Part 5: "Party at Ground Zero"
Ryu smirked. "So, I see you've brought your monstrous
friend to defend you, Ranma."
Ranma stared at him, confused. "What...?"
"Don't play the fool with me!" Ryu snarled, sinking into a
fighting stance. "Today is the day of our duel, have you
forgotten??"
Ranma blinked. "Actually...yeah."
Mousse, meanwhile, hauled a barely conscious Akane out of
the smouldering wreck, draped her over his shoulder quietly
and began to sneak off.
Ranma growled at him. "Hold it! Drop Akane right now,
Mousse."
Ryoga spun his umbrella in his hand like a buzzsaw. "It's
for your own good, Mousse." A deep concern for Mousse's
intestines was written plainly on his face.
"YOU WILL NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON ME, RANMA SAOTOME!!" Ryu
raged. "TURN AND FIGHT ME!!!"
Ranma turned around, exasperated. "Ryu, now's not the-"
Ryu roared and loosed an enormous crescent-shaped vacuum
blast at Ranma. Ranma crossed his hands in front of him
and negated it easily with his own Moko Takabisha, but he
noticed, too late, that Ryu had vanished. "What-?" He
began to spin around in alarm, then felt a string of brutal
punches pound his back.
Ryu laughed, reappearing again six feet behind Ranma.
Ranma collapsed to the ground. "The Thousand Sea Fist is
mine, now, Ranma! You don't stand a chan-"
Ukyou hit him.
It's one thing to take a glancing hit from an attack that
can blow through eight-inch-thick reinforced tank armor,
even if it sends you flying all the way across the room,
and quite another to get caught flat-footed and clocked
cleanly in the jaw. Ryu reflected, in sort of a daze as
his body crumpled and his head smashed into the ground,
that he hadn't ever quite experienced pain like that before.
Ryoga charged at Mousse, bellowing and swinging his fifty-
pound umbrella at Mousse's fleeing form like it weighed
nothing at all. Mousse spun around, pulled a .45 magnum
from his robes and took a few potshots at Ryoga, who opened
his massively heavy umbrella and held it before him like a
shield. Seeing the futility of trying to penetrate Ryoga's
apparently invulnerable umbrella, Mousse aimed at Ukyou,
instead, who stared at him intently with her burning
silver-gold eyes as her invisible shields vaporized the
bullets effortlessly.
Kuno the Zealot pulled himself to his feet, lifted the
ruined Corvette with one huge three-fingered hand, and
sliced it savagely in half with a single chop of his psi-
enhanced bokken. His eyes blazed as he turned around to
look for Ranma. "PREPARE YOURSELF, SAOTOME!" he boomed,
sliding into a formal kendo stance, then dashing at Ranma.
Ryoga spun his umbrella deftly in his hands, then popped it
open and sent it spinning through the air at Kuno, who
dodged it in stride. Ryu and Ranma both managed to stagger
to their feet as well, all thoughts of their duel forgotten
as they stared at the enormous monster barrelling towards
them at about 50 miles per hour.
"Abominations!" Darth Mousse thundered, dropping his gun
and pulling out two Super Soakers filled with scalding hot
water. Ukyou advanced towards him, cautiously watching the
water guns.
"Who the hell _are_ these monsters?" Ryu said, jumping out
of the raging Kuno Zealot's way just in time for his face
to receive Ryoga's umbrella on its return arc. He landed
on his knees, then ground his teeth together, furious, then
roared as he stood back up, rapidly spinning himself around
and tossing off multiple vacuum blasts indiscriminately.
One of the flying vacuum blades sheared clean through the
tank of Mousse's larger Super Soaker, sending the high-
pressure water bursting out, drenching Mousse and Akane.
Ukyou rolled to the side, barely staying dry.
Mousse stared in shock. "Dear God...what have I done?"
"I hate my life," Akane said, for the record.
Ranma tried without much success to dodge all of Ryu's
blasts as he fled from Kuno, sprinting in a long spiral
pattern around Kuno as he charged. _A little more...a
little more..._
Kuno leapt at him, bokken blazing with psi energy.
Ranma came to an abrupt halt and thrust his fist skyward.
"HIRYUU SHOUTEN HA!"
Kuno howled with rage as he was sucked up into the giant
whirlwind.
-*-
Jim looked over the treetops toward the open field and
licked his lips nervously. It was almost time.
Suddenly, large numbers of the aforementioned trees were
blasted to pieces by something very loud on the other side,
and about five seconds later, a huge tornado erupted from
the ground.
"Kerrigan," he grumbled, motioning to Mojo. _She can
create magic tornados now. Wonderful._
Mojo stared at the tornado in shock. "Is that...a Zealot?"
He pointed.
Jim stared. It _was_ a Zealot, soaring high up into the
air, caught helplessly in the whirlwind's grip. "What the
hell..." He hefted his guns, scowling. Had more of his
soldiers made it through the warp gate somehow, and then
trekked here to the Recall coordinates?
The air around the Dark Templar shimmered as he began to
walk forward. "I'm waiting," he rasped, his fiery orange
eyes glowing faintly when he spoke.
Mojo nodded. "We must go save that Protoss!"
Jim grunted. He switched on his flamethrower, and began to
run towards the field. "Let's go, boys."
-*-
Ukyou noticed them first.
