Howdy Everybody! Ohmen1 here (using my other account)!
Whew! Its been a loooong time since I have posted a chapter
to this story! Lets just say a *lot* of things have happened
this year in RL, plus a couple of computer problems, which had
slowed me down considerably. You will notice that there is a
question mark at the end of this chapter title. This is because
I have not yet decided if I want this chapter to contain Ranma and
Kerrigan's actual meeting or make that meeting the subject of chapter
5. So in coming weeks you might see part b, or chapter 5, depending.
Since this next week is holiday vacation from work, I should be able
to punch out a lot. We shall see. Any ways, Happy Holidays and Happy
New Years!
As ever, C&C is eagerly wanted, both positive and negative,
but outright flames are simply deleted and that person added to
an e-mail filter. All I ask is that negative comments are
constructive in nature. Thanks!
As ever, special thanks go to Louis-Philippe Giroux for
pre-reading what little I have here. If you have not read his
two stories, Lines Of Destiny and Differing Powers (a
Ranma/Sailormoon, and a Ranma/WheelOfTime crossover respectively),
than stop what you are doing now and go do it!
And now, on with the show....
Second Star chapter 4
Written by: Michael D. Rever
In Orbit above the former Confederate Homeworld of Tarsonis.
Tarsonis was a beautiful planet, when seen from high above its
surface. The oceans were a brilliant blue, like the color of a pure
sapphire. The land masses were a variety of shades of orange, with
the primary color being a burnt-orange shade, and the mountain ranges
of a slightly darker hue. The poles had the customary ice caps, as
did the very tips of the highest mountains. Yes, all in all, it was a
very pretty sight, and one that brought forth a feeling of affection
from all Confederate travelers who were returning home from trips
abroad.
But today was a bit different. Today the lovely orange colored
stretches were not unblemished. Here and there, tiny dots of purple
were starting to show up all over the globe. At first they were
barely noticeable, but as time progressed, these dots could be seen to
spread. Soon large tracts of land had changed into this abnormal
color.
If you were high in orbit above the planet you could have seen
this. As a matter of fact, on this day, there were several beings
looking down from such a height.
One, a man. Gloating over a victory and over his successful bid
for leadership over the former Confederate worlds.
One, another man. With a heavy heart and tears in his angry
eyes. Watching one spot on the surface in particular slowly turn
purple, all the while swearing vengeance over the loss of two of his
best friends, one of whom had become very close to his heart indeed.
One, an alien. Bipedal. His face without facial features except
two deep-set glowing eyes. Those eyes flashed in the lights as he
looked down at a sight he had seen many times before, thinking about
his failure to prevent it from happening this time.
One, another alien. This one not actually above the planet, but
at the same time, it was, in a way, over, under, on, and in it. It
was feeling eagerness at claiming a new planet, frustration over a
failed task, and a slight nervousness for a reason it could not
define.
Four beings, same view, different reactions. And in the end, it
did not matter. Tarsonis now belonged to the Zerg.
Second Star : Chapter 4 Beginnings (tentative title)
The small Zergling was running as fast as it could. Over rocks,
on top of boulders, around the sides of hills, and through shallow
ravines it sped, trying its best to reach its kin in the shortest time
possible. It was already much later than it should have been. The
injures that it had taken from the strange human took an abnormally
long time to heal. But as soon as it felt recovered enough it had dug
itself out of it's burrowed hole and began its trek back to the Hive
that had spawned it.
Zerglings were, to put it politely, generally stupid creatures.
They were fiercely loyal to the Swarm, as were all Zerg, but they were
only good for simple missions. However, despite their general lack of
higher thought patterns, they were not completely brain dead. This
particular Zergling had been very confused when it had been unable to
kill the human it had fought. Usually when a Zergling is confused it
will simply attack the closest thing it perceives to be an enemy,
however this was a special situation. Even the Zergling knew that an
unarmed, unarmored human should have absolutely no chance against any
breed of Zerg. The fact that here was one human able to do exactly that
worried the viscous little beast. Could this be a new threat to the Swarm?
