Ranma had little to go on here and it seemed as though these new armored troopers were an elite division of some sort due to the inclusion of the Imperial crest on armor that was leaps and bounds ahead of anything he had yet to encounter in either world. The black armor looked almost organic and covered each soldier completely in a matte black shell of protection. The inclusion of a large, shoulder mounted shield told her that they could probably take hits but the guns had cables attached to each soldier's back. That was new.
Without warning the air was suddenly filled with grenades as they arched over the front lines of the black armor and exploded around an unimpressed Ranma. The flashes and subsequent release of Ragnite energy into the air did not disperse but formed into streams of glowing particles that were absorbed into the shoulder armor of the lead trooper. Seams along the limbs and torso of the suit began to glow a dull blue and a pattern outlining the woman's abs and curves lit up as well until the visor and horns finished off the lightshow by igniting in blue as well. The woman seemed to shiver in place as she powered-up.
Ranma watched this all happen from within a bubble of force, that had warded off the initial blast, with curiosity. Maybe this was a fight she could enjoy and stretch her legs, so to speak. Too many fights had become one sided as of late and she wanted a challenge once more. So she let the enemy power-up and merely lowered her stance slightly and brought her free had up while cocking the bladed limb in preparation for the ensuing conflict.
Kriena loved this rush, this feeling that the armor gave her when charged with Ragnite. To date it had only seen combat in simulations with Ragnite grenades and scores of regulation troopers. She desperately wanted to test it against a worthy opponent. What was a few scores of troopers against a demi-god after all? Nothing.
The immense woman locked her gaze with Ranma and opened the floodgates with her rifle leading. The beam of Pure Ki that came blasting out the end took Ranma by surprise and it ripped through her barricade like so much paper. Twisting desperately Ranma managed to get her Jian between her chest and the beam in time to divert it away from her vials and took only a graze to her side as a result. First blood and she hadn't been the one to draw it. Now things in this place were getting interesting. Ranma landed from her spin and proceeded to rebound in a crescent around her charging foe. The beam of Ki from her rifle fired three more times to hit naught but air as Ranma seemed to dance off of air. The missed beams followed a similar pattern to the grenade residue and soon other suits around the combatants were powering-up as well. To test a theory Ranma fired a set of Moko Takabishas at both her opponent and the ring. The blasts were absorbed and even seemed to be drawn to the shoulder plates. Two suits in the outer ring overloaded and had their backpacks explode but the leader simply glowed all the more. The armored woman was fast and getting faster as the fight progressed. Time and time again Ranma was forced to retreat as the rifle was now spewing out a constant beam of Ki that tore at the ground and sheared anything it touched except for black armor. Ranma loved it.
With a snap decision Ranma reversed herself mid-spin and dropped low before launching herself at ground level as the beam passed over her. The low attack took her opponent by surprise and she flinched back while trying to bring her gun to bear. Ranma was faster and the woman's rifle suffered for her lack of reaction time as it fell to pieces under Ranma's Ki Jian. Ranma landed an amaguriken to the woman's torso before blasting the ground in order to ascend as near thirty beams lanced into her previous position. The other soldiers had joined the fray and Ranma was more than happy to oblige them.
Kriena desperately tried to catch her breath but her dented armor would not allow her to. Crawling behind the protective cover that her now engaged troops provided, she tore off her chest-plate and helm to cough up blood and gasp for air. She could hear the impacts of flesh on metal and the yells of both the Valkyrur and her troops but Kriena smiled still. The armor had done its job and she was still alive despite both energy-based and physical attacks that had sundered tanks just moments before. This Valkyrur could easily give a fully armed Selvaria a run for her money and, even with one arm, stood a good chance of defeating Maximilian's guard dog. A quick application of Ragnaid had Kriena back on her feet and scrambling back to her armored transport for a different tactic.
Meanwhile Ranma was having the best fight she could remember. The troopers were tough, fast and absorbed Ki attacks only to come back stronger than ever. The glow of their armor and her aura set the night afire with haunting shades of blue that refracted and reflected off of the ever-present ice that coated the battlefield. Ranma's Jian seemed a living thing to the soldiers as the delicate blade traced glowing arcs through the air as the red-haired Valkyrur twirled it about her person redirecting energy blasts and clumsy hand-to-hand attempts. Every so often the blade would reverse and suddenly come straight through the afterimage of its previous arc to impale a hapless limb or sever weapon cabling on the unfortunate victim. Even with her immense speed Ranma was not unscathed from all of this fighting and sported light burns across her arm, torso and legs with her clothing suffering more and more with each near-miss.
