[Ranma][Fanfic] Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty - Chapter 16: The Black Wars "Core" ======================================================================= Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty Chapter 16: The Black Wars "Core" Ranma 1/2 characters/situations created and copyright by Rumiko Takahashi/Shogakukan/Kitty/Fuji/Viz - Used without permission Adulthood of a Modern Dynasty series created, written, and copyright 2000-2002 by Jim Lazar An ongoing series set after the end of the Ranma 1/2 manga and anime. For maximum enjoyment of this fanfic series, please read my Childhood of Modern Dynasty series before reading Adulthood. E-mail comments and/or criticisms to: jim [at] animeprime.com Make sure to check out my Modern Dynasty website for all released AMD stories, graphics files, and other information: http://www.animeprime.com/ff/md ======================================================================= November 12, 2009 - Area 52, USA (Black Wars Day 197) General Maxwell Smart studied the high-resolution satellite image displayed on the wall of monitors across the pit from his command podium. The image was focused on the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip where a pile of half-visible Buyierfei swarmed up towards a shinning light. He didn't move at all when a series of tiny points of light with tails of smoke screamed in from the south and exploded in the middle of the mass of black flesh. As the dust and debris from the explosion settled, one of the soldiers in the pit called out. "A small number of the ground Buyierfei were destroyed. No effect on the glowing Buyierfei in the center... it still seems to be drawing energy from the others." "Dammit..." a major at the general's side snapped, his droopy eyes betraying his lack of sleep. Well, they were droopier than normal. Most of the other soldiers in the room shared that look. Although they had all had been through several shift changes, few had truly been able to rest as the battle was waged--and lost--in the streets of Las Vegas. "Contact the General and request that he authorize a nuclear response," General Smart ordered suddenly. At least it seemed sudden to those around him, but for the general it was an order that marked the last option available to him to prevent further loss of life and to safeguard his secret base. Las Vegas had just become expendable. Most of the soldiers paused and glanced at General Smart. Those that knew what was good for them looked away from him quickly and went about their duties as the communications officer hurried to carry out the order. "Contacting Control." Several minutes passed before anyone spoke again. "The General has authorized the use of nuclear weapons." The words sent shivers down the spines of all of the soldiers in Area Fifty-Two's command center, most of all those that had friends and family in Las Vegas. At least they hoped they still did. General Smart felt the horror of what he was about to do most of all. He looked up from his contemplation of his clasped hands. "Override NORAD's systems and prepare four cruise missiles with nuclear warheads for firing." "Target, Sir?" a lieutenant asked, even if he knew the answer. It was displayed on the monitor above him, after all. General Smart opened his mouth to answer, but the target had other ideas. Surges of energy suddenly flowed up the mound of Buyierfei and started to form a vortex focused on the spot where the large glowing Buyierfei had been right up until that moment. Whether it had been destroyed to form the vortex or sucked into it, no one could tell. Within moments, a golden beam of energy flashed upwards towards the satellite taking the picture from space. The image shook as the beam missed the satellite by less than two miles--a very near miss given the vastness of space. General Smart jumped to his feet. "Give me a shot of the Moon!!" he yelled, slamming his fist son the console in front of him. Two seconds later the image of Las Vegas on the large overhead monitors was joined by a telescopic view of the Moon. "We've failed..." General Smart muttered as the energy beam hit the relay monolith on the Moon with pinpoint accuracy. No one knew what would happen next, but couldn't think of anything good that could come of it. The best thing that occurred to them was that the energy would blast another hole in the Moon. The most common thought was that a blast the size of Africa would soon wipe out the western United States. Which--among other things--was where Area Fifty-Two was, of course. When the energy flowed back down the beam towards Las Vegas and they saw the monolith appear there was a momentary sense of relief. One monolith wasn't the end of the world, after all. The former residents of Central Africa would have disagreed if their part of the world still existed. And if they were still alive, for that matter. "Um... sir? That monolith is floating in mid-air," a junior lieutenant indicated after checking some other displays. The general's eyes narrowed as he stared at the satellite image. "Launch the missiles," he said calmly. "Ye... yes sir!" The droopy-eyed major leaned over a whispered to the general. "We have no guarantee that nuclear weapons will affect it from the outside." "I know that." "And we know what would happen if they explode ins..." The major was cut off by a shout from the pit. "The monolith is moving!!" The major's eyes joined the general's, which were already locked on the monitors. "Are the nukes in the air already?" the general asked calmly. "Yes, sir." The general made note of the flight path of the monolith and the location of his fighter jets. "Divert our fighters and then pick a target spot for the nukes to intercept the monolith as far from population centers as possible." The tactical display that was showing a black monolith icon traveling north from Las Vegas towards the icon for Area Fifty-Two suddenly came to life with other indicators. Five white triangles veered away from the black monolith icon and headed south rapidly. Four white hexagons with radioactive symbols on them veered away from Las Vegas and headed northwest in pursuit of the monolith. They were spaced several miles apart. "Three minutes to impact of first missile, fifty-seven miles south-southwest of Fifty-Two." Three silent minutes passed in the command center. The satellite that had been showing the battle in the streets of Las Vegas did its best to keep the monolith centered in its image, but even the precision tracking cameras in the spy satellite had trouble keeping up with the fast moving object. "First impact!!" All the officers on the command podium stood up and stared at the satellite image as it caught up to the billowing cloud of the first nuclear explosion. Several seconds passed until a black object emerged from the expanding cloud. "Target is unaffected, five seconds to second impact." This time, the monolith was centered on the satellite image when the missile hit. Instead of the immediate explosion everyone expected, the blast funneled around the monolith in a circular explosion that vaporized the ground beneath the fast moving object. Just before the dust cloud obscured the image, a vortex of energy seemed to flow into the monolith. "Did the energy seem to..." the major began to ask before someone called out from the pit. "Monolith has increased its speed!" "Next impact in five seconds." The general slammed his fist on the console in front of him. "Abort the other two nukes!!" The technicians in the pit scurried to carry out the order before the third impact. The nearest hexagon veered away from the monolith just before impact, the other one joining it a split second later. "Warheads disarmed, missiles headed towards a safe recovery zone." "The monolith is still on a beeline for Fifty-Two." General Smart sat down again, quickly followed by his aides. He studied the tactical display for a few moments before speaking. "Bring Mrs. Tendo-Saotome to me." -A- -M- -D- Akane held her oldest child tightly and slowly rocked back and forth. "There... there... everything will be alright." Tears were streaming down Daiji's flush cheeks and her face clearly showed the pain that she was experiencing. "Daddy... it hurts..." "I know, Baby, I know," Akane whispered, knowing this was all she could do to help her child at the moment. "Mrs. Tendo-Saotome?" Annoyed at the interruption, Akane looked up and saw a private standing in the doorway of the kids' room. She knew why he was there. Looking down at her daughter briefly, she addressed the private. "There's a monolith, isn't there?" Shocked that she knew that, the private nodded. "General Smart wants to see you in the command center." Torn between finding out what was happening to her husbands and friends and taking care of Daiji, Akane hesitated. But she knew that the monolith was the source of her daughter's pain. It would have to be dealt with. "Very well." Akane slowly stood up, trying to sooth Daiji with her hands. Deciding that two others would be interested as well, Akane spoke. "Can you get Nipplering and my sister, Nabiki?" "I'm sorry, Ma'am, by the general only wanted to see you." Apparently the private had never dealt with Akane before. -A- -M- -D- Akane, Nabiki, and Nipplering took in all the information about the battle in silence. Akane barely contained the seething anger building within her, Nabiki was deeply worried as she analyzed whether they were being told the truth, and Nipplering was calculating a defense plan for the secret base. "And our husbands?" Akane asked glancing at Nabiki. "We can't be sure, but one of our over-flights saw a group of people headed towards the mound of Buyierfei before the monolith was formed," the general said calmly. "That could be our escapees." "You should have let them go when the Buyierfei first attacked." "Yes, I probably should have." Akane was a little taken aback by the general's admission. "But we have a bigger problem to deal with right now." He indicated the multiple views of the desert outside Area Fifty-Two, each of which showed a different angle of the monolith slowly rotating over the mountain that protected the secret base. "We're buried deep within this mountain, but we have no idea how much power that thing has." Akane looked at Nipplering. "Did the ancient Amazons ever encounter a flying monolith?" Nipplering looked uncertain. "There are some passages in the ancient scrolls that do point to some of the most powerful monoliths having that capability, but they only had primitive surveillance abilities back then." "Why would they be regarded as the most powerful?" Akane asked. "The ancient scrolls say that 'when the black cliffs take to the sky, death awaits in a scale unimaginable to those that grovel on the ground'," Nipplering recited. "Sounds pretty powerful to me," Nabiki remarked, a tremble in her voice betraying the fear she felt inside for her missing husband and her kids. They all tried to imagine something worse than what happened in Africa. Unfortunately, they had no problems with that since their families were all underneath the mountain that the monolith now threatened. And they knew that it wouldn't even take an explosion the size of the African one to blast that protective mountain to dust. "Do you have any suggestions, Mrs. Tendo-Saotome?" the general asked. Nabiki stepped forward and glared at the large man. "NOW you ask! What about before when she was telling you not to send her husbands' students to their deaths!" Akane put a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Nabiki, please." She looked at the general. "General, we have to get Ranma and the others back here and into that monolith somehow so that they can destroy it." "We already instructed Nellis to send out some search and rescue teams now that the Buyierfei seem to be done with Las Vegas, but we have no idea how long it might take to find them and get them back here. Don't you have anyone here capable of destroying a monolith's heart?" Akane gulped. "Of the Amazons still here, only Nipplering and I have learned that particular attack." She put a hand on her large belly. "And you need two people to do it." The general knew that was not an option. "Do you have any idea how long we might have until that thing blows?" Akane shook her head. "This one seems different than the other monoliths... so your guess is as good as ours." The general sighed, the long sleepless night clearly evident on his face as he looked around the command center. Finally he spoke. "Prepare to evacuate the base. Our visitors first." "General..." General Smart looked at Akane. "There's no other choice, Mrs. Tendo-Saotome. There's some danger in evacuating the base while that thing is over us, but I promised to safeguard your family. We're well protected under this mountain, but we never anticipated the Buyierfei being able to find us so easily and placing a monolith right above us." "None of OUR troops would have revealed the location of this base," the beady-eyed major remarked, glaring at Akane. "Careful what you imply, Major, at least two of these women are capable of wiping the floor with you," the general said, just as Nipplering stepped forward to do just that. Akane put out a hand to stop Nipplering. "I assure you that none of them would ever do anything that would threaten our families... or this base." The general noticed the slight hesitation at the end of