anymore.
Even Happi, the only outsider to ever gain access to
the original scrolls, had never been able to fully
comprehend their workings.
""
""
Comb, Lorekeeper and one of the more liberal
elders of the village, joined her in the hut.
""
Despite her light tone, the eccentric mystic knew
that this situation required further investigation.
She had been sensing powerful forces in motion lately.
Now it looked like a quick excursion to Japan was in order.
For when elephants clashed, it was always the grass that suffered.
{I can feel the Lines of Destiny shifting. Whether it is for good
or ill is impossible to tell. But there are Old Powers involved,
and they could very well tear this entire planet apart if they
engage in open conflict.}
Then Comb smiled.
As Lorekeeper for the tribe it was her
responsibility to keep record of unusual
events for the benefit of future generations.
And this promised to be anything but boring.
Cologne felt a sudden cold chill run down
her spine as she caught a glimpse of that
telltale grin.
{Goddess preserve us, every time Comb gets excited
about something we always seem to find ourselves in
a hell of a lot of trouble!}
The younger Amazons who didn't really care about silly
Japanese magical girl shows and just wanted to go out
and track down their beloved pigtailed soon-to-be-husband
were already packed and ready to go.
It was going to be an interesting trip.
~~~~~~~
-Interpol HQ
"Mother! How could you engage me to some kid?!"
Chun-Li Zang shouted angrily at the hapless phone,
her fingers wrapping hard around the cord in an attempt
to strangle it. Was there some unwritten Universal
Law that said mothers had to embarass their daughters
for the rest of their natural lives?
"You bought him from his father in exchange for a *WHAT*?!"
The Chinese Interpol agent had dealt with some
pretty strange and tramatic things in her life,
but this one took the cake complete with icing
on top!
"No way! Absolutely out of the question!!"
She was *not* going to marry some snot nosed little punk
just because her mother was desperate for grandkids to spoil!
There were limits to what she'd do in the name of filial piety,
and this was definitely one of them.
"This is not the Dark Ages!"
Unfortunately her mother didn't seem to agree with her.
"Fine!! I'll just have to find the jerk and
get this stupid deal annulled from *his* side!!"
Chun-Li slammed her phone back down onto its
cradle with a barely restrained snarl that
boded ill for her 'fiance'.
Her fellow agents suddenly found that
they had pressing business elsewhere.
All except for one unfortunate secretary
who was just a tad too slow in realizing
her peril.
The Interpol agent loomed over the rapidly paling woman.
"Book me on the first flight to Japan...NOW."
~~~~~~~
-The Diggers...
"OHMYGOD!"
Gina Diggers had a familar feverish gleam
in her eyes. Her passion for exploration,
knowledge, and (most importantly) treasure
was well known to family, friends and rivals
alike.
"I've got to get that sword!!"
Brittany and Brianna sighed in
unison. Both knew their sister's
routine by heart now.
"Here we go again..."
~~~~~~~
-...And Co.
"C'mon Charlotte, we're going to go and
one up little Miss Golddigger by getting
to that artifact before she does."
Penny, eternal and (sorta) friendly rival
of Gina Golddigger had *that* look on her
face again.
"Um, okay. But won't the person who owns
the sword have something to say about that?"
Her winged bodyguard wasn't so sure about this.
"Leave *that* to me. Warm up the jet, Ace."
Her other companion put a hand to his head.
"I just know I'm gonna regret this."
~~~~~~~
-London, England
"Hello Moneypenny."
The long suffering secretary
didn't even bother looking up
from her work.
"M is waiting inside."
She winced, the old battle axe
probably couldn't wait to chew her
out for her last assignment if
Moneypenny's reaction was anything
to judge by.
{Maybe it's time to start thinking
about another line of work.}
She shook her head as a very
un-agently giggle threatened
to escape.
{Yeah, and maybe Daddy will
finally settle down with just
one woman.}
Her features resumed their normal composure
the moment she stepped into M's office.
"We have a potential situation 003."
{Uh oh.}
M nodded toward the digital screen on
the wall behind her.
"This was picked up on one of Tokyo's
satellite broadcasts two hours ago."
Agent 003 raised a single perfect eyebrow.
"Um...I wasn't aware that we were in the
habit of investigating tabloid special
effects."
M gave her an annoyed look.
"This is a serious matter 003. Obviously there's something
beyond the ordinary going on. And Her Majesty's Government
doesn't like to be kept in the dark. Take the next plane
to Japan and find out exactly what or who that is and
report your findings back here A.S.A.P."
003 nodded, resigned to the inevitable.
"And one more thing Melissa,
do try not to behave like 007
while you're there."
It was all Melissa Bond could do not to roll
her eyes at that. *Nobody* could possibly
get into as much trouble as her father.
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind."
~~~~~~~
*-Interruption-*
"Looks like we're in for quite a show."
Shadow wasn't the type to rub his hands
together with glee, but only because it
would have made him look silly.
The Bard had no such reservations.
"Oh yeah!"
"Indeed."
Rowan had his own private concerns,
but he was beginning to get an inkling
of what Zora was up to. It was no secret
that the Cosmoknights had been trying to deal
with certain *problems* in their respective
galaxy, but the odds had always been skewed
against them. Too many beings found the easiness
of being evil an irresistable option.
But if what he suspected was true,
the balance of power was about to
take a major hit.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
She nodded back at him.
"I do too."
*-We Now Resume the Fanfic Already in Progress-*
~~~~~~~
-The Melva (Flagship of the Raalgon Empire)
Empress Azalyn Goza the 16th banged her
royal scepter against the floor and
issued her command in a suitably
sounding voice equal to the importance
she placed on this task.
"You know the drill. Now go out and find Paco Paco!"
"Yes, your Highness."
With all the cheer of a man condemned
to a fate worse then death, Captain Dom
of the Raalgon Naval Forces bowed and
left the Throne Room.
{Not again! Damn you Tylor!!}
Ru Baraba Dom feared no man.
But Justie Ueki Tylor was no ordinary man.
Tylor was an enigma. His superiors wanted to
kill him, his enemies wanted to kill him,
and more often then not his loyal crew wanted
to kill him too. Simply surviving so much
emity directed toward him was incredible,
but *prospering* under such adverse conditions
was nothing short of the kind of luck that
made a person believe in miracles.
And yet somehow Captain Tylor managed to do just that.
Which was why the Raalgon Empire's military
was so afraid of him. The guy simply wasn't
human! And while Dom admired Tylor's incredible
streak of good luck, he did *not* like the
captain's current relationship with the Empress.
Especially since said relationship involved the
removal of royal garments, suspicious giggling noises,
even more suspicious moaning, and the Empress yelling
"Faster Paco Paco!! Don't Stop!!" loud enough to shatter
the listening equipment that had been secretly placed
in the royal quarters for her safety.
~~~~~~~
-Get Up And Go!
Morning. On a planet with two suns
this event was usually regarded by
the locals as having all the charm of
a bunch of Homocidal Incarnations of
Lost Technology.
Of course, not everyone felt that way.
"Mmmmm."
Meryl Stryfe, of the Bernardeli Insurance Agency
pulled the sheets closer around her deliciously
tired body as she luxuriated in the warm kiss
of the dawning day.
For once all was right in the world for her.
At last, after months of stress and hardship,
she had *finally*, *FINALLY* gotten her hands
on that idiot Vash and after several hours of
enjoyable persuasion managed to get those three
magic little words out of him.
Now all that was left was to tie him up,
drag her man to the nearest preacher,
and then get the two of them hitched
before Milly or one of the other girls
got wind of her plans.
A questing hand reached over toward
the other side of the bed in search
of her future husband. Unfortunately
the warm body that Meryl found snoring
beside her was *not* Vash the Stampede.
For one thing, it was much too large.
And the figure had breasts, large ones,
which narrowed the possibilities down
to...
"MILLY?!!"
Milly "Stungun" Thompson, fellow agent
for Bernardeli Insurance and Meryl's
exasperating sidekick, awoke from her
pleasant dreams of the previous night.
"..uhn? Oh! Good morning Sempai!"
All of a sudden, the stress was back.
"HE DID IT AGAIN!!"
Meryl's outraged scream shattered
every glass object in a six block
radius. A slightly tired looking
young blonde man with a spiky hairdo
and a red trenchcoat seven blocks
away started running even faster.
"Uh oh. Looks like she finally woke up."
Unfortunately for Vash and the city
of 'Jackpot' in general a marshal
that bore a striking resemblence
to a certain ditzy Galaxy Police
Woman and several ladies that
had once tried to kill him were
walking down that exact same street.
Random destruction and lots of
gunfire started almost immediately.
Jackpot City ceased to exist an hour later.
~~~~~~~~
-RIFTS Earth
The outskirts of the City Fortresses were
some of the most wretched and violent areas
of the Coalition States. Here the poor and
desperate gathered, hoping for a better life
inside the heavily armored and fanatically
guarded bastions of the human race.
Many of them found only death. Others managed
to scrabble out a miserable existance under
the ever watchful eyes of the Coalition Armed
Forces. And for a rare few, these slums were
the stepping stone to the kind of wealth
and power that most people were only able to dream of.
Unfortunately these areas were also the best
places in North America for certain people to find
information that would otherwise be inaccessible
to them.
From one of the countless seedy bars on the outskirts
of Chi-Town, the Coalition's capital, came the panicked
cries of a bartender.
"No Blasters! No Blasters!!"
It was followed by the sound of a fist meeting flesh.
Shortly thereafter the main entrance of the slumping
building exploded in a spray of rotten woodchips and
rusty nails as a limp body went crashing through it to
smack heavily onto the muddy street.
"All I wanted was some information, dirtbag."
Janet Braddock stepped across the shattered door
and made her way to the unconscious idiot who'd
made the mistake of underestimating her determination
to find her man. And if that took shaking down every
lead on the planet, she was prepared to do just that.
Even if Ran didn't know that he was hers yet, she'd
fix that when she finally found him. Especially since
things were getting more urgent, Janet had been hearing
'rumors' that she wasn't the only merc out to stake a
claim on her 'Ran-chan'. If the leader of the
former "Robot Control" outfit wanted to get in the
way, Braddock would be more then happy to kick Chen's
scrawny ass across the Atlantic.
Hefting the groaning city rat to his feet,
the mercenary slapped him across the face
until he was semi-coherent.
"You could've just said no. Now you're going
to spill your guts, or we'll have to do this..."
Her thin smile would have given a glacier frostbite.
"...the *hard* way."
~~~~~~~
-Speaking Of Strange
Katrina was screaming like there was no tomorrow.
"Ohmygodlookoutforthosebuildings!!!"
Because if Croaker lost control over their ride,
there wouldn't be a future for either of them.
Nick grimaced as the hoverbike screamed barely
a dozen meters over the streets of Spacetown.
He'd been correct about knowing how to fly
this oversized monster, but controlling the
damn thing was an entirely different story!
"Highergohigherwe'regonnacrash!!!"
The engine was at least five times beyond street
legal, even for the very loose laws of the Center.
And the speed crazy idiot that owned it had
apparently taken out *all* of the mandatory
safety interlocks.
"Leftleftnotthatway!!!"
He cursed as a stray rooftop holographic billboard
projecter got a little too close for comfort. Sparks
flew as the bottom of the bike scraped briefly along
the solid metallic structure. The initial impact
nearly unseated them both, and it also had the added
effect of making their already shaky flight even
more unstable. But at least there was some good coming
out of this. They weren't being followed. Even Imps
weren't stupid enough to try and copy the flight path
of an obviously suicidal lunatic.
"Somebodystopthisthing!!"
Several hair-raising minutes later they finally cleared
Spacetown and entered the Shipyards. Now all they had to
worry about was trying to avoid smashing into any of the
hundreds of light starships and shuttles docked here.
At least most of the spacecraft here were *slightly*
smaller then the buildings they'd already passed.
Which wouldn't make crashing into one at their current
reckless speed any less fatal, but at least now they
had more room to dodge out of the way.
At least in theory anyway.
"Aiiieeee!!!"
~~~~~~~
-Down Comes The Hammer
Skythe was talking with Sharra
when the first alarm went off.
"What the hell?"
It was coming from the gravitational satellite array.
Hsi-Feng started cursing a blue streak as she dashed
for toward the console and slid into the seat in front
of it.
The array consisted of an enormous network of sensor
drones that monitored the gravitational distortions
of interstellar vessels. These distortions were
generated by the FTL drive, any ship equipped with
Faster Then Light technology generated a gravitational
'bubble' that sent 'eddies' through the local space-time
continum, similar to the ripples that resulted from
throwing a stone into a still body of water.
As a result, starships not equipped with military class stealth
systems could be detected by modern sensors as far as 10 Light
Years away. Even ships *with* stealth systems couldn't hide
themselves completely from detection. The betraying gravity
signature was too distinct. All that stealth systems actually
did was weaken the detectable effects of the gravitational
distortion to a less noticable level. And even then, that
normally only worked against *civilian* sensors.
The satellite array had been put in place by the Empire for
inner system defense coordination. And that meant it was a
*military* design.
"The Forge preserve us..."
Dear Gods, they *couldn't* be seeing what they were seeing.
It wasn't possible. It simply *wasn't* possible!
But the uncaring screen continued to display its horrifying data.
"They knew. Somehow the Empire knew we were coming."
Skythe felt the blood run from his face as he stared
in shock at the screen from where he stood behind his
granddaughter. His mind grappled with the enormity of
the catastrophe that the Alliance had blindly walked into.
And what it meant not only for the fleet in orbit above,
but the people here on the planet as well. *His* people.
They had followed him here, trusted in his leadership,
and believed that their planet would be free once more.
They'd come so close...so goddamn close.
Only to see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.
He wanted to do something, anything to break
free from the paralysis that held him. But
to his shame, he could not. The shock to
his system was too great. It felt like he
was drowning in quicksand, the more he
struggled to move the more he was held
fast by the terrifying certainty that anything
they did now would only be an act of futility.
Sharra was not so hampered.
She went to the last remaining operational
command comm-unit and prepared to send a
message out to the rest of their forces.
"We have to warn the Fleet before it's too late."
{If we can transmit the coordinates that the Imps are
coming in from to the Fleet, then they'll have a few
seconds of opportunity fire while the enemy is still
reorienting from coming out of hyperspace. If they can
hit the bastards hard enough as they jump in then we
might just have a chan-...}
The searing red brightness of a laser beam flashed
through the room, cutting the woman down before her
hands even got close to the controls.
"It already is too late."
~~~~
-Danger Zone
The Falcon's pilot and squadron leader of the Untamed Stallion's
fighters was Lt. Commander Meia. A Fleet brat, both of her parents
had been killed in action shortly after her enrollment into the
Alliance Armed Forces. As a result Meia had been considered a
'cold fish' by every crew she'd worked with before finally being
dumped onto a glitch-ridden experimental warship and its crew
of misfits, hardcases, and the newly promoted Captain Ranma. (4)
The first few weeks had been...difficult.
Especially once Meia had learned that the Fleet
had neglected to assign any fighters to their
ship. Which had meant that her position as squadron
leader had been totally meaningless...at first.
She'd handled that discovery rather badly at the time.
It had seemed back then that her entire world was going
down the tubes, left to rot on a dinky little ship that
wasn't even part of the regular Naval command anymore.
But the Captain had changed all of that.
The Falcon and her sister Hornet were Black Eagle
Space Superiority Starfighters. Their design was a
relatively new one, barely twenty standard years old.
Armed with two heavy lasers, a contra-grav rail cannon,
and a large selection of missiles they were also one of
the smallest craft in the Three Galaxies ever equipped
with FTL capability. These fighters were supposed to be
available only to the Consortium Armed Forces and its
members' planetary defense forces.
A few dozen production models had managed over the past
few years to slip through to the Black Market, but even
then they were so rare as to make them all but impossible
to obtain under normal circumstances.
However, nobody had remembered to tell Ranma that fact.
Because he had paid an arm and a leg (figurately speaking)
a few months later to surprise Meia and her other pilot, Lt.
Teleri, with two Eagles so new that their paint schemes
hadn't even finished drying.
His actions had shocked her to her very core.
She had treated him with nothing but cold contempt
from their very first encounter, having been warned
well in advance by the Fleet's rumor mill about the
new captain's womanizing ways and also about how his
glory chasing had led to promotion after promotion
while ignoring the costs that were shouldered
by the people who *really* deserved the credit.
Even before she had met her new commanding officer
Meia had been determined that she would not become
just another notch on Saotome's bedframe. She had been
certain that the new captain would prove to be either
an arrogant pigheaded Casanova or a coldblooded opportunist
who used his rank to take advantage of his subordinates.
She'd been wrong. On all counts.
Because Ranma Saotome had turned out to be
like nothing she could have possibly imagined.
And heaven help her, he'd managed to do the one
thing that she'd believed would never happen to her.
Without even meaning to he had broken through
the shield of ice which had protected her heart
for so long. Ranma had discovered a soul that
still cried for her parents, who let no one else
get close because losing those she cared for hurt
too much. A woman afraid of love, because she knew
that the universe was cruel and uncaring.
But he had cared. Truly. Unconditionally. Absolutely.
And with that realization her entire world had shattered.