High above Squad 7 was beginning its withdrawal to rendezvous with the Darcsen refugees while the Valkyrur occupied the Imperials. Marina was staring down at the conflict and could not stand to sit idle and do nothing to help this woman a second time. So saying she set herself up to provide extremely long-range support and took a calming breath as she brought her rifle up and chambered a round as she ignored her CO's frantic whispering.
Back in her transport Kriena had primed a high-powered Ragnite siphon designed to knockout the power supplies of enemy vehicles and then use the energy as a weapon or shield for the transport. The siphon replaced the secondary turret on the front of the machine and the main turret was a high-powered ragnite cannon that ran off of the energy collected through the siphon. Just as she was bringing the siphon and cannon to bear on the still engaged Valkyrur the red-haired girl looked up and made eye-contact with her through the sighting array of the siphon and Kreina depressed the trigger.
Four separate events all happened in an instance and Ranma suffered for them. As Ranma sensed Kriena's attack she had just lunged through a soldiers arm but tagged the Ki absorbent shoulder armor of the trooper behind her target causing her to lose control of her Ki for a fraction of a second as the armor tried to drain her before she disengaged the blade. In that moment she looked up to see a modified medium tank with both frontal turrets aimed squarely at her. A trooper near the outskirts of the battle got a clear view of the Valkyrur as the trooper she stabbed dropped and opened a hole in the conflict. He fired for the Valkyrur's abdomen as Maximilian wanted her alive. Marina was scanning for a safe target to shoot at when she spotted a lone trooper outside the battle she put a Ragnite tipped round through his visor just as he fired. Ranma was caught flatfooted as her Ki was not fully hers at the moment when the beam struck her in the lower right side of her stomach. Marina's bullet rocked the trooper's head back and the rifle pulled up as a result, racking the beam up and across Ranma's body and face. It burned a bloody line up and across Ranma's torso, between her breasts, and up her face to leave a burned red furrow straight up across her left eye. Luckily she reacted instinctively and shielded her eye with the bracer on her arm. Finally Kreina fired and the Ranma's world went from flash agony to blissful unconscious as her vision tunneled into the purple vortex of the cannon.
In an uncharacteristic show of emotion, Marina Wulfstan growled out her annoyance and puller her lips back to bear her clenched teeth as she continued to rattle off killing shots into the mass of black armor bellow her when she saw the Valkyrur fall. The rippling distortions her bullets left began to pile up and soon lances of light traced back along them forcing Marina to duck after one parting shot that rattled off of the viewport covering of the strange tank. Still fuming she stalked back to her Welkin who looked at her strangely as she glowered at the air over his shoulder before waving her past and continuing with the retreat while watching the normally stoic woman have a near meltdown.
A couple of weeks later found Marina wandering around Squad 7's garage looking for one Isara Gunther, her CO's adoptive sister and resident mechanic/tech expert. Her father was the designer of Squad 7's legendary tank and Isara herself was its pilot. The young Darcsen had prover herself time and time again and was the only Darcsen she knew that responded to having a last name. Most Darcsens had been stripped of their last names as punishment for what they had taken from the world with the Darcsen Calamity years and years ago. Regardless of the past Isara had proven herself to Marina and was slowly but surely working her way into the hearts of all of Squad 7.
What had brought Marina to the Techno mage's den was the intense looking Ragnite that the Valkyrur had dropped on her the night at Fauzen. She had taken it out of her pack only recently while replenishing medical supplies and noticed that it was much brighter than her standard issue Raganaid and it felt…powerful. The feeling it gave off was hard to describe but she felt slightly better knowing it was around. It seemed to make her feel better when things got hard after she watched the Valkyrur fall. That night she held the Ragnaid in her hands as she reflected on anything she could have done to save that girl. The act of simply holding it served to make her feel slightly better about herself and since then had been kept as a kind of good luck charm. What changed today was that she had overheard Isara and Rossie having an unusually strong argument that escalated into an ugly screaming match for seemingly no reason. Words were exchanged that should not have and the end result was an extremely distraught Isara.
