Forcibly United

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A Weekend With Eda

Chapter 2

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Two piles of luggage with feet trailed along behind Eda as the the latter used a steel machete to clear away a small amount of undergrowth along a loose game path. The blond paused to wipe the sweat off her face, and noting the stinging insects, was glad she had changed from the bikini into something a little more suitable for traipsing through a dense jungle.

"Damn, how much crap did you pack in these freaking bags?" Ranma complained from the rearmost pile, shifting forward as Ryouga continued to walk. "This is the jungle. Ryouga has a girlfriend and I have more fiancees than Santa has reindeer. You don't need a bunch of fancy clothes so that you can dress up to impress anyone here."

"Aw, is the big bad martial artist too weak to carry a few teensie little bags?" Eda crooned, hacking down a particularly thick vine with a grin.

"I think it has more to do with the awkwardness," Ryouga noted blankly, looking over a bag to eye the blond teenager. "They've got handles that are short. I'm holding a couple of these bags by my fingertips. It's a pain."

"Sorry boys, but we do need all of these. Some of them are tents and cooking supplies. Others have food. A couple of them have excavation equipment and more weapons than my pistol," the girl noted, shrugging before hacking apart a bush. "There's no avoiding it."

"Bullshit," Ranma deadpanned. "Ryouga can break rocks with his pinkie and we can both take down helicopters with nothing more than our chi. Our hands can remove dirt quicker than a freaking back-hoe. Half of this stuff is probably useless!"

"Can those kung fu senses of yours find a bunker hidden thirty feet underneath the ground, or figure out precisely where we are on the island? Do you happen to have some edible food and drinkable water stuffed up your sleeves?" Eda asked lightly, chuckling at the silence. "I thought not. Boys, I planned ahead and took your abilities into account. That aside, I am not going anywhere without some explosives on hand, just in case. What would a defenseless girl like me do if I got seperated from you?"

"To hear Rock tell it, you'd probably shoot the danger in the head and quip a sarcastic one-liner," the pigtailed boy informed her.

"I keep telling Revy he's a a charmer and she should really make her move on him soon, but she's not really listening," the blond noted smugly.

After another twenty minutes, with the sun closing in on the horizon, the trio came across a clearing and the American girl called a halt. Ranma agreed to set up the tents while Ryouga broke apart some thick logs for a fire, while Eda rooted through the bags for her GPS and the map she'd need to figure out the precise location of the underground bunker.

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Rip Van Winkle looked up from her book as the hatch to her doorway opened inward, the Captain of the ship and a man who ranked equally with her stepping side the small cabin appointed to her.

With a growl she set aside her leather-bound copy of The Collected Works of Carl Maria von Weber to glare at the man through her glasses, brushing an errant lock of her blue-black hair out of the way as she sat up from her small, if reasonably comfortable bunk.

"We have reached the island," the man informed her, not bothering to meet her eyes. "We have observed a small, abandoned fishing boat floating in a lagoon five hundred meters from our position and a small, four-person craft on the sand of a beach in the same lagoon. Approximately four kilometers into the island from the position of the boat, we have observed what appears to be smoke from a small campfire."

"And yet, with two platoons of soldiers on this ship, you felt the need to inform me," Rip noted, idly tracing a hand along the newly oiled and cleaned rifle which was her constant companion. She stood abruptly, glaring at the surprised men. "Surely you do not expect me to go onto this godforsaken island with your men for, at most, five people."

"I had thought to use you to scout out our foes," the Captain's reply was clipped, but firm.

Van Winkle flashed across the distance between them, her nose almost touching his. The uniformed German stumbled back with a curse.

"Let me make something clear to you, Captain Abendroth. Despite what you may think of my kind in general and me in particular, I am not an errand girl who runs at your beck and call. I'm not here to deal with a group of vagabond pirates your men can sweep aside with ridiculous ease," the dark-haired vampire informed him, taking a step forward, which caused the man to take a step back. "I am equal to your rank because my unique position requires that men like you understand that I am not to be used without need."

