***

    Ryouga moaned and started awake. "Akane..." he sniffled. "...How could you?"

    Nodoka shushed him. "Akane was already dead," Nodoka explained. "As was
my son." Tears streamed from her eyes. "I wish I had never agreed to this
war."

    Ryouga also wept. His love would never know that he loved her. The
image of both her death and her doppleganger exploding in his face were
forever etched in his mind. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you, Akane..."

    "Ryouga-sama..." came a lilting voice from the doorframe. Ryouga turned
to see Akari standing in it. There was a bandage on her face, and she was
crying. "Ka-Katsuni...Katsunishiki's gone." Ryouga's depression deepened to
hear that Akari-chan's favorite pig had died. Akari stepped toward him.
"He...he protected me from his own doppleganger. I--"

    "NO, RYOUGA-SAMA!" came a cry from the other end of the room. Ryouga
turned to look...and saw a carbon-copy of his Akari-chan in the doorframe,
a despirate look on her face. "She's an imposter! Don't trust her!" Her
face was etched with fear and worry.

    "A-Akari-chan?!" Ryouga choked. 'What the hell--!'

    The second Akari, Akari-2, rushed toward Ryouga, only to be stopped in
her progress by the point of Nodoka's sword. "How do we know _you_ are not
the simulacrum?" Akari-2 had no answer for her.

    "Ryouga, I'm the real thing..." Akari-1 whispered. "I love you. Always."

    Akari-2 shook her head. "Don't believe her, Ryouga-sama. I am the real
Unryuu Akari. It is I who truly loves you..."

    <I must destroy Hibiki Ryouga,> the simulacrum thought, <He is
dangerous to our masters' plan.>

    'I must expose this imposter for who she is,' thought the real Akari.
'I cannot let Ryouga-sama die, even if it costs me my life.'

    With a scream of anguish, the Akaris attacked each other. One, the
simulacrum, intending to gain Nodoka's trust so that she could get near
Ryouga. The other, the real Akari, wanting to protect Ryouga from this
assassin.

    Akari-2 used a Buta-Sumo move to force Akari-1 back and crashing into a
few vacant chairs. As Akari-1 groaned in pain and slowly sat up, Akari-2
pointed at her in triumph. "She's the fake! Hurry! Before she can attack me
again!"

    Akari-1 grabbed up a scalpel, still panting. She got to her feet
panting, weilding the scalpel, stumbling a little on a sprained ankle.

    Ryouga charged a Shishi Houkoudan, and aimed it at Akari-1.

    Akari-1 noticed this and smiled sadly. 'So you think I'm the imposter?
So be it. I'll protect you anyway.' "Dai suki-desu, Ryouga-sama," the real
Unryuu Akari whispered, "Sayounara..." She let out a battlecry and charged
the Akari simulacrum, scalpel glinting.

    The Akari simulacrum screamed, "KYAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!" <Fool. Your
lover will strike you down to protect me, thinking you're the fake, and
give me the perfect opportunity to kill him.>

    Ryouga tracked Akari-1 as she rushed the other. Akari would not act so;
she was gentle and wouldn't hurt a fly. Indeed, he heard the second Akari
scream in terror. 'The first Akari must be a fake! I must destroy it now!'
Then the impact of her words hit him.

    She said that she loved him; that she was sacrificing herself for him.
He saw that Akari-1's bandage had fallen off during the struggle. The wound
was bleeding red. It stalled him just long enough for Akari-1 to plunge the
scalpel into Akari-2's gut.

    'I did it...' Akari thought as she saw the scalpel gouge into the
dopple-ganger's flesh. A wave of the joy of accomplishment washed over her.
'Now I can die in peace...'

    'NO! I'M TOO LATE!' Ryouga's thoughts reeled. 'CURSE MY GULLIBILITY!'
"SHISHI--" he began.

    Yellow blood gushed from its abdomen. <NO! If I explode now, I'll never
complete my mission!> thought the simulacrum.