Now Marina had a reputation for being stand-offish and anti-social to the point that seeing her in the company of others was considered an extremely noteworthy event. Contrary to popular belief it was nothing negative that drove Marina to behave is such a way, it was embarrassment and a sense of not belonging that led her to shy away from people. Being raised by her Grandfather in the wilderness had led to her being anti-social as a reflex as being around other people simply unsettled her. This was compounded by the fact that she was stern, blunt and uncommonly beautiful had put her into a category of women that some men found horrifying and a larger number seemed to find incredibly attractive had led to her academy years to be filled with less than desirable encounters in the romance department. The female gender offered little respite as her unparalleled accuracy from an extremely young age had led her to be resented by the older students and thus outcast again. Squad 7 was the only place where she felt that she was starting to belong. A family she had not had in over a decade. This group was extremely important to her and she would do anything it took to keep the people in it happy. This included giving up her special keepsake in the hopes that its strange powers could somehow help the small Darcsen.
On the top of the north tower of the Citadel of Ghirlandaio stood the right hand of the Emperor, the Imperial Judicator and blindly devoted woman: Selvaria Bles. The wind picked up her short cloak and hair gently as it blew over the fields that served as an open killing ground for Ghirlandaio's defenses. The citadel had become the front-line base for Maximilian's crusade into Galia and as such had been fortified beyond what would normally be considered sane. Weapons of every caliber extended from what used to be stained-glass windows and walls were patrolled with diligence. The sun was just beginning its decent and the silver haired Valkyrur had just finished her mid-day meal and taken to the roof to digest both her food and the latest information. It seems that the red-haired Valkyrur had been taken into Kriena's little underground laboratory after falling to the combined effects of her blasphemous weaponry and an energy drain that was designed to work on entire tank divisions. How the girl managed to survive was a complete shock to Selvaria as she doubted that she herself could take that kind of concentrated punishment and escape with her body in a solid state let alone a simple coma and some wicked scaring.
Kriena had brought the surprisingly small woman, if her sources were correct, to the lab sometime last week and Maximilian had forbade Selvaria from visiting Kriena. The thought of seeing that mad woman in her own lair once again actually scared the normally unflappable Selvaria due to a simple thing: her past.
Valkyrur were and still are an extreme rarity in times of peace as they seem to only show up when the world is at war. Such was a time where Selvaria's silver hair loudly proclaimed her heritage and she was taken from the orphanage to grow up under the knife. The one behind that knife had been Kriena's equally maladjusted father and he had endlessly experimented upon her body until she passed out and then continued so she would feel her new sutures when she awoke. This went on from before she could remember until adolescence, until Maximilian had found her. As the Emperor's son he was allowed access to the labs and on one such occasion spotted her bloodied form on a smaller operating table near to back of the lab wreathed in blue fire . Her power had been what attracted him when she finally lashed out at the lab coat wearing monster that desecrated her so. The inferno of Ragnite infused energy had atomized the bastard when he had miscalculated her anesthetic due to a large growth spurt. Scalpel still embedded in her flesh, she had lashed out instinctively and scorched the doctor into so much carbon in an instant. Through the falling ashes had been the cold, calculating eyes of Maximilian. He had freed her, fed her, and she loved him for it.
Her love was not healthy and she knew it. Hell, everyone that had seen them interact knew it but she could not help herself. He had saved her life and it now belonged to him. She would die for him. Her position at his side was unquestioned. His need for her power was constant and unchanging…until now. The arrival of a second, more powerful entity sparked alarms in Selvaria's mind and she hesitated now. She wanted to know if her place was secure. She needed to be by Maximilian. She needed this life. She needed it and she would NOT lose it to some comatose slip of a girl with only one arm!
Her fear-induced fury built and built until it physically manifested in a tight wrapping of blue fire around her frame and her red eyes glowed dangerously as she spun on a gilded boot heel and marched for the stairs.
She would see this Valkyrur. Maximilian's order was a mere shadow in her mind behind the overwhelming need to validate her spot at his side.
A/N
Seasons Greetings everyone! Here is the long overdue chapter 9! straying away from Ranma for a little bit of some other characters! Hope everyone is enjoying things so far and again I apologize for the slow update. Thank you to all that reviewed! I love getting feedback and hope you all enjoy reading the tale I spin! I randomly got a couple more stories pop into my head but none are fleshed out or even in any phase of development due to me wanting to finish this first (at the rate we are going it could take a bit). but Ranma x Tiger and Bunny = amusement :D Just think about how much fun that would be!
Anyways,
Please read and review! I always enjoy them! Happy Holidays everyone I hope you have a good winter break!