[FFML] [Fanfic][Ranma / X-COM] The Road to Cydonia Chapter 29

[Justin Wagner]

Almost forgot to update on the FFML with the new chapter...

As always, Previous chapters of TRTC can be found on FFN
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2314624/1/The_Road_to_Cydonia

or on my site (which also hosts a UFOpedia and Character Info)
http://www.wagnergrp.com/JBW_Website/Fanfiction/TRTC.htm


-----

Author's Note: One of the ongoing themes of this fic is that the
characters become stronger as they train together and find strong
motivations to fight. To that end, I have expanded basically everyone's
repertoire of techniques and moves. Frankly, it seems silly that Ranma
and company would be using the same techniques all their lives. Who
could have guessed, reading the beginning of Ranma 1/2, that he would
end the manga with the techniques he did? Given that, I have tried to
make all the new techniques based on variants of old ones as much as
possible.

-----

For six years, mankind has waged a Secret War against an enemy from
Beyond the Stars. Despite a surge of activity in the Far East theatre,
and fierce battles waged to unseat the Sirius Conspiracy and avenge the
loss of the Joketsuzoku village, UNETCO and the two new squads have
prevailed time and time again. With the threat of Cologne and other
second generation Trenchards (alien human hybrids) looming ahead, the
high command readies for a strike at one of the planet's last remaining
alien bases. For India and Juliet squads, confrontation with these
corrupted master martial artists is inevitable. Finally, the last great
push to drive the entrenched alien presence off-Earth has begun. Only
with that done, can XCOM bring the fight to the stars.

-----

Up on the roof of the Tendo home, the night air was cool; a soothing
balm on the wounds he nursed. There was nothing particularly special
about it otherwise. It was a Thursday, or maybe a Friday, and late
enough that Nerima's lights had dimmed. The stars shone in vivid display
far above, tantalizing in their unassailable heights. Ryouga sucked on
the split lip Ranma had given him a few hours before, and took in a deep
breath. The smell of Kasumi's cooking, even well after everyone had
eaten, still lingered enough for him to smell the ingredients and
remember the tastes. The neighbor's dog took that moment to bark, twice,
at nothing in particular before retiring for the night.

Tucking in one leg and leaning forward, Ryouga took a few seconds to
direct his attention to his rival and the woman they both loved. Ranma
had joined him on the roof, as they often did, and eventually so had
Akane. He hadn't spoken much in that time, but he had listened. Being P-
chan, he had learned to listen without being able to speak, and the
tendency suited his personal moods regardless. The two teenagers had
gone the entire time without yelling at each other, and the stolen looks
between them made his heart ache. Now Ranma lay sprawled on the roof,
asleep, and Akane had dozed off next to him.

Their hands were almost touching.

Ryouga licked his injured lower lip. It would be gone by tomorrow, and
so would he. Let everyone think he'd just dropped by to make sure "Ranma
wasn't slacking off" or to "teach that Saotome a lesson." The truth was,
even when trying to find Akari's farm, he often wished he was headed for
the Tendo Dojo instead. It wasn't just checking in with Akane, either,
especially since he could still barely get in a handful of stuttering
words with her. It broke his heart to come here, but at least he felt
alive when he did. So he and Ranma had fought a bit, exchanging some
insults and threats...

It had been an ok fight. Nothing too special. Akane had watched them for
a while, throwing in a cursory, "why are you two always fighting"
remark. Soun and Genma had moved their endless game of shogi to a safe
spot where they wouldn't be hit or distracted by the inevitable
splashing from the pond. Nabiki had hung around, but never found a good
picture to take. And Kasumi... Kasumi had smiled and invited him to
dinner.

Ryouga glanced at Akane again.

'I can't hang around as P-chan anymore...' he reminded himself. He was
still tempted to, but the truth was that it hurt more than it helped.
After being held by a woman who loved him, as a genuine human being, he
couldn't go back to being loved as some pet pig. Before all this, he
could justify it by saying he was keeping Akane safe, but really, Ranma
had killed for her. Ranma would always be there for her. Ranma was,
despite his faults, the better man.

The bastard always had been.

'I hate this place...' he couldn't help but think, bitterness filling
his turbulent mind. 'But I can't stop coming back.'

Akari.

He stared up at the sky and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index
finger. Akari was the girl he had in his wallet. Her picture. Not
Akane's. When he visited her, she was glad to see him in a way Akane
never would. That was where he belonged, so why, why the Hell did he
keep coming here? Why, when he saw her farm in the distance after weeks
of wandering, did he even briefly think about going somewhere else? Why
did feeling wanted, desired - the very thing he had always dreamed of -
why did it feel so... forced?

Why was he still unhappy?

Slumping back against the roof, the lost boy stared up at the endless
night sky.

-----

The Road to Cydonia
Chapter XXIX
The Big Show - Part II

-----

Written by:
Capn Chryssalid
jbraveboy at gmail.com

-----

Ryouga had originally been joking when he had chastised Ranma for
pissing Cologne off. It quickly ceased to be funny in any sense of the
word. He had seen some of the fight with the youthful former Matriarch
and taken the opportunity to think up some ideas of his own in how to
fight her. Ranma had failed at close combat and subsequently abandoned
it as an effective means of defeating her, but the lost boy was less
inclined to rely purely on trading special techniques. Aside from being
physically stronger, he also planned to mix it up in grappling range,
where he could use his Killing Point to maximum effect.

Pity Colonge wasn't very obliging; the no-longer-quite-so-old girl was
spamming techniques like it was the End of the God Damned World.

Running at full tilt across a wall of tiered alien metal and soil, he
deflected a ball of blazing fire, ducked, spinning, under a crescent
shaped stream of water that sliced into the plants behind him, before
pushing off the wall as the tendril of water curved around and cut into
the floor. A ball of light ignited between his fingers, not as an
attack, but as an extension of his battle aura. It engulfed the stream
of water, and in that brief instant, Ryouga telekinetically willed it to
evaporate. His training with the Breaking Point was such that he could
destroy almost anything with it, and that fact was really all that had
kept him alive this far into the fight.

Water based attack: dodge and destroy. Fire based attack: intercept and
push through. That was how he had approached Cologne's many assaults.
Notably, she hadn't even bothered to try and fight him using any earth
based techniques, perhaps recognizing that it wasn't an efficient use of
her mental energy. Feeling a momentary lull between her attacks, he
stomped his heel, sending a tremor through the ground and towards where
she stood, toes barely trailing over the ground as she moved.

Luckily, being an alien garden, the ground was porous and the plates of
alien alloy were thin and unsecured except to a fragile mesh. This was
likely to make any rearrangements of the gardens easier, but it also
meant he could use the proper Breaking Point as necessary. As expected,
Cologne glided by faster than the tunneling breaking point could follow,
avoiding triggering a detonation.

She was fast on her feet, just like Ranma, and as she gracefully moved
her arms out and then up two tendrils of water rose up and at each of
Ryouga's sides. He didn't panic. Perfume had warned them about this
trick, and about its limitation: his training in the various
permutations of the Breaking Point provided an excellent defense.
Disrupting the ki holding the water in its edge wouldn't get rid of the
weapon, such as it was, but it would take the bite from its mouth.

Adding spin to his aura as he moved, the liquid scissors splashed
harmlessly against his personal armor. The problem with that approach
was that it was easier for Cologne to call up more water and reform its
cutting edge than it was for him to keep disrupting or evaporating
everything she threw at him. The thin sheets of water drew back, and
Ryouga back flipped as another curtain of flame barreled down in his
position. Clamping her mouth shut, Cologne's youthful face twisted in
surprise as she cocked her head to the side, avoiding a glowing bolt of
mint green plasma.

Ryouga quickly holstered his plasma pistol and cursed under his breath.
The only good thing about those fire attacks was that they blocked her
vision as much as it blocked his, giving him an opportunity to
counterattack. It was the same mistake Saffron had made when fighting
Ranma back in the day. Cologne wasn't quite as oblivious to the
weaknesses in that element. Blowing a bit of smoke out from between her
petite lips, she drew back slightly. Ryouga could feel the growing and
contracting of her battle aura, the razor sharp edges of it shooting out
and back in.

"Ryouga..." he heard his name, and Nabiki's voice.

Even from her desk in far off Seiran Mountain, she could tell that
something big was forthcoming. There was no time to respond to her.
Instead, the lost boy's eyes found Ranma, rapidly recovering from a
relatively safe spot further away. If need be, the two of them could
trade Cologne off between them, wearing her out and buying time until
more troops arrived. Ideally with Powered Armor, big guns, and
hovertanks. His hand wandered down to his waist and towards a refitted
alien grenade.

There was no way he was going to play fair, not with so much at stake.

Then Cologne brought her hands together, and the ceiling erupted.
Twisted metal rained down amid a torrent of water, first one then two
and then three. She had telekinetically torn apart the garden's
sprinkler and irrigation systems, and within moments, Cologne vanished
behind a wall of surging water. Narrowing his eyes, Ryouga could just
barely see her outline.

'Some sort of shield?' he had time to wonder, and little else.

The water moved.

A solid wall of it, higher than a man, wider than three men, shot out.
The front of it was flat and sheer, and Ryouga barely dodged out of its
way. It hit the wall behind with a titanic crash, and when it pulled
back, he could see a square indentation in the area it had struck. In
that instant, he mentally calculated that Cologne's attack probably put
out two or even two and a half times the force per square inch of even
one of his blows.

Cologne hadn't announced the names of any of her techniques so far (a
testament to her mastery of them, as announcing the name often helped to
concentrate on the technique's execution - it wasn't just for fun), but
the lost one had tried to keep a running tally of what he had seen.
Given the force behind this attack, Fist of the Sea or Deep Ocean Bullet
seemed appropriate names for the After Action Report. Still, if it was
just that, he could stay one step ahead of...

Suddenly, the block of water morphed, sharp edges growing out of flat
surfaces.

"Shit!"

Acting on instinct, he blew a breaking point directly ahead of himself,
flipping up one of the metal plates to form a makeshift shield. The wall
of cutting water - it must have been seven meters long, and thigh height
- barely skidded off the alien alloy with the sound of a razor blade
running across a blackboard. A wave washed overhead as Ryouga ducked.
The move had probably saved his life, but he didn't dwell on his good
luck or quick thinking. Taking a wide step towards the uprooted metal
plate, sheltering under it, and then pushing up as he jumped, Ryouga
broke the surface of the water all around him. His feet moving faster
than the eye could see, he spun, and tossed the makeshift shield like a
discus.

The spinning buzzsaw of a projectile landed with a thunk in the center
of Cologne's water shield, sending a ripple of cracks through the
suddenly icy surface. In seconds, it reformed, turned back into a
liquid, and expelled the harmless metal panel. Landing on the ground,
with the water receding back towards its master, Ryouga's eyes narrowed
as a savage grin spread across his features.

He watched the wall of water as it reformed. "So it's like that, huh?"

Cologne remained a dark shadow, like a shark cruising silently beneath
the surface. As he felt out what she had planned next, he couldn't help
but add a little something to the one person he could be sure would hear
him.

"Nabiki..." he said, voice betraying his excitement. "Watch this."

And then it began anew. A tidal wave of water rose up, and suddenly
surged forward, this time as a massive cone. It crashed into the ground,
tearing apart anything in its path and leaving a trail of frozen ice in
its wake. Ryouga ducked and dodged, contorting his body as he pressed
his speed and flexibility to the limit. Three times the massive lance of
water tried to pin him, before splitting in two, both spears striking
with the speed of a bullet. For all its speed, it was still easy to see
the attack coming, and dodge in time to avoid the massive point.

Then Ryouga disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Behind the smoke screen for only a second, a duet of screaming ki blasts
erupted from the cloud, spraying droplets in every direction along their
path. The twins slammed into Cologne's shield with enough force to punch
through a reinforced concrete wall, leaving two frozen craters in their
wake. The water lances withdrew momentarily as the shield reformed, and
then they continued their assault. This time, instead of simple lances,
the water morphed into balls after impact, propagating as another lance
in another direction.