Akane's statement. "Still, if we knew how they found us so fast, we may be able to do something about that monolith hanging over our head like a guillotine." Akane gasped slightly and looked down her belly. "Do you know something?" the general asked. "Not exactly, but I might have an idea." -A- -M- -D- "Are you crazy?!" Nabiki yelled as she chased after her obviously insane little sister. Despite Akane's pregnant condition, she was having a hard time keeping up with her determined sibling. "No, I'm not," Akane said flatly as she fumbled with the buttons on her blouse. She glanced at Nipplering, who was striding alongside her. Four more heavily armed Amazons trailed behind them as well. Seeing the glance, the heavily burdened warrior handed a camouflaged gi top to Akane. Akane gave the soldiers rushing by the group in the hallway a thrill as she pulled off her flimsy blouse and slipped the padded gi top over her chest. Even with her maternity bra on, it was quite a sight to behold. She fumbled with the sash, since it wasn't quite big enough to go around her large belly. Nabiki clenched her fists. "You are crazy if you're going to go out and face that monolith when you're nine months pregnant!!" "Eight and a half," Akane said as she paused to slip her pants off and exchanged them for a pair of camouflaged pants handed to her from Nipplering. The jaws of the nearby soldiers dropped open. "What difference does that make!!" Nabiki screamed, almost hysterical with concern for her little sister. "This is the only way to protect my family... ALL of our families," Akane said as she continued walking. "I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself for the rest of us!!" Before going through the large hatchway that lead in the main hanger, Akane finally got her sash tied over the top her round belly. "I'm not sacrificing myself." "Then what?" Akane remained silent as the three women rushed across the hanger towards a waiting assault helicopter. Ignored by her sister, Nabiki growled and looked towards the tall Amazon. "Nipplering, do something!!" "I will protect the Leader and her future warrior at all costs," Nipplering said while shifting the large pack of weapons strapped to her back. "That's not what I mean!!" Akane finally looked back at Nabiki, her face showing the same determined look she had worn since she rushed out of the command center after explaining her plan. "That thing is after me and my baby, I have to lead it away from the rest of my family." "It just as easily could be after Daiji!!" Akane flinched. "Probably both, but I'm betting it'll come after me instead of Daiji." She glanced back in the direction where she had left Daiji and her other kids in the care of her father and mother-in-law. Not to mention about a hundred Amazons. "I had hoped that Daiji wasn't sensitive to the Buyierfei anymore, but..." "That's why you should stay here with her!!" Akane shook her head. "Together, we're a single target for those demons that they'll blow apart this mountain to get to. Apart... they'll take the easier target. Me." "You're not superwoman, Akane!! You can't take on a monolith by yourself." Akane smiled. "I don't intend to." Nabiki continued complaining right up until Akane stepped up onto the steps that led up to the hatch of the helicopter. "You're going to get your baby and yourself killed!" "Not if I can help it." Both Akane and Nabiki frowned and looked into the helicopter at the source of the voice. "Kasumi?" Akane gasped as she saw her sister strapped into one of the six regular seats behind the helicopter's two flight seats. Kasumi smiled sweetly and adjusted her harness, which covered her borrowed army uniform. "You don't think I'm going to let you go into battle without your personal doctor, do you?" Nabiki totally lost it at that moment. "Are you both nuts?!" she asked rhetorically. "You can't possibly agree with this crazy plan of Akane's!!" Kasumi smiled more. "Of course not... but you should know that no force in the universe will keep Akane from doing something she thinks will help protect her family." "Then why are you here, Kasumi?" Akane asked as Nipplering pushed her from behind to help her get her large body inside the helicopter. It was not particularly the most heroic way to go into battle. "You need to ask that after what happened the last time you got anywhere near a monolith in your condition?" Kasumi patted one of several first aid kits strapped to her body. Akane smirked. "Thanks for the thought, but..." -A- -M- -D- Just as Akane is pigheaded when set on something, Kasumi is impossible to argue with for extended periods of time before her sweet nature won you over. The end result was that both usually got their way. It was something that Nabiki had always hated about her sisters. Those thoughts and more flashed through her mind as she watched the assault helicopter disappear through the inner gates of the hanger with her two sisters, Nipplering, and three Amazon warriors on it. -A- -M- -D- "You shouldn't be here, Kasumi," Akane insisted from the seat next to her sister. Just as her pigheadedness made it hard to change Akane's mind, it also meant that she could resist Kasumi's charms and continue an argument beyond the point where it was moot. In this case, it was moot because they were being pushed back into their seats as the helicopter flew away from Area Fifty-Two with the monolith hot on their tails. Akane would have preferred a fighter jet like the dozen F-35s that were escorting them, but the general had insisted that she could not pull that many G's in her current condition. Plus, Nipplering had insisted on coming along with some of her best warriors, so the eight-seat assault helicopter was the best choice to carry out Akane's plan. "I'm just here to keep you from doing anything crazy, Akane." Akane chuckled at that. Try as she might, she couldn't think of anything crazier she could do at that moment than to try and outrun a flying monolith in hopes of leading it away from her family and towards her husbands so that they could destroy it. The first part was succeeding... so far. The second half... -A- -M- -D- Succeeded... sort of. Ranma, his fugitive team, the Amazons, and the remains of Inferno Company bounced up and down as they raced up Interstate Fifteen in a 'borrowed' tour bus. After the monolith had shot off towards what they assumed--correctly--was the secret base, they had tried everything they could to get out of Las Vegas and back to their families. After several skirmishes with the Buyierfei, they found the abandoned bus. After cleaning the remains of the former passengers out of the vehicle and grinding the gears during a startup sequence that seemed to be more complicated than the helicopter that Mousse learned to fly by the seat of his pants, they made their way out of Las Vegas with Li-Wen at the wheel. This was only after Ranma, Hairwax, and Mousse--the later after insisting that it couldn't be any more difficult than the helicopter--failed to get the bus started and moving forward without shaking the occupants, causing the engine to belch smoke, or backing over several dozen irreplaceable classic cars at the Imperial Palace Hotel. Being a very petite Chinese woman, Li-Wen looked out of place behind the large steering wheel and occasionally called on Kamajirou to reach the clutch or the brake, but she did keep the bus moving northward as the others cleared the path of Buyierfei with various chi attacks. They were about twenty miles north of Las Vegas when the helmets of Inferno Company started to hiss and screech with static after being silent since the middle of their first night in Las Vegas. Kamajirou keyed the contact on his bloody sleeve that would attempt to establish a connection with Area Fifty-Two. "Ops, this is Inferno-four-three-seven, do you read me?" The static slowly cleared to the point that he could make out some words. "...monolith..." "...south..." "...helicopter..." "...Mrs..." He turned around and looked at the others. "I'm getting a signal from Fifty-Two, but it's hard to make out." The other members of Inferno Company who still had their headgear confirmed they were also getting the signal as well. Kamajirou keyed the contact again. "Ops, this is Inferno-four-three-seven. Known Inferno Company strength at eighteen. Ops, do you read me?" The static started to clear. "Say again... three-sev..." Kamajirou keyed the contact again. "Ops, this is Inferno-four-three-seven. Known company strength at eighteen." "Understood, eighteen. We believe the energy the Buyierfei were collecting was jamming our communications inside Las Vegas. We're regaining your GPS locators now... hold on." While they waited, Ranma whispered to Kamajirou. "Don't mention that we're with you." "I-four-three-seven, we have you northbound on I-fifteen, please confirm." Kamajirou almost responded that I-fifteen--also known as John Warner--had been killed in Vegas, but then he saw a passing signpost. "Ah.... affirmative, we have... appropriated a bus to follow a monolith that..." The communications officer interrupted. "We are aware of the monolith. Can you have I-zero-zero-five make contact with us for orders, since she is next in line in the absence of your regular squad leaders." Kamajirou looked at Li-Wen. "Um... she's kind of busy driving the bus." "Understood, please inform her that we are ordering you to turn around and return to Las Vegas." Kamajirou visibly paled. "What?" The responding voice showed a great deal of irritation of having to deal with some of the less than perfect soldiers of Inferno Company. Although some had come from highly disciplined special forces units from around the world, some were regular soldiers or even ex-convicts with special skills deemed useful. Kamajirou fit somewhere in between the last two. "Because those are your orders, soldier! We need you to track down your former teachers and a squad of Amazons that were... inserted midday." Kamajirou released the contact for his mike. "Um... Sensei?" "Yes?" Ranma replied. "They want us to turn around and return to Las Vegas to look for you." Ranma's face fell. "Why?" Kamajirou shrugged. Ranma pointed at his student's helmet. "Ask them." "What do we do when... if we find them?" Kamajirou asked, having suspected long ago that his teachers weren't in Las Vegas with General Smart's permission. "Tell Mr. Saotome that his wife is leading the monolith away from Fifty-Two and that he and his squad will be needed to destroy the monolith." Kamajirou paled. "Um... where is the monolith now?" "Five miles north-northwest of your current position." Kamajirou's eyes drifted towards the left side of the windshield. "Oh... shit," he muttered when he saw a black speck reflecting the sun's last rays. "Sensei... your wife is leading that-" He pointed out the window. "-monolith back here for you to destroy it." Ranma and Ranko's guts both tightened and they scrambled forward to try and find the monolith in the dark sky. "Akane?" Ranma asked softly. Kamajirou nodded. Ranma and Ranko's guts tightened more. "Incoming!" Li-Wen suddenly shouted. The bus first rocked to the right as a fast moving helicopter shot by overhead, banking wildly in an effort to keep the monolith from catching up to it. Then the bus rocked to the left when three F-35s swooped in front of the monolith, each firing a missile. The resulting explosions rippled across the black surface and caused the monolith to momentarily slow as it lost track of its prey. But as it did after all of their other attacks, it quickly regained its target and shot off in a straight line towards the helicopter. After the loss of over two-thirds of the original squadron assigned to safeguard the helicopter, the pilots of the remaining F-35s made sure they were well out of the monolith's way as it passed by them so they could avoid their fellow pilots' fiery fate. The bus was picked up and spun around in the wake left when the monolith soared past in pursuit of the helicopter. The three F-35s flashed by as well, kicking in their afterburners in order to get in front of the monolith once again in their game of cat and mouse. Although, technically it was more like the monolith was a dog after a cat with the mice occasionally annoying the dog long enough for the cat to slip away. Caught in the wake of both the monolith and the fighter jets, Li-Wen lost control of the bus as it spun off the freeway. Struggling with the oversized wheel, she managed to avoid flipping the bus over, but a couple of tires blew out before she managed to stop the bus several dozen meters off the roadway. "Shoot..." Stumbling out of the bus, Ranma and Ranko looked up just in time to see the helicopter swing around the top of a nearby mesa in its pilot's latest attempt to keep one step ahead of the monolith. Had the monolith been a normal aircraft it would have worked. Instead of turning to go after the helicopter, the monolith simply slid sideways and was right in front of the helicopter when it came out of its turn. The movement was so fast and so smooth, the F-35s had a spilt second to react. Two of them each managed to fire off a missile before dodging the monolith. Only one missile hit the monolith, so the resulting explosion wasn't enough to deter the monolith this time. The third used its spit second to put itself in between the monolith and the helicopter in hopes of sacrificing itself for the precious cargo inside the