Ranma ½ Divine Blood
- Thread starter Thrythlind
- Start date
The site arranged for the meeting was more or less empty, though neither of the three believed that had anything to do with the Demons and Ainur currently running evacuation grabs and keeping the police busy.
It was a poor part of town, though East Germany would likely have never admitted to such a thing being possibly, and there should have been life aplenty in the old buildings that lined the roads around them.
Instead, the buildings yawned dark and empty from every direction as the three Mithril agents came into the area. A single police vehicle, one of the large prisoner-transport vans, was parked oddly on the side of the street within sight, perhaps half a mile away.
"It's almost time for this meeting," Grey said. "You'd better be getting to it Sergeant Sagara."
"Affirmative," Sousuke said, frowning as he eyed the buildings around him. "I do not like the look of this Ma'am."
"I'm with the kid," Batiste said. "This looks a bit too much like a trap."
"I could attempt to use one of the routines we have established for remote viewing," Sousuke suggested.
"Let's keep that down to a minimum," Grey said. "We know there are ways to tell when powers are being used that don't require people who have them."
"I've got my eye on the paddy wagon down the lane," Batiste said. "We'd better move before we have three new nukes to consider."
Nodding, Sousuke moved out into the quiet street and darted from cover to cover before reaching the structure that he was certain contained his target.
It was an old building which still had the faded image of a dragon with nine heads painted into one of the walls. A piece of ancient culture, though culture that had been carried north rather than was native, that had been protected from the purges of the communists and now revealed to the air again.
He stepped inside, pistol out and searching the shadows cautiously as Grey and Batiste came in next.
There was no movement in the open first room, which may have been a tavern of some kind, and they cautiously moved about to clear the room before proceeding upstairs.
Batiste stopped at one of the tables and pointed toward the still steaming bowl of stew that sat there. Grey nodded at the sign of recent occupation and looked toward Sousuke, directing him to head upstairs with a gesture.
Are you certain that you cannot risk using any sort of chi? Eija's voice asked. You might find some use out of my eyes.
I believe I could, Sousuke said. It shall be fine, however.
Sousuke, Kaname voiced in, It is silly to just go in blind.
I am not, the mercenary noted. Do not worry, this is not my first time.
Neither girl was especially happy with that response, but they did not insist.
He took the stairs heading up one at a time, moving slowly and placing his weight slowly so as to avoid creaking sounds. And he finally reached the top of the first flight and the door there that was left just slightly ajar.
Behind the old, wooden door that fit the look of the ancient building perfect was a high tech piece of metal half-slid open. A useless and destroyed keypad was built into the frame work of the doorway that the wooden door had concealed. Beyond lay a dusty hallway that may have, once upon a time been a lead in to a sterile environment. From somewhere within came the steady, distant beep of a heart monitor.
The nine-headed dragon outside suddenly had a separate meaning than just Gauron.
He glanced down the stairs toward Grey.
"It's a Legion facility," he said under his breath.
Grey passed that along and Batiste cursed under his breath as he followed them up the stairs, eyes looking out toward the street.
Stepping into the hallway, Sousuke looked from one direction to another, noting the doors that opened out onto silent rooms before coming to an end and overlooking what had been an extensive and well-tended indoor garden and now was an overgrown mass of thorns and red flowers.
In the middle of it all was a bed holding someone Sousuke couldn't get a good look at, but whose identity he was certain of.
"Ah, Kashim," a familiar and hated voice said. "Did you bring your friends?"
Sousuke frowned and found a stairwell to move down into the vines and approach the man on the bed as Grey and Batiste came into the room and onto the balcony. Grey indicating for Batiste to hold his position.
"Gauron," Sousuke said, turning past a particularly thick bush and saw the sociopath's darkly smiling face staring up at him.
The face, aside from one eye bandaged over, seemed to be the only part of the man that still seemed to be intact. One arm was gone completely and the other seemed to have been removed at the elbow while both legs were removed at various points. Nor did it look like the overall body under the bed sheet was in good shape.
There was a table at the foot of the bed covered in dossiers.
"Sorry if the place isn't fit for visitors," Gauron apologized with a smile. "The lady of the house hasn't been around for a while."
"Where are the bombs, Gauron?" Sousuke asked, glancing around and wondering how Gauron had expected to trigger the bombs in his current condition.
"Straight to business," Gauron laughed. "That's always you, Kashim. Now, how do you expect to get me to tell you? Are you going to torture me until I talk?"
He laughed in a low tone that was full of grim humor.
"I'm beginning to think it was just a bluff to get me here," the Ainur said. "Maybe I should just leave you to your privacy and head back."
Sousuke glanced down at the dossiers and frowned as he took in the names and some of the organizational seals displayed. Socrates Group's Atlantis unit was named on each folder, with Kodachi's seal presented. The surprise on his face must have been apparent because Gauron laughed again, loudly this time.
"Yeah, my little rose had encountered a lot of people in power before your people managed to weed her out," Gauron noted. "Mithril seems to be good at handling my proteges it seems."
"Your protege?" the Ainur asked darkly. "What do you mean."
"It's probably too strong a word," Gauron admitted. "I simply...took away the garden walls. They were rather weak to begin with, though, so not much of a task."
Sousuke seethed at the words and Gauron's admittance to having some part in what Kodachi had done, but forced himself to stay calm, remembering that Gauron wanted to make a big scene out of this. He coolly pointed his pistol at Gauron's head, and noted the man's smile in response.
And the pistol pointed up, away from Gauron.
"You want me to kill you," Sousuke said, eyes narrowed. "Something connected to your heart monitor?"
"Very good, Kashim, very good," Gauron said, smile shrinking a little. "But what is it, do you think?"
"One of these bombs, if they exist," Sousuke said.
"But that still leaves the other two," Gauron said. "If it is here at all."
His smile grew again.
"Trust me when I say these threats, possibly bombs, are real," the mutilated form on the bed said with cold seriousness. "And if you were still the old Kashim, I think you'd be able to see that with no question."
Behind Sousuke, Grey and Batiste started moving again, searching to see if they could find a bomb on the sight.
"Stop calling me that," Sousuke insisted.
"I find it amazing that you have so totally bought Kalinin's hypocritical lectures," Gauron said. "When it's been very much proven that he didn't follow them himself. So, why are you still following a soiled knight's teachings, Kashim?"
"I don't know why Kalinin did what he did," Sousuke said, voice turning dark. "But I know he'd never be what you are."
"All of us are like me," Gauron said. "Especially you. Some of us just know how to let the leash go and be what we really are."
"Kalinin was a good man," Sousuke declared loudly.
"A good man who betrayed his fellows for his own purposes," Gauron laughed.
The pistol snapped up again, but Sousuke immediately pulled it back and grimaced in frustration as Gauron frowned.
"Have you gotten that soft then?" Gauron asked. "Have you fallen for the whole champions of justice crap Mithril tries to shove down their own throats. Look at them closely, Kashim, they're just like the rest of us, using their might to impose what's right on the world. And if certain elements weren't clouding your judgment you could see that."
"Certain elements," the mercenary repeated. "What are you..."
His eyes snapped to the Legion files on the Atlantis crew and snatched them up, skimming through the files until he found what he was looking for.
"Suggestion implanted."
Complete with trigger phrases and limitations.
We're going! Eija and Kaname said.
*****************
"This whole episode is just one big screw-up," a tall man with glasses was saying to the Goddess walking beside him. "It had to take sheer laziness for nobody to figure out anything was going wrong. People have no idea just how stupid they are sometimes."
The Goddess, a civilian firmly in the third category, smiled briefly and then slumped in irritation as the man continued to try to explain just what her people, his and the Demons had done wrong and what he would have done to fix things. She suspected he was hitting on her, but that was something of a vague notion given the way he kept talking about people being idiots.
"And if only one little thing had been done, we'd be living in peace right now rather than war," he said. "But that's what the military does, they go to war, and they'll jump at any chance to..."
The man was roughly grabbed and slammed into the wall, hands placed behind him.
"Oh thank the creator!" the Goddess said. "He just kept talking and following me! I'm getting out of here while you have him busy."
"Doctor Peter Kavanagh," the security officer said. "We have reason to believe that you brought a package on board past the standard checks."
"Look what I'm talking about!" he declared. "They just attack me for no reason. Over a box of snack food."
"Uh huh," the officer noted. "And where is this snack food?"
"In my quarters obviously, where else would you keep snack food," Kavanagh protested.
Word was relayed and men split off, moving quickly and talking over the radio.
"Dr. Kavanagh, have you ever met a Kodachi Kuno?" the soldier asked.
"Maybe, she's a biologist, isn't she?" he asked. "Maybe at the last convention I attended..."
The soldiers exchanged looks and glanced toward him.
"Don't you read memos and threat-assessments?" someone asked.
"Oh please, like I'm going to believe the military when they say someone is a human version of a virus," he protested.
"We found the bomb," the radio crackled. "Sending it to a dead shard now. Not sure how he intended to detonate it. There's no way a radio signal will reach here from Earth."
"What bomb?" Kavanagh asked.
******************
"You have no idea what it took to get to those before one of your teams found them," the freak said with a chuckle. "Luckily, Kodachi wasn't one to trust computers completely. All paper and only one place. We got lucky."
"We?" Sousuke said sharply, resisting the urge to teleport immediately to Kaname and Eija and get them to safety.
"Oh, did that slip out?" the thing on the table asked with a chuckle. "So, you have two bombs, or at least you think you do. Where's the third, Sousuke. Where's the third?"
Sousuke gritted his teeth silently and held his pistol tighter as he walked up to Gauron's side, trying to think of anything that he could do to threaten the man with that would actually work. But Gauron had never been one to care about...anything...even before.
"I have to admit," Gauron said. "I had trouble with that one myself. I mean, this city was obvious, if the bomb is here. Atlantis is obvious, since I had access. But where else could I put a bomb that would matter?"
"Tokyo," Sousuke said. "Where Eija and Kaname would be if the Gods hadn't invaded."
"Ah, I knew you could figure it out, of course, that was the original plan, perhaps they never finished their trip when things went to hell...or is that heaven?" Gauron suggested with a snicker. "So what are you going to do then, Kashim? Three bombs, maybe, connected to my heart monitor, possibly. Killing me sets them off, not killing me, well, I die relatively soon anyway. Probably before you can get to a satellite feed outside this building and report to your superiors. You know, I was at first disappointed when Leonard jumped the gun on his raid, but now I can't complain. It's left me with such great resources."
He opened his mouth and started to give a sequence of numbers before he was interrupted.
"Uh uh," Gauron said. "No cheating. Let's consider voice activation Sousuke."
"This could still be all a bluff," the Ainur said.
Grey and Batiste came into the room then and shook their head.
"No sign of a bomb," Grey said. "But there are vats upon vats of...something. Some have been tampered with and I think that gives us our answer for why there's no one moving above us."
She glanced through narrowed eyes at Gauron who chuckled.
"I was trying to insure our privacy," he said with a snicker. "I'm glad you weren't early, apparently it broke down only about fifteen minutes before you arrived. Of course, with most of the city focused on other things, I don't think anybody noticed much."
"Bastard," Batiste snapped bitterly as he pushed forward toward Gauron where Sousuke was again holding his pistol on the lump's head.
"We can't kill hi-" Grey started to say.
A shot rang out as Batiste shuddered, the bullet passing through the man's body and into Gauron's smiling face. The older Mithril mercenary shuddered and crumpled over Gauron's body, looking surprised.
Beside him, Sousuke and Grey looked up to see a man standing at the entry balcony leveling an assault rifle their way. Batiste, stumbling in pain ducked around behind cover even as Grey and Sousuke did, and the assault rifle obliterated Gauron's form.
For a brief moment the heart monitor dropped to a long, constant tone before picking up again, though erratic and weak.
"The hell!?" Grey shouted. "He survived that?"
"No," Batiste growled. "That's me. Hurry up and get this stuff blown to hell!"
"Are you down there Kashim?" a young male voice called out. "Are you still the little boy I helped out of the sand? Or have you learned what it is to really be a man and to survive in this world?"
"Another friend of yours, Sergeant Sagara?" Grey asked.
"I believe so," Sousuke said with a flicker of discomfort at the thought of Zaid here, alive and working with Gauron.
He glanced from behind his cover and ducked as a bullet smacked against the ground and Zaid fell back to the hallway.
"He's retreating," Sousuke said.
"Batiste, can you last?" Grey demanded.
"I'm not done yet," he said, in a wheezing tone that didn't carry with it a real spoken answer.
"I'll take your friend," Grey told Sousuke. "You do something about the nerve gas."
"Be careful, Zaid is very good," the Ainur warned.
"So am I," Gray said.
Elsewhere, pilots briefly received a confirmation tone which then cut off. Messages were exchanged and decisions were made as several mega tankers came closer to land and their cargo powered up.
And another such signal reached a device, only to be cut off before it could finish.
It was a poor part of town, though East Germany would likely have never admitted to such a thing being possibly, and there should have been life aplenty in the old buildings that lined the roads around them.
Instead, the buildings yawned dark and empty from every direction as the three Mithril agents came into the area. A single police vehicle, one of the large prisoner-transport vans, was parked oddly on the side of the street within sight, perhaps half a mile away.
"It's almost time for this meeting," Grey said. "You'd better be getting to it Sergeant Sagara."
"Affirmative," Sousuke said, frowning as he eyed the buildings around him. "I do not like the look of this Ma'am."
"I'm with the kid," Batiste said. "This looks a bit too much like a trap."
"I could attempt to use one of the routines we have established for remote viewing," Sousuke suggested.
"Let's keep that down to a minimum," Grey said. "We know there are ways to tell when powers are being used that don't require people who have them."
"I've got my eye on the paddy wagon down the lane," Batiste said. "We'd better move before we have three new nukes to consider."
Nodding, Sousuke moved out into the quiet street and darted from cover to cover before reaching the structure that he was certain contained his target.
It was an old building which still had the faded image of a dragon with nine heads painted into one of the walls. A piece of ancient culture, though culture that had been carried north rather than was native, that had been protected from the purges of the communists and now revealed to the air again.
He stepped inside, pistol out and searching the shadows cautiously as Grey and Batiste came in next.
There was no movement in the open first room, which may have been a tavern of some kind, and they cautiously moved about to clear the room before proceeding upstairs.
Batiste stopped at one of the tables and pointed toward the still steaming bowl of stew that sat there. Grey nodded at the sign of recent occupation and looked toward Sousuke, directing him to head upstairs with a gesture.
Are you certain that you cannot risk using any sort of chi? Eija's voice asked. You might find some use out of my eyes.
I believe I could, Sousuke said. It shall be fine, however.
Sousuke, Kaname voiced in, It is silly to just go in blind.
I am not, the mercenary noted. Do not worry, this is not my first time.
Neither girl was especially happy with that response, but they did not insist.
He took the stairs heading up one at a time, moving slowly and placing his weight slowly so as to avoid creaking sounds. And he finally reached the top of the first flight and the door there that was left just slightly ajar.
Behind the old, wooden door that fit the look of the ancient building perfect was a high tech piece of metal half-slid open. A useless and destroyed keypad was built into the frame work of the doorway that the wooden door had concealed. Beyond lay a dusty hallway that may have, once upon a time been a lead in to a sterile environment. From somewhere within came the steady, distant beep of a heart monitor.
The nine-headed dragon outside suddenly had a separate meaning than just Gauron.
He glanced down the stairs toward Grey.
"It's a Legion facility," he said under his breath.
Grey passed that along and Batiste cursed under his breath as he followed them up the stairs, eyes looking out toward the street.
Stepping into the hallway, Sousuke looked from one direction to another, noting the doors that opened out onto silent rooms before coming to an end and overlooking what had been an extensive and well-tended indoor garden and now was an overgrown mass of thorns and red flowers.
In the middle of it all was a bed holding someone Sousuke couldn't get a good look at, but whose identity he was certain of.
"Ah, Kashim," a familiar and hated voice said. "Did you bring your friends?"
Sousuke frowned and found a stairwell to move down into the vines and approach the man on the bed as Grey and Batiste came into the room and onto the balcony. Grey indicating for Batiste to hold his position.
"Gauron," Sousuke said, turning past a particularly thick bush and saw the sociopath's darkly smiling face staring up at him.
The face, aside from one eye bandaged over, seemed to be the only part of the man that still seemed to be intact. One arm was gone completely and the other seemed to have been removed at the elbow while both legs were removed at various points. Nor did it look like the overall body under the bed sheet was in good shape.
There was a table at the foot of the bed covered in dossiers.
"Sorry if the place isn't fit for visitors," Gauron apologized with a smile. "The lady of the house hasn't been around for a while."
"Where are the bombs, Gauron?" Sousuke asked, glancing around and wondering how Gauron had expected to trigger the bombs in his current condition.
"Straight to business," Gauron laughed. "That's always you, Kashim. Now, how do you expect to get me to tell you? Are you going to torture me until I talk?"
He laughed in a low tone that was full of grim humor.
"I'm beginning to think it was just a bluff to get me here," the Ainur said. "Maybe I should just leave you to your privacy and head back."
Sousuke glanced down at the dossiers and frowned as he took in the names and some of the organizational seals displayed. Socrates Group's Atlantis unit was named on each folder, with Kodachi's seal presented. The surprise on his face must have been apparent because Gauron laughed again, loudly this time.
"Yeah, my little rose had encountered a lot of people in power before your people managed to weed her out," Gauron noted. "Mithril seems to be good at handling my proteges it seems."
"Your protege?" the Ainur asked darkly. "What do you mean."
"It's probably too strong a word," Gauron admitted. "I simply...took away the garden walls. They were rather weak to begin with, though, so not much of a task."
Sousuke seethed at the words and Gauron's admittance to having some part in what Kodachi had done, but forced himself to stay calm, remembering that Gauron wanted to make a big scene out of this. He coolly pointed his pistol at Gauron's head, and noted the man's smile in response.
And the pistol pointed up, away from Gauron.
"You want me to kill you," Sousuke said, eyes narrowed. "Something connected to your heart monitor?"
"Very good, Kashim, very good," Gauron said, smile shrinking a little. "But what is it, do you think?"
"One of these bombs, if they exist," Sousuke said.
"But that still leaves the other two," Gauron said. "If it is here at all."
His smile grew again.
"Trust me when I say these threats, possibly bombs, are real," the mutilated form on the bed said with cold seriousness. "And if you were still the old Kashim, I think you'd be able to see that with no question."
Behind Sousuke, Grey and Batiste started moving again, searching to see if they could find a bomb on the sight.
"Stop calling me that," Sousuke insisted.
"I find it amazing that you have so totally bought Kalinin's hypocritical lectures," Gauron said. "When it's been very much proven that he didn't follow them himself. So, why are you still following a soiled knight's teachings, Kashim?"
"I don't know why Kalinin did what he did," Sousuke said, voice turning dark. "But I know he'd never be what you are."
"All of us are like me," Gauron said. "Especially you. Some of us just know how to let the leash go and be what we really are."
"Kalinin was a good man," Sousuke declared loudly.
"A good man who betrayed his fellows for his own purposes," Gauron laughed.
The pistol snapped up again, but Sousuke immediately pulled it back and grimaced in frustration as Gauron frowned.
"Have you gotten that soft then?" Gauron asked. "Have you fallen for the whole champions of justice crap Mithril tries to shove down their own throats. Look at them closely, Kashim, they're just like the rest of us, using their might to impose what's right on the world. And if certain elements weren't clouding your judgment you could see that."
"Certain elements," the mercenary repeated. "What are you..."
His eyes snapped to the Legion files on the Atlantis crew and snatched them up, skimming through the files until he found what he was looking for.
"Suggestion implanted."
Complete with trigger phrases and limitations.
We're going! Eija and Kaname said.
*****************
"This whole episode is just one big screw-up," a tall man with glasses was saying to the Goddess walking beside him. "It had to take sheer laziness for nobody to figure out anything was going wrong. People have no idea just how stupid they are sometimes."
The Goddess, a civilian firmly in the third category, smiled briefly and then slumped in irritation as the man continued to try to explain just what her people, his and the Demons had done wrong and what he would have done to fix things. She suspected he was hitting on her, but that was something of a vague notion given the way he kept talking about people being idiots.
"And if only one little thing had been done, we'd be living in peace right now rather than war," he said. "But that's what the military does, they go to war, and they'll jump at any chance to..."
The man was roughly grabbed and slammed into the wall, hands placed behind him.
"Oh thank the creator!" the Goddess said. "He just kept talking and following me! I'm getting out of here while you have him busy."
"Doctor Peter Kavanagh," the security officer said. "We have reason to believe that you brought a package on board past the standard checks."
"Look what I'm talking about!" he declared. "They just attack me for no reason. Over a box of snack food."
"Uh huh," the officer noted. "And where is this snack food?"
"In my quarters obviously, where else would you keep snack food," Kavanagh protested.
Word was relayed and men split off, moving quickly and talking over the radio.
"Dr. Kavanagh, have you ever met a Kodachi Kuno?" the soldier asked.
"Maybe, she's a biologist, isn't she?" he asked. "Maybe at the last convention I attended..."
The soldiers exchanged looks and glanced toward him.
"Don't you read memos and threat-assessments?" someone asked.
"Oh please, like I'm going to believe the military when they say someone is a human version of a virus," he protested.
