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beat Cologne by themselves. Even together, by their own estimates, their
chance of success was only 50/50. Ranma had nearly gotten her once or
twice with his new techniques, and Ryouga had given it his all but come
up short. Even together, right when they had thought they'd won, Cologne
had bounced right back. It was humbling but not really unexpected.

They had planned for this.

Both boys suspected that Cologne wanted them alive. It was why they had
planned to be the ones fighting her. First: they would try and wear her
out, like Perfume had suggested. It was hard to resist the temptation to
try and take cheap shots at her while Ranma fought, and probably
likewise from Ranma's point of view, but neither were the best shots in
the world and Cologne's speed and general battlefield perception
exceeded their own. It was better to let them trade places and try and
wear her down, or so they had thought.

With Cologne occupied, it would fall to the rest of the squads to match
up and identify their respective targets. Romeo Squad would then break
up to favorably reinforce India and Juliet. They would then
counterattack at roughly the same time, overwhelming the more vulnerable
enemy targets. By simply press of bodies they would beat even Cologne.
In the mean time, Ryouga and Ranma would do everything they could to
delay, fatigue, and weaken the formerly old woman.

That had been the plan.

Frankly, it was a lot better than the crap Ranma usually came up with.
It was by the grace of god that the pigtailed lieutenant had been talked
out of his first scheme, given that it involved a liberal use of magical
incense and someone dressing up like a young Happosai. God no. A few
hours later, they had a simple, working plan to corner and beat what
were likely the world's most deadly individuals.

Ryouga wondered if that blast had actually killed the old bat.

Not the old-old bat, but the new one. That had been a surprise, too. The
Cologne they had been fighting wasn't the original, then? It had to be
like his own Doppelganger: a copy made with his pre-existing memories.
But this Cologne seemed different. His copy had been enraged and wild,
cast aside by the aliens only to be used as a terror weapon. This
Cologne seemed a little unhinged, but no more or less than any other
martial artist Ryouga knew. She was still in control of herself.

What did it mean?

The lost one shook his head; he'd let the techs and the bioshop boys
figure it out. He started looking around for a trace of her on the off
chance she had survived the explosions. He and Ranma had planted four
M150 PAMs (Penetrating Augmented Munitions) around the room at
structural weak spots. Each 42 pound demolitions unit was equivalent to
200 pounds of C4. It was normally used to breach the hulls of smaller
crashed UFOs, like large scouts and abductors. It was part of their last
fall back plan.

Luckily, the old Cologne had distracted the young one long enough to set
the last two charges. He and Ranma had then taken out the final element
of their stupidly named "liberal application of high explosives
technique." Ryouga still wasn't sure that simply blowing everything to
Hell merited a proper martial arts technique name, but regardless... two
jury rigged blaster bombs had completed the so called "technique."
Throwing them into the center of the room and then ducking under cover
didn't really take a lifetime of martial arts skill but it certainly
helped when it came to surviving the resulting titanic blast and cave-
in.

Ryouga stomped his foot, sending a tiny wave of ki through the ground.

It was impossible to focus or control his aura with the parasitic vine
in him, but he could still do small things like send ki into his limbs.
Actually setting off a breaking point was beyond him in his current
state, but he could still sense them. Like a sound wave passing through
the air, he felt out the world around and below. Abrupt differentials in
the density and composition of breaking points allowed him to identify
rock formations and veins of materials underground. It also made it
easier to find someone buried in the rubble all around him.
Unfortunately, the shapes were still rather blurred and indistinct.

One of them moved.

Reaching for his plasma pistol, Ryouga slowly walked closer to where the
organic contact was emerging. It paid to be careful, though he doubted
that - even if it was Cologne - she would be in much condition to fight.
He stopped close enough to be sure that he could hit the emerging target
with three solid shots of semi-automatic mint colored death. Taking aim,
he saw the surface break in a dozen places as red and black vines burst
out of the ground.

"Shit!"

He fired, disintegrating three that clustered together and another at
the base before it could spear him like a fish. Acting quickly, he
grabbed two others with his left hand, but another wrapped around his
pistol and another around his leg, throwing him off balance. Falling
onto his back, he saw a dark, bloody shape emerge from the ground,
sinuously rising higher and higher.

It was Cologne, but only in the loosest sense of the word.