Ryouga made full use of the terrain as he dodged and fired. It was
impossible to dodge all of them (perhaps Ranma could have managed it, he
was annoyed to admit), but just as often he had to block or weather the
blow. His natural constitution and personal armor helped to mitigate the
damage, but each strike, no matter the force behind it, left ice in its
wake. Worse, Cologne's attacks seemed to continue, even as she began new
ones, and in seconds propagating lances were bouncing off the walls from
almost every direction.

Most, however, went off in places where he couldn't have dodged to, even
if he had tried. He was sure that he had seen the weakness to her
technique: using both the water lances and the water shield meant that
damage to the latter left her nearly blind. His response, then, was to
act before she managed to overwhelm hit him due to luck, or as a result
of his looming fatigue. That was fine; it was what he had suspected from
the beginning, when Cologne's attacks paused just after he had struck
with that panel of alien metal.

Blocking one of the bounding spears, and feeling the condensation
collect even on the inside of his armor, forming pinpricks of crystal on
his skin, Ryouga leveled his other hands and fired another blazing
shishi hokoudan. Just as before, it crashed headlong and screaming into
Cologne's liquid barrier, which stiffened and froze in response. Unlike
last time, there was an object also embedded in the icy crater, carried
along inside the ki attack. Warped and crushed, the overstressed smoke
grenade exploded within the ice, just as it started to reform. In an
instant, dark clouds spread through the liquid barrier.

Half of the lances kept jumping from wall to wall, but the main body
wavered. Within in, Cologne was blinded and hesitant.

"Now!" Ryouga held out his left hand, clutching a plasma grenade between
half frozen fingers. "I've got you!"

One more flash; one more shishi hokoudan surprise.

But not fast enough. The main body of water contracted, forming
additional defensive layer around the first. The ki blast couldn't punch
through, and when the embedded plasma grenade went off, it blew the
barrier into a vast cloud of steam that expanded in every direction,
blinding everyone. Cursing, he changed his stance and began to build his
mental energy for something new.

If he just had time...

Then he heard a rush of water from every direction, and looking down,
Ryouga could see that there was water everywhere, all the way up to his
ankles. His eyes widened a moment before the water flash froze and
lifted into the air. Unable to extradite himself in time with the
breaking point the lost one received an introduction to the ceiling at
over fifty miles per hour. The ice floor met the ceiling and shattered
into a billion pieces. Ryouga hung for a moment, flattened against the
ceiling, and then just starting to fall... when another wave of ice and
water rose up and slammed into him.

Followed by another and then another.

Then a fifth, which, unlike the others, shattered just feet from the
ceiling. A pale green light grew in that instant, even as another solid
pillar, the sixth and largest, rose up to meet the trapped martial
artist. Onward and upward it pressed, into the light and almost into the
ceiling, before stopping. There, pressed between the rising pillar and
the ceiling, between the immovable rock and irresistible force, Ryouga
crouched, tucked almost into a ball. He had his feet to the pillar and
his shoulders and back to the ceiling, and as he pushed downward with
all the incredible power in his body, the glow grew in intensity. Hands
pressed against the ceiling, he heaved, and the pillar of ice below his
feet cracked and wavered. Straightening his body out, the pillar below
splintered and then exploded from within as the green glow tore down
from his feet and through the ice.

Ryouga landed with a splash in a pool of water, body sore and breathing
labored. On the other side of the ruined and flooded alien garden,
Cologne emerged from the murky waters he had clouded just moments
before. It still shifted and swirled around her, as if unsure whether it
could switch roles from shield to lance without dirtying all the water
in the place. Ultimately, it settled, and expanded away. Amid it all,
Cologne tossed her long dark hair and gently brushed a few itinerant
strands away from her eyes.

"What fine control over ki you have... Ryouga-kun," Cologne used the
same nickname Nabiki did, and even the same tone, but he couldn't help
but shiver when the corrupted former Matriarch said it.

"Your mastery of the breaking point actually exceeds my own, and to use
your Roaring Lion Shot to deliver a grenade... I would have never
thought of that," she continued, and with her hair well and out of the
way, Cologne bored into him with piercing, hungry eyes.

She softly clapped her hands a few times.

"Yes, you're just as I hoped," she added with what some would call a
leer. "In return, how about I show you some techniques that are mine,
and mine alone?"

"Careful..." Nabiki warned, whispering in his ear. As if he needed her
to tell him that.

Cologne laughed; a beautiful, melodious sound under other circumstances.

"Watch closely. I once used this technique to wipe out an entire village
in ten minutes..."

Cologne held out her right arm, and slashed the vein at her wrist with
one of the fingers on her left hand. With a single sweeping movement,
she sprayed blood in a crimson arc in front of her. It was a pale red,
not so bright as a human's, not anymore, and it quickly mingled with the
water at their feet. Ryouga watched; he could see the points of her ki,
still glowing white hot despite detaching from her body, intermixed with
the dull patchwork glow that suffused the water itself.

"Water and Metal Style," Cologne announced, in English and with no small
hint of amusement. "Form One: Earth Sickening Water."

The water began to churn, and Ryouga felt a chill run up his spine. The
drops of blood weren't just diffusing in the water... from near Cologne,
a dark hue began to expand. Clear water turned impossibly inky dark. As
it came closer, Ryouga felt his acute danger sense begin to scream a
warning. Taking a few steps back, and then turning to run, he jumped
high and out of the water entirely, grabbing onto the broken trunk of a
fallen alien tree before flipping up to another garden terrace. On the
lowest level, in the water, he could see a few scattered leaves and
branches crumple and burn.

'So it'll be like before, but with acid instead of water?'

He narrowed his eyes as the water started to churn and boil.

'All I have to do is not get hit. Wear her down. Let Ranma find one of
those weakness Perfume mentioned...'

"Ryouga!" Nabiki interrupted, sounding nearly panicked. "The NBC
chemical scrubber is detecting some sort of organophosphate in the
air... possibly a nerve agent... along with benzyl and hydrogen
chloride. Containment is holding, but the filter is going to start
breaking down...!"

Ryouga realized it, just then. It wasn't just the acid. Cologne's
technique poisoned the air itself. She really could wipe out an entire
village... even a small town... with this one terrible technique.
Perfume had warned them that Cologne could mix traditional elemental
based techniques, but nothing like this! Gritting his teeth, he steeled
his nerves. Was he afraid of Cologne? Yes. There was little sense trying
to hide it. Would he let it get to him?

Hell no!

He jumped off the terrace as his opponent started to gather up her next
attack, shifting into the offensive. Flipping through the air, his
aligned himself so his feet were headed right for the sea of poison that
covered the entire floor of the alien garden. He could hear Nabiki's
gasp in his ears, and see the look of surprise on Cologne's face as he
fell. And the black water around the soles of his boots blew away.

Ranma wasn't the only one who could fire a ki attack from his feet!

-----

Ukyou braced herself behind her mega spatula as a torrent of fire washed
over her immediate left and right. Shielded as she was, and insulted by
her personal armor, she barely felt the heat. It was a nice little layer
of protection, and she trusted in her weapon to protect her. The lessons
she had learned training with India Squad were second nature now, and
her body tensed in silent anticipation of going into the
counteroffensive.

Except the moment she started to move, another attack slammed into her
position, forcing her into a protective crouch and cover. To a martial
artist with a battle accelerated sense of time, it felt like she had
been hiding behind cover for an hour. The attacks simply never let up.
One after another, they beat down in her.

This wasn't how Ranma had described Rouge's fighting style.

It had been assumed from that start that many of the martial artists and
other unique individuals Ranma and Ryouga knew of, but hadn't found
themselves, had been captured or killed by the aliens. Rouge was one of
those not accounted for, and so the two squads had been informed of how
to face her in a potential fight. From what Ukyou had been briefed on,
Rouge relied entirely on her inhuman techniques using fire, lightning,
and light. She was not physically powerful: she couldn't hit hard, and
she couldn't take any strong blows. But she still got tired. She still
fatigued.

Something was different with her.

Activating a switch on the hilt of her battle spatula, a transparent
window appeared in the metal flat of the weapon. It was one of the
properties of alien alloys, and it had been helpfully incorporated into
her new weapon for just such an occasion: to help her see while
sheltering behind cover. Between gouts of fire, she could just make out
Rouge's cursed form. The girl was in her transformed state: that of a
six armed, three headed demon woman. But, unless Ukyou was mistaken,
Rouge seemed to have grown larger than when Tofu had first introduced
her.

Ukyou watched carefully as a series of explosions went off near the
cursed woman. One of the heads pivoted, turning the wide fountain of
fire coming out of her mouth into a narrow stream. Bright orange pulses
rippled through the solid stream of fire. Each of the heads seemed
identical, aside from slight differences in hair style, but two seemed
to be constantly spouting fire. The third, in the middle, seemed to be
watching for attacks and directing the others to intercept them. Rouge's
skin was a pale and deathly white, and as she adjusted her stance, Ukyou
could see a ripple of color flow across the demon's flesh. Rouge took a
step, raised two of her six hands, and seemed to grow slightly taller.
Lightning crackled between those two hands, and Ukyou saw a brief
opening.

Planting the wide end of her spatula into the ground, Ukyou jumped and
tucked, putting her feet up against the flat of the blade and continuing
to use it as a shield. Rouge's head never let up on the stream of fire,
but the change in angle gave Ukyou a shot. Trying her best to aim her
carbine with just one hand, Ukyou fired on full automatic. The recoil
from the plasma rifle threw off most of her shots, but at least two were
center of mass... except the plasma itself detonated well in front of
Rouge as it entered her flame barrier.

Ukyou cursed to herself as she landed on top of one of the smaller
parked UFOs in the garage, once again engulfed by a stream of fire. It
was annoying that their improved and upgraded plasma weapons,
replacements for lasers and projectiles, were the least effective here.
Whatever Rouge's Flame Barrier was, it caused a premature disruption of
the plasma bolt. Lasers would probably have gone right through, and even
if it was hot enough to melt a projectile, it would still have that
initial momentum behind it to do some damage.

Through the window, she could see a barrage of shuriken in the distance,
where Konatsu and Shampoo were busy fighting the good Doctor. In
retrospect, given the plasma problem, it probably would have been better
to let Shampoo try and manage something. Unfortunately, Konatsu had
decided that Ukyou was the strongest on defense and against area of
effect attacks, making her the best to handle the berserk Hindu demigod.
The sound of a thunderclap made Ukyou instinctively brace herself, and
just as the sound hit her ears, a lightning bolt slammed into her Hera-
sama.

Luckily, this version of her battle spatula didn't conduct electricity.

Another "Thunder Heaven Snakes Retribution" strike hit... followed by a
third and a fourth, while Ukyou's mind raced to think up some way to
turn the tables on her enemy. Simply sitting tight and waiting for
Konatsu and Shampoo to beat Tofu and come to her aid wasn't sounding
particularly prudent, and her initial plan of waiting for Rouge to tire
wasn't panning out.

"How long do you plan to hide from my power?" Rouge's center head
finally spoke, in a voice as deep as any Ukyou had ever heard. "That
weapon of yours... vexes me..."

While the two other heads continued spitting flame, the middle one spat
into two of her hands. Eyes glowing bright green, tendrils of flame rose
out of Rouge's palms, forming a burning whip and sword, black as pitch
and engulfed by fire. In the two middle hands, lightning crackled
ominously, and in the bottom pair, blazing conflagrations pulsed,
leaving a trail of fire and smoke in their wake.

Ukyou smirked from behind her weapon.

So: a flaming whip, a sword of fire, two fireballs, two blasts of
lightning, two walls of fire, and one barrier of flame. It was a bit
much, but she could work with it.

"Konadan!"
(Flour Bomb)

Rouge hissed in anger as her target disappeared in a cloud of thick
white smoke. Striking with her flaming whip, she probed the area, but
hit nothing of any substance. Her left and right heads closed their
mouths, shutting off their breath of flame. Six eyes searched around
her, looking for any sign of movement. For a few seconds, there was
nothing, and the more impatient of Rouge's three heads began to scream
for the other two to charge in. The other was more content to fall back.
As usual, the center head had to make the decision for the three of
them.