"We found the bomb," the radio crackled. "Sending it to a dead shard now. Not sure how he intended to detonate it. There's no way a radio signal will reach here from Earth."
"What bomb?" Kavanagh asked.
******************
"You have no idea what it took to get to those before one of your teams found them," the freak said with a chuckle. "Luckily, Kodachi wasn't one to trust computers completely. All paper and only one place. We got lucky."
"We?" Sousuke said sharply, resisting the urge to teleport immediately to Kaname and Eija and get them to safety.
"Oh, did that slip out?" the thing on the table asked with a chuckle. "So, you have two bombs, or at least you think you do. Where's the third, Sousuke. Where's the third?"
Sousuke gritted his teeth silently and held his pistol tighter as he walked up to Gauron's side, trying to think of anything that he could do to threaten the man with that would actually work. But Gauron had never been one to care about...anything...even before.
"I have to admit," Gauron said. "I had trouble with that one myself. I mean, this city was obvious, if the bomb is here. Atlantis is obvious, since I had access. But where else could I put a bomb that would matter?"
"Tokyo," Sousuke said. "Where Eija and Kaname would be if the Gods hadn't invaded."
"Ah, I knew you could figure it out, of course, that was the original plan, perhaps they never finished their trip when things went to hell...or is that heaven?" Gauron suggested with a snicker. "So what are you going to do then, Kashim? Three bombs, maybe, connected to my heart monitor, possibly. Killing me sets them off, not killing me, well, I die relatively soon anyway. Probably before you can get to a satellite feed outside this building and report to your superiors. You know, I was at first disappointed when Leonard jumped the gun on his raid, but now I can't complain. It's left me with such great resources."
He opened his mouth and started to give a sequence of numbers before he was interrupted.
"Uh uh," Gauron said. "No cheating. Let's consider voice activation Sousuke."
"This could still be all a bluff," the Ainur said.
Grey and Batiste came into the room then and shook their head.
"No sign of a bomb," Grey said. "But there are vats upon vats of...something. Some have been tampered with and I think that gives us our answer for why there's no one moving above us."
She glanced through narrowed eyes at Gauron who chuckled.
"I was trying to insure our privacy," he said with a snicker. "I'm glad you weren't early, apparently it broke down only about fifteen minutes before you arrived. Of course, with most of the city focused on other things, I don't think anybody noticed much."
"Bastard," Batiste snapped bitterly as he pushed forward toward Gauron where Sousuke was again holding his pistol on the lump's head.
"We can't kill hi-" Grey started to say.
A shot rang out as Batiste shuddered, the bullet passing through the man's body and into Gauron's smiling face. The older Mithril mercenary shuddered and crumpled over Gauron's body, looking surprised.
Beside him, Sousuke and Grey looked up to see a man standing at the entry balcony leveling an assault rifle their way. Batiste, stumbling in pain ducked around behind cover even as Grey and Sousuke did, and the assault rifle obliterated Gauron's form.
For a brief moment the heart monitor dropped to a long, constant tone before picking up again, though erratic and weak.
"The hell!?" Grey shouted. "He survived that?"
"No," Batiste growled. "That's me. Hurry up and get this stuff blown to hell!"
"Are you down there Kashim?" a young male voice called out. "Are you still the little boy I helped out of the sand? Or have you learned what it is to really be a man and to survive in this world?"
"Another friend of yours, Sergeant Sagara?" Grey asked.
"I believe so," Sousuke said with a flicker of discomfort at the thought of Zaid here, alive and working with Gauron.
He glanced from behind his cover and ducked as a bullet smacked against the ground and Zaid fell back to the hallway.
"He's retreating," Sousuke said.
"Batiste, can you last?" Grey demanded.
"I'm not done yet," he said, in a wheezing tone that didn't carry with it a real spoken answer.
"I'll take your friend," Grey told Sousuke. "You do something about the nerve gas."
"Be careful, Zaid is very good," the Ainur warned.
"So am I," Gray said.
Elsewhere, pilots briefly received a confirmation tone which then cut off. Messages were exchanged and decisions were made as several mega tankers came closer to land and their cargo powered up.
And another such signal reached a device, only to be cut off before it could finish.
"We've got some civilian ocean traffic coming in to Kyushu," a clerk noted to the officer with him. "Looks like cargo-ships that were planning on docking at Tokyo until the late unpleasantness. They've keeping station in the outer waters until we took Kyushu."
"It's been a week since Japan was invaded," the officer said in an incredulous fashion. "Why didn't they go somewhere else?"
"Fuel, I suspect sir," the clerk noted. "They seem to have only a little of it."
"Damn stupid civilians," the officer responded. "Give them clearance to get to dock and get fueled up. And find out what they're carrying."
The last was added almost as an afterthought.
Ranma looked down to where Naiki was, it looked like, dancing with the Kraken girl. There was nothing sexual about it, which was a relief after the whole situation with Eija and her...trinity was probably the best term
Mao was still under sedation in Atlantis and Ranma had one more talk to give regarding secrets and why to help keep them. Granted, she wasn't sure she wouldn't have done the same thing in Naiki's shoes, but it still needed to be discussed.
The exorcist leaped down toward the beach and started walking across to where the two girls were pretty much just playing around, when a sudden flare of chi out in the ocean attracted her attention. And the sudden change in attitude with Lusca and Naiki said that both of them felt it too.
All three of them directed their eyes out towards the ships crossing the waters and a small fleet of four massive cargo freighters that were moving in tandem.
"Oh hell no," Ranma said, remembering the last time they had seen one of those cargo ships producing so much chi.
"Oh please not another of those things," Naiki said.
"What things?" Lusca asked.
And then the first Behemoth started to rip out of the ship.
***********************
"There's a memory I'm taking from you," a woman said before blinking and shaking her head. "I mean me."
She was tall and slender, with long legs and hair braided into eight tails coming down out of her head. She was sitting in and among several trees growing out of slight rises in the ground at her feet. It was a veritable forest of ordered trees.
"Because if you...I have this memory for too long," she said. "It'll become the only thing about you....me...and you'll...hurt people...but you'll need it so you can stop it from happening again."
She grimaced and cricked her head.
"If you escape or get rescued, that is," she sighed. "You see more of the memory the more serious it gets and you'll know how to take each level of bind off so you can protect people from this happening again."
*******************
"I got you!" Lusca shouted cheerfully as she tackled one of the little children she'd been chasing in circles through the tide and around the beach.
"We got you!" several other children shouted before piling on the teenager.
They were dressed in simple white tunics of a Nordic design as they played around the lonely island on which they now settled. They weren't human, not the youngest generation at any rate. And that was why they had come out here, to escape the eyes of humans that wouldn't know what to think of these things.
Most of the children appeared at least a little bit strange and fishy, and some even had tentacles growing out of their backs. Lusca wasn't the only sea Demon or God whose mixing with humans would had added to their development though this particular group was heavily related to her.
For the moment, they were an unnamed oddity. Only a handful of colonies all over in hidden places. Some would eventually disturb a young man in New England in the late nineteenth century. But none descended from this group of families.
An old, ancient even, woman shuffled out and smiled at the laughing and joking children.
"Mother, shouldn't you be studying?" she asked in a gentle tone.
"Oh don't worry, Sigrun," Lusca said with a giggle as the younger kids tickled her viciously. "I've done this lots of times before. I've never failed the test. I'm sure of it."
"How can you be sure without your memories, mother?" Sigrun asked with a smile.
"Oh, but we want to play with Great-grandma Lusca!" the kids said in tandem.
"How disgusting," a loud booming voice called out from the waves.
Instantly, the kids were pulling back up the beach with Lusca standing between them and the water, the old woman moving in front of the younger and calling forth her own vitae.
A tall, bearded form slipped out of the water and up to stand head and shoulders, towering over the teenaged form of Lusca and those behind her.
"What do you want here, Poseidon?" Lusca demanded angrily.
The children ran further up the into the island as several other people ran forward. Hundreds, humans, half-Demons, little sea spawn like the children. Almost all of them wielding power in some way, magicians, psychics and the like.
"I've come to deal with a blight on the waves," Poseidon said glaring down at her. "You shouldn't have let your guard down Kraken. The sea is going to belong to me completely from this point on. No more sharing with such inferior creatures as you."
"Oh please, are you trying to be funny?" she asked in return, scoffing. "You can't kill me. The Doublet System would kill one of you Gods, for all you know, maybe you."
"There are thousands of Gods, Lusca," Poseidon said. "What's the chance that you're actually connected to me?"
Lusca frowned nervously a moment and then crossed her arms and laughed.
"But you don't know," she said. "So there's no way you're going to do it. So that makes you doubly a coward."
"What?" Poseidon demanded. "You're calling me a coward?"
"Yes," she responded. "I'm barely fifteen years into this life, I don't have enough power to shake a tree and you had to know it. So instead of waiting for me to group and come into my full power in two years, you're coming after me now. And then you can't even bring yourself to do it because you might die."
She laughed in a superior tone.
"So get out of here now," she declared. "This is my island. You can't do anything here! So don't pretend otherwise."
Poseidon's answer to Lusca's smug look was a summoned wave of water smashing her into the nearest tree. She was shaking her head clear when something stabbed into her arms and held her there against the tree. Looking up she saw Poseidon's trident stabbed through her now bleeding arms and nailing her against the tree.
"What are you...WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" she demanded.
Poseidon turned away from her without responding as the collected warriors charged forward to defend Lusca from her attacker. The outcome was terribly obvious to a part of Lusca even as she stared in shock and denial when the first spray of blood splashed across her face.
"No! No!" she called out. "Stop! Stop! Don't do that! I'm sorry! It's not funny! It's not funny!"
She cried out, pulling against the trident spearing her to the tree as she watched the slaughter continue and not end with the warriors who were trained in fighting Gods and other monsters. Nor did it end with the adults who were at least somewhat able to defend themselves.
No it didn't end until the last two sentient beings on the island were Lusca and Poseidon and she was hanging from the tree, voice gone and tears dry. Weak and tired from the blood loss.
She did nothing but fall to her knees as the trident was removed from the tree and her arms. All of her energy was gone, drained away. And then the body of one of the children she had just been playing with was dropped in front of her.
"Why," she asked quietly.
"This is my ocean," Poseidon told her. "And the Kraken who brooks no rivals is not welcome."
"You still can't kill me," Lusca said. "I'll have my power soon and I'll pay this back! I'll find someway to make you pay. I'll make a prison and trap you for eternity! You will PAY!!!"
"I do like that last idea," Poseidon said, not frowning. "I think I'll remove this entire corrupt, tainted island while I'm at it."
"And how do you plan to do that?" Lusca growled.
"What you just said," Poseidon noted humorlessly. "Trap you for eternity. Is this funny now?"
"No," Lusca said narrowly as Poseidon drew the circles around her body, weak for bloodless and healing to slow to be able to do anything about it. "This is not..."
*********************
"...funny in the least tiniest bit!"
Ranma and Naiki watched as the red marks on Lusca's face flared into life, the girl's body started shifting and growing.
"Oh crap!" Naiki said. "Mom!?"
"I don't think we can stop her," Ranma said as Lusca had already grown to four times her normal size and kept growing. "Besides, if you remember right, we're going to need her."
Lusca dived forward and vanished into the water.
One of the Behemoths was wading through the waves toward the island, three others flanking it, when the water ahead of it exploded upward and the pilot with in found himself staring at the tooth filled maw of something that looked like it belonged in a horror movie.
It was easily as tall as the Behemoth, if much more slender, with four draconic legs, two of which were more like long arms, holding up a reptilian body and draconic head out of which eight tentacles grow with a thick webbing between them, like some sort of monstrous frill.
Tentacles with razor-tipped hooks slipping out of the suckers lashed outward around his vehicle and crushed downward even as he tried to raise his lambda driver. The tentacles wrapped around the head of the creature and just about swallowed the bulk of the first Behemoth. Underneath the frill, along the neck of the creature, a row of eyes opened one by one to watch what was going on as it attacked the thing in front of it.
The pilot inside screamed aloud in his cockpit as he tried to train the weapons of the monstrous robot on his attacker, drawing a line of blood across what may have been a shoulder, but doing little more than minor annoyance through the aura.
The other three behemoths tried to ignore the monster as it seemed to focus on the first of them. They were intent on their mission, which was to reach the island and cause as much damage as possible. The heavy cannons in the head were already strafing across the waters at everything that could be targeted. A pair of destroyers exploded into gouts of fire under the attack, followed immediately by a transport loaded mostly with civilians that had been arriving to start on repairing the damage the battle had done.
Naval cannons flashed out, shells exploding against the lambda driver induced chi-fields. But that didn't stop them. And soon hastily called in jets slipped by sending missiles into the robots, which exploded with shattering force on the things.
Huge tentacles ripped out of the water like a wall that was as tall as the Behemoths were, and lashed out to grab at the giant robots, hoping to hold them in place so that they couldn't advance on the island.
"Thorns!" one of the pilots shouted. "Remember the footage."
The lambda driver boosted auras shifted into the sharp forms of terrible spikes which tried to tear at the tentacles that reached out to grab them.
The monster itself yelped and leaped back, bleeding from several relatively small wounds as the visibly mauled Behemoth sent it back. The frill of tentacles fell back, covering the row of eyes on its neck.
As the creature roared out wordlessly, a blast of red, raw pishouge tore out of the creature as if it was breathing crimson, bloody fire and slammed into the already damaged Behemoth as it pulled its thorns back and tried to form a shield again.
The blast of energy ripped the machines right arm clean off even as the other Behemoths were approaching the monster's form and drawing their huge swords.
Neither of the first two noticed as two human sized swords leaped out to land on the swords, which extended outside the clumsily shaped lambda driver fields and thus did not benefit from their protection.
The pilots of those two Behemoths looked in confusion and shock as their swords were sliced apart length by length, approaching ever closer to the hand. Focusing in, they saw flickers of movement from Naiki and Ranma, one on each robot, and the two machines tried to turn their guns on the two martial artists.
Which earned them apparently special attention from the monster which jumped between them and lashed out with its own tentacles to grip the head and start crushing until the cannons tore gaping holes in the tentacles at a cost of their own destruction.
The most severely damaged of the Behemoths limped into position facing the monster which was apparently distracted by the pain of its wounds, and started blasting into the creature with its own cannons, drawing a line up the things body.
Naiki leaped over to the shoulder of the tentacle monster and reared back her hands.
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" she shouted, angrily pushing forward.
The line of automatic cannon shells suddenly reversed back towards the Behemoth tearing it into pieces as its damaged lambda driver failed to raise a field to compete with the attack.
The fourth behemoth was circling around slowly behind the monster, raising a massive sword wrapped in lambda-driver created chi.
Lightning bolts rained down on top of it, one after another, smashing into the chi-aura and weakening it, overbearing it, each time. Electricity coursed into the robot a little more each time, slagging new circuits and making the thing harder and harder to control.
Ranma looked from her position on the remaining hilt of one of the massive swords and saw Deimosu along with Urd, Raiden and Thor standing on the nearby shore and concentrating despite all three of the older Immortals having serious injuries still to deal with.
The cruise missile from behind finished off that fourth Behemoth in a high explosive flash as Ranma turned toward the robot whose weapon she was standing on and took a deep breath before diving through the field, pushing it aside with her own chi as she move further down, closer to the actual AS.
More Demons, Gods and Ainur appeared on the shores wielding various different powers to rain down on the remaining two Behemoths even while they struggled with the tentacles of the monster around them until they tried to drive it off with thorns again.
Naiki gripped tightly to a ridge of the creature she was standing on as it jumped away before the thorns could stab her deeply again.
The thorns only made it easier for Ranma to reach the cockpit entry and, now underneath the aura of protection, smash through into it and finding the pilot beneath. The shocked man looked up into the redheaded form of the exorcist that had just ripped his door off and then he saw what looked like a single fist coming his way and his skull caved in.
Jumping away as the Behemoth fell backward, Ranma watched as the last monster AS caved in under a barrage of magic and conventional power.
As the the Behemoths were destroyed, attention was cautiously turned toward the massive tentacle monster still vaguely glowing red and standing in the middle of the surf, looking around frantically, tentacles twitching.
"Hey! They're gone! Calm down," Naiki shouted.
The creature hesitated and seemed to look around itself for whoever had just said that, not thinking that perhaps the speaker was on the body already.
The simple, curious gesture was enough for the anger and fear to lose their hold on the creature and it visibly started to shrink down. Naiki leaped off and came to the shrinking creature's side as it became obvious that the wounds she'd received weren't going to just vanish.
**************
"And after you don't need it, you...I can forget again."
**************
Lusca blinked as she found herself in the water and a bit confused. She'd just been fighting something. She wasn't exactly sure why, it just hadn't been funny, that's all she knew. There was an odd sensation that was immediately answered as she noticed a red trail working out away from her through the water.
"Oh I got hurt, right," she said with a frown.
Then Naiki was swimming up to her side and grabbing hold. The next moment they were teleporting away and Lusca found herself in the medical tent, which didn't make much sense since she wasn't on duty at the moment.
"Hey!" Naiki shouted. "I need someone to come help me here! Someone that knows Demon anatomy."
Lusca blushed then as she realized that Naiki was holding her gently and firmly.
"Did you just save me from the monsters?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," Naiki said casually. "Where's a doctor?"
"SQUEEE!!" Lusca declared loudly and holding Naiki reciprocally tightly. "So brave!"
Naiki almost fell over then as Lusca altered the weight balance she was working with.
"Whoa! Wait until you're not bleeding!" Naiki pleaded. "Bullet holes, Lusca! Bullet holes!"
"It's been a week since Japan was invaded," the officer said in an incredulous fashion. "Why didn't they go somewhere else?"
"Fuel, I suspect sir," the clerk noted. "They seem to have only a little of it."
"Damn stupid civilians," the officer responded. "Give them clearance to get to dock and get fueled up. And find out what they're carrying."
The last was added almost as an afterthought.
Ranma looked down to where Naiki was, it looked like, dancing with the Kraken girl. There was nothing sexual about it, which was a relief after the whole situation with Eija and her...trinity was probably the best term
Mao was still under sedation in Atlantis and Ranma had one more talk to give regarding secrets and why to help keep them. Granted, she wasn't sure she wouldn't have done the same thing in Naiki's shoes, but it still needed to be discussed.
The exorcist leaped down toward the beach and started walking across to where the two girls were pretty much just playing around, when a sudden flare of chi out in the ocean attracted her attention. And the sudden change in attitude with Lusca and Naiki said that both of them felt it too.
All three of them directed their eyes out towards the ships crossing the waters and a small fleet of four massive cargo freighters that were moving in tandem.
"Oh hell no," Ranma said, remembering the last time they had seen one of those cargo ships producing so much chi.
"Oh please not another of those things," Naiki said.
"What things?" Lusca asked.
And then the first Behemoth started to rip out of the ship.
***********************
"There's a memory I'm taking from you," a woman said before blinking and shaking her head. "I mean me."
She was tall and slender, with long legs and hair braided into eight tails coming down out of her head. She was sitting in and among several trees growing out of slight rises in the ground at her feet. It was a veritable forest of ordered trees.
"Because if you...I have this memory for too long," she said. "It'll become the only thing about you....me...and you'll...hurt people...but you'll need it so you can stop it from happening again."
She grimaced and cricked her head.
"If you escape or get rescued, that is," she sighed. "You see more of the memory the more serious it gets and you'll know how to take each level of bind off so you can protect people from this happening again."
*******************
"I got you!" Lusca shouted cheerfully as she tackled one of the little children she'd been chasing in circles through the tide and around the beach.
"We got you!" several other children shouted before piling on the teenager.
They were dressed in simple white tunics of a Nordic design as they played around the lonely island on which they now settled. They weren't human, not the youngest generation at any rate. And that was why they had come out here, to escape the eyes of humans that wouldn't know what to think of these things.
Most of the children appeared at least a little bit strange and fishy, and some even had tentacles growing out of their backs. Lusca wasn't the only sea Demon or God whose mixing with humans would had added to their development though this particular group was heavily related to her.
For the moment, they were an unnamed oddity. Only a handful of colonies all over in hidden places. Some would eventually disturb a young man in New England in the late nineteenth century. But none descended from this group of families.
An old, ancient even, woman shuffled out and smiled at the laughing and joking children.
"Mother, shouldn't you be studying?" she asked in a gentle tone.
"Oh don't worry, Sigrun," Lusca said with a giggle as the younger kids tickled her viciously. "I've done this lots of times before. I've never failed the test. I'm sure of it."
"How can you be sure without your memories, mother?" Sigrun asked with a smile.
"Oh, but we want to play with Great-grandma Lusca!" the kids said in tandem.
"How disgusting," a loud booming voice called out from the waves.
Instantly, the kids were pulling back up the beach with Lusca standing between them and the water, the old woman moving in front of the younger and calling forth her own vitae.
A tall, bearded form slipped out of the water and up to stand head and shoulders, towering over the teenaged form of Lusca and those behind her.
"What do you want here, Poseidon?" Lusca demanded angrily.
The children ran further up the into the island as several other people ran forward. Hundreds, humans, half-Demons, little sea spawn like the children. Almost all of them wielding power in some way, magicians, psychics and the like.
"I've come to deal with a blight on the waves," Poseidon said glaring down at her. "You shouldn't have let your guard down Kraken. The sea is going to belong to me completely from this point on. No more sharing with such inferior creatures as you."