    Ryouga saw Akari-2's blood, then noted the yellow stains on his shirt
that had mixed with his own blood. In the quickest train of thought that
Ryouga had ever experienced, he put it all together. He retrained the shot
on Akari-2 and made the biggest gamble of his life as he completed the
mantra, "--HOUKOUDAN!"

    The ki-bolt slammed into the simulacrum, knocking it away from Akari.
'Ryouga...' Akari felt her heart soar. 'I knew you would know--'

    ***BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!***

    Her thoughts were interrupted as the explosion's shock wave crashed
into her, flinging her like a screaming rag-doll backwards and against the
wall behind her. She slid down the wall and collapsed in a heap.

    "Akari-chan!" Ryouga choked, lifting himself painfully out of the bed
and started towards her, his will and love for Akari the only thing keeping
him from collapsing then and there.

    Akari felt something cutting painfully into her side. Her hand went to
the area and encountered a steel handle, and a sharp pain tear up her
nerves. She looked down and found the scalpel now speared into her flank,
the wound growing rapidly red with her blood. Already a puddle of it was
forming under her.

    "Akari-chan..." Ryouga repeated shakily, causing her too look up to her
love.

    The room was growing dark, or was it her? Yes, it must be her. She
managed a smile. "Ri...you...ga...sa...ma..." she heard herself whisper,
and awareness left her.

    Ryouga watched in horror as he saw Akari's eyes glaze over and her body
become limp. He could not hear Nodoka calling for the medic as tears burned
his face. He hugged his dying, perhaps already dead, pig-loving girl,
crying into her blouse and himself to sleep as his weariness washed over
him...

    'The world is a dark and lonely place...'

***

    "Wyrm-chan!" Skywise called, rushing up to the team leader.

    She turned to face him. "What is it, Skywise?"

    "I have to report that Kunou, Sylia Stingray, and Katsunishiki have
been killed by the simulacrums," he reported. "Also, Ryouga is in critical
condition."

    Wyrm-chan nodded. "I've got some very bad news for you, Skywise," she
explained. "The Pfhor are not going to sit idly by while the simulacrums do
their work. They're going to keep the pressure up, finally bringing in the
Juggernauts."

    "Bring 'em on..." Skywise growled, unsheathing his short sword.

    Wyrm-chan raised an eyebrow. "Well, using the scanner that Skuld built,
we've determined that there were a total of nine Sims beamed into the
catacombs. At this moment, we're trying to trace down the last one."

    "I'll come along," Skywise offered. "We can watch each other's back."

    She smiled. Her voice replied huskily, "Skywise-chan...When I'm through
with this Sim...wanna go knock our boots, hon?" She winked suggetively at
Skywise and started a hip-wagging walk away from him.

    He grinned lecherously. "Sure!" he replied immediately and followed.

    Wyrm-chan spun and shot the Skywise simulacrum in the face before it
could take a step. The Sim flew back, striking the wall.

    ***BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!***

    "Silly Sim!" Wyrm-chan replied coldy, "Skywise would never be that
lecherous. That's what makes him so cute..." She let out a sigh. "It would
be nice if he were that forward with me, though..."

    The comm beeped, and Wyrm-chan heard Skuld's voice say, "*I've located
the last simulacrum. It's somewhere near you!*"

    "You're a little late, Skuld...I've already wasted it."

    "*Ah...*" Skuld sounded disappointed.

    "Returning to base," she reported spinning about, "Wyrm should be due
in a few minutes."

***

<FRED>

    Another eight months later, and Wyrm-chan still had not closed the
plot-hole like he'd asked. Furthermore, she had not responded to his
messages. Wyrm-k was feeling ignored. >:E

    Frosty-Usa stepped up to a silently fuming Wyrm and said, "Penny."

    "Huh? Oh!" Wyrm started. "It's Wyrm-chan. She hasn't responded in
months, yet the plot-hole's still open. I would have been worried that she
might not have been successful, but the Animates stopped coming through
months ago."

    Frosty-Usa sighed, "Well, five more months, and you'll be able to back
and check."

    Wyrm nodded.