Because if this universe allowed such cruelty and suffering,
then there also had to be an equal possibility of someone
as good as the Empire was evil. Someone like Ranma.
{My love...but it took your departure to finally admit
the truth, to say the words out loud to myself.
I pretended that it was only simple lust,
that would eventually pass with enough time.
And now...now I may never get a chance
to tell you my real feelings.}
"Eagle 1, report in."
Meia snapped out of her brief reminiscence.
"This is Eagle 1, my sector is clean."
But the bittersweet ache within her heart remained.
"Rodger that, Eagle 1. Form up with the rest of
the other squadrons and prepare for new mission
objectives."
"I'm on my way."
Her radar registered a sudden brief
hit at the very edge of its range.
A few seconds later there was a
second nearly insubstantial ping
in the same general area.
Meia's brow creased as she tried to confirm
whether the contact was real or just a trick
of the atmosphere.
"Hold on Control, I'm picking up a sensor
ghost near the Geo-Hunter range."
She frowned, puzzled by this anomaly.
High concentrations of heavy metals in those
mountains rendered most sensors useless for
ground and low altitude detection. But they
shouldn't have been interfering this far above
the planet.
She began a focused scan over the range.
{Okay Silvia, time to see if your work on my
sensor array was more then just idle boasting.}
And then the unknown contact's faint white
signal abruptly changed to bright angry red.
For what seemed like an endless moment,
Meia's conscious mind didn't register the change.
But her reflexes, honed through years of combat flying
where even a fraction of a second's delay could mean
the difference between life and certain death,
were already in play.
A flick of the wrist brought up the Falcon's ECM from
standby to active and switched her comm system to
the all-squadron frequency. She diverted power to
strengthen her forward shields and sent her
fighter plunging into a steep dive even as
she cried out a warning to the others.
"Bandits at 6 o'clock!"
A swarm of enemy fighters erupted from the
clouds below even before the last syllable
was spoken.
"All wings, engage at will!!"
Squadron formations disintergrated as shocked Rebel
pilots desperately tried to avoid getting killed
as the upper atmosphere erupted into a snarling
knife range dogfight.
Suddenly there were only the quick, and the dead.
~~~~~
-Too Little, Too Late
Alarm claxons started screaming on the command
deck of the Super Dreadnought HopeBringer.
"Admiral, Imperial ships are coming out of hyperspace in Sector 12!"
Splotches of red icons identifying enemy warships
began to appear on the tactical display of the system.
Hundreds of them. Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers,
Battlecruisers, Carriers, and worst of all...
"Enemy Super Dreadnoughts have entered the system!!"
The Hopebringer's captain turned toward Admiral Iblis,
his eyes wide with sudden horrified understanding.
"It's a trap!!"
~~~~~
-Resolution
It seemed to take an eternity
to complete the final move.
"Checkmate."
The Forge was silent. It had known that
this moment was inevitable, but an attempt
to try and change what was to come had to be made.
And It had failed.
Now the Chosen One would have to face the
greatest challenge of his life before
he was ready. There was no more time left.
The Forge could only hope that the training
he had been nudged toward was enough.
It would have to be.
Or else they were both doomed.
"It seems that your side has lost.
Like that archaic human term, what is it again?
Oh yes, I remember now. Game over."
[No. Not yet.]
"What do you mean?"
But when he turned around again Thoth found himself
addressing an empty room. He scratched the feathers
on his forehead and sighed.
"I really hate it when you do that."
There was no longer any point staying here.
His friend would be back when it wanted to return.
And the Ibis God still had a book of technowizardry
to finish anyway.
"Oh well, it was rather nice to finally win
after losing so many times in a row."
[...*...]
"Hmmm?"
Just for a second he thought that he saw the Forge reappear
out of the corner of his eye. But when he looked directly
in that direction there was nothing there. Whatever that
sound was, it had been too soft for even his keen
sense of hearing to make it out.
It *might* have been just the whisper of a stray breeze.
But his workshop was climate controlled.
[Now the real game begins...]
-End of Chapter III.
(To be continued...in Chapter IV)
*$*$*$*$*$*
(1) The ever reliable Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire Fist
(2) A familar Breaking Point
(3) Water Blossom Strike
(4) What, you thought they'd given him a *normal* crew of women to start with? Perish the thought!
-Stuff to know-
Note: Terms and People from other sources such as the
Pallidium RPG system and various Anime series.
PPE (Potential Psychic Energy):
This is the most common type of energy associated
with the supernatural in Palladium RPGs. PPE is
the "fuel" of all magic, also called Mana/Manna.
(Note: This is not Ki/Chi! That's an entirely
different type of energy with similar properties)
Although normally found in living creatures, it can
also occur in certain areas where the fabric of
space-time has been weakened to such an extent
that the boundries between the dimensions are blurred
(i.e. the infamous "Ley lines").
ISP (Inner Strength Points):
Psionic Energy, a.k.a. the power of the mind,
used for stuff like telekinesis, pyrokinesis,
telepathy, empathy, telemechanics...etc.
Rune Weapons (RIFTS: Atlantis):
Powerful enchanted weapons usually created through
a forbidden magical process that binds a living soul
to the device forever. These souls are what gives the
weapons their power. The stronger the soul, the more
powerful the weapon. Very rare and highly coveted by
most beings, in addition to being highly destructive
against living creatures they are also usually
indestructable and often intelligent and self-aware.
The Nightlords (Nightbane):
Ancient evil sorcerers of human origin who made
a pact with the Forces of Darkness to become
supernatural PPE vampires with an *unbelievable*
amount of power. They can shape/reshape
matter & energy at will! Their powers are
so advanced that they don't *need* to cast spells.
Add to that their personal armies ranging from
thousands to tens of millions of monsterous troops,
not to mention a hit point count that's just plain
insane and you have a race that could give the
Old Ones a run for their money.
The Coalition (RIFTS):
North America's largest surviving human population
after a nuclear holocaust and decades of invasion
by demons and monsters. Unfortunately due to their
evil leaders the Coalition has become a twisted
nightmare rather then the dream for restablishing
humanity that was its original intention. Total
techno-crats, they *HATE* anything related to magic
or the supernatural. Closest equivalent for comparision
would be the Nazis during WW II.
Vash the Stampede (Trigun):
A mysterious outlaw/reluctant hero who has a
$$10,000,000,000 bounty on his head. Inhuman reflexes
and kinesthic sense (has been known to dodge bullets at
point blank range). Occasionally acts serious but normally
just a goofball personality. Called the "Humanoid Typhoon"
for the damage he inadverently causes to any and all property
when bounty hunters try to kill him. And as you might guess,
that happens quite often.
And remembered...
----
-Shadows From The Past
"...That's it lad. Never let your guard down.
Always remember, you'll find few friends and
far too many enemies on the path you've chosen.
You can't *ever* afford the luxury of believing
you're safe."
"Hai, Conner-sensei. I'll figure
out a way to counter your techniques
one of these days, just you wait
and see!"
The indignant mock glare he shot at
his teacher and friend caused Conner
to chuckle in rueful amusement.
Although there was no malice in his
student's words there was no mistaking
the very real determination behind them.
"I'm sure you will, Ranma."
The older man offered a hand to his student
who was sprawled painfully on the cracked and
blackened earth. The morning's training had gone
well. The boy was finally starting to hold his own
against his teacher's straightforward and relentless
combat style after only a few months, truly astonishing
for one so young.
"Yes, I've no doubt that one day you will."
The two of them rose from the ground and hovered
briefly in midair as they reoriented themselves
toward the direction of their camp. As always
Conner was amazed at the uncanny affinity his
apprentice had for the sky, it seemed to come
to him as naturally as breathing.
But the wily old man had a few tricks here too.
"Ready for your next lesson?"
In response Ranma groaned halfheartedly.
He knew what was coming and it wasn't
going to be pretty. And he used to think
*Genma* had been a tough teacher!
"Alright, but this time we stick to sub-sonic!"
"Complain, complain. A real man
would try to overcome his limitations."
The young CosmoKnight snorted rudely.
He wasn't falling for that one again!
"So says the one who can break Mach 10
without even breaking a sweat."
Conner just looked faintly amused.
"Ready?"
Resigned to the inevitable,
Ranma nodded reluctantly.
"Yeah."
"One for the money, Two for the show,
Three to get ready, and Four to..."
Zip. Zoom. Zing.
"..go!"
Both went from a cold start to over 900 mph
before he even finished. Only the fact that
Ranma had been expecting exactly this sort of
behavior from his sneaky sensei gave him any
chance at all. It was a race of skill as much
as speed, their positions were only a few meters
from the ground itself and the countless canyons
and numerous rocky outcroppings made it a challange
to avoid running into anything. Although it wouldn't
actually hurt either of them too much, it would serve
to slow them down and they were already neck and neck
as it was.
But that was also what made this so much fun.
For the rest of his life Ranma would
remember this all too brief time as
the first where he had ever been truly
happy since arriving in this strange
dimension. Perhaps because now there
were others like him and here he was
no longer alone.
But the peace wasn't destined to last.
All too soon, the horror found its way here.
~~~~~~~
Disclaimer: It's the disclaimer that never ends,
It just goes on and on my friends,
Yes, it's the disclaimer that will never end,
Going on and on till your brain goes insane,
It's the disclaimer that never ends-*BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*
"Got lamb?"
~~~~~~~
-Eclipse
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
The watcher's cold eyes studied the scene
again, he had been doing little else for
the past three days.
Scientists, technicians and soldiers all
hurried about behind him. The massive
fortress was a bustle of excited activity,
but the watcher paid them no heed. All of
them were less then worms to him, to be
extingished at a whim when their usefulness
finally came to an end.
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
It had taken nearly a week for his operatives
to recover the data stored in the cybernetic
spy-drone, partly because the person who'd
attracted his interest had also been
responsible for taking out several of his
best agents.
But when it's memory had been finally decrypted,
the results recorded inside had exceeded his
wildest expectations.
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
The crucial scene played out before him once more...
Sagat, the former Thai kickboxing champion,
executed his deadly Tiger Uppercut perfectly.
There were few fighters that could ever hope to
avoid such a powerful blow even had they known it
was coming. With the element of surprise on his
side it should have been all but impossible for
anyone to dodge, let alone counter.
But that was not how it played out.
His opponent seemed to 'shift' position in mid-jump,
slowing his descent at the very moment Sagat began
his attack and turning impossibly to the side,
avoiding the strike by mere centimeters.
Then the youth's leg flashed up and out once,
coming down on Sagat's collarbone in a
devastating axe kick. His coordination and
flexibility defied both the laws of gravity
and physics. As for his strength...
The kickboxer went crashing down into the
mud with all the grace of a load of bricks.
One arm lay twisted and broken in the muck while
his single good eye lolled about in unconsciousness.
Medical facilities would later report that nearly
three quarters of the bones in his body appeared
to have broken on impact.
A leer that was not entirely sane seemed to have
become permanently affixed to the watcher's face.
Such deliciously brutal power.
Power that would soon belong to its rightful master.
Bison.
*Click* "Whirrrr"
Stop. Rewind. Play.
~~~~~~~
Chapter 3 Finale: ...The Season of Darkness
~~~~~~~
-Ill Tidings
"What's wrong?"
Katrina gave the guide a look of concern.
Nick was the one who answered her.
"It's a Naruni Repo-bot. And that particular
model is Kehal Ridge, one of Naruni Enterprise's
top assassins."
"I take it that he doesn't
usually enter this establishment?"
He almost cracked a smile. Almost.
"Damn right. That walking arsenal of death
never hangs around places like this. Only
reason that he'd come here would be if he's
looking for something."
A disturbing thought came to Sun.
"Or someone."
Croaker nodded, but his eyes never strayed
an inch from the dangerous cyborg.
Katrina's companions weren't the only ones
in the bar unnerved by the presence of the
notorious assassin.
Chairs shifted uneasily as uneasy patrons moved
their hands closer to various concealed blasters and
other weapons while sliding back just enough from
their tables so that it wouldn't get in their way
should they suddenly find the need to take cover.
But none of them was stupid enough to try and make
the first move. Repo-bots were feared for a very
good reason, they were state of the art killing
machines outfitted with the most advanced offensive
and defensive systems that Naruni Enterprises had to
offer. The regular Class I A.P.E. (All Purpose Elimination)
models were a match for an entire squadron of power armors.
Kehal Ridge was a Class II A.S.S.I.S.T. (Advanced Strategic
Stealth Interrogation & Sabotage Type), a design that was
*far* superior to the Class I. Although the exact details of
his armament and defenses remained mere speculation and rumor,
it *was* known that Ridge had once killed two Mature Adult
Great Horned Dragons singlehandedly for defaulting on payments
to Naruni Enterprises.
Any sentient being unlucky enough to have attracted his
attention here was to be pitied...from a safe distance away
(preferably another planet if possible).
~~~~~~~
-Run, Do Not Walk, To The Nearest Starship!
Sophisticated thermal sensors picked out the Fealnach's
image from the rest of the crowd almost immediately.
When agitated the body temperature of the pathetic scum
nearly doubled, making them easy prey when one was
searching for information. It also helped that the vermin
were spineless cowards, having evolved to sentience from
a species of Eurycotis.
Ridge took the most direct route toward his target,
ignoring the wild scramble that took place as various
terrified individuals scrambled to get out of his way.
While the Repo-bot paid no attention to the rabble,
his onboard combat computer was tracking every
movement with a watchfulness that bordered on
paranoia. Over half a dozen concealed weapon
systems waited on hair triggers for even the
slightest hint of a potential threat.
Kehal had not survived seven hundred years
of corporate infighting by being careless.
Especially now, as he attempted to pick up the
trail of one the most dangerous individuals in
the galaxy. If that wasn't enough to make
him more cautious than usual, Naruni Enterprises'
Black Op files had also revealed that he wasn't
the first representative to be sent out after
this particular troublemaker.
Three full teams, including four fellow ASSIST
Repo-bots had been dispatched in the past year.
All of them had been wiped out down to the last
agent. Ridge had no intention of sharing their
fate.
With calculated force one heavily armored arm
slammed down on a table to corner the cowering
Nach.
"I require some information in your possession."
"Anything! Just please don't kill me!!"
It was almost amazing how effective a properly worded
request combined with the right amount of tactical
demonstration was at getting the desired results from
such a normally unhelpful source.
~~~~~~~
-Check Please!
"Time to go."
As much as she would have liked
to disagree with Nicholas, Light
couldn't refute the logic of his
words. The longer they stayed here,
the more likely it was that the RepoBot
would identify either herself or her
Rebel contact, although she had no
recollections of ever having dealt
with Naruni before, something in her
head warned the Leyline Walker to be
careful around them. The guide had
already made tracks, no payment was
worth his life.
"Agreed, is there a back way out of here?"
Nick rolled his eyes despite
the seriousness of their situation.
"This is a respectable Spacer Bar.
Of course there's alternate exits
to slip out of."
Kat grinned sheepishly.
"Silly me."
~~~~~~~
-Shades of Starlight
A figure half-hidden in the farthest
corner of the room dumped a few
cred chits on his table as he abandoned
both it and his untouched drink in favor
of following after the two who had just
left.
His prey had always favored females with spirit,
it seemed that his patience had finally paid off
this time.
What might have been a twisted parody of a smile
passed beneath the watcher's ragged hood.
"Soon Saotome...my revenge against you
and your master will be complete."
~~~~~~~
-Dispatched
"Apepi, Anhur. You know what to do."
From the shadow of his throne came
a beastial roar of acknowledgment.
"Raagghh! By your leave, Lord Set."
On the other side materialized a large
figure dressed in warrior's garb.
"..."
The Jackel God's eyes were cold chips of black ice.
"Do not fail me."
Diamond hard scales scraped harshly against
the obsidian floor. The monstrous form trembled
from the effort it took to restrain its natural
instinct for blood and death.
"Shrissshhh. We go."
"..."
Assassin and beast vanished into the darkness.
Alone once more, Set's animalistic features
turned savage as he clasped his fingers together.
{How can a mere mortal manage to evade my
loyal followers at every turn for so long?!}
It was a question that had frustrated him for years.
His minions had been hunting what seemed the human
equivalent of smoke. The boy always seemd to be on
the move, never staying in any one place long enough
to be identified and terminated. By the time most
bounty hunters or assassins learned of his presence
he was usually already long gone, leaving nothing but
chaos in his wake. To this end, he had been forced to
send his two best killers out on the cold trail.
In a way, the diabolic fiend was almost envious of
Ranma's affinity for destruction. Thanks to the hero's
interference many of the evil deity's rivals and even
his allies were now at each other's throats. To be
outdone in trickery and bedevilment by such a lesser being,
it was an insult that simply could not be tolerated.
{You will never escape me, Saotome. Even if
it takes a thousand years, you will pay...}
~~~~~~~~~
-Things Can *Always* Get Worse
It was a somber group of Senshi that
met in the Cherry Hill Temple. Today
hadn't been one of their better showings,
they'd been caught with their tactical
pants down around their ankles.
Worse, innocent civilians had nearly paid
the price for their screw up. And screw up
they had, big time. Not since first accepting
the responsibility of being Sailor Senshi had
they ever done so poorly against the enemy.