The man in the giant suit of armor tromped grimly onto the
field, followed shortly by ten beings who looked...very
much like herself. And there was an eleventh, whose
presence she did not so much see as feel. Something about
him felt...wrong, in a way she couldn't quite describe.
She stopped trying to dodge Ryu's frenetic vacuum blasts,
instead absorbing them harmlessly in her invisible shields,
and stared. She was vaguely aware of the chaos around her:
Ryu's endless vacuum blasts, Kuno bellowing helplessly as
he flew to the sky in Ranma's tornado, dozens of Ryoga's
razor-sharp bandannas whirling through the air... Ten
pairs of brightly glowing alien eyes stared back.
"En taro Adun," she said, almost involuntarily, saluting
the small troupe with a gauntleted hand, and was strangely
gratified to watch the alien warriors salute her in return.
The human snapped his visor back. "What's happenin' here?"
he demanded, his enormous pair of guns held rigidly in his
armored hands. He surveyed the destruction taking place in
the field with annoyance and confusion. "You're not one o'
my men. Who the hell are you? How'd you get here?"
She stopped, confused. "I'm, uh...Ukyou."
She was suddenly aware of the eyes of the strange,
shimmering being raking violently across her, and took a
step back, adopting a guarded stance.
"Ukyou." The being watched her impassively, his halfway
visible eyes like pools of fire. "That is not a Protoss
name."
She met his gaze, unflinching. "Um, yes, that's true. Who
are you?"
"I am called Zeratul." He had a deep, rasping voice, and
there was something almost like fear in it. "Is this what
Duran warned us of? I can see that your aura is not that
of a Protoss, in spite of the form you bear..."
She wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. _How do I
even begin to explain...?_ she wondered, sighing.
"I'm...well, uh..."
Zeratul reached a strangely corporeal hand toward her, and
spoke a sudden word of command.
And Ukyou screamed.
-*-
Ranma stumbled out of the vanishing remains of the tornado,
watching balefully as Kuno's battered, alien form crashed
back to the Earth.
"Figures Kuno'd get the massive-alien-warrior powerup
water," he muttered, scowling, "and I'd get the valley girl
water."
Ukyou's scream brought him back to reality, just in time to
spin out of the way of the last of Ryu's wild vacuum blasts.
Two of Ryoga's bandannas left nasty welts as they brushed
off his shoulders. He scrambled hastily out of the way,
trying to see exactly where Ukyou's scream had come from...
Mousse was on his knees beside the slowly burning shell of
the Corvette. He looked like he was in shock. Akane had
left his suddenly only-moderately-evil clutches to help
Ryoga fight Ryu, an unwieldy-looking ball-and-chain
(pilfered from Mousse's vast arsenal) about three times the
size of her head spinning in her hand as she dodged Ryu's
blasts. There was an uncustomary fury on her face, and she
was moving faster than Ranma had ever seen her move before.
Ryu whirled unsteadily to a halt, and Ryoga took advantage
of his momentary confusion to bash him cleanly upside the
head with his umbrella. Ryu staggered, and for a second it
looked like he might fall, but then he suddenly composed
himself and vanished.
A little smile alit on Ryoga's lips as he twisted around,
swinging his umbrella in a brutal arc at the empty space
behind him. It met Ryu's abruptly-visible head with a
sharp _crack_.
Ryoga grinned, his fangs showing. "I've been hit with that
stupid thing one too many times."
_Ukyou...where's Ukyou?_ Ranma looked around wildly, then
saw her, on the other side of the burning Corvette, on her
knees, somehow in human form again.
And there seemed to be an entire squad of Kuno-Ukyou-
zealot-monsters standing right next to her.
Ranma began running toward her.
-*-
Jim watched the scene unfolding before him, baffled. What
was Zeratul doing? It looked almost like he was casting a
Hallucination spell, but it was different, somehow, and
suddenly the Zealot warrior standing before him was a human
woman, on her knees, gasping in pain.
Zeratul turned away from the woman, warp blades humming
softly. "Nydus," he said, softly.
"Zeratul!" Jim shouted, watching the woman before him with
concern. Where had she come from? This didn't make sense.
She was very pretty, he couldn't help noticing, in kind of
an exotic way, with her gray-green hair and almost glowing
silver-gold eyes... He looked more closely. In fact, her
eyes were _literally_ glowing. "Darlin'...uh, are
you...alright...?"
"Nydus," Zeratul said again, staring towards the trees in
horror.
Then Jim, and Mojo, and all the others, veterans of a
hundred battles with the Zerg, seemed to notice all at once
what Zeratul was saying, and the strange, organic sucking
sound quietly emanating from the trees.
-*-
Ranma reached Ukyou just as the alien troupe surrounding
her collectively flipped out and started charging
frantically towards the woods on the other side of the
field. He stopped, stared.
It was Ukyou, there was no doubt...but her hair had somehow
changed from dark brown to an almost metallic gray-green
shot through with streaks of white, and her skin had
acquired a strange golden hue. She looked up at him, and
her eyes burned silver-and-gold almost the way they had in
her cursed form.
"Ucchan...what..."
She watched him for a moment, then a tear dropped from her
weirdly glowing eyes. "Ran-chan..."
They were interrupted by the sound of shouting and gunfire
from the really, really large guns the man in the enormous
suit of armor was carrying. Ranma looked behind him in
alarm, then confusion as he noticed that the man and one of
his alien friends with a shotgun were blasting away into
the woods, accompanied by the sounds of ten pissed off and
extremely desperate alien warriors pounding on...something.