"Oh please, are you trying to be funny?" she asked in return, scoffing. "You can't kill me. The Doublet System would kill one of you Gods, for all you know, maybe you."
"There are thousands of Gods, Lusca," Poseidon said. "What's the chance that you're actually connected to me?"
Lusca frowned nervously a moment and then crossed her arms and laughed.
"But you don't know," she said. "So there's no way you're going to do it. So that makes you doubly a coward."
"What?" Poseidon demanded. "You're calling me a coward?"
"Yes," she responded. "I'm barely fifteen years into this life, I don't have enough power to shake a tree and you had to know it. So instead of waiting for me to group and come into my full power in two years, you're coming after me now. And then you can't even bring yourself to do it because you might die."
She laughed in a superior tone.
"So get out of here now," she declared. "This is my island. You can't do anything here! So don't pretend otherwise."
Poseidon's answer to Lusca's smug look was a summoned wave of water smashing her into the nearest tree. She was shaking her head clear when something stabbed into her arms and held her there against the tree. Looking up she saw Poseidon's trident stabbed through her now bleeding arms and nailing her against the tree.
"What are you...WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" she demanded.
Poseidon turned away from her without responding as the collected warriors charged forward to defend Lusca from her attacker. The outcome was terribly obvious to a part of Lusca even as she stared in shock and denial when the first spray of blood splashed across her face.
"No! No!" she called out. "Stop! Stop! Don't do that! I'm sorry! It's not funny! It's not funny!"
She cried out, pulling against the trident spearing her to the tree as she watched the slaughter continue and not end with the warriors who were trained in fighting Gods and other monsters. Nor did it end with the adults who were at least somewhat able to defend themselves.
No it didn't end until the last two sentient beings on the island were Lusca and Poseidon and she was hanging from the tree, voice gone and tears dry. Weak and tired from the blood loss.
She did nothing but fall to her knees as the trident was removed from the tree and her arms. All of her energy was gone, drained away. And then the body of one of the children she had just been playing with was dropped in front of her.
"Why," she asked quietly.
"This is my ocean," Poseidon told her. "And the Kraken who brooks no rivals is not welcome."
"You still can't kill me," Lusca said. "I'll have my power soon and I'll pay this back! I'll find someway to make you pay. I'll make a prison and trap you for eternity! You will PAY!!!"
"I do like that last idea," Poseidon said, not frowning. "I think I'll remove this entire corrupt, tainted island while I'm at it."
"And how do you plan to do that?" Lusca growled.
"What you just said," Poseidon noted humorlessly. "Trap you for eternity. Is this funny now?"
"No," Lusca said narrowly as Poseidon drew the circles around her body, weak for bloodless and healing to slow to be able to do anything about it. "This is not..."
*********************
"...funny in the least tiniest bit!"
Ranma and Naiki watched as the red marks on Lusca's face flared into life, the girl's body started shifting and growing.
"Oh crap!" Naiki said. "Mom!?"
"I don't think we can stop her," Ranma said as Lusca had already grown to four times her normal size and kept growing. "Besides, if you remember right, we're going to need her."
Lusca dived forward and vanished into the water.
One of the Behemoths was wading through the waves toward the island, three others flanking it, when the water ahead of it exploded upward and the pilot with in found himself staring at the tooth filled maw of something that looked like it belonged in a horror movie.
It was easily as tall as the Behemoth, if much more slender, with four draconic legs, two of which were more like long arms, holding up a reptilian body and draconic head out of which eight tentacles grow with a thick webbing between them, like some sort of monstrous frill.
Tentacles with razor-tipped hooks slipping out of the suckers lashed outward around his vehicle and crushed downward even as he tried to raise his lambda driver. The tentacles wrapped around the head of the creature and just about swallowed the bulk of the first Behemoth. Underneath the frill, along the neck of the creature, a row of eyes opened one by one to watch what was going on as it attacked the thing in front of it.
The pilot inside screamed aloud in his cockpit as he tried to train the weapons of the monstrous robot on his attacker, drawing a line of blood across what may have been a shoulder, but doing little more than minor annoyance through the aura.
The other three behemoths tried to ignore the monster as it seemed to focus on the first of them. They were intent on their mission, which was to reach the island and cause as much damage as possible. The heavy cannons in the head were already strafing across the waters at everything that could be targeted. A pair of destroyers exploded into gouts of fire under the attack, followed immediately by a transport loaded mostly with civilians that had been arriving to start on repairing the damage the battle had done.
Naval cannons flashed out, shells exploding against the lambda driver induced chi-fields. But that didn't stop them. And soon hastily called in jets slipped by sending missiles into the robots, which exploded with shattering force on the things.
Huge tentacles ripped out of the water like a wall that was as tall as the Behemoths were, and lashed out to grab at the giant robots, hoping to hold them in place so that they couldn't advance on the island.
"Thorns!" one of the pilots shouted. "Remember the footage."
The lambda driver boosted auras shifted into the sharp forms of terrible spikes which tried to tear at the tentacles that reached out to grab them.
The monster itself yelped and leaped back, bleeding from several relatively small wounds as the visibly mauled Behemoth sent it back. The frill of tentacles fell back, covering the row of eyes on its neck.
As the creature roared out wordlessly, a blast of red, raw pishouge tore out of the creature as if it was breathing crimson, bloody fire and slammed into the already damaged Behemoth as it pulled its thorns back and tried to form a shield again.
The blast of energy ripped the machines right arm clean off even as the other Behemoths were approaching the monster's form and drawing their huge swords.
Neither of the first two noticed as two human sized swords leaped out to land on the swords, which extended outside the clumsily shaped lambda driver fields and thus did not benefit from their protection.
The pilots of those two Behemoths looked in confusion and shock as their swords were sliced apart length by length, approaching ever closer to the hand. Focusing in, they saw flickers of movement from Naiki and Ranma, one on each robot, and the two machines tried to turn their guns on the two martial artists.
Which earned them apparently special attention from the monster which jumped between them and lashed out with its own tentacles to grip the head and start crushing until the cannons tore gaping holes in the tentacles at a cost of their own destruction.
The most severely damaged of the Behemoths limped into position facing the monster which was apparently distracted by the pain of its wounds, and started blasting into the creature with its own cannons, drawing a line up the things body.
Naiki leaped over to the shoulder of the tentacle monster and reared back her hands.
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" she shouted, angrily pushing forward.
The line of automatic cannon shells suddenly reversed back towards the Behemoth tearing it into pieces as its damaged lambda driver failed to raise a field to compete with the attack.
The fourth behemoth was circling around slowly behind the monster, raising a massive sword wrapped in lambda-driver created chi.
Lightning bolts rained down on top of it, one after another, smashing into the chi-aura and weakening it, overbearing it, each time. Electricity coursed into the robot a little more each time, slagging new circuits and making the thing harder and harder to control.
Ranma looked from her position on the remaining hilt of one of the massive swords and saw Deimosu along with Urd, Raiden and Thor standing on the nearby shore and concentrating despite all three of the older Immortals having serious injuries still to deal with.
The cruise missile from behind finished off that fourth Behemoth in a high explosive flash as Ranma turned toward the robot whose weapon she was standing on and took a deep breath before diving through the field, pushing it aside with her own chi as she move further down, closer to the actual AS.
More Demons, Gods and Ainur appeared on the shores wielding various different powers to rain down on the remaining two Behemoths even while they struggled with the tentacles of the monster around them until they tried to drive it off with thorns again.
Naiki gripped tightly to a ridge of the creature she was standing on as it jumped away before the thorns could stab her deeply again.
The thorns only made it easier for Ranma to reach the cockpit entry and, now underneath the aura of protection, smash through into it and finding the pilot beneath. The shocked man looked up into the redheaded form of the exorcist that had just ripped his door off and then he saw what looked like a single fist coming his way and his skull caved in.
Jumping away as the Behemoth fell backward, Ranma watched as the last monster AS caved in under a barrage of magic and conventional power.
As the the Behemoths were destroyed, attention was cautiously turned toward the massive tentacle monster still vaguely glowing red and standing in the middle of the surf, looking around frantically, tentacles twitching.
"Hey! They're gone! Calm down," Naiki shouted.
The creature hesitated and seemed to look around itself for whoever had just said that, not thinking that perhaps the speaker was on the body already.
The simple, curious gesture was enough for the anger and fear to lose their hold on the creature and it visibly started to shrink down. Naiki leaped off and came to the shrinking creature's side as it became obvious that the wounds she'd received weren't going to just vanish.
**************
"And after you don't need it, you...I can forget again."
**************
Lusca blinked as she found herself in the water and a bit confused. She'd just been fighting something. She wasn't exactly sure why, it just hadn't been funny, that's all she knew. There was an odd sensation that was immediately answered as she noticed a red trail working out away from her through the water.
"Oh I got hurt, right," she said with a frown.
Then Naiki was swimming up to her side and grabbing hold. The next moment they were teleporting away and Lusca found herself in the medical tent, which didn't make much sense since she wasn't on duty at the moment.
"Hey!" Naiki shouted. "I need someone to come help me here! Someone that knows Demon anatomy."
Lusca blushed then as she realized that Naiki was holding her gently and firmly.
"Did you just save me from the monsters?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," Naiki said casually. "Where's a doctor?"
"SQUEEE!!" Lusca declared loudly and holding Naiki reciprocally tightly. "So brave!"
Naiki almost fell over then as Lusca altered the weight balance she was working with.
"Whoa! Wait until you're not bleeding!" Naiki pleaded. "Bullet holes, Lusca! Bullet holes!"
that's the general gist of the responses so far
so now I ask another question
what's it say about a story when the back ground of one of the plucky comic relief characters is:
witness mass slaughter of family and friends while unable to do anything about it
sealed in magical prison
self-inflicted mind rape for the purpose of minimizing the effect of Immortality Immorality
so now I ask another question
what's it say about a story when the back ground of one of the plucky comic relief characters is:
witness mass slaughter of family and friends while unable to do anything about it
sealed in magical prison
self-inflicted mind rape for the purpose of minimizing the effect of Immortality Immorality
Elizabeth Weir walked into the room as the bomb in question was sitting in the gate room, and the vast collection of seal-connections that Atlantis had available to reach many of the shards in Earth's cosmology. Some were copies of those that Earth had, but most were deeper shards, shards that were on the edges of Earth's cosmology.
"Is that it?" she asked.
"Yes," McKay said in serious tone of voice. "That's the bomb Kavanagh swears he didn't bring in."
"And why isn't it already gone?" Elizabeth asked.
"Because I tend to think that when the apocalyptic madman sets a bomb to blow up a city at the time of his death," Rodney says, "he doesn't just assume radio signals will make it past dimensional barriers."
"If you think it might be booby-trapped then why move it at all?" Elizabeth asked.
"I've already determined that it's not going to go off just by moving it around," McKay said. "What I'm concerned with is whether it will go boom if we try to move it from one dimension to another. Kavanagh is an idiot but he's plenty smart enough to be able to craft a little thing that goes 'zot' when a dimensional border is crossed."
"It goes 'zot', we go boom," Weir noted.
"Exactly," McKay said. "I figure this bomb is probably set to explode if we either try to take it apart or to send it away."
Weir moved toward the window and looked out into the vast ocean surrounding the city.
"Can you prove that?" she asked.
"I'm working on that," Rodney said firmly.
"You're aware there may be another bomb in Tokyo?" Weir said. "It could just be here to make us waste our time."
"I know that," McKay snapped. "I also know that Shepard and everybody else are currently in Tokyo, and have been for the last few hours. I also know that it's also a war zone. But until I have proof otherwise, I'm going to say the crazy guy who wanted a nuclear pyre on death planned on using us as the detonation trigger."
Weir stared at him for a moment and he calmed down slightly.
"Sorry," he said, nervously. "I'm under a bit of pressure."
"Apology accepted," Dr. Weir said before glancing up to see Kaname Chidori, Eija Satomi, Kyoko Tokiwa and another girl on the balcony at the window looking out.
Ostensibly, they were obviously there to look out at the view, but they could have gotten that anywhere. Most likely they were there to see how their bomb warning was going.
"Miss Chidori," Weir said. "I believe we had word that you're expected to meet with Major Carter and Captain Testarossa, shouldn't you be getting to that?"
"I'm on my way, Ma'am," she said quickly. "We were just wondering..."
"Yes, the bomb thing is going well," Rodney said. "Now you have your project, I have mine, if you'll excuse me I think I have to figure out how to determine if this thing is booby trapped without doing anything that will trigger a booby trap."
"Why not just throw it off the side of the world?" the fourth girl asked.
Weir and McKay both paused for a moment.
"Mizuki, the world isn't flat," Kaname noted.
"Actually, this one is," McKay said moving quickly to the balcony and looking out toward the horizon.
"Won't the gravity just pull it up against the bottom of the world?" Weir asked.
"Yeah, but that's like a mile thick rock underneath the ocean," McKay said. "I don't think we'll have to worry about any radiation down there. Wire it to explode so that it's not just sitting around waiting to pop back up again...we should be clear."
"Get to it," Weir said. "Quickly. Miss Chidori, I think you need to be going. We'll open a gate as soon as this device..." she indicated the bomb, "...is out of the room. Should make things easier for you."
"Thanks," Kaname said,
*****************
Sousuke listened to the distant sound of gunfire and resisted the urge to go to it. He had his orders, it it involved getting rid of these chemical weapons.
Any suggestions? he asked.
I believe I can help, Eija said. I'll be there shortly.
Eija, the area is very dangerous and...
You have an injured man who's continued life will keep nuclear devices from going off, Eija said.
Affirmative, Sousuke said reluctantly. What is the status on the radiation?
I'm at the American place, Kaname said. Tessa and I are working on it with them. But it's going to be a little bit. The Immortals we were gathering got caught up in a fight on Kyushu.
We have four hours, Sousuke noted idly. It shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah, four hours to figure out how to push radiation out of the atmosphere without electrocuting anybody below it, Kaname noted.
Suddenly, Eija's presence felt much closer and Sousuke knew she was in the building even before she told him.
I'm here, she said. And now, I think we might seal that room. I shall walk you through it.
*************
Batiste watched as Sousuke darted into the room full of vats that they had discovered while Grey chased after the young man that had just fired on them. That left him behind to pretty much live as long as possible to keep the rigged heart monitor from sending the message of destruction.
Which had him thinking.
It should have been set up so that when the guy died, it stopped transmitting. If that had been the case, they would have all died from the nerve gas and a couple other bombs would have gone off.
Grunting and clutching at the bullet wound he'd taken, Batiste turned around to start examining the machine in front of him. If he could find the transmitter and take it apart, they wouldn't need to worry about the bombs anymore.
He almost jumped when a hand clapped on his shoulder and turned, with gun ready to see one of Sousuke's girlfriends there at his side.
"Where the hell did you come from?" he demanded.
And she finished stepping out of the pool of blood beside him.
"I'm sorry," she said apologetically. "I tend to surprise people."
She bowed momentarily and started looking to his injury.
"Let me see what I can do about this," she said politely. "Keep doing what you are doing, I shall not interfere."
*****************
Zaid jumped out into the street and ducked around a wall, aiming his rifle at the doorway, waiting for Grey to follow his steps.
He was surprised at the sound of feet on the roof above him and glanced up just in time to see her aiming her submachine gun down into the alleyway.
Barely dodging out of the way and around another corner he heard her land on the building he was leaning against and cursed. Buildings put close together were not uncommon in his home, but he'd spent more of his time hunting and fighting in the desert hills of Helmjastan. This woman apparently knew urban warfare much better than he did.
He dashed out, keeping tight against the building so that she couldn't easily target down at him while he tried to move as quietly as possible, looking for a building that had a distance too wide for her jump across.
The scrabbling of footsteps brought him to look in time to duck underneath another stream of bullets, though one still scratched a line down his shoulder. He returned fire with his rifle, but she was already almost completely behind cover when he did so.
Her choice of weapon was also better suited to an urban confrontation, not requiring as much to get in line as his rifle did. Swinging it back around his back, he retrieved a pistol and waited for her to show herself again.
Grey came from a different direction than he'd expected, popping out of a different split between two buildings and directing her submachine gun towards where Zaid had stationed himself, looking for cover.
He turned quickly and fired just about the same time she did, three slugs slashing out, one cutting into and through her stomach even as her own bullets raked across his torso.
Both fell back away from each other, grunting with the pain that pounded through the armor each was wearing. They each crawled into cover before looking for the next shot. They were catching their breath, but in that time, they each loss track of the other.
Zaid, turned around a corner and froze, seeing a person standing there in the shadows that looked somewhat familiar.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone that can give you a way to survive," the man said with a smile.
It was several minutes of fruitless stalking before Grey decided that the man had gotten away. Slipping back into the shadows she headed back for the others as quickly as possible.
*****************
Eija scanned the room about her, looking for the spirit, expecting him to be around somewhere, watching and waiting for his final trick to be played. Maybe hoping to play a few more as a ghost.
"Almost got this disarmed," her patient said beside her. "And then we should be safe to..."
The reflection of a digital display off the metallic floor suddenly appeared, catching Batiste's eye as he clipped the last wire.
"Is something the mat..."
Eija found herself pushed roughly back as the bed containing Gauron's body was twisted on its side between her and Batiste.
************
Sousuke watched with something close to amazement as the entire room simply vanished leaving empty air where it had been, only leaving behind what appeared to be a small shell or a large bullet.
And then the building rocked with an explosion as he felt Eija's surprise and pain pour through the link he now had with her.
Eija! Kaname's voice called out along with his as he rushed back into the garden to find a blackened mess, Batiste's corpse thrown into one far wall.
Kaname appeared then out of a burst of circular, liquid energy and, like Sousuke, zeroed in on Eija's position. She was bruised, battered and unconscious, but judging by the area of untouched wall and floor around her, had managed to raise a mana-shield quickly enough to withstand the bulk of the explosion.
"Well, isn't this familiar," Kaname said as she came to Eija's side, clearly trying to lighten the mood as her eyes flared red and she took in Eija's condition. "She's going to be okay, I don't think she's in danger."
"Good," Sousuke said with relief before he moved to check Batiste's body. "He took the full brunt of the explosion, must have thrown himself on it."
He frowned and looked toward the center of the explosion darkly. This device hadn't been nearly as powerful as the last one. Was it truly designed to kill him, or just make him suffer the death of others?
"What the hell was that?" Grey demanded as she came into the area. She turned and saw Kaname and Eija and then Batiste. "Oh no! Batiste, what happened?"
"I think he may have been trying to disarm the readout," Sousuke said grimly.
"You mean...the signal went out?" Grey asked silently.
"It may have," the Ainur noted.
"I'm taking Eija back to Atlantis," Kaname said quickly.
"We should all go," Grey said. "Now, our mission here is over."
************
"Kaname, back to Major Carter!" Mara said as they appeared in Atlantis.
"But..." Kaname started to protest.
"We've got Belldandy and a couple others coming in for Eija," Mara said quickly. "They're already looking over Lusca in there, so they're ready. She'll be fine."
"Did the bomb?" Kaname started to ask quietly.
"The bomb that was here was detonated under Atlantis with no problem," Mara said.
"What happened with the Tokyo bomb?" Grey asked desperately.
"I was going to ask you that!" Mara said quickly, snapping her head around.
"We're not sure," Grey answered. "We think Batiste made an uninstructed attempt to disarm the heart monitor. Did the bomb go off in Tokyo?"
"No," Mara said. "Not Tokyo."
"But it did go off," Kaname said weakly.
*****************
Nabiki stared across the horizon toward the other side of Okinawa with a bleak horror at the sight of the rising mushroom cloud.
"Good heavens," she whispered. "That's the refugee settlements."
People from China, Southeast Asia, and recently mainland Japan. The majority of them had been placed on that side of the island. For the past ten years, it was the main place on Okinawa for refugees of any type to stay long or short term.
"Aunt Nabiki," Kimiko said quietly. "What's that mean?"
"It means something bad happened," Nabiki said, holding the hands of her nieces and nephews tightly and staring out in that direction.
"Is that it?" she asked.
"Yes," McKay said in serious tone of voice. "That's the bomb Kavanagh swears he didn't bring in."
"And why isn't it already gone?" Elizabeth asked.
"Because I tend to think that when the apocalyptic madman sets a bomb to blow up a city at the time of his death," Rodney says, "he doesn't just assume radio signals will make it past dimensional barriers."
"If you think it might be booby-trapped then why move it at all?" Elizabeth asked.
"I've already determined that it's not going to go off just by moving it around," McKay said. "What I'm concerned with is whether it will go boom if we try to move it from one dimension to another. Kavanagh is an idiot but he's plenty smart enough to be able to craft a little thing that goes 'zot' when a dimensional border is crossed."
"It goes 'zot', we go boom," Weir noted.
"Exactly," McKay said. "I figure this bomb is probably set to explode if we either try to take it apart or to send it away."
Weir moved toward the window and looked out into the vast ocean surrounding the city.
"Can you prove that?" she asked.
"I'm working on that," Rodney said firmly.
"You're aware there may be another bomb in Tokyo?" Weir said. "It could just be here to make us waste our time."
"I know that," McKay snapped. "I also know that Shepard and everybody else are currently in Tokyo, and have been for the last few hours. I also know that it's also a war zone. But until I have proof otherwise, I'm going to say the crazy guy who wanted a nuclear pyre on death planned on using us as the detonation trigger."