Her body was torn and mauled in a dozen places, many visible beneath her
ruined Ethereal's habit. Her formerly beautiful face was half gone: the
right side was little more than bone held together by ragged strips of
flesh. Wiggling vines and creepers writhed below the red and white
blasted bone. Two long vines snaked out of her mouth and around his arm.
Another emerged from the ruined mass of her right arm, wagging in the
air like a serpent about to strike.

"What... what the hell?" Ryouga tried to raise his plasma pistol to get
off another shot, but Cologne tore it from his hand with the vine that
emerged from her shoulder. Her breath came in ragged gasps and her body
convulsed as her battle aura reset the bones in her chest. Whatever
pretense she may have had about being human could never mesh when what
stood in front of him now.

"I won't... be killed so easily..." she said, pink tongue licking what
was left of her ruby red lips. "As long as I have life to feed on, I can
not die."

Reaching down, Cologne sunk her claw-like hands into his helmet,
viciously tearing off the visor. The audio part of his HUD wailed in
distress and alarm, but his armor's containment had long since been
breached already. The claxon faded away after a few seconds, and the
torn mouthpiece fell away to one side. Cologne threw the ruined piece of
his personal armor away as she glared down at him.

"Yes, I know," she said, gently touching the sand blasted part of her
face. "It isn't very beautiful, is it? I'll work on that. I want to have
regeneration like Saffron's... something that doesn't make me look quite
so hideous."

Ryouga frowned at her. "No matter how human you look on the outside,
we'll all know what you are on the inside."

Cologne didn't reply at first.

Then her brows creased up in vexation. "What... what a terrible thing to
say, Ryouga-kun. I'll make you regret those unkind words."

The fingers on her left hand flexed, and a surge of ki ran down her arm.
He had seen some of her telekinetic aura projections before, but this
was different. The energy was building in her hand and vibrating the
air. A low hum painfully assaulted his ears as he stared, wide eyes at
the faint violet hue that enveloped Cologne's hand and lower arm. Bits
of her titian robe tore away and disintegrated under the assault, and a
trickle of blood fell from his right ear. The air literally screamed
with energy, the air molecules vibrating more and more.

"Sanryoukyou," she told him its name. Prism. "When all five elemental
states are used at once, they annihilate each other and everything they
make contact with. Put simply: it creates an area where molecular bonds
no longer exist."

And then she struck.

-----

Ryouga blinked and nearly missed it.

One moment, Cologne had stood over him, her left hand awash with soft
violet energy: the product of a technique she claimed simply annihilated
any matter it touched. The next, a splatter of blood hit his face, and
he saw her reeling back, hand gone below the wrist. He blinked again,
and saw Ku Lon standing in front of him, her own right hand also gone
halfway up the forearm. A crackling violet ring expanded in the air
between the two women.

"Stinking hag!"

Cologne kicked her older self, knocking the old woman into a fallen
boulder with enough force to upend it. The alien-human hybrid took a
moment to examine her missing hand, hissing in anger and pain. For a
second, she made as if to move, but then turned towards Ryouga, taking
note of what he now held in his free hands: two alien plasma grenades.

"Damn you," Cologne snarled, not so much at the lost one, but at her
other self. With her left arm gone, and her right arm little more than
bone held together by hastily assimilated plant matter, she (for once)
seemed a bit hesitant to make any more big moves. For a few seconds, she
seemed to think over what to do next. Ryouga held his last two grenades
like lifelines, knowing they were the only things keeping his opponent
at bay.

"Ryouga-kun..."

"That won't work," he snapped at her.

"Tsk," Cologne made a sharp, unhappy sound with her tongue. "Ryouga-kun,
why are you being so difficult? You and Ranma... you're both so hard
headed. I know what's best, so..."

"You know what's best?" he asked, astounded that she would even try and
say that. "Look at you! You think turning against humanity is what's for
the best?"

Cologne huffed in clear dismissal of the idea. "You have such a naive
way of looking at things, Ryouga-kun. Since when did you become so
obsessed with doing what was 'good for humanity,' anyway? I thought the
Hibiki way was to look out for yourself and to survive, no matter how
the world changes around you."

He grimaced; it was... true... to an extent.

"I've lost my humanity before," he finally decided to say, side stepping
the question somewhat. He meant, of course, his Jyusenkyou curse. "I
won't lose it again."

"Humanity," Cologne spat the word out. "Come now, tell me: where is the
value in being human?"

She shook her head at his lack of vision.