Ukyou stood up, her eyes blazing. "It's a nydus canal,"
she said softly.
"The hell's a nydus canal?" Ranma demanded, slightly
unnerved.
She turned to face him, and something in her strange
silver-gold eyes made him very, very afraid. She smiled.
"It's the gateway to hell, Ran-chan. Or close enough."
She cracked her knuckles, and softly humming psi blades
tore away the ends of her sleeves as they descended from
her forearms. "We'd better go help them."
-*-
Two seconds.
Jim silently cursed the ammo-conservation pulse firing of
his Gauss rifle as he launched another rocket-propelled
fragmentation grenade at the hideously pulsating growth in
the ground before him. It tore and bled as the bullets and
shrapnel ripped through it, and his eleven companions
showered it with everything they had. Zeratul's warp
blades contorted the space around them as he dealt out
blows that could nearly take out a tank with a single swipe.
Three seconds.
His knuckles were white on the triggers of his flame
thrower and pulse rifle. It wasn't enough, wasn't enough,
they weren't going to be able to kill it in time, even with
Zeratul here he knew it would take them at least five
seconds to destroy the horribly mutating structure, but it
was throbbing, beating, a monstrous heart in the Earth
before them, and it was going to finish before they could
kill it...
Four seconds.
And then the structure was complete. Small fountains of
cherry red blood poured from its sides, but the structure
was complete, the nydus canal was complete, and Jim stared
in horror at the ghostly green light emanating from the
canal's interior, its mouth gaping wide and hungry...
Too late. A pair of hydralisks materialized in the
terrible green light. Too late. Another pair of
hydralisks, then six zerglings, then an ultralisk, then a
defiler, then five more hydralisks...
Five seconds.
The nydus canal exploded in a shower of blood.
Jim began firing at the Zerg. This was going to be ugly.
-*-
Ryoga turned his focus for a moment from Ryu to the alien
shouts, explosions, and gunfire coming from the edge of the
nearby woods just in time to see the enormous geyser of
blood erupt from the ground.
Akane was already staring. "What in the world...?"
Ryu began to shout, "An opening-!", but stopped as he
caught sight of the blood.
It even seemed to shake Mousse from his stupor, and he
climbed unsteadily to his feet. "Do my eyes deceive
me...or is that a twenty-foot tall fountain of blood?"
No one really had a response for that.
Ryoga looked over to see Ranma and a girl with crazy hair
in Ukyou's clothing dashing across the field, towards the
carnage in the woods. The girl was running _really_ fast.
In fact, even aside from the clothes, she kind of looked
like Ukyou. Except for the glowing eyes and green hair bit.
He looked back toward the woods, and saw the half-dozen
trees that had been blocking his view of events suddenly
ripped to pieces by a really, really big monster with
really, really, _really_ big tusks.
-*-
Ranma struggled to keep up with Ukyou as she tore across
the field. He couldn't recall, off-hand, any time within
the past ten years that someone had been able to run faster
than him. He _knew_ Ukyou wasn't faster than he was, from
having chased her down a fence when she had first arrived
in Nerima...
Six trees at the front of the wooded area were cleanly
sheared in half by a pair of massive, razor-sharp tusks.
He kept up his dead run, staring in horror at the beast.
It was a four-legged, vaguely insectile creature, easily
over ten feet tall, and just as wide, with two seven-foot-
long exoskeletal tusks that looked sharp enough to shave
with. Four of the alien warriors that looked like Ukyou's
cursed form were pounding fruitlessly on the monster, and
it spun with astonishing agility to parry their blows and
lay waste to the woodland around it with its huge tusks.
Five more of the zealots were engaged in brutal hand-to-
hand combat with vicious creatures about a quarter of their
size, which seemed to be composed entirely of teeth and
very, very sharp claws. The zealots seemed to be getting
the better of the monsters, but nine demonic-looking snake-
like creatures had formed a line behind the smaller
monsters and were starting to spit some kind of needle
spine from their throats.
Ukyou cursed. "They're going to lose!" She jumped twenty
feet up into the air, landing nimbly on the back of one of
the snake-monsters. Startled, the monster bucked, trying
to throw her off, but she buried her psi blades deep into
its armored back, anchoring herself firmly in place. The
monster snarled in pain, trying to get to the pest on its
back, flailing about helplessly with its razor-edged
forearms as Ukyou swung side-to-side like a cat, deftly
dodging the blind attacks. She pulled herself up the
eight-foot length of the snake demon and began to pound
viciously on the back of its skull.
If Ranma had stopped to think, his confidence might have
shaken by the fact that he was about to face something that
ten copies of Ukyou's absurdly overpowered cursed form were
losing to, but fortunately, being Ranma, he didn't.
Brimming with confidence, he crossed his arms in front of
him.
"MOKO TAKABISHA!"
-*-
Jim dared a glance up from training his guns on the
rampaging ultralisk, and saw, to his astonishment, that the
Zealot warrior that Zeratul had somehow transformed into a
human woman had psi blades emanating from her forearms, and
was perched on the shoulders of one of the hydralisks,
hammering it repeatedly with her fists. Even more
astonishingly, her punches seemed to actually be _hurting_
the thing. This was something that could take fifty rounds
from his pulse rifle and keep dishing it out, but an
unarmed human _woman_ was hurting it, using only her fists!
