Bleach Fan Fiction / One Piece Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Dimensional Warriors: Assorted Stories ❯ The Tower ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Piccolo
I could feel my blood pulse as familiar lusts ran through my body, battle, blood, glory; things I had for a long time now repressed ever since reuniting my split body. Now however, these feelings would be one of my greatest weapons. I marched in alongside the Demon tribes, though I had long disillusioned myself of being a demon, I still looked demonic enough for the humans to shun me.

Leading the murderous pack were some of the stronger fighters, InuYasha, Sesshoumaru, Hiei and Kurama, to name a few of the ones I recognized. Once the signal was sent out, the creatures around me scrambled forward towards the fight, already succumbing to their instincts. I took to the skies, wanting to pick a tactical position to let loose in.

I rapidly spotted a problem area; near the base of the wall was a small group of roughly five Solarus, their black armor striped with golden lines. Rather than wielding the usual array of guns, they were launching waves of light into the oncoming crowd; forcing the frontrunners back as they tried to block the blows. I took advantage of my flight, staying out of range long enough to drop straight down on the group.

They moved away from my landing site and surrounded me. I felt rather than looked for the first movement, predictably it came from behind. I shifted to one side, letting a piercing beam of light fly through my white cloak and sped towards one of the other ones. It simply griped the blast, redirecting it back towards me. I shifted quickly again, this time looking to get within striking distance of one of them; but they circled slowly out of reach, reflecting the blast again towards me; before another one opened fire.

It didn't take them long to realize the only way to pressure me was to have five of these blasts flying around at once, and even then I was barely breaking a sweat. Still, they shared the normal Solarus' endurance and had no sign of fatigue as they continued to fire at me.

I took a spare moment to focus a little energy as a test and fired. Sure enough, the Solarus blocked the attack and threw it back at me. It was physical attacks or bust, so I grabbed my weighted turban and tossed it towards the closest one. Immediately I used my heightened speed to gain on one of them, easily puncturing its armor with my hand.

With another clean movement I removed my slightly shredded cape, taking out a second one in the process. The other three quickly clumped together, uniting their hands to fire a much larger blast of light. I sidestepped a good distance, before closing the gap again, finishing off the remaining three in one clean blow.

Only then did I realize there was a collection of normal Solarus, sights leveled on me.

Renji
“Bankai!” I called to my blade as I charged through the swarm of Solarus; mere meters away from the high wall. In a single motion my now enormous blade swept low, following my thoughts, and smashed into the stone.

“The path is clear! Push in!” I heard the order come from behind and charged forward, Solarus were scrambling all over to try and block the gap. They fell easily and we were in.

The city was packed with demons and machines, all intent on stopping our advance; all too weak to make a difference. But as I swung out, something stopped my blade. I looked across the clearing, spotting a silver armored creature. Twin long blades extended from its wrists. Large gaps were missing from the armor, filled with only air. It pushed back against my bankai, shifting it to one side before walking out from under my behemoth blade.

“To your left!” I heard Byakuya scolding me from behind as a small wave of his own bankai appeared to one side. I saw another silver creature hesitating on the other side. Byakuya stepped next to me, obviously focused on the one to my left. I quickly returned my attention to the one in front, only to come face to face with the thing.

I stepped backwards on instinct, the creature's blade cut deep into my side. I swung my blade, forcing the creature to jump to avoid the wide blow. To my left Byakuya had engaged the other one more directly, and it was proving to be just fast enough to avoid his attacks.

I tried to make some distance between myself and my assailant, but it rapidly cut off my escape routes at every turn. Desperate I drew my blade in close to make, forcing the extreme length to coil around my body, shielding me. With a few quick strikes it separated the pieces of my blade and closed in again. There was no way I could win at this range; and I retreated again, leaping cleanly onto the surrounding buildings. I spotted Byakuya having similar trouble nearby, and I caught his eye.

In a flash of insight I knew what to do. I swung my blade out, abandoning all defense as the pieces reconnected, energy pulsing through the entire blade. In an instant the head of my sword caught the silver creature, tormenting Byakuya, in its jaw.

“Hikotsu Taiho!” I called, funneling energy down Zabimaru's length, where at the end it formed a wide beam, encompassing its target and disintegrating it. In the same moment, the creature that had been tormenting me had come up and was seconds away from slicing me in two when it vanished inside a cloud of Byakuya's cherry blossoms.