"Our employer-" the man began.

"-Knew all of this when he placed me with you. You have dozens of soldiers, Captain. Pretend like they are soldiers and have them scout this small group of people who share the island with us. Speak to me if, and only if, they become a problem," Rip told him gravely.

Her repeated invasions of his personal space had caused the man to stumble out of her room. She took advantage of that to sieze the hatch and slam it shut in his face, spinning the wheel tightly for emphasis.

After all, this was the part where Kaspar finally met Zamiel and had her fate determined. That was a far more gripping event than scouting out a tiny group of mortals who couldn't possibly hope to challenge her.

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Ranma and Ryouga heard the men long before they saw them. Eda was fiddling with the map under the light of a small, electric lantern and making notes with a pencil as she studied the paper, but even she looked up after a moment as the dual sounds of cursing and destroyed underbrush floated into their camp.

"Hey, blondie... Are you expecting company?" Ranma wondered, stirring the chili in the pot hanging above the campfire. The woman had insisted that it be allowed to cook for a couple hours after combining the ingredients into the pot, telling them that a two-hour delay was the bare minimum for 'proper' chili.

"No, I think this is exactly the sort of situation I hired you and Moody over there to take care of," Eda informed the blue-eyed teenager, favouring Ryouga with a grin as the bandanna'd youth flashed her a dirty look. "Well... Aside from the whole lifting, carrying, and digging thing. So why don't you two go find out who's coming after us? Go inflict your brand of violence on whoever is coming up on us and impress on them that they can have the island when we're done with it."

"You're the boss," Ranma noted, giving the chili a stir as he stood. "Hey, make sure that this stuff don't burn. If it's as good as you say, I want to give it a shot without you messing up the cooking."

"Ranma, my mother was Texan," the blond deadpanned, setting aside her pencil to flash the boy a shocked look. "Plus, I'm pretty sure no girl could possibly mess up something like chili even if they tried to."

"I'm pretty sure that Akane could mess this up real eas-ARGH!" The last cry of pain came as Ryouga, braced on a branch at the edge of the clearing, gave a mighty yank of his arm as he leaped, dragging the pigtailed boy with him.

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Heinrich was fairly new to the unit, assigned as a sniper. He followed his more experienced brethren into the dense jungle, hearing the mutterings of the point-man as he hacked a path through the dense undergrowth. The whole damned trip was downright spooky, from the order to stay away from the third sub-deck for the duration of the trip to the mission to investigate the fire on the island's interior.

A trip which was beginning just as dusk claimed the island. A trip which continued well after darkness resembled absolute black below the dense forest canopy, requiring that the nine men he was walking with employ flashlights just to see a few feet in front of them.

Three hours of hacking through the dense underbrush left them near their goal. As far as the young soldier could determine, they were within a few hundred meters of their target.

It was then that the lead man disappeared, a flash of yellow silk and a pigtail darting on their path to grasp the man. He was thrown roughly into a tree, his rifle clattering to the ground as his eyes rolled up into his head. He was followed a second later by the next man, a similar shadow with a flash of a bare chest darting in and punching the man so hard he tumbled into the darkness.

"Fire! Fire!"

Heinrich didn't know if it was their Sergeant who called for the attack or if it was one of the more able-minded soldiers under him, but as one the remaining men followed the order and snapped their rifles to their shoulders.

Bullets whizzed into the darkness after their attackers, cutting down branches and sending a hailstorm of leaves down on the two dead or unconscious men. Heinrich was reloading when a disturbing thought struck him.

They hadn't left.

They were merely waiting.

In the silence which followed the hailstorm of bullets, two figures dashed out from the darkness to claim two more men. One of the men had time to scream as he was taken into the shadows of the night-time jungle, only for that cry of fear to be cut horribly, terribly short.

"What the fuck are we fighting!?" One man screamed, his eyes wide with panic as he turned to the sergeant, sixth in the line behind them.