Rouge had little to no warning sense, like her martial arts opponent
did, but her reflexes were definitely above human, and she could
literally look in three directions at once. She saw Ukyou's attack
coming, and quickly jumped to the side as a giant spatula slashed into
the ground where she had just been standing, the sharpened edges making
a horrible scraping sound. With her lower two arms, Rouge unleashed a
flurry of fireballs into the smoke, aiming for where the attack had
originated. She was too slow in the counterattack; Ukyou's mega spatula
retracted, pulled back into the cloud of flour via an almost invisible
metal wire. Along the way it deflected the fire headed in that
direction.

Rouge hissed, flame leaking out of her flared nostrils.

Another flour bomb went off to her left, almost immediately followed by
a handful of smaller, thrown spatulas. Holding up two of her arms to
block the strikes, knowing they would penetrate her protective flaming
body aura, Rouge struck back with lightning. She could hear it hit
something, and guessed that it was likely the giant weapon her opponent
used. Pivoting and striking with her flaming whip, Rouge again hit only
the floor. Her other hands plucked out the three spatulas buried into
her uppermost left arm, tossing the offending items to the ground.

Then a third smoke bomb went off, and this time Rouge struck without
hesitating. Twin infernos left two of her mouths, followed by a barrage
of lightning and fire from her middle and lower arms. Running towards
her pinned opponent to press the attack, she succeeded in blowing away
much of the vision obscuring flour. Amid the conflagration, Rouge could
see the mega spatula being used as a shield. She had seen her opponent
use it like that before, and knew it left her almost immobile.

Rouge's center head laughed gleefully. "I'm going to cook you in your
own armor, you little roach!"

Rounding the side of the weapon, all three of Rouge's heads blinked in
surprise.

There was no one there.

Rouge never even noticed the small M86 Pursuit-Deterrent Munition that
had been taped to the floor behind the spatula. All the three headed
asura-cursed woman knew was that, in the span of a second, she had been
blown off her feet and into the air, the entire front of her body
screaming in pain. As an alien-altered Trenchard, injuries didn't mean
as much to her body as before, and her minds instantly clicked off their
pain response.

Even with injures like this, she could still fight!

Then one of Rouge's heads saw movement out of the corner of her eye
right before a roundhouse kick slammed into it. Rouge's backward
momentum turned into a spin, and the other heads winced as the third
lost a pair of teeth to the blow. In desperation, Rouge flared up her
omnidirectional defenses: first her flame aura, and then a blast of
bright white light. At this range, it would have flash fried any normal
human being nearby, and blinded them through their eyelids.

Instead, that same damnable wall of metal blocked everything.

'How can she take cover so quickly?!' Rouge barely had time to think,
before Ukyou emerged out of her weapon's cover, spinning the spatula
overhead.

"Okonomiyaki Combo!" The girl yelled, her weapon crashing down. "Number
Four!"

Rouge blocked the downward blow with the flaming sword still in her
uppermost left hand, supported by the hilt of her flaming whip in the
other. Her rightmost head, which had been preparing to fire another
breath of flame, tried to scream a warning but was too late. Ukyou
stepped in after her first strike had been countered, reversed her
massive weapon, and struck up with the opposite end of her spatula. It
buried itself into Rouge's torso, and with upper body strength alone,
Ukyou hoisted and flipped Rouge off her feet and into the air.

Rouge's center head coughed fire, but Ukyou's weapon spun, deflecting it
before coming around in another blow with the flat of the blade. Rouge
took the strike without being able to mount a defense, the blow
thundering with an explosive boom. The Jyusenkyou cursed asura spun like
a top in midair. Helpless, she felt another blow like before come up
from below, and then another, juggling her in the air before a fourth
came down and sent her crashing to the floor.

Ukyou stood over her opponent, smoking mega spatula in one hand, the
other on her hip.

"Well now, I guess three heads ain't much better than one after all!"
The chef planted a booted foot onto the small of Rouge's back to keep
her face (or faces) down. "I'd stay down if I were you."

"And here I was hoping to jump in and save you," a voice said from
behind her. Ukyou didn't turn her head to acknowledge it. Instead, she
ducked down, and finished Rouge off with a stun-stick to the back of
each head.

"I'm no damsel in distress," she finally replied, glancing over her
shoulder. "And you're no white knight."

"I guess not," Ryu admitted, shrugging his shoulders enough for the
gesture to be seen despite his UNETCO issue personal armor. "But if this
were a manga, you'd get in over your head and I'd make a dramatic
entrance and say something cool. And you'd be like: 'Ryu! He made it!'
Now you've stolen my thunder."

"Sorry." Ukyou sounded more jesting than contrite, ribbing him with her
elbow.

"You might get the chance to save Shampoo or Konatsu, though," she added
teasingly as the two headed towards where the one remaining fight; the
two aforementioned martial artists facing Dr. Tofu. "I'm sure either of
them will reward you with a kiss if you ask nicely enough. Konatsu could
even show you his 'Crimson Hell' techniques..."

"I think I'll pass." Ryu landed on the top of a landed UFO, and Ukyou
took up a spot next to him. On the Large Scout adjacent to them, Dr.
Tofu seemed to be cornered by Konatsu and Shampoo. Still, he didn't seem
to be anything but bored by the whole affair.

"Well, well," he spoke up, voice betraying only mild amusement. "I never
would have expected you to beat Rouge all by yourself, Miss Kuonji. Not
only have you improved, but it seems you were a bad match up for her.
Cologne will be disappointed."

"Give up, Doctor," Ukyou yelled back at the man. "Let us take you in! We
can help cure you!"

Tofu's inhuman face twisted into a macabre grin.

"How naive you are," he replied, and pointed at her. "All this means is
that I can replace Rouge with someone more suitable."

"What does..." Ukyou's voice trailed off.

"Ukyou? What's...?" Ryu started to turn towards her. Why had her voice
given out like that? Ignoring the warnings from his well honed
sakkijutsu, he blinked and a moment later fell backwards, Ukyou's battle
spatula buried in his chest. Falling flat on his back, he never got to
even finish his sentence.

"Ryu!" Konatsu yelled, but didn't dare make a move.

Shampoo just frowned.

"Hmm," Tofu mused with a sad sound. "Betty, let them see your face, my
dear."

With shaking hands, Ukyou unhooked and pulled off her helmet. Her eyes
were wide and unblinking, tears welling up and running down her cheeks.
Yanking back her right arm, she caught her mega spatula with the same
hand. The end of it was stained red with blood.

"Come now, don't struggle. I don't like to see my Betty frown like
that." Tofu remarked, and Ukyou's mouth curled into a small smile
totally contradictory to the terror and helpless fear in her eyes.

"Much better," the former doctor sounded satisfied. Without even a
gesture on his part, Ukyou's body jumped and landed next to him.

"Mind control?" Shampoo quietly asked over the Team Comm.

As if sensing the question, though unable to hear it, Tofu held up one
thin finger.

"No," he corrected. "This isn't mind control in the conventional sense.
Earlier, I activated a pressure point used for deep meditation. This
separates the objective part of the mind from the subjective, the
impulse from the action so to speak. The result is akin to sleep
paralysis. You see, I don't like the idea of invading someone's mind and
fighting them there. Too many things can go wrong. This... solves that
problem."

"While in this meditative state, her body is my new Betty: a skeleton
with strings attached." Tofu's lipless smile widened just slightly. "And
as a bonus, this girl is fully aware of her actions, and feels
everything her body does, so she can enjoy being Betty too."

The two standing members of Juliet Squad stared him down.

"And for some reason, I don't think you'd destroy this Betty as
callously as the last one," Tofu said with a dark chuckle, referring
specifically to Konatsu.

The male kunoichi didn't respond, but his fists were balled tight.

Instead, Shampoo stepped forward.

"Good. Good! This is a good chance to settle things with her," the
Amazon spoke up, using her armor's external speakers. Taking off her
helmet, Shampoo let it fall to the ground along with her plasma pistol
and laser rifle.

"Shampoo...?" Konatsu began to say, voice half angry half relieved.

"Worry about yourself, girly-boy," Shampoo snapped back at him,
retrieving a single edges Dao sword from her armor's attached backpack.
Her smile widened into a bloodthirsty grin. "What do you say, Doctor?"

"I don't care what order you die in," he replied. "But I should warn
you, don't underestimate this Betty just because I'll be putting her on
autopilot."

Battle spatula twirling in her hands, Ukyou took a few steps forward,
the bladed edges of her weapon shooting up sparks where it slashed into
the upper level of the landed UFO below her. Shampoo snarled and charged
right at her, crashing into the other girl and driving her back, sword
blocked by spatula. With a roar, the stronger Chinese fighter sent Ukyou
flying back and off of the UFO only to jump after her.

Tofu let them go, preferring to stare lazily at Konatsu.

"Would you prefer to watch them?" he casually inquired. "Or do you still
want to fight me?"

Konatsu's hands unclenched and the right one slowly reached for the
sword strapped to his belt. Faint waves of red ki began to drift away
from his body as a battle aura began to grow around him. Konatsu knew he
wasn't like Ranma or Ryouga. His personality was too passive minded to
easily generate a powerful aura of emotional ki. He couldn't even muster
much killing intent, given that he didn't like to hurt others. Worse, he
rarely felt very angry or offended when others abused him. Until Ukyou,
he'd never even been enraged over the treatment he had seen others face
either.

But this... this was unforgivable!

"Fighting me isn't wise," Tofu warned, sounding completely nonplused by
the display. "You're weaker than me, after all."

"I'm not going to fight you," Konatsu answered, lowering his arms. "I'm
going to kill you!"

-----

Blasts of green tinted mental energy erupting with every step, Ryouga
ran headlong towards Cologne, surrounded as she was by a small lake of
churning acidic death. Below him, her Sickening Water blasted away from
each footfall, thanks to small precise shishi hokoudans released from
the soles of his feet. He knew he was gambling everything on a frontal
attack, but he knew it was probably the last thing Cologne expected
anyone to do in this situation. He couldn't let her dictate the terms
and flow of the fight.

Depression, anger and sheer bloody-mindedness warred within his mind and
across his boiling battle aura. This was what he had trained so hard
for! Trained to exhaustion, researched to perfection! If he lost, then
he was just the second rate failure everyone had always thought him to
be! He dwelled on those failures, those setbacks, those losses... and
they only fed into his depression and anger.

Cologne's left hand twitched; a curl of black cut through the air; he
ducked under it. Her middle fingers dipped; two whirlpools appeared out
of nowhere just ahead of him; he rotated, and let his feet skid across
the ground on a board of telekinetic energy. She frowned; a wall of
water began to rise, like a swell, to cut him off below the waist; he
jumped. She lifted her hands; more walls of black water rose to his left
and right, almost the entire length of the room, threatening to flatten
him between them. Firing a shishi hokoudan into the left one, he blasted
through the hole and withdrew a single bandanna from his arm.

"Die! Cologne!" He spun on his heel, making two one hundred and eighty
degree spins and building momentum. A great green glow wrapped around
his hand, and then he let it fly. Engulfing the bandanna within it, the
ki swirled and broke apart, forming rippling arms.

The Amazon matriarch immediately recognized the hybrid attack, and with
a quick thrust of her arm, countered it.

"Living Shark Fists!"

Sweeping her arms to the side, two inky black fins emerged from the
shallow water, followed by two more, and then two more, with every sweep
of her arms. The first two raced ahead, and crested, jumping out of the
water in the form of a sleek sixteen foot predator, crashing into
Ryouga's own hybrid attack. The Earth Sickening Water that made up the
shark's bodies tore apart from the force and from the rotation of
Ryouga's attack.