"What even makes you human?" she asked, casually inspecting the cleanly
sheared stump that had once been her forearm. "Is it how you were born
or how you were conceived? Is it the flesh that slouches from your bones
as you age? Is it the gods you worship or the pieces of land you die
for?"

Cologne shook her head and looked at him with one hazel brown eye.

"No...! The value of humanity is in our capacity to become more than
what we once were! My flesh, my people, my land, my Gods... I would
gladly cast them all aside. My future is among the stars. Humanity's
future is among the stars! Why can't you see that?"

Before he could answer, she turned her head and scowled.

Ducking, Cologne avoided a blast of viridian plasma from across the
ruined garden complex. Proving to still be fast on what was left of her
feet; Cologne dodged another two bolts and vanished in an abrupt burst
of speed. Ryouga turned his head just slightly, enough to see what was
in that direction while still not completely losing track of Cologne
herself. Cresting a pile of rubble, he saw a plasma armed HWP. The small
hovertank, built in the style of a Sectoid cyberdisk, seemed to be just
the leading edge of a four man squad.

Or even a five man squad.

One of the armored figures was in worse shape than the others, and
Ryouga could tell by what was left of his battle aura that it was Ranma.
He'd lost contact with Command when Cologne had torn off his helmet's
visor, leaving little more than static over the team comm.. He had no
idea what that other squad was.

Suddenly, a wall of rock and ice shot out of the ground, wreathed in
alien plants. It knocked over and upended the hovertank, but Ryouga knew
that was only a temporary impediment. It would easily right itself
again, but the wall itself succeeded in interposing itself between the
squad and its target. He saw Cologne alight on a broken piece of rock
and start to gather water in the air into a sphere. She was slower with
it than she had been before, and seemed to be visibly struggling.

Inhuman as she was, she had to be nearly exhausted.

Throwing one of his grenades, he heard her curse and speed step away
from the massive explosion. A cloud of dust kicked up from the blast,
and Ryouga had to shield his face from the heat and shrapnel. He was
almost completely out of options: his ki was still being sealed up and
disrupted by the vine that was now worming deeper into his chest, his
plasma pistol was gone, his carbine was lost somewhere, and he had only
one alien grenade left. Just throwing it at her, there was no way
Cologne would get caught in the explosion, even as powerful as it was.

Nearing despair, he saw a thin lance of blue cut into the wall. Some of
it had already been excavated and blown away by plasma blasts on the
other side, but Cologne's liquid laser finished the task. The top half
of it collapsed and fell over. The beam sputtered, but was replaced by
two more that indiscriminately cut into the rubble and the ruins,
slicing madly in the blind hope of hitting someone. Crawling away from
where Cologne had left him, Ryouga tried to get close enough to try
something. What, he had no idea, but something was better than nothing
at this point, no matter what it was.

He found her leaning against a piece of rebar, nursing her still missing
hand.

'Now...' He cocked back his hand. If he was lucky, maybe she wouldn't
see the attack and move in time. 'Please, please let this work!'

I WILL NOT ALLOW IT

A mental shock froze his arm in place, muscles furiously spasming.
Closing his eyes, he felt a titanic presence behind his eyelids,
malevolent and unrelenting in its intensity. He saw two boreholes, hot
and red as the depths of Hell, burning like pits in a corpse-like face.
For a moment, there was nothing else in all the world beyond that
shadowed nightmare of a face.

It was him.

YOU ARE STRONGER THAN BEFORE

Hollow Eyes.

Ryouga focused his mind, falling back on his Ego Barrier. It was the
deepest, most primal sense of self that a human being had, and it was
the most potent defense one had against mental domination. It felt like
a reassuring glow enveloping him and protecting him from the cold. He
had been trained to resist psionic attacks. He wouldn't be beaten as
easily as before!

'You killed Akari!'

AKARI

It didn't seem to totally understand names, but he saw the memory he had
of her.

YES SHE IS ONE WITHIN US

'You killed her!'

THE RIGHT OF THE HARVEST IS OURS YOU ARE ALL OURS YOUR FLESH YOUR MINDS
YOUR DREAMS YOUR WORLD

OURS

'No. Not yours.' His hate fortified him and gave him the strength - the
psionic identity - to resist. 'You...'

And strike back.

'You will die here and now!'

A blast of mental force slammed into Ryouga's Ego Barrier, probing
memories and thoughts for weakness. Ethereals were insidious and vile
creatures, and they would exploit any chink they could find to drive the
mind to distraction. That loss of focus would then be used to seize
control. Ryouga held fast to his hate, refusing to let any of the
probing thoughts or memories throw off his concentration. Then, he began
to return the favor, making tentative probes in the alien's defenses.