***

<BACK HERE AGAIN...>

    Over the next few minutes, the situation deteriorated rapidly. The
Pfhor had been amassing their forces in the catacombs, and were now
launching a full-scale assault to flush them out of the bunker. The
MONForce and Revenging Characters had no choice but to retreat, the
situation was that grave.

    Wyrm-chan had long run out of supershields, and was down to x4 shield
level and three canisters each left in x1, x2, and x3. Her assault rifle
had run out of ammo (said to Padibast: "I hate you."), thirty-two .44 clips
left, twelve shotgun shells, three KVV clips and she was down to her last
fusion battery. She had not used her rockets or torpedoes at all, however.
Those were a special treat for the Juggernauts.

    As she expected, there were five Juggernauts waiting for them when they
emerged from the garden shed. "DIVE FOR COVER! GO!" She then began firing
with ambition to get the big floating armored thing that kicks our asses'
attention.

    It did. They turned their N-guns and guided rockets on her. "Just Vid
It," she reminded herself and pulled out the rocket launcher. She fired
several rockets at one, and its klaxon started screaming as it slowly
decended to the ground. Wyrm-chan RAN!

    The Juggernaut went nuclear, damaging the other four, and destroying
itself. She hated to be on the recieving end of _that_ blast.

    She drew bead on another one and fired. It noticed her and fired back,
and she was forced to dodge as she let off another volley. The first volley
hit dead-on, but the second missed. She growled and let loose all of her
remaining rockets in this clip into the thing's gullet.

    Two down, three to go.

    She heard the firing of N-guns behind her and immediately dodged.
Wyrm-chan swallowed as she saw another of those things had snuck in behind
her. She rolled behind a hill and found Mike Loader and the Animates
pressed against the side of the hill. The wounded had been evacuated on
stretchers with only the bare essentials keeping them alive.

    "What's everone doing here?" she asked.

    Mike just nodded over the hill he was on. Wyrm-chan peeked over it and
found a floatilla of Juggernauts heading right for them.

    "What do we do now?" Mike asked.

    "We pray...for a deus ex machina." They did.

***

<FRED>

    At long last, after almost two years of getting ready, Wyrm was
prepared to take the newly-christened _Marathon_ to the microverse next
door.

                       <<Theme from "Babylon 5">>

    The MONDF _Marathon_ lifted off on antigrav drive and engaged the main
impulse drive. It lifted gracefully up and sailed over the drydock harness,
its ventral fin just barely clearing the upper beam. It leveled off at six
thousand feet.

    A black rift opened just in front of the nose, and widened to several
klicks, the size of the _Marathon_. A plot-hole; Wyrm had tired waiting for
Wyrm-chan to do it, so he collapsed it himself. The gargantuan ship moved
into the rift.

***

    It emerged from the plot-hole behind the Juggernaut fleet. The
plot-hole snapped shut behind it.

    "Ask and ye SHALL recieve!" grinned Wyrm-chan.

    The beam cannon turrets rotated to track their targets, the Pfhor
Juggernauts, and fired.

    Now, the Pfhor Juggernaut might be the most heavily armored mobile unit
of its size around (its armor is only matched by the Monster Destroid, but
it's much smaller), but it wasn't intended to hold up against a ship-sized
CFB cannon. The beams tore through the Juggernauts like paper.

    The Pfhor ship turned its attentions to the much more formidable
adversary of the _Marathon_. All resources were directed to battling this
dreadnaught that appeared out of nowhere.

    It was a mistake, as the _Marathon_ turned its attentions toward the
Pfhor ship in turn. The Pfhor's weapons were ineffective against the
combination of the _Marathon_'s shields, hull, and mass. The _Marathon_'s
weapon's, on the other hand, had no such problem.

    The result was anticlimatic...

***

    The disabled Pfhor ship, held in suspention by the _Marathon_'s tractor
beams, was being secured within the main docking bay of the enormous ship.
That task was being supervised by Wyrm-k. Wyrm-chan, with her deactivated
MANTIS armor, stepped up behind him.

    "Wyrm-sama..." she began.