Rather than look surprised, Cologne's lips curled back into a snarl as
the buzzsaw of burning iron cloth and unstable energy narrowly missed
her, barely deflected by cutting through two of her samekens. Ryouga,
meanwhile, skipped up and just over two of the circling pseudo-sharks.
Both jumped from the water to try and intercept him, watery mouths
gaping with acidic teeth. Avoiding them by inches, he turned, hit the
ground, and detonated two breaking points just ahead of him, blowing the
final two shark fists into pieces. Crossing his arms in front of his
face, Ryouga raced through the spray, droplets of caustic liquid
sticking to his armor and burning through vulnerable spots.

Up ahead, he could see Cologne, her hands open, between stances.

He could guess that no one had ever charged into her black water attack.
Unlike before, she didn't surround herself with it or use it as an all
encompassing shield. The regular water, the lance and the shield, could
be used for both offense and defense. The black water, now burning to
the touch, could really only be used for offense. But he'd broken
though! He had her!

Two attacks! It had to be two at the same time to be sure!

First: a breaking point beneath her. Cologne had kept a dry circle
around her, to keep from touching the black water. Now, that little dry
spot erupted, shooting razor sharp shards of stone and rock upwards. At
the same time, Ryouga's fist descended like a hammer from above. He had
caved in the engines of cars with his fist, so the blow probably
wouldn't be enough to kill her, but it would stun her, and by the time
he recovered, he'd have emptied his plasma pistol into her. He saw
Cologne grit her teeth and start to pivot.

'Too late!'

They met.

And the next thing he knew, his fist slammed painfully into the ground.

'I missed? How?!'

There was no time to ponder it. Reversing his body's momentum he avoided
Cologne's sweeping heel kick, and tried to counter with an inverted kick
to her ankles. Instead of lifting her leg, the sole of her naked foot
skidded along the uneven ground from the force of the blow, as she
directed the force he had applied up, into a spin, and then into the
same foot as it slammed into his side. It literally lifted him off the
floor, and in the next second and a half, Cologne juggled him like a
baton in close quarters combat.

The throat... The cervical curve of the spine... the flank, between the
ribs and above the ilium section of the pelvis... the celiac plexus,
causing a spasm in the diaphragm and a white hot jolt of pain...
Coughing blood onto the inside of his helmet HUD, one thought flickered
across Ryouga's consciousness.

'What...?'

Any one of the blows would have killed a normal man on the spot, even
with UNETCO personal armor. As it was, Ryouga stopped an abrupt plunge
into the black water all around them with one hand. Almost immediately,
he could feel the acid burning through his glove, and he pushed off with
just the strength of that one arm, throwing himself through the air and
onto one of the nearby terraces. Two seconds of hand to hand with
Cologne, and he felt like he'd gone twenty rounds with Ranma... and
lost, to boot.

Looking up, he saw her. Cologne stood where she had before, her long
hair trailing through the air as she completed a lazy spin. Eyes half
closed, Ryouga's mind - the mind of a martial artist - replayed what he
had seen and felt. It hadn't been her hands or arms that had deflected
his initial blow. It was almost too insane to believe, but it had to
have been...!

Cologne's hair fell back down to her shoulders.

'Her hair...? She used her hair to deflect my blow?' Even for him, even
after all he'd seen, it was impossible. Impossible! Catching the lip of
a terrace as a streak of black water sliced into it, Ryouga flipped
himself back to safety before he could fall into the black water below.

"How?" he had to ask.

"There is no part of my body that I cannot use as a weapon," Cologne
cheerfully replied.

Then, she spread her fingers.

And the Sickening Water bubbled and rose, but not like before. This
time, large droplets broke away, rising into the air. For the first
time, she began to put some visible effort into a technique, opening her
mouth to take a long deep breath. As one, the thousands of droplets
burst, forming a burning acidic mist...

"Naturally, I call this my Sickening Haze," she continued, and smiled.
"Are you certain you don't want to give up?"

"Absolutely not," Ryouga replied, reaching behind to the small stand
issue tote attached to his upper back. With his right hand, he withdrew
his plasma carbine. Switching off the helmet speakers with a precise jaw
movement, he whispered one word.

"Now."

Cologne turned her head, just as the attack began. An explosion filled
the air behind her, followed by the short crack-crack bark of plasma
rifle rounds tearing through and evaporating condensed sheets of
suspended water. Cologne moved in a flash as Ranma ran across the wall
behind her, carbine at his shoulder, firing in controlled three round
bursts. Like Ryouga, he had deduced that her defense had weakened when
she shifted to use the Sickening Water. Both martial artists had come to
the conclusion that they had to blitz her, hard and fast, before she
overwhelmed either or both of them.

'We've got you now,' Ryouga thought to himself, as he tossed two
grenades with one hand, and opened fire with the other. The air was
already growing thick with clouds of misty poison, and it was taxing to
push most of it out of his way with his battle aura. Ranma seemed to be
fairing slightly better, having adapted a form of hiryu shoten ha to
blow the mist out of his way.

Cologne was no easy target, however. Not only was she fast, but she used
splashes of water and other distractions to throw off their aim. The eye
was naturally drawn to movement it could register, and it was hard to
stay on target. Ryouga counted his shots as he tried to hit her, and
allowed himself a savage grin as the grenades went off: one a frag
grenade filling the air with supersonic shards of metal, and the other a
diversionary flashbang. 180 decibels and one million candlepower, plus
over a thousand metallic ball bearings, met inhuman martial artist.

Cologne emerged from the conflagration like a spinning discus of titian
orange, her ethereal robes billowing through the air. Seemingly
unharmed, having used her rotation and the alien properties of her new
attire to shield herself, she swept up her arms and the mist around her
rippled. A burst of it slammed into Ryouga through his telekinetic
shield, overwhelming it. It was hardly a blow in the traditional sense,
but it immediately splattered his helmet HUD and half his body with
caustic acid.

Almost casually, she tossed two more waves his way as he fell, blind and
burning.

Ranma, at least, managed to shield himself with a vortex of churning
wind. Holding his left hand forward to generate the tiny tornado, his
hiryu kanshou, he tried to get a bead on Cologne as he fired with his
right. The plasma carbine bucked against his shoulder as he skidded down
and into a pool of acidic water. Cologne ducked, avoiding two of the
shots that had been center of mass, and swept her arms again as she
spun. Ripple after ripple crashed into Ranma, pushing him back, and
punching through his makeshift defenses.

"I can keep this up all day!" Cologne gleefully jeered, "But why draw
things out?"

And then she turned, eyes moving just enough to look over her shoulder.

Ryouga stood, holding nothing less than an umbrella in front of him.

"Turning your back to me?" he asked, and slammed the tip of the strange
alloy-gray umbrella into the ground. "I wouldn't do that if I were you!"

Standing right between the two men, Cologne didn't seem particularly
worried.

"Ranma!" Ryouga yelled. "You better pull this off, 'cause I can only do
this once!"

The lieutenant of India Squad then slammed his right palm into the
umbrella, driving it deeper into the ground. Cologne immediately jumped
just into the air, as an X emerged under her feet, the ground breaking
and shooting up around her. At the same time, simultaneous breaking
points explosions, ones Ryouga had left dormant and waiting to go off
during the previous fight around the room, shot one-ton blocks of stone
into the air.

That then exploded.

At the opposite end of the room, Ranma vanished as he stepped into the
umisenken. Shielding herself within the radius of three of the breaking
point explosions, Cologne could do little when the way of the silent
thief brought him behind her. More than doing any damage to her, Ryouga
had blown away the Sickening Mist, leaving her with only her fists to
defend herself or attack others. With no other options, Cologne flew
into action as she felt Ranma's presence, slapping aside his plasma
carbine in one smooth movement. To her surprise, he let it go.

It was empty anyway.

With his left hand in a fist, Ranma unleashed a point black hiryu hyou
toppa. It should have slammed right into her, but Cologne reacted
instantly to the feint and trap. Gathering what spiraling hot ki she
could, she thrust her arm upwards, unleashing a traditional hiryu shoten
ha that deflected the Flying Dragon Ice Breakthrough attack. It was just
as she focused her attention on Ranma, the two of them falling in
midair, that she saw a blazing green light scream in from behind.

For once, she was unable to dodge to avoid it, and at over eleven
kilometers per second, the plasma bolt buried into her lower back. It
wasn't alone, either. Ranma was in front of her, and he hit like a
truck. A blow to the face spun her around, and then the boy's arms
blurred faster than the eye could follow.

"Dokuja Toshin Shou!"
(Poisonous Serpent Spitting True Palm)

Hundreds of blows rained down on the nine principal weak spots of the
human back and flank, landing before she even hit the ground with her
feet, still standing. Ranma didn't let her alone, either. A garrote
snaked around her neck, forming a deadly version of the haizan tokai
tai, or High Mountain Fall-to-Sea Posture. Another bolt of plasma then
tore into her chest as she stood, incapacitated, followed by a
thunderous blow to the lower torso that left her bent over forward.

"You're finished, Cologne!" Ryouga snarled, and dug the stun rod deeper
into her midsection, activating it and sending over two thousand volts
coursing through her body. For a second, the three stood still,
suspended as debris fell to the ground into muddy pools and rivulets.

"Finished...?" Cologne repeated, moving her left arm. Ryouga squeezed
the trigger of the stun rod, shooting more electricity into her system.

Strangely, she didn't even twitch.

"Finished!?" she hissed, and as her face turned to look into his, Ryouga
could see something... wrong, moving beneath the surface. A second
later, Ranma flew off her back, twisting through the air, grunting in
pain. It seemed impossible to believe at first, but coiling through the
air in his wake were thin cords of green and brown; they were vines,
slowly sprouting purple leaves... Ryouga glanced down, and saw the end
of the stun rod wrapped in what looked like the petals of a flower.

'Is this,' he could only wonder, 'Wood style...?!

"How can I be finished?" Cologne asked, and she grabbed his wrist before
he could jump back. He could see her skin splitting, revealing shades of
red and green. Tiny tendrils, like roots, broke the surface of her
fingers and wormed into the armor around his wrist. Before he could tear
free, they were through soft spots in the personal armor, and burrowing
into his flesh.

"How..." She smiled, and Ryouga screamed. "When I've barely even
started?"

-----

Tatewaki Kuno snorted disdainfully at his so called opponent.

Said opponent snorted disdainfully back at him.

"Something bothering you, landling shit?" the young boy asked. He was
exotic looking, with yellow-red eyes and hair that flowed and burned
with fire. His upper body was bare except for the gloves over his hands,
but he wore the titian robes of an ethereal pulled back around his waist
and held in place with a loop of rope. A single small hand wrapped
around the shaft of his unusual polearm weapon. Kuno had never seen the
like before; it had no obvious cutting surfaces, and instead displayed a
large ornamental circle as its head.

Kuno sighed openly and despairingly.

"To think that I, the great and noble Tatewaki Kuno, age 19, would have
to debase himself by fighting a child," Kuno explained, turning his side
to his four foot tall opponent. "It is to laugh."

Saffron narrowed his amber red eyes.

"Go home and play with a toy car or something," Kuno breezily added,
making as if to walk away. He took all of one step before spinning,
sword out and covering his left side. His feet skidded across the
ground, footing lost as he struggled to stand upright. Finally, he
crashed back first into a wall with a painful thud. Pinning him there
like a fly, Saffron's child form still held the Kinjakan war staff with
one hand. The circular head was glowing white hot, like molten steel.

"That staff," a voice came in from Command and Control. Nabiki. "Is
emitting high energy microwaves. Don't let it touch you, Kuno-baby."

Saffron's childlike face parted as a grinned; it was a slasher smile
full of teeth and long canines.  Fire ran in rivulets down his long
hair, and white and black wings beat restlessly in the air, sprouting
from his shoulder blades. Kuno felt a sweat drop ease down his forehead.
When Mousse had seen "Saffron-kun" he had promptly dismissed him as a
threat and told Kuno to "take care of the little brat."

He could already feel the temperature begin to rise inside his armor.