helicopter. "Akane!!" Ranma and Ranko both cried out as the black monolith swallowed the F-35 and then the helicopter containing their wife and unborn child. They both took a step before the monolith collided with another mesa that lay unseen behind the first. One of the pursuing F-35's joined it after failing to make the turn its wingman had narrowly pulled off. The explosion of the F-35 was dwarfed by the rocks and debris that were sent in all directions as the fast moving monolith demolished several hundred yards of the mesa before finally becoming embedded in the ground at about a thirty degree angle. The remaining F-35 swung around and unleashed all of its remaining missiles at the monolith, mostly out of frustration. The seven missiles blew the mesa further apart, but left the monolith intact. Like a hand swatting away an annoying fly, a flash of black lightning from the grounded monolith sent the F-35 crashing into the desert between the monolith and the crashed bus. After the ground stopped shaking, Ranma and the others silently watched the debris settle around the grounded monolith. Several seconds after the desert became calm again, Ranma and Ranko started running towards the monolith as fast as they could. The others were right behind them. Akane's plan to bring the monolith to them had worked. But at what cost? -A- -M- -D- Inside the Buyierfei Realm She opened her eyes to a world of black and gray shadows, eternally indistinct as they floated nearby and far away. Using her arm, she tried to rise to a sitting position, but decided that laying flat on her back was a good thing for the next few moments. As the pain assailing her body slowly faded, she looked around the realm she found herself in. "Maybe this was a bad idea after all..." she whispered to herself as her careful examination of the immediate area revealed that she was alone with the shadows. Of course, she knew what those shadows were. That was why she eventually had to brave the pain of moving and rise to a sitting position and eventually to her feet. As she stood and surveyed the area, she found that it looked the same as it did when she lay on the soft, spongy ground. She thought about calling out, but decided that might attract the Buyierfei that she knew must be all around her. Instead, she just started walking in a direction picked at random. That being the direction she happened to be facing when she decided standing still wasn't doing any good. After walking for what seemed an eternity didn't seem to solve anything either, she turned left and kept walking. After being sent crashing to the ground from three glancing blows by an unseen attacker--or attackers--she realized that she should have turned right instead. It was only after turning around several more times that she realized she was hopelessly lost and in need of help. Opening her mouth to call out, a scream echoed out of nowhere. Being the first sign of human life--if not a particularly encouraging sign--she ran towards the sound. She saw the remains of the assault helicopter first, but soon saw the source of the scream when she rounded the side of the aircraft. Of all the horrible sights she had seen in her life, nothing prepared her for the sight of seeing her sister lying naked in a large pool of her own blood. She rushed over and felt for a pulse. Under other circumstances, she would have checked for the condition of the baby first. But Kasumi could see from the ripped open flesh on her little sister's stomach that the baby was missing. It had been ripped from its mother's womb in the most horrendous way possible. "I wish I hadn't been right..." she muttered as she started to rip open the first aid kits she had brought along in case Akane's plan went awry and her medical skills would be needed. Given the seriousness of the wounds, she wasn't even sure she could have saved her little sister's life with the help of a full surgical team, much less by herself and with the meager supplies she had grabbed after her instinctive decision to protect her sister. That wasn't going to stop her from trying, of course. *********************************************************************** >From the personal journal of James Davidson August 31, 2058 I tightened my grip around my son, suddenly aware of how precious his life was. "They... they..." I sputtered, doing my best not to upset Red as he sucked on his bottle. Kasumi didn't look at me and instead stared out the open doors at the rolling lawn separating the South Building from Akane's house. "Yes, they ripped her baby from her womb." I noticed Kasumi shaking hand slip onto her own stomach. "How..." Kasumi glanced at me, her pained face revealing her horror at the events that unfolded during Black War Two. "How did they find her so fast? How did Akane survive? How did..." "All of those questions and more..." I interrupted. "I see now why Akane didn't want to talk about this." Kasumi nodded. "She survived, but she never was the same after that. She never talks about THOSE scars." I nodded my head. "I noticed that. She laughs about the other scars she got fighting the Buyierfei, but never the faint ones on her stomach." "She's proud of the ones she got fighting the Buyierfei, that's why." Kasumi reached out and touched little Red's cheek. "The ones she got in oh-nine are a reminder of everything that happened back then. Akane may have saved everyone in the base, but overestimated her ability to protect herself and her baby from the Buyierfei." "A trait she picked up from her husbands, I believe?" Kasumi nodded. "And I overestimated my own ability to keep my sister alive. At most, I had thought I'd have to deliver her baby or set some broken limbs." I could see her wrinkled old hands clench tightly. "Trying to conduct major surgery in the middle of a realm of demons was an impossible task." "Considering Akane's still alive and fighting, I think you did a great job." Kasumi smiled. "Thanks, but I can't take all the credit. Anywhere else, Akane would have died from such serious wounds." "Huh?" Kasumi took a deep breath. "As Ukyo found out when she was mortally wounded back in ninety-nine, there is something in the Buyierfei realm that keeps people that are near death stable until they return to Earth. Their bodies seem to hang on to life even from wounds that should have killed them. I've even seen some first hand evidence of tissue healing faster in the Buyierfei's realm that it normally would. Shuma seemed to carry this same regenerative power within himself, as well." My eyes widened. "So you can't die when you're inside the Buyierfei realm?" As soon as I asked, I knew that couldn't be right since I actually saw San-kun die inside a monolith. But then, his curse does make him rather unique. Kasumi shook her head. "No. You can still die from major wounds, but as long as the heart is able to supply blood to the vital organs the body can hang onto life for far longer than a person with the same wounds on Earth." I smiled. "So, you did save Akane by repairing all the damage to her body after all." Kasumi cocked her head to the side in the same way Hanaki did when she was ready to kiss me or was going to agree with me. In this case, I assumed it would be the later of the two. "Very well, if you insist on saying so, I'll agree, but others did much greater deeds during Two." "Somehow, I doubt Akane would agree." Kasumi shook her head. "No, she would..." *********************************************************************** Inside the Buyierfei Realm Hairwax and Sanma hacked their way through the shadows, exchanging comments as they did so. "Why didn't I bring any salt? I wasn't expecting a monolith when we snuck out of the base!" Sanma retorted as she swung at and missed her target. "That is unfortunate," Hairwax said softly, cleaving a Buyierfei into five pieces with a graceful sweep of her sword. "So why don't YOU have any?" Sanma asked as she sent a chi ball rolling across the spongy ground. The technique burned through the lower bodies and tentacles of a dozen nearby Buyierfei. "I lost my supply in Las Vegas," Hairwax said as she skewered a Buyierfei behind her with a fancy underarm thrust. "Well, then..." Sanma trailed off as he chi ball finally hit something other than Buyierfei. The resulting explosion was not like anything she had heard inside a monolith before. "What the hell was that?" she asked, even as she set off running towards the sound. Hairwax followed closely behind, scanning the path for signs of the enemy. As they neared the source, the shadows parted and revealed the smoking ruins of the helicopter, a newly made hole in the engine compartment sending up fresh smoke. Sanma's eyes widened as she realized that must have been the helicopter Akane was on. "Akane!!" she yelled as she got closer and saw a woman kneeling over another. The kneeling woman turned her head around and looked at Sanma with tired and weary eyes. "Sanma... who's with you?" she asked wearily. Sanma still couldn't see who was on one of the helicopter's emergency rescue stretchers in front of Kasumi, but answered her. "Um... Hairwax is with me now, but most of us entered the monolith after it got stuck in the ground." "Oh... good. I need you to find Buzzcut, Ukyo, Depilatory, or anyone with B negative blood." "Why?" Sanma asked, just as she noticed the blood filled catheter leading from Kasumi's bare arm to her patient. "I'm afraid it's a bit hard for me to operate and give a blood transfusion at the same time," Kasumi said, looking down at her bloody hands that were inside Akane's stomach. That was when Sanma first saw who Kasumi was kneeling over. "AKANE!!" She closed the final ten meters in seconds, fighting to keep her stomach from jumping out of her throat at seeing Akane's blood covered body. "What happened..." Even before she finished asking the question, she saw the answer. "Where's her baby?" she asked, even as she guessed the answer. Her hand slipped over her own stomach. "They... took it. Please... I need another donor if I'm going to save her," Kasumi said, not pulling her tear-streaked eyes away from the hemorrhage she was trying to control with clamps and sutures. The latest one, at least. It seemed like she had stitched up millions already, with no end in sight. Sanma trembled as she knelt down next to Akane's head and put a hand to the pale face of her first love. "Is she going to..." "I will not let her die... I just need more blood." Sanma started to roll up her sleeve. "Take mine." Kasumi shook her head. "You're the wrong type." Sanma jumped to her feet, scanning the area. "If only I had some salt." "I doubt that would help Akane right now," Kasumi said softly as she tried to find the start of her sister's small intestines. "No... we can thin out the shadows using salt." "Oh..." Kasumi glanced at one of the many medical packs around her. "There's some sodium chloride in there." Then, remembering who she was talking to, added, "That's salt." Sanma glanced at Hairwax and then started to rummage through the medical kit. By the time she had found the salt, Hairwax had already ripped a still beating heart out of a passing Buyierfei. -A- -M- -D- Kamajirou spun around as he was hit--again--by an unseen attacker. "Crap, how the hell can you fight in here!" he screamed. Li-Wen finished blasting apart two nearby shadows before answering. "Remember what the teachers said before we all entered the monolith?" "Yeah... yeah..." Kamajirou charged up a chi ball. "Don't aim for the shadows you see, shoot for the ones you don't." He released his chi ball, which completely missed hitting any Buyierfei. Seen or unseen. Unfortunately for Ukyo, it did hit her. "Hey, watch it!!" Kamajirou cringed. "Oops..." Li-Wen peered into the shadows. "Who's there?" "It's me," Ukyo said as she hurried into view with a couple Amazons on her heels. "Have you seen anyone else?" She held her combat spatula ready in her hands, knowing there was no such thing as a safe place in the Buyierfei realm. Li-Wen and Kamajirou shook their heads, the later mumbling an awkward "Sorry I blasted you". Ukyo smirked and brushed off her singed clothing. "That little thing? You should have seen what I looked like the last time I was in a monolith," she said, trying not to show how nervous she really felt being inside the Buyierfei's realm again. She'd feel a lot better if Sanma was with her, but as veteran monolith fighters knew all too well; entering the monolith together was no guarantee you'll show up together when you got inside. Sanma had wanted her to stay behind and--truth be told--so did Ukyo, but Ukyo fought down her nightmares of almost dying back in ninety-nine and stepped into the monolith so she could help save her best friend. "Hey!" Li-Wen suddenly blurted as she looked for a target. "Aren't the shadows receding?" Kamajirou looked around and nodded. "Yeah... I wonder why." Ukyo knew why. "Someone must have sprinkled salt on a Buyierfei's heart." Kamajirou licked his lips. "Do they taste better with salt on them?" Li-Wen punched Kamajirou's shoulder. "Gross!!" Ignoring the lame joke, Ukyo shook her head. "No, that's how you can thin out the shadows so you can see the heart we need to destroy to get out. We should be able..." She trailed off as a bright, multicolored light pierced the shadows. It was so bright, that she had to raise her hand to shield her eyes from the glare. "That's the heart of the monolith." Her eyes adjusting