He was perhaps even more astonished when the young man with
the pigtail did...something...with his arms, and what
looked like a wrecking ball made out of highly compressed
air slammed into the sides of two zerglings, knocking them
cleanly off their feet. The blast itself didn't seem to
really hurt the zerglings, but they were off-balance, and
the zealots facing them were quick to press the advantage.
Within seconds, all that remained of the two zerglings were
slowly expiring masses of flesh and claw.
"NYDUS!!!" Zeratul roared, as his warp blades cleanly
ripped a hydralisk in half.
Jim cursed. He heard the sound of gunfire from behind him,
then looked with surprise to see that a short-haired girl
and a long-haired boy armed with enormous machine guns were
blasting away at the hydralisk line. Since they were
completely unarmored humans, he silently gave thanks that
the hydras considered the Zealots to be their priority
target. Another human, a muscular youth in a checkered
bandanna, bellowed and launched his own compressed-air
wrecking ball, which plowed harmlessly into the side of the
ultralisk.
He turned his attention to where Zeratul's shimmering form
was going, and saw, to his horror, another nearly completed
nydus canal hideously pulsating not fifty feet from where
he stood. He grimaced, then turned his Gauss rifle towards
the new structure, continuing to bathe the ultralisk in
flames with his other gun. _How the hell is Kerrigan
creating nydus canals? There's no creep here! I thought
nydus canals couldn't be created on open ground..._
Zeratul and two of the Zealots were pounding desperately on
the mutating structure, and Mojo dashed behind the
hydralisk line to fire his borrowed shotgun at it.
Bereft of Zeratul's overwhelming force, the remaining eight
hydras, four zerglings, and ultralisk began to push Jim and
his remaining three warriors back. Jim saw that the
Zealot-turned-woman had sheared clean through her
hydralisk's throat with her psi-bladed fist, and had
bounded off to help pummel the ultralisk. The hydra hissed
as its life blood poured red-and-black from its throat,
then slowly crumpled to the ground and expired.
The defiler. Jim looked around, startled by the thought,
realizing that the defiler he had seen appear from the
first nydus canal had not yet attempted any kind of magic.
The defiler...where was the defiler?
Jim picked his way backwards nimbly, never losing his aim
on the ultra or the nydus. He saw one Zealot take three
hydralisk needle spines through the chest, give a strange
yell, and disappear in a flicker of blue flame, then
another Zealot disintegrate the same way as one of the
ultralisk's tusks tore his body completely in two.
_The first casualties,_ he thought, grimly. _But unless we
can do something about these damn nydus canals, they're not
gonna be the last..._
-*-
Ryoga looked to his left and saw that Ryu had joined the
fray. Ryu dashed up to the tusked monstrosity, leapt up
onto its back, then halfway vanished, so that he looked
like a shadow. "White Snake Venom Reliable Fist revised,"
he growled, a strangely proud smile on his face, "WHITE
SNAKE DEEP HOLE BLOW!" The ultralisk roared as a flurry of
punches strong enough to effortlessly rip a person's heart
out pummeled its back relentlessly. It reared, flailing
its tusks furiously as it attempted to throw Ryu from its
back. He managed to keep his grip for a moment, then was
sent flying, twisting through the air, taking a slight
glancing blow from a tusk that opened a long red gash from
his shoulder to his solar plexus. One of the alien
warriors took advantage of the monster's loss of
concentration, dashed underneath it with blinding speed,
and landed several punishing blows on its lightly armored
underside. It roared with fury and pain, twisting its huge
body and catching the head of the zealot on the edge of one
of its tusks. He howled in agony, continuing to punch and
kick the underbelly of the monster viciously even as his
head was being slowly torn off by the immense force of the
monster. In a moment, he disintegrated in a swirl of blue
fire, and the tusked monster was reeling backward,
screeching hideously as the remaining two zealots tore into
its head and throat. It batted at them weakly with its
tusks, then staggered, then crashed to the ground in a
spray of blood and bone.
Kuno had regained his senses and was desperately fighting
off two zerglings, roaring incoherently (but, for once, not
all that inaccurately) about demons and sorcery as he laid
about him with his absurdly tiny bokken. Ranma was
circling around the back of the zerglings as Kuno took them
head-on, dancing in and pummeling them with hundreds of
impossibly fast punches, then slipping back out, weaving
through the zerglings' defenses effortlessly.
Ryoga ran towards the horribly pulsing structure that was
growing larger before his eyes, despite the constant
barrage of attacks it was enduring, then stopped, stared,
as the...thing suddenly completed its transformation, and a
gaping hole opened into the Earth in the mouth of the
structure.
"KILL IT!" the half-visible alien with the immense aura of
power roared, bringing his warp blades down again and again
on it, watching with savage helplessness as more and more
and more of the demons pulled themselves almost
languorously out of the depths of the gaping maw.
Ryoga summoned as many negative thoughts as he could on
short notice -- not particularly hard, given his current
circumstances -- and loosed a massive Shishi Houkoudan at
the doorway to hell. The alien brought down his screaming
warp blades one more time as the ki blast connected, and
the nydus canal exploded in a huge gush of blood.