Weir stared at him for a moment and he calmed down slightly.
"Sorry," he said, nervously. "I'm under a bit of pressure."
"Apology accepted," Dr. Weir said before glancing up to see Kaname Chidori, Eija Satomi, Kyoko Tokiwa and another girl on the balcony at the window looking out.
Ostensibly, they were obviously there to look out at the view, but they could have gotten that anywhere. Most likely they were there to see how their bomb warning was going.
"Miss Chidori," Weir said. "I believe we had word that you're expected to meet with Major Carter and Captain Testarossa, shouldn't you be getting to that?"
"I'm on my way, Ma'am," she said quickly. "We were just wondering..."
"Yes, the bomb thing is going well," Rodney said. "Now you have your project, I have mine, if you'll excuse me I think I have to figure out how to determine if this thing is booby trapped without doing anything that will trigger a booby trap."
"Why not just throw it off the side of the world?" the fourth girl asked.
Weir and McKay both paused for a moment.
"Mizuki, the world isn't flat," Kaname noted.
"Actually, this one is," McKay said moving quickly to the balcony and looking out toward the horizon.
"Won't the gravity just pull it up against the bottom of the world?" Weir asked.
"Yeah, but that's like a mile thick rock underneath the ocean," McKay said. "I don't think we'll have to worry about any radiation down there. Wire it to explode so that it's not just sitting around waiting to pop back up again...we should be clear."
"Get to it," Weir said. "Quickly. Miss Chidori, I think you need to be going. We'll open a gate as soon as this device..." she indicated the bomb, "...is out of the room. Should make things easier for you."
"Thanks," Kaname said,
*****************
Sousuke listened to the distant sound of gunfire and resisted the urge to go to it. He had his orders, it it involved getting rid of these chemical weapons.
Any suggestions? he asked.
I believe I can help, Eija said. I'll be there shortly.
Eija, the area is very dangerous and...
You have an injured man who's continued life will keep nuclear devices from going off, Eija said.
Affirmative, Sousuke said reluctantly. What is the status on the radiation?
I'm at the American place, Kaname said. Tessa and I are working on it with them. But it's going to be a little bit. The Immortals we were gathering got caught up in a fight on Kyushu.
We have four hours, Sousuke noted idly. It shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah, four hours to figure out how to push radiation out of the atmosphere without electrocuting anybody below it, Kaname noted.
Suddenly, Eija's presence felt much closer and Sousuke knew she was in the building even before she told him.
I'm here, she said. And now, I think we might seal that room. I shall walk you through it.
*************
Batiste watched as Sousuke darted into the room full of vats that they had discovered while Grey chased after the young man that had just fired on them. That left him behind to pretty much live as long as possible to keep the rigged heart monitor from sending the message of destruction.
Which had him thinking.
It should have been set up so that when the guy died, it stopped transmitting. If that had been the case, they would have all died from the nerve gas and a couple other bombs would have gone off.
Grunting and clutching at the bullet wound he'd taken, Batiste turned around to start examining the machine in front of him. If he could find the transmitter and take it apart, they wouldn't need to worry about the bombs anymore.
He almost jumped when a hand clapped on his shoulder and turned, with gun ready to see one of Sousuke's girlfriends there at his side.
"Where the hell did you come from?" he demanded.
And she finished stepping out of the pool of blood beside him.
"I'm sorry," she said apologetically. "I tend to surprise people."
She bowed momentarily and started looking to his injury.
"Let me see what I can do about this," she said politely. "Keep doing what you are doing, I shall not interfere."
*****************
Zaid jumped out into the street and ducked around a wall, aiming his rifle at the doorway, waiting for Grey to follow his steps.
He was surprised at the sound of feet on the roof above him and glanced up just in time to see her aiming her submachine gun down into the alleyway.
Barely dodging out of the way and around another corner he heard her land on the building he was leaning against and cursed. Buildings put close together were not uncommon in his home, but he'd spent more of his time hunting and fighting in the desert hills of Helmjastan. This woman apparently knew urban warfare much better than he did.
He dashed out, keeping tight against the building so that she couldn't easily target down at him while he tried to move as quietly as possible, looking for a building that had a distance too wide for her jump across.
The scrabbling of footsteps brought him to look in time to duck underneath another stream of bullets, though one still scratched a line down his shoulder. He returned fire with his rifle, but she was already almost completely behind cover when he did so.
Her choice of weapon was also better suited to an urban confrontation, not requiring as much to get in line as his rifle did. Swinging it back around his back, he retrieved a pistol and waited for her to show herself again.
Grey came from a different direction than he'd expected, popping out of a different split between two buildings and directing her submachine gun towards where Zaid had stationed himself, looking for cover.
He turned quickly and fired just about the same time she did, three slugs slashing out, one cutting into and through her stomach even as her own bullets raked across his torso.
Both fell back away from each other, grunting with the pain that pounded through the armor each was wearing. They each crawled into cover before looking for the next shot. They were catching their breath, but in that time, they each loss track of the other.
Zaid, turned around a corner and froze, seeing a person standing there in the shadows that looked somewhat familiar.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone that can give you a way to survive," the man said with a smile.
It was several minutes of fruitless stalking before Grey decided that the man had gotten away. Slipping back into the shadows she headed back for the others as quickly as possible.
*****************
Eija scanned the room about her, looking for the spirit, expecting him to be around somewhere, watching and waiting for his final trick to be played. Maybe hoping to play a few more as a ghost.
"Almost got this disarmed," her patient said beside her. "And then we should be safe to..."
The reflection of a digital display off the metallic floor suddenly appeared, catching Batiste's eye as he clipped the last wire.
"Is something the mat..."
Eija found herself pushed roughly back as the bed containing Gauron's body was twisted on its side between her and Batiste.
************
Sousuke watched with something close to amazement as the entire room simply vanished leaving empty air where it had been, only leaving behind what appeared to be a small shell or a large bullet.
And then the building rocked with an explosion as he felt Eija's surprise and pain pour through the link he now had with her.
Eija! Kaname's voice called out along with his as he rushed back into the garden to find a blackened mess, Batiste's corpse thrown into one far wall.
Kaname appeared then out of a burst of circular, liquid energy and, like Sousuke, zeroed in on Eija's position. She was bruised, battered and unconscious, but judging by the area of untouched wall and floor around her, had managed to raise a mana-shield quickly enough to withstand the bulk of the explosion.
"Well, isn't this familiar," Kaname said as she came to Eija's side, clearly trying to lighten the mood as her eyes flared red and she took in Eija's condition. "She's going to be okay, I don't think she's in danger."
"Good," Sousuke said with relief before he moved to check Batiste's body. "He took the full brunt of the explosion, must have thrown himself on it."
He frowned and looked toward the center of the explosion darkly. This device hadn't been nearly as powerful as the last one. Was it truly designed to kill him, or just make him suffer the death of others?
"What the hell was that?" Grey demanded as she came into the area. She turned and saw Kaname and Eija and then Batiste. "Oh no! Batiste, what happened?"
"I think he may have been trying to disarm the readout," Sousuke said grimly.
"You mean...the signal went out?" Grey asked silently.
"It may have," the Ainur noted.
"I'm taking Eija back to Atlantis," Kaname said quickly.
"We should all go," Grey said. "Now, our mission here is over."
************
"Kaname, back to Major Carter!" Mara said as they appeared in Atlantis.
"But..." Kaname started to protest.
"We've got Belldandy and a couple others coming in for Eija," Mara said quickly. "They're already looking over Lusca in there, so they're ready. She'll be fine."
"Did the bomb?" Kaname started to ask quietly.
"The bomb that was here was detonated under Atlantis with no problem," Mara said.
"What happened with the Tokyo bomb?" Grey asked desperately.
"I was going to ask you that!" Mara said quickly, snapping her head around.
"We're not sure," Grey answered. "We think Batiste made an uninstructed attempt to disarm the heart monitor. Did the bomb go off in Tokyo?"
"No," Mara said. "Not Tokyo."
"But it did go off," Kaname said weakly.
*****************
Nabiki stared across the horizon toward the other side of Okinawa with a bleak horror at the sight of the rising mushroom cloud.
"Good heavens," she whispered. "That's the refugee settlements."
People from China, Southeast Asia, and recently mainland Japan. The majority of them had been placed on that side of the island. For the past ten years, it was the main place on Okinawa for refugees of any type to stay long or short term.
"Aunt Nabiki," Kimiko said quietly. "What's that mean?"
"It means something bad happened," Nabiki said, holding the hands of her nieces and nephews tightly and staring out in that direction.
little bit of both...I figure a lot of the people that escaped Japan went there, as did a lot of people that earlier escaped China and other hot spots...it's a nice half-way spot between Japan and elsewhere and would make a good stop over in the real world for refugees in case of a real world crisis
Hours before Gauron's deliveries were dealt with successfully or otherwise and soon after the meeting between the leaders had been made, other events were taking place.
"What do you mean you're not letting me go!" Urd snapped angrily into Athena's face. "Or Belldandy? Skuld is our sister!"
The white-haired Goddess showed more than a few signs that she had been in the battle, including some freshly healed scars that hadn't faded it.
If they continued fading. Urd was half-Demon, after all, and though she'd never shown signs of a desire to ruin her "perfect" skin in the past, some Demons were strangely attracted to "artful" scars.
The Goddess shook her head and decided it must have been some sort of upbringing, since the Demons born in Asgard didn't show as much of that.
"You're needed," Athena said. "This project of the Ainur's feels like something necessary. I am very disturbed by the fallout coming out of Russia. It should have been contained with the missiles."
"Perhaps at least I could go," Belldandy suggested hopefully.
"Again, you are necessary here, Belldandy," Athena said. "Healthy healers are still necessary. And I think she should be prepared to help Mara as well."
"So, we're just supposed to trust Skuld's safety to a bunch of strangers?" Urd demanded angrily. "Granted, they're strangers with a good rep, but they're still not us."
"Not entirely," Athena said with a knowing smile, she glanced toward the side. "Miss Fujimi and your husband, are also not being allowed to go, but they have managed to do us a bit of a favor."
Belldandy turned to look and see Chihiro there, looking just as dissatisfied as Urd and Belldandy did. She was leaning against the door frame as Keiichi came in ahead of a somewhat altered looking Banpei.
"Banpei?" Urd said. "You're sending that robot into a war-zone to find Skuld? No offense, Banpei, you're good and all, but you stand out a little bit and you'll run out of power in a....wait a minute."
"We've worked on polishing Skuld's energy producing systems," Keiichi said going up to Belldandy and giving Athena a look that said he also wished he was going. "We made a lot more efficient. He'll be able to last a bit longer now and he'll be able to put more energy into his actions now."
His arms were on Belldandy's as he looked back toward the robot and Chihiro there.
"And we added some other stuff too," Chihiro said. "Burrowed somewhat from what Testarossa had us put into the Sciroccos."
"There's something else besides," another voice said as two figures stepped into the doorway.
*********************
Shepard and his company immediately ducked for cover as they arrived in Tokyo and found themselves within sound of a battle of some kind.
"The hell?" he demanded, glancing toward the sound from behind cover and catching flashes of blue mana in the distance.
"I believe we were briefed that the Gods in control of Tokyo had take to fighting each other," Teyla noted quietly.
"I guess so," Ronan said shrugging the situation aside. "So, where's the fun?"
"There's an underground entrance with a handful of guards," Teyla said. "They'll be hard to sneak up on given that they're just as worried about the fighting going on as we were. However, they've managed to hide the presence of either chi or mana."
"With a bunch of crazy, would be evil-overlords rampaging around on top of them?" Ronan asked. "How surprising is that."
"Yeah, our beacon is coming from in there too," Lorne said.
"All right then," Shepard said, looking toward Lorne and the other soldiers. "Let's go then."
Breaking cover, Shepard and his team darted across the street in small numbers, ones and twos, scattering about the identified location.
Someone was scene and a blast of automatic fire stenciled its way through the late afternoon.
"Damn it," Shepard said over the radio. "I was hoping that would go easier. So the little girl with the dizzy blast...6-3-4 right."
"I think you were the one that warned to keep experimenting down to a minimum, Major," Lorne responded. "We have flashbangs."
Shepard turned to Teyla as bullets splanged against his cover for no better reason than to let him know that Kolya's thugs knew where he was.
"I finally get superpowers and I have to be reasonable and say 'don't use them until you know how'," he said, rolling his eyes.
Teyla smirked briefly and nodded at him.
"Well this is why you have a trained psychic on hand, isn't it?" Teyla asked as she ran through a sequence of numbers. "I am ready."
"Everybody, flashbang on three, Teyla guides them in," he summarized. "And then Ronan leads the way. One, two..."
The guards watched inexplicably as half a dozen flashbangs shifted unerringly into the mouth of their exit. One of them reached down to try and grab for one of the items, when all six erupted into a blast of sound and light.
After that they were inside.
This, of course, was what was supposed to happen and everybody realized it.
***********************
Skuld laughed in triumph as she finished the third of the little robots and wiped at her forehead. She'd had to take a few shortcuts for the programming, but they only really had two functions right now: help her make more of them and incapacitate any threats, preferably non-lethally.
She could hear the efforts being made to tear into her force field and knew that it was going to come down pretty soon, so she turned back to the six-legged thing that bore a passing resemblance to one of her greatest nuisances.
And she switched it on.
"All right," she said, standing up. "Everybody list..."
Skuld stopped as she turned around behind her and saw that there were a lot more of the six-legged robots than the two she'd already made plus the one she'd just finished. She counted about thirty in easy view, and there were holes in the wall that implied some had left the area.
"Uhhh...." she said nervously as she watched the things progressively tearing apart the room she was in. "You're not supposed to make so many of yourself..."
They didn't respond, which was hardly surprising given how she hadn't had time to really give them a true AI like Banpei's.
"Hey! Stop that!" Skuld shouted releasing a small burst of mana directed one of the robots and causing it to fall apart almost instantly.
The remaining members of the swarm turned about to regard Skuld.
"Incapacitate threat?" Skuld asked.
Her mind cast backwards to something Chihiro had said.
"All the brilliance of Einstein and Tesla combined, and the forethought of a monkey."
*********************
"It looks like the shock generated by whatever she did is lessening," one of the guards said. "These psychics we brought with..."
And Skuld burst out of the supposedly electro-sealed door and started running pell mell for the exit.
Kolya was about to order someone to stop her in a casual tone when the small swarm of insect like robots swarmed out of the room after her.
"Go! Go!" Kolya shouted, firing at the little mechanical monsters and unwittingly marking himself as a threat.
He had a minor thought, a bit later than would have been useful, as corollary to one of the "Evil Overlord Lists" he'd heard while on Earth.
When locking someone in the storeroom, make sure it's not MacGyver. Make damn sure it's not a mad scientist.
He wasn't sure who MacGyver was but figured it was a folk hero of some sort. But it was the second part that seemed to apply now.
********************
Simmons and the rest of Amalgam's assault unit came in behind Shepard's. They had a pair of exorcists with them to shape a gate, but such were still human and could do things as swiftly as the Ainur now could.
It was also a rather noisy affair, speaking in terms of power use.
So, as Simmons, Maybourne and their unit slipped into the pre-breached location after Shepard's unit, their arrival was noted by several Gods within the area.
******************
Skuld turned a corner, breathing a sigh of relief as she realized it seemed to be a long empty corridor.
"Okay..." Skuld said. "I screwed up a little bit. This can still be dealt with."
The Goddess of the Future blew a strand of pink hair out of her face and leaned against a wall. She was out of that room now and out where she had better access to Yggdrasil and other things.
Reaching out her hand, her long handled red hammer was just there. It wasn't called the Mjolnir Mk 2 for no reason, after all. Reaching out with the next hand she found herself a handful of Skuld bombs.
"All right, Now" she said with initial confidence before slumping again. "Now this still isn't going to help me much against insane, reproducing spider-bots."
"Hey, you're the prisoner!" someone shouted behind her. "What are you doing out..."
And he blinked as a handful of knobby things flew out toward him. He blinked for a moment, wondering what the things were supposed to be. And then they burst into loud smoke in his face, knocking him backward.
A spray of bullets lashed out high over her head causing her to duck underneath even as she lashed out with her hammer and slammed it into the man's head so that he collapsed unconscious to the floor. Taking a breath, she retracted the hammer's handle to it's traveling size and tried to choose a direction to go.
The mechanical clicking sound caused her to freeze for a moment before a hole started opening up.
Skuld's eyes widened nervously as she started to runaway and then turned around to grab the legs of the soldier that had just tried to shoot her and started lugging him back with her.
"Let's use the robots from that old movie, nothing could go wrong with that," Skuld said to herself. "And let's make them help make more, easy."
Hearing voices and steps coming down from one direction, she immediately took the man with her and turned down another hallway, watching the first of the runaway robots starting to come into the hall with her.
She stumbled into a wide chamber. Until she tripped over a wire and the sound of small explosions tore through the small room. A wide sheet of metal jury-rigged into portcullis slammed downward heavily slicing into and through the legs of the man she was trying to save.
Behind her the same tripwire triggered a similar jury-rigged trap there sealing her into the little room.
The man she'd been dragging woke up screaming and moved to a sitting up position, only to be shot through the head by a bullet just moments after a little red dot appeared on his back.
Staying exactly where she'd fallen, Skuld immediately looked around the room for similar red dots and sweated nervously as she easily found another twenty in easy view with moving her head at all.
"Oh...no," she whispered.
**********************
"What the hell are these things?" Shepard asked, firing into the handful of little robots in the hallway ahead of him. "Where were those gunshots?"
"Over here, Shepard," Ronan said, pointing toward what was very clearly an only recently placed obstacle.
Especially given the severed legs.
He glanced over toward Teyla who nodded.
"There's someone behind there, extremely terrified..." she blinked suddenly, ignoring the way Ronan smirked and gestured to the severed legs at her comment of someone extremely terrified. "I think it is the girl we're here to save."
"Hey, who's in there?" Ronan shouted banging on the door.
"Don't hit the door!" a girl's voice obscured by the thickness of the door. "There are laser pointers everywhere in here!"
"Booby traps, great," Shepard said. "At least we don't have a rising tide or something."
The sound of more gunfire was heard then.
"Umm, Major," Lorne said, glancing around a corner. "You know those little robots you blew up?"
"Yeah?" Shepard asked.
"Well, there's more of them," Lorne said. "A lot more."
Next to him another of the marines was firing into the approaching mass of robots. Turning around the corner to look, Shepard swallowed. Especially as further down the hallway he saw a mercenary, probably one of Kolya's disappear under a small wave of the things.
"Okay, someone get me Tom Selleck on the line," Shepard demanded.
Behind him, Teyla and Ronan were examining the door.
"I'm sorry!" Skuld's voice whined from inside her trap.
Shepard took a steadying breath and thought about the "basic" use of just sending a burst of raw chi down the hallway, tearing through the first ranks of the advancing robots. It wasn't exactly the most tireless thing he could think of.
Experiments and experience between the Invasion day and this morning's and early afternoon's attack on Kyushu said that chi was best used to enhance already existing abilities. Shields and blasts were less efficient.
"Okay, so more Bruce Willis, less X-Men until later," he muttered. "How's the door coming."
"There's charges here," Ronan said. "If we go in after her, something goes boom and probably triggers a handful of traps inside."
"We've got company coming," Teyla shouted. "More people behind us, and I think I felt Kolya further in."
"Everything just keeps getting better," Shepard said as he nodded toward Lorne and both turned about the corner to fire into the mass.
Strangely enough each of the bullets struck a different robot in the best possible spot and not a bullet was wasted.
"Scratch Bruce Willis, Major," Lorne said. "Looks like we're somewhere between Christopher Bale and John Woo."
*********************
Kolya cursed to himself as the radio on his belt started cackling, one of his traps had been triggered. He was listening in on the banter with Shepard and Miss Wodendottir as it happened.
He'd wanted to do this in the location he had prepared specially for this confrontation. Spent weeks on it, months even, even before Gauron made his offer. It was perfect, clean, sterile and had been lined with every ward, circle, trap and security feature he could think of and afford to steal or purchase.
It had been the perfect trap to, if not kill Shepard, at the very least destroy his confidence and trust in himself.
Instead he was in an underground complex that was either subway or sewer, he bet the former due to the lack of water in most places. He was in the middle of occupied territory that had just turned into an out and out war-zone of competing barbarians with superpowers. His traps had been built over a week with what he'd had on hand.
And now his jury-rigged lair was filled with an unknown number of rather aggressive spider-things.
Still, he couldn't let it show that things were going a little bit unexpected.
"Hello, Major Shepard," he said casually. "I see you've found my erstwhile guest. Now, I had originally intended someone else to be in there, but she'll do."
"Kolya!" Shepard shouted, and the man smiled as he imagined the man looking for the intercom. "This isn't like you. You've never taken uninvolved civilians hostage before like this."
"I can assure you, Major Shepard," he said. "That I was probably the best option she had. So I'm sorry it's her in there, but she's the one that didn't stay in her nice safe cell for the whole thing."
He heard a clattering sound and didn't bother to look as one of his shoulders fired on the appearing mechanical bug.
"Now if only Amalgam's people are just as predictable," he commented.