The majority of the Inners had had their
collective Sailor butts handed to them on
a silver platter by a foe they'd thought long
vanquished. The Outers weren't in any position
to boast either, especially seeing as they'd
done a fair job of mucking things up themselves.
It would have been embarassing if the situation
hadn't been so serious, instead it was terrifying.
But of even more pressing concern for the
girls was this mysterious new element that
had entered the field.
"He's strong."
Makoto started the ball rolling,
for once temporarily pushing aside
her love-starved romantic side in
favor of a more necessary tactical
objectivity. It wasn't much fun,
but given how close things had
gotten today she wasn't about to
start complaining now.
She wasn't *always* obsessed with finding a man.
Really. Why would I lie?
"He seems to possess exceptional offensive
and defensive tactics, suggesting that he
also possesses an above average intelligence
as well as some prior knowledge about the
enemy."
"Huh?"
Everyone sweatdropped and stared at
the now blushing blue haired girl.
"Um, he's a good fighter and he's
probably done this kind of thing before."
"Oh!"
Trust Ami to make a
GIANT understatement!
"Sneaky."
This came from Micheru as she shot a
rueful look towards her partner and
fellow Outer. The disgusting goo had
finally evaperated from them both some
time ago, but not even a through
scrubbing had managed to completely
dispel the clinging aroma of sun-spoiled
vegetation.
"Not to mention fast."
Haruka's eyes narrowed as she
replayed the fight in her head
again. She was the quickest one
in the group and he had still
run rings around her without
even half trying.
"He's trouble."
Setsuna finished with a sharp snap
of finality. She pointedly refused
to meet the curious eyes of the
other girls.
~~~~~~~~~~
Hot. So very hot.
Other presences nearby.
Strangers.
Need to rest.
Tired, just tired.
No, something's wrong.
Where am I...
-----
-Old Wounds
The ancient Cosmoknight had never had
a student demonstrate such promise before,
the young man absorbed in hours what normally
took weeks or even months to instill into
other beginning Knights. He had already
passed on several lifetimes worth of
knowledge to him, not all of it having
to do with battle. The seeds of the past
would indeed be carried into the future.
Yet Conner also knew that their time together
as master and apprentice was fast coming
to an end. Ranma's place was not here.
They each had a duty to fulfill, one
that neither of them would ever shirk.
Such was the fate of the Cosmoknight.
That fact saddened him. For he suspected
that their paths would never cross again.
"Brooding again?"
The teasing voice of his lifemate was
a welcome interruption from his gloomy
line of thought.
He looked up in time to see his wife
descend a few meters in front of him.
Her armor flashed out of existence to
be replaced by her favored mode of dress,
tight jeans and t-shirt. Although physically
appearing to be only a petite little flame
redhead in her early 30's, Sarah Hawthorne
was only a few centuries younger then her husband.
The relative difference in age mattered nothing
to either of them, their feelings for each other
had lasted through thick and thin for more then
ten thousand generations.
Although such unions were rare, they were not unheard of.
Immortality all too often proved to be a lonely fate,
and even the CosmoKnights were not immune to love.
But only with an equally long lived spouse was there
any real hope of sustaining such a relationship.
Conner had been one of the lucky ones.
His partner understood him, accepted
where his duties lay as he did with hers.
Theirs had been a true matching of hearts.
{Beloved, I was never truly alive until I met you.}
A rare smile found its way to his face.
"Ah ha! I bet you're thinking about something kinky!"
Conner fought against the blush
that threatened to swamp over him.
He *still* hadn't quite gotten used
to her occasional bawdy remarks,
something she delighted to rib
him about whenver an opening arose.
Then he noticed that someone was missing.
"Where's the young lad?"
She smiled back with just a hint
of mischief in her expression.
"He's resting."
The old Knight raised an eyebrow.
"Do you always have to keep knocking
him unconscious when you're training?"
Sarah punched him lightly on the shoulder.
"You're a fine one to talk."
She started snuggling up against him,
and for a moment Conner had his hands
full trying to keep her out of all sorts of
interesting but also highly inappropriate
places. Not that he was trying very hard,
but it wouldn't do much for his dignity
if Saotome were to suddenly fly up just
in time to see his teachers rolling around
in the grass like a pair of hormone crazy
teenagers.
"Meanie!"
"Oh hush. What if the boy were to see us?"
"Pooh! It'll be at least another fifteen
minutes before he's even able to think about
getting up."
He winced inwardly. Sarah never exaggerated
when it came to assessing things like that.
Of course the amount of injury needed to be
bio-regenerated for that long a time would
have to be...
{Ouch. I'd better get some caffe ready for
when he gets back. I suspect my poor student
is going to need it!}
"Ranma is something though, isn't he."
Surprised by her sudden change
in topic he let her curl up close
alongside him.
"Hmm?"
His wife looked thoughtful as she tried
to phrase what she had sensed during
their training together into words.
"He has the gift...I've never seen it so strong in one of us before."
Conner's eyes grew troubled, the concerns
he had kept hidden from his eager pupil
now coming to the fore.
"I have. Once."
Unbidden, the memory arose of another time so very
long ago, when there had been another young man that
the Forge had held equally high hopes for. One of
their greatest, whom they had believed was the
one intended to fulfill the prophecy of the First Ones.
They had all been wrong. So terribly wrong.
{We should have seen the signs. But our hopes
blinded us to the truth until it was too late.}
That mistake had nearly destroyed the Cosmoknights
and everything they stood for. And even worse,
it created their most terrible foe, the Ravager.
~~~~~~~
-Painful Decisions
"He's still burning up! Belldandy
there has to be *something* we can do!!"
Urd had never felt so helpless before.
For all her power, healing wasn't her
forte and she could only watch as
convulsion after painful convulsion
rocked her rescuer's fevered body.
Blood trickled sluggishly from where
the wrappings around his chest had
come loose, and the deep wounds
stubbornly refused to clot on their
own.
"I've done what I can, Urd.
His wounds are too severe for
my simple healing spells and
anything stronger in his weakened
condition will almost certainly
kill him."
The younger goddess looked exhausted,
the past several hours had not been
kind to her. Despite her best efforts
the young man's vital signs continued
to deteriorate at an alarming rate.
It was almost as if his body was trying
to *voluntarily* shut itself down. Every
bit of magic she'd tried to use to stabilize
his lifeforce had been savagely rejected by
his body, almost as if it didn't recognize
that she was trying to heal him. This made
no sense at all. She knew exactly what was
necessary to treat a human thanks to Keiichi,
but this time it wasn't working.
{What's wrong with him?}
~~~~~
His body fought against the alien forces
interfering with the healing trance even
as his mind battled the ghostly phantoms
of days long gone...
-----
-Reap The Hurricane
Defeated. Again.
"He did it to me again!"
This was starting to get repetitious.
"Damn it! It's going to take
forever to clean this mess up."
He hated to lose.
"Peel *how many* potatoes?!"
Scratch that. What he *really* hated was
getting stuck with all the chores as a
result of losing.
"More fire wood?!! Are we planning on
starting our own little forest fire or
something?!"
At least it served as good motivation
to do better the next time.
And he was learning. Slower then he liked
and much too painful even for his taste,
but he was definitely starting to make
some progress.
"Ow...*note to self*,
'When your instructers tell you not
to overdue it, listen to them!!'"
Of course Ranma Saotome had never
been known for his sense of patience.
He knew that it wasn't their fault. But
it was just so incredibly frustrating,
after more then a decade of martial arts
training he had to start over and learn
everything again from the basics up.
It sucked, but he didn't have any other
choice. He was more of a danger to himself
right now then to any enemy.
Normally most fledgling Knights had little trouble
adjusting to their new status, but the problem was
that Saotome had been *too* good a martial artist
before his transformation into a CosmoKnight.
While his new body was taller, stronger, faster,
tougher, and better in every way over his original
one, the newly added height and weight had initially
left him feeling gangly and awkward. His center
of gravity had shifted, making even the simplest
of techniques problematic at first. All of his
reflexes had been completely out of synch,
unbalanced by the sudden changes in reach
and spacial position.
What had made him a master of the Art
wasn't mere strength or speed, it had
been knowing, not assuming, but *knowing*
his entire body was in state of perfectly
balanced harmony. Ranma had spent almost
his entire life training in order to
achieve that extraordinary level of
self awareness.
And then he had lost it all in a single night.
It had been hard, suddenly being reduced to
the martial arts level of a rank beginner.
Even now his skill was still only a fraction
of what they had been before. All this power,
so much he could actually feel it flowing
through his veins, and it was totally useless
because he couldn't use it properly yet!
There were some battles that could be won
through sheer brute force alone. But not
against opponents of Conner and Sarah's
caliber. They had quickly proven that
from his very first day with them.
Conner's fighting philosophy
consisted of only three things.
Hit Hard.
Hit Fast.
And Don't Stop Till You're Standing And They're Not.
Simple, but effective.
Unfortunately for Ranma, the old man was
very, *very* good at practicing what he
preached. He also believed in what Saotome
privately referred to as "The Genma Style
School of Hard Knocks as the Best Teacher".
Needless to say, while this approach did
indeed work, more often then not it also
left the young man lying flat on his back
for hours at a time waiting for broken
bones and torn muscles to regenerate.
Conner didn't believe in
pulling his punches...much.
Sarah was even worse (or better,
depending on your point of view).
While nowhere near as strong as her
husband, the lady was unbelievably
fast. She might not hit as hard
as his other teacher, but she was
able to get in twice as many attacks
in only a quarter of the time.
Ranma now knew how Wile E.
Coyote felt when facing the
Roadrunner.
Her 'Starlight Dancer' technique
made him feel like he was standing
still in comparison.
For the first time in his life he
faced someone who's reflexes were
even better then his own.
Put mildly, it wasn't a pleasant experience.
On a good day he might, just *might* last
more then 10 minutes. On a not so good day,
he was sucking turf before he even realized
that she'd begun to move. At least he was
learning not to blink during a fight.
{I suppose it's not really fair to blame them.
They've both got more combat experience under
their belts then anyone I've ever met. Heck,
Conner was talking about fighting in the First
Anvil Horde War, and that was over two hundred
THOUSAND years ago!}
It was more then a little intimidating,
being in the company of individuals who
were older then certain *civilizations*.
{I'd love to know how they deal with that
kinda stuff. It makes my blood run cold
just trying to imagine living a fraction
as long as they have. What must it be
like for them, having seen and done so
much? Where do they find the strength
to keep on going like they have?}
A shadow appeared overhead,
blocking the warmth of the
orange sun.
It was followed by a perky cheerful
voice he was beginning to dread hearing.
"Breaks over, bucko! Up and at 'em."
Ranma winced. She and Conner must have
had quite a night if that vixenish smile
was any indication. He was going to be
in for a whole 'nother world of pain shortly,
he had noticed that Sarah was always more
energetic the day after *that*.
{Why me?}
~~~~~~~
-Fools and Folly
"Damn you Saotome..."
As Ryoga Hibiki trudged through yet another
thick and twisted forest that his lousy sense
of direction seemed to always inevitably lead him
he remembered once again the events that were
responsible for his bitter and twisted mission
of vengence. It had all started back in junior high.
He had been the strongest.
Unable to navigate any distance greater
then what he could see in front of him,
but still the strongest boy in the entire
district.
The IQ of a rusty doorknob, but still no one
had dared to laugh at him. Because they had
known what would happen to them if they did.
He had commanded respect back then.
Even if that respect had come from
fear, it had been enough.
And Ranma took it all away from him.
---(Become One With The Flashback)---
Welcome to the Kyoto Academy for Boys,
one would be hardpressed to find a more
wretched hive of scum and villainy.
"That bread is mine!!"
Young Ryoga Hibiki leaped for the
prized last curry bread of the day.
Although the other boys jostled and
quarreled among themselves like a pack
of wolves at the lunchcounter, all of
them made sure to give him a wide berth.
All of them except for one.
The new kid had just arrived
that very morning. At first glance
he seemed to be nothing special,
except for the sissy little pigtail.
Ryoga had dismissed him almost immediately
as being beneath his notice and the other
students had quickly followed his example
and ignored this "Ra-something" character.
So far all the newcomer had done was watch
everything around him with a wide eyed
fascination, almost as if the dummy never
been in such civilized surroundings before.
Fangs bared in a predatory grin of
anticipation as he closed in on the prize.
*BONK*
A sudden weight on his head pushed his face
down at a sharp angle, pain erupted from his
neck as it protested this unexpected change
in its workload. Then the heaviness on his head
disappeared and Hibiki found himself plummeting
toward the cafeteria floor.
*SPLAT*
Unable to comprehend what had happened to him
at first, all he had been able to do was lift
his head and stare in disbelief at the person
responsible for this humilation.
It was that scawny snot-nosed little punk!
Even as he watched, that bastard *smirked*
at him and took a bite from what was supposed
to be *his* curry bread!
Worse, he could hear the whispers passing among
the other students about his defeat. He wasn't
someone to be taken seriously anymore, "see how
easily that little guy kicked the mighty Hibiki's
ass".
It was starting...
The laughter, that hated laughter!!
NO!!!
Nobody mocked him! Nobody!!
{I'm going to crush him!! It's all *his* fault!!}
But first he needed to know his opponent's identity.
Only then would he obtain total satisfaction
when he finally beat the runt into a bloody pulp.
"What is your name?"
Then came the words that would haunt
his nightmares for years to come.
"I'm Ranma, Ranma Saotome."
That *name*, that disgusting,
vile source of all his misfortune!!
In that moment Ryoga realized
that he had met his mortal enemy.
"Ranma Saotome, I will NEVER forget this offense of the Curry Bread!!"
'But things didn't work out that way, did they?'
He had spent two weeks fruitlessly searching for
the Saotome boy, two weeks lost in places like
Yokohama and Hikaido. By the time he finally got
back it was lunch again. Deciding that his enemy
must have chickened out by now, he put aside his
search temporarily in favor of getting the last
melon bread of the day.
But that wretched Saotome...
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Melon Bread!!"
And two weeks later...
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Meat Bread!!"
Again.
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Cutlet Bread!!"
And again.
"I will NEVER forget this offense of the Noodle Bread!!"
'And every time he still beat you no matter how hard you tried.'
Ranma made his life a living HELL!
Finally Ryoga just couldn't take it anymore.
He had challenged his archnemesis to
a duel in the lot behind his house.
But when he finally arrived on the fourth day...
All he found was a note.
[Waited three days for you to show up.
Couldn't delay anymore, me and Pop are
going to China. Guess this means I win.
-Ranma ^_^
P.S. No hard feelings.]
And this time nothing could silence the
contempt of his peers. The entire school
had known about his appointed duel with
Saotome. His reign of terror among them
had been broken. Now they branded him a coward,
an outcast, not a man but a lowly crawling
worm to be shunned by all.
'Yes, Ranma destroyed your life. If he hadn't
run away you would have crushed him like an ant
and regained the respect of the other boys.'
It was Saotome who was the coward!
Ranma was the one who ran away from him!!
If Saotome was dead then all of this
humilation would go away!!
And so Ryoga vowed then and there that he
would spend the rest of his life to hunt
down and destroy his enemy! Only after
he had torn Ranma Saotome limb from limb
would his destined future happiness be
assured!!
---(Let Go Of The Flashback Already!)---
'Together we can put an end to Ranma.'
"Yeah! Hey, wait a minute!!"
He wasn't going crazy after all! There
really had been a voice talking inside
of his head all this time!
"WHO ARE YOU?!!"
'An ally who can make you
powerful beyond your wildest
dreams.'
"GET OUTTA OF MY HEAD!! I'LL KILL YOU!!"
The voice abruptly went silent.
Ryoga grinned evilly, believing
he had scared away the teasing
woman that had been speaking
inside his twisted little mind.
From inside his shadow, the diabolical
image of Pantha Zo'a smiled as well.
~~~~~
-Pass the Sake
From her current base of operations a slightly
scorched Demoness (1st class, unlimited) polished
off another bottle of sake. It joined a growing
hill of empty bottles as she attempted to dull
the extra crispy treatment she'd gotten when the
building she'd been spying from had gone up like
a gasoline soaked match thanks to that crazy
Sailor psycho.
{And to think that people call *us* violent. Sheesh!}
Unfortunately there were some drawbacks to this place.
"Hey! Are you going to just sit around and get drunk?!"
Number one being the building's owner, Sayoko Mishima.
Mara didn't need this, with today's plans blown
up in her face all she wanted to do right now
was get good and drunk. Besides which her head hurt.
"Not sho' loud!!"
"Kami-sama! You look like you've
gone through a garbage incinerator!!"
She winced. When was that damn girl going
to remember not to use the "K-word" around
her?
"Jus' a lil' scratch. A'l be *hic* fa'n."
It looked like her treatment was finally working.
{Well Mara ol' girl, looks like it's
back to the drawing board. I do hope
they didn't kill him.}
Surprisingly the demoness found that she
actually meant that. Even if she was one
of the bad guys it didn't mean she got her
kicks by torturing people, at least not in
the physical sense. Messing around with their
heads and causing mischief was fun and all,
but even *she* had her limits. If she'd
known those nutcases were actually going
fry him instead of just kicking him around
a little bit Mara would have dropped the entire
plan and just made her offer to him in person.