With a heave, he pushed the child back a half step, allowing just enough
room to side step and roll out from being pinned. Saffron's staff
immediately whirled, slicing a line of yellow into the nearly
indestructible alien alloy of the wall before slashing again with Kuno's
sword. The Tenrai Hououken held, parrying the strike. There was
surprising force behind the blow, only slightly less than Mousse could
exert when they crossed blades.

"You're no normal little boy," Kuno stated the obvious.

"Figured that out by yourself, did you?" Saffron snapped back at the
less than witty kendoist. He took a step forward, forcing Kuno's sword
upward. The swordsman broke the lock, blocked a swipe from the side, and
counterattacked low, aiming for Saffron's left leg. The boy blocked it,
and he pushed Kuno back another step.

"Don't let this body fool you," Saffron gleefully explained, imagining
the look of consternation on his opponent's face. "I have all the power
of my adult self, had the last maturation ritual gone off as expected.
And more!"

The pint sized Saffron's wings beat twice, angling the feathers forward.

"You're Japanese, aren't you?" the boy asked. "One of Ranma's stupid
little friends? Well, any friend of his is a friend of mine! Enjoy...
Kotei Kaen Yoki!" (Emperor's Blazing Wings)

Kuno was no fool, despite how he appeared. He'd been fighting some of
the world's best martial artists for years, and he knew a special
technique announcement when he heard one. Twisting his sword so the flat
was against Saffron's staff weapon, he pushed hard and away. Given what
Saffron had been doing with his wings, Kuno could guess that would be
the source of the attack.

An instant later, blazing white and orange crescents erupted from
Saffron's wings, filling the air in front of him with a hailstorm of
burning, cutting, fury. Kuno gritted his teeth and focused mental energy
into his arms, trust and faith in his sword absolute and unblemished in
his mind. His arms became a blur as he blocked the burning scythes. His
feet hit the ground and he took two steps back as he continued to parry
the barrage.

Saffron looked on with growing irritation.

"Filthy little shit! Just die already!" He began to walk forward, wings
continuing to fire wave after wave of bladed death. Tucking his Kinjakan
across his chest, Saffron flattened the palm of his right hand. A
glowing sphere of molten yellow expanded like a child's balloon,
cracking with energy.

With a wordless snarl, Saffron filled the space in front of him with a
lance of fire...

"Shin Kokuzan!"
(True Sky Arc Decapitation)

Only to see that lance of fire crash into a wall of air and part down
the middle in the face of Kuno's technique.

Saffron's youthful face contorted with an ugly sneer, his upper lip
rising high enough to show sharp teeth. His wings flapped one behind him
and straightened out. Narrow eyes surveyed his opponent. Kuno was
surrounded by tiny fires, but unharmed. The swordsman held his sword out
in front of him, as if to point at the boy.

"Very well!" Kuno roared. "I, Tatewaki Kuno, hereby find you a worthy
opponent!"

Saffron's left eye twitched.

He held out his hand again, and summoned up another lance of flame,
releasing it with a thunder-like rapport. Kuno's sword flashed in an
upward stroke, distorting the air, and deflecting the beam of light.
Saffron frowned and fired again. Kuno deflected it the same way, and
then when he fired lower than before, the kendoist used a downward
stroke to the same effect.

"How are you doing that?" The phoenix king asked, honestly perplexed.
"How can you counter by blows without the Gekkaja, sister to this
Kinjakan?"

Kuno laughed heartily at the question.

"My sword...." he replied, smirk evident in his tone of voice. "Is the
heavenly blade of the phoenix! It slices through all the world's evils
and defends all the world's good!"

Saffron rolled his eyes at the corny answer.

"Besides," Kuno added. "I have trained with fighters who throw far more
attacks than you, and whose energy attacks are similarly powerful. I
will not fall for such cheap parlor tricks!"

"Parlor tricks?" Saffron's smile grew wide and terrible once more.
Craning his neck back and forth, the child hunched forward as two more
wings erupted from his back, splaying out in a spray of gore. Slamming
the blunt end of the Kinjakan into the ground, the weapon unleashed a
deafening chime that seemed to shake the walls. Tendrils of flame lapped
at the metal walls and ceiling, and trailed in Saffron's wake as he
started to walk forward.

Kuno leveled his weapon.

"Come."

The fallen boy-king's wings beat as he rushed forward, Kinjakan and
Hououken crashing against each other in a fountain of flame and sparks.
Strike met strike, growing in speed and intensity. Flame bounced off the
walls, forcing Kuno to deflect with his kokuzan air pressure defense. A
blow finally reached through Saffron's defenses, slicing open his arm...
only to have the wound spout liquid fire and seal up in the span of a
second.

Then the fight resumed, neither giving nor asking for quarter.

-----

The thing Shampoo hated the most about fighting Ukyou was that it always
went on and on and on. At least against Ranma or the like, she knew
she'd be beaten quickly and life would go on. Given the fairly vast
level of power (and skill) between them, she had basically accepted that
as the way things were between them. It was the reason why he was her
husband (by Amazon Law at least, like any other really mattered much).

Akane was the opposite: Shampoo knew she could crush the Tendo heir, if
she really tried; the biggest obstacle was figuring out how to get away
with it without Ranma or Ryouga finding out and turning her into a
bloody smear on the floor. Still, Shampoo had her confidence when
dealing with Akane, sure in the knowledge that if it came to a fight,
she had it in the bag. Akane may have been her rival for Ranma's
affections, but in martial arts? Never.

But Ukyou...

She was annoying. Even before this thing with the aliens, fights with
the okonomiyaki chef had been long, drawn out and inconclusive affairs.
Even Kodachi or Miss Hinako either lost a fight or won it pretty much
right off the bat, making things short and sweet. Ukyou, though, just
didn't quit. She was Shampoo's match in too many ways.

She'd also gotten stronger. That much was probably obvious to everyone
in their age group and more, and even Shampoo knew it. Still, it was
coming as something of a surprise just how much she had improved, now
that they were fighting for real. Her defense in particular was somewhat
ridiculous and making the whole affair infuriatingly harder than it
should have been.

Shampoo's arms in a blurring, scissor motion as she advanced on Ukyou,
each strike parried with seemingly little effort by the mind controlled
Japanese girl. Metal met metal in a chorus of bells and rings, and
Shampoo snarled under her breath at her lack of progress. Ukyou ducked
under a strike and Shampoo jumped over the attempted trip, and the
momentum shifted back into reverse for the fifth time.

Ukyou's battle spatula spun in circles and spirals, blocking and
striking at the same time and forcing Shampoo back, retracing her steps
from just seconds before. Between trading attacks with their weapons,
the two girls met with locked forearms and vicious kicks and knees. Both
were, when it came down to it, brute force type fighters with an
inclination towards pummeling an opponent into the dust. Ukyou's boot
opened a new tear in Shampoo's already split lips, her left arm only
partly cushioning the blow. In return, the chef suffered a similar elbow
to her cheek.

"Hyoh!" Ukyou barked, thrusting with the reverse of her spatula. The end
detached and narrowly missed Shampoo's head as the Chinese girl
frantically dodged. Shampoo threw herself to the side, rolled, and
avoided the counterweight as it slammed into the ground with an audible
clang. Ukyou spun, protecting herself with a whirlwind of metal before
stomping down with her knee, forcing Shampoo to again roll out of the
way. A flurry of sword thrusts hit nothing, beaten off by the chef's
nearly impenetrable defense.

Shampoo deflected a trio of mini-spatulas, but quickly found her weapon
locked in place. "Wire!"

'Damn Mousse must've taught her that...'

Ukyou's next words were slurred, probably due to her trying to fight the
control her body was under. She didn't need to say the words to announce
what was coming, however. Shampoo saw the rising glow along the flat of
her battle spatula and hastily released her Dao saber, leaping out of
the way before a flash of light engulfed the area around the trapped
sword. Unlike her peers, Shampoo still preferred to use traditional
Amazon weapons made from her sacred, and now lost, village.

The saber, twisted and bent, hit the ground. The hilt was burned away.

"Feh!" Shampoo tucked its sister blade away behind her and withdrew two
meter long cylinders. "No choice, I guess..."

Squeezing the hilt, the ends of the sticks split and expanded forming
the framework for a round ball. A half second later, the spaces between
the ribs snapped into place. Spinning the high-tech Chui in her hands
and getting a feel for their weight, Shampoo charged back into the
fight.

Ukyou watched her with eyes full of righteous anger and indignation.
She'd obviously moved on from helpless sorrow and self pity onto the
recriminations phase. Shampoo wasn't heartless. She felt for Ukyou in
the situation she was in. She had been used as a slave by Kiima,
brainwashed into following orders and loving her master against her
subconscious will. She understood the violation Ukyou was suffering now.

Shampoo tsk'ed at missing a chance to cave in the other girl's leg.

But she did feel for Ukyou. It was why she had volunteered to fight her
and get her out of the way. No one present could easily subdue her at
this rate, and Konatsu had the best chances of holding off or beating
Doctor Tofu. Maybe if Shampoo had risked taking that shot earlier, back
on the scaffolding... but then Tofu had sensed her, even when she was in
hiding listening in on his conversation. She could still feel inklings
of his killing intention making her skin crawl.

If she had fired and missed, she knew without a doubt that he would have
turned all of his attentions on her. She could well have ended up in
Ukyou's situation alongside her, and then it would be three on one. Of
course, these were all excuses for the fact that Tofu scared her and
that she didn't want to fight him unless she was sure she could catch
him by surprise.

A mini spatula buzzed by her ear, cutting off a few strands of hair.

'Damn...' Shampoo silently cursed. Like all Amazons, she took great
pride in her hair; the longer the hair, the stronger the fighter, or so
the tradition went. In fact, Ukyou's own hair was long and appropriate
for her level of strength, too, though she kept it bundled into a
mannish ponytail.

It galled Shampoo to admit it, but Ukyou was probably the better overall
fighter between the two of them right now... thanks to her whoring
herself out to get training from India Squad. Speed, technique, weapons,
improvisation, maybe even experience: Ukyou had the edge now. Shampoo
knew she still had strength and obscure martial arts techniques in her
favor, but would that be enough?

It had been a long time since she fought a superior opponent with the
knowledge that she absolutely had to win. Not since Kiima, back on
Phoenix Mountain... and even then, Kiima hadn't been very serious about
the fight. Could it really be that she hadn't been challenged since
before her first humiliating fight with Ranma? It was definitely
possible. She'd gotten terribly complacent and this was the result:
surpassed by a crossdresser who didn't even act like a woman until two
years ago.

'Pitiful.' Shampoo gritted her teeth at the bare miss that had almost
clipped her head off like a flower. 'I won't lose. I won't lose!'

After all, there was still one other advantage she had...

Letting the blunt end of Ukyou's weapon plow into her abdomen, Shampoo
jabbed her Chui into the girl's chest with one extended arm. Ukyou spun
away from the contact, deflecting a follow up strike and then forcing
them apart with a wide sweep of her weapon. Ukyou didn't seem to
register pain in her current state with any obvious gestures, but
Shampoo could see that the blow had knocked the wind out of her.

'She's feeling it...!' Shampoo thought with a bloody smile. Yes, their
endurance was probably the same, but the Amazon girl still had that
edge.

Viciousness counted for something, too!

-----

Mousse was starting to wish he'd traded places with Kuno.

His opponent hadn't said much since the fight has started, but Mousse
knew his name. Of the missing martial artists UNETCO Intelligence had
uncovered, he was considered one of the most dangerous. This man was the
genius and traitor of the Denkouken School, and the man who had mastered
its highest techniques at the age of twelve. According to his remaining
peers, he had gone into seclusion shortly afterwards, refusing to share
the advances he made in the Art. At the age of sixteen, he had finally
broken with the Dojo and made an attempt at living a normal life,
forsaking martial arts completely.

Mister Ayabe stood in front of Mousse now, his hands at his sides,
barely visible under his Ethereal's cloak. He was bald, but rather than
suffering from a receding hairline, the skin on the top of his head
seemed to be pale and paper-like. The face was unremarkable, save for
his eyes. They too were pale, the pupils crackling with blue-violet
lightning. From the first few tentative attacks Mousse had made, Ayabe
seemed quite fast on his feet.