The armored man was screaming something, as he and his
remaining two zealots staggered back under the continuing
onslaught of the hydralisks and zerglings, staring at the
freshly arrived demons with horror and hatred. Ryoga
didn't understand what he was saying, but he saw Ukyou
beside him, and she suddenly had a look of comprehension in
her eyes.
He stared at her for a moment, shocked. The girl with the
strange hair and glowing eyes...it _was_ Ukyou.
He was shaken from his moment of shock by a needle spine
from one of the freshly arrived snake-monsters embedding
itself firmly in his shoulder. He stumbled back, avoiding
three more spines that would have speared him through the
chest, and rolled desperately to the side to avoid several
more. He leapt to his feet, trying to ignore the searing
pain shooting down his arm when he moved, and ducked behind
a massive oak tree. He panted, clutched at his shoulder,
gingerly stuck his head out from behind the tree to assess
the situation.
Most of the freshly arrived demons seemed to be of the
snake-monster variety, and there was at least ten of them,
it was hard to tell exactly how many from his lousy vantage
point, and-
Ukyou.
Shit.
He looked around frantically for her for a moment. _You
left her out there alone! Fool, fool! She'll be killed!_
Then he saw, to his astonishment, that she and the two
zealots were triple-teaming one of the snake-monsters,
expertly avoiding the barrages of needle spines, delivering
perfectly coordinated strikes to the confused monster's
vulnerable points. He watched her. She knew exactly what
she was doing, he realized, with something of a shock. It
was like she was running a well-practiced play with the
other two zealots, and she was dodging the rapid-fire
needle spines like she had been doing it her whole life.
Ryoga closed his eyes, summoning his courage. _Well, can't
just leave her out there alone, can I?_
He stepped out from behind the tree.
-*-
"THE DEFILER!" Jim screamed, turning his flame thrower
toward where the insectile defiler was half-hidden behind
the hydralisk line. He wasn't sure how he knew it, but he
was somehow absolutely certain that the defiler was working
some kind of magic to allow the nydus canals to appear.
"KILL THE DEFILER!!"
The defiler looked directly at him, and he realized with
horror that it also held command over the other Zerg. The
remaining six hydras in the first line turned to face him,
lithe and deadly. He roared, training both of his guns on
the defiler and firing.
Needle spines began to pelt his armor. Two, three. Four.
He tried without much success to dodge, keeping his guns
trained doggedly on the defiler. He wouldn't be able to
take more than a couple more of those before his armor
failed completely, and then he was a dead man. _I might be
goin' down, but I'm takin' you with me._
The short-haired girl had circled around to the back of the
hydra line, and the defiler was taking a rough beating from
her machine gun, as well. Jim half-smiled. _Almost dead
yet?_
And then the air shimmered beside the defiler, and it
turned its hideous head up just as Zeratul brought his warp
blades down. They bit cleanly through bone and flesh, and
then suddenly, the defiler's control was gone, and the
hydralisks turned away from Jim and toward Zeratul. Dark
templar. Priority target. Zeratul's fiery orange eyes
burned with defiance and hatred as they began to spit their
needle spines at him.
"Zeratul!" Mojo shouted, blasting the hydras fruitlessly
with his shotgun. The short-haired girl and long-haired
guy both continued to shower the hydra line with bullets,
but they might as well have been shooting BB's for all the
damage they seemed to be doing.
Zeratul leapt forward with the speed and grace of a panther,
burying his warp blades in the chest of one of the
hydralisks, killing it instantly. He tore his blades out,
spun to face another one of the monsters, and a needle
spine lanced through his ribcage. He snarled, swung his
warp blades again, cleaving the monster before him almost
in half. Two more needle spines pierced his midsection.
He stumbled. One through the stomach, one through his leg,
one through his shoulder, one through his throat.
Mojo reloaded.
Zeratul gasped, and vanished in the vague wisp of pale fire
that was the way the Dark Templar died.
Jim looked around him, forcing down the panic rising in his
throat as the suddenly masterless pack of thirteen
remaining hydralisks began to hunt, and watched with horror
as two ultralisks pulled themselves out of the wreckage of
the second nydus canal. He had four Zealots still alive:
two were in front of him, pounding on the three hydras
remaining from the original line, and two were fighting
alongside the Zealot-turned-human-girl and looked about to
be making a finish of one of the hydras. Two muscular
young men, one with a bandanna and the other in camouflage,
looked like they were trying to join up with the Zealots,
weaving their way through stray needle fire. A fifth
Zealot, the one that had been caught in the tornado earlier,
was butchering a zergling with a wooden stick, aided by the
young man with the pigtail.
Five Zealots, a few unusually powerful humans, and a
completely useless Mojo against thirteen hydralisks and two
ultralisks.
Also known as 'suicide.'
"FALL BACK!" he bellowed, laying down suppressing fire as
the two Zealots before him disengaged and began to retreat.
-*-
When the defiler died, Kerrigan's control over her forces
was severed, and the suddenly masterless pack of hydralisks
and ultralisks had, for the first time in their entire
existences, a choice about what to do next.
Hydralisks are vicious and sadistic as a rule, and, if left
to their own devices, generally just like to kill as many
things as possible. Engaging in a pitched battle with a
squad of cunning, battle-hardened Zealots (who, to make
things worse, did not even have the courtesy to leave
corpses behind when they died) was not something they
really wanted to do if they could help it.