    "Don't call me that, please," Wyrm cut her off.

    "What bug crawled up your butt?" she asked. Wyrm didn't answer.
"Anyway, We've collapsed the plot-hole and we've got a new ship to add to
the the MON Defense Force. We've thwarted not one, but two invasions. The
Revenging Characters' invasion of Fred, and the Pfhor's invasion of this
microverse."

    "All because of my stupid mistake," Wyrm reminded her.

    Wyrm-chan laughed. "Is THAT what got you worried? Mike's treachery took
all of us by surprise!" She stopped laughing and scrutinised Wyrm. "What I
don't like is the lenient sentance that you gave him. He deserved much
worse."

    "It fits," Wyrm pointed out. "It'll also keep him out of trouble for a
while. Besides, I felt that I was as much to blame as he was."

    "Never mind that, Wyrm!" Wyrm-chan grinned. "I think he has a lot more
to answer for than you imagine!"

    The Tuncer Mirage Effect surrounded them and they bodyslid into the
_Marathon_.

***

    Mike fumed as he watched the MONDF _Marathon_ move through another
plot-hole to another universe unknown. Probably back to Fred where he would
complete the Shell. He glanced down on the tatoo on the back of his hand:
[ON PROBATION] His authorial powers had been repealed for awhile, and his
computer and Trump devices had been confiscated. He was also
signature-locked to this microverse, which means that he couldn't leave it.

    He turned to the Revenging Characters and shouted, "C'mon, Animates! We
can still invade Fred! When my authorial powers return, I'll make Eddie
remove my restrictions, return my stuff, and...what's wrong?" he asked at
their not-too-pleased faces.

    Ukyou stepped forward. "A lot of us died today," she pointed out.
"Because of your carelessness, our leader, Saotome Ranma, was killed. You
used a technology that was unfamiliar to you, and drawed those damned PFHOR
to this universe! LOOK!" She gestured to the now-ruined landscape. "THAT is
what your 'brilliant plan' won us!"

    Mike gulped.

    "You're out, Loader," Ukyou snarled. "If you ever cross our path again,
you'll regret it." As a unit, the Animates turned and left him gaping in
shock.

    "Eddie..." Mike turned to his Omnipotent Otaku Thing in hope. He merely
shook his head and followed the Animates.

    He was suddenly splashed with a bucket of water, and something latched
onto a now-present bust. "Loader-chan!" Happy cooed, rubbing himself in.
The Mysterious Trenchcoated Female growled and with a mighty punch sent
Happousai into the stratosphere.

    She turned to the sky and bellowed to it, shaking a fist at an imagined
face of Wyrm and Wyrm-chan sneering at him. "I'LL GET YOU, WYRM! YOU HEAR!
I'LL GET ALL THREE OF YOU!!"

*****************************************************************************
End Log 4

Whew! This has been a long and difficult journey, and I'm glad its over. It
was intended to be just a one-part thing, but it has grown to four parts. I
had not intended to include the Pfhor; it just happened.

Anyway, the Pfhor will be back in the SKJAM! Saga, now that (?) realizes
that he has a new pawn in his/her/its war against us.

                           ---------------------
-wyrm/dm(AKA Tom Jefferys; Time Lord for Hire, "Have TARDIS; Will Travel.")
      <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>           <JEFFERYSTR@rascal.guilford.edu>
   Member of the AFSS    {MOUNTAIN DEW ROCKS!!}    Vidboi (Marathon Pfhreak)
             Depraived Kawaii Thing of the First Order, Martin
   =<SIG>= Wyrm-chan @_@ H-Wyrm @_@ Ten @_@ Chibi-Usa @_@ Azusa =</SIG>=
=<^_^>= R1/2#_#BGC#_#Sailor Moon#_#Dr Who#_#Star Trek#_#Monty Python =</^_^>=

   Currently operating at <wyrm@middle.of.nowhere.void> for the time being

"I gotta lot of great ideas! Trouble is, most of them suck."

Childras, the <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu> Mailbox Deamon
Still trapped in Eternal Crystal and loving it!