But then, he was using that trick, too.

Mousse licked his lips, and held out his arms, assuming a crane style
kung fu stance. "You seem to be taking me lightly."

Ayabe slowly shook his head, but didn't move from his casual stance.

"It isn't that," he replied, voice serious. "Your forces are attacking.
When on the defensive against many foes, it is best not to exert
yourself on any one of them."

"Well then, let's see if I can make you sweat a little!" Mousse replied.
He still had his firearms hidden on his person, and he had no qualms
about using them in a fight against an alien-controlled martial artist
(or any martial artist, really). All he needed was the right moment.
Hastily taking the weapon out and firing would provoke an immediate
response, and there was little chance of getting a bead on an enemy of
this caliber without the element of surprise. Acting rashly could leave
you with a ruined or lost firearm, all for no gain.

Ayabe's fingers flexed, and this time Mousse saw him move.

He let himself appear to be distracted by the flash of light. Without
the distraction, Ayabe was fast, but not nearly as fast as he appeared
to be. Mousse had trained against the Yamasenken's similar distraction
techniques, and he had learned to use his blindness to his advantage. By
averting his eyes and only observing his opponent in the corner of his
vision, he could avoid the initial disorienting flash. For someone who
had learned to fight despite their handicap, it wasn't difficult at all.

Mousse's body flowed away from the incoming strike, bending easily like
rubber. His right leg shot up while his torso bent down, executing a
smooth dachou kyaku (Ostrich Leg) aimed at the critical nerve clusters
along the neck and face. The vertical kick itself wasn't that special;
it was the poison coated blades that popped out of his boots at various
angles that added the bite to the technique.

Ayabe wouldn't be so easily dispatched, however, and in tribute to his
experience with the Art, he shifted his arm the moment he saw Mousse's
movement. Accurately reading the counterattack, he batted aside the
strike just below the knee. He then flowed easily into another strike,
crouching as he adjusted for Mousse's currently low center of gravity.
The Chinese martial artist blocked with the side of his other foot,
balancing on his right hand instead, and then flattened and twisted at
the ankle to try and stab his enemy with a suddenly extending needle
that emerged from his heel.

Around they went, Mousse shifting from his feet to his hands, blocking
and striking with Ayabe in a zig zag pattern across the room. A few more
times, Ayabe tried to use his flash-disappearance trick, the one that
made it almost look like he had teleported some distance, and every
time, Mousse nearly caught him in a counterattack. Despite how well
timed he made his attacks, however, he couldn't seem to hit the man with
any of his concealed poisoned blades or traps.

Finally, they broke apart: Mousse back flipped away to rethink his
strategy.

"You have a very unique fighting style," Ayabe said, craning his neck.
There was a sober expression on his face. "Not like Cologne's at all."

"You know about me then?" Mousse asked, buying some time to think.

Ayabe nodded. "Yes, Cologne told us about most of you. Not the girls,
though. You use Hidden Weapons, obviously. That's unfortunate."

"Unfortunate? Why?"

The older man blinked a few times.

"Well," he finally decided to answer. "You use an awful lot of metal
under those robes. Most people can't see it, because you use your ki to
mask its mass. Which is to say: you freely shift objects in and out of
your battle aura, in addition to using conventional Hidden Weapons and
mechanical traps. Most people can't predict what weapon you will use
until it emerges."

Mousse was silently shocked by the understanding this man had for his
style. Hidden Weapons was not a Joketsuzoku or Amazon style of combat.
Mousse had learned it in his travels around China, and then taken it to
a new level. Even his peers didn't fully understand the tricks of his
trade. He always supposed that Cologne knew, but this man spoke as if he
had more than just knowledge of how it worked.

"You aren't a good match for me," Ayabe concluded. "I can perceive your
hidden attacks before they fully materialize."

"Impossible!" Mousse scoffed. If that was true... "Are you saying you
can see the future?"

"Not quite."

Mousse narrowed his eyes in sudden alarm, running back what he's just
heard. His opponent couldn't see the future, which was certainly good,
but what did he mean perceive. Then the Chinese fighter remembered what
Ayabe had said before. 'That's unfortunate... you use an awful lot of
metal under those robes... You aren't a good match for me...'

"So that's it then," Mousse said, nodding to himself. Somehow, this man
had an extrasensory perception when it came to metallic objects. "That's
how it is."

"And yet, you've somehow managed to see through my Hiraishin Aisatsu Sen
(Lightning Rod Salutation Flash)," Ayabe added, referring to his sleight
of hand trick. "That's interesting. Were you fighting me with your eyes
closed?"

"Not quite," Mousse threw back Ayabe's earlier obtuse reply.

"Hm," the older man mused. "It seems I'll have to exert myself after
all. I need to beat you and check in on Saffron-kun..."

"Don't count me out just because you can read some of my attacks!"
Mousse stood straight and ducked his hands into his sleeves. "I am a
master of hidden weapons. You can't evade me forever."

"Denkouken Hidden Art," Ayabe announced, invisible energy flooding his
body and crackling along the pores in his skin. "Kaminari!"

Ayabe suddenly took off in a burst of speed, no longer relying on his
Salutation Flash technique. Mousses' eyes widened at the sudden increase
in baseline speed, and his sleeves flung wide open. The best way to meet
a charge was with another charge: that way the fastest attack had the
advantage of speed, as both targets shot towards each other. Mousse's
Karasu Sansai Ha (Raven Storm Wave) exploded from around his hands: a
barrage of no less than a thousand flechette darts each fired with
enough force to penetrate a man wearing two Kevlar vests.

The denkouken master skidded along the ground and held both hands out in
front of him, meeting the attack headlong. Arcs of electricity crackled
between his fingers, and an almost visible pulse of circular force
scattered the rain of needles. Bounding off the ceiling, backing away
from his charging opponent, Mousse's fingers flexed. A stream of bladed
chains and spinning kusarigama knives fired out of his sleeves. This
time, Ayabe did make some move to avoid the projectiles, jinking sharply
to the side in addition to using his reflection technique.

'The knives were reflected through their metal blades, not the wooden
shafts.' Mousse observed, even as he attacked. 'It may also be limited
by mass. That would explain blocking so many low-mass needles, but only
two of the higher mass kusarigama... Now, for the speed...'

The martial artist's thick glasses glinted in a sinister fashion, as two
nine millimeter Mk 23 SOCOM semi-automatics popped out of his sleeves
and into his hands. He backpedaled as he fired, firearms coughing up
bullet after bullet. However, the moment the guns came out, no: a moment
before even, Ayabe had his palms facing downward towards the floor. This
time, he did disappear in a flash.

'Fast!" Mousse thought as he tried to track his enemy's movement. 'Damn
fast!'

Ayabe bounced from one wall to the next all down the corridor, repelling
himself away from the metal walls. By the time Mousse had discharged
nine shots from each handgun, the two found themselves alongside the
alien Elerium 115 reservoir. The valuable material was in safe storage,
of course, but a handful of humming reactors worked behind a shielding
wall nearby, and various control surfaces projected from the walls and
floor of the large room.

'Ten, eleven, twelve...' Mousse dropped the handguns, knowing he
wouldn't have time to reload. Instead, two long Pudao spears shot out of
his sleeves in an attempt to intercept the charging Trenchard. Ayabe
swatted the offending instruments aside and got inside Mousse's guard.
Tiger claws appeared in Mousse's hands as he tried to parry the first
strike (and shred anything he could get in his palms). Ayabe deflected
the parries at the wrist, and struck with his elbow, knocking Mousse off
his feet.

The weapon master flicked a live grenade out of his sleeve, but Ayabe
kicked it into the air before it could detonate. His speed was
incredible already, but the ability to see what Mousse was doing next
made it even worse. He did have some non-metallic weapons, of course,
but they were few in number and third rate at best.

'In retrospect, maybe I should've invested a bit more in plastics...'
the thought bitterly crossed Mousse's mind as he tried to work with what
he had. He blocked two blows as he stumbled away, but quickly found
himself outmaneuvered. Forced into using his left arm to block a rising
knee, he caught a solid blow to the chest and went airborne. Skidding
across the floor he eventually slammed back first into a strange alien
orb rising out of the floor.

"Hiraishin Kaizai Satsu."(Lightning Rod Intervention Murder) "This is
the end," Ayabe explained, raising one hand to eye level. The metal
studs bored into flesh and bone shone in the eerie green light of nearby
alien consoles. "Close your eyes and accept death."

Mousse shook his head and slowly got to his feet.

His opponent cocked his head in surprise.

"That attack should have stopped your heart," Ayabe groused, watching on
with undisguised curiosity. "I could have killed an elephant with that
blow. Was it your armor, or...?"

Now standing, Mousse's right hand trailed the singed mark on his robe,
right over his heart.  His left arm hung at his side as bits and pieces
of unidentified fibrous material fell out of his sleeve. Rolling his
hands around and flexing his fingers, Mousse suddenly had eight Piau
(Chinese throwing knives) nestled between his fingers. Crossing his arms
in front of him, he adopted a slightly wider stance.

"Now I see," Ayabe stated, his eyes tightening as his battle aura flared
up around him. He was not particularly flashy, looking for all intents
and purposes like wisps of steam rising from under his ethereal robes.

"You were able to shift that insulating ceramic material under your
robes. Is this some sort of Hidden Weapons defense? I never imagined I'd
meet someone who could nullify my Hiraishin Kaizai Satsu. Cologne spoke
of you too lightly!"

Ayabe smiled and took off in another flash of combined foot speed and
magnetic force. Mousse leapt back, throwing two of the Piau with finger
strength alone. The throwing knives left his hand, and a moment later,
took along with them a pair of attached grenades, tied to the knives
with wire. Flipping through the air, Mousse's two empty fingers curled
in, pulling back hidden wires and setting off the grenades.

Fire and mach speed shrapnel filled the air.

'There!' Mousse saw the flash of movement, and fired another duo of
explosive-paired knives. Ayabe flash stepped again, using his unique
form of rapid movement.

'Up!' the Chinese fighter guessed. Unlike Ranma, Ayabe never seemed to
use kicks to deliver serious blows, perhaps because the denkouken
required them for proper grounding. That, combined with his extremely
fast but linear movement, made him predictable to some extent. What was
hard was interrupting his movement or stopping him before he could
deliver a killing blow.

Mousse released four more matched Piau, as well as a flurry of needles
from his sleeves. As expected, Ayabe deftly avoided the explosions,
spinning like a top and magnetically redirecting the needles. He shot
off another wall, heading towards Mousse's position. The Chinese weapon
master jumped, another pair of grenades falling out of the hem of his
robes by his feet. Ayabe twirled right before he landed, sending the two
grenades flying away moments before exploding. He then stomped his foot,
sending out an electrical pulse that disabled the hidden mine Mousse had
covertly set and hidden on the floor.

'He's good. He's incredibly good.' Mousse held out his hands. 'I'll have
to use that technique.'

Ayabe tracked Mousse with his eyes, ready to speed blitz him.

"Ikkatsu Kakudo Hou!"
(Enraged Male Phoenix Roar)

For a second, nothing happened.

Then Mousse snapped his fingers and a tremendous conflagration engulfed
the room in front of him. A shockwave of displaced air nearly bowled him
over, instead, loitering in midair it simply pushed him further back and
away from the blast. The fire burned white hot but only for an instant
in time. The true power of the attack had been explosive, sending out
2.5 kilometer per second superheated overpressure waves that annihilated
anything in their path. A moment later, the atmospheric pressure
reversed, and a blast of air rushed back into the center of the attack,
forcing Mousse to land and secure his footing.

Breathing heavily, he inspected his singed robes.

The Ikkatsu Kakudo Hou was his most deadly attack by far, but it was
extremely taxing. He not only had to have perfect control over his mass
manipulating battle aura, but it required a substantial percentage of
his ki reserves to retrieve the fine dust-like thermobaric material he
used from its containment case and release it in the proper amounts.
The tiny size of the particles ironically made them harder to visualize,
and thus control.