to the glare, she frowned as she noticed the heart was a bit unusual. "It's a lot brighter than the Florida one... and... bigger. I've never seen those small glowing orbs circling the main heart, either." Over two-dozen small golden globes circled the central aura, each at a different speed relative to the others. Even so, they never collided as they danced around the heart. A mesh of gold fibers hung between the orbiting globes and the pulsating heart, almost as if the globes were weaving it. The effect was that bright beams of multicolored lights shone through the gaps in the mesh, not unlike a disco ball. No one felt like dancing. The three of them were already scanning the area for signs of anything except the shadows that used to be all around them. Given the vast expanse of nothingness that surrounded them it was easy to make out the remains of the helicopter, with its faint trail of smoke drifting up from it. Oddly, the smoke was forming a spiral over the crash site despite there being no trace of a breeze. "Come on!" Ukyo shouted as she took off running. Li-Wen and Kamajirou were right behind her. -A- -M- -D- Ranma, Mousse, and three Amazons approached the backside--at least as viewed from the crashed helicopter--of the heart with determination. "Let's blow this thing quickly so we can all go home!" Ranma yelled. Mousse frowned. "Don't you want to find Akane first?" "I'd love to, but we haven't found anyone else since the heart was revealed. Even though that means someone is in here and fighting back, the fastest way out of here for everyone is for us to blow the heart quickly and hope for the best." "Okay, but I have a bad feeling about this..." When they entered the heart, Mousse's feeling was confirmed. "Oh... shit..." Ranma muttered. Between them and the almost thirty multicolored, crystal hearts that slowly orbited each other were a seemingly endless sea of Buyierfei, all partially visible due to an internal golden glow that emanated from their central mass and outlined their tentacles in a faint glow. A wave rippled through them as they seemed to turn and look at the newcomers with their eyeless bodies. If that wasn't shocking enough, standing calmly on top of a red crystal heart that was at the center of the other orbiting crystal hearts was the unmistakable form of Shuma in his black robes. "Welcome, I've been expecting you," his voice boomed out over the other Buyierfei. Ranma gulped. Shuma's half male-half female face smiled. "I've brought along my daughters to make sure that you can't destroy these hearts." He waved his hands around him to indicate the glowing Buyierfei around him. Ranma only had a second to consider his options before Mousse pulled him back and out of the heart's aura. "We need some help..." Mousse said as they and the Amazons raced away from the heart. "A lot of help..." Ranma agreed. -A- -M- -D- When they found that help, Ranma lost all interest in fighting. He was told snippets of what happened as he made his way through his students and the Amazons who had gathered around the crashed helicopter by that point, but wasn't until he finally saw Akane lying on the metal stretcher in front of Kasumi, Ukyo, and Ranko that he could believe it. Trembling, he dropped down between Ukyo and Ranko. "Will she..." he asked Kasumi as he reached out to touch the pale skin of his wife's face. Kasumi didn't look up from where she was stitching the skin on Akane's stomach back together. "Yes... she will survive," she said, not even considering that Ranma might have been asking a different question. Ranma's other question went unasked. One look at the flat stomach Kasumi was stitching back together confirmed what he had been told as he made his way through the assembled fighters: the Buyierfei had ripped his child from its mother's womb. He looked at Sanma--who was busy talking to Mousse--and saw the same rage he felt inside reflected back at him. The rage of a parent who could never hold his child in his arms. Kasumi glanced at the blood-filled catheter leading from an incision on Akane's left arm to Ukyo's right arm. "How are you doing?" "I don't think I'll be doing much fighting this time, but I'm okay," a tired Ukyo said from where she sat beside Akane. She squeezed the dirty sock Kasumi had given her to help keep her blood flowing into Akane's body. Usually it would be a rubber ball, but Kasumi had had to improvise in order to keep her sister alive. As she made the last stitch to close the wounds on Akane's stomach, Kasumi hoped some of her improvisations that she had made under the skin would hold until they could get her sister to a real hospital. Wiping as much blood off Akane's stomach as she could first, she began to bandage the wounds. "The sooner we get her out of here, the better. She's stable now, but there's still a lot of damage to repair that I can't do alone and can't do..." She looked up at the gray sky surrounding them. "...here." Sanma looked at Ranko and Ranma before looking behind her at the flashing lights that marked the only way out. Then she slowly scanned the fighters available to them: Mousse, sixty-seven Amazons, twelve of their students, and the pilots from Area Fifty-Two. Which left three Amazons and one of their students still unaccounted for. "Eighty-five against thousands of glowing Buyierfei..." Sanma remarked, having been told of the situation inside the heart by Mousse. "A couple of us need to stay here to protect Akane," Ranko said, meaning SHE had to stay behind. Sanma knew what Ranko really meant because she felt the same way--now and when she had to leave Ukyo's side to fight in ninety-nine--but at the same time she knew they couldn't spare any able fighter in the battle that was about to take place. The odds were already horribly against them. "Ukyo, can you protect..." Ukyo cut off her husband. "Yes, I may not be able to take on the Buyierfei in the heart, but I'll give my last drop of blood to protect Akane and Kasumi here." Nipplering stepped forward. "I will also protect the Leader. It is my duty." "I'm not leaving her side," Ranko insisted, while she gently stroked her wife's blood-caked hair. Ranma didn't say anything, but Sanma could tell her brother shared his co-husband's feelings. "We're going to need both of you in there if we have any chance of any of us surviving this," Sanma insisted and then--because she knew prying Ranko and Ranma away from Akane's side would be almost impossible--she yelled, "Dammit, there's still a chance we can find your baby and get it back from the Buyierfei!" That got their attention, but Sanma's next words made sure they would be fighting with the rest of them. "I didn't have the opportunity to fight for the baby they stole from me, you do!" "You're right..." Trying not to look at all the splattered blood that covered Akane's face, Ranma bent down and gave his wife a tender kiss. "Don't you dare die on me, Akane," he whispered and then stood up slowly. Ranko put her hand between Akane's breasts and felt the gentle rise and fall of her wife's chest through the bandages that coved most of her torso. After several short, labored breaths, Ranko was breathing in time with her wife. "We will get your baby back, Akane... I promise you that," she whispered and kissed her wife gently. When Ranko didn't move from Akane's side for almost a half minute, Ranma bent down and tried to pull her up. "Come on, Ranko, let's get OUR child back." Ranko didn't resist, but as she rose and walked away with Ranma, she kept looking back at Akane. She couldn't help thinking that the three women--even with Nipplering standing over them with her assorted weapons--looked so vulnerable alone in the bleak landscape. But then she hadn't seen what lay ahead of them. Ranma had and knew Akane was safer than they were about to be. Ransacking the helicopter for anything useful and gathering to plan their attack, they took inventory of the fighters and weapons available to them. Any way they looked at it, they seemed to be hopelessly outnumbered. But they were used to that. -A- -M- -D- Shuma casually looked to his left when the first explosion ripped apart the ground under a dozen of his daughters. Not seeing who was attacking, he generated a large black chi ball and threw it out of the heart's aura near where the explosion erupted. Outside the heart, Li-Wen and Kamajirou led their mixed group of students and Amazons in a clockwise direction around the outer edge of the heart. Some of the less experienced students flinched and almost lost control of the chi balls they were generating between their hands when the black chi ball flew out of the heart and exploded against the ground behind them. "Crap, that was too damn close..." Kamajirou snapped as his chi ball fluctuated and singed his hands. "Fire!!" Li-Wen shouted and sent her chi ball blindly into the heart's aura. The others quickly followed suit and kept running around the outside, one step ahead of Shuma's retaliatory strikes. After the third repetition of this, Li-Wen suddenly jumped backwards and crashed into an Amazon and Kamajirou. The black chi ball she had narrowly avoided singed the fabric on her tan uniform. "Time to change direction!" The others quickly agreed and they started running in the opposite direction, with a pair of Amazons in the lead this time. They varied their speed before each blast to keep the enemy guessing where they were. This was one cat and mouse game where they were both the cat and the mouse. And getting caught as the mouse meant death. -A- -M- -D- Ranma looked at the others gathered around him: fourteen people capable of destroying a monolith with the special modified hot and cold Hiryu Shoten Ha techniques. "Remember if you're hot or cold and... HEART BREAKERS... GO!!" On his shout, the fifteen fighters leapt into the air towards several of the nearest globes that orbited the outside of the main heart. As their initial tests when they were planning their attack had shown, the globes were solid masses and --although hot and not something you wanted to stay in contact with for any extended amount of time--they allowed them to bounce off towards higher globes. After each of them bounced off two or three of the globes, their last bounce sent them all straight down into the aura surrounding the heart, head first. "Hiryu Hyouchuu Ha!!" Ranma shouted as he aimed a pillar of cold air at the first crystal heart he saw. Mousse ended up by his side and reached for the same crystal heart. "Hiryu Hibashira Ha!!" As Mousse's hot pillar made contact with Ranma cold one, the air around the crystal heart burst into a--seemingly--uncontrolled torrent that buffeted them both. It was a mixture of determination and skill that allowed the two martial artists to keep their vortexes in contact with the crystal heart and land upright. Almost a half minute later, the crystal shattered and covered the area with chunks of sharp shards. Ranma put up a hand to protect his face from the flying debris, even as he wished the world around him would disappear into blackness like every other time he had destroyed a monolith's heart. Unfortunately, he knew there was more than one crystal heart to deal with this time and after the initial surprise caused by them entering the heart from above, the others wouldn't be as easy to take out. Sweeping the area with his eyes, he built up a chi ball to blast anything that got close to him before he could find another heart to take out. What he saw was both good and bad. Mostly bad. The good part was that five hearts had been shattered and reduced the number of hearts they needed to destroy to a more manageable twenty-three. Well, more manageable than twenty-eight. The bad news was that the glowing Buyierfei were closing in on them. The other bad news was he and Mousse had landed very close to Shuma. The worst news was that Shuma had just sent a large black chi ball racing directly at him. "Duck!!" Ranma shouted as he threw up an arm that was already glowing green. The black energy hit his shielded arm and started to flow around it towards his unprotected body. Just in time, he managed to focus the green energy around his entire body. This allowed the black energy to drain harmlessly into the air. "I see the late Un-Cute One has taught you her little trick," Shuma said, glaring at Ranma. Ranma thought, noticing Mousse sliding around to get a clear shot at Shuma. Ranma waved him off, hoping Mousse would take the hint. Mousse didn't like it and realized that Ranma might not be able to defeat Shuma by himself, but knew he was more than capable of keeping Shuma off the others' backs. So he sent a couple Moko Takabisha chi balls at the Buyierfei's leader and then jumped to the side to help destroy hearts and defend against the daughters. "My wife is very much alive, thank you," Ranma spat as he sent a chi ball screaming at Shuma's head and another two meters to Shuma's left side. "Impressive... I didn't think I left enough of her insides behind when I harvested the Core," he said, sidestepping the first chi ball and spinning to avoid the second. A chill flowed down Ranma's spine as he released a third chi ball. "WHERE IS MY CHILD?!" he screamed. Shuma cackle was cut off when he missed avoiding the third chi ball, but he quickly recovered his haughty stance and sent a stream of black chi balls racing at Ranma. "The Core is all around you." Ranma dodged most of the chi balls, deflecting the others with