Blinking he watched as his exorcists started cautiously running past some of the mechanical bugs and noted the robots weren't bothering them.
"Something you did to hide yourself?" he asked.
"They don't attack you if you don't attack them," one of the mystics said.
"Then why did they attack the girl?" he asked.
"Teenaged temper tantrum?" someone wondered with a shrug.
"All right, make sure you two at least don't threaten them until you can find a way to turn them all off," Kolya instructed the psychics.
***********************
Simmons and Mayborne, at the head of their team, looked at the solid metal sheet or slab that had apparently fallen to cover the direct path in the last few minutes and then he glanced through one of the open hallways.
"Looks like we're going in alternate directions," he said idly. "Mayborne, that way."
"It might be better if I stay with you sir," the short, pudgy man said in an idle tone.
"I'm sure you would feel better," Simmons said. "Head that way anyway."
"As you wish, sir," the man said, clearly disappointed.
Mayborne moved his unit further down the hall cautiously, eyes looking for any sign of traps or tricks. Amalgam's soldiers were in front of him, doing their normal thing. And something caught his eye.
"Hey, don't forget to check those corners," he said. "Don't want to face some sort of demonic spider or something."
"Right," the soldier said, taking a tight turn around a piece of debris and tripping the wire there.
A moment later, Mayborne was leaping back as make shift barriers fell into place around his assigned unit and the sound of gunshots and explosions sounded within.
"Sorry guys," he said, tapping on the walls for the people inside. "You're not the only group that uses sleeper agents."
He took up his radio and started switching frequencies.
"Hello, Major Shepard," he said into the radio. "This call is just to tell you that you've got a little less company than you did a minute ago."
"Who is this?" Shepard asked.
"I think O'Neil may have mentioned me a couple of times, Mayborne," he said.
There was silence and gunfire for a moment.
"Aren't you an Amalgam spy or something?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, well, Amalgam planted me in Socrates," he said heading back to the place he'd left off from Simmons. "And then O'Neil and I came to agreement."
"Uh huh," Shepard said. "Look we're a little busy, can we talk about this later?"
"Yeah, I've got your back, Shepard," Mayborne said. "Simmons won't even know what..."
He paused as he looked up the hallway toward where the exit was.
"Ah hell," he muttered.
He unleashed a hail of bullet fire at the Gods coming down the hallway and dived aside.
The first God that appeared around the corner was amused when a small round metal object landed at his feet and raised his mana shield. Then the raw concussive force of the grenade pushed into that shield and slammed the God up into the ceiling, stunning him.
And then Mayborne was spraying into the darkness with his submachine gun as he dived into another hallway.
The gauntlet had converted the little amount of chi he was able to produce and then amplified the resultant pishogue, but it was still a tool made during the Doublet System and designed mostly to stun an opponent.
Turning a corner, he was surprised and dismayed to find a hallway full of robotic spiders eating away at the surroundings and apparently blithely unaware of him.
"Demonic spiders," he said, shaking his head. "Simmons had to come this way and given the lack of dead bodies..."
Returning to his quick pace, Mayborne passed through the small hordes of machines untouched. And then behind him, one of the Gods came around the corner tossing fire and melting several of the robots.
Instantly the place was alive with shuffling, clacking, swarming mechanical spiders charging away toward the newest threat. The first God and those behind him blinked incredulously as they tiny mechanical things swarmed toward them.
Mayborne took use of the distraction to send a handful of bullets into the body and head of the foremost God, distracted as the man was, then he vanished around q corner.
He was very careful not to step on any of the many, many robotic spiders moving past him.
************************
"A deadfall room," Simmons said, shaking his head. "This must have been a hurriedly put together set up. Kolya's usually not so shoddy as this."
"He doesn't usually use quite so many mechanical traps either," a soldier noted. "Or whatever those robots are supposed to be."
"No, his modus operandi is usually highly trained soldiers," Simmons said as they carefully made their way through the choke point containing the deadfalls.
A clacking noise called his attention to a small robotic spider he'd failed to notice before.
Just as it started tearing apart the trigger of the door traps
Simmons jumped for cover just in time as thick slabs of metal debris closed him inside with his men and laser-sights flared to life just long enough in some cases for several of his soldiers to pass through some of the triggers.
Shots and twangs ran out along with the screams of his soldiers, leaving him more or less untouched with an uncertain number of traps still waiting to be triggered.
"Damn it," he muttered.
"Ahhh," an intercom in Kolya's voice said. "Simmons. I had hoped you'd show up personally. Apparently the hospitality of my house was not complete if you're not as enjoying it as thoroughly as your soldiers probably are."
Gunfire sounded in the background of Kolya's intercom.
"Kolya," Simmons said. "You didn't actually expect such a ridiculous trap to work, did you?"
"Not against Major Shepard, no," Kolya said. "And I was right. Now you, I expected to get a little deeper. Granted, that particular welcome mat has probably been eaten by now. So this is about perfection. Feel free to wait in there until the timer counts down."
There was a pause for a moment.
"Ah, didn't I tell you about that? Major Shepard, better get the girl out of there quickly," Kolya said. "And Good bye, Simmons."
Simmons wanted to hit something but couldn't move for fear of triggering a trap or even the final explosive.
Which was when the space bulged out and a segment of it opened out into a blank space beyond in which sat what could only be Leonard Testarossa.
Above them somewhere, sparks showered and the sound of gunfire carried by the intercom died away.
"Now, we can talk privately," Leonard said, shadows still covering his face where he sat. "I think, Mr. Simmons that you have a reason to live."
"And what would you know that would help me do that?" Simmons asked.
"Well, I finally found my own way," he noted. "I sure know something you don't."
*******************
"Teyla? You're the power expert, what's up?" Shepard asked.
"I've borrowed Satomi's electrical sense," she said. "And I'm working on shorting them out."
"Lorne?" Shepard asked.
"Similar problems on the door," the captain said. "The electrokinesis helps, but there's a lot of redundancy here."
"Well, hurry," Shepard said, bullets spanged off the wall next to him. "Dr. Luther's Murder-Bots aren't around at the moment, but Kolya's people just found us."
Two marines took position across the hall in another alcove, one of them aiming an assault rifle down at the mercenaries, the closest they had to a squad support weapon at the moment.
Well, then there was Ronan.
A burst of energy left his gun and cut through the crate hiding one of Kolya's men, throwing the man behind it back easily. And then he was behind the cover again.
"That was...bigger than normal," one of the marines noted.
"Well, he said, use the chi to enhance what I already have," and he shrugged.
Inside, Skuld sweated nervously as one by one, red dots vanished, and some she was sure were vanishing where she couldn't see them. Then one of the dots vanished and...
...she shrieked as several metallic spangs ricocheted around the room inside with her. She raised a mana shield, and it caught most of the impacts, raising a series of welts and bruises over her and allowing a distraction that let the last bullet through and into her shoulder.
"Turning that one off triggered a trap!" Skuld shouted. "Watch it!"
"Oh yes," Kolya's voice said over the intercom. "I forgot to mention that."
"Damn it, Kolya, just lot her out of this!" Shepard said. "This is between you and me."
"I do agree," the man on the other end said. "Unfortunately, this is not my prepared lair where I can safely turn traps on and off in case of a mistake. I have nothing against the girl, but she is hardly helpless...witness our mutual problem."
Gunfire sounded in the intercom.
"Damn that guy," Shepard said bitterly. "I'm going to kill him this time. Any ideas?"
"None that don't risk the girl," Teyla said.
A skittering sound attracted several eyes and a mechanical spider lowering itself down to one of the marines was blasted away. Further down, amongst Kolya's men, one of them shouted in pain.
"It stabbed something into my neck!" before a thump and long silence followed by renewed gunfire pointed away from the Socrates people.
"Hey, Goddess," Shepard said. "Did you give these things needles, like to inject acid into a person or something."
"Umm, it was supposed to be non-lethal somethings," Skuld said.
"Great," the Major said. "When we get back, I'm telling whoever's responsible for you that you're not allowed to watch 80s movies anymore."
********************
"As I know it, the process to make someone Ainur takes hours," Simmons said. "I do not think I have hours."
"I can take you out right now and we can get started," Leonard said.
"I think not," Simmons said, frowning as he looked around for someway to move.
"Oh well," Leonard said. "I'm afraid you'll have to present a rather more flawed demonstration then."
"What are you talking about?"
Leonard stepped out of the non-space and the patches on his cheeks and forehead weren't so much discolorations as they were places where something had been removed and empty nothingness has revealed.
Simmons opened his mouth to remind Leonard of the traps which did not go off and then a needle was sticking into his arm and something flushing in.
"A last little gift from Legion," Leonard said with a smile. "Unfortunately the only sample, we'll have to see what it does, won't we?"
***********************
"Ice!" Skuld shouted. "Look, one of the Yons! Ummm...Niichi I think. She shoots ice right or cold right?"
"What good is that going to do us?" Lorne asked.
"Ice becomes water," Teyla said. "And she moves through water."
"Do it! Quickly," Shepard said. "We've got Amalgam and Kolya and spider monsters and..."
"God!" one of the marines shouted and blistering wave of bullets and energy was suddenly sent down the corridor toward the identified threat.
A blue shield of Mana caught the majority of them before blasts of chi-enforced energy cracked a hole in the shield and hot lead poured in, slamming into the more or less bullet proof hide of the God.
At which point, Ronan rushed down the hall and slammed his fist into its head before drawing forth his sword with his other hand and slamming down.
The chi slammed down into mana which hardened resolutely against the charge, and failed to react quickly enough as the blade slid down and then slammed up underneath the directed shield through the thin layer of mana about the rest of the body.
A blast of wind filled the corridor then and Ronan was shoved back.
"More of them, great," Shepard said.
******************
"We have heretics and blasphemers down below," a tall, violent looking God dressed in a disturbing sort of leather said. "Let's see what they're here for before we start fighting about sabotage and more."
The small horde of human cultists and their Godly masters nodded as they started moving down into the hidden area in force.
"We shall bring death to the..." the God stopped as things started going to hell.
All around, vines with sharp thorns quick grew over everything in view, completely enveloping several Mantles and stabbing into and through them until each was nothing but an immobile scaffold for quick growing rose vines. Even the sudden pain and screams of the pilots within were muffled.
Three of the Mantles started to turn around and raise their enhanced mana shield too late to do anything but slow down the slashes from the sword that cut through them.
And the remainder shuddered as bursts of white, chi-enhanced explosions slammed into them in a massive missile barrage that left none of the vehicles visible in an operating manner as two figures strode calmly out of the dust to join the third who was standing up from where she landed.
One of the figures was an amusing looking robot with a staff that marched awkwardly ahead of the regal form of a Goddess with long dark hair and in his wake roses were still growing as they reached out for the fleeing humans.
"Hello, Xipe Totec," the woman in front said, leaning on her sword. "Lady Peorth would like a word with you or so."
"Thank you, Lind," the named Goddess said as she came up level with the Valkyrie. "Banpei, please see to Skuld's safety below, we shall deal with these."
Xipe Totec and the thirty or so Gods still with him, mostly category threes he noticed, exchanged looks and glanced toward where the vehicles that were supposed to even the odds against category ones had been destroyed before they could get started. Grimacing their teeth, they charged forward.
Banpei walked past them, unmolested as rose bushes rose up to intercept attacks made on him and the Gods were forced to let him pass down to the underground region.
Xipe Totec darted around Lind where her sword was swinging and battering through the defenses of the other rebel Gods easily and he made a leap to attack the woman that had apparently presumed to take up Kami-sama's ridiculous philosophy.
The vines stopped him within two yards of Peorth and started to tighten.
"God of Flaying, right? I saw some of your work in Asgard," she said with what was supposed to be casual distaste. "Goddess of the Moment. And this is the Moment where what goes around comes around."
The vines started stripping off flesh layer by layer.
***************************
Mayborne dodged aside, chuckling as another swarm of spiders covered one of his opponents, and rolled into the next hallway.
He barely stopped in front of another trap and tucked himself into a corner before the God pursuing him came barreling into sight and chasing down the hallway, pursued by the spiders.
This time, the trap wasn't anything so simple as a sealed room. Mayborne was more than glad for his extremely thick cover as the foot thick steel he'd ducked behind was bent inward by the force of the two claymores that exploded on either side of the God.
Stepping out, Mayborne shook his head at the body that remained, impressed that there even was a body.
Then one of the hands started to move and groan came up.
Stepping forward, Mayborne put his weapon to the God's head and fired.
"Ahh, Mayborne," a voice said behind him.
He whirled to see Simmons there with a somewhat manic look on his face, veins bulging just under the skin along the hair line and the edge of the face.
"Simmons, what the hell happened to you?" he wondered.
"I've been given something glorious!" he shouted. "Glorious! Full and total power!"
He laughed in a thoroughly cliche manner and twisted about with a self-satisfied smile.
"And my if it isn't, wonderful," he said chortling.
Rolling his eyes, Mayborne lifted his submachine gun and fired.
The bullets seemed to rip around the laughing Simmons and into a bunch of robotic spiders nearby. Much to Mayborne's horror.
"What the hell?" he wondered looking Simmons.
"Now," Simmons said, suddenly turning serious as he leaned over and wrapped an arm around Mayborne's shoulders. "I think it's time for you to run now."
The spiders turned to look at Mayborne who fired more bullets at them and Simmons, ineffectual as that now seemed to be, until he was pushed back into another hallway.
"Now, let's see, how to play with the space-time continuum so that nobody can leave," Simmons said. "And then we'll have fun."
The power he was given was already tearing him apart physically though he couldn't feel it, and his mind was already turning further and further away form logical routes.
******************
Skuld laughed victoriously as the water formed in the air and rained down over her forming a puddle on the ground around her. Then it was just a matter of activating her power and...
...and popping up in the hallway outside out of another puddle of water shaking in shock and pain as the dimensional barrier bounced her back.
"The hell?!" Shepard shouted. "Is she..."
"She's fine," Teyla said, at Skuld's unconscious side. "This is what happened to people that were trying to teleport when the wall came down a week ago."
"Oh that's wonderful," Shepard said. "That means we're stuck here."
"I think now's the time to get moving from this location," Lorne said. "Charge on a timmer, you know."
Shepard nodded and scooped up Skuld.
"Let's go!" he called.
The marines gave them cover as they moved away from the trapped room, Ronan and Teyla ahead to watch for more traps and enemies. Behind them Kolya's men pushed forward as well, as much to get away from the mechanical spiders as anything else.
*************
Banpei walked slowly through the underground area, digital display noting movement and making analysis as moved along. His sensors registered several other robots and garnered from their intercommunications that Skuld was among the lists of several targets they had.
An electromagnetic discharge wiped out everyone within twenty yards of him and forced him to stop for twenty seconds before starting again.
Turning the next corner found himself facing a figure that he recognized as a God on the rebel list. It looked at him in confusion for a moment before his staff came up and slammed into the God's chin and then twisted around to slam into his belly. This was finished up by a salvo of close range rockets which blasted the God into unconsciousness.
Banpei walked onward.
Several haphazardly armed and uniformed humans behind the God stared in shock and then fired out at Banpei, not understand as the crystals storing chi energy now installed into him rose a shield against the bullets. And a gas grenade or four launched out into the mass of the humans forcing them to cough and choke as he walked through them, laying about with his staff.
More spiders. They still hadn't recognized him as a threat since the EMP had erased memories before they could be transmitted. And another large number were put out of commission forcing Banpei to wait another twenty seconds to reboot.
Kolya's troops didn't even wait as the robot turned a corner to look at them with red eyes and a smiling face. However, the bullets were equally ineffective.
The exorcists with Kolya unleashed blasts of raw chi which forced Banpei to hold back a moment. And then he retaliated with a mass salvo of gas grenades and plodded onward as the soldiers retreated. A face was recognized from the lot as the one responsible for kidnapping Skuld and Banpei pushed forward silently and resolutely, it's face still smiling.
Sensors found traps as the soldiers ahead of it tried to lead him through into a pair of explosives. Banpei was mostly armed with what was intended to be non-lethal weaponry, though it had already made some settings changes when it helped take the Mantles outside. Right now, it was assessing that these, the people who had kidnapped Skuld, were willing to use lethal force.
So despite the preference it's creator had, he retaliated in kind.
The robot twisted it's head about quizzically and again unleashed a salvo of rockets which also triggered the traps that the soldiers had been trying to lead it to.
The claymores obliterated that section of hallway. Waiting briefly allowed Banpei to register the sound of Kolya's voice on the other side of the devastation and immediately it set about finding a plodding way to find the man.
Turning another corner he found another man fighting spiders. The man did not register on the list of faces for the rescue party, and Banpei reacted accordingly.
Mayborne cursed briefly as a large metal stick nearly took off his head and he rolled away from the strange robot that had slashed out with the stick.
It was just standing there, stick hold out stiffly, all the robot spiders around them suddenly still and silent. The Amalgam double? Socrates triple? The prolific traitor backed up cautiously wondering what the robot was doing.
And then twenty seconds passed and two gas canisters were launched in his direction.
**************
"Okay, anybody else think we're not going to get anywhere given the number of explosions that have probably completely changed the lay out of this place?" Shepard asked.
Far back behind them, at what had been the room Skuld was trapped in, another explosion sounded.
"It's a distinct possibility," Teyla said.
"So, are there any people straight above us?" Shepard asked.
"Umm, what are you thinking?" Lorne asked.
"I think we have enough power here to blow a hole in the ceiling and get out of here," Shepard said. "It'll attract some attention, but I think we're already there."
"Oh, I think it's a wonderful idea," a voice said.
Every turned toward Simmons, noted he was visibly showing signs of chi-use and immediately started firing. The bullets passed around him again and the weapons were put aside as Teyla and Ronan charged forward, melee weapons in hand.
"You don't seriously think that will...!" Simmons stopped as Teyla's stick slammed into his gut.
This was followed by a kick from Ronan that sent the newly empowered human flying backwards with a look of shock. The sword in Ronan's hand barely sliced through a hastily raised shield and cut a thin line across Simmons' face, followed by another blow from a chi-reinforced stick in Teyla's hand that slammmed his head downward in time to meet Ronan's knee.
Flying back again, Simmons was stumbling back ward and trying to stand, forgetting that he had all sorts of powers, as Lorne leaped past Teyla and Ronan to grab the man's arm and start laying a knife to his throat.
And at that point there was a brilliant white flash and all three of the other Ainur vanished from view.
"That's not right, the big burly guy is supposed to go down easy to prove I'm a danger," Simmons said in a slurred tone as he stood up and looked over at a shell shocked Shepard who'd just put down Skuld and then stopped as his teammates vanished.
"What the hell did you do to them?" Shepard demanded.
"Oh I just moved them outside," Simmons said, gathering himself. "They're not playing by the rules see. This isn't supposed to be a battle of fisticuffs and power versus power, it's supposed to be me with overwhelming power to destroy you all!!"
One of the marines charged forward then gun firing, and this time the bullets simply turned back on him and tore the man apart.
"Like that," Simmons said with a chortle.
Fuming with anger, Shepard gathered every bit of chi he could and lashed outward with it, cutting a swath through the ceiling that collapsed into a way out.
"No, no, you're not supposed to have power to," Simmons said. "You're supposed to outwit me! Or at least try."
"Get the girl outside!" Shepard shouted to the marines as he moved to face the insane and empowered Simmons.
Agreeing quickly, one of the marines took up the unconscious as the others moved for the exit.
Simmons tried to reach out and do something but immediately felt himself denied as Shepard was in his face and unleashing with raw anger to fuel a directed blast at the man.
***************
The three Ainur blinked as they appeared in the middle of a battle field. Two Gods they recognized from briefings as higher ups in Asgard were fighting a battle against a number of Gods which was alternately dwindling or growing based on the willingness of the individuals to come into range.
"What the hell?" Lorne asked
"Ah," Peorth said. "I could appreciate the reinforcements, someone put up a dimensional wall which is going to make it hard to get out. Think you can hold while I break it?"
Ronan stepped forward to grab a God by the throat lift him up and slam him down into the ground and then shrugged.
"Seems like something that could be done," he said.
A moment later, a chi blast ripped of the ground behind them.
****************
Simmons was trying to figure out why he was winning, the concept that the majority of his perceived power was just that: perceived. Didn't seem to occur to him, probably it couldn't any longer.
He finally had that huge reality warping power he'd envied in these lesser minds and all he could think to do with it was chortle and some sort of foolish mind games....
...which didn't work nearly as well when one's opponent was almost as strong and had been using the powers for a good month or two longer.
That Mayborne ran by again, firing against something. He turned and, at the last moment saw Simmons and then he was teleported, straight up.
************
Mayborne looked around and found himself about fifty feet up in the air and about to head downward.
"What the hell?" he shouted as he cartwheeled toward the ground, trying to right himself enough to take the fall correctly.
Slamming down he felt both legs cracking painfully.
And then he noticed he was in the middle of a battle.
"Oh this is turning into a lovely mission," he muttered painfully as he ripped a series of bullets into the back of a God focused on the swordswoman in front of him.
***************
Simmons was a trained fighter, he should have been able at least able to stand up to Shepard, but found himself unable to recall exactly what to do as the Air Force soldier slammed punch after chi-enforce punch into him, most of which he only barely deflected or avoided by doing something weird.