Once mixed into the air with oxygen, however, all that was required was
a small spark - the snap of his gloved fingers, with special pads
attached - to ignite the nearly invisible particulate cloud. Mousse was
proud of the fact that his Phoenix Roar likely surpassed all but the
ultimate attacks of Saffron himself, burning at around 2000 degrees
Celsius. Combined with the incredible blast wave, the miniature fuel air
explosive could clear a room of all organic life in seconds.

"An incredible attack. Superb execution."

Mousse followed the sound of the voice up, towards the ceiling.

"What...?"

Koichi Ayabe crouched upside down from the flat surface of the ceiling,
his own robes still trailing smoke. Slowly, the man stood, still upside
down, still in defiance of gravity. He was singed, yes, and a normal
human would have been in agony from the burns, but his alien enhanced
constitution and clothes had helped to protect him. Worse, his somehow
being able to stick to the ceiling had allowed him to avoid the majority
of the Ikkatsu Kakudo Hou.

"This isn't possible..." Mousse tried to figure out just how this man
was doing what he did. There didn't appear to be any clinging surfaces
on the ceiling, there was nothing to get even the slightest foothold on,
and Ayabe didn't have any claws on his feet or the like.

"What the Hell?" Mousse snarled. "You get bit by a radioactive spider or
something?"

Ayabe actually smiled amiably at the remark.

"I believe they call it van der Waals forces."

Mousse frowned up at the man, though he knew Ayabe couldn't see his
face.

"What: like a gecko?"

The inhuman martial artist nodded and reached up to his forehead with
his right hand. Digging his fingernails into a patch of flesh there, he
slowly tore the skin away. A trickle of blood ran down his now hairless
skull. Mousse winced at the disgusting display, but then stared at what
had been revealed. Using the zoom feature in his helmet HUD, he could
see it clearly: Ayabe had exposed something buried into his forehead.

"This is my Third Eye," the man explained, pointing at the bloody metal.
"It is one of seven, at each of my principal chakra points. This
particular one is 'Command.'"

"The Ajna chakra point..." Mousse guessed. "Is this really the
denkouken? I've never heard of anything like this before."

"This style of combat belongs only to me. My old senseis demanded I
teach them the secret techniques I developed, but then, when they
realized the toll it could take and that it was too much for their
bodies to handle, they brainwashed children into undergoing the same
procedure."

Ayabe's eyes narrowed, as the old memory still brought anger to the
surface.

"As you can guess, not a single one was able to reach these heights. All
were crippled for life. The Dojo was disgraced, and quickly tried to
cover up its crimes. I left in disgust and sealed up my techniques,
vowing never to use them again... even in self defense." He paused. "And
now... here I am. Using them again. How disgusting."

He partially hid his face behind his right hand.

"To have unsealed Hotaru (Firefly) after all this time..."

"You're like Tetsuya," Mousse interrupted, referring to Ryouga's father.
"They're forcing you to do this. Can't you fight it?"

"Things don't work that way."

Ayabe detached from the ceiling and fell gracefully to the floor.
Opening his mouth, a misty fog billowed out from between his jaws,
crackling with electricity. Even through his armor, Mousse could feel
the air charge with static electricity. Intermittent flashes of
lightning crackled in the air around the Trenchard, bending and warping
to his will. There was no oppression or killing intention to his aura,
only a sense of growing elemental power. It was like an explosion in
slow motion.

"I can't stop myself any more," Ayabe said with growing strain. "Give up
before I kill you. Cologne won't turn you away after seeing what you can
do."

Mousse shook his head.

"Can't do that." He took up a defensive stance. "I didn't want to do
this, but... you've forced me! Saotome Style!"

Ayabe quirked an eyebrow.

Saotome Style?

"Secret Technique!" Mousse yelled, voice burning with passion. He
gathered his energy, focused it...

And then turned around and took off like a bat out of Hell.

...Literally leaving a faint dust cloud in his wake. For all of a second
Koichi Ayabe stood motionless, totally stunned by that most powerful
technique of the incomparable Saotome Style Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu. Then
he realized that his opponent had just run away. And shamelessly, too!

Huffing in annoyance, the middle aged man gave chase.

-----

"Hey, guys, this is Mousse. I, ah... could use a little help here."

"Love to help and all, but I kinda just got stabbed by a giant spatula.
Fuck."

"While I would not deign to ask for assistance, I can not seem to
actually kill my opponent. His wounds heal with the persistence of the
mythical hydra."

"Ryouga!" Nabiki's voice, more than any of the others, sounded panicked
and afraid. It was ironic. She was the safest of them all. "Ryouga,
what's wrong? What happened?! Ryu's got a punctured lung, its stable
but... but your vitals are all over the place!"

He squinted his eyes shut.

God, she could be loud sometimes.

"Mousse and Kuno aren't nearly as badly hurt! I'll reroute..."

"No," he cut her off.

Ryouga clutched his arm, barely able to concentrate through the fog of
agony stitching through his body. He could feel it moving inside his
arm, worming through his flesh; burrowing and spreading. Desperate,
frantic, he forced more and more of his battle aura to try and repulse
or burn away the infection. It only seemed to make it worse. Heating up
his left hand and holding his right arm, he tried to scald it away but
only ended up burning himself.

"Nabiki..." he managed to say. "Make sure... the others get help..."

Girlish laughter, Cologne's, mocking and haughty, filled his ears.

"Are you sure?" Nabiki asked.

"Those are my... orders," he forced the words out despite the creeping
pestilence working its way up his arm. He barely heard her muted
acknowledgment.

"You poor boys," Cologne's voice said from somewhere nearby. "I am sorry
I had to use that technique on you, but things were getting a little
dangerous back there. I acted without thinking."

"What... did you do to us?" Ryouga managed to yell. He reached for one
of his bandannas, and tried to seal it into a band of Iron Cloth. If he
had to, he'd cut off his arm to save the rest of his body... except he
couldn't seem to mould the ki properly. The bandanna straightened,
twisted, and reverted back into cloth.

He saw Cologne standing over him.

She reached down to grip his helmet, appearing to look for how to remove
it. The beautiful Amazon cocked her head to the left, staring at him
with large brown eyes. Dark black hair cascaded over her shoulders and
partly obscured her face. Then one of her hands snaked down his body and
painfully grabbed onto his right arm.

"This," she said, giving the arm a little squeeze. "Is mine, now. Most
Joketsuzoku consider the Wood element to be medicinal, but there are so
many more applications. The parasitic vine inside you will destabilize
and devour your ki, using it to spread through your body. Left
unchecked, it will then start a flowering phase. By the time those
flowers bloom, there won't even be a skeleton left."

Ryouga's upper lip twitched in a sneer.

"But don't worry," Cologne added, smiling reassuringly. "I want the two
of you alive.... So I'll only let it eat your arms and legs."

Cologne stood back up, shoulders shaking as she laughed.

-----

"Amekiri Kokuzan!"
(Rain Cutter Sky Arc Decapitation)

Saffron howled in anger and pain as a web of slashes and cuts broke out
across his upper body, from his face to his shoulders to his waist. The
tiny air pressure cuts burned with an inner fire, and the phoenix boy-
king managed to block a downward slash aimed at his Saka Gesa point
(right shoulder). Almost instantly, the inch deep cuts began to fill
with burning flesh, healing in seconds. Kuno stepped into his opponent's
guard and hammered him with the blunt hilt of his sword, driving Saffron
back a half dozen feet.

Inside his armor, Kuno was breathing in ragged gasps. Despite his sure
tone a moment ago to his comrades in arms, he was secretly somewhat
worried. His armor had sustained several serious breaches where the
innermost layer had solidified to try and preserve NBC
(nuclear/biological/chemical) containment, and he already had first
degree burns across at least a tenth of his body, and a few second
degree burns where he'd been hit by the enemy's strange weapon.

His implacable fighting spirit was starting to, well, flag somewhat as
well.

Which was to say: he was tired and it was starting to show.

Saffron chuckled darkly as the patchwork of slices across his face
healed up. In contrast to Kuno's less than perfect state, the boy seemed
completely none the worse for wear. His two pairs of wings flapped
behind him, lifting him off his feet. Kuno could guess what would come
next. Just as expected, Saffron detached the head of his fighting staff,
the Kinjakan. The blazing circlet shot through the air, moving like a
UFO: in erratic, insect like zigzags.

Kuno managed to block the first strike in time, and bring his sword
around to block the next as it came in from the other side. The weapon
snaked away, shooting off in a seemingly random direction, nicking the
ceiling in a spray of sparks before twisting around and buzzing by
Kuno's head. Abruptly it swooped in low, and the kendoist planted his
sword into the floor, deflecting it.

Unfortunately, pulling his weapon loose left him exposed, and the
Kinjakan shot in from the side, slashing across the his back. Kuno
grimaced in pain, but held his sword out in time to deflect a blow that
would have otherwise removed his noble head from his noble person. The
weapon finally looped around in the air and returned to its owner, still
vibrating and spewing white flame, even as it reattached to the body of
Saffron's war staff.

"You don't look so good, landling shit."

Kuno was struggling to stand. The pain across his back made holding any
sword fighting stance into pure agony. Steadying himself with his sword
for a moment, he held it out in front of him, ready to continue.

"You're starting to bore me," Saffron elaborated, sounding petulant.
"All you do is the same thing with your sword. Don't you have any
elemental or ki attacks?"

"My sword is all I need," Kuno finally replied. "Cowardly attacks like
yours sicken me."

"How dull you are." Saffron's golden eyes gleamed with vicious delight.
"I suppose I'll finish you off then. There's no point in keeping around
a toy that has lost its novelty."

Kuno set his feet, and activated the hidden trigger in his sword.

"Try it."

With a hiss, the blade reformed, to flattening and lengthening from 66
to 99 centimeters. As the metal shifted, a second blood groove, this one
on the left side, began to form, as the curve of the katana became more
of a straight edge. This was the second "phase" of his sword, in
addition to its default bokken and phase-one katana forms. Kuno had
asked for the design to be based on Ganryu Kojiro's famous sword
Monohoshi Zao. The transformation itself took only a second and a half
to complete and solidify, and he took the opportunity to take up a
special stance.

Almost twenty meters in front of him, Saffron was building up energy for
what had to be a titanic attack far larger than any of his previous
fireballs. Kuno was well aware of his weakness at range, as well as the
fact that he was the slowest man in India Squad on his feet. He didn't
have a 'speed step' type move like many of the others, and while his arm
speed was very good, his general Taihenjutsu (body movement) skills were
mediocre. This was a fact that his peers had pointed out to him, and
that Ryouga and the others in India Squad had made sure he developed a
counter for.

Given the distance between them, Saffron had to be confident he could
attack before Kuno could strike him. The swordsman took two steps,
arcing his sword across his body to build momentum and concentrate his
fighting spirit. He could feel his jouki, his passionate ki, burning
along his synapses and down into the muscles of his arms and legs. He
could manage this perhaps once. It was the one and only charge he knew
that deserved a name.

"Be grateful, landling scum... Few get a taste of my true power!"
Saffron held a burning orb of fire between his hands.

Kuno struck. "Sokushi Tenrai!" (Instant Death Heavenly Thunder)

His sword howled, the cry of its tachikaze the sound of ripping paper
ending in a clap of thunder. The kendoist crossed the space of eighteen
meters in less than a tenth of a second. Even he couldn't really
perceive things at that speed, and the next thing he knew he was flying
face first into the ground, rolling and skidding along it completely out
of control. Bracing himself with his shoulder, Kuno slid along the
floor, only stopped when he plowed gracelessly into an empty alien
storage cylinder.