A new breed of Human? It had to return to the Hive and relay what it knew to
an Overlord. The Overlords were smart, and would be able to understand this.
The Zergling ran faster as it remembered the corpse of the
Hydralisk it had run across on its way down the mountain.
Soon though, its fast trek slowed down, as it started hearing the
sounds of screaming and of machinery. Hopping to the top of a small
hill, it found itself looking down at an isolated human farm. The
farmhouse itself seemed covered by some form of gelatinous substance,
and it seemed to be slowly falling apart; being dissolved by the
foreign material. Running out of the building were several humans
that, too, were covered with the red colored stuff. Four humans
total, two of which were lying on the ground screaming and crying, and
the other two which were now carrying vessels of water over
to splash them. Soon all four had cleaned the stuff from their now
naked bodies, but huge wounds could be seen to cover them.
The Zergling became distracted by what it saw. Its fore-arms,
which were long blades in actuality, twitched as it listened to the
moaning and crying of the weak and injured creatures before it. It
took at step. And then it was bounding at incredible speeds towards
the building.
The family of farmers, consisting of a man, his wife, and their
two sons, didn't stand a chance.
Cleaning its blades by slicing through a nearby tree, the
Zergling's limited mind recollected its mission. Squealing a bit at
the delay it had created, it took off again, following the ravine that
ran past the now destroyed farm. However, its trek was once again
halted as the ground before it rumbled and another creature shook off
the turf that had covered it. And the little Zergling was confronted
by the tired looking face of perhaps the most deadly breed found
within the Swarm, a Defiler.
The Zergling knew what the Defiler wanted, and normally would not
complain, knowing, in it's fanaticism, that it would be in the best
interest of the Swarm, but right now it *had* to get to the Hive.
Racing as fast as it could past the larger creature, it knew it was
too late. The Zergling felt it's energy flow from it's body, while
its heart started racing abnormally. Frantically it reached out with
its mind, hoping to find some trace of an Overlord. Luck was with it
as one of the floating creatures appeared over the horizon. But then
luck was against it in that it could only send a brief image of what
it had seen before it felt it's heart burst, followed quickly by the
rest of it's body.
The Defiler shook itself with confusion. It felt a bit more
energized after Consuming the little Zergling, but it had never heard
of one of the vicious little hounds trying to avoid sacrificing itself
before. Deciding that the Zergling had obviously been sick, it
patiently waited for the Overlord to come and pick it up; to take it
to yet another isolated settlement. The Defiler did not know that
as the large flying Zerg settled over it, the Overlord was faithfully
passing the images it had received from the Zergling to the Cerebrate
which was its leader.
Two days later......
Kerrigan hurt. Well, that is not completely true. It would be
closer to the truth to say, Kerrigan ached. All over. That was the
first thing she realized as she woke up. From the hair follicles on
the top of her head, down to her toenails, there was not a single part
of her that did not ache. As she became more and more alert however,
the aches and pains receded to tolerable limits. It felt more like
her body was totally and completely exhausted. It felt remarkably
similar to the way she felt when going through the Ghost Program's
basic training courses. Listening carefully, she could not hear any
sounds that were helpful, though there was a strange humming sound
surrounding her. But it was fairly quiet, and easily ignored.
Slowly and carefully, she opened her eyes and sat up.
Looking around she discovered that she was in a small room,
laying on a table of sorts. Sitting up so that her legs dangled from
the side of the table, she took note of the machines that lined three
of the four walls. Determining that they were nondescript and
uninformative, she started to wonder if she had been captured by the
Confederacy. But she couldn't remember being caught by her hated
enemies.
The last thing she could remember was climbing a high mountain,
using her rifle as a crutch. With that thought, the memories of her
betrayal resurfaced and her eyes watered. Her head drooped. Slowly
she slid off of the table and shuffled her body over to one of the
corners of the room, where she sat hugging her legs with her face
nestled between her knees. Rocking back and forth a bit, her
shoulders would shake once in a while, and muffled sounds could be
heard.
After a few minutes like this, she raised her head and wiped away
suspicious moisture from her eyes and once again looked around.