the green shield around his body. Technically, he could survive the impacts of all of them, but--as Akane had explained months earlier when explaining how to generate the shield--doing so would drain his energy faster. Better to avoid most of the attacks as they had always tried to do in the past and use the shield as a backup to catch anything that got through. Scanning the area as he prepared his next attack, Ranma spoke. "What do you mean?" "The Core has provided me with my daughters, all these wonderful portals, and soon it will open those portals permanently into your doomed world." Shuma cackled in that half male-half female way that sent shivers down the spins of anyone unfortunate enough to hear it. "Try as you might, those portals will never close once opened." Ranma sneered at Shuma and blanked the Buyierfei's leader with dozens of low power chi balls. Why low power? To distract his opponent long enough to get his green charged hands around Shuma's throat. "Die, you monster!!" he screamed as the green energy started to burn into the flesh of Shuma's neck. Shuma struggled, but not nearly as much as you would expect from someone about to have his neck burnt clean through. But then Shuma isn't a typical someone. The features on Shuma's face blurred and the female and male halfs shifted sides. This wasn't a big difference normally, but in this case the slight change in mass on one side caused Ranma's grip to slip and allowed a well-placed kick to Ranma's gut to spring the Buyierfeis' leader free. "Why do you collectors insist on fighting us? You can't win," Shuma said hoarsely, circling to the left. Ranma stayed with his opponent, deflecting the occasional black chi ball with his green shield, while peppering Shuma with blasts. "History seems to contradict you. We've defeated you time and time again as have the Amazons in their ancient past." Shuma cackled again. "The bitches only delayed what is now unfolding." He gestured grandly around him. "Oh? And how did they do that?" Ranma asked, hoping to trick Shuma into telling him how to defeat them. Shuma knew what Ranma was trying to do, but he told him anyway. "They destroyed the Core," Shuma said, gesturing behind him at the red crystal heart he had been perched upon earlier. This one wasn't moving like the others. Instead, it was at the center of all the other orbiting hearts--which orbited as close as ten meters from it to as much as a hundred and fifty. From a distance it didn't look much different than the hearts that orbited it, but close up it was clearly bigger and it was also pulsating with dark red light every few seconds. None of this mattered to Ranma. The only thing that mattered was the faint outline that could be seen at the center of the crystal. He'd never seen or held it before, but he new without a doubt that it was the unborn child that had been ripped out of Akane's womb. His baby. -A- -M- -D- While Ranma battled Shuma and Li-Wen and Kamajirou's group did their best to strike from the outside of the aura, another slightly smaller team of heart breakers attacked from the opposite side of the heart and about five minutes later to keep the Buyierfei guessing. "HEART THROBS... GO!!" Sanma shouted and leapt into the air towards the golden globes. Seven Amazons took to the air with her, gracefully bouncing between the globes before disappearing inside just as Li-Wen's group appeared around the edge of the aura, still firing blindly into the heart. Unfortunately, they were one student short. Sanma had a half second to notice that Ranma was fighting Shuma one on one. Wishing she could help, but knowing that the hearts were the primary concern at the moment, she stuck to the plan they had agreed to. Letting Ranma keep Shuma busy, she cleared her mind and focused her ice pillar on a nearby crystal heart. Pillow--a petite, green haired Amazon with more curves than was humanly possible--matched it with a hot pillar and a dozen or so seconds later the heart joined the other two destroyed by the other Heart Throbs. She smiled confidently as she landed and prepared to jump towards another heart that was floating behind her and Sanma. Too late, she spotted a Buyierfei spring out from behind the glowing orb. She jumped out of the way, but not before she was speared in the shoulder with one of its glowing tentacles. "Pillow!!" Sanma shouted and fired a chi ball behind Pillow to destroy--or at least slow down--the Amazon's attacker. By the time she reached the doomed Amazon, Sanma was amazed to find the young woman was more or less intact. "Wha..." She was also surprised that the Buyierfei she blasted was writhing on the ground in several pieces. Considering what normally happened to people touched by glowing Buyierfei and their resistance to chi attacks, Sanma was momentarily confused. Pillow was as well, but still glad to be alive as she pulled the severed tentacle--now black-- out of her shoulder. "Urg... that hurt like hell..." she grumbled as she tried to staunch the flow of blood around the burned hole in her shoulder with a bandage from her med kit. "It burned, but didn't spread like the touch of the other glowing Buyierfei does. Sanma frowned and fired off a couple blasts at some nearby Buyierfei. "It should have killed you, so don't complain." Her face visibly brightened when her three targets became about seventeen pieces. She took a deep breath and then yelled out, "These glowing Buyierfei aren't immune to our chi blasts and their touch doesn't kill on contact!!" As the other fighters echoed this information all around the battlefield, one of the pieces Sanma had made seconds earlier jumped on her. "Urk..." Pushed backwards, Sanma almost found herself gutted by the small blob. Only a well-aimed sweep of Pillow's sword saved her. "That was careless of me..." She drew her own sword and sliced up another partial Buyierfei. "Crap..." She raised her voice and yelled again. "Careful... the pieces are still alive!!" After fighting the horde of Buyierfei for several more minutes, it became obvious to Sanma that most of their chi attacks were fragmenting Shuma's 'daughters' and that swords or bladed weapons were going to be the best way to kill them. she thought as she sliced another daughter fragment in half, killing it. "Pillow... get out of this heart..." She scanned the immense sea of glowing Buyierfei between them and the outer aura. "...somehow... and warn the cats and mice about their chi blasts. Their attacks are just making more of these bastards!" Pillow nodded, but didn't relish trying to get through the sea of Buyierfei. Even if their touch wasn't instantly deadly, it wasn't going to be easy. Wishing the Amazon well, Sanma yelled out to another nearby Amazon. "I'm ice, Fiber!" Fiber--a skinny blue-haired Amazon--finished off three Buyierfei segments with a single sweep of her sword and then followed Sanma towards the nearest crystal heart. -A- -M- -D- She opened her eyes to a world of intense pain. Every fiber of her being cried out and urged her to scream. Only the heavy dose of sedatives that Kasumi had used to keep her from feeling the full extent of her pain and keep her body from shutting down from the intense trauma of her wounds kept that scream from erupting from her mouth. Instead, Akane just gurgled as her unfocused eyes scanned the gray sky for anything that told her that she was alive. "She's awake!" Ukyo gasped as she noticed the movement from where she lay next to Akane. Kasumi opened her tired eyes, scolding herself for dozing off when her job wasn't done. She slid over to Akane's side and started to check her patient's vitals. Encouraged to find them slightly stronger than the last time she took them, she wiped Akane's sweaty brow off. "Akane... don't try to move or speak." Regardless, Akane's mouth opened and closed soundlessly as her eyes tried to find the voice her ears were hearing. Kasumi doubled checked the various bandages covering Akane's stomach and lower chest to make sure none of her hasty--but careful--knitting had pulled loose. This was one sweater she didn't want to unravel. "You're badly injured, but stable as long as you don't try to move or get upset." Akane's mouth opened and closed; only emitting a gurgle. "Don't worry, everything is going to be alright-" Kasumi rummaged through one of the medical packs she had brought along. "-you don't have to worry about anything." She frowned when she couldn't find any more painkillers or something to knock her sister out again. "Everything will be okay..." she said softly, while stroking Akane's blood-caked hair. Akane's moment of lucidity faded and she drifted off. But Kasumi knew that the next time her little sister might be able to ask some questions that would not be easy to answer. And most of the answers would not help keep Akane calm and immobile. Kasumi eyed a couple rolls of gauze resting in the bottom of the bag she had just rummaged through. After several minutes she looked up at Ukyo. "Can you help me with something, Ukyo?" Ukyo looked up at Kasumi. "Sure, what?" Kasumi handed Ukyo a roll of gauze and then started to unroll the other one. "We need to..." she took a deep breath. "We need to restrain Akane." "Uh?" Ukyo looked between the roll of gauze and Akane. "We need to tie her to the rails of the stretcher so that when she starts asking questions, she won't reopen her wounds." Ukyo knew what questions Kasumi meant. They were the same ones she asked herself when she miscarried her child back when she and Sanma were trying to start their family. Where was her baby... -A- -M- -D- Shuma tossed Ranma aside like an old rag doll. Ranma tried to adjust his trajectory with a chi blast, but couldn't avoid slamming into the large red crystal containing Akane's baby. He expected to die a painful death when he came in contact with the heart's surface like Cologne had years earlier. Instead he found himself flung out the other side of the crystal and almost crashed into Sanma and the heart his sister was destroying. "Ughhhh..." he grunted as he got back to his feet. Looking back at the red crystal he realized that he had passed right through it instantly. That was when the latest heart Sanma and Fiber were attacking exploded and showered him with shards and other debris. Sanma rushed over and helped Ranma up. "You okay?" Ranma shook the last of the debris off of his clothes and stared at the form inside the red heart. "I'm fine..." "You need some help?" Sanma asked because Ranma didn't look fine to her. Ranma didn't look at Sanma. "No... the other Buyierfei don't seem to want to get close to the red heart. I can handle this bastard." Sanma glanced around, having noticed earlier that Shuma's daughters rarely ventured into the orbits of the other hearts and never near the red crystal heart. "You can't do it alone," Sanma insisted. "No! You need to get the rest of the hearts. I'll call you if I need you." With a determined look on his face, Ranma wiped the blood from his lips and started towards Shuma again, this time by jumping into the red crystal heart. Appearing on the other side, he caught Shuma unprepared and managed to shove several chi balls into the Buyierfei leader's face, chest, and stomach. Shuma's robes were on fire as he tumbled away, still being pelted by chi blasts from Ranma. "There is no way you're keeping my child, you bastard!!" -A- -M- -D- "Where's my baby?!" Ukyo pressed down on Akane's shoulders, trying to keep her struggling friend from moving. "Calm down, Akane!!" "You're going to reopen your wounds!!" Kasumi added, trying to keep her sister's abdomen still. "My baby!!" Akane screamed, thrashing around as much as she could after being bound to the stretcher. Kasumi grimaces as a red stain appeared on the bandages covering Akane's stomach. "Stop!!" Akane continued wailing. Kasumi hit Akane's chin with a left hook. Akane's limbs went limp as she lost consciousness. Ukyo looked up from Akane. "Kasumi!" "I had to do it," Kasumi muttered as she started to peel back the bandages to see how much damage had been done to her handiwork. "I know that... I'm amazed that you could knock her out with a single punch," Ukyo said, remember the long fights and training sessions she'd had with Akane over the years. "I never managed that." "She's a bit weak at the moment..." Kasumi reached for her sutures. "...and my father always taught me an unexpected blow to the jaw was the fastest way to incapacitate someone." Ukyo smirked. "And all my father taught me was how to cook okonomiyaki." -A- -M- -D- Kamajirou sent a large chi ball screaming to the heart's aura, expecting to hear a muffled explosion soon after. He did, but he also found himself with an Amazon warrior hurling towards him. "Gaaaaa..." He tried to dodge the figure that had appeared unexpectedly from the aura, but the Amazon collided with him and sent the both of them crashing into Li-Wen and a couple of the other cat and mouse team. "You almost hit me, little man!!" Pillow shouted as she rose to her feet. Kamajirou gulped. "Sorry." He got up and frowned when he noticed that he was taller than the petite Amazon, but he knew better than to mention it. Li-Wen straightened a single hair that had come out of her carefully constructed bob of hair. "Why did you come out of the heart, Pillow?" "Sanma sent me out," Pillow explained. "The chi attacks are causing the glowing Blackness to divide into smaller, but still living, creatures." She paused to let her