"At leash then I'd a ha've a dinner date inshtead
of being stuck in the ol' witch's place."
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!!"
Oh hell. This was just not her day.
~~~~~
-Imperial Battle Cruiser "Dark Impaler"
"My lord, we have arrived at our destination."
"Excellent. Prepare my shuttle and two wings
of Intercepters immediately."
"As you command."
The aide turned and left at a quick trot, you did
*not* run in the Ironclaw's presence. And it had
only taken 34 aides to get that point across to
the survivors.
[This is a waste of time!]
Jarenz didn't need to turn to
know who dared to question his
strategem. There was only one
soul aboard that could get away
with such insolence without fear
of instant retaliation.
His Rune Weapon, Infernal Retribution.
Although the emity between Jarenz and Saotome
was fierce, it paled in comparison to the
state of overwhelming hostility that existed
between their respective Rune Weapons.
Ironclaw's Impaler contained the soul of
Volsai Lezlod, a vile being which had once
been one of the most feared Demodand Princes
in Tarterus. Ironically, Volsai's downfull
and subsequent enslavement had been the result
of losing a powerful artifact he had coveted,
known as the Crystal Shard.
Volsai and Ishtar *HATED* each other
beyond all reason, and their feelings
toward their adversary's owner were
only slightly less volatile. This mutual
enmity was partially due to the fact
that they had been old enemies long
before becoming entrapped within the
Weapons that now housed their souls.
In fact, it had been Ishtar who was responsible for
thwarting Volsai's possession of the Shard, banishing
the evil device to the Etheral Plane in hopes that it
might be lost within the eternal mists for all time.
Her plans ultimately failed in the end,
but not before leading to Lezlod's downfall.
He had never forgotten that.
The Impaler had been obsessed
with finding a way to destroy
its most hated enemy once and
for all. It took centuries of
waiting and scheming, but the
hateful soul finally found a
way to strike back at her.
It had been Volsai who directed the
attentions of the Splugorth toward Ishtar,
setting off the chain of events that had
led directly to her capture and imprisonment
inside the artifact known as the "Key".
To this day the fiend was still trying to
find a way to truly get rid of its most
hated enemy once and for all.
[I want to frag that bitch
and her puke faced protecter!
Rip them to pieces!! Tear out
their still beating hearts and
eat their livers!!]
"Patience Volsai, we shall
deal with them both soon enough."
In the contest of wills Jarenz was
always the victor. He ruthlessly
quashed Lezlod's attempts to try
and assume control of their bonding.
Ironclaw was the absolute master of his domain.
That was always the way of things.
{You've hidden yourself well this time, Saotome.
My spies have not discovered anything so far,
nor do I expect them to. To evade even the eyes
of Imperial Intelligence requires assistance of
a considerable level, beyond even that of your
most powerful allies. The question then is how
did you manage to get this aid?}
With the failure of conventional resources
of information he was now forced to resort to
alternative means in order to secure badly
needed intelligence on his old foe.
Time was working against him. There were
already far too many others also searching
for Ranma. Sooner or later one of them might
get lucky, and he could not allow that!
Saotome was *HIS* to defeat!!
{Now we shall see if the Delphian Oracles
are truly as learned as their reputation
indicates.}
~~~~~~
-Falling Star
He was enjoying a rare afternoon
off from his nearly constant scheduale
of training when the first signs of
catastrophe made themselves known.
{I gotta admit, this planet may be
dull as dirt but the sunsets are
so gorgeous that they almost make
up for it.}
Lying back against one the short
and stubby blue trees that made up
the majority of the native foliage
here, Ranma was amusing himself with
an old child's game he had used to
play during that lonely training trip
with his father.
{That cloud looks like a okonomiyaki
with all the trimmings. And that bunch
of mountains over there reminds me of
those dumplings on Gemini II.
Boy, those were great!}
(Somewhere a cow moos.)
...
...Well let's see you try and come up with
something better when *Genma* Saotome was
the only adult responsible for most of your
upbringing!
The fledgling Knight had just identified a
full six course dinner using just the sun
and a barely visible sea to the west when
a shooting star caught his eye.
"Hmmm?"
Intellectually he knew it wasn't really a star,
most likely it was just some random space trash
that had been caught in the planet's gravity
well and on its way to burn up in the upper
atmosphere. Amazing what a little *enforced*
learning could do for a guy who'd never even
had a chance to properly attend school his
entire life.
Idly he tracked the object's descent, trying
to gauge its mass and velocity in order to
guess how long it would take to flare out.
Judging from the size and dark purple glow
he didn't think it would be very long at all.
{Five minutes. Six tops.}
Then all of a sudden it changed course.
"What the?!!"
That wasn't a metorite!
"Oh geez, Sarah and Conner are
going to want to know about this!"
{So much for my night off.}
Choosing discretion over speed,
Ranma fixed the object's current
heading into his memory and then
started jogging back toward the
camp at a respectable 200 mph.
~~~~~~
-Shattered Trust
"Team 2 report! Respond,
damn it!! That's an order!!"
General Skythe glared impotently
at his silent wristcom. Something
was very wrong here, and his people
were caught square in the middle of it.
{Someone gets to the governor first,
and now the entire command net is
down. Coincidence, or is there
something else going on behind
them both?}
His gut was telling him it was
the latter. It was just too neat.
The communications network was of
Alliance design, featuring numerous
safeguards and redundant backups
to prevent just such a blackout.
Which meant that this had to have been intentional.
"I can't get anything either. Everything's dead."
Hsi-Feng banged her unit against the wall,
frustrated as her grandfather was at the
now useless piece of equipment.
Dennis's first impulse was to order
his squad to take her back to base.
But he knew that the little pain in
places best left unmentioned would
never agree with his reasoning, and
trying to force her to go would only
end up with somebody else getting hurt.
{Why did Ranma have to go and teach her
those damn fighting tricks for her birthday
instead of just getting her a regular present
like *normal* people?!}
"Sergeant!"
"Yes, General?"
"Take the rest of your people back to the secondary
rendezvous point and try and see if you can
restablish communications with the others."
"Right away, General!"
The non-com gave her leader a thankful look,
relieved that the "Hotheaded Firebird" was
*his* problem now.
Dennis checked the charge on his weapon.
Seeing how low it was he slipped a fresh
E-clip out from his belt and switched
magazines. A small digital readout on
the side of his rifle now read a
green "100%".
"Come on squirt, lets go and
check out that control room."
Hsi-Feng grinned and briefly
stuck her tongue out at him.
Together they started to make
their way toward the ominiously
silent Central Control.
~~~~~~
-Bitter Fate
Conner's face was deathly pale
when Ranma finished reporting
what he'd seen.
"So, he's finally found us."
Sarah clutched her husband's side
with a strength born of anger and
concern.
{It's not fair!! Why now?!
After all this time how did
he finally manage to discover
this place?!}
Her fears were not for herself,
but for the man she loved. He
had told her enough for Sarah
to know that Conner would be
the prime target.
The old Knight took a deep breath
and then exhaled slowly, taking a
moment to gather his thoughts.
{No matter how far we run,
the past still manages to
catch up to us.}
He had known that this confrontation
was inevitable, but Conner wished with
all his heart that he'd been given more
time with Sarah. Somehow he knew that
this would be the deciding ground.
{So be it.}
He would face the Ravager one last time.
Puzzled by this strange behavior,
Ranma looked back and forth at
both of them. He had never seen
his teachers like this before.
{What's going on?}
Why were they so afraid?
He opened his mouth to ask when
Conner's harsh voice suddenly cut
through the uneasy silence.
"Take the boy and get out of here."
He would try and buy them whatever
time he could, but Conner knew this
foe all too well. None of them were
safe from the CosmoKnight's Bane,
The Ravager of the Dark.
"I can help!!"
Ranma's natural stubborness kicked in.
It wasn't in his nature to run away from a
fight. Especially if it meant deserting his
friends, he would rather die then abandon
people he cared about!
"You're not ready to face him! Go!!"
Conner didn't have time to argue,
every second was precious now.
"But!"
He couldn't run away! He just couldn't!!
{I won't be like my father!!}
"Get him out of here!"
The Knight met his wife's grieving eyes,
they both knew what had to be done.
"Look out!"
Instinctively Saotome turned
toward the apparent threat before
realizing where the real danger was.
"guhh..."
Ranma bent forward, eyes wide with
a sense of betrayal as his trusted
teacher sucker-punched him.
{Why...}
He heard Sarah whisper softly
into his ear as she caught him.
"I'm sorry."
Then he knew nothing more.
~~~~~
-For the Want of a Nail...
She was the pride of the Free Worlds, over three miles of
heavy armor and weapons, the infamous 'Doombringer' class
Super Dreadnought. Renamed "Hopebringer" after her capture
by the first Rebel forces over a hundred years ago, she
now served proudly as the flagship of the main Rebel fleet.
The Hopebringer proudly carried the scars of countless
engagements on her hull. So many attempts had been made
by the Imperial Navy to destroy this ship that her entire
frame was permanently stressed at numerous points and
filled with thousands of micro-fractures. Despite this,
she continued to carry on the fight for freedom against
the Transgalactic Empire.
It was from aboard this ship that the invasion of Ristmoth
was being coordinated. Harried communications officers
sweated visibly as they transmitted orders and updates
from the chain of command out to the entire fleet,
calling in up to the minute status reports, and otherwise
trying to keep the whole bloody operation straight and
organized.
So it was understandable that a strange but
insignificant report from one of the fleet's
corvettes was not exactly high on their list
of priorities to deal with.
Understandable and unfortunate.
By the time message traffic
cleared up enough to deliver
the message, it was already
too late.
~~~~~
-Curtain Call
Her voice was hard with tightly
controlled anger as she met her
grandfather's eyes.
"I've found another one."
Skythe swallowed a useless curse.
"That makes ten so far."
Ten more families he would have
to write to, explaining why their
sons and daughters weren't coming
home.
{When I get my hands on the bastard
responsible for this they're going
to wish that their *parents* had
never been born!!}
The cause of death was simple enough.
The corpse's throat had been slit from
ear to ear, leaving a thin strip of
skin and bone attached between the
head and body.
"Poor guy never had a chance,
the sonvabitch used a goddamn
vibro-blade!"
Once the two of them realized that
nothing more could be done here,
they moved on toward the central
control room at an angry pace.
But when they entered it Skythe and
Hsi-Feng found the place was already
occupied.
"What the...?!"
"Hold it right there!!"
There was a scary moment as both sides
pointed their weapons at each other,
fingers on hair triggers.
Then Skythe slapped his free hand
against his forehead in disgust.
"You?!"
The General flicked the safety on his
weapon and holstered it. There was
no sense in tempting fate any more
then he had to.
{I don't believe this!!}
"What are you two doing here?!"
Standing in front of him was half of
the entire leadership of Rismoth's
Rebellion.
They were both human, heavily scarred from
years of covert warfare against the
Empire and having a slightly gaunt
look that spoke of moderate malnutrition.
The years had not been kind to any
of the people on this planet who
didn't belong to the .00001% of the
population holding high rank in the
Imperial Service.
Rusty, the leader of the Southern Factions,
was a former planetary peaceforcer and almost
a quarter cybernetic due to injuries he had
received both before and after his defection
to the Rebel's side. Over 2 meters high and
weighing at least 250 kilos, he also had the
distinction of having one of the most intimidating
appearances on Rismoth.
Sharra, head of the Rebel Intelligence Network,
had started life as the daughter of a slave in
one of the thousands of hellholes that mined the
planet's mineral wealth. She had clawed her way
out of that deathtrap and used her hunger for
revenge against her oppressers to turn herself
into a brilliant and devious strategist that
delighted in tricking Imperial Troops and
leading them to their doom at every oppertunity.
Tall and wirey, her thin frame possessed a
steel-like strength that few could believe
until they experienced it firsthand.
"We were about to ask you the same question."
Sharra's gravelly voice, the result of a childhood
spent breathing crushed ore and vaporized smelting
residue, sounded even more ill tempered then usual.
Beside her, Rusty nodded in silent agreement.
In one smooth motion he shouldered the heavy
rail-gun that he had been aiming at Skythe.
"There is something strange going on."
Hsi-Feng snorted rudely before
lowering her rifle as well.
"You ain't just whistlin' Dixie!"
~~~~~
-Cold Comfort
When he finally regained consciousness
it was to find that night had already
fallen. A hint of nausea from his
midsection let him know that he still
hadn't recovered completely from being
hit by Sarah. The second thing Ranma
noticed was that she was carrying him
in a most uncomfortable position over
her shoulder. Third was the realization
that his teacher was traveling at an
airspeed well past the supersonic level.
His stomach lurched in protest
of the last two little bits of
information. Prudence won over
valor as Saotome remained still
with his eyes closed, fighting
down the sickening sensations
through sheer force of will.
{Wait...this could be my chance,
if I can catch her by surprise
then maybe...}
"Don't even think about it, Ranma.
Not unless you're looking for another
instant nap."
He froze. How had she...?
"I felt your pulse quicken through
your hip when you woke up. As for
the rest of it, the way your train
of thought works is *very* predictable
after awhile."
{Shit!}
"Now we're almost there. Give me your
word of honor that you won't try something
incredibly stupid like going back to
help Conner and I'll let you loose."
Stubborn silence.
"Otherwise my only other option
to make sure you get to the
sanctuary is another lovetap."
Sarah gave him less then a
minute to think it over,
knowing that if he didn't
accept she was in for quite
a struggle.
No matter how much she sympathized
with his feelings, even though she
wanted to go back more then anything
else in the universe, she knew with
a stark certainty that both of them
together wouldn't be able to help
Conner. Their presence would only
distract her husband and slow him
down. The odds were already bad
enough for him as they were.
{I'm sorry Ranma. But there's nothing
either of us can do. Conner's right,
you're not ready. If only we'd been
able to complete your training...
then...but that's just wishful thinking
now.}
"Well?"
The look Ranma shot at her was mutinious,
as every fiber of his being cried out for
him to go back and help his teacher.
To simply abandon a comrade in arms
went against all he had been taught
and believed in.
"You can't ask that of me!!"
But he also knew that if it came
down to it, he didn't stand a
chance against Sarah in a real
fight. And she *would* make good
on her threat if he refused.
Cosmoknights never bluffed.
They didn't need to.
Ranma had never felt so helpless.
His rage at the trap he now found
himself cornered against burned
impotently inside of him.
{Damn you Sarah!! Why?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!!}
A resigned sigh finally escaped
from his tightly clenched lips.
{Damn you...}
In the end, the only choice was really no choice at all.
"...alright."
True to her word, she let him loose.
He immediately dropped like a rock.
Then the Cosmoknight focused his innate
flight ability and his descent stabilized.
It took him only a few seconds to rise
back up and join her under his own power.
Sarah nodded, satisfied that
he was recovered enough to
fly without any assistance.
"Now that that's settled, we have to move
quickly. We've wasted too much time here
already."
{I only hope that someday you'll be
able to forgive me for doing this.}
Her heart heavy with grief and guilt,
Sarah didn't look back as she led her
charge away from the coming battle.
{Because the Forge knows, I won't.}
~~~~~~
-Troubled Skies
"This is Angel One to Papa Horse,
looks like clear sailing from
here on in."
"Acknowledged, Angel One. The
transports are preparing to drop
now so we can take it from here.
Your new orders are to patrol
intervention sphere Zulu until
relieved, take Angel Two and proceed
there posthaste. Eagle 1 and Eagle 2
are already running suppression
on secondary objectives."
"Roger that. But personally
I'd be a lot happier if a few
Imps were still left up here.
All this waiting is getting on
my nerves!"
"Nothing we can do about it, Yukio.
High Command's running this little
show and they want to capture this
world as intact as possible."
"I know, I know. A girl can dream, can't she?"
"Well if you do find anything...Good Hunting."
"Thanks Tania. We're heading out there now."
Two Katana starfighters broke off from the main
convoy and began their descent into Rismoth's
atmosphere. Their sleek predatory lines glowed
slightly from the residual heat of friction as
thousands of individual air molecules impacted
against their forcefields at several times the
speed of sound. Night black with starburst
patterns all along the top and bottom of the
arrowhead shaped craft, they were nearly
impossible to spot with the naked eye in deep
space. But on a planet where the sun shone
high overhead they stood out like a pair of
sore thumbs.
Though these fighters appeared to be almost
identical to their original design specs,
a closer inspection would discover several
unsettling anomalies. The first being that
the frames of the fighters had somehow been
worked on in the front to accommodate a second
particle beam cannon in addition to the standard
main weapon already built into the hull. Second
would be the medium gravity rail gun mounted
snugly below the nose of each Katana. The third
discrepency was the addition of an auxillary
booster under the main drive. Most of the
rest was more along the lines of subtle
modifications and tinkering that slightly
improved the crafts' maneuverability and
overall performance.
But the most important difference between
these two fighters and the standard Katana
were the modular weapons pods that they carried.