HUMAN

It sounded angry and indignant. Good.

Ryouga prodded harder. He could feel; see in his mind's eye, this
Ethereal's position among its peers. It did not have emotions or
thoughts in human terms, and Ryouga struggled to try and understand
them. He thought he felt conflict there between them, some ambition he
could exploit, but it slipped through his fingers. It was too alien to
grasp. He switched tactics, going for brute force. Enough psionic force
and he could cause an aneurism in the creature's brain.

SMALL CREATURE YOUR MIND IS FRACTURED

Ryouga's concentration slipped for a second. What did that mean?

ALLOW ME TO SHOW YOU WHAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN

The tingle along his skin, the indescribable feeling of shrinking...
Ryouga knew this feeling. He had lived this nightmare before. ...But
where? Holding up his hands, he saw the fingers melting away, the skin
and muscle turning runny and dripping off his bones like syrup off a
stick. Then the bones themselves crinkled up like paper and turned to
dust. His palms warped, changing into hooves.

'No! NO! NOO!!!'

SUFFER IN SILENCE

And then his mouth and voice were gone. The only sounds left to make
were hoarse grunts and squeals. Trapped within his mind, a flood of
memories drowning him and pushing him to the brink of madness, Ryouga
found himself unable to even scream.

Hollow Eyes drifted past Cologne, levitating his flaccid and atrophied
body over the ruin that had once been one of the world's finest alien
gardens. There was virtually nothing left of it now, even if the humans
hadn't been about to overrun the base. They would pack away a few
samples and burn what little remained. Not that it mattered, not now,
not anymore.

The Ethereal made no gesture to Cologne. Its thoughts alone were
actions.

COME

'But...'

WE ARE LEAVING YOU WILL COME

'Yes.' She didn't want to get hit with a SUBMIT command, not in her
condition, and not from this Ethereal. Hollow Eyes was already drifting
away, the hem of his robes trailing lightly over the cratered and torn
up floor.

Cologne took a moment to walk up to Ryouga's prostrate form. He was
curled into a fetal ball and glowing a deep dark green. She could see
the depression building up inside him, forming a suicidal battle aura.
With no way of releasing the energy, it would either cook him in his own
skin or simply explode, destroying everything nearby. She leaned over,
and whispered into his ear.

"I'll be waiting for you two..." a small smile split her lips. "On the
field of Mars. So try not to die."

And then she stood and walked away.

-----

Hell.

This was Hell.

Small and helpless, wave after crashing wave of memories slammed into
Ryouga's mind like a typhoon beating down the shore. Everything he'd
thrown away when he'd cured himself came back with a ruthless and
unrelenting vengeance. Twin moons lit up the starless sky, the pitiless
hollow eyes directing a concerto of madness, while Cologne's words burnt
lines in his psyche.

"Tell me," she mocked him, even now. "Where is the value in being
human?"

"Aw, P-chan! Mommy missed you!"

SHAME. Like a cloud, it blanketed every brief flash of happiness. How
often had his weary spirit lit up upon seeing that Dojo sign, that door
with the duck on it and the kanji 'Akane?' How often had he taken guilty
pleasure in her arms, in being loved, even if not as a man? Like a
candle in the dark, that feeling always flared brightly for a time, only
to burn out and plunge him back into the darkness.

He was using her.

Using her to make himself feel better. Using her as a shield for his
cowardice and indecisiveness. Using her because he couldn't say how he
felt or work up the courage to try and convince her to love him, too.
Using her because it was easier to be loved as a pet, as a fucking pig,
than as a man. Alone at night, he shuddered as he thought about how he
would go back to her like that, even though, without fail, he felt like
a piece of shit the moment he did. He could never bear to be P-chan for
more than a day before the idea of just killing himself started to have
even more merit than usual.

"What even makes you human?"

"What a cute little piglet... You'll make some fine pork shahe fen!"

FEAR. His directional curse tried to kill him. He had come to accept
this, because it made him strong. In time, no animal could harm him; no
natural disaster could kill him. Jyusenkyou added a new stipulation to
the game called survival. It took his power, his body, his strength, his
durability, his ki... and left him with only his wits, in a small,
useless shell. Almost no human with a Jyusenkyou curse survived longer
than a year on their own. Sooner or later, nature and fate claimed them.