*I haven't cried since my days in the Program. Heh. Badass
Sarah Kerrigan must be getting weak.* she thought. Not seeing any
change in the machines, and the plain looking wall had no markings,
she started to focus on the humming sound she has been hearing since
she woke up. "Hmmm, no real source for it." She mumbled to herself,
while rising to her feet. "Its coming from all around. Could be the
computers, but it doesn't sound right for that." Forcing her tired
legs to move a bit, she walked back to the table and leaned against
it. Immediately her hands and hip that were pressed against the table
started to feel better. Less tired. Raising her eyebrows in
surprise, she exclaimed, "That's a new one!" *Never heard of any kind
of 'healing bed'. If it's the Confeds, they've kept this one quiet.*
Deciding that whomever her captors were, they would have made
arrangements to prevent her escaping, and not seeing any reason why
she shouldn't try to recover as fast as she could, she laboriously
climbed back onto the table and laid down, with her feet towards the
blank wall. At first she tried to prop herself up on her arms, so she
wouldn't be surprised if something happened, but she soon realized
that this was not a good idea after about ten minutes. Slowly she
was forced by her own body to lie back. Sleep followed soon after.
In The Central Room of the Xel'Naga Lair.
Ranma Saotome was engaged in his favorite pastime. Well, maybe
not his *favorite* pastime, but it was definitely in the top five. He
was sleeping. And he was dreaming, which was rather unfortunate for
him.
***FlashIn***
"C'mon Ranma, we have to go!" Ranko yelled while pulling Ranma's
shirtsleeve.
"Huh? Ranko? Where are we going? I gotta get to the school!"
he responded, looking down at his friend. He did not really remember
why he had to get to Furinkan, but he *knew* that it was important.
Something was going to happen there if he didn't get moving!
"C'mon, c'mon! We have to go! You don't want to keep the Zerg
waiting do ya?" Ranma vaguely wondered how Ranko was able to pull his
shirt while standing down the street from him.
"But what about Mom? Pop and I are going to go visit her
tonight! She wants to give me something." Ranma reasonably argued,
though something tugged at the back of his head that he was already
late for dinner.
"Don't worry, I've got it!" Akane shouted at him from about two
feet away. "You go on ahead. I'll tell Auntie to wait." Why she was
shouting, he would never know. But she did look cute in the bath
towel she was wearing. Or at least she looked less tomboyish. A
*lot* less tomboyish.
"Ooooo, husband is going to get into fight. Can Shampoo watch?"
the Chinese waitress cooed from behind him.
"Yeah, Ranchan. Let her watch. You know she wants to watch you
fight." Ranma smiled at the image of his Ucchan wearing clothes
similar to his own, and standing next to Shampoo. She had her hand on
the Amazon's shoulder and was smiling broadly.
*Wait a minute! Ucchan is never that nice to Shampoo! What is
going on here?*
"Ranma Saotome, you _will_ come with me" Ranma found himself
pulled backwards off his feet and dragged down the street, which
suddenly looked awfully like a cave. He looked up at Ranko, who had a
hold of the back of his shirt and was dragging him along behind her.
Strangely he could not seem to be able to focus on her, he could only
really make out her hand and arm.
"Where are we going? Back to the Dojo?"
"No idiot, you have to fight Barney, in Hiroshima!"
"Oh, OK. I didn't want to live forever anyway. Can we get
dinner first? Maybe at the Cologne-sensei's house?"
****FlashOut****
It was a very groggy Ranma that woke up.
"Awww, man . That was the -weirdest- one yet." He mumbled He
had been having the strange dreams lately, and they seemed to start
the minute he closed his eyes. Except for a few details, they were
all different from each other, and all were very disjointed and made
no sense when he thought about them.
Blearily he looked around at his surroundings. It had taken a
while, but he was no longer surprised to finding himself in the
Xel'Naga cave. The first couple times he woke up, he had forgotten
everything that had happened to him recently, and it took him a few
seconds to calm down and remember. Now though, the reality was
setting in, and he simply stood up and began what had become his
morning rituals.