Not satisfied with the models currently available
to the general public, the Twins had convinced
Silvia to *tweak* their payloads. But still unhappy
with the limitations of even the tricked out pods,
they had finally gotten the eccentric engineer to
*design* new weapons pods customized exactly to
Akiko and Yukio's specific tastes.
The end result was nothing short of terrifying.
Two state of the art starfighers, armed with
enough firepower to devastate a small continent,
were in the hands of a pair of slightly crazy
action junkies ready and eager to take their
vehicles beyond any limits ever conceived of
by the original designers.
"Let's rock and roll! Full burn!!"
"Right behind you, sis!!"
The only consolation the Alliance had was that at
least these maniacs were flying on *their* side!
~~~~~~
-Have A Nice Day
Two figures dashed through the strangely
quiet streets. Every now and then one or
the other would take a quick glance behind
them. It only confirmed what they had
suspected since the moment they'd left
the bar.
"We're being followed."
Nicholas nodded as he continued to scope
out potential ambush sites and possible
sniper positions. In Phaseworld it
wasn't "*were* they out to get you",
it was *where* they're going to get you.
"Can you figure out how
many of them there are
out there?"
Katrina made a "no can do" gesture with
her free hand, as her other was now firmly
grasping the handle of her holdout blaster,
a gift from Ranma during their travels in Africa.
"They're staying just outside of my detection range.
But there's at least two of them back there."
"Oh? How can you tell?"
"One of my psychic probes smacked into a mind-block
before they backed off. But at the same time I also
picked up traces of a different presence nearby.
The funny thing is, I don't think that they've
noticed each other yet."
"Great, maybe they'll all kill each
other and save us some trouble."
She looked at him strangely for a moment,
unable to tell whether or not he'd been
serious with that remark.
"I hope you're armed with something a little
more effective then your sense of humor."
Nick gave her a small smile as he produced
a handheld video camera from somewhere on
his person.
"So what do you think?"
Sun stared at him.
"Is this supposed to be some kind of joke?
What are you planning to do? Make home movies
of us being chased by whoever's back there?!"
His smile widened.
"Not exactly."
Nick thumbed the 'pause' button on
his camera. The moment he did so
the innocent looking device underwent
a startling transformation.
The camera turned a liquid silver color
as the lens began lengthening into a
solid barrel while the rest of the main
body compacted to reveal its true identity.
"I think that this should be effective enough."
Croaker held up a now fully morphed
Daisho-10 laser sub-machine gun.
Then he took another look behind
them and his smile vanished.
"Oh damn."
Their pursuers had finally abandoned any
pretense of stealth. Nick was finally able
to get a good look at them.
The trenchcoats, pulse pistols, and
ominious sunglasses of the Imperial
Transdimensional Secret Security
Infiltration Network were unmistakable.
"I.T.S. S.I.N.!"
Katrina assumed from his unhappy tone
that these guys weren't good news. Her
suspicions were confirmed almost instantly
as the Rebel Operative began to spray laser
fire down the street, forcing the figures
chasing them to scatter.
But that was of secondary concern,
Sun was already concentrating on
her spell.
~~~~~~
-Extreme Measures
Urd paled as she saw what her
sister was preparing to do.
"Belldandy, You can't be serious!"
For once the brown haired goddess
didn't smile when she addressed her
older sister.
"We've run out of options, Urd.
And he's running out of time."
Even Blessed Bell, her normally cheerful angel,
had a worried expression on her face.
The simple fact that Belldandy felt Bell's
presence was neccessary was enough
to give her older sister the willies.
Angels were only brought out for the most
dangerous of the White Magic spells. They served
as a kind of celestial grounding unit, ensuring
that the magical power required by these spells
didn't also cause the caster to explode from
a Mana overload.
"I'm going to try a Complete Ritual of Full Restoration.
But I need to ask you to serve as the conduit, your
shields are stronger then mine and I'll need all the
power I have just to complete the spell and keep
him alive long enough for it to take effect."
"But if you use too much of your lifeforce trying
to revive him your material form could dissipate
for hours, maybe even days!!"
"And if I don't do this, he'll die.
This man saved Skuld's life. Now its
our turn to repay that debt."
Seeing that nothing was going to change her mind,
Urd nodded in reluctant agreement. Belldandy was
right, as always.
And deep inside the heart of the Goddess of Love
was a small voice whispering that maybe this guy's
fate was more important to her then she wanted to believe.
Of course she ignored it.
Since when did Urd listen to *anybody's* advice?
"Just...just be careful. Okay, sis?"
Belldandy finally smiled.
"Okay."
~~~~~~
-Regrets
The figure ran blindly through the pitch black forest,
every now and then he stumbled and slowed on the
treacherous terrain, but not once did he ever stop.
Nor did he ever dare turn to look behind him.
To do so would only confirm what his instincts had
been screaming at him for the the last few hours.
He was being hunted.
Above him the rumbling sky threatened
to finally unleash the fury it had been
building up to for the past several hours.
It was nearly midnight and he was tired,
cold, and though trying desperately to deny
it, afraid. Somewhere behind him, lurking in
the hostile darkness, was the nightmarish figure
that his friends had tried so desperately to
stop. They had tried so hard to protect him.
They'd failed.
His eyes burned, but the time for tears
would come later. For now, all he could
do was keep moving and try to stay ahead
of his relentless pursuer.
Ranma was determined to make sure their
sacrifice had not been in vain. He had
to keep believing that, otherwise that
would mean he'd thrown away his honor
for nothing. And if that was true, then
there was truly nothing left for him in
this life but madness and death.
His destination was a mountain chain a few kilometers
away, hidden there was the small scout ship that he'd
used to get to this planet. Although capable of surviving
in a vacuum, his control over his powers had not yet
matured to the point where he could leave a planet's
atmosphere unaided. There was no safety anywhere on
this world now, but in the vastness of space even the
most determined hunter had no more a chance of finding
him then they did of catching the end of a rainbow.
Deep in his heart Saotome longed to
just to turn around and face his enemy.
But Sarah's last words to him kept echoing in his head.
"Run! Get away from here!! Finish what
you have begun, find your destiny!!"
And like a base coward he had fled, the last
pained but determined expression on her face
seared forever in his memory like a burning coal.
He had left her behind, knowing somehow that she
didn't stand a chance against whatever was chasing
them. In doing so he had broken the oldest and most
important promise to himself Ranma had ever made.
He had abandoned a friend. Even knowing that there
was nothing he could have done to stop her, that
damn her eyes she'd been right, the guilt threatened
to crush him beneath its unbearable weight.
{There had to have been another way! I should have found one!!}
But the cruel truth was that there hadn't been.
Conner had known that, and so had Sarah.
There was always a price to be paid,
and hope carried the steepest one of
all.
~~~~~~~~
-Fight Or Flight
The most dangerous thing about magic-users
isn't the power of their spells. It's how
their devious minds come up with such nasty
ways to use what's available to them.
Case in point, the incantation Katrina was
casting was a second level spell known as
"Grease". Not possessing much power in and
of itself, but simple and easy to cast
quickly. More importantly, Kat knew
*exactly* how to use this spell for
maximum effect.
"For the foe who runs on steady feet,
find now no purchase upon the street!"
A clear viscous liquid appeared underneath
the feet of four of the approaching Imperial
Agents.
The result was almost comical to watch.
"Waaaggh!"
"Look out!!"
"Augggh!!"
"Can't stop!!"
This was immediately followed by the
sound of several high speed collisions
as soft flesh impacted against very,
*very* hard Mega-damage walls.
*WHAM*
*CRUNCH*
*SQUISH*
*SNAP*
"...medic."
Having successfully dealt with a
third of their pursuers, Sun turned
her attention to the rest of them.
{Heh! Next...eh!}
And promptly ducked as a pale yellow
particle blast cut through the air
where she'd been standing.
"Keep your head down!"
Nick punctuated his advice with a
well placed shot from his submachine
gun. The beam drew a curse from an
overly daring agent that had exposed
his arm in order to fire.
"Sonvabitch!"
Dark plasti-armor sizzled as the laser
burned deeply into it, stopping just
barely short of the actual arm itself.
"That outta give those idiots some
second thoughts about taking us on.
I don't suppose you've got any other
tricks up your sleeve?"
Kat turned to look back at him.
"Actually, I was going to
ask you the same thing."
Nick grimaced.
"Sorry, miracles aren't my specialty,"
Her blaster soon joined his
Daisho-10 in keeping the rest
of the Imps from trying any
similar acts of daring.
For a few heated minutes the
situation remained a bitter
stalemate.
But then at last came a noise
that Croaker had been dreading
all along.
Not from the front, but *behind* them.
"This way! Cut them off!!"
The sound of Imperial reinforcements.
"Oh hell, we're in trouble now."
~~~~~~~~
-Further Complications
The communicater's visual display
crackled as an excited SIN agent
reported their quarry's current
status.
"This is Team 1, we've found them!
Currently under heavy fire, requesting
immediate support from all available
units to Port Junction 9, Section 35!!"
But the woman that owned this
was already long past caring
about such things.
"Target One positively identified
as Packrat. Target Two is an
unidentified female believed to
be connected to Objective Mustang.
Treat with extreme caution, we
believe she may possess dangerous
psionic...*zzzt*..."
A dark metal heel ground both communicator
and the cooling wrist it was still attached
to into the ferrocrete.
Everything was going as planned.
~~~~~~
-Death Ground
The first icy drops of crimson rain finally began to fall.
As a byproduct of this planet's unusually high concentration
of iron deposits, everything on this world was tainted
by the oxidized material.
Ranma ran on.
The endless line of trees was starting to thin,
he was finally coming to the end of the forest.
{Only a few more hours until I reach the ship...}
And then he felt it. The Knight froze where he was,
not daring to move even an inch as a chill ran down
through his suddenly tense body.
{!}
The air had gone completely still, an unnatural
silence broken only by the falling rain. Now
more then ever it reminded him of freshly shed
blood.
{I'm being watched...}
The hair on the back of his neck
rose as he anxiously looked into
that dreadful darkness, desperately
searching for any sign of the hunter's
presence.
{Where?!}
To go out in a blaze of glory protecting
others or in the defense of life, freedom,
and honor, that was an end he did not fear.
But to be brought to ground in an empty
wilderness like a prize stag, he didn't
want to die like this.
{Not like this!}
Despite his best efforts, he could find
nothing out the ordinary. No explanation
for the expectant hush that draped over
this edge of the woods. His nightvision
was keen but severely limited. With only
the ambient light from stars and an
occasional play of distant lightning
from the approaching storm the Cosmoknight
could barely make out anything past fifteen
meters in front of him.
Everything seemed to look as it had before.
Only his instincts told him otherwise.
{He's here...somewhere.}
The attack came from the left.
Only a high pitched humming at
the very last second gave him
any kind of warning at all.
*zummm*
He was still trying to make sense of the noise
when his left eye exploded in white hot agony.
{Aaaagghh!!}
Clutching his torn face with a bloody hand,
the Cosmoknight dived for cover even as his
free arm came up in retaliation.
An incandescent bolt of blinding light lit up
the night as it disintergrated a dozen trees
and two mossy boulders in its path before
finally expending the rest of its barely
diminished energy on a craggy overgrown
steppe just under a mile away. The blast was
so destructive that the steppe didn't even
explode, it simply vaporized.
His action had been born of pure reflex,
but he regretted it almost immediately.
{Damnit! Shouldn't have done that!!}
Ranma had just made a *BIG* mistake.
The flash from his blast burned into
his own retinas, effectively ruining
his night vision. While with his training
the time he would normally need to recover
from this would only be a few minutes,
those were minutes that he didn't have.
Because with that shot he'd also just
given away his position to whoever was
out there.
{Damn it Saotome, get your
ass in gear and MOVE!!}
Scrambling to his feet, the knight
abandoned his position in the mud
not a moment too soon.
*zummm*
The deadly hum sounded again,
grazing his head an inch above
his right ear. Fighting down
the panic that threatened to
erupt, Ranma rolled and twisted
again as something sharp sliced
through a branch somewhere in
front of him.
*Zuuummmm*
{Where is it coming from?!!}
He recognized what that sound was now.
A Malkovitch Death Disk. An exotic, highly
illegal weapons system used only by
professional killers and a fringe of
eccentric weapon collecters. Galactic
society in general considered the Death
Disks highly abhorrent, even hardened
criminals usually wanted nothing to do
with these sadistic killing devices.
Small, lightning fast and nearly impossible to destroy,
they were armed with a miniature contra-gravity generator
and jagged mono-molecular blades, the disk worked as a
flying buzz-saw. They homed in on their targets through
a sophisicated laser targeting system and then slashed
them to pieces. Humans and similar 'soft' races were
usually cut in half after one pass. Even Mega-damage
body armor couldn't stop them most of the time.
The only real drawback of the weapon was that it
required a line of sight in order to hit anything,
giving it a maximum range of about five hundred feet.
There were plenty of other weapons that could have
taken him out from further away, which meant that
this Hunter *wanted* to have to close with his
intended prey.
{He's toying with me...}
First being hunted like an animal, now this.
Only someone that enjoyed seeing their victim's
blood liked using a Death Disk for the kill...
...it was the final straw.
He had been pushed too far.
{NO MORE!!}
Something deep inside of him snapped.
The chilling fear fled, in its place
began to burn an all consuming rage.
{I'm through running. Whatever happens, I am
a Cosmoknight. I will not disgrace the vow of
loyalty I took. This ends now! One way or
another, IT ENDS!!}
The bleeding Knight ceased his evasive movements
and came to a deliberate halt. His ears alert
for the telltale whine of the deadly disk,
he began to wait.
A warm feeling started building in
his stomach as he closed his useless
eyes. His hearing flickered for a
fraction of a second before suddenly
sharpening to where he could now
distingish the sound of individual
raindrops striking the forest floor.
The rich smells of a living ecosystem
filtered through his nose, the sharp
tang of rust overlaying them all.
The chill of the night seeped through
Ranma's wet skin. He accepted it without
complaint. Concentrating instead on the
flow of the air around him he waited for
his chance.
*zzz*
It was coming again.
*zuuu*
Closer. Not yet. He needed to strike
at the very last second in order to give
its AI no chance to evade his attack.
*zuuu-*
It was closing fast, the distance
disappearing with every heartbeat.
*-mmmm*
The moment came.
*zzzissh--*
Ranma's hands blurred as he used
the speed enhancement technique
that Sarah had taught him only
a few weeks ago.
"Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken!!" (1)
Most of his punches missed. But he was throwing out
hundreds of them and the laws of universal probability
declared that at least some of them would connect.
One of them did.
*CRACK*
Mega-damage alloys and micronized electronics
shattered, bits and pieces crashing into the
brownish-red mud. In return its deadly
blades slashed deeply across the knuckles
of his right hand.
He ignored the pain, it was a small price to pay.
Opening his one good eye, the Cosmoknight was
rewarded with a whole bunch of dark blurs instead
the big light blur that he'd been seeing. But Ranma
would be damned before he'd let that stop him now.
{Let's finish this!!}
He dropped into a fighting stance and
yelled angrily into the silent night.
"Come out and face me like a man!"
'ssshhhh'
A stray breeze moaned softly as the
surrounding darkness grew even colder.
"I am Ranma Saotome, Heir to the Anything
Goes School of Martial Arts and Protecter of
the Cosmic Forge, if you want my life so badly
try and take it from me!!"
At first there was only the wind.
But then came the cool voice that would
forever haunt his darkest nightmares.
"Brave words, boy."
Overhead, the storm finally broke. For an
endless moment a gigantic jagged bolt
of lightning filled the cloudy skies
with savage azure fire.
"Brave, but foolish."
Although still fuzzy at the edges,
Ranma's vision was clear enough
for him to finally see his enemy
for the first time.
{!!!}
He could only stare at first,
paralyzed with shock from what
he saw.
{It's impossible!! He's...he's...!!}
"I fail to see why those stubborn fools
tried so hard to shield such an insignificant
weakling from me..."
Ranma bristled defensively.
{Gotta keep it together, I need to stall him
long enough to regenerate a little. No matter
what he says I can't let his words get to me!}
There was a brief pause as
the blurry figure stepped
closer.
"...Conner must have gone senile
in his old age..."
Ranma could taste blood from
where he bit deeply into his
lower lip.
{No, it's just what he wants!!}
"...And that woman of his was just
as stupid to believe in him."
{!-!-!)
"SHUT UP AND FIGHT!!"
Boundless contempt dripped from his lips as
the Ravager responded to the crude challenge.
"As you wish."
And the battle was joined.
~~~~~~~
-Escape
"Here they come again!"
"Tell me something I don't know!!"
Nicholas pulled a fist sized grey capsule
from his belt and pushed down on the center.
*beep*
He tossed it over the totaled
hovercar they were using for
cover.
"Fire in the hole!"
The anti-personnel grenade peppered the area
with deadly shrapnel, hitting everything
within its radius indiscriminately.
It bought them a few extra seconds.
The two of them used the time to abandon
their position and quickly scrambled down
a blind alley. Sun got a mouthful of her
own hair as she put on an extra burst of
speed. The Leyline Walker quickly spit it
out in disgust.
"Where are the cops when you need them?!"
"They don't get involved in these kinds
of offworld affairs, we're on our own."
"Well that's just GREAT!"