How many times had he been caught in snares? How many times had he
almost been eaten? How many times had he stared at those great butchers'
knives and wondered: is this finally it? Will I finally die? They came
with knives and teeth and claws and pots and feet and guns. It was
murder with a thousand faces and in a million places; around every
corner and in every shadow, waiting with glowing demonic eyes. Fear, so
foreign to a man who can shrug off being hit by a car, became a constant
and inescapable companion.

"Is it how you were born or how you were conceived?"

"You think you've got it bad? I turn into a girl!"

ANGER. What kind of a fucking world was this? What kind of a world was
this?! Why didn't Ranma turn into an animal? Why didn't he lose his
humanity? Why didn't he lose everything - the only things - that he had
to be proud of? How he hated and envied that man. How he wanted to kill
him; how he wanted to be him!

What else did the world want to take from him? He had no family. He had
no friends. There was nothing to take pride in except his strength, and
then even that had to be taken away. How he hated the world. How he
hated Ranma Saotome. Sometimes, as P-chan, he just sat and watched the
other boy in school, joking with his friends, teasing his fiances,
eating square meals every fucking day. The troubles Ranma had were
things the lost boy would kill for, but never have. And he was weaker
than Ranma. Hate him, his Grandfather said. Hate that which you can not
beat, because it will kill you.

Ryouga knew the truth. Hate not because you feared that stronger than
you. Hate, because if you don't, your life will be empty and you will
have nothing to look forward to. Hate was better than being alone and
having nothing. Hate was better than wandering the forests and the
cities, no one knowing or caring whether you lived or died. Hate was all
he had. Hate was a goal. Hate was a crutch. Hate was a life raft on a
dark, stormy sea.

Win or Lose but always Hate.

"Is it the gods you worship or the pieces of land you die for?"

"I'm home! Anyone here? Mom? ...Dad? Shirokuro... at least you're
here..."

LONELINESS. Loneliness. God did he understand loneliness. He had even
come to accept it, to find some solace in it, but then he picked up his
other curse. What kind of a woman would want a man that turned into a
pig? He was sure he could, some day, get a girl to like him even with
his directional problems. But this? A fucking pig?

For the first time, the thought that he would be alone, not just for
years, but forever, became a reality. Promise a starving man bread
tomorrow, or even two days in the future, and he at least had hope. Tell
him he will starve, today, tomorrow, and until he dies and hope soon
precedes him into the grave. Worse than taking away his strength, worse
than taking away his humanity, Jyusenkyou took that tiny fraction of
hope he had secretly harbored in his heart.

"The value of humanity is in our capacity to become more than what we
once were! My flesh, my people, my land, my Gods..."

She was right.

"I would gladly cast them all aside. My future is among the stars.
Humanity's future is among the stars! Why can't you see that?"

He hated her because she was right.

Cologne saw hope for the future in her tryst with those aliens. That was
her secret hope, and she would do anything to hold onto it. He was the
exact same. His memories, his identity, his life... he would throw it
all away to get back that hope he once had. If the aliens had taken him
in those dark days and told him they could cure him, he probably would
have been standing by Cologne this entire time. What kind of a human
being was he? What did it even mean to be human?

"I'll be waiting for you two... on the field of Mars. So try not to
die."

"Try not to die, ok?"

No one had ever told him that before, not in any meaningful way. He
turned his head and saw Nabiki, lying on his bed and staring up at the
ceiling. She'd been like that for a while, and so he'd busied himself
working on his technique documentation. Neither of them had said
anything since that talk in the stairwell, but it hadn't felt right
going to the movie with Ukyou and Ryu. So they went back to his place
and 'hung out.' Not that he really knew what hanging out entailed, or
how people his age acted under those circumstances.

"Hmm, well, uh," he answered, taking a few seconds to think it over.
Honestly, he wasn't sure how to respond. It was such an odd thing to
say: 'try not to die.' Should he just agree? It seemed superfluous.

"You idiots always did come back," Nabiki added, still looking up at
nothing in particular. She still wore her baby blue blouse, but he
blushed and looked away when he found himself staring at how it moved
when she took a deep breath. He set his attention on the notebook in his
hands, and how he would write down the secrets of the Seirensho
Tenketsu. It had to be cryptic, but not so cryptic as to be
indecipherable...

"You and Ranma and Mousse and Kuno, you guys always seemed invincible,"
she mused, and then added with a smirk. "A little stupid, but
invincible."