Getting rid of Mayborne had given him a temporary boost of confidence however and he smiled as he let himself blast outward with raw power, forcing Shepard back through the disintegrating hall and leaving him clear in a massive crater.
Panting he stood up straight, trying to appear nonchalant and dignified when a strange sound caused him to look at an odd looking little metal man with a wide hat and simple, red-eyed smiley face. The sound he heard, he realized was that of some sort of pylon that had anchored the robot to the ground against the push.
"What are you some sort of android?" Simmons asked.
Banpei didn't answer that questions and instead simply smashing his stick up between the madman's legs, blasting what appeared to be rockets at the end of the strike for extra force.
Simmons gave a high pitched squeal and went flying through the air to land near where Shepard was already standing up.
"I think you just ran out of luck," Shepard said, reaching down to grab him angrily. "If you had any to begin with."
"This isn't what Leonard promised," he muttered before vanishing in a curious bending of space and falling back into something of a non-space.
Shepard cursed angrily and then looked over toward the odd robot, which waved at him strangely. Confused as to how to respond, he waved back.
"Umm are you here for Skuld?" Shepard asked in a sudden burst of inspiration.
The robot nodded.
"Well, she was with the rest of my people," he said. "And they should be on the..."
He looked up to the massive lack of a roof above them.
"...somewhere else above ground."
***************
Simmons appeared in another room and shook his head, exhausted and his short burst of power already dwindling.
There were a horde of strange, funny looking metal spiders around him and as a test, he reached out with what remained of his ability to destroy one.
There was some reason he wasn't supposed to do that, but he forgot what it was just at the moment.
And he was still confused when the spiders swarmed over him to get rid of the threat.
*************
The marines with Skuld reacted immediately when the first of them died to a gun shot, but the next three gunshots killed three more men. Only the remaining two marines managed accurate return fire, but the target was already behind cover by then.
Then that massive blast of chi sent them reeling off their feet and their enemy was on them before they could recover, knife slicing through their throats.
Kolya checked to make sure they were all dead and then snapped up the unconscious Skuld. If he could get away with her, then he could set this up again at the proper location and then he'd be able to finally pay Shepard back for his humiliations.
He paused on seeing the open battle going towards what had been the entrance of the underground death trap. Grimacing he started to turn about to the other direction, when he felt the barrel of something cold and metal behind his head.
"I feel like asking, Kolya," Shepard said behind him. "Did you see the sunrise?"
"What are you..."
And then gunshot carried through the air, swallowed in the sounds of battle.
"Tom Selleck, you wouldn't understand," Shepard said as he bent down to check Skuld.
The robot came up behind him and seemed worried despite the lack of a real expression.
"All right," Shepard said. "Think you could carry her?"
The robot nodded.
"Then let's..."
First one robot spider and then several appeared and Shepard grimaced.
Until they all stopped moving suddenly as did Banpei, for twenty seconds.
"Hey all right," Shepard said. "That'll work."
They worked their way down to the battle going on and moving toward the center. He arched an eyebrow at the Goddesses and then his team.
"Well, the dimensional wall fell apart," one of the Goddesses, he recognized her from reports as Peorth, making her THE big gun at Asgard. "Without much effort too."
Officially at least.
He'd heard about Peorth. He'd seen Mara and Belldandy.
Two of those were visibly doing a lot more than the third.
"Okay," Shepard said. "Explanations on that later. For now we have a rather large group of robot spider things that keep building more of themselves. Think anybody can do an EMP that covers maybe....five miles?"
Peorth grimaced.
"Get Skuld out of here, Banpei as well. It won't be selective," she said. "Then yes. I think I can do that if you can continue to buy me time."
"Got it," Shepard said. "Teyla...take the bot and the kid home..."
"What about me?" a pained voice called out.
"And the Mayborne," Shepard sighed.
*****************
Power went out all over Tokyo, up to and including some of the machines piloted by the Gods given the amount of power that Peorth put into it.
And then the rescue teams were completely gone.
"What do you mean you're not letting me go!" Urd snapped angrily into Athena's face. "Or Belldandy? Skuld is our sister!"
The white-haired Goddess showed more than a few signs that she had been in the battle, including some freshly healed scars that hadn't faded it.
If they continued fading. Urd was half-Demon, after all, and though she'd never shown signs of a desire to ruin her "perfect" skin in the past, some Demons were strangely attracted to "artful" scars.
The Goddess shook her head and decided it must have been some sort of upbringing, since the Demons born in Asgard didn't show as much of that.
"You're needed," Athena said. "This project of the Ainur's feels like something necessary. I am very disturbed by the fallout coming out of Russia. It should have been contained with the missiles."
"Perhaps at least I could go," Belldandy suggested hopefully.
"Again, you are necessary here, Belldandy," Athena said. "Healthy healers are still necessary. And I think she should be prepared to help Mara as well."
"So, we're just supposed to trust Skuld's safety to a bunch of strangers?" Urd demanded angrily. "Granted, they're strangers with a good rep, but they're still not us."
"Not entirely," Athena said with a knowing smile, she glanced toward the side. "Miss Fujimi and your husband, are also not being allowed to go, but they have managed to do us a bit of a favor."
Belldandy turned to look and see Chihiro there, looking just as dissatisfied as Urd and Belldandy did. She was leaning against the door frame as Keiichi came in ahead of a somewhat altered looking Banpei.
"Banpei?" Urd said. "You're sending that robot into a war-zone to find Skuld? No offense, Banpei, you're good and all, but you stand out a little bit and you'll run out of power in a....wait a minute."
"We've worked on polishing Skuld's energy producing systems," Keiichi said going up to Belldandy and giving Athena a look that said he also wished he was going. "We made a lot more efficient. He'll be able to last a bit longer now and he'll be able to put more energy into his actions now."
His arms were on Belldandy's as he looked back toward the robot and Chihiro there.
"And we added some other stuff too," Chihiro said. "Burrowed somewhat from what Testarossa had us put into the Sciroccos."
"There's something else besides," another voice said as two figures stepped into the doorway.
*********************
Shepard and his company immediately ducked for cover as they arrived in Tokyo and found themselves within sound of a battle of some kind.
"The hell?" he demanded, glancing toward the sound from behind cover and catching flashes of blue mana in the distance.
"I believe we were briefed that the Gods in control of Tokyo had take to fighting each other," Teyla noted quietly.
"I guess so," Ronan said shrugging the situation aside. "So, where's the fun?"
"There's an underground entrance with a handful of guards," Teyla said. "They'll be hard to sneak up on given that they're just as worried about the fighting going on as we were. However, they've managed to hide the presence of either chi or mana."
"With a bunch of crazy, would be evil-overlords rampaging around on top of them?" Ronan asked. "How surprising is that."
"Yeah, our beacon is coming from in there too," Lorne said.
"All right then," Shepard said, looking toward Lorne and the other soldiers. "Let's go then."
Breaking cover, Shepard and his team darted across the street in small numbers, ones and twos, scattering about the identified location.
Someone was scene and a blast of automatic fire stenciled its way through the late afternoon.
"Damn it," Shepard said over the radio. "I was hoping that would go easier. So the little girl with the dizzy blast...6-3-4 right."
"I think you were the one that warned to keep experimenting down to a minimum, Major," Lorne responded. "We have flashbangs."
Shepard turned to Teyla as bullets splanged against his cover for no better reason than to let him know that Kolya's thugs knew where he was.
"I finally get superpowers and I have to be reasonable and say 'don't use them until you know how'," he said, rolling his eyes.
Teyla smirked briefly and nodded at him.
"Well this is why you have a trained psychic on hand, isn't it?" Teyla asked as she ran through a sequence of numbers. "I am ready."
"Everybody, flashbang on three, Teyla guides them in," he summarized. "And then Ronan leads the way. One, two..."
The guards watched inexplicably as half a dozen flashbangs shifted unerringly into the mouth of their exit. One of them reached down to try and grab for one of the items, when all six erupted into a blast of sound and light.
After that they were inside.
This, of course, was what was supposed to happen and everybody realized it.
***********************
Skuld laughed in triumph as she finished the third of the little robots and wiped at her forehead. She'd had to take a few shortcuts for the programming, but they only really had two functions right now: help her make more of them and incapacitate any threats, preferably non-lethally.
She could hear the efforts being made to tear into her force field and knew that it was going to come down pretty soon, so she turned back to the six-legged thing that bore a passing resemblance to one of her greatest nuisances.
And she switched it on.
"All right," she said, standing up. "Everybody list..."
Skuld stopped as she turned around behind her and saw that there were a lot more of the six-legged robots than the two she'd already made plus the one she'd just finished. She counted about thirty in easy view, and there were holes in the wall that implied some had left the area.
"Uhhh...." she said nervously as she watched the things progressively tearing apart the room she was in. "You're not supposed to make so many of yourself..."
They didn't respond, which was hardly surprising given how she hadn't had time to really give them a true AI like Banpei's.
"Hey! Stop that!" Skuld shouted releasing a small burst of mana directed one of the robots and causing it to fall apart almost instantly.
The remaining members of the swarm turned about to regard Skuld.
"Incapacitate threat?" Skuld asked.
Her mind cast backwards to something Chihiro had said.
"All the brilliance of Einstein and Tesla combined, and the forethought of a monkey."
*********************
"It looks like the shock generated by whatever she did is lessening," one of the guards said. "These psychics we brought with..."
And Skuld burst out of the supposedly electro-sealed door and started running pell mell for the exit.
Kolya was about to order someone to stop her in a casual tone when the small swarm of insect like robots swarmed out of the room after her.
"Go! Go!" Kolya shouted, firing at the little mechanical monsters and unwittingly marking himself as a threat.
He had a minor thought, a bit later than would have been useful, as corollary to one of the "Evil Overlord Lists" he'd heard while on Earth.
When locking someone in the storeroom, make sure it's not MacGyver. Make damn sure it's not a mad scientist.
He wasn't sure who MacGyver was but figured it was a folk hero of some sort. But it was the second part that seemed to apply now.
********************
Simmons and the rest of Amalgam's assault unit came in behind Shepard's. They had a pair of exorcists with them to shape a gate, but such were still human and could do things as swiftly as the Ainur now could.
It was also a rather noisy affair, speaking in terms of power use.
So, as Simmons, Maybourne and their unit slipped into the pre-breached location after Shepard's unit, their arrival was noted by several Gods within the area.
******************
Skuld turned a corner, breathing a sigh of relief as she realized it seemed to be a long empty corridor.
"Okay..." Skuld said. "I screwed up a little bit. This can still be dealt with."
The Goddess of the Future blew a strand of pink hair out of her face and leaned against a wall. She was out of that room now and out where she had better access to Yggdrasil and other things.
Reaching out her hand, her long handled red hammer was just there. It wasn't called the Mjolnir Mk 2 for no reason, after all. Reaching out with the next hand she found herself a handful of Skuld bombs.
"All right, Now" she said with initial confidence before slumping again. "Now this still isn't going to help me much against insane, reproducing spider-bots."
"Hey, you're the prisoner!" someone shouted behind her. "What are you doing out..."
And he blinked as a handful of knobby things flew out toward him. He blinked for a moment, wondering what the things were supposed to be. And then they burst into loud smoke in his face, knocking him backward.
A spray of bullets lashed out high over her head causing her to duck underneath even as she lashed out with her hammer and slammed it into the man's head so that he collapsed unconscious to the floor. Taking a breath, she retracted the hammer's handle to it's traveling size and tried to choose a direction to go.
The mechanical clicking sound caused her to freeze for a moment before a hole started opening up.
Skuld's eyes widened nervously as she started to runaway and then turned around to grab the legs of the soldier that had just tried to shoot her and started lugging him back with her.
"Let's use the robots from that old movie, nothing could go wrong with that," Skuld said to herself. "And let's make them help make more, easy."
Hearing voices and steps coming down from one direction, she immediately took the man with her and turned down another hallway, watching the first of the runaway robots starting to come into the hall with her.
She stumbled into a wide chamber. Until she tripped over a wire and the sound of small explosions tore through the small room. A wide sheet of metal jury-rigged into portcullis slammed downward heavily slicing into and through the legs of the man she was trying to save.
Behind her the same tripwire triggered a similar jury-rigged trap there sealing her into the little room.
The man she'd been dragging woke up screaming and moved to a sitting up position, only to be shot through the head by a bullet just moments after a little red dot appeared on his back.
Staying exactly where she'd fallen, Skuld immediately looked around the room for similar red dots and sweated nervously as she easily found another twenty in easy view with moving her head at all.
"Oh...no," she whispered.
**********************
"What the hell are these things?" Shepard asked, firing into the handful of little robots in the hallway ahead of him. "Where were those gunshots?"
"Over here, Shepard," Ronan said, pointing toward what was very clearly an only recently placed obstacle.
Especially given the severed legs.
He glanced over toward Teyla who nodded.
"There's someone behind there, extremely terrified..." she blinked suddenly, ignoring the way Ronan smirked and gestured to the severed legs at her comment of someone extremely terrified. "I think it is the girl we're here to save."
"Hey, who's in there?" Ronan shouted banging on the door.
"Don't hit the door!" a girl's voice obscured by the thickness of the door. "There are laser pointers everywhere in here!"
"Booby traps, great," Shepard said. "At least we don't have a rising tide or something."
The sound of more gunfire was heard then.
"Umm, Major," Lorne said, glancing around a corner. "You know those little robots you blew up?"
"Yeah?" Shepard asked.
"Well, there's more of them," Lorne said. "A lot more."
Next to him another of the marines was firing into the approaching mass of robots. Turning around the corner to look, Shepard swallowed. Especially as further down the hallway he saw a mercenary, probably one of Kolya's disappear under a small wave of the things.
"Okay, someone get me Tom Selleck on the line," Shepard demanded.
Behind him, Teyla and Ronan were examining the door.
"I'm sorry!" Skuld's voice whined from inside her trap.
Shepard took a steadying breath and thought about the "basic" use of just sending a burst of raw chi down the hallway, tearing through the first ranks of the advancing robots. It wasn't exactly the most tireless thing he could think of.
Experiments and experience between the Invasion day and this morning's and early afternoon's attack on Kyushu said that chi was best used to enhance already existing abilities. Shields and blasts were less efficient.
"Okay, so more Bruce Willis, less X-Men until later," he muttered. "How's the door coming."
"There's charges here," Ronan said. "If we go in after her, something goes boom and probably triggers a handful of traps inside."
"We've got company coming," Teyla shouted. "More people behind us, and I think I felt Kolya further in."
"Everything just keeps getting better," Shepard said as he nodded toward Lorne and both turned about the corner to fire into the mass.
Strangely enough each of the bullets struck a different robot in the best possible spot and not a bullet was wasted.
"Scratch Bruce Willis, Major," Lorne said. "Looks like we're somewhere between Christopher Bale and John Woo."
*********************
Kolya cursed to himself as the radio on his belt started cackling, one of his traps had been triggered. He was listening in on the banter with Shepard and Miss Wodendottir as it happened.
He'd wanted to do this in the location he had prepared specially for this confrontation. Spent weeks on it, months even, even before Gauron made his offer. It was perfect, clean, sterile and had been lined with every ward, circle, trap and security feature he could think of and afford to steal or purchase.
It had been the perfect trap to, if not kill Shepard, at the very least destroy his confidence and trust in himself.
Instead he was in an underground complex that was either subway or sewer, he bet the former due to the lack of water in most places. He was in the middle of occupied territory that had just turned into an out and out war-zone of competing barbarians with superpowers. His traps had been built over a week with what he'd had on hand.
And now his jury-rigged lair was filled with an unknown number of rather aggressive spider-things.
Still, he couldn't let it show that things were going a little bit unexpected.
"Hello, Major Shepard," he said casually. "I see you've found my erstwhile guest. Now, I had originally intended someone else to be in there, but she'll do."
"Kolya!" Shepard shouted, and the man smiled as he imagined the man looking for the intercom. "This isn't like you. You've never taken uninvolved civilians hostage before like this."
"I can assure you, Major Shepard," he said. "That I was probably the best option she had. So I'm sorry it's her in there, but she's the one that didn't stay in her nice safe cell for the whole thing."
He heard a clattering sound and didn't bother to look as one of his shoulders fired on the appearing mechanical bug.
"Now if only Amalgam's people are just as predictable," he commented.
Blinking he watched as his exorcists started cautiously running past some of the mechanical bugs and noted the robots weren't bothering them.
"Something you did to hide yourself?" he asked.
"They don't attack you if you don't attack them," one of the mystics said.
"Then why did they attack the girl?" he asked.
"Teenaged temper tantrum?" someone wondered with a shrug.
"All right, make sure you two at least don't threaten them until you can find a way to turn them all off," Kolya instructed the psychics.
***********************
Simmons and Mayborne, at the head of their team, looked at the solid metal sheet or slab that had apparently fallen to cover the direct path in the last few minutes and then he glanced through one of the open hallways.
"Looks like we're going in alternate directions," he said idly. "Mayborne, that way."
"It might be better if I stay with you sir," the short, pudgy man said in an idle tone.
"I'm sure you would feel better," Simmons said. "Head that way anyway."
"As you wish, sir," the man said, clearly disappointed.
Mayborne moved his unit further down the hall cautiously, eyes looking for any sign of traps or tricks. Amalgam's soldiers were in front of him, doing their normal thing. And something caught his eye.
"Hey, don't forget to check those corners," he said. "Don't want to face some sort of demonic spider or something."
"Right," the soldier said, taking a tight turn around a piece of debris and tripping the wire there.
A moment later, Mayborne was leaping back as make shift barriers fell into place around his assigned unit and the sound of gunshots and explosions sounded within.
"Sorry guys," he said, tapping on the walls for the people inside. "You're not the only group that uses sleeper agents."
He took up his radio and started switching frequencies.
"Hello, Major Shepard," he said into the radio. "This call is just to tell you that you've got a little less company than you did a minute ago."
"Who is this?" Shepard asked.
"I think O'Neil may have mentioned me a couple of times, Mayborne," he said.
There was silence and gunfire for a moment.
"Aren't you an Amalgam spy or something?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, well, Amalgam planted me in Socrates," he said heading back to the place he'd left off from Simmons. "And then O'Neil and I came to agreement."
"Uh huh," Shepard said. "Look we're a little busy, can we talk about this later?"
"Yeah, I've got your back, Shepard," Mayborne said. "Simmons won't even know what..."
He paused as he looked up the hallway toward where the exit was.
"Ah hell," he muttered.
He unleashed a hail of bullet fire at the Gods coming down the hallway and dived aside.
The first God that appeared around the corner was amused when a small round metal object landed at his feet and raised his mana shield. Then the raw concussive force of the grenade pushed into that shield and slammed the God up into the ceiling, stunning him.
And then Mayborne was spraying into the darkness with his submachine gun as he dived into another hallway.
The gauntlet had converted the little amount of chi he was able to produce and then amplified the resultant pishogue, but it was still a tool made during the Doublet System and designed mostly to stun an opponent.
Turning a corner, he was surprised and dismayed to find a hallway full of robotic spiders eating away at the surroundings and apparently blithely unaware of him.
"Demonic spiders," he said, shaking his head. "Simmons had to come this way and given the lack of dead bodies..."
Returning to his quick pace, Mayborne passed through the small hordes of machines untouched. And then behind him, one of the Gods came around the corner tossing fire and melting several of the robots.
Instantly the place was alive with shuffling, clacking, swarming mechanical spiders charging away toward the newest threat. The first God and those behind him blinked incredulously as they tiny mechanical things swarmed toward them.
Mayborne took use of the distraction to send a handful of bullets into the body and head of the foremost God, distracted as the man was, then he vanished around q corner.
He was very careful not to step on any of the many, many robotic spiders moving past him.
************************
"A deadfall room," Simmons said, shaking his head. "This must have been a hurriedly put together set up. Kolya's usually not so shoddy as this."
"He doesn't usually use quite so many mechanical traps either," a soldier noted. "Or whatever those robots are supposed to be."
"No, his modus operandi is usually highly trained soldiers," Simmons said as they carefully made their way through the choke point containing the deadfalls.
A clacking noise called his attention to a small robotic spider he'd failed to notice before.
Just as it started tearing apart the trigger of the door traps
Simmons jumped for cover just in time as thick slabs of metal debris closed him inside with his men and laser-sights flared to life just long enough in some cases for several of his soldiers to pass through some of the triggers.
Shots and twangs ran out along with the screams of his soldiers, leaving him more or less untouched with an uncertain number of traps still waiting to be triggered.
"Damn it," he muttered.
"Ahhh," an intercom in Kolya's voice said. "Simmons. I had hoped you'd show up personally. Apparently the hospitality of my house was not complete if you're not as enjoying it as thoroughly as your soldiers probably are."
Gunfire sounded in the background of Kolya's intercom.
"Kolya," Simmons said. "You didn't actually expect such a ridiculous trap to work, did you?"
"Not against Major Shepard, no," Kolya said. "And I was right. Now you, I expected to get a little deeper. Granted, that particular welcome mat has probably been eaten by now. So this is about perfection. Feel free to wait in there until the timer counts down."
There was a pause for a moment.
"Ah, didn't I tell you about that? Major Shepard, better get the girl out of there quickly," Kolya said. "And Good bye, Simmons."
Simmons wanted to hit something but couldn't move for fear of triggering a trap or even the final explosive.
Which was when the space bulged out and a segment of it opened out into a blank space beyond in which sat what could only be Leonard Testarossa.