The first thing he did was to check his wounds. Or what were
once his wounds. Now, Ranma had always been a fast healer, but the
fact that the injuries he had received from his fight with that big
ugly Zerg a few days ago had already healed, and the scars were
fading, left him stunned. Checking the scars, he decided that another
day, maybe two, and there will be absolutely no evidence of the fight
whatsoever. After poking and prodding the sore areas, he began his
warm-ups, which then led to the light workout. After about a half hour
of katas, stretches, and jumps, he slowed down and looked over at the
door to the bedroom he had originally woke up in those few days ago.
It was time to check up on the lady he rescued.
Walking over to the wall, he stuck out his hand and opened the
door. Inside, he was treated to a different view than what he had
come to expect. Sure, the lady was still laying on the table, but she
had obviously been moving in her sleep, as she was laying on the bed
backwards from the way he placed her on it two days ago.
Moving over to her side, Ranma looked over her face and what skin
he could see. Noticing that the bruising and abrasions that covered
her had mostly healed, he gently placed his hands on her stomach and
began pressing and prodding various muscle groups and feeling bones,
looking for something out of the ordinary, something to be alarmed
about. It was true that he was unable to touch her skin directly, her
torn and ripped bodysuit was intact enough to prevent such inspection,
but he believed he was knowledgeable enough about the human body that
he could tell nothing was wrong. Removing his hands from her sides,
he stepped back and slowly let out his breath. *Breathing normal,
heart rate good, bruises are fading, and nothing strange about the
organs,* he thought. "Well, lady. Looks like your ready to go
anytime now." He told the sleeping woman while walking towards
the open doorway.
After re-entering the central room, he stood in the doorway,
preventing the door from closing. Looking out and around what had
become his temporary home, he mused to himself, "Well, gonna have to
find some more food." He had managed to kill one of the strange
animals that sometimes would wander around the mountainside, and it
turned out to taste similar to beef. One section of the wall to the
central chamber held a cord of wood, neatly stacked, and not far from
that was a fire-circle made of large stones. The center of the room
was unchanged and was where he spent most of his free time exercising,
though he was still trying to get used to the fact that the spiral
Ranko had imprinted of the floor would sometimes fade in and out of
visibility.
Nodding to himself as he looked over the room, he suddenly took a
sidestep to the right. Just in time to watch the girl, now obviously
awake, fly past him in a failed tackle attempt. He looked on in some
concern as the lady landed on her hands, face, and chest, and did not
stand up.
"Ouch! That's gotta hurt!" he mumbled while scratching the back
of his head.
A Few Minutes Ago
Sarah Kerrigan came awake as soon as another living presence was
felt in the room. Having been trained in the arts of subterfuge and
planning, she kept perfectly still and regulated her breathing so that
it looked as if she was asleep. At the same time, she brought her
mind to bear and attempted to 'feel out' whomever it was. It was a
rather unsuccessful attempt however, as the humming noise she had
heard before was still there, but nothing else was found. So she had
to rely on her more mundane senses.
The person was standing next to her now, and she could tell, from
the sound of his breathing and movement, that he was studying her
face, and then her body. After his visual inspection was done, she
felt him reach out and touch her stomach, and begin to feel around.
Tensing herself slightly, she prepared to defend herself, but almost
immediately realized that he was performing a medical field exam. He
poked and prodded her sides (she was very thankful he did not actually
touch her ticklish spots), and felt her ribs.
"Well, lady. Looks like your ready to go anytime now." She heard
the now obviously male person say. Listening to him turn away and
start to walk from her, she slowly opened her eyes and watched his
back.
He was a tall man, leanly muscular, and with a long braid of
black hair hanging past his shoulders. He was walking towards an
opening in the room, where the blank wall had previously been. Sarah
watched the man stop in the entrance and look around at whatever was
on the other side. Not hearing sound of other people coming from the
next room, Sarah slowly slid off of the table, and despite her
slightly protesting muscles, began to sneak up behind her 'doctor'.
When she had come close enough to make a move, she bunched herself up,
and jumped!