words sink in. "Blowing apart the ground under them or glancing blows can still kill them outright, but direct hits just make more of them, almost as if the energy allows them to reproduce. So you have to start attacking directly with bladed weapons and save the chi blasts for more carefully aimed attacks." Some of the students grumbled, Kamajirou most of all. Li-Wen sighed. "Some of us aren't as good as you Amazons with swords." She tried not to, but her eyes darted towards Kamajirou briefly. "Yes, we know," Pillow said matter-of-factly. "It's going to be hard to fight at close range with swords since their touch is deadly," Li-Wen commented. Pillow shook her head. "Unlike the two larger glowing Buyierfei we've encountered before, these fainter ones don't have an instantly deadly touch." She patted her bandaged shoulder. "I found that out the hard way." "Great!! Then we can win!" Kamajirou exclaimed. "They still outnumber us at least a hundred times over," Li-Wen reminded her teammate. Pillow glanced at her shoulder. "And the glowing tentacles do burn, so prolonged contact is not advised." Li-Wen looked down at the high-tech sword she had strapped to her side and fingered the hilt. Pillow addressed the assembled members of Inferno Company and the other Amazons. "We must keep up the hit and run attacks, but we'll have to go into the heart's aura, kill as many with our swords as possible and then duck out of the aura. There's too many to take on in one straight push." She repeated her instructions in Mandarin for the Amazons who didn't understand Japanese. Li-Wen did the same for the members of Inferno Company that spoke English. Swords were pulled out of sheaths, pikes were readied, and one Amazon pulled out a dozen curved blades. With a smooth motion that showed the years she had put into training with this weapon, she slid the blades together until she had assembled the two Amazon Bai-bis. With a handhold in the center, the curved blades stretched out in six different directions above and below the handhold, some curved outward and some curved inwards. The result was a sphere of blades at the end of both of the Amazon's arms. The members of Inferno Company took several steps away from the Amazon, eyeing the deadly blades nervously. Actually, all of the Amazons backed away as well. The full name of the weapon was Bai-ren-bi-xue and literally meant a naked sword that sheds blood in a just cause. It was a powerful weapon that was particularly good at ripping apart Buyierfei. The few who had lived to master it sometimes ended up injuring themselves or those nearby during battle. Hence why the other Amazons gave the Amazon holding it a wide berth. "Death to the Blackness!!" Pillow shouted and jumped into the aura surrounding the heart. The Amazons and Inferno Company followed her in spaced about five meters apart. Except for the Amazon carrying the twin Bai-bis, she had about fifteen meters between her and the others. As soon as the first sword met the first of Shuma's daughters, the blood bath began. Both black and red. -A- -M- -D- Ranma threw chi balls at the edge of the red crystal, hoping to crack it. Instead, the energy washed over the surface and caused it to grow slightly. You couldn't tell from one chi blast, but after dozens of attempts by Ranma to free his baby from the structure, it was obvious that it was growing in size. "I told you... the only way you're getting the Core is to.... urk..." Shuma's most recent boast was cut off when Ranma did a sideways summersault from beside the red crystal and attempted to cut off Shuma's head with his sword. Before it could go all the way through, Shuma got his hands around the sword's blade and yanked it. "Dammit..." Ranma spat when he felt the sword ripped from his hands. Shuma was bleeding profusely from his hands and neck as he glared at Ranma. "Not so talkative now, are you?" Ranma goaded. Shuma stumbled slowly away from Ranma, making a grotesque hissing sound as he pulled the sword out of his neck. His glowing daughters quickly surrounded him, cutting off any further attacks from Ranma. But that suited Ranma just fine. Free of having to deal with Shuma for the time being, Ranma jumped towards the red crystal heart. "Hiyru Shoten Ha!!" he yelled and focused a vortex of energy onto the red crystal, hoping to break it before Shuma recovered from his sword cut. The energy washed over the red crystal, but didn't effect it at all. He glanced to the side. "SANMA... I'M ICE!!" Having been waiting for Ranma's shout as she helped the others destroy the hearts, Sanma quickly finished off the heart he was cracking and then did a double summersault to the side. She landed on the opposite side of the heart to Ranma, already generating a hot vortex from her arms. "Hiryu Hibashira Ha!!" The cold and hot vortexes from the two martial artists combined and blasted the red crystal with a force that should have shattered it if it was the normal heart of a monolith. But this wasn't a normal heart. It was the Buyierfeis' Core. The ancient Amazons destroyed one once, but no one lived to tell the survivors how. And to Ranma, destroying it wasn't an option. So when the fire and ice attack failed to free his child, he collapsed and started to pound the spongy ground under the red crystal to vent his frustration. The soft surface just frustrated him more as he couldn't feel his hands hitting it. "Dammit!! I want my child back!!" he cried out, tears streaming from his eyes. Sanma rushed around the heart and felt her gut tighten at the broken man she saw. Having lost a child to the Buyierfei, she knew what Ranma was feeling. She also knew they had no time to waste if they were going to come out of the battle they found themselves in alive. "Snap out of it, Ranma!!" She might have slapped him or punched him savagely to punctuate her statement, but instead she knelt down behind Ranma and wrapped her arms around the distraught father. "You're no good to any of your children or your wife like this," she whispered in his ear. Ranma shook his head and then looked around at the battlefield around him. His tear-stained eyes settled on the red crystal surrounding his baby. "Leave this to me... you help blow the rest of the hearts." Shaking off his sister, he stood up and faced his child. Sanma knew from the tone of his voice that Ranma wasn't going to change his mind. She rose to her feet with him. Silently, she watched him start to attack the red crystal with an assortment of chi attacks of different temperatures, power, and sizes. After several seconds of indecision about leaving him alone, a series of familiar screeches caught her attention. Glancing to the side, she saw parts of Buyierfei flying everywhere at the edge of the endless sea of them. she thought, realizing she had no choice but to leave Ranma. She leapt towards the remaining crystal hearts. -A- -M- -D- The battle continued, slowly wearing down the human fighters as the endless hordes of Buyierfei kept them on their toes. Kamajirou's sword sliced a tentacle off a Buyierfei, but missed the central mass entirely. "Crap..." he spat as he dodged the other fifteen tentacles. Nearby, the Amazon wielding the Bairenbixues was blur of motion as she plowed through an arc of Buyierfei, leaving decaying pieces of the enemy in her wake. Not a single motion of wasted as she dissected as many Buyierfei as the rest of her group did during this 'incursion' into the heart. The downward sweep of her right arm caught two Buyierfei in front of her and the upward sweep caught three to the side and one behind her. Her left arm usually mimicked the movements of the right, but in the opposite direction. The result was that she rarely had to dodge a tentacle aimed at her because the blades of her attacks caught either the tentacles themselves or the central mass of the tentacle's owner. As she completed her arc through the mass of Buyierfei, she and the others left a noticeable gap in the enemy. Unfortunately, Shuma noticed. Even as his neck slowly stitched itself back together, he saw what was happening to his daughters and lobbed a few black chi balls where he calculated the attackers would return to the heart. Kamajirou reappeared in the heart and saw a black chi ball rushing at him. "Look out!" he shouted as he stumbled backwards and avoided the black chi ball that crossed his path. Li-Wen and the two Amazons he fell onto were also saved from being consumed by the chi ball. One of the other members of Inferno Company wasn't as lucky. As the black fire consumed the unlucky young man, those around him tried to help, but only ended up burning their own hands. "Get back out of the heart!!" the Amazon wielding the Bai-bis shouted as she tried to keep the Buyierfei from swarming around her team. She succeeded, but not before she felt a tentacle slice through the back of her armor. "Argh...." Almost collapsing from the blow, she managed to jump into the air and follow her teammates out of the heart's aura. Dropping one of her Bai-bis in front of her, she bent over and breathed heavily. "Are you okay, Sore?" Pillow called out as she finished binding a wound on another Amazon's arm. "I will..." Sore coughed up some blood. "...survive." She grabbed her dropped weapon and rose to a full upright position. "We must alter our..." Before she could finish her statement, the heart erupted and rolled across the featureless landscape until it engulfed them all. Shuma cackled with his newly repaired throat. "Now you can't run away from my daughters, you vermin." He turned away from where his daughters were swarming around their prey and looked at Ranma. "Time to rid myself of another annoyance, I think." -A- -M- -D- Ranma blasted the red crystal with alternating hot and cold beams of energy, without affecting the heart at all. He was just about to call for Sanma's help again when he saw Shuma appear out of the sea of Buyierfei. "Welcome back, you gutless wonder." Shuma cackled in that deep resonating way that irritated Ranma no end. "I believe that's how I left the Un-Cute One... gutless." He looked to his left. Ranma followed his gaze and gasped when he saw that the outer aura of the heart had expanded to encompass the cat and mouse team while he had been trying everything he could think of to free his baby. More importantly, he could see the faint outline of the crashed helicopter in the far distance. "Akane..." he muttered as he realized that Akane was now within the heart's aura and thus easily seen by the thousands of Buyierfei all around them. "So go save your little Un-Cute bitch, while I consume your world with the help of your offspring." Ranma's heart thumped loudly. Ranma quickly assessed the situation over his next several heartbeats. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. His heart skipped a beat. Seeing dozens and maybe hundreds of Buyierfei headed towards the crashed helicopter, his rational thoughts left him. With a look of pure rage plastered across his face, Ranma leapt into the air and landed dozens of blows with his fists and feet against Shuma's body. Shuma deflected some and returned others in that same casual manner that always made Ranma madder. This time was no exception. Ranma landed blow after blow on the Buyierfeis' leader until Shuma finally started to back away under the intense beating Ranma was inflicting on him. Catching his opponent momentarily off balance, Ranma landed a kick to Shuma's side and sent him crashing into the red Core. Instead of being thrown instantly out the other side like he had been, Ranma was astounded to see Shuma float through the red crystal like it was thick water. Waves even appeared in the 'crystal' and spun his baby around. For the first time during the endless battle, Ranma's spirit surged. Even as Shuma tumbled out the other side of the heart covered in the red gooey substance that Ranma now knew made up the Core, Ranma was pressing his hand slowly into the red 'crystal'. He had only reached in up to his wrist before he was suddenly sucked in and thrown out the other side, colliding with Shuma's fist. "Did you really think it would be that easy?" Shuma mocked Ranma. -A- -M- -D- Akane screamed and tore her arms free of their gauze bindings even as Kasumi tried to calm her down. "You're going to rip open your stitches, Akane!!" she pleaded. A dozen meters away, Ukyo and Nipplering intercepted the wave of Buyierfei that had swarmed towards them after they were engulfed inside the aura of the heart. Ukyo waved her green-chi-charged battle spatula in front of her, slicing through Buyierfei after Buyierfei. Five meters to her side, Nipplering used her twin swords to cut down the advancing mass even as she glanced nervously at the slowing movements of her partner. Sending small chi balls rolling down the lengths of her swords, she alternately sliced and blew apart the enemy. Finally succumbing to her fatigue from giving blood to Akane, Ukyo dropped to her knees. Even as she did so, she continued slashing away at the enemy with her last ounces of energy. Stepping forward to put herself between the fallen Ukyo and the advancing enemy, Nipplering started to send out wide arcs of chi blasts. While this caused many of the Buyierfei to divide into smaller killing machines, it did slow down the enemy slightly. It also let some Buyierfei slip through the cracks. One of them sliced her chest plate, barely avoiding the breasts protected underneath. Even as