Ultralisks, similarly, are really quite stupid, and pretty
much only get enjoyment from wreaking havoc with their
massive tusks. Again, fighting Zealots and oddly nimble
humans gave them very little bang for their buck in this
regard, since a lot of effort was wasted flailing about and
hitting nothing in particular.
So, the pack of ravening Zerg, seeing the Protoss suddenly
falling back, collectively decided to let the Protoss do as
they pleased, and charged off in the other direction to
cause as much death and mayhem as possible.
-*-
Ranma heard the armored man's call for retreat, then
noticed, to his astonishment, that the remaining monsters
also seemed to be disengaging. He and Kuno stood,
dumbfounded, over the corpses of the two zerglings, and
watched the two groups run off in opposite directions. The
armored man and his alien companions were running deeper
into the wooded strip, towards the school on the other side,
presumably hoping to use the trees as cover for their
retreat. The monsters charged off in the other direction,
leaving a trail of decimated trees in their wake.
"Ranma Saotome," Kuno boomed, towering over him
threateningly. "What sorcery is this?"
Ranma scowled at him. "Get it through your thick head!
I'm not a sorcerer!"
Kuno hefted his tiny bokken. His eyes burned. "Do not
trifle with me, Saotome."
Ranma clenched his fist. "I'm not trifling with you! What
does that even mean? What's _wrong_ with you? The-" He
trailed off as Akane ran up to him, carrying a very large
machine gun in her hands. "Wow," he commented, "you really
_are_ macho."
"Shut up, Ranma," Akane growled, shifting the gun's weight
awkwardly.
Ryu walked calmly up to him, and smiled. He was bleeding
from a long slash across his torso, but evidently was not
bothered at all by this fact. "Ranma Saotome," he intoned
menacingly. "Now that those demons have left us, I
consider our truce to be at an end! Prepare to-"
Ukyou stepped behind him and sent him sprawling to the
ground with a psi-enhanced shove. "This isn't the time,
sugar," she said flatly.
Ryu pulled himself to his feet, smiling in a distinctly
unpleasant way. "You think I won't hurt you because you're
a woman," he ranted, "but I have seen through your pathetic
disguise! I recognize you, in spite of your bad dye-job.
You're the girl that turns into one of those alien monsters,
and who _humiliated_ me at the restaurant the other day!"
His face twisted with rage. "But I've got you in your
human form now. EXPECT NO MERCY!!"
Kuno stepped forward, bokken raised. "Honorless cur! You
dare to threaten the fair Ukyou??"
Ryoga stood behind Ukyou, an expression of pain on his face
as he nursed his injured shoulder. "You guys...I think
we've got more important things to worry about right
now..."
Ranma stepped forward, alarmed. "No! Ucchan, you'll get
hur-"
Ryu paid him no mind, and charged at Ukyou. "FIERCE TIGER
OPENING GATES BLOW!" He moved blindingly fast, but Ukyou
was faster, twisting deftly to the side, her eyes gleaming
like molten silver. She gripped his outstretched leg,
pulled, and slammed her psi-enhanced fist into his face
with one smooth motion, then hit him again, and again, and
again in the same spot before he could react. He coughed
once, vaguely, a confused look on his face, then staggered,
then fell.
Ranma watched, wide-eyed. "So...uh, I see you've gotten a
little better, Ucchan..."
"Guys," Akane interrupted, "I think we've got bigger
worries than our sociopathic friend Ryu right now."
Ryoga nodded grimly. "Those demons, or whatever they were,
were running _that_ way." He pointed in one direction, and
Ranma deftly adjusted his finger so it was pointing in the
direction they'd _actually_ gone. Ryoga bapped Ranma over
the head for form's sake. "Like I said, that way. And
that's directly towards the city."
Ranma tried unsuccessfully to conceal his astonishment at
Ryoga actually being (sort of) correct.
"We have to chase them," Ukyou stated blandly.
Ranma looked at her nervously. "Uh...we do?"
"You don't have to," the armored man drawled, walking
towards them rapidly with his five remaining soldiers, "but
the Zerg are going to lay waste to your whole city if you
don't."
Akane looked lost. "'Zerg?' Who are you, anyway? Who are
all these 'zealot' monsters with you? Where the hell did
all those demon-things come from?"
The man smiled mirthlessly. "My name's Jim Raynor, darlin',
and these 'zealot monsters' are my men." He spoke quickly,
precisely, with a strange accent that they couldn't quite
place. "Protoss, their race is called. Long story. And
Mojo, there, he ain't a Zealot at all, just a pilot with no
ship. I can't really say why we're here any more'n you can.
Let's just say we don't mean to be here, and I mean to see
that we leave, in exactly twelve minutes and sixteen
seconds. There's a very nasty self-described queen bitch
of the universe trying to either keep us here or kill us,
and we've got no intention of allowing either to happen.
The queen bitch is the one that sent them monsters here to
kill us. They're called the Zerg, and we've severed their
control link with the queen bitch, so if memory serves,
they're going to use their newfound freedom to cause about
as much death and mayhem as they possibly can, and if my
impression of this place's technology is at all accurate,
they're gonna be able to blow up a whole lot of shit before
they're brought down." He stopped to take a breath. "So.
You guys have guns, somehow you have a Zealot, and you're
quick enough to not get killed, seems to me. If you're
willin', it'd be nice to have y'all along." He spoke to
the entire group, but he was looking mostly at Ukyou.
Something steeled in Ranma's eyes, and he nodded. "We'll
do it."