The last thing she saw was the man take a step to the side, and
then she was suddenly face-first in the rock floor.
Current Time
Sarah, once again, woke up. This time however, she sat up
quickly and gasped as she did so. She found herself laying on a hard,
stone floor with a strange spiral pattern. Looking around, her eyes
met the eyes of the man she had tried to jump.
He was sitting across the room from her, with his back against
the wall and his knees drawn up. His bright blue eyes stared at her
unblinkingly, and they revealed nothing of what he was thinking.
*Hmmmm, he's pretty young. Maybe twenty, but I think he's a bit
younger.* She thought, considering the young man across from her.
She had spent many years in a rebellion, and knew well that age
sometimes meant very little. She herself had assassinated several
people before she had turned fifteen, on the orders of her then
Confederate masters.
The young man had not moved a muscle, his eyes still bore into
hers with no expression and without blinking. *So, it's a contest of
wills. Fine. If that is the way he wants it, I'll be damned if I am
the first to say anything.* She then sat herself up and matched the
boy, stare for stare. Fifteen minutes lapsed. Her eyes stinging, she
was frantically using every mental trick she knew to keep herself from
blinking, and forcing her eyes to stay steadily boring into his.
Finally though, she could blink when her opponent made the first
noise.
"Sssssnnnnnnkxxxxx"
The boy was asleep. With his eyes open. And had been the entire
time.
Blinking a few times, for reasons unrelated to the fact that her
eyes were dry, she slowly got to her feet and looked around the room,
keeping the boy in her peripheral vision the whole time. The room was
circular, with a domed ceiling, and apparently made of various types
of stone. Along the wall on one side of the room was a stack of wood,
and next to that a campfire area had been set up. Besides those
things, the spiral design on the floor, and the sleeping boy across
the room, the only thing on note were three small dots of light spaced
evenly along the wall. Sarah leaned back against the wall behind her,
and studied the boy, while considering her options.
*Well, there's no exit. But the wood for the fire comes from
somewhere. No food, and no water, which means either it is supplied
by someone else, or there is a way out. No backpack, no camping
materials. The boy is not dressed for exposure to the outdoors.
Everything suggests that is set up is temporary.* She turned her
attention solely to the boy. *Hmmmm, he's athletic. Seems to know
some survival skills, from his exam earlier. His clothes are strange,
some kind of shimmery material. No marks that I can see, nothing to
suggest where he's from...who he works for. He must not feel
threatened if he sleeps so easily. Maybe he does not consider me an
enemy? Should I consider him one? Did he help me escape the
Hydralisk? Why?*
Figuring that nothing was being accomplished by sitting there and
staring, she finally decided that there was much more evidence that
the young man was her friend than that he was an enemy. She would
wake him. But first she had something very important she really
needed to do. Standing up, she took her time stretching and flexing,
as if she had just awoken from a long and pleasant nap. The smile of
pleasure on her face as she stretched her tired arms above her head
was unmistakable.
Not trying to be sneaky or hidden, but rather with her normal
graceful stride, she walked straight across the room to stand before
her savior. Looking down at the sleeping young man, she was a little
surprised to see that his eyes were still wide open, and that he had
not moved an inch. She deliberately coughed. No change in the
sleeper. She coughed louder. Still no change. Shrugging, she bent
over and placed her hand on one of the boy's knees and gave a little
shake. The guy's eyes closed, his head fell to the side a bit, and a
bit of drool dripped from the corner of his mouth. Rolling her eyes,
Sarah wondered briefly if the boy was drugged or something.
She decided that the polite way of waking him up was not working,
but the hard way might get a response. Standing in front of him, she
leaned over, grabbed both his feet and pulled with all of her might.
"Whoah! Wha! Aaaaah!", the stranger cried out as he found his
butt pulled out from under him. Falling on his back, the back of his
head smacked into the hard stone floor with a resounding *Thunk!*
"Owie, owie, owie, owie!" he cried to himself while rubbing the
back of his head and sitting up.
Kerrigan just stood back, arms crossed, and watched.
.