* *
*
Ryoga Hibiki ran full tilt into the factory, trying to avoid the alien
composite of flesh and metal that had once been called Rubeus. Ryoga was
wearing the standard recon light armor and tattoos, and suddenly noticed
a smoke trail of a grenade by his foot. He cartwheeled out of its way and
ducked through a passage.
"Why are you making it so hard on yourself?" Again his taunts, unlike any
of the other of these alien cyborgs which Ryoga had been sent to
exterminate. Rubeus had his left hand replaced with a cylinder that could
split open, popping out an actually rather cool looking miniature gatling
gun. He wore a grenade packed bandolier. The Black Moon mark was still on
his forehead. "You could just come peacefully. The assimilation process
actually isn't as painful as you may think...." Then, Rubeus strafed the
corner, getting closer to where Ryoga was and tossing grenades into every
cluster of boxes in the warehouse they were currently in. It had been
cleared just before, but then Ryoga had been driven back. He took a small
gun out of its holster and was glad he had kept the gun.
* *
*
He was at a briefing. The nightmares were finally beginning to become
less frequent now that he had enlisted in the USMC. He had been assigned
to recon, and just gotten the nanobot tattoos. The dark patterns around
his eyes allowed him to get transmissions from the command ship while
being fitting of his mood since he had gotten out of the hospital, while
the one on his arm signified which team he was part of. The one he had
joined, consisting of him, Deunan Knute, and an american named Bryan
Jonas. They, along with countless other teams, were in charge of
establishing communications with the command ship.Of course, Ryoga would
have preferred the 'Rampage' or even 'Knight Saber' teams, but he had no
choice in the matter. Today, they would be getting their weapons, and
learning to use them. Deunan was simply ecstatic about her new
flamethrower, and ran off to try it on the firing range. Bryan got his
rocket launcher and ran off after Deunan. Then came Ryoga's turn. "This
is a .67 semiautomatic pistol." "I'll do without one, sir." This brought
him into a rather one-sided standoff with Major Nathan J. Allred: "Yeah,
sure you will, Hibiki. I don't care how much you don't want this gun,
because it'll keep you alive-and I don't care how much you dislike that,
either.If you think I'm going to let you go berzerk with that kung-fu
shit, just because you've lost loved ones like every other damn soldier
here but can't cope, you're dead wrong.You understand me?"
"Yes, sir."
* *
*
He readied it. Just as Rubeus came to the small area. < I'll have maybe a
second when his gun opens up to act, or maybe I'll be lucky and he'd like
to give me a fucking speech like in the movies.> He didn't wonder if he
was going to die or not. He would make it. He had to. Ukyo, Akane, and
Ranma counted on him. Ryoga got in a variation of a defensive stance so
that he could fire the autopistol when Rubeus strode in. As he said,
"Aha!-" and his gun opened up. Ryoga snapped 2 shots at It's face and
then spinned into a jump kick, knocking the cyborg across the room and
into some boxes. Ryoga ran at it to check if he had finished it off when
suddenly the cyborg got back up and backhanded Ryoga with the chunk of
twisted metal that had been his gun-hand. Ryoga knocked back so fast, he
barely felt the metal cut into the side of his head. The blood clouded
his vision as Rubeus began to beat Ryoga, kicking him and gloating all
the while. "..You could have joined us, vermin. Now you will join your
Earth friends in hell." He raised his gun-hand to impale him. In
crippling pain from the beating, Ryoga knew he couldn't get out of this
one. <So this is how it ends. I'll be seeing you soon, Mousse-> The
shreds of metal shot down- And then Rubeus exploded. His body was ripped
to shreds and pieces of it flew through the air. Ryoga heard someone
quip, "It's 3-1, my lead, Ryoga-san."
"Ryoko?!"
Ryoga's sometime companion on this planet hovered down. Whenever he
asked which team she was part of, she'd just say, "The Jurian embassy,"
and laugh like it was an inside joke.He was happy to see her, though. It
made him feel like he wasn't the only one fighting this damn war. "How
are you?" "Fine. How's it going on the 'front?" "It seems like the space
battle has stopped, but we won't know until you get your ass down to that
comm tower." "OK OK, I was on my way there anyway, Ryoko." "Well, get
going! I'll cover you." And with that she flew back up to god knows
where. Ryoga sprinted to the exit of the warehouse and to the bridge
separating him from the comm center. The bridge exploded in his face, and
he jumped down, only to see an impaled corpse of a dead soldier. Ryoga
spotted the dead's double barreled shotgun and grabbed it. He ducked
enemy fire and ran to a huge sewer pipe. Ryoga realized this was probably
the only way into the installation now and tried to open the vent. He
felt a burning pain suddenly erupt on his back as he span around and
fired the shotgun's two barrels. The force of the point-blank blast
launched the nameless cyborg guard across the room. <Thank goodness for
light armor...And split potions, or I'd be bacon right now.> He finally
pried open the vent, and squirmed in to it.
TBC
Next time, I'll explain what the hell is going on(With a big space battle
that doesn't suck), and put in a few battle scenes that don't
suck(Hopefully).
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