It was her usual offhand compliment, mixed with an insult. It was
usually an open invitation to get into some back and forth goading, but
this time... seemed different.

"I..." Nabiki seemed to hesitate to continue. But she had already shared
her worst secret with him. There was nothing to be gained in holding
back little things. "I couldn't believe it when you broke your finger."

"Hm?" He looked up from the pad and paper. "When was that?"

She sighed loudly at his apparent obliviousness.

"When you tried to break open that chamber, you know... back on the
ship."

Ah. That. He looked down at his hand. His finger had healed, of course.
It was rare to break any bone given his level of body hardening. Ryouga
found himself a little surprise that he hadn't remembered it right off
the bat.

"Then when you went out in the airlock," she continued. "I thought for
sure: he's going to die. This time, the idiot will die."

There was a definite hint of sadness in her voice; enough for even him
to realize it. And he was pretty clueless when it came to this sort of
thing.

"I don't think there was another option," he explained. "It was a close
thing, I guess."

"Yeah..." she trailed off. He stole a glance at her, and saw her
blinking her eyes. Was she crying? She'd been so emotional ever since
she'd told him about what she did at Meiji, and he wasn't used to it.
Usually, women were angry around him, not... weepy and talkative. It was
even stranger for Nabiki, since she was so self controlled. Not like
Akane or Ukyou, who had hot tempers and short fuses. He'd always thought
of Nabiki as being greedy and intimidating, but at least predictable and
reliable in her frostiness.

"Hey," he started to say, intending to ask if something was wrong. It
seemed like a standard way of prompting a reply without really knowing
what was going on.

"Nothing," she replied, wiping her eyes. "It's stupid anyway. Worrying
about you guys. And Akane will be out there, too..."

Inwardly, he frowned. He didn't want his men to die either, and he
certainly wasn't ecstatic about Akane being on the front lines either.
But death was a part of the job, too. On some level, everyone accepted
that, as much as they tried to avoid it. Still, he had the impression
that it wasn't that sort of thing that she wanted to hear.

He took a page out of Ranma's book.

"Hah! I'm surprised at you, worrying about nothing!" Ryouga tried to put
on a confident air. It wasn't his forte, but he managed (he thought).
"Have a little faith, huh? How many mountains have we already destroyed?
At least two or three! What's one more?"

She smiled at his weak excuse for humor.

"Fine!" She turned her head to look at him. Rolling on her side, Nabiki
pointed at the lost boy. "But if you don't come back, I'll take all your
finances. You won't have a yen left to your name!"

"Umm... but you already try and take my money. How is this different?"

That memory was an island in a tumultuous sea, but it wasn't the only
one.

It wasn't just Nabiki. He remembered Kasumi, waiting for him to heal at
the base infirmary. He remembered Akane coming to him to ask about how
she can help contribute to the fight and get into a squad. He remembered
Ukyou, bloody and beaten, leaning on her battle spatula and telling him
she could still fight, still train.

He remembered Kuno, reading his sister's note with a small distant
smile, missing his family despite how much trouble they were. He
remembered Mousse, watching Shampoo from afar with silent intensity,
getting stronger even though he knew it was never his power that she
found lacking. He remembered Ryu and Konatsu shaking hands, and the
respect the two had developed for each other despite that first rocky
introduction. He had his mother and father, who, for the first time,
were waiting and counting on him back at the base

And Akari...

Akari.

SUFFER IN SILENCE

But not alone.

Ryouga's hand clawed the ground, digging up a handful of wet, rocky
rubble. His body was incandescent with sickly green and black ki; up
swells of it shattered nearby rocks and fallen stones, cracking them
like the finest and thinnest glass. Corkscrews of the poisonous mental
energy coiled through the air. Everything in a hundred feet felt the
oppressive heaviness of his raging, out of control aura. Its weight
carved out a visible and expanding crater, flattening softer rock into a
material the consistency of wet pavement.

'Suffer in silence...' But not alone.

His own voice cut through the mental torment: 'I'm not alone! And this
isn't about me!'

"Even if I die. Even if they die! I won't..." this time he spoke;
ripping himself free of the Ethereal's psionic snare. "I won't betray
the trust people have put in me!"

On hands and knees, he sucked in a long, deep breath of air.

'I can handle this.' That's right. He could. 'I can handle this! What
I've done... what I've seen... what I've been through... I accept it. No
apologies. No regrets. No running away. No matter what happened, I'm
alive, and that means I'll keep fighting!'