Ryoga cradled his wounded arm and twisted his mouth in a
grim smile. His fangs showed. "Sure, what could be more
fun?"
Ukyou's eyes blazed. "We long for combat, Raynor. Let's
go."
-*-
It wasn't exactly hard to follow the horde of rampaging
Zerg, given that they left a trail of destruction roughly
25 meters wide wherever they went. Riding on the Zealots'
backs, they were able to come within sight of the monsters
just as they were finishing up the complete and total
destruction of the Daitokuji financial building, as well as
most of the Nerima downtown surrounding it. There were
three television helicopters buzzing in the air above the
carnage, one of which had its rotor torn in half by a
needle spine and crashed into the wreckage even as they
watched. The streets were strewn with corpses and rubble,
and enormous mobs of people were fighting and clawing
viciously at each other as they attempted to flee downtown
by foot, motorbike, and car. Smoke and ash were pouring
out of the ruin of the Daitokuji building. There were at
least six vehicles that had been toppled and were on fire,
although it was hard to say whether the Zerg or the mob was
responsible for that.
In fact, the only people going _towards_ downtown were Jim
Raynor and his merry band, and they had to fight their way
through the increasingly panicked mob to do it.
"What a nice little hellhole," Jim remarked, deadpan.
"Reminds me of my childhood on Chau Sara."
Ranma jumped down from Kuno's shoulders. "Um, ok. So, got
a plan, or are we just going to run in there and get
butchered like last time?"
Jim smiled. "This time, we've got the drop on them, and
the Zerg've got no control." He looked at the destruction
around them, analyzing the situation. The hydralisks had
split up into two packs of six, and were pressing their way
further into the downtown district. One of the ultralisks
was immediately in front of the hydralisk groups, and the
other was gleefully shearing through the few remaining
supports of the Daitokuji building. He pointed to that one.
"That ultralisk. We can cut him off from the others if we
circle around the back of that building. Mojo, short-
haired girl, long-haired guy. And you, with the pigtail
and you with the bandanna. Y'all're with me. We circle
around, start shooting at the ultralisk from above ground
level _there_, ya see? The ultra has to climb around that
rubble to get to us, and you six Zealots will be waiting
around that corner. Smash him when he gets there. He'll
be exposed to our fire the whole time he's runnin' around."
He looked at them. "Get me? Let's go."
Ukyou grinned at him. "_Six_ Zealots?"
Jim shrugged. "Don't right know what Zeratul did to ya,
darlin', but you've got psi blades and can take out a
hydralisk without breakin' a sweat. Makes you a Zealot as
far as I'm concerned. Now, move!"
-*-
The plan failed before they could even start. As Jim's
group crept around the side of the ruined building, one of
the Zealots in the other group (armed with a curiously
small bokken) started moving forward too soon, and the
awful racket the other Zealots made as they tried to drag
him back out of sight attracted the attention of the
ultralisk, who looked up from his building destruction.
"Shit," Jim swore, motioning for the others to crouch
behind the stacks of rubble. He held his Gauss rifle close
to his chest, looked at his flame thrower, realized it was
out of juice, and dropped it to the ground.
The ultralisk shook the ground as it began to pull its way
out of the shattered building's foundations.
"He's moving," Akane whispered, creeping out from behind
the rubble and training her machine gun on the back of the
ultralisk. She looked at Jim questioningly, and he nodded.
"FIRE!" he roared, jumping into view. The ultralisk turned
around, moving impossibly fast for something so enormous,
and bellowed a challenge as machine gun, shotgun, and Gauss
rifle bullets began to rain down on it. Ranma and Ryoga,
starting to see why Jim wanted them in his group, began to
get pumped up and depressed, respectively, and fired off ki
blasts at the monster.
The ultralisk looked around in confusion, then charged in
the opposite direction, where the rubble led back to ground
level. Ukyou and the five Zealots were dashing towards the
building, but they weren't moving fast enough, and the
ultralisk cleared the corner before they got there,
vaulting itself easily over the heap of smashed concrete
and glass and landing not ten feet from where Jim stood.
Akane and Mousse grimly turned their machine guns to the
side and continued to shower the monstrosity with lead.
Mojo pumped his shotgun and fired. His aim with the human
weapon was remarkably poor, but even he could hardly miss
at this range. Ranma and Ryoga, conscious of the fact that
their ki blasts weren't really doing much damage, began to
doggedly charge up for another attack.
Jim closed his eyes and fired, pushing a small switch in
his armor that released a flood of mildly damaging hormones
and enzymes into his bloodstream. _Stimpack. Dear God,
how I hate the stimpack._ He'd only used it once before,
in the chaotic battle on Mar Sara, and had had a bad enough
experience with it that he'd hoped to never have to use it
again. He grimaced as he felt his anger and strength build,
and he began to run towards the ultralisk, moving at
inhumanly fast speeds, dodging the beast's razor-sharp
tusks effortlessly as he pelted it with bullets.
Ryoga, flinching as the sudden movement jarred his shoulder,
fired another Shishi Houkoudan at the ultralisk, which paid
it all the attention an angry bull pays to a fly. "Ranma!"
he shouted. "This isn't working!!"
Ranma nodded, watching his own ki blast collide harmlessly
with the ultralisk's massive exoskeletal plating. Suddenly
he grinned, his confidence returning to him. "Jump on him,
Ryoga!"