Above them somewhere, sparks showered and the sound of gunfire carried by the intercom died away.
"Now, we can talk privately," Leonard said, shadows still covering his face where he sat. "I think, Mr. Simmons that you have a reason to live."
"And what would you know that would help me do that?" Simmons asked.
"Well, I finally found my own way," he noted. "I sure know something you don't."
*******************
"Teyla? You're the power expert, what's up?" Shepard asked.
"I've borrowed Satomi's electrical sense," she said. "And I'm working on shorting them out."
"Lorne?" Shepard asked.
"Similar problems on the door," the captain said. "The electrokinesis helps, but there's a lot of redundancy here."
"Well, hurry," Shepard said, bullets spanged off the wall next to him. "Dr. Luther's Murder-Bots aren't around at the moment, but Kolya's people just found us."
Two marines took position across the hall in another alcove, one of them aiming an assault rifle down at the mercenaries, the closest they had to a squad support weapon at the moment.
Well, then there was Ronan.
A burst of energy left his gun and cut through the crate hiding one of Kolya's men, throwing the man behind it back easily. And then he was behind the cover again.
"That was...bigger than normal," one of the marines noted.
"Well, he said, use the chi to enhance what I already have," and he shrugged.
Inside, Skuld sweated nervously as one by one, red dots vanished, and some she was sure were vanishing where she couldn't see them. Then one of the dots vanished and...
...she shrieked as several metallic spangs ricocheted around the room inside with her. She raised a mana shield, and it caught most of the impacts, raising a series of welts and bruises over her and allowing a distraction that let the last bullet through and into her shoulder.
"Turning that one off triggered a trap!" Skuld shouted. "Watch it!"
"Oh yes," Kolya's voice said over the intercom. "I forgot to mention that."
"Damn it, Kolya, just lot her out of this!" Shepard said. "This is between you and me."
"I do agree," the man on the other end said. "Unfortunately, this is not my prepared lair where I can safely turn traps on and off in case of a mistake. I have nothing against the girl, but she is hardly helpless...witness our mutual problem."
Gunfire sounded in the intercom.
"Damn that guy," Shepard said bitterly. "I'm going to kill him this time. Any ideas?"
"None that don't risk the girl," Teyla said.
A skittering sound attracted several eyes and a mechanical spider lowering itself down to one of the marines was blasted away. Further down, amongst Kolya's men, one of them shouted in pain.
"It stabbed something into my neck!" before a thump and long silence followed by renewed gunfire pointed away from the Socrates people.
"Hey, Goddess," Shepard said. "Did you give these things needles, like to inject acid into a person or something."
"Umm, it was supposed to be non-lethal somethings," Skuld said.
"Great," the Major said. "When we get back, I'm telling whoever's responsible for you that you're not allowed to watch 80s movies anymore."
********************
"As I know it, the process to make someone Ainur takes hours," Simmons said. "I do not think I have hours."
"I can take you out right now and we can get started," Leonard said.
"I think not," Simmons said, frowning as he looked around for someway to move.
"Oh well," Leonard said. "I'm afraid you'll have to present a rather more flawed demonstration then."
"What are you talking about?"
Leonard stepped out of the non-space and the patches on his cheeks and forehead weren't so much discolorations as they were places where something had been removed and empty nothingness has revealed.
Simmons opened his mouth to remind Leonard of the traps which did not go off and then a needle was sticking into his arm and something flushing in.
"A last little gift from Legion," Leonard said with a smile. "Unfortunately the only sample, we'll have to see what it does, won't we?"
***********************
"Ice!" Skuld shouted. "Look, one of the Yons! Ummm...Niichi I think. She shoots ice right or cold right?"
"What good is that going to do us?" Lorne asked.
"Ice becomes water," Teyla said. "And she moves through water."
"Do it! Quickly," Shepard said. "We've got Amalgam and Kolya and spider monsters and..."
"God!" one of the marines shouted and blistering wave of bullets and energy was suddenly sent down the corridor toward the identified threat.
A blue shield of Mana caught the majority of them before blasts of chi-enforced energy cracked a hole in the shield and hot lead poured in, slamming into the more or less bullet proof hide of the God.
At which point, Ronan rushed down the hall and slammed his fist into its head before drawing forth his sword with his other hand and slamming down.
The chi slammed down into mana which hardened resolutely against the charge, and failed to react quickly enough as the blade slid down and then slammed up underneath the directed shield through the thin layer of mana about the rest of the body.
A blast of wind filled the corridor then and Ronan was shoved back.
"More of them, great," Shepard said.
******************
"We have heretics and blasphemers down below," a tall, violent looking God dressed in a disturbing sort of leather said. "Let's see what they're here for before we start fighting about sabotage and more."
The small horde of human cultists and their Godly masters nodded as they started moving down into the hidden area in force.
"We shall bring death to the..." the God stopped as things started going to hell.
All around, vines with sharp thorns quick grew over everything in view, completely enveloping several Mantles and stabbing into and through them until each was nothing but an immobile scaffold for quick growing rose vines. Even the sudden pain and screams of the pilots within were muffled.
Three of the Mantles started to turn around and raise their enhanced mana shield too late to do anything but slow down the slashes from the sword that cut through them.
And the remainder shuddered as bursts of white, chi-enhanced explosions slammed into them in a massive missile barrage that left none of the vehicles visible in an operating manner as two figures strode calmly out of the dust to join the third who was standing up from where she landed.
One of the figures was an amusing looking robot with a staff that marched awkwardly ahead of the regal form of a Goddess with long dark hair and in his wake roses were still growing as they reached out for the fleeing humans.
"Hello, Xipe Totec," the woman in front said, leaning on her sword. "Lady Peorth would like a word with you or so."
"Thank you, Lind," the named Goddess said as she came up level with the Valkyrie. "Banpei, please see to Skuld's safety below, we shall deal with these."
Xipe Totec and the thirty or so Gods still with him, mostly category threes he noticed, exchanged looks and glanced toward where the vehicles that were supposed to even the odds against category ones had been destroyed before they could get started. Grimacing their teeth, they charged forward.
Banpei walked past them, unmolested as rose bushes rose up to intercept attacks made on him and the Gods were forced to let him pass down to the underground region.
Xipe Totec darted around Lind where her sword was swinging and battering through the defenses of the other rebel Gods easily and he made a leap to attack the woman that had apparently presumed to take up Kami-sama's ridiculous philosophy.
The vines stopped him within two yards of Peorth and started to tighten.
"God of Flaying, right? I saw some of your work in Asgard," she said with what was supposed to be casual distaste. "Goddess of the Moment. And this is the Moment where what goes around comes around."
The vines started stripping off flesh layer by layer.
***************************
Mayborne dodged aside, chuckling as another swarm of spiders covered one of his opponents, and rolled into the next hallway.
He barely stopped in front of another trap and tucked himself into a corner before the God pursuing him came barreling into sight and chasing down the hallway, pursued by the spiders.
This time, the trap wasn't anything so simple as a sealed room. Mayborne was more than glad for his extremely thick cover as the foot thick steel he'd ducked behind was bent inward by the force of the two claymores that exploded on either side of the God.
Stepping out, Mayborne shook his head at the body that remained, impressed that there even was a body.
Then one of the hands started to move and groan came up.
Stepping forward, Mayborne put his weapon to the God's head and fired.
"Ahh, Mayborne," a voice said behind him.
He whirled to see Simmons there with a somewhat manic look on his face, veins bulging just under the skin along the hair line and the edge of the face.
"Simmons, what the hell happened to you?" he wondered.
"I've been given something glorious!" he shouted. "Glorious! Full and total power!"
He laughed in a thoroughly cliche manner and twisted about with a self-satisfied smile.
"And my if it isn't, wonderful," he said chortling.
Rolling his eyes, Mayborne lifted his submachine gun and fired.
The bullets seemed to rip around the laughing Simmons and into a bunch of robotic spiders nearby. Much to Mayborne's horror.
"What the hell?" he wondered looking Simmons.
"Now," Simmons said, suddenly turning serious as he leaned over and wrapped an arm around Mayborne's shoulders. "I think it's time for you to run now."
The spiders turned to look at Mayborne who fired more bullets at them and Simmons, ineffectual as that now seemed to be, until he was pushed back into another hallway.
"Now, let's see, how to play with the space-time continuum so that nobody can leave," Simmons said. "And then we'll have fun."
The power he was given was already tearing him apart physically though he couldn't feel it, and his mind was already turning further and further away form logical routes.
******************
Skuld laughed victoriously as the water formed in the air and rained down over her forming a puddle on the ground around her. Then it was just a matter of activating her power and...
...and popping up in the hallway outside out of another puddle of water shaking in shock and pain as the dimensional barrier bounced her back.
"The hell?!" Shepard shouted. "Is she..."
"She's fine," Teyla said, at Skuld's unconscious side. "This is what happened to people that were trying to teleport when the wall came down a week ago."
"Oh that's wonderful," Shepard said. "That means we're stuck here."
"I think now's the time to get moving from this location," Lorne said. "Charge on a timmer, you know."
Shepard nodded and scooped up Skuld.
"Let's go!" he called.
The marines gave them cover as they moved away from the trapped room, Ronan and Teyla ahead to watch for more traps and enemies. Behind them Kolya's men pushed forward as well, as much to get away from the mechanical spiders as anything else.
*************
Banpei walked slowly through the underground area, digital display noting movement and making analysis as moved along. His sensors registered several other robots and garnered from their intercommunications that Skuld was among the lists of several targets they had.
An electromagnetic discharge wiped out everyone within twenty yards of him and forced him to stop for twenty seconds before starting again.
Turning the next corner found himself facing a figure that he recognized as a God on the rebel list. It looked at him in confusion for a moment before his staff came up and slammed into the God's chin and then twisted around to slam into his belly. This was finished up by a salvo of close range rockets which blasted the God into unconsciousness.
Banpei walked onward.
Several haphazardly armed and uniformed humans behind the God stared in shock and then fired out at Banpei, not understand as the crystals storing chi energy now installed into him rose a shield against the bullets. And a gas grenade or four launched out into the mass of the humans forcing them to cough and choke as he walked through them, laying about with his staff.
More spiders. They still hadn't recognized him as a threat since the EMP had erased memories before they could be transmitted. And another large number were put out of commission forcing Banpei to wait another twenty seconds to reboot.
Kolya's troops didn't even wait as the robot turned a corner to look at them with red eyes and a smiling face. However, the bullets were equally ineffective.
The exorcists with Kolya unleashed blasts of raw chi which forced Banpei to hold back a moment. And then he retaliated with a mass salvo of gas grenades and plodded onward as the soldiers retreated. A face was recognized from the lot as the one responsible for kidnapping Skuld and Banpei pushed forward silently and resolutely, it's face still smiling.
Sensors found traps as the soldiers ahead of it tried to lead him through into a pair of explosives. Banpei was mostly armed with what was intended to be non-lethal weaponry, though it had already made some settings changes when it helped take the Mantles outside. Right now, it was assessing that these, the people who had kidnapped Skuld, were willing to use lethal force.
So despite the preference it's creator had, he retaliated in kind.
The robot twisted it's head about quizzically and again unleashed a salvo of rockets which also triggered the traps that the soldiers had been trying to lead it to.
The claymores obliterated that section of hallway. Waiting briefly allowed Banpei to register the sound of Kolya's voice on the other side of the devastation and immediately it set about finding a plodding way to find the man.
Turning another corner he found another man fighting spiders. The man did not register on the list of faces for the rescue party, and Banpei reacted accordingly.
Mayborne cursed briefly as a large metal stick nearly took off his head and he rolled away from the strange robot that had slashed out with the stick.
It was just standing there, stick hold out stiffly, all the robot spiders around them suddenly still and silent. The Amalgam double? Socrates triple? The prolific traitor backed up cautiously wondering what the robot was doing.
And then twenty seconds passed and two gas canisters were launched in his direction.
**************
"Okay, anybody else think we're not going to get anywhere given the number of explosions that have probably completely changed the lay out of this place?" Shepard asked.
Far back behind them, at what had been the room Skuld was trapped in, another explosion sounded.
"It's a distinct possibility," Teyla said.
"So, are there any people straight above us?" Shepard asked.
"Umm, what are you thinking?" Lorne asked.
"I think we have enough power here to blow a hole in the ceiling and get out of here," Shepard said. "It'll attract some attention, but I think we're already there."
"Oh, I think it's a wonderful idea," a voice said.
Every turned toward Simmons, noted he was visibly showing signs of chi-use and immediately started firing. The bullets passed around him again and the weapons were put aside as Teyla and Ronan charged forward, melee weapons in hand.
"You don't seriously think that will...!" Simmons stopped as Teyla's stick slammed into his gut.
This was followed by a kick from Ronan that sent the newly empowered human flying backwards with a look of shock. The sword in Ronan's hand barely sliced through a hastily raised shield and cut a thin line across Simmons' face, followed by another blow from a chi-reinforced stick in Teyla's hand that slammmed his head downward in time to meet Ronan's knee.
Flying back again, Simmons was stumbling back ward and trying to stand, forgetting that he had all sorts of powers, as Lorne leaped past Teyla and Ronan to grab the man's arm and start laying a knife to his throat.
And at that point there was a brilliant white flash and all three of the other Ainur vanished from view.
"That's not right, the big burly guy is supposed to go down easy to prove I'm a danger," Simmons said in a slurred tone as he stood up and looked over at a shell shocked Shepard who'd just put down Skuld and then stopped as his teammates vanished.
"What the hell did you do to them?" Shepard demanded.
"Oh I just moved them outside," Simmons said, gathering himself. "They're not playing by the rules see. This isn't supposed to be a battle of fisticuffs and power versus power, it's supposed to be me with overwhelming power to destroy you all!!"
One of the marines charged forward then gun firing, and this time the bullets simply turned back on him and tore the man apart.
"Like that," Simmons said with a chortle.
Fuming with anger, Shepard gathered every bit of chi he could and lashed outward with it, cutting a swath through the ceiling that collapsed into a way out.
"No, no, you're not supposed to have power to," Simmons said. "You're supposed to outwit me! Or at least try."
"Get the girl outside!" Shepard shouted to the marines as he moved to face the insane and empowered Simmons.
Agreeing quickly, one of the marines took up the unconscious as the others moved for the exit.
Simmons tried to reach out and do something but immediately felt himself denied as Shepard was in his face and unleashing with raw anger to fuel a directed blast at the man.
***************
The three Ainur blinked as they appeared in the middle of a battle field. Two Gods they recognized from briefings as higher ups in Asgard were fighting a battle against a number of Gods which was alternately dwindling or growing based on the willingness of the individuals to come into range.
"What the hell?" Lorne asked
"Ah," Peorth said. "I could appreciate the reinforcements, someone put up a dimensional wall which is going to make it hard to get out. Think you can hold while I break it?"
Ronan stepped forward to grab a God by the throat lift him up and slam him down into the ground and then shrugged.
"Seems like something that could be done," he said.
A moment later, a chi blast ripped of the ground behind them.
****************
Simmons was trying to figure out why he was winning, the concept that the majority of his perceived power was just that: perceived. Didn't seem to occur to him, probably it couldn't any longer.
He finally had that huge reality warping power he'd envied in these lesser minds and all he could think to do with it was chortle and some sort of foolish mind games....
...which didn't work nearly as well when one's opponent was almost as strong and had been using the powers for a good month or two longer.
That Mayborne ran by again, firing against something. He turned and, at the last moment saw Simmons and then he was teleported, straight up.
************
Mayborne looked around and found himself about fifty feet up in the air and about to head downward.
"What the hell?" he shouted as he cartwheeled toward the ground, trying to right himself enough to take the fall correctly.
Slamming down he felt both legs cracking painfully.
And then he noticed he was in the middle of a battle.
"Oh this is turning into a lovely mission," he muttered painfully as he ripped a series of bullets into the back of a God focused on the swordswoman in front of him.
***************
Simmons was a trained fighter, he should have been able at least able to stand up to Shepard, but found himself unable to recall exactly what to do as the Air Force soldier slammed punch after chi-enforce punch into him, most of which he only barely deflected or avoided by doing something weird.
Getting rid of Mayborne had given him a temporary boost of confidence however and he smiled as he let himself blast outward with raw power, forcing Shepard back through the disintegrating hall and leaving him clear in a massive crater.
Panting he stood up straight, trying to appear nonchalant and dignified when a strange sound caused him to look at an odd looking little metal man with a wide hat and simple, red-eyed smiley face. The sound he heard, he realized was that of some sort of pylon that had anchored the robot to the ground against the push.
"What are you some sort of android?" Simmons asked.
Banpei didn't answer that questions and instead simply smashing his stick up between the madman's legs, blasting what appeared to be rockets at the end of the strike for extra force.
Simmons gave a high pitched squeal and went flying through the air to land near where Shepard was already standing up.
"I think you just ran out of luck," Shepard said, reaching down to grab him angrily. "If you had any to begin with."
"This isn't what Leonard promised," he muttered before vanishing in a curious bending of space and falling back into something of a non-space.
Shepard cursed angrily and then looked over toward the odd robot, which waved at him strangely. Confused as to how to respond, he waved back.
"Umm are you here for Skuld?" Shepard asked in a sudden burst of inspiration.
The robot nodded.
"Well, she was with the rest of my people," he said. "And they should be on the..."
He looked up to the massive lack of a roof above them.
"...somewhere else above ground."
***************
Simmons appeared in another room and shook his head, exhausted and his short burst of power already dwindling.
There were a horde of strange, funny looking metal spiders around him and as a test, he reached out with what remained of his ability to destroy one.
There was some reason he wasn't supposed to do that, but he forgot what it was just at the moment.
And he was still confused when the spiders swarmed over him to get rid of the threat.
*************
The marines with Skuld reacted immediately when the first of them died to a gun shot, but the next three gunshots killed three more men. Only the remaining two marines managed accurate return fire, but the target was already behind cover by then.
Then that massive blast of chi sent them reeling off their feet and their enemy was on them before they could recover, knife slicing through their throats.
Kolya checked to make sure they were all dead and then snapped up the unconscious Skuld. If he could get away with her, then he could set this up again at the proper location and then he'd be able to finally pay Shepard back for his humiliations.
He paused on seeing the open battle going towards what had been the entrance of the underground death trap. Grimacing he started to turn about to the other direction, when he felt the barrel of something cold and metal behind his head.
"I feel like asking, Kolya," Shepard said behind him. "Did you see the sunrise?"
"What are you..."
And then gunshot carried through the air, swallowed in the sounds of battle.
"Tom Selleck, you wouldn't understand," Shepard said as he bent down to check Skuld.
The robot came up behind him and seemed worried despite the lack of a real expression.
"All right," Shepard said. "Think you could carry her?"
The robot nodded.
"Then let's..."
First one robot spider and then several appeared and Shepard grimaced.
Until they all stopped moving suddenly as did Banpei, for twenty seconds.
"Hey all right," Shepard said. "That'll work."
They worked their way down to the battle going on and moving toward the center. He arched an eyebrow at the Goddesses and then his team.
"Well, the dimensional wall fell apart," one of the Goddesses, he recognized her from reports as Peorth, making her THE big gun at Asgard. "Without much effort too."
Officially at least.
He'd heard about Peorth. He'd seen Mara and Belldandy.
Two of those were visibly doing a lot more than the third.
"Okay," Shepard said. "Explanations on that later. For now we have a rather large group of robot spider things that keep building more of themselves. Think anybody can do an EMP that covers maybe....five miles?"
Peorth grimaced.
"Get Skuld out of here, Banpei as well. It won't be selective," she said. "Then yes. I think I can do that if you can continue to buy me time."
"Got it," Shepard said. "Teyla...take the bot and the kid home..."
"What about me?" a pained voice called out.
"And the Mayborne," Shepard sighed.
*****************
Power went out all over Tokyo, up to and including some of the machines piloted by the Gods given the amount of power that Peorth put into it.
And then the rescue teams were completely gone.
Major Samantha Carter looked over the results of the readings they were getting. The fallout was being successfully pushed upwards. Between the lot of lightning and electricity related Gods, Demons, Ainur and assorted psychics they'd been able to put together, there was a firm curtain of mana, chi and pishogue pushing upward against the radiation around both Eastern Europe and Okinawa.
The extension of the exercise to two locations had strained some numbers, but it was still possible.
Especially since there were a surprising number of category ones from all three species involved in the exercise.
However, it wasn't the success of the mission that was most telling on them at the moment.
"There's no doubt, there was an intelligent attempt to counter exactly what we were doing," Carter said.
"It was powerful too," Thor said. "Even after fatigue and injury, a single category one should not have been able to cause that much trouble for all of us."
"They were inexperienced," Raiden said. "And incautious, not like our young Ainur friends."
"Agreed," Athena said panting. "But excessively powerful despite being easily disrupted. Inefficient and extremely powerful, what does that describe."
"Pishogue," Urd said with a sigh. "Mara's virus team just got a lot more important. The Demons in Nidhog aren't just sucking their thumbs up there."
"Or out here," O'Neil said coming into the room. "Unless you forgot that we had about two hundred of them set up despot dictatorships around the world in Africa, South America, parts of Asia."
"We might have to invade Nifelheim before Nidhog is purged," Captain Testarossa said. "I think I need to talk to someone about another upgrade."