Gradually, the translucent green flames began to wane. The aura shrunk,
contracting slightly at first, and then in more significant pulses: five
feet less, then one, then one more, than another five, until it was all
but gone. Letting out the breath he had taken, a fine blue aura
permeated the black and green. He felt hot tears streaming down his
face, and cupped his head in his hands. Not a sound escaped his lips,
even when his aura, surging and spiteful to the last, finally vanished
back under his skin.

"Cologne... you, and..." him "...on the field of Mars, is it?"

Yes. That was where it would be ended, one way or another.

"....I'll be there... I'll bury you there!"

Slamming his fist into the ground, Ryouga split open the crushed and
overstressed earth. Boulders split under the force opening cracks in the
floor wide enough to fit your hand in. Massive upended stones cut a
jagged relief in what had once been a perfectly flat stretch of land.
Pulling his hand out of the shattered hole it made in the ground, he
seized his right arm in pain.

'That damn vine...!'

He fell onto his side, biting his lip to muffle his cry. Even with
Cologne gone, it was still inside him. There was nothing else to do
about it. He reached down to his leg and un-strapped his utility knife.
Tearing off what was left of the personal armor around his right arm, he
stared at it - he could literally see the creeper under the surface,
growing fat on his ki and sending its roots into his flesh.

And it was already halfway across his upper torso.

He drank in the pain across his body, using it to build a mental map in
layers of blood and bone. Like he had told Kasumi, pain was the key to
understanding the body. It was no different with this than when he'd
been shot in China, just after Jyusenkyou. Field surgery, often under
the worst conditions imaginable, was something every Hibiki had to learn
and accept at some point.

Feeling out the extent of the injury, he felt a sharp pang of despair:
this was far worse than some bullet lodged in a rib. The vine had
branched off deep into his muscles, almost to the bone. He would have to
try and cut and tear it out, while using his aura to control the
bleeding and knit the flesh back together. It... it just wasn't
possible. He couldn't do it.

He'd... bleed to death....

Ryouga's left hand clutched the knife, and he lowered it to make a
tentative cut. The vine had to be stopped before it went further into
his upper body. He wasn't about to die here; not in this place!

"Easy there, sonny-boy. Don't be so hasty."

Looking over his shoulder, Ryouga saw Ku Lon, along with Ranma and two
others. The old woman looked pretty terrible herself. She clutched her
broken staff with one hand while tucking the other (he knew it to be
nothing more than a stump) into her torn shirt. Never once had he seen,
or even imagined he would see, Elder Cologne in such a state.

"Geez, man!" Ranma said from behind her, leaning over to stare at his
rival. "I could feel how depressed you were, but are you quick to cut
yourself or what?"

"Ranma!" he growled, wishing he could do something about the smug look
the other boy probably had on his face.

"The old ghoul here'll help ya. She got those things out of my leg." He
pointed at the appendage in question. Ryouga nodded his consent and
carefully put the knife back in its strap against his leg. Ku Lon made
him relax on his back, and mapped out the vine's infection with her
eyes.

"Where were you...?" Ryouga asked, slipping a bit more back into his
role as leader of India Squad.

"Back there," Ranma replied, waving his hand in the general direction of
'behind me somewhere.' "We thought you were gonna explode or something.
I've never seen so much ki. Even made me want to kill myself!"

Oddly, the soldier standing next to him elbowed her superior officer.

Ryouga frowned. "Squaddie. What's your unit?"

"Golf, sir. It's... me."

Akane.

"Akane, you..." A moment later and he caught his tone of voice. He
silently cursed himself. "Squaddie, where's is your CO? We needed a
working comm.."

"Sergeant Winther was hit by some kind of... water laser..." Akane
sounded a little uncomfortable. No: very uncomfortable. "He's... he's in
bad shape, but he's stable. Squaddie Lohse... she's... dead."

Ryouga's frown deepened. All that, and they'd still lost someone. For a
split second, he was just glad it wasn't someone from his squad. But
that only made him feel like a total heel.

"It was pretty bad," Ranma interrupted. "I'll fill in the Lieutenant.
Tendo, Khan, you two secure the area. Proximity mines at the north
entrance."

"Yes, sir!" both chorused and headed off.

Ranma then turned to Ku Lon and nodded. Without warning, she slammed her
remaining hand into Ryouga's chest, pushing her fingers in until they
drew blood. Trying to see what she was doing, he could just barely make
out something wrapping around her hand. The Amazon elder then moved her
palm over from his chest to his arm, wrapping up the vines inside like a
fork winding up noodles.