Their pursuers had recovered and
were once again on their heels.
"If we can make it to the starport,
we'll be able to lose them."
The shouts and cries were getting closer.
"Got any ideas on how to do that?"
Long distance energy blasts began flashing by.
They were missing so far, but every shot brought
the range closer to their targets.
"As a matter of fact..."
They were finally entering a more active section
of the level. The few pedestrians scattered and
ran as soon as they realized that a running battle
was coming through. Nicholas paid them no heed,
having more important worries at the moment.
Besides, he was more interested in the *vehicular* traffic.
An unlucky hoverbiker chose exactly the wrong
moment to stop in front of a nearby bar for a
quick drink.
A swift kick deposited the lanky humanoid
onto the ground in a rougher fashion then
it had been expecting.
"Gloorrrl?! HOKOSHO!! BRAELNE!! BRAELNE!!"
Nicholas wasted no time in mounting the now
riderless vehicle. Katrina quickly realized
his plan and scrambled up behind him. She gave
the owner a look of apology.
"Sorry, we need this more then you do!"
The Rebel agent spent a few seconds to
familarize himself with the controls.
Once satisfied that he could fly this
oversized mechanical monster, Nick
tossed back a quick warning to his
fellow passenge.
"Hang on!"
That was when Kat realized there
weren't any safety harnesses on
this thing.
"Wa-Wait!!"
*VAAAVAAAVAAAVOOOMMM*
Croaker and Sun were treated to
an acceleration from standing
rest to 250 kilometers per hour
in the span of three seconds.
"Aaaaaa!!"
Without the benefit of seatbelts.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
That's more like it.
~~~~~~~
-Duel Of The Fates
He fought bravely, using every technique,
every bit of skill at his disposal.
"Bakusai Tenketsu!!" (2)
He fought tenaciously, never attacking the
same way twice. Learning almost instantly
from every move, successful or not, and
adapting his style accordingly.
"Mizu Dai Geki!!"(3)
He fought with the certainty of youth,
believing in his heart of hearts that
justice would prevail.
"Aaaagggh!"
Ranma fought...to no avail.
"Uwwaaa---!!"
The air was blasted out of his lungs as
another one of the Ravager's attacks
smashed through his defenses and sent
him hurtling straight into the side of
a rock ledge. The stone shattered where
he impacted, and as Ranma struggled to
get back up he vomited a mouthful of
blood onto the hard surface.
{He's...too...strong...}
His knuckles were raw and swollen from
countless failed attempts to strike his
enemy. His left kneecap had been smashed
in, and his one remaining good eye was
swollen almost completely shut. Half his
ribs were crushed, and blood ran freely
from dozens of ugly wounds all over his
body.
"Is that the best you have to offer?"
"Nngghh....shut...up!!"
Slowly, painfully, Saotome started to claw
his way back to his feet. He managed to get
nearly halfway up before an armored heel
smashed into his left kidney and sent him
crashing back down.
"Pathetic."
A second kick struck him from behind and
Ranma felt his left arm snap like a brittle
twig. Flashes of blinding white flooded
his vision as wave after wave of indescribable
agony flooded through him. Helpless tears of
impotent rage clung to the edges of his half-blind
pupils, stubbornly refusing to fall. Still he
continued trying to fight back. Instead resisting
the imparted momentum he rolled with it, redirecting
most of the force into a desperate low kick. His
form was almost perfect, even with the injuries
slowing him down. Exactly like how he'd practiced
in training.
But 'almost' wasn't good enough.
"Too slow."
His attack was stopped far short of its mark.
The Ravager had an advantage in power and
reach that Ranma couldn't possibly hope to
match with just his bare hands. And Saotome
had already discovered firsthand just how
strong his opponent was.
{Damn...you...!}
A wet explosion marked the swift
destruction of his right kneecap.
"...!!"
There was nothing left in
his lungs for him to scream.
But even worse then the physical pain
was the coldly indifferent expertise
that the Ravager was using to take him
apart.
Methodically, efficiently and brutally
the fledgling knight's moves were
countered, his strategies nullified,
his hopes crushed.
{Conner...Sarah...I'm sorry...I tried...}
There were a hundred moments in the battle
where his enemy could have finished him off
but did not, choosing instead to continue
to break him. His healing factor was stretched
to its limits as each new wound sapped away at
his diminishing strength.
Dying by inches.
And there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it.
His limp body landed on a rocky outcrop that gave way
under the violence of his landing. he tumbled down the
rough slope, leaving a crimson spattered trail in his wake.
"And to think those fools believed you would be worthy of
the Key. As if a weakling could succeed where I did not."
{What...what is he...talking...about? Key...?}
It took everything Ranma had left and more to
arise from he'd fallen. But somehow he managed
to get back up one more time. His wobbling legs
threatened to give way, yet he still stood on
his feet.
"I grow tired of this farce."
Battered by injury and exhaustion, his mind started
to slip in and out of awareness. He was beginning to
react instead of think as his tenuous grasp on
consciousness loosened with every passing moment.
{The g-good guy's...supposed to win...}
He felt cold, so very cold. Ice gripped his pounding
heart tightly as he watched the dark specter approach.
{Why...can't...I...beat...him?!}
Desperately, hopelessly, he stumbled foreward and launched
one last punch, throwing away every bit of his remaining
power into that final blow.
"DAMN YOU!!"
It was an attempt doomed to failure.
But he had to do it anyway, anything less would have
meant he'd given up. And a Saotome never gave up, ever.
"Idiot."
A gleam of darkness.
A sudden burning sensation from his right wrist.
Then a fountain of blood erupted forth as his
clouded eyes stared dumbly at the stump where
the arm now ended as his cleanly severed hand
dropped to the ground below.
~~~~~~
-Shock Therapy
"Now!!"
Pure mystical power geysered forth from Belldandy's
glowing form. A stream of unadultrated psychic
energy that channeled directly to her older sister.
Urd grimaced as she absorbed the intense charge.
It was a little like being plugged directly into
a nuclear reactor. Even for her, the power was
almost uncomfortable to retain.
{If this doesn't get him up, nothing will.}
Loooking down at his broken faceplate, she
brushed back a stray strand of black hair
that was showing as she whispered a short
prayer for the unconscious young man.
"Please...please let this work."
Then she let it loose.
~~~~~~
-Destiny
Clutching his right arm in disbelief,
he stumbled backwards. Dimly, he could
sense himself uncontrollably trembling
from the sheer shock. It was too much.
{I...}
It seemed he was only human after all.
{I want to live...}
A weak azure glow began to illuminate the area.
But he couldn't see where it was coming from.
Ranma could barely see at all now, but he could
still feel the icy bite of the blood red rain
beating down upon him. He was going perish here,
on an alien world so far from home.
{no...}
All alone.
{No...}
Disgrace, defeat and now death.
{NO!!}
The glow grew brighter.
"Now it ends."
A shadow fell over his form.
Ranma looked up into the
face of his executioner.
{I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!}
And suddenly the light became
blindingly bright. Beyond
anything he'd ever known.
"What? What is this?!"
He could hear surprise in
the Ravager's voice as if
from a great distance.
Then everything vanished
within that searing light...
~~~~~~
-Reaction
Scarlet lightning erupted from the center
of their patient's chest, catching Urd and
Belldandy completely off guard.
They were thrown back by sudden violent outburst,
the hellish glare forcing them to shield their
eyes.
"What's happening?!"
Belldandy had no answer for her sister.
Ranma's body jerked forward.
As his head came up he screamed.
But instead of sound, a beam of solid
white shot up toward the temple's roof.
The weatherworn stone vanished as if it had never
existed, a moment later the light struck the mystical
barrier that the three goddesses had spent so
much time to erect.
At first it seemed that their work would be in vain
as the beam impacted. Colors of the sea flared up as
the two forms of energy battled for supremacy. As
the raging force expended itself against the fiercely
glowing shield it threatened to break through.
But the Ward held.
And just as abruptly as it began, the outburst ended.
The Knight collapsed back onto the futon.
To all outward appearence he seemed completely lifeless.
"No!"
The bronze skinned goddess dashed toward him,
her features betraying unexpected emotions.
Urd started to pound on his chest,
refusing to believe that they'd lost him.
"It can't end like this!"
She froze abruptly, afraid that her
imagination was suddenly playing
tricks on her.
But there it was again.
She wasn't mistaken.
Slow, but steady.
A heartbeat.
"Thank goodness..."
She looked down upon his
half-hidden face and gently
cradled his head in her lap.
"You idiot...don't scare me like that."
Watching from the side, her sister smiled knowingly.
~~~~~
The pain eased as his body finally succeeded in
expelled the alien contaminents that had been
poisoning his system.
With the enormous drain on his system gone,
a flicker of awareness flared to life...
~~~~
-Heart of the Sword
Darkness.
Different this time, but familar.
In his mind's eye he saw again the
battle against the two minions on
the streets. Something about their
powers, something important...
'Negaforce.'
A growing sense of recognition tickled
at the very edge of his mind.
'Evil beyond forgiveness, beyond redemption.'
His kind had faced this somewhere before.
But where? And when?
'Remember.'
From deep within the Cosmoknight's subconscious
a name stirred on the fringes of his awareness.
A collective memory shared by all of the Forge's
Chosen.
'One of our most ancient foes, a vile entity
we believed destroyed so very long ago.'
At last he recognized his enemy's true nature.
Called the Deceiver, the Betrayer, and more
then a thousand other names in a hundred
dead languages, her true identity had been
lost to the rest of the galaxy long before
the birth of modern civilization. Only the
Cosmoknights and the Forge still remembered
the truth.
'Finish the task that our brethren started.'
A single word escaped his unconscious lips.
"Metall'a."
~~~~~~~~~~
-The Negaverse (Our motto: How may we kill you today?)
THIS COULD NOT BE!!
But the images brought back by
her minions were unmistakable.
The old memories of pain and humilation
stirred once again as the vile being
studied the revolting projection.
"After all this time...one of those
digusting meddlers has finally
found their way here..."
A Knight of the Cosmic Forge.
On Earth.
The silent mental roar of mindless anger and pure
unbridled hate shook the palace to its very foundations.
Every one of Metall'a's minions cringed in pain and
terror from the sheer force of their mistress's outrage.
{Of all the infernal things...why one of *THEM*?!*}
Over a thousand millenia had passed since the
Dark Star Kingdom, which had spanned the furthest
reaches of the Anvil Galaxy at its height,
had been destroyed by those wretched beings.
The crowning achievement of her power,
brought down by those cursed pawns of
the damnable Forge.
They had slaughtered billions of her minions
and sent the badly wounded Intelligence fleeing
to the farthest reaches of the Multiverse.
It had taken over seven hundred years for the
injuries to heal, and longer still for the
entity's pride to recover from the bitter
taste of defeat.
Metall'a would *never* forget.
{revenge...}
By the time the Intelligence finished healing,
Metall'a had found herself too low on psychic
energy to risk returning to the Three Galaxies
or any of the known dimensions. In her weakened
state she would have been easy prey for any of
her rivals. Only the strongest survived in the
merciless ecosystem of the Alien Intelligence.
And so she was forced to remain in exile. Years
passed into decades, decades turned to centuries,
and the centuries began to fade into the obscurity
of millenia.
Still she had waited for an opportunity to rebuild her empire.
Her chance had finally come when those first strange
emanations reached her, power that she later learned
originated from the Imperium Silver Crystal.
And she had been so close!
Once again Metall'a cursed Serenity and all of her descendents.
If only they hadn't interfered time and time again!
Even now, a thousand years later, one of the Royal
Family had appeared and thwarted her attempts at conquest.
To be defeated by a clumsy, simpleminded, scared little crybaby...
With an effort she pushed aside the old frustration.
She could not afford such distractions now.
{Revenge.}
The Sailor Senshi could wait.
She would never be safe as long as this
Cosmoknight lived. He *had* to be eliminated
quickly, before he discovered the truth.
Metall'a knew that if the Knights ever
discovered her presence again that this
time they would hound her to the very ends
of the universe until either she or they
were completely annihilated. Those stubborn
do-gooders were all but impossible to stop
once they set out to do something.
{REVENGE!!!}
It was incredibly difficult to kill a Knight of the Forge.
But not impossible.
For the Intelligence was well aware of the one
chink in their nearly impenetrable defenses.
Magic. The ultimate bane of the Cosmoknights.
Metall'a had learned to exploit this weakness
to its fullest early on during the war against them.
Enchanted weapons and spells of power could slay any
of those fools as easily as a simple mortal and even
the most venerable Cosmoknight was still vulnerable
to the lethal kiss of a Drinker of Souls.
Unfortunately, almost all of her items of power had
been lost during the Great War. Her enemies had been
very through in their efforts to find and destroy
the Intelligence's hidden caches of weapons and
magical artifacts. Most of what she'd managed to
spirit away had been wasted during her many attempts
to seize control of the ancient Silver Millenium.
And with her reserves depleted so heavily,
she could not risk a direct attack on him yet.
She just needed a little time.
Time to plan, to discover how much this
one already knew. Was he alone, or were
there others watching and waiting?
And most important of all, time to
gather what remained of her strength.
For if worst came to worst, she might
have to deal with this matter *personally*.
Though her powers had weakened from her long
exile, still they were more then a match for
a single knight no matter how experienced he
might be. Especially if the choice of battle
grounds was hers to decide.
The entity's features cortorted into a grotesque
approximation of smug anticipation as she stared
at the hateful image in front of her.
A few weeks to prepare, no more. Enough for the Intelligence
to marshal her forces, yet far too short for the
Knight to confirm her presence here.
And then the battle would truly begin.
She could almost taste her long awaited vengence.
And she found it sweet.
~~~~~~~~
-On A Lighter Note
She shook her head at the sight before her.
"Oh you girls, I can see I've got my work cut out for me."
Yohko and her two friends were sprawled out
cold on the floor. Trickles of drying blood
on their faces indicated that nosebleeds
of considerable proportions had taken place
recently.
She easily spotted the culprit.
It was lying in plain view for
anyone to see.
{Only on chapter 1? This could take longer then I thought...}
After making the girls more comfortable
Nodoka grabbed her sword as she headed
for the family dojo. She needed to relieve
some stress in preparation for the task
ahead. It was during these times that
she missed her husband Genma the most,
he had been so *good* at relaxing her.
~~~~~
-Paying The Piper
Sasami beamed at her fellow passenger
as their blonde driver raced along
the winding roads that led back to
the Masaki Valley.
"There were some scary parts,
but I had a lot of fun today!!"
Kiyone was not normally a religious person.
She'd been assigned as Mihoshi's partner
for far too long to believe that a benevolent
deity was watching over her. But as they drove
back to the house she was praying up a storm,
hoping desperately that Princess Ayeka had *not*
found out about Sasami's little *adventure*.
Especially given the fact that Kiyone and Mihoshi
were supposed to have been responsible for watching
her.
{Oh please, oh please, oh please!! I'll never
ask for anything else for the rest of my life!!
I'll even stop badgering you every night about
getting me a transfer off this third rate planet!!}
The little princess's tale of what happened when
she went off on her own had almost given the teal
haired detective a stroke when they finally found
her. Kiyone knew perfectly well that if Ayeka found
out about this she would blow a gasket, not to
mention what she would do to the Galaxy Police
Officers!
"We're almost home!"
Mihoshi's innocent cheerful tone
did nothing to soothe her partner's
worries. Far too soon for her comfort,
the house started to come into view.
So did a steaming, larger then life
First Crown Princess of Jurai with
both Guardians in tow.
And boy, did she look unhappy!
Detective First Class Kiyone paled.
"We're dead."
~~~~~~
-A Quick Review
Trying to pry useful information out of
the Guardian of Time is like using your
bare hands to pull teeth from an irritated
grizzly, a fact that the rest of the
Sailor Senshi were fast discovering
to their dismay.
"Tell us!"
Rei's simple direct approach didn't work.
"No."
"C'mon! Just one little hint!!"
Minako's adorable puppy eyes
also failed to budge her.
"No."
"Please!!"
Even Usagi's ear-torturing whining
was of no use, Setsuna's iron
resolve remained firm.
"Absolutely not."
This argument was now going into its third hour.
The Princess and most of the other Senshi wanted
to know what Setsuna was keeping from them. It was
almost painfully obvious to all by now that their
oldest member knew more about the strange warrior
then she was saying. Even Haruka and Micheru were
siding with the Inners on this one, they hated being
kept in the dark just as much as the others.
"Spill it Setsuna, what is it about this guy
that's got your tail in such a twist?
The Time Guardian raised a single graceful eyebrow.
Haruka shrugged in response, determined not to
let Setsuna divert her with the old "switch to
another subject" mind trick.
"Hey, I may be violent but I'm not
stupid. Now answer the question."
"No."
"Arrggh!!"
This was really getting nowhere fast.
But while everybody else was busy in
their futile efforts to get something,
*anything* besides a denial out of Meiou,
Ami was quietly working on her slightly
scorched VR visor and mini-computer.
Somehow she knew intuitively that these
held a key piece of the puzzle that now
faced them.