Really: it wasn't accurate to call the Sokushi Tenrai a charge in the
proper sense. In truth, it was a thrust. Kuno had known for years how to
strike with his sword so swiftly that he could shatter stone with the
air pressure from his bokken. It had been his one and only trademark
attack until Ranma had shown up and promptly beaten it. Sokushi Tenrai
took all the force he put into those strikes and accumulated it into a
single lunge, surging forward with all his strength and fighting spirit
without hesitation; taking the rest of his body along for the ride. It
only worked in a straight line, and only a limited distance before he
completely lost control. But still...

Kuno's shaking hand still held onto his beloved blade.

"Did you hear it?" he asked, using the sword to steady himself.

Saffron stood in the middle of the room, belching fire from his side,
his arms flailing in the air. The upper half of his torso seemed to be
hanging onto the lower half by a thread.

"Did you hear my sword's roar?" Kuno yelled, stalking towards the
phoenix king. "My Heavenly Thunder cuts through all the world's evil!"

Sinews of fire uncoiled like entrails from Saffron's split midsection.
He had literally been cut in half, and even two pairs of his wings had
been torn free. However, rather than spill his insides into the floor of
the alien lab, the viscera seemed to take on a life of its own. Like
snakes, pieces wound together and matched up with similar coils rising
from his lower body.

"Ah. Ha Ha HA!" Saffron's head lolled limply to the side, his tongue
sticking out and trailing drool. "Was that your trump card?"

Mad laughter filled the room as new wings erupted out of Saffron's back,
replacing the ones that had been damaged, even before the two halves of
his body fully attached. A blast of green plasma splattered his left arm
and blew off part of his shoulder, and another raked his face, but not
before another tendril of fire shot out of the boy's hand and blew the
plasma pistol out of Kuno's hand.

The swordsman fell back, his right hand numb with pain.

"Slice me apart. Cut open my belly. Bathe me in star fire...!" Saffron
gleefully remarked, half his face reforming even as he pushed the words
past plasma scarred tissue. "You can not kill me. I am the phoenix! I am
immortal!"

Kuno sucked in his breath as his armor automatically administered a shot
of pain killer. The situation was looking somewhat... grim. In moments,
Saffron was whole once more, casually working the kinks out of his new
jaw. He took a step towards his weakened prey and held up his hand. A
ragged ball of fire winked into existence in his palm.

"I'm going to start with your legs, landling..." Saffron's amber eyes
promised pain first, death a distant second. "And work my way up from
there."

-----

"Kansatsuken, was it?"

Doctor Tofu held the tip of Konatsu's sword in place with two fingers,
stopping it from driving into his exposed left side. The legendary male
kunoichi was breathing heavily, his battle aura blazing around him as he
tried to force the weapon forward. Tofu's arm strained slightly to keep
him at bay before the still robes Trenchard pivoted and pushed the blade
away and into the air.

Konatsu bounced back a step.

"Not bad for a sword technique. But it is pointless trying to fool my
eyes with an illusion. Did you really expect that I would misjudge the
length of the sword so easily?"

Tofu scoffed at the very idea.

"Weren't you going to kill me?" he then asked with a small smile. "And
free my little Betty?"

"Her name is Ukyou!" Konatsu snapped, voice tense and angry and
frustrated.

"No. It isn't." Tofu's hollow eyes darkened with malice. "Not while I
pull her strings."

Abruptly, Tofu spun around, hand slapping aside a dozen thrown shuriken.
Another Konatsu rushed in from behind wielding twin tessen (iron fans).
Tofu intercepted the first strike and hit a series of pressure points
along the arm. The body vanished literally in Tofu's grip, replaced by
yet another grenade-replacement kawarimi. The doctor reacted swiftly,
grabbing the device and inserting his ki into it, deactivating the
firing mechanism.

Konatsu was proving to be quite capable when properly motivated. His
ability to use replacement techniques with multiple telekinetically
controlled 'illusion' bodies was something Tofu hadn't expected. The
speed with which he could use the technique made it a useful escape from
pressure point strikes. His tonpou (Art of Escape) was very highly
developed indeed.

It was then that Tofu felt it.

There were cuts on his palm, and tiny serrations on the live grenade.

Poison!

"How ironic..."

Tofu well remembered using a similar trick on Happosai, a man he had no
inclination to fight fairly. That time, he had used something that he
knew the lecherous old man couldn't resist: a frilly black bra that
Cologne had picked out. She'd even worn it for a few days to properly
suffuse it with feminine ki. Happosai had grabbed it without thinking
and ended up poisoned as a result. Now, Konatsu had pulled a similar
trick on him.

"Fujin Seikyu Senpu!"
(Heartless Bill Whirlwind)

"Senpu Kazekan!"
(Whirlwind Multiplication)

"Tachikiru Hitokage!"
(Severing Shadow)

Three voices: three techniques, one for each of Konatsu's clone bodies.
Being able to perform three separate techniques at the same time was
impressive multitasking. Tofu divided his own attention between
isolating and analyzing the poison slowly creeping through his corpse-
like hybrid body and examining this new combination technique he found
himself in. He'd seen the Heartless Bill Whirlwind before but this
was...

Different.

Konatsu had multiplied the whirlwind, thickening the flurry of swirling
paper into a virtual tornado. The third technique then plunged the world
into darkness. Luckily, he no longer relied on visual cues, so he didn't
feel particularly worried by the turn of events. A moment later, a chain
snaked around his upper arms, and a blade cut deep into his left and
right forearms. The blades pushed his arms together until they were
impaled a second time and locked together.

So: that was it.

Tachikiru Hitokage wasn't a blinding technique, so much as a technique
that blocked sensory input. Even a sense of pain or pressure on his
impaled limbs was absent. He had neither heard nor seen nor anticipated
the attack with his sakkijutsu. It was an effective combo. Tofu could
hardly imagine the enemy it wouldn't have ended up defeating. A blade
slid into his back, severing the spinal cord.

"Pin my arms together and sever my spine," Tofu said, betraying not a
hint of dismay at the situation. "Is that it?"

Through the contact points - the three blades impaling him - Tofu could
read where his targets were. Twisting his pinned arms and purposefully
dislocating part of his left arm, he seized something soft in the
fingers of his right hand. It felt like, and it was, a skull. Tofu dug
his fingers into the eye sockets and immediately yanked his arm back,
driving the elbow of his right arm into the throat of another invisible
attacker. At the same time, he lifted one foot and kicked back and down,
twisting the third attacker's hamstrings.

He spun, breaking one of the Konatsu bodies at the neck and hitting the
second with a kick that had the same effect. The Severing Shadow began
to break up, and Tofu immediately turned on the third Konatsu and struck
with his foot: using his heel, then his toes to hit a series of pressure
points along the ninja's side. A moment before the last one could
register, Konatsu literally jumped out of his own body, leaving his
black ninja garb to hang on Tofu's outstretched leg.

"I'm amazed you got that replacement up in time," Doctor Tofu Ono
admitted, with some genuine appreciation. The two 'dead' Konatsu's
vanished, revealing makeshift replacements bade out of used weapons and
bundles of straw and wire. The remaining 'kunoichi' staggered and
coughed, hastily flipping up part of his helmet to hack a wad of blood
onto the ground.

Tofu nonchalantly tore his arms apart from one another, leaving a sword
buried in each. They were only nuisances. He then reached behind, to his
back, and popped out the sword that had stuck out there. Dropping the
weapon, he leisurely started pulling the swords out of his arms.

"A fine attempt, but you made a mistake," Tofu lectured, cracking his
knuckles as he turned to face Konatsu. "I no longer have what could be
called a 'human body.' The limitations of flesh and blood no longer
apply to me. Severing my spine is no worse than cutting my nails. In
addition, I can selectively activate my own vital points, achieving any
affect I desire, at any time I desire."

Konatsu balled his fists, but grimaced as an involuntary shiver ran down
his arms.

"That fear you're feeling... that rising sense of terror, is due to my
manipulation of your amygdala." Tofu softly chortled. "I know the
feeling, because I've used all my techniques before... on myself. I
couldn't reach the pressure point normally, so I bounced it off of two
others. I'm glad it seems to be working."

The young ninja was already on the floor, kicking wildly and screaming,
shaking his head hard enough to slam his helmet against the floor. His
arms flailed, sporadically throwing shuriken and then even a small
hidden sword, randomly into the air. Tofu clucked his tongue as he
watched, pits for eyes observing with heartless inquisition.

"Your arms should be going numb now." Tofu's expression wavered, as
something unusual occurred. "Your muscle tension is less than expected.
Heart rate... wait, that can't be right..."

Without preamble, Konatsu flipped back onto his feet.

"This isn't...!" Tofu pivoted, watching with shock as a wall seemed to
move behind him. But it wasn't a wall. It was one of the landed UFOs in
the base garage: a medium scout. It was moving; skidding and scraping
along the ground. Then the almost twenty-meter wide square shaped ship
upended like a capsizing boat. Backpedaling madly, Tofu just managed to
leap out of the way and land on another landed UFO.

The scout crashed to the ground, bowling end over end.

"Huh!" a deep voice growled. "I missed!"

-----

Mousse paused to catch his breath, catching sight of the new arrival.

"About damn time," the hidden weapons master grunted.

A curved, single edged sword unsheathed with an audible click.

-----

"Burn!" Saffron roared, aiming to bring one last great fireball down on
his beaten opponent. His fingers twitched. "...eh?"

And the tips of said fingers fell off.

...Followed by phalanges, then the metacarpals, then the palm at the
wrist and then the arm at the elbow. Piece after piece fell to the floor
with a wet splat, burning away the moment it was severed from the main
body. Uncontrolled after the loss of the hand holding it, Saffron's
fireball lost cohesion and dissipated into the air.

A haughty tone of voice: "You're making us look bad, Saffron."

Followed by a familiar one: "Lord Saffron!"

-----

Cologne's hand moved with almost imperceptible speed. Something small
and fast crashed into it, blowing away bits and pieces of cushioning
plant material and sending out a small shockwave strong enough to shake
the leaves from the nearby alien plant life. The woman in ethereal robes
sneered in the direction of the attack, looking down past the crinkled
wooden staff in her hand towards an all too familiar face.

Brown inhuman eyes burned with hate.

"You...!"

------

Asura shook her center head to clear the cobwebs in her collective mind.
That accursed spatula wielding girl had knocked her out, and in a
particularly humiliating way. Not for the first time, she cursed the
weak mortal shell she had to inhabit. If only someone like that Amazon
with the purple hair had fallen into the pool in Jyusenkyou. She would
have made a worthy host indeed! Long buried and sealed away, what was
left of the village girl named Rouge could barely speak up to defend
herself.

"Burn them both!" the right head hissed.

"Electrocute them!" the left insisted.

"Why fight?" The center mediated, as usual. "We can do both!"

Getting on her knees, Asura began to channel power into her body, when
she noticed something trailing up her leg. It looked like a vine, with a
little man-shaped pear or fruit or something on it. It didn't seem to be
one of Cologne's plants, and even if it was, that wouldn't explain what
it was doing here. Gripping it with one hand, her attentions already
otherwise occupied, Asura's ears were suddenly assaulted by an
ultrasonic shriek.

The sound would have killed most normal humans; as it was, it sent the
still weakened Asura into a convulsive fit. After a few agonizingly long
seconds, she slipped back into unconsciousness. Two pairs of boots
approached the subdued demon-girl, one with a green band around the
ankles and one with pink. The footwear belonged to two individuals in
modified Level-B white-colored Hazmat suits. The modifications included
additional pockets and pouches, along with prominent identification
patches on the left breast.

One read Doku, or "Poison;" the other Yaku, or "Medicine."

"Fight over already?" the first asked in a brash female voice. She
tacked on the 'over' or 'please' both twins tended to use when they
spoke. "My poisons make this too-too easy, douzo."

The other girl knelt over and carefully removed the deadly Mandragora
Root from its victim. She held the deadly little root in her hand,
inspecting it with disdain veiled by the gas mask she wore.

"Real fights start now, douzo," Lin Ke replied, turning her head towards
the upended alien ship and the sounds of battle there.

-----

Miles above and miles away, on the very border of space, a trio of
silver disks streaked across the outer atmosphere.