It wasn't a pleasant sensation, but it was only a little worse than
having it in him.

Finally, she tore the last of the blood vine out of his body and hurled
the gory mess aside. It hit the ground with a sick, wet splatter.
Immediately, Ryouga began directing ki into his chest and arm to seal up
the wounds. They looked pretty bad, and as deep as they had been, he
wouldn't be surprised if he ended up with a nice long scar. He supposed
it was Cologne's going away present.

Ku Lon barely kept standing. A sheen of sweat ran down her wrinkled
brow, and if not for her death grip on her staff at that moment, she
probably would have collapsed.

"Thanks, granny," Ryouga spoke without even thinking. "No disrespect
intended."

Ku Lon managed a weary smile.

"You kids never did learn how to show respect to your elders. Though...
with elders like Happosai and your father..." She meant, of course,
Genma. "I can see why."

"How are our squads?" Ryouga asked, turning to Ranma. They both had a
lot of questions for Khu Lon, but he had to know how his people were
doing. Hopefully, Ranma had gotten his comm. fixed, or appropriated
Sergeant Winther's.

He didn't need to add: How was the mission?

"Not great, but not too bad," Ranma answered, a little evasively. "We've
got Saffron and Rouge. Cologne and Tofu and Ayabe all got away. Kuno and
the girls are pretty beat up and Konatsu's in bad shape. Ryu's hurt but
stable."

"Konatsu?"

"Yeah. Tofu hit him with something in the confusion. He's unconscious.
We've gotta head there next."

Ryouga nodded.

"Heard from the Commander, by the way," Ranma added. "There's still
fighting going on, but we've got the parts of the base we care about.
They're already sending in salvage teams. Losses were... kinda bad.
They're saying one in six."

"Not so bad." The lost one hated to admit. It was better than the
projected one in four. "We beat the odds."

"We will when Konatsu pulls through." Ranma tossed a plasma carbine at
India Squad's injured lieutenant. He caught it in midair, and rolled
onto his knees and then his feet.

It wasn't over yet.

But it almost was, and truth be told, Ryouga was glad for that.

-----

"Huh, I wonder, is this really all right? Sneaking off like this, with
our tails between our legs?"

Ayabe walked with his hands crossed in front of him, as if in deep
thought. In truth, he had a tendency to ask what he guessed someone
nearby was also thinking but unwilling to broach. Cologne walked in
silence, nursing her many wounds. Of the three of them: Cologne, Tofu,
Ayabe, the latter seemed to be the only one to escape with only minor
injuries. Ahead of the trio floated their voiceless alien master.

They were deep in the forest shrouded mountains, miles from the fallen
alien base, having exited via one of the Korean escape tunnels.
Normally, aliens would have given little to no thought to escape in this
sort of situation, but the alien-human hybrid Trenchards were a special
case. Snow flurries wafted through the air, collecting on their robes
and faces.

"It can't be helped," Tofu admitted, a little grudgingly. He didn't
enjoy talking anymore, not when he could thought project, but the others
still seemed set in their too-human ways.

"Still, slipping away like this leaves a bad impression."

Cologne grunted in silent agreement.

"It is wise to know when to fight and when to leave," Tofu replied. Of
the three, he had taken most readily to their new ways. He took the time
to practice floating, though he didn't have an Ethereal's capability
just yet. "We have all we need from that place. Let the others fight
over it."

Ayabe frowned a bit. "I shouldn't have let Saffron-kun run off like
that. If we'd kept a better eye on him and Rouge..."

"As individuals, they were of limited use," Tofu cut him off. "Their
only value was in their unique abilities, which we have learned much
from. We can create new versions of them as necessary. Better ones,
since we are already on the verge of producing true martial artists. All
we've done is drop the dead weight, Koichi."

Cologne nodded in silent agreement.

"Then what about the other two?" he meant the two Ethereal Commanders
back at the base. This time, the one who led them answered the question.

THROUGH US THERE IS NO DEATH

THEY WILL BE GIVEN NEW BODIES TO INHABIT

"So they get downloaded while we have to walk?" the middle aged man
surmised.

"For now," Cologne spoke up.

SOON YOU WILL BE READY

They perked up at that.

"And the others?" Tofu asked, though he already knew the answer.

WAITING

WAITING FOR YOU

ON THE RED WORLD