Ryoga looked at him as if he'd gone insane. "What??"
Ranma began to run out in front of the ultralisk, waving
his arms frantically. "DO IT, RYOGA!"
Ryoga watched him for a moment, then nodded. He grimaced,
clutching his shoulder as he leapt onto the behemoth's
shoulder, grabbing hold of its armor plates with his good
arm and holding on for dear life. He tried punching the
monster's back, but his fists were not even able to make a
dent in its armor. "Now what, Ranma??" he demanded,
delivering another harmless blow.
The blunt edge of one of the ultralisk's tusks crashed into
Jim's chest, sending him soaring ten feet into the air. He
landed with a metallic crunch on top of a pile of broken
concrete just as the effects of the stimpack wore off, and
slowly rose to his feet.
The ultralisk turned its attention to Ranma, who threw an
exceptionally powerful Moko Takabisha at it, and danced out
of the way of its tusks as it charged at him, swinging its
massive tusks around brutally. It swung again and again as
it ran at him, but it might have been trying to hack the
wings off a fly for all the damage it was doing. Ranma
began to run backwards in a spiral pattern. "RYOGA!!" he
screamed. "RYOGA!! I...LOVE...AKANE!!!"
Ryoga watched him, shocked, through a haze of pain, as he
tried desperately to hold on to the back of the rampaging
ultralisk. What...why was he saying this? Why...why now?
"HEY, P-CHAN!!! ME AN' AKANE ARE GONNA GET MARRIED, SO YOU
CAN GO TO HELL!!!"
Ryoga felt his grip slacken slightly, and he stared at the
massive plating of the ultralisk despondently. He realized,
as his world crashed down around him, that Ranma was
absolutely, unwaveringly correct. He and Akane _did_ love
each other. He had seen that once, a hundred times over,
at the foot of Phoenix Mountain, and it hit him like a
sledgehammer now.
They loved each other.
They were going to get married.
Man, that was one hell of a depressing thought.
He clenched his fists, letting the ultralisk drag him
around as it pleased. Ranma was still desperately
retreating, in a tighter and tigher spiral pattern...
He opened his eyes and screamed.
"PERFECT...SHISHI...HOUKOUDAN!!!" Even the ultralisk
seemed shocked at the giant pillar of light extending high
above it, and peered upwards quizzically as the ki blast
from hell slammed back down onto it with all the force of a
tank shell. Ryoga lost his grip, the massive ki blast
having drained his spirit completely, and he was thrown
violently off the monster as it reared in pain.
Ranma stopped running, and thrust his fist straight up.
"HIRYUU SHOUTEN HA!!"
The ultralisk bellowed in agony as the tornado jerked it
savagely towards the sky.
-*-
Jim watched in awe as the ultralisk was first consumed in a
brilliant pillar of light, then sent soaring skyward when a
magical tornado erupted from the ground.
Watched in awe, and continued blasting for all he was worth.
The short-haired girl and long-haired boy, the former with
an immensely shocked expression on her face, continued to
train their machine guns on the monster as it fell out of
the sky. Jim smiled with savage glee as the beast landed,
and exploded in a huge mess of blood and bone.
"One down," he grunted, grinning at Mojo, who was staring
intensely at the vanished gleam of Ryoga's ki blast.
Ukyou and the Zealots finally arrived, and Ukyou had a
panicked look in her eyes.
"Er...what's the matter, Ucchan?" Ranma asked her,
nervously.
Ukyou pointed behind him, and he turned around.
"Oh, shit," he breathed.
Ryoga lay where he had fallen, blood soaking through his
shirt. He grimaced when he tried to rise, and saw.
The remaining ultralisk was standing about twenty feet from
them, with the pack of twelve hydralisks arrayed behind in
in firing formation.
For a moment, no one moved.
"Well, it's been nice knowin' y'all," Jim grunted, as he
began to fire. The ultralisk howled and charged directly
at him, and the hydralisks inched forward and began to fire
their deadly needle spines...
Mojo was still staring at Ryoga's vanished Shishi Houkoudan,
and then he suddenly snapped his giant fingers. "That's
it!" he said, his eyes gleaming triumphantly.
Jim looked at him like he had grown a second head. "What's
it, Mojo? Fire your damn shotgun!"
"That's it! I've figured it out!" Mojo crowed excitedly.
He extended his arms in front of him, and suddenly, the
other Zealots backed away from him respectfully. Psionic
tendrils whispered around his thin arms like bright blue
shards of fog. "PSI STORM!!"
All of them watched in astonishment as the entire hydralisk
line was consumed with beautiful, arcing streaks of
brilliant silver-blue lightning. Almost as one, the
hydralisks seemed to rupture and explode, spilling their
blood and guts all over the wreckage of downtown Nerima.
Then the ultralisk reached them. Jim jumped backwards,
firing the last of his Gauss rifle ammunition, and the five
Zealots -- and Ukyou -- ripped into the monster with a
ferocious scream of victory.
Within ten seconds, it was done.
Jim looked at his heads-up display. Three minutes and six
seconds to Recall time.
-*-
-*-
C&C appreciated, as always! Like, dislike, hate with a passion? I wanna know!
If you missed previous parts of this story, feel free to email me at
gth782m@mail.gatech.edu, or go to http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gth782m
- George/Hunter Kid
gth782m@mail.gatech.edu
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