What Mizuno was trying to do was not
especially original, simply connect
a two-way data feed between the pieces
of equipment. This would allow her to
replay today's earlier battles for everyone
else and give her computer's more powerful
electronic 'brain' a chance to analyze
the huge influx of data that had caused
her VR visor's systems to crash. The
operation wasn't hard, simply time consuming.
*shnick*
A final circuit clicked into place.
*Beep*
The blue haired genius smiled
in tired satisfaction.
"There! All done."
This finally attracted the
attention of the other girls.
"What have you got there?"
Ami started typing in the needed commands.
"Some answers, if we're lucky."
The screen of her mini-computer flared
to life and began to project a three
dimensional scene in front of the
curious Senshi.
The response was immediate.
"Hey, that's him!"
"Ack!! How come nobody ever
told me my thighs are that
big?!!"
"..."
Everyone took a moment
to stare at the suddenly
bigsweating Minako.
"Never mind."
Fortunately for her, the miniature
battle playing out in front of them
quickly recaptured their attention.
Usagi and Rei blinked and swallowed heavily.
This was the first time that they had gotten
a chance to see what all the others had been
making such a big fuss about.
"....wow."
"Ami, why are you fast forwarding through this part?"
"I'm not, Usagi. This is playing back at a 1:1
ratio. He's actually moving that quickly."
Usagi paused in mid-bite of a cracker and paled.
"And Setsuna wants us to fight *him*?! Has she gone completely bonkers?!!"
Heads turned toward their oldest member.
Or rather, where they'd last seen her.
An empty chair met their eyes.
"How does she keep doing that?!"
~~~~~~~~
-Eyecatch of the day
~Fade In~
(Ranma running away "Road Runner" style from the
normal mob of girls trying to get a piece of him.)
Ranma: AARRRGGGH!!!
(The chase goes back and forth through the streets of
Nerima/Juuban/Osaka/*insert Japanese province of choice*)
Ranma: I've gotta find a way to get away from them!!
(A light bulb pops up over his head)
(Ranma runs into the nearest phone booth and pulls a curtain down)
*Sounds of frantic changing of clothes*
(Door opens and out pops Oogumi Ichirou [Sakura Wars])
Ranma/Oogumi: Heh, they'll never spot me in this getup!
(True to his words the girls pass him by, completely fooled)
Ranma/Oogumi: Yes! Free at last!!
*BOOM*
Ranma/Oogumi: OH NO!! NOT THEM!!!
(Several beautiful women with assorted weapons and a cute twelve year old surround him)
Members of the Hanagumi: Hold it right there! You have to decide which one of us you really like the most!!
Ranma/Oogumi: Uh, can I get back to you on that?
Sakura/Orihime/Kanna/Sumire/Kohran/Maria/Iris: NO!!
Ranma/Oogumi: In that case...RUN AWAY!!!
(A second chase ensues)
Ranma/Oogumi: Let's try that again!
(He runs, hides, and switches appearances again)
Ranma: Ta da!
(Trouble Contracter Kane Blueriver [Lost Universe] steps out)
(The Imperial Flower Division passes him by)
Ranma/Kane: Whew! Finally ditched all them.
(An ominous rumbling overhead seems to contradict that)
Ranma: It *can't* be....
(Four girls pop up)
Milly: There you are!!
(Milly pulls out her trusty oversized energy pistol)
Melrina: How dare you try to run out on us!!
(Melrina also pulls out a gun)
Karin: Little lion, it's time to play.
(Karin pulls out her energy whip and charges it up)
*Wh-ppishhh*
Canel: You've been a very *bad* boy!
(The Sword Breaker starts aiming all of its 200+ guns at him)
Ranma/Kane: help me...
~Fade Out~
~~~~~~~
-Portents & Omens
Setsuna Meiou collapsed onto her bedroom
floor as soon as her teleport finished.
While not the most powerful of the Senshi,
she was unquestionably the most experienced.
Pluto had never been reborn like the others
and so retained full awareness of her powers.
Normally she would have known better then to
tap into that power while in civilian form.
The strain it placed on her body made such an
act impractical except for the most dire of
emergencies. But after seeing the replay of
the first few minutes of the first battle she'd
gone into shock.
{Impossible. It's impossible...}
Her first instinct had been to run and hide.
{I've finally gone completely mad.}
It was the only explanation her
tormented soul could come up with.
Rationality was submerged beneath
the need to keep her deepest secret
from the others. They would never
understand, and the shame of them
finding out was unthinkable.
Because she recognized that fighting style.
Setsuna had held some suspicions during their battle earlier,
but the way he had been holding back (and she realized
now that he had not been engaging them seriously at all)
had prevented her from confirming the uneasy feeling of
familarity that had plagued her during the brief melee.
But now there was no mistaking that graceful and utterly lethal
dance of quicksilver strikes and teasing dodges that defied
any attempt to define a pattern.
{Ran...}
She had thought that any remaining feelings for
him had died long ago. It shocked her then, the
maelstrom of conflicting emotions that now arose
from the possibilty that somehow he had survived
the Silver Millenium's destruction.
"I hate him! I...hate him. I..."
Confusion ran rampant through her mind,
she wasn't sure about anything anymore.
How? How could he have survived?
And then she realized...
{I attacked him. I hurt him...maybe even killed him.
Wasn't that what I always wanted? But...}
She recalled with stark clarity using her Chrono-Trigger
technique against the Knight. She had dreamed of making
Ran pay for his crimes, wanting to hurt him as much as he
had done to her. But now the satisfaction that she
had always expected to feel was not there. Instead
there was a simply an aching emptiness within her breast.
"What's wrong with me?! I thought revenge would make
the pain finally go away...why? Why won't it stop?!"
An unexpected voice answered her.
"Perhaps it is time you started listening to your heart
instead of burying yourself within your duties, Puu-chan."
Setsuna froze as that familar regal tone
penetrated through the haze of despair and
bitter loneliness. She turned to see a tiny
spark of silvery white light pass through
the bedroom window. It hovered for a moment
at eye level and then slowly coalesced into
a figure the Guardian of Time had not seen
since that dark day over a thousand years ago.
Barely a foot tall, the spirit of the
former monarch might have been mistaken
for a fairy queen. Her silver hair and
transluscent wings shimmered with a
faint unearthly light that gave her
tiny form an almost tangible presence
of undisputed authority.
"Queen Serenity!"
Setsuna hastily knelt before her beloved ruler.
"Your Majesty."
A brief look of mild irritation crossed Serenity's features.
"Stop that, Setsuna. You know I always hated going through
the formalities in the Moon Kingdom. I didn't put
up with it then and I won't put up with it now."
The Guardian of Time scrambled back to her feet.
She was pale from the multiple shocks to her system
but still managed to hold herself steady in the face
of her Queen.
"But, Serenity-sama...how?...why? I don't..."
Serenity gave her a small sad smile.
"Hush. My time here is short. I have delayed my
final journey long enough. This will be the last
time I will ever be able visit this world again
and I have no intention of wasting this opportunity."
Setsuna was left in a stunned silence.
"Much better."
The spirit nodded in approval
even as her eyes softened.
"I know that these past centuries have been
hard, but it is long past time that you
stopped blaming yourself for what happened."
Setsuna's head came up in protest.
"But Highness, it was *my* fault that Beryl
managed to launch her surprise attack!
I neglected my duty by letting my feelings
interfere with the oaths sworn to you
and the entire kingdom. I let my guard down..."
Nothing could have softened the anguish in her voice.
"...and the Silver Millenium paid the price for my failure."
Serenity shook her head.
"No. All you did was fall in love.
There is no crime in that."
Setsuna laughed dryly, a small hateful sound
full of self condemnation and loathing for
her sheer stupidity.
"I loved him...and in return he sabotaged our defenses,
killed the Senshi of Uranus and Neptune, and banished
me to the Gates of Time...I should have killed him when
I had the chance."
The Queen's eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
"Do not judge what you have yet to understand."
"Serenity-sama?"
Confusion was writ on the Setsuna's face.
"Let it go, Puu-chan."
Serenity was not indifferent to her friend's plight.
There was so much that Pluto didn't know,
and though the spirit wanted to comfort
her she also knew that she could not. Indeed,
she *dared* not. Serenity was only one tiny
thread in the tapestry of Destiny. She understood
the necessity of the final grand pattern, but that
didn't mean she had to like it.
{If it were possible I would spare you the pain
you must soon face. But life has never been very
fair to you, old friend.}
Her face revealed none of the sympathy
she longed to give, leaving only the
steel will of the Queen for all to see.
"Heed my words, Guardian of the Gate."
The green haired woman stiffened as she
heard herself being addressed by her
full formal station.
"Between the Darkness and the Light stands the sleeping knight,
He will be known by the Blood of two Worlds,
Heir to the Dragon's Sword,
Marked by the Wings of the Endless Storm,
A Promise of Life that might or Death that will,"
Suddenly there was a tugging sensation on her
remaining energy, one that grew stronger by the
second.
{No! It's too soon!! I need more time!}
"Past and Future will soon come full circle,
The Destined are called to fullfill past vows yet to be sworn,
Old Enemies will meet again,
Opposing sides of the Coin,
Hope and Curse intertwined,
Two Students inherit their shared Legacy,
But only One shall claim their Destiny,"
Setsuna started to move as she saw her liege's
image begin to fade but was halted by the warning
look on her face.
With an almost visible effort of
concentration the Queen managed
to briefly stabilize her vanishing
form.
But only for a moment.
"Beware of the Beast that hides within the Man,
Beware of the Deceiver that lives in the Shadows,
Beware of the Coveting Heart that shuns the day,
For only a Blade of Truth will be their End,
Seek out the Soul that holds no Lies,
Heal the Void within the Child of the Stars,
Return the Key of Life to the Soul of Origin,
To Unlock the Seeds of the Past,
And Open the Gates of the Future."
The spirit's nearly transparent form started to
shiver weakly as she fought to stay there just
a little bit longer.
{I owe her this much at least!}
"Remember this well Pluto. Those who choose
to challenge their destiny...do...not...
always...lose..."
And then she was gone.
~~~~~~~
-What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
A certain news broadcast hit the
international community of Earth
with all the subtlety of a bull
in a china shop.
The repercussions were immediate,
although most of them would not be
discovered by Ranma until much later...
~~~~~~~
-Amazon Village, China
""
Cologne blinked. After 300 years
there weren't much left capable of
surprising her.
This was one of those memorable moments.
The video feed was shaky and of poor
quality due to interference from the
surrounding mountains but the image
was unmistakable.
""
HOW had that person gotten his hands on such
an advanced Amazon special technique?!
Only the village elders were supposed to possess
them, the techniques were so difficult to master
that of the entire village only Cologne and a few
other grandmasters were able to do more then just
remember the names of those ancient special attacks
anymore.
Even Happi, the only outsider to ever gain access to
the original scrolls, had never been able to fully
comprehend their workings.
""
""
Comb, Lorekeeper and one of the more liberal
elders of the village, joined her in the hut.
""
Despite her light tone, the eccentric mystic knew
that this situation required further investigation.
She had been sensing powerful forces in motion lately.
Now it looked like a quick excursion to Japan was in order.
For when elephants clashed, it was always the grass that suffered.
{I can feel the Lines of Destiny shifting. Whether it is for good
or ill is impossible to tell. But there are Old Powers involved,
and they could very well tear this entire planet apart if they
engage in open conflict.}
Then Comb smiled.
As Lorekeeper for the tribe it was her
responsibility to keep record of unusual
events for the benefit of future generations.
And this promised to be anything but boring.
Cologne felt a sudden cold chill run down
her spine as she caught a glimpse of that
telltale grin.
{Goddess preserve us, every time Comb gets excited
about something we always seem to find ourselves in
a hell of a lot of trouble!}
The younger Amazons who didn't really care about silly
Japanese magical girl shows and just wanted to go out
and track down their beloved pigtailed soon-to-be-husband
were already packed and ready to go.
It was going to be an interesting trip.
~~~~~~~
-Interpol HQ
"Mother! How could you engage me to some kid?!"
Chun-Li Zang shouted angrily at the hapless phone,
her fingers wrapping hard around the cord in an attempt
to strangle it. Was there some unwritten Universal
Law that said mothers had to embarass their daughters
for the rest of their natural lives?
"You bought him from his father in exchange for a *WHAT*?!"
The Chinese Interpol agent had dealt with some
pretty strange and tramatic things in her life,
but this one took the cake complete with icing
on top!
"No way! Absolutely out of the question!!"
She was *not* going to marry some snot nosed little punk
just because her mother was desperate for grandkids to spoil!
There were limits to what she'd do in the name of filial piety,
and this was definitely one of them.
"This is not the Dark Ages!"
Unfortunately her mother didn't seem to agree with her.
"Fine!! I'll just have to find the jerk and
get this stupid deal annulled from *his* side!!"
Chun-Li slammed her phone back down onto its
cradle with a barely restrained snarl that
boded ill for her 'fiance'.
Her fellow agents suddenly found that
they had pressing business elsewhere.
All except for one unfortunate secretary
who was just a tad too slow in realizing
her peril.
The Interpol agent loomed over the rapidly paling woman.
"Book me on the first flight to Japan...NOW."
~~~~~~~
-The Diggers...
"OHMYGOD!"
Gina Diggers had a familar feverish gleam
in her eyes. Her passion for exploration,
knowledge, and (most importantly) treasure
was well known to family, friends and rivals
alike.
"I've got to get that sword!!"
Brittany and Brianna sighed in
unison. Both knew their sister's
routine by heart now.
"Here we go again..."
~~~~~~~
-...And Co.
"C'mon Charlotte, we're going to go and
one up little Miss Golddigger by getting
to that artifact before she does."
Penny, eternal and (sorta) friendly rival
of Gina Golddigger had *that* look on her
face again.
"Um, okay. But won't the person who owns
the sword have something to say about that?"
Her winged bodyguard wasn't so sure about this.
"Leave *that* to me. Warm up the jet, Ace."
Her other companion put a hand to his head.
"I just know I'm gonna regret this."
~~~~~~~
-London, England
"Hello Moneypenny."
The long suffering secretary
didn't even bother looking up
from her work.
"M is waiting inside."
She winced, the old battle axe
probably couldn't wait to chew her
out for her last assignment if
Moneypenny's reaction was anything
to judge by.
{Maybe it's time to start thinking
about another line of work.}
She shook her head as a very
un-agently giggle threatened
to escape.
{Yeah, and maybe Daddy will
finally settle down with just
one woman.}
Her features resumed their normal composure
the moment she stepped into M's office.
"We have a potential situation 003."
{Uh oh.}
M nodded toward the digital screen on
the wall behind her.
"This was picked up on one of Tokyo's
satellite broadcasts two hours ago."
Agent 003 raised a single perfect eyebrow.
"Um...I wasn't aware that we were in the
habit of investigating tabloid special
effects."
M gave her an annoyed look.
"This is a serious matter 003. Obviously there's something
beyond the ordinary going on. And Her Majesty's Government
doesn't like to be kept in the dark. Take the next plane
to Japan and find out exactly what or who that is and
report your findings back here A.S.A.P."
003 nodded, resigned to the inevitable.
"And one more thing Melissa,
do try not to behave like 007
while you're there."
It was all Melissa Bond could do not to roll
her eyes at that. *Nobody* could possibly
get into as much trouble as her father.
"I'll be sure to keep that in mind."
~~~~~~~
*-Interruption-*
"Looks like we're in for quite a show."
Shadow wasn't the type to rub his hands
together with glee, but only because it
would have made him look silly.
The Bard had no such reservations.
"Oh yeah!"
"Indeed."
Rowan had his own private concerns,
but he was beginning to get an inkling
of what Zora was up to. It was no secret
that the Cosmoknights had been trying to deal
with certain *problems* in their respective
galaxy, but the odds had always been skewed
against them. Too many beings found the easiness
of being evil an irresistable option.
But if what he suspected was true,
the balance of power was about to
take a major hit.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
She nodded back at him.
"I do too."
*-We Now Resume the Fanfic Already in Progress-*
~~~~~~~
-The Melva (Flagship of the Raalgon Empire)
Empress Azalyn Goza the 16th banged her
royal scepter against the floor and
issued her command in a suitably
sounding voice equal to the importance
she placed on this task.
"You know the drill. Now go out and find Paco Paco!"
"Yes, your Highness."
With all the cheer of a man condemned
to a fate worse then death, Captain Dom
of the Raalgon Naval Forces bowed and
left the Throne Room.
{Not again! Damn you Tylor!!}
Ru Baraba Dom feared no man.
But Justie Ueki Tylor was no ordinary man.
Tylor was an enigma. His superiors wanted to
kill him, his enemies wanted to kill him,
and more often then not his loyal crew wanted
to kill him too. Simply surviving so much
emity directed toward him was incredible,
but *prospering* under such adverse conditions
was nothing short of the kind of luck that
made a person believe in miracles.
And yet somehow Captain Tylor managed to do just that.
Which was why the Raalgon Empire's military
was so afraid of him. The guy simply wasn't
human! And while Dom admired Tylor's incredible
streak of good luck, he did *not* like the
captain's current relationship with the Empress.