"Calm down! Keep your rifles trained where they disappeared and keep your fingers ready to fire! When they try to take us this time, we'll kill them!" The sergeant ordered, his eyes narrowing down the sights of his weapon.

The men immediately to his left disappeared right alongside him as they were both dragged into the darkness, the pair of shadows striking from the same side of the jungle twice in a row and attacking the men from the rear.

Panic reigned. The three men who remained possessed automatic weapons which were a distinct contrast to the low ammo capacity rifle Heinrich currently bore. They fell to firing blindly into the jungle, while the young sniper snapped his head back and forth as he sought some sort of sign of the two demons hunting them.

One man was dragged off by both shadows as he reloaded, the two men flanking him barely having time to blink, let alone shoot, as the poor bastard was carried high into the branches above them.

A rock, propelled at impossible speeds smashed Heinrich's rifle out of his hands and bent the barrel as two shadows flashed into the remaining trio, putting down his remaining two comrades with a flurry of blows.

They appeared to be young asian men. One wore a traditional tang shirt, unbuttoned over a bathing suit which ended mid-thigh, his long, glossy hair pulled into a tight pigtail. His blues showed only amusement as he took in Heinrich's panic. The other wore knee-length shorts with a bright pattern at odds with the fangs glistening in his mouth.

Demons!

Heinrich fled, certain that the two would tear him apart as soon as they caught him. Their demonic laughter chased him away from his unmoving comrades. He continued to run until he tripped and fell into the water, the men guarding the beach staring at him blankly as he gibbered in terror.

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"There is no way that he's going to be back!" Ranma crowed, laughing as he watched the terrified man run away, blindly stumbling back along the cut path he and his buddies had carved.

"He could have reinforcements," Ryouga noted, his eyes narrowing as he took in the uniform every unconscious man they could see wore. "Let's go tell Eda. We're probably going to have to pack up camp and move for the night. You and I can probably survive if these losers ambush us while we sleep, but I don't want to risk her."

"You're right," Ranma noted with a sour frown. "Man, we've already unpacked! Now we've gotta pack again!? This sucks!"

"At least there's nothing else that can attack us tonight, right?" Ryouga countered with a rare grin. "I bet that kid's commander is going to take hours just to convince that something strange actually happened! By the time any reinforcements can track us down, we'll be digging up the gold!"

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"Demons?" Captain Abendroth wondered, pondering the sobbing Heinrich as the broken man stood in front of him.

On the one hand, his story was pure lunacy. On the other hand, he now had a viable reason to send his 'special asset' out into the night instead of allowing her to simply leech off of the ship doctor's blood supply and read her book.

Dismissing the terrified soldier, the man strode out of his office, his destination being a certain restricted level on his ship. The vampire might actually prove her worth yet.

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Author's Notes:

I'm glad everyone recognized Rip Van Winkle from the first chapter alone. This is not going to be a Hellsing crossover aside from her, and she's pretty much just going to be a reinterpretation of the character as if she existed in this universe, without Millenium, Hellsing, or Alucard. I just chose her because of a random conversation with Kaiya Eri Ishikawa where she came up randomly, and I thought she'd be a cool villain for the arc.

I prefer to 'import' a character from another story rather than come up with someone new for a relatively minor villain, honestly. For those unfamiliar with the character, she's functionally no different from an original character to them. For those who are familiar with the character, she's a fun little cameo. I'm writing fanfiction here, so I prefer to come up with awesome, new villains for my original work.

You'll notice that Ranma's behavior isn't really getting a rise out of Eda. To be blunt, Revy gives a lot better insults and Eda actually likes her. Ranma just can't compare.

Battle-wise, I'm going to be scripting Rip Van Winkle's bullets as being every bit as dangerous as they appeared to be. However, keep in mind Ranma and Ryouga have been spending the last little while learning how to dodge bullets and are, themselves, quite inhuman.

Carl Maria von Weber