"What do you have left?" Thor asked. "The network, Silmaril..."
"You want Domains," Athena reasoned with a thoughtful look.
"We're not going to have cruise missiles and artillery in Nifelheim," Tessa noted.
The extension of the exercise to two locations had strained some numbers, but it was still possible.
Especially since there were a surprising number of category ones from all three species involved in the exercise.
However, it wasn't the success of the mission that was most telling on them at the moment.
"There's no doubt, there was an intelligent attempt to counter exactly what we were doing," Carter said.
"It was powerful too," Thor said. "Even after fatigue and injury, a single category one should not have been able to cause that much trouble for all of us."
"They were inexperienced," Raiden said. "And incautious, not like our young Ainur friends."
"Agreed," Athena said panting. "But excessively powerful despite being easily disrupted. Inefficient and extremely powerful, what does that describe."
"Pishogue," Urd said with a sigh. "Mara's virus team just got a lot more important. The Demons in Nidhog aren't just sucking their thumbs up there."
"Or out here," O'Neil said coming into the room. "Unless you forgot that we had about two hundred of them set up despot dictatorships around the world in Africa, South America, parts of Asia."
"We might have to invade Nifelheim before Nidhog is purged," Captain Testarossa said. "I think I need to talk to someone about another upgrade."
"What do you have left?" Thor asked. "The network, Silmaril..."
"You want Domains," Athena reasoned with a thoughtful look.
"We're not going to have cruise missiles and artillery in Nifelheim," Tessa noted.
246663
Crude but true, both in canon and here.
Rolls eyes... of course he would say that, might even believe it.
I had commented on that previously, so will not bother again.
246752
Amazes me that I can actually see the average joe believing it... After all it is in the news, it must be true.
'his' s/b 'their'
'Lwt's' s/b 'Let's'
When I first read this, I thought it was Sousuke you were referring to, not Andy. Had me confused when he turned up fine a minute later, thought he regenerated. What is even more confusing, is Andy shows up later behind the attackers, so the question becomes, whom had their head destroyed?
246833
She never struck as the type to forget a slight.
Hmmm... he junxed, but was it on purpose remains to be seen.
Ahhh... mob mentality... have to love when the rules of stupid run rampant.
246889
One has to wonder what Lusca would make of the specific type of magazine Naiki was shown.
Sometimes, it is the simple philosophy that is best.
I do kind of have to wonder how that conversation went between her and Ranma.
'I in' does not seem right, unless that also was part of the deliberate mangling of the phrase.
Was that deliberate misleading, or is she slowly becoming more unstable the more she uses her abilities? Perhaps due to unlocking them early.
246891
Busted
Actually, this has me thinking, just how much time has passed since the initial start of the attack.
'will' s/b 'well'
Overall, I thought Ranma handled this fairly well, was a bit surprised she did not even seem to think the thought that at least her daughters first time was willing.
This has bugged me a bit, so I looked it up... since all Ranma's kids are in high school... are they 15 or older? If so, they are also of Age for the country of Greece.
Shouldn't this be 'you' instead of 'we'? I suppose it could go either way, but it a bit circular in reference as it is.
246923
'possibly' s/b 'possible'
246992
Quite the change in tone, though it is an interesting if disjointed flashback that explains some of her behavior.
She really is one of the more interesting characters of yours I;ve seen in this story.
Wonder if either of those belonged to Akane?
Heh... cannot not have her trademark response. I am oddly reminded of Miz Mistal from the series El Hazard, where she is being attacked by bugrum, her 'savior' is attacked by them, and she swats them aside like they were nothing, and then proceeds to proclaim how scared she was while hugging him for saving her.
There are a couple more you've done, but I'm currently too tired to do them, will get back to you on them, possibly as a PM.
Look forward to more.
Oh, one thing, I am a bit surprised Ranma has not had another talk with the son on both his actions in the fights, and in his relationship with the girls.
Crude but true, both in canon and here.
Rolls eyes... of course he would say that, might even believe it.
I had commented on that previously, so will not bother again.
246752
Amazes me that I can actually see the average joe believing it... After all it is in the news, it must be true.
'his' s/b 'their'
'Lwt's' s/b 'Let's'
When I first read this, I thought it was Sousuke you were referring to, not Andy. Had me confused when he turned up fine a minute later, thought he regenerated. What is even more confusing, is Andy shows up later behind the attackers, so the question becomes, whom had their head destroyed?
246833
She never struck as the type to forget a slight.
Hmmm... he junxed, but was it on purpose remains to be seen.
Ahhh... mob mentality... have to love when the rules of stupid run rampant.
246889
One has to wonder what Lusca would make of the specific type of magazine Naiki was shown.
Sometimes, it is the simple philosophy that is best.
I do kind of have to wonder how that conversation went between her and Ranma.
'I in' does not seem right, unless that also was part of the deliberate mangling of the phrase.
Was that deliberate misleading, or is she slowly becoming more unstable the more she uses her abilities? Perhaps due to unlocking them early.
246891
Busted
Actually, this has me thinking, just how much time has passed since the initial start of the attack.
'will' s/b 'well'
Overall, I thought Ranma handled this fairly well, was a bit surprised she did not even seem to think the thought that at least her daughters first time was willing.
This has bugged me a bit, so I looked it up... since all Ranma's kids are in high school... are they 15 or older? If so, they are also of Age for the country of Greece.
Shouldn't this be 'you' instead of 'we'? I suppose it could go either way, but it a bit circular in reference as it is.
246923
'possibly' s/b 'possible'
246992
Quite the change in tone, though it is an interesting if disjointed flashback that explains some of her behavior.
She really is one of the more interesting characters of yours I;ve seen in this story.
Wonder if either of those belonged to Akane?
Heh... cannot not have her trademark response. I am oddly reminded of Miz Mistal from the series El Hazard, where she is being attacked by bugrum, her 'savior' is attacked by them, and she swats them aside like they were nothing, and then proceeds to proclaim how scared she was while hugging him for saving her.
There are a couple more you've done, but I'm currently too tired to do them, will get back to you on them, possibly as a PM.
Look forward to more.
Oh, one thing, I am a bit surprised Ranma has not had another talk with the son on both his actions in the fights, and in his relationship with the girls.
well, basically, she's done a number on herself mentally speaking...it's not deteriorating, but it gets more obvious when you talk to her about the subjects that have big freaking holes in her normally-conscious mind
doh, yeah, that might have been a good add
was not aware of that
they're sixteen, almost seventeen, this starting roughly seventeen years after the conception
Kyushu-local time used
This was a BUSY day (it might be better for me to go in and correct it to several days...probably will in the reboot)...attack started roughly 3am in the morning (if you include advance groups)...they put down most resistance within about 12-14 hours, mostly due to the lack of sheer numbers and strategical sense...there were several invasion points up and down the coasts of Kyushu...besides those that were shown
Kaname, Mara and company were coding from about 5am, Sousuke left about the same time, Eija and Naiki were part of the landings at about 6am
Sousuke was in East-Berlin at about the same time that things were calming down in Kyushu, make that early morning there, late afternoon/early evening in Kyushu
the Behemoths were out near the end of the day, probably to a setting sun...as was Eija's move to aid Sousuke's team and the start of pushing the fallout up into the sky...the nuke in Okinawa was about the same time
Shepherd's team finished sometime before the Behemoths and nuke
Other situations I need to handle that are probably coming in the next breather set:
Kasumi and Nodoka getting talked to by Wraith (probably in flashback)
Kasumi getting talked to by Tofu (probably triggers above flashback)
Nodoka reuniting again with child and grandchildren
Ranma telling kids about about HIM and Mao
DisPater family meeting
Deimosu and Eija getting another conversation, in addition to what you said...
***********************
so yeah, some time crunching relationship breathers coming up....with mild peeks at the way the war is heading
doh, yeah, that might have been a good add
was not aware of that
they're sixteen, almost seventeen, this starting roughly seventeen years after the conception
Kyushu-local time used
This was a BUSY day (it might be better for me to go in and correct it to several days...probably will in the reboot)...attack started roughly 3am in the morning (if you include advance groups)...they put down most resistance within about 12-14 hours, mostly due to the lack of sheer numbers and strategical sense...there were several invasion points up and down the coasts of Kyushu...besides those that were shown
Kaname, Mara and company were coding from about 5am, Sousuke left about the same time, Eija and Naiki were part of the landings at about 6am
Sousuke was in East-Berlin at about the same time that things were calming down in Kyushu, make that early morning there, late afternoon/early evening in Kyushu
the Behemoths were out near the end of the day, probably to a setting sun...as was Eija's move to aid Sousuke's team and the start of pushing the fallout up into the sky...the nuke in Okinawa was about the same time
Shepherd's team finished sometime before the Behemoths and nuke
Other situations I need to handle that are probably coming in the next breather set:
Kasumi and Nodoka getting talked to by Wraith (probably in flashback)
Kasumi getting talked to by Tofu (probably triggers above flashback)
Nodoka reuniting again with child and grandchildren
Ranma telling kids about about HIM and Mao
DisPater family meeting
Deimosu and Eija getting another conversation, in addition to what you said...
***********************
so yeah, some time crunching relationship breathers coming up....with mild peeks at the way the war is heading
"Excuse me," Kaname said insistently.
Several faces turned to look at her and she immediately felt just the littlest bit self-conscious, but firmed herself up and made her point anyway.
"Okay," she said. "I'm going to go visit Eija in Atlantis's hospital. I'll be back here or at Mara's tomorrow...or tonight...or whatever, but right now, I've got a friend in the hospital and if things are done I'm going to visit her."
Major Carter exchanged a look with first O'Neil and then Captain Testarossa and Athena.
"Yes, please do that," Tessa said in a calm tone. "I shall likely be there myself soon to visit Second Lieutenant Mao."
Kaname blinked in confusion at there being no protest, but recovered quickly.
"All right," she said, nodding firmly and turning on her heels, she found herself walking out the door.
"So, your people hire teenaged drill sergeants too?" O'Neil asked with a smirk.
"Miss Chidori can be quite brusque when upset," Tessa admitted.
Kaname wasn't far into the hallway as she noted that Eija was still asleep, or unconscious, but felt like she might be waking up soon. Sousuke was already in Atlantis, of course, she'd left him there with Eija when she'd been sent here to do the electro-thing.
Dr. Beckett assures us that Eija is fine, Sousuke told her.
Kaname nodded and ran through a series of numbers before disappearing from the hallway as two people turned a corner.
Dr. Jackson looked over toward Teal'C.
"Okay, remember when the gateroom was the only place we had things moving in and out of this dimension?" he asked.
"Indeed," Teal'C noted with a smirk.
*********************
Deimosu saw Kaname coming out of the Atlantis gate-room at a near run heading for the hospital area. She hadn't even spared a moment to notice passing him up. The young Ainur, of course, knew why.
A grimace started to work over his face as he thought of the number of times that Eija had ended up hurt or unconscious around Sousuke and Kaname.
The fact that the girl had somehow convinced Eija to accept sharing the same man...it felt almost to him as if Kaname and Sousuke had basically asked her to be the official mistress. If that wasn't taking advantage of his sister's gentle nature he wasn't sure what was.
Deimosu, perhaps you should calm down a bit, Yonjuu suggested.
That girl and that two-timing guy are making a fool out of my sister on her sickbed, again, he responded.
He looks very...umm...I can't tell, Yonjuu said. But he smells really worried, even if his face is calm.
Increasing his own pace he was coming to the entrance of the recovery rooms when his mother stepped out from the door to intercept him with an outstretched hand first.
"You and me need to talk before you go in there," his mother said. "You don't want Eija to wake up seeing you arguing with Kaname."
"So I'll argue with Sagara then," he noted, starting to move around the small form of his mother.
Ranma moved aside to intercept him and put one implacable hand on his chest and let him try to push forward with no results. He stopped and stepped back, feeling sheepish as he saw the disappointed look on his mother's face.
"There's an empty room over here," Ranma said, gesturing toward a door and waiting for Deimosu to walk into it.
Following her son in, she let the Atlantean door close behind her and leaned against it, looking tired.
"Now about the issue with you and your sisters," the red-head said.
"What issue?" Deimosu asked.
"Fine, we'll start with you and Eija's friends," Ranma commented.
"You mean that two-timing jerk and the domineering..." Deimosu stopped as Ranma's hand was raised.
"Eija likes them, they like Eija," Ranma said. "And they've been there for her. They're not hurting her..."
"But she's always getting injured," Deimosu noted. "And always has something to do with them."
"Deimosu," she responded. "We're in the middle of a war. Practically everybody's been on the recovery list at least once. If you stopped to think, I'd bet you'd notice that Kaname isn't exactly in the peak of health after today either."
"But, it's Eija," Deimosu protested.
"Meanwhile, you have no concern for Naiki," Ranma said.
Deimosu tried to answer but couldn't think of one.
"Either you think Eija can't take care of herself," Ranma noted. "Or you don't think what happens to Naiki matters."
"That's not true!" Deimosu protested. "Neither is true. But Naiki is..."
"Naiki is what?" Ranma asked.
"She gropes people and chases guys and girls," Deimosu said. "She's almost as bad..."
The warning look he got sent a shiver down his back.
"You're supposed to look out for your sisters," Ranma agreed, letting the near comment pass. "Not lording over them. I think you'll find that we'll be having Sousuke and Kaname around for a long time. And Naiki's starting to mature too. They make their own decisions, they don't need you for that."
"But, look at wh..." he stopped and remembered what Cu Cuchalin had said. "I...I am arrogant like Zeus."
"No," Ranme said firmly. "You're arrogant like me."
Deimosu scrunched his brows up and looked toward his mother.
"Zeus doesn't care about anything or anybody else as long as he gets what he wants," the exorcist explained. "I just think I know better than everybody."
"You're not arrogant, Okaasan," Deimosu protested. "Arrogant people don't..." he paused and changed what he was about to say. "They don't admit to being arrogant. I never have."
"Until just now," Ranma said pointedly.
Deimosu stared at her in a bit of shock.
"We're going in now," Ranma said. "Be polite, no snarking, no insulting Kaname or Sousuke. And I want you to pay attention to what's going on with Naiki and Eija, got it? Watch their faces, Deimosu."
"I'll try," he said.
**************
Eija woke up slowly and leaned up out of the medical bed, feeling the familiar aftereffects of a healing spell combined with sensation of a heart-monitor.
"Eija!"Eija! Kaname gasped both out loud and telepathically as she reached down to firmly hug up the waking girl. "Thank the Heavens!"
"It is good to see you up," Sousuke said simply, even as Eija could feel an equally intense wave of relief coming out of him as he stood at her bedside.
"What happened?" she asked. "Are we back in Atlantis?"
"There was...a booby trap," Sousuke said quietly. "Batiste apparently set it off."
Eija slumped heavily into Kaname's softening hug and sighed heavily.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"It wasn't your fault," Kaname assured her. "He made the mistake, not you."
Very self-consciously, Sousuke laid a hand on Eija's own and squeezed as Kaname continued sitting on the bed next to her on the other side.
"Are you effective?" he asked, which was about as close as he could get to "how are you?"
"Yes," Eija said, sitting up carefully. "I feel somewhat stiff, but that is all. I shall be fine. We stopped all of Gauron's bombs, right?"
Kaname and Sousuke shared a nervous look
Several faces turned to look at her and she immediately felt just the littlest bit self-conscious, but firmed herself up and made her point anyway.
"Okay," she said. "I'm going to go visit Eija in Atlantis's hospital. I'll be back here or at Mara's tomorrow...or tonight...or whatever, but right now, I've got a friend in the hospital and if things are done I'm going to visit her."
Major Carter exchanged a look with first O'Neil and then Captain Testarossa and Athena.
"Yes, please do that," Tessa said in a calm tone. "I shall likely be there myself soon to visit Second Lieutenant Mao."
Kaname blinked in confusion at there being no protest, but recovered quickly.
"All right," she said, nodding firmly and turning on her heels, she found herself walking out the door.
"So, your people hire teenaged drill sergeants too?" O'Neil asked with a smirk.
"Miss Chidori can be quite brusque when upset," Tessa admitted.
Kaname wasn't far into the hallway as she noted that Eija was still asleep, or unconscious, but felt like she might be waking up soon. Sousuke was already in Atlantis, of course, she'd left him there with Eija when she'd been sent here to do the electro-thing.
Dr. Beckett assures us that Eija is fine, Sousuke told her.
Kaname nodded and ran through a series of numbers before disappearing from the hallway as two people turned a corner.
Dr. Jackson looked over toward Teal'C.
"Okay, remember when the gateroom was the only place we had things moving in and out of this dimension?" he asked.
"Indeed," Teal'C noted with a smirk.
*********************
Deimosu saw Kaname coming out of the Atlantis gate-room at a near run heading for the hospital area. She hadn't even spared a moment to notice passing him up. The young Ainur, of course, knew why.
A grimace started to work over his face as he thought of the number of times that Eija had ended up hurt or unconscious around Sousuke and Kaname.
The fact that the girl had somehow convinced Eija to accept sharing the same man...it felt almost to him as if Kaname and Sousuke had basically asked her to be the official mistress. If that wasn't taking advantage of his sister's gentle nature he wasn't sure what was.
Deimosu, perhaps you should calm down a bit, Yonjuu suggested.
That girl and that two-timing guy are making a fool out of my sister on her sickbed, again, he responded.
He looks very...umm...I can't tell, Yonjuu said. But he smells really worried, even if his face is calm.
Increasing his own pace he was coming to the entrance of the recovery rooms when his mother stepped out from the door to intercept him with an outstretched hand first.
"You and me need to talk before you go in there," his mother said. "You don't want Eija to wake up seeing you arguing with Kaname."
"So I'll argue with Sagara then," he noted, starting to move around the small form of his mother.
Ranma moved aside to intercept him and put one implacable hand on his chest and let him try to push forward with no results. He stopped and stepped back, feeling sheepish as he saw the disappointed look on his mother's face.
"There's an empty room over here," Ranma said, gesturing toward a door and waiting for Deimosu to walk into it.
Following her son in, she let the Atlantean door close behind her and leaned against it, looking tired.
"Now about the issue with you and your sisters," the red-head said.
"What issue?" Deimosu asked.
"Fine, we'll start with you and Eija's friends," Ranma commented.
"You mean that two-timing jerk and the domineering..." Deimosu stopped as Ranma's hand was raised.
"Eija likes them, they like Eija," Ranma said. "And they've been there for her. They're not hurting her..."
"But she's always getting injured," Deimosu noted. "And always has something to do with them."
"Deimosu," she responded. "We're in the middle of a war. Practically everybody's been on the recovery list at least once. If you stopped to think, I'd bet you'd notice that Kaname isn't exactly in the peak of health after today either."
"But, it's Eija," Deimosu protested.
"Meanwhile, you have no concern for Naiki," Ranma said.
Deimosu tried to answer but couldn't think of one.
"Either you think Eija can't take care of herself," Ranma noted. "Or you don't think what happens to Naiki matters."
"That's not true!" Deimosu protested. "Neither is true. But Naiki is..."
"Naiki is what?" Ranma asked.
"She gropes people and chases guys and girls," Deimosu said. "She's almost as bad..."
The warning look he got sent a shiver down his back.
"You're supposed to look out for your sisters," Ranma agreed, letting the near comment pass. "Not lording over them. I think you'll find that we'll be having Sousuke and Kaname around for a long time. And Naiki's starting to mature too. They make their own decisions, they don't need you for that."
"But, look at wh..." he stopped and remembered what Cu Cuchalin had said. "I...I am arrogant like Zeus."
"No," Ranme said firmly. "You're arrogant like me."
Deimosu scrunched his brows up and looked toward his mother.
"Zeus doesn't care about anything or anybody else as long as he gets what he wants," the exorcist explained. "I just think I know better than everybody."
"You're not arrogant, Okaasan," Deimosu protested. "Arrogant people don't..." he paused and changed what he was about to say. "They don't admit to being arrogant. I never have."
"Until just now," Ranma said pointedly.
Deimosu stared at her in a bit of shock.
"We're going in now," Ranma said. "Be polite, no snarking, no insulting Kaname or Sousuke. And I want you to pay attention to what's going on with Naiki and Eija, got it? Watch their faces, Deimosu."
"I'll try," he said.
**************
Eija woke up slowly and leaned up out of the medical bed, feeling the familiar aftereffects of a healing spell combined with sensation of a heart-monitor.
"Eija!"Eija! Kaname gasped both out loud and telepathically as she reached down to firmly hug up the waking girl. "Thank the Heavens!"
"It is good to see you up," Sousuke said simply, even as Eija could feel an equally intense wave of relief coming out of him as he stood at her bedside.
"What happened?" she asked. "Are we back in Atlantis?"
"There was...a booby trap," Sousuke said quietly. "Batiste apparently set it off."
Eija slumped heavily into Kaname's softening hug and sighed heavily.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly.
"It wasn't your fault," Kaname assured her. "He made the mistake, not you."
Very self-consciously, Sousuke laid a hand on Eija's own and squeezed as Kaname continued sitting on the bed next to her on the other side.
"Are you effective?" he asked, which was about as close as he could get to "how are you?"
"Yes," Eija said, sitting up carefully. "I feel somewhat stiff, but that is all. I shall be fine. We stopped all of Gauron's bombs, right?"
Kaname and Sousuke shared a nervous look