Especially since said relationship involved the
removal of royal garments, suspicious giggling noises,
even more suspicious moaning, and the Empress yelling
"Faster Paco Paco!! Don't Stop!!" loud enough to shatter
the listening equipment that had been secretly placed
in the royal quarters for her safety.
~~~~~~~
-Get Up And Go!
Morning. On a planet with two suns
this event was usually regarded by
the locals as having all the charm of
a bunch of Homocidal Incarnations of
Lost Technology.
Of course, not everyone felt that way.
"Mmmmm."
Meryl Stryfe, of the Bernardeli Insurance Agency
pulled the sheets closer around her deliciously
tired body as she luxuriated in the warm kiss
of the dawning day.
For once all was right in the world for her.
At last, after months of stress and hardship,
she had *finally*, *FINALLY* gotten her hands
on that idiot Vash and after several hours of
enjoyable persuasion managed to get those three
magic little words out of him.
Now all that was left was to tie him up,
drag her man to the nearest preacher,
and then get the two of them hitched
before Milly or one of the other girls
got wind of her plans.
A questing hand reached over toward
the other side of the bed in search
of her future husband. Unfortunately
the warm body that Meryl found snoring
beside her was *not* Vash the Stampede.
For one thing, it was much too large.
And the figure had breasts, large ones,
which narrowed the possibilities down
to...
"MILLY?!!"
Milly "Stungun" Thompson, fellow agent
for Bernardeli Insurance and Meryl's
exasperating sidekick, awoke from her
pleasant dreams of the previous night.
"..uhn? Oh! Good morning Sempai!"
All of a sudden, the stress was back.
"HE DID IT AGAIN!!"
Meryl's outraged scream shattered
every glass object in a six block
radius. A slightly tired looking
young blonde man with a spiky hairdo
and a red trenchcoat seven blocks
away started running even faster.
"Uh oh. Looks like she finally woke up."
Unfortunately for Vash and the city
of 'Jackpot' in general a marshal
that bore a striking resemblence
to a certain ditzy Galaxy Police
Woman and several ladies that
had once tried to kill him were
walking down that exact same street.
Random destruction and lots of
gunfire started almost immediately.
Jackpot City ceased to exist an hour later.
~~~~~~~~
-RIFTS Earth
The outskirts of the City Fortresses were
some of the most wretched and violent areas
of the Coalition States. Here the poor and
desperate gathered, hoping for a better life
inside the heavily armored and fanatically
guarded bastions of the human race.
Many of them found only death. Others managed
to scrabble out a miserable existance under
the ever watchful eyes of the Coalition Armed
Forces. And for a rare few, these slums were
the stepping stone to the kind of wealth
and power that most people were only able to dream of.
Unfortunately these areas were also the best
places in North America for certain people to find
information that would otherwise be inaccessible
to them.
From one of the countless seedy bars on the outskirts
of Chi-Town, the Coalition's capital, came the panicked
cries of a bartender.
"No Blasters! No Blasters!!"
It was followed by the sound of a fist meeting flesh.
Shortly thereafter the main entrance of the slumping
building exploded in a spray of rotten woodchips and
rusty nails as a limp body went crashing through it to
smack heavily onto the muddy street.
"All I wanted was some information, dirtbag."
Janet Braddock stepped across the shattered door
and made her way to the unconscious idiot who'd
made the mistake of underestimating her determination
to find her man. And if that took shaking down every
lead on the planet, she was prepared to do just that.
Even if Ran didn't know that he was hers yet, she'd
fix that when she finally found him. Especially since
things were getting more urgent, Janet had been hearing
'rumors' that she wasn't the only merc out to stake a
claim on her 'Ran-chan'. If the leader of the
former "Robot Control" outfit wanted to get in the
way, Braddock would be more then happy to kick Chen's
scrawny ass across the Atlantic.
Hefting the groaning city rat to his feet,
the mercenary slapped him across the face
until he was semi-coherent.
"You could've just said no. Now you're going
to spill your guts, or we'll have to do this..."
Her thin smile would have given a glacier frostbite.
"...the *hard* way."
~~~~~~~
-Speaking Of Strange
Katrina was screaming like there was no tomorrow.
"Ohmygodlookoutforthosebuildings!!!"
Because if Croaker lost control over their ride,
there wouldn't be a future for either of them.
Nick grimaced as the hoverbike screamed barely
a dozen meters over the streets of Spacetown.
He'd been correct about knowing how to fly
this oversized monster, but controlling the
damn thing was an entirely different story!
"Highergohigherwe'regonnacrash!!!"
The engine was at least five times beyond street
legal, even for the very loose laws of the Center.
And the speed crazy idiot that owned it had
apparently taken out *all* of the mandatory
safety interlocks.
"Leftleftnotthatway!!!"
He cursed as a stray rooftop holographic billboard
projecter got a little too close for comfort. Sparks
flew as the bottom of the bike scraped briefly along
the solid metallic structure. The initial impact
nearly unseated them both, and it also had the added
effect of making their already shaky flight even
more unstable. But at least there was some good coming
out of this. They weren't being followed. Even Imps
weren't stupid enough to try and copy the flight path
of an obviously suicidal lunatic.
"Somebodystopthisthing!!"
Several hair-raising minutes later they finally cleared
Spacetown and entered the Shipyards. Now all they had to
worry about was trying to avoid smashing into any of the
hundreds of light starships and shuttles docked here.
At least most of the spacecraft here were *slightly*
smaller then the buildings they'd already passed.
Which wouldn't make crashing into one at their current
reckless speed any less fatal, but at least now they
had more room to dodge out of the way.
At least in theory anyway.
"Aiiieeee!!!"
~~~~~~~
-Down Comes The Hammer
Skythe was talking with Sharra
when the first alarm went off.
"What the hell?"
It was coming from the gravitational satellite array.
Hsi-Feng started cursing a blue streak as she dashed
for toward the console and slid into the seat in front
of it.
The array consisted of an enormous network of sensor
drones that monitored the gravitational distortions
of interstellar vessels. These distortions were
generated by the FTL drive, any ship equipped with
Faster Then Light technology generated a gravitational
'bubble' that sent 'eddies' through the local space-time
continum, similar to the ripples that resulted from
throwing a stone into a still body of water.
As a result, starships not equipped with military class stealth
systems could be detected by modern sensors as far as 10 Light
Years away. Even ships *with* stealth systems couldn't hide
themselves completely from detection. The betraying gravity
signature was too distinct. All that stealth systems actually
did was weaken the detectable effects of the gravitational
distortion to a less noticable level. And even then, that
normally only worked against *civilian* sensors.
The satellite array had been put in place by the Empire for
inner system defense coordination. And that meant it was a
*military* design.
"The Forge preserve us..."
Dear Gods, they *couldn't* be seeing what they were seeing.
It wasn't possible. It simply *wasn't* possible!
But the uncaring screen continued to display its horrifying data.
"They knew. Somehow the Empire knew we were coming."
Skythe felt the blood run from his face as he stared
in shock at the screen from where he stood behind his
granddaughter. His mind grappled with the enormity of
the catastrophe that the Alliance had blindly walked into.
And what it meant not only for the fleet in orbit above,
but the people here on the planet as well. *His* people.
They had followed him here, trusted in his leadership,
and believed that their planet would be free once more.
They'd come so close...so goddamn close.
Only to see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.
He wanted to do something, anything to break
free from the paralysis that held him. But
to his shame, he could not. The shock to
his system was too great. It felt like he
was drowning in quicksand, the more he
struggled to move the more he was held
fast by the terrifying certainty that anything
they did now would only be an act of futility.
Sharra was not so hampered.
She went to the last remaining operational
command comm-unit and prepared to send a
message out to the rest of their forces.
"We have to warn the Fleet before it's too late."
{If we can transmit the coordinates that the Imps are
coming in from to the Fleet, then they'll have a few
seconds of opportunity fire while the enemy is still
reorienting from coming out of hyperspace. If they can
hit the bastards hard enough as they jump in then we
might just have a chan-...}
The searing red brightness of a laser beam flashed
through the room, cutting the woman down before her
hands even got close to the controls.
"It already is too late."
~~~~
-Danger Zone
The Falcon's pilot and squadron leader of the Untamed Stallion's
fighters was Lt. Commander Meia. A Fleet brat, both of her parents
had been killed in action shortly after her enrollment into the
Alliance Armed Forces. As a result Meia had been considered a
'cold fish' by every crew she'd worked with before finally being
dumped onto a glitch-ridden experimental warship and its crew
of misfits, hardcases, and the newly promoted Captain Ranma. (4)
The first few weeks had been...difficult.
Especially once Meia had learned that the Fleet
had neglected to assign any fighters to their
ship. Which had meant that her position as squadron
leader had been totally meaningless...at first.
She'd handled that discovery rather badly at the time.
It had seemed back then that her entire world was going
down the tubes, left to rot on a dinky little ship that
wasn't even part of the regular Naval command anymore.
But the Captain had changed all of that.
The Falcon and her sister Hornet were Black Eagle
Space Superiority Starfighters. Their design was a
relatively new one, barely twenty standard years old.
Armed with two heavy lasers, a contra-grav rail cannon,
and a large selection of missiles they were also one of
the smallest craft in the Three Galaxies ever equipped
with FTL capability. These fighters were supposed to be
available only to the Consortium Armed Forces and its
members' planetary defense forces.
A few dozen production models had managed over the past
few years to slip through to the Black Market, but even
then they were so rare as to make them all but impossible
to obtain under normal circumstances.
However, nobody had remembered to tell Ranma that fact.
Because he had paid an arm and a leg (figurately speaking)
a few months later to surprise Meia and her other pilot, Lt.
Teleri, with two Eagles so new that their paint schemes
hadn't even finished drying.
His actions had shocked her to her very core.
She had treated him with nothing but cold contempt
from their very first encounter, having been warned
well in advance by the Fleet's rumor mill about the
new captain's womanizing ways and also about how his
glory chasing had led to promotion after promotion
while ignoring the costs that were shouldered
by the people who *really* deserved the credit.
Even before she had met her new commanding officer
Meia had been determined that she would not become
just another notch on Saotome's bedframe. She had been
certain that the new captain would prove to be either
an arrogant pigheaded Casanova or a coldblooded opportunist
who used his rank to take advantage of his subordinates.
She'd been wrong. On all counts.
Because Ranma Saotome had turned out to be
like nothing she could have possibly imagined.
And heaven help her, he'd managed to do the one
thing that she'd believed would never happen to her.
Without even meaning to he had broken through
the shield of ice which had protected her heart
for so long. Ranma had discovered a soul that
still cried for her parents, who let no one else
get close because losing those she cared for hurt
too much. A woman afraid of love, because she knew
that the universe was cruel and uncaring.
But he had cared. Truly. Unconditionally. Absolutely.
And with that realization her entire world had shattered.
Because if this universe allowed such cruelty and suffering,
then there also had to be an equal possibility of someone
as good as the Empire was evil. Someone like Ranma.
{My love...but it took your departure to finally admit
the truth, to say the words out loud to myself.
I pretended that it was only simple lust,
that would eventually pass with enough time.
And now...now I may never get a chance
to tell you my real feelings.}
"Eagle 1, report in."
Meia snapped out of her brief reminiscence.
"This is Eagle 1, my sector is clean."
But the bittersweet ache within her heart remained.
"Rodger that, Eagle 1. Form up with the rest of
the other squadrons and prepare for new mission
objectives."
"I'm on my way."
Her radar registered a sudden brief
hit at the very edge of its range.
A few seconds later there was a
second nearly insubstantial ping
in the same general area.
Meia's brow creased as she tried to confirm
whether the contact was real or just a trick
of the atmosphere.
"Hold on Control, I'm picking up a sensor
ghost near the Geo-Hunter range."
She frowned, puzzled by this anomaly.
High concentrations of heavy metals in those
mountains rendered most sensors useless for
ground and low altitude detection. But they
shouldn't have been interfering this far above
the planet.
She began a focused scan over the range.
{Okay Silvia, time to see if your work on my
sensor array was more then just idle boasting.}
And then the unknown contact's faint white
signal abruptly changed to bright angry red.
For what seemed like an endless moment,
Meia's conscious mind didn't register the change.
But her reflexes, honed through years of combat flying
where even a fraction of a second's delay could mean
the difference between life and certain death,
were already in play.
A flick of the wrist brought up the Falcon's ECM from
standby to active and switched her comm system to
the all-squadron frequency. She diverted power to
strengthen her forward shields and sent her
fighter plunging into a steep dive even as
she cried out a warning to the others.
"Bandits at 6 o'clock!"
A swarm of enemy fighters erupted from the
clouds below even before the last syllable
was spoken.
"All wings, engage at will!!"
Squadron formations disintergrated as shocked Rebel
pilots desperately tried to avoid getting killed
as the upper atmosphere erupted into a snarling
knife range dogfight.
Suddenly there were only the quick, and the dead.
~~~~~
-Too Little, Too Late
Alarm claxons started screaming on the command
deck of the Super Dreadnought HopeBringer.
"Admiral, Imperial ships are coming out of hyperspace in Sector 12!"
Splotches of red icons identifying enemy warships
began to appear on the tactical display of the system.
Hundreds of them. Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers,
Battlecruisers, Carriers, and worst of all...
"Enemy Super Dreadnoughts have entered the system!!"
The Hopebringer's captain turned toward Admiral Iblis,
his eyes wide with sudden horrified understanding.
"It's a trap!!"
~~~~~
-Resolution
It seemed to take an eternity
to complete the final move.
"Checkmate."
The Forge was silent. It had known that
this moment was inevitable, but an attempt
to try and change what was to come had to be made.
And It had failed.
Now the Chosen One would have to face the
greatest challenge of his life before
he was ready. There was no more time left.
The Forge could only hope that the training
he had been nudged toward was enough.
It would have to be.
Or else they were both doomed.
"It seems that your side has lost.
Like that archaic human term, what is it again?
Oh yes, I remember now. Game over."
[No. Not yet.]
"What do you mean?"
But when he turned around again Thoth found himself
addressing an empty room. He scratched the feathers
on his forehead and sighed.
"I really hate it when you do that."
There was no longer any point staying here.
His friend would be back when it wanted to return.
And the Ibis God still had a book of technowizardry
to finish anyway.
"Oh well, it was rather nice to finally win
after losing so many times in a row."
[...*...]
"Hmmm?"
Just for a second he thought that he saw the Forge reappear
out of the corner of his eye. But when he looked directly
in that direction there was nothing there. Whatever that
sound was, it had been too soft for even his keen
sense of hearing to make it out.
It *might* have been just the whisper of a stray breeze.
But his workshop was climate controlled.
[Now the real game begins...]
-End of Chapter III.
(To be continued...in Chapter IV)
*$*$*$*$*$*
(1) The ever reliable Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire Fist
(2) A familar Breaking Point
(3) Water Blossom Strike
(4) What, you thought they'd given him a *normal* crew of women to start with? Perish the thought!
-Stuff to know-
Note: Terms and People from other sources such as the
Pallidium RPG system and various Anime series.
PPE (Potential Psychic Energy):
This is the most common type of energy associated
with the supernatural in Palladium RPGs. PPE is
the "fuel" of all magic, also called Mana/Manna.
(Note: This is not Ki/Chi! That's an entirely
different type of energy with similar properties)
Although normally found in living creatures, it can
also occur in certain areas where the fabric of
space-time has been weakened to such an extent
that the boundries between the dimensions are blurred
(i.e. the infamous "Ley lines").
ISP (Inner Strength Points):
Psionic Energy, a.k.a. the power of the mind,
used for stuff like telekinesis, pyrokinesis,
telepathy, empathy, telemechanics...etc.
Rune Weapons (RIFTS: Atlantis):
Powerful enchanted weapons usually created through
a forbidden magical process that binds a living soul
to the device forever. These souls are what gives the
weapons their power. The stronger the soul, the more
powerful the weapon. Very rare and highly coveted by
most beings, in addition to being highly destructive
against living creatures they are also usually
indestructable and often intelligent and self-aware.
The Nightlords (Nightbane):
Ancient evil sorcerers of human origin who made
a pact with the Forces of Darkness to become
supernatural PPE vampires with an *unbelievable*
amount of power. They can shape/reshape
matter & energy at will! Their powers are
so advanced that they don't *need* to cast spells.
Add to that their personal armies ranging from
thousands to tens of millions of monsterous troops,
not to mention a hit point count that's just plain
insane and you have a race that could give the
Old Ones a run for their money.
The Coalition (RIFTS):
North America's largest surviving human population
after a nuclear holocaust and decades of invasion
by demons and monsters. Unfortunately due to their
evil leaders the Coalition has become a twisted
nightmare rather then the dream for restablishing
humanity that was its original intention. Total
techno-crats, they *HATE* anything related to magic
or the supernatural. Closest equivalent for comparision
would be the Nazis during WW II.
Vash the Stampede (Trigun):
A mysterious outlaw/reluctant hero who has a
$$10,000,000,000 bounty on his head. Inhuman reflexes
and kinesthic sense (has been known to dodge bullets at
point blank range). Occasionally acts serious but normally
just a goofball personality. Called the "Humanoid Typhoon"
for the damage he inadverently causes to any and all property
when bounty hunters try to kill him. And as you might guess,
that happens quite often.