she dispatched that attacker, she felt the air stir beside her. Unable to respond in time, she waited for death. Death found her would-be-killer instead as a chi ball tore through it. Dozens of similar chi balls flashed out around her, allowing her to advance and start slicing the attackers once again. A quick glance behind her confirmed who her savior was. Kasumi was sweating profusely as she held Akane's stretcher on its side, allowing her sister a clear field of fire towards the advancing horde of Buyierfei. She didn't want to do it, but knew her sister would just pull all her stitches out in order to fight if she had to. At least this way she might be able to keep her sister immobile enough in the stretcher to keep her alive. Emitting an almost inhuman snarl from her mouth, Akane flung chi ball after chi ball into the mass of glowing flesh that threatened them. The pain that rippled through her body with every movement just strengthened her resolve to keep fighting. That left Kasumi to worry about the bright red stain that was spreading down the formerly white bandages on her sister's stomach. "You're going to kill yourself!" Her words were lost on Akane. Akane's rage wouldn't be stopped by mere words. -A- -M- -D- Sanma and another Amazon had a heart between their hot and cold vortexes and could see the cracks snaking their way across the crystal surface. "Keep it up, Toepolish!!" On the opposite side of the heart, Toepolish opened her mouth to answer. Instead of her voice, blood erupted from it. A second later, a half dozen tentacles erupted from her chest. The hot beam of energy she was generating vanished as she crimpled to the ground in pieces. "Wha..." Sanma gasped as she felt the change in the ice pillar he was projecting. Instinctively, she leapt into the air just before the glowing Buyierfei swarmed around the edge of the crystal heart to attack her. A quick glance confirmed her suspicions about Toepolish's fate. As she arced over the top of the heart, she shifted her energy pillar from cold to hot and back again. By the time she landed, she had shifted the energy's temperature a dozen times. This wouldn't have done anything to an undamaged heart, but to a heart ready to blow from the stress of her and Toepolish's attacks, it was enough to shatter the heart. Putting up a green-shielded arm in front of her to protect herself from the flying shards, Sanma saw her former partner. She was the latest in a string of partners who had helped destroy the first twenty-four hearts. She was also the third one Sanma had seen give their lives for those twenty-four. she thought as she went in search of another heart to destroy. She glanced at Ranma and Shuma, wondering if Ranma could survive against the Buyierfei leader long enough for them to blow the last five hearts. -A- -M- -D- "Did you really think it would be that easy?" Shuma mocked Ranma. "No..." Ranma muttered, as he slowly scanned the battlefield around him. After seeing the carnage around him, he finally settled on Shuma's eyes. "Take me instead." Shuma frowned and tilted his head. Ranma took a deep breath. "Release my child and friends and take me instead." Shuma seemed surprised at the offer and chuckled softly. "So you've finally given up," he gloated, like he knew it would happen eventually. "No, I haven't." Ranma wiped the blood from his lips and stood up straight. "But the only way to save my baby is to take its place." Shuma cackled and took a step towards Ranma. "But the infant is so much more powerful than you are." Ranma frowned. "I doubt that. You always called my other children impure collectors." "Doubt what you will, but the Core is unique. You four pure collectors are powerful, but the Core was carefully bred to fuel our return." Ranma flinched and took a step back. "Bred?" Shuma smirked like he had already won. "When my son couldn't get to the Un-Cute One and harvest the fetus she was carrying, he infused the fetus with his energy... much like how I was formed from the fetus of the other collector." Ranma started to shake. "You're lying..." "No need to. That was how we found you outside that tasty all-we-could eat smorgasbord. The Core's energy is unique and quite recognizable to us no matter where you try to hide." Ranma leapt at Shuma, right foot first. "You bastard!!" Shuma casually sidestepped the attack, just as Ranma had expected. Tilting to the opposite side that Shuma had move to, Ranma's hand grazed the fluid crystal of the Core. Not enough to suck him through to the other side, but enough to alter his trajectory and allow him to kick Shuma in the stomach hard enough to rupture his internal organs. If he was human, that is. Shuma tumbled away from the force of the kick, but sprung to his feet after several of his daughters surrounded him. "Pointless... just as your attempt to hide from us was." "We weren't hiding!" Ranma spat as he circled the Core. "We were preparing to fight you!" Shuma cackled again. "You call what you are doing, fighting?" Shuma gestured around him. "There are always more hearts where these came from. With the Core, they are as easy to form as it is to kill you cattle." Ranma sneered at his opponent. "We're not dead yet." Glancing at the faint form in the red crystal Core that he knew to be his youngest child, he came to a decision. It was time. "Yet," Shuma repeated, making the simple word sound very ominous. Ranma reached into a pocket on his borrowed military uniform and togged a button on a hand radio they had salvaged from the crashed helicopter. They had found that it couldn't carry their voices over the heavily distorted signal caused by the same kind of interference that had cut off the soldiers in Las Vegas from their base, but it could be used to send simple tones. Two clicks. Followed by a pause and three clicks. Shuma heard the static filled clicks. "What is that in your pocket?" "You'll find out soon enough and you won't be happy to see it." -A- -M- -D- Despite her best efforts, several Buyierfei had slipped past Nipplering and Akane's rapidly diminishing blasts. Stumbling, the proud warrior almost earned her honor and joined her sister. Ukyo used the last of her strength to fling her battle spatula towards the Buyierfei that was about to gut the Amazon. The throw wasn't very powerful because Ukyo could only use her right arm since her left was hanging useless at her side after being broken by a Buyierfei intent on ripping her apart. She had been saved from that fate when Nipplering broke her last sword inside the Buyierfei's gut. Ukyo was more than glad to return the favor. As the giant spatula sliced through the Buyierfei, Nipplering was showered with black blood. Rolling to the side, Nipplering snagged the thrown spatula before it skidded away. Armed again, Nipplering took a single step towards the swarm of Buyierfei surrounding Akane and Kasumi. In the next heartbeat, spinning weapons appeared out of nowhere and sliced through the Buyierfei nearest to Akane. Two perfectly placed chi balls blew apart the ground under the other two that had slipped past Nipplering. The debris from the explosion quickly tore the flesh of the glowing Buyierfei apart, just as planned. Nipplering looked up to find out who their saviors were just before she was blasted off her feet by the sleek fighter jet that shot by. The F-35 wasn't going at its top speed, but still left quite a wide path of turbulence behind it. The front and rear blade throwers were dicing up glowing Buyierfei in front and behind it as it cleared a path through the enemy. While the initial hits had been carefully aimed to avoid hitting Akane and Kasumi, the F-35 gunner could now widen his hit zones to take out as many Buyierfei as possible in the area not occupied by the human fighters. "Fire two, and then I'll do a roll for our rear gunner," Captain Tyler commanded as he swung his aircraft around the backside of the hearts. "Roger," his gunner replied as the wind whipped around him through the open canopy. Triggering the launch of two high-yield, anti-Buyierfei, ground-to-air missiles, he gritted his teeth as the jet did a graceful roll to the side. Even through this, he carefully tracked the two missiles using his displays and altered their trajectory so they did the most damage when they hit. Their rear gunner used the roll as an opportunity to send a stream of chi balls at the Buyierfei directly below. "Splash seven!!" the redhead screamed from where she was tied into the improvised cradle made from the open canopy and various parts from the crashed helicopter. The two missiles exploded, sending gold and black flesh everywhere. "Splash a hundred!!" the gunner replied, glancing over his shoulder where Ranko sat strapped in the improvised gun turret with a twinkle in his eye. It was a good thing Ranko had an air mask over her mouth or the gunner might have seen the obscenity she mouthed. Not that he read lips, of course. Or understood Japanese, for that matter. -A- -M- -D- Shuma followed the F-35 with his eyes as soon as it had entered the heart's aura and started dissecting his daughters. The twin explosions on the other side of the Core from him shook him out of his surprised stupor. "What do you think you're doing to my daughters!!" He cupped his hand and started to form a large, black chi ball between them. Ranma had been waiting for Shuma to try something ever since the F-35 appeared inside the heart's aura. He jumped and kicked Shuma's hands just as the black chi ball was fired at the fighter jet. The new trajectory sent the chi ball racing at the corner of the red Core's edge. The impact and resulting explosion caused the red orb to begin to spin slowly, black vein-like cracks slowly snaking through the damaged section. Ranma smiled. Sneering at Ranma's smile, Shuma turned towards the battered martial artist. "The Core will heal itself soon enough-" Shuma jumped at Ranma. "-you won't!!" Ranma sidestepped and then threw several kicks at Shuma before spinning away from the enraged flailing of Shuma's arms. "Even in your own realm, we can surprise you." "Don't think that little toy will change the outcome of this fight... you will die by my hands." Shuma flinched as two hearts shattered under the attacks led by Sanma at the same time as a series of nearby explosions from the F-35's missile attacks. The resulting explosions sounded like fireworks amplified a hundred times over. "Maybe..." Ranma said as some carefully placed chi balls from Ranko sent Shuma crashing backwards, black blood spilling over the ground. "...but not today." -A- -M- -D- "Swing around again. We nail that fu..." Ranko said in broken English, trailing off when she saw something on the battlefield below. "TO YOUR LEFT!!" she screamed in Japanese. Having spent so much time training Mousse to fly, Captain Tyler had picked up enough Japanese to understand enough of Ranko's shout and looked to his left. "Crap..." Slipping his control stick to the left, he put his F-35 into a tight turn. He tried to be careful of his second gunner's position, but knew they had to pull off the maneuver to be of any use to those below. Ranko gritted her teeth at the increased Gs she suddenly was pulling, but prepared a large chi ball between her hands anyway. As soon as the turn ended, she released a carefully placed stream of chi balls at the glowing Buyierfei that she had seen surrounding a couple dozen Amazons and a handful of her students. On the ground, the Buyierfei had linked their tentacles together and formed almost a seamless ring around their prey. Their numbers were so great, that they had effectively made it impossible for those trapped in the center to escape. Those that had tried leaping out soon joined the others who had earned their honor during this battle. The Buyierfei were blasted apart by the chi balls and the resulting fragments started to writhe around as they were scattered by the explosions. Although now more in numbers, their former barricade of tentacles was no more. The large gaps allowed the trapped Amazons and members of Inferno Company the room to jump out of the mass of Buyierfei, using their bladed weapons to slice and dice the enemy as they went. Sore brought up the rear and kept a good deal of the Buyierfei at bay with her Bai-bis. So concerned with what was coming at them from behind the group, she missed a Buyierfei that had slipped behind her. Fortunately, Kamajirou did and managed to slice the central mass of the creature in two with a well-placed--but shaky--sweep of his sword. "I've got your back!!" he yelled in Japanese. Sore didn't understand what he said and didn't have time to worry about it. She continued to slash away at the enemy as the group made their way out of the high concentration of Buyierfei. That concentration was reduced significantly when two missiles fired from the rear launchers of the F-35 exploded and tore apart a couple hundred of the glowing creatures. -A- -M- -D- "Got the fuckers..." Lieutenant Bond spat as his rearview monitor showed the carnage his weapons had caused. "Nice shot, let's see what other damage we can do before we run dry," Captain Tyler said, as he glanced a the fuel indicator that was precariously near the line that would give him barely enough time to land his aircraft. Not that that would be easy after the damage done when they first landed in the Buyierfei's realm. After the monolith had swallowed him and his aircraft, Captain Tyler suddenly found himself alone in his F-35 without his gunner. That was nothing compared to the shock of the strange gray world. His navigational instruments and other gear couldn't even tell him which way was up. Only his own sense of the gravity in the strange shadowy realm had allowed Captain Tyler to right his aircraft and release the pressure on the straps that held him into his suddenly upside-down seat. It didn't take him long to realize that he was inside the monolith based on the reports of the interviews conducted with Ranma and the others. He quickly confirmed the information in those reports about the drifting shadows being the Buyierfei when he collided with several of them and spattered the black remains across his wingtips and sucked them into the plane's intakes. Both kinds of impacts quickly led to the normally silver hull being stained with black blood. When the shadows parted and revealed the vast wasteland he was in, the F-35's instruments finally identified the pulsating heart and crashed helicopter. He had initially tried to land near the helicopter--scaring the shit out of the people who had already congregated around the downed aircraft--but almost broke the F-35's landing gear when the soft ground absorbed the plane's forward momentum too fast and spun the aircraft to the side. After surviving the first attempt, Captain Tyler tried a slower approach a half-mile from the helicopter. He blew out all his tires, but using the directional jet attached at the front of his plane, he managed to safely land his prized possession. He made his way to the group gathering around the helicopter, where he was reunited with his missing gunner. As the plans for the battle unfolded, it was decided to use the F-35 as their ace in the hole. They knew Shuma wouldn't be expecting it and Ranko even suggested someone could ride along with the two pilots and fire chi balls from the air. She wasn't thrilled to be the one drafted to do it, but one game of rock-paper-scissors later she was helping Captain Tyler and Lieutenant Bond ransack the helicopter for parts and equipment needed to make the improvised cradle for Ranko and to make improvised skids for the landing gear. Those skids had gotten them into the air once they had received the signal and attack plan from Ranma over the radio, but didn't last long once they were in the air. The three riding in the F-35 were due for a very rough landing once their precious fuel ran out. They made every drop of that fuel count as they circled the Core and remaining hearts, blowing apart the glowing Buyierfei with glee. Ranko wasn't as gleeful once she had figured out that direct chi ball attacks didn't kill the glowing Buyierfei outright and usually just divided them into smaller killing machines. It took her a few blasts to adjust and figure out the best way to deal with these 'daughters', but she did find a combination that soon had her doing what she intended to do when she thought up this plan: Rain death down on the bastards that had stolen her wife's baby. She alternated between blowing apart the ground underneath the glowing Buyierfei--that tended to cause a great deal of collateral damage--and blowing off the tentacles. Doing the later may not kill them immediately, but it did make them a harmless blob of flesh that soon bled to death. The carnage continued from above, even as those fighting on the ground made progress against the enemy 'troops' and the three remaining hearts that circled the Core. -A- -M- -D- "Maybe..." Ranma said as some carefully placed chi balls from Ranko sent Shuma crashing backwards, black blood spilling over the ground. "...but not today." Shuma bent over and supported his wounded body with one arm as he reached the other into the gelatinous crystal that made up the Core. "Stop!" Ranma shouted, as Shuma seemed to glow red with energy drawn from the Core. He leapt into the sky and fired off a few well-placed chi balls at Shuma's head, back, and legs. He wasn't happy when they washed harmlessly over the Buyierfei leader's body. Shuma straightened up. "While I am in contact with the core, I am invincible!!" He thrust his free hand up towards the descending Ranma and projected a beam of red energy at his opponent. Unable to get out of the way, Ranma flung up his arms and tried to focus the green energy around his body. He managed to protect his chest and head, but felt the energy burn into his legs as he crashed to the ground beside Shuma. Rolling to the side, he screamed bloody murder and fired off a few chi balls to distract Shuma long enough for him to get reoriented. Glaring at Shuma through the green haze that now surrounded his entire body, he climbed wobbly back to his feet. "Bastard..." Shuma cackled. "You see... I can shield myself as well." From his position ten meters in front of Shuma, Ranma slipped his hand into his pocket and tapped out seven clicks on the hand radio. "Shield yourself from this, bastard," he said and pointed directly at Shuma and the Core hovering behind him. -A- -M- -D- "Is he nuts?!" Captain Tyler snapped as he looked down at Ranma's position. "Seven clicks means..." "Do it!!" Ranko snapped in English with enough conviction to make anyone poop in their pants. "My brother knows what he's doing." Captain Tyler didn't soil himself, but he had seen the redhead do some amazing things during their time in the air together and wasn't one to question someone with such conviction. Ranko took a deep breath and prepared herself. "Two second spacing, premature detonation, fox four!!" Captain Tyler yelled out to begin the attack. Lieutenant Bond ran his fingers over his armament keypads, entering the necessary commands to bring his weapons to bear as ordered. "Don't hit Ranma!" Ranko added as a swarm of multi-colored chi balls danced around her hands, throbbing with energy. "Fox one!!" Lieutenant Bond yelled as the first missile slipped out of the racks mounted underneath the fighter jet. A half dozen highly charged chi balls from Ranko trailed after it before the second missile was fired. "Fox two!!" Another missile and more chi balls made their way to their target. This sequence was repeated until the fourth missile was launched along with Ranko's final group of chi balls. Seven clicks. Blast Shuma with everything you can in the direction indicated. It was their plan of last resort. It was also accomplished on the last fumes of fuel available to the F-35. -A- -M- -D- Ranma felt the heat of the first missile's explosion, but very was surprised at how small the explosion was. He only had a half second to wonder about that before the two chi balls impacted and engulfed Shuma. That's when he realized why the explosions seemed to be so small in comparison to the other missile explosions. It was being absorbed into the protective shield around Shuma and funneled around him in order to protect him. Fortunately, the strength of the explosions and the added kick given by the chi balls overpowered the shield and allowed some of the destructive energy to reach the Buyierfeis' leader. He grinned wearily when he saw Shuma straining against the enormous energies assailing him. As the next missile hit, Ranma glanced over his shoulder and saw the F-35 veer off after firing the fourth missile. He thought as he turned around and saw the third missile and third volley of chi balls hit. Parts of Shuma's robes were on fire and hanging in tatters around his bruised and battered body. The flesh on his arms and stomach was beginning to burn. One second after the last missile and chi balls flashed over his head, Ranma took off running towards Shuma. The final missile and chi ball explosions left Shuma half embedded in the red crystal and bent over as he focused all his energy on keeping his broken body together. When Ranma barreled into him at full speed, he didn't have the ability to resist the momentum of the determined father. Ranma was screaming as he pushed his hated enemy savagely into the red fluidic-crystal Core. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't have avoiding going into the Core himself with all the momentum he had built up. When he felt the familiar sensation of being thrown out the other side, he broke his fall just as his father had taught him to and then sprung to his feet as fast as he could. He locked eyes with his nemesis for a spit second before he saw the most wonderful sight any father had ever seen. His baby. For the first time outside the 'womb' of the red Core. The final push from Ranma had sent Shuma plunging through the thick liquid Core where he collided with the small, innocent form that floated in the center. Like a billiard ball hit by a cue ball, the baby was knocked out of the center of the red sphere that had enclosed it ever since it was ripped from its mother's womb. Ranma leapt into the air and made a catch that only a father reaching for his falling baby could make. It was a catch that Ranma couldn't afford to miss. Ignoring the struggles of Shuma who was still stuck inside the red goo that made up the Core, Ranma tumbled across the ground with his newborn baby clutched protectively in his arms for the first time, red globs of goo still sticking to both of them was not unlike the blood of childbirth. Coming to a halt and breathing heavily, Ranma shouted into the air without even opening his eyes. "Blow... the rest... of the..." His eyes shot open as a cry emanated from his arms. "HEARTS!!!" *********************************************************************** >From the personal journal of James Davidson August 31, 2058 "Ranma managed to get the baby out and then they blew the rest of the hearts, but no one could guess what would follow..." I nodded, knowing at least some of the events that followed the explosion of the Eighth Monolith in that Nevada desert. I stood up and walked over to the bassinet where little Red was contently sleeping. "I can't imagine having that happen to my child... and it almost did when they attacked Tendo One." Kasumi nodded. "Yes, but Hanaki knows all that we've learned over the years. Even if she had been caught, there are ways to prevent the Buyierfei from... well... from getting to the fetus." I really didn't want to dwell on the subject. I already knew that by marrying into this family I put myself in danger, but when it came to my son I was not as brave. I reached out and stroked the small hand on my child. He's so small. "Jaki was probably lucky they were after Hanaki or they might have killed her right away." I looked up from little Red as something occurred to me. "Wait a second... the rear half of Tendo One exploded against the monolith." "That's right." "But you just told me that the F-35 and helicopter that got pulled into the Eighth Monolith were intact when they entered the Buyierfei's realm." Kasumi nodded. "That's correct. Unfortunately, the helicopter's pilot wound up somewhere else and the co-pilot wasn't able to adjust to the new environment fast enough and crashed. "So why did Jaki get sucked in to the monolith if the aircraft she was in exploded?" Kasumi thought for a moment. "From what they told me, the rear half of Tendo One started to disintegrate before hitting the monolith." "So the part with Jaki was sucked inside and the rest exploded across the surface? Makes sense, I guess." I looked back down at Red, who had slipped his little hand around my finger. "Maybe we should have waited a little longer..." I said, wondering if it was right to expose a baby to such dangers. "James... you can't stop living your life or the Buyierfei have already won by destroying your life." "I know..." "Unfortunately, I had to tell Akane that often during the Black Wars to keep her from giving up. It's never easy to lose a friend... a husband... or a child, but if you give up..." "There will be no future..." I finished Kasumi's statement, even as Red squirmed in his bassinet and yawned. "I wouldn't trade little Red for anything, but with the Buyierfei always trying to get a Tendo fetus to restore the Core and... I have to wonder if the world will ever be free of ..." I sighed heavily and adjusted the blanket over my child. "Sleep tight, my little one. The future holds great things for us all." "So, Kasumi, what..." I turned around and trailed off as I saw Kasumi slumped over in her rocking chair, snoring softly. I smiled and walked over to the sleeping woman. "Sleep tight, Kasumi. You've earned your rest," I said as I pulled a blanket up over her. As I silently picked up Red's bassinet and slipped out of Kasumi's suite, I looked across the lawn at Akane's modest little house. "And so have you, Akane." [End - Chapter 16] Coming soon: Chapter 17 - The Black Wars "From the Ashes..." ======================================================================= The real author's (Jim Lazar) notes/ramblings: Take a breath and hold until the next chapter, the wars are only beginning. Hiryu Hibashira Ha = Flying-Dragon Fire-Pillar Strike Hiryu Hyouchuu Ha = Flying-Dragon Ice-Pillar Strike I'd like to thank my pre-readers Michael A. Chase and Mish for helping me find and fix problems with this story. Thank you all. Of course in the end, any mistakes and botched characters are my fault. Revision 0.0 - Rough draft began (December 4, 2001) Revision 0.1 - Rough draft finished (February 8, 2002) Revision 0.3 - Pre-reader draft (February 15, 2002) Revision 1.0 - Final version (March 19, 2002) Revision 1.1 - First RAAC posting (July 23, 2002)