“Let's continue to the tower.” He said, appearing next to me. I tied some cloth to my side and nodded.

Ranma
Solarus were obviously built for their numbers, not their strength. This thought occurred to me as my fist tore clean through what must have been my hundredth kill today. I say kill, but I have to wonder; all thats in them is an already dead soul, right? Not really killing anything, just more like demolition. Anyway, a large group of us got all the way up to the tower without too much trouble.

As I prepared to head up I noticed the base of the tower was already crawling with Mobians and Demons. Up the stairs I could see Sonic and InuYasha leading the pack. To the north I could see Ichigo on his way as well, so I bounded up to help out with taking the stairs.

As we went up Sonic suddenly shushed the group, pointing to a door. With a few seconds of silence we could hear someone yelling.

“I don't care what the repercussions are, activate the Crystals or we're all going to die here!”

“Eggman.” Sonic muttered. “Lets get 'im!” He yelled, kicking the door in. I piled in after him to see a rather fat, bald man standing as if waiting for us.

“Oh ho! I thought you might be alive. Especially since Shadow was still running around last I checked; unless the General Sai got him? No I guess I wouldn't be that lucky. Still you are too late Hedgehog!” He half turned to the panel behind him. “As you can see I was tasked by a powerful force to awaken this egg; now watch its birth into this world, and my ascension into godhood!” He slammed his fist onto a panel, and a podium behind him lit up. On it I could see the three missing Chaos Crystals, and in the center a black orb.

I felt a tug in my pocket, and reached down. The Chaos Crystal I had been given was pulling away.

“Shit!” I wasn't the only one either, Sonic, InuYasha and Ichigo were all scrambling to hold onto the crystals left in their care.

“What's this!?” Eggman watched as the crystals slowly moved towards each other, as if obeying their own will. He seemed to realize he was in danger and fled into a hidden door.

Slowly the crystals gathered around the black orb, it began glowing with a black light and then it started to grow. Soon a body was visible, human, pale and thin. The orb became a dark robe, gently lying over this unhealthy looking person. He hovered in front of us for a moment, his face emotionless, then without a hint of his motives he flew upwards, through the ceiling.

“We gotta stop that thing!” Ichigo yelled, beginning to charge towards the stairs again. As we went up we spotted a room where Leukos and Zephos had crashed a ship, behind us Neko and Thorium paused.

“You guys go on ahead, we'll handle things here.” They said, slipping into the room. We continued upward.

“Wah hahaha! Again you step into my trap Hedgehog!” Eggman was sitting in a small pod in the center of the circular room, no sign of the creature could be seen.

“Where's that thing that was inside the orb!” InuYasha yelled.

“So you think you can best me again Hedgehog?” I scowled, finally tired of this lunatic I charged into the room. He grinned and tapped a few buttons on his controls. The entire room lit up, tubing flooded the room, knocking me off my feet and connecting itself to his pod. The air was thick with long tentacle-like appendages.

As a small group of us gathered, trying to figure out how to handle this threat, the ceiling pulled itself off, floating into the air and drenching us in rain. I felt my body shift as I was drenched.

“P-Chan!” I heard Akane yell suddenly behind me.

“Dammit Akane! What are you doing here!” I yelled turning to see her cuddling Ryoga's cursed form.

“I was so worried, what are you doing here!”

“Now's not the time to be coddling him! I think 'P-Chan' should head out to the cliffs and get out of the way!” I said giving a dangerous look to Ryoga's cursed form. He nodded his little head and hopped out of Akane's arms.

“Be careful!” she called after him. As he disappeared down the stairs I felt my body becoming heavier, it seemed everyone at the top felt it.

“That... That pressure, it's like spiritual pressure back where I come from.” Ichigo said, showing obvious effort in standing up.

“The orb, whatever was in it is up in there now!” Goku said, having landed some time ago. “And it's just growing in strength.” I could see energy radiate from him as he took off towards the adrift piece of rock.

“Someone's gotta stay behind and deal with Eggman.” Sonic said.

“Don't worry, I'll handle him.” Shadow said, patting Sonic on the shoulder. “You go on up there. I doubt Goku can handle that alone.” Sonic nodded and launched himself upwards, I saw him grip onto a piece of rubble and spring up the falling chunks towards the rock. Mentally I could see my own path up. Ichigo suddenly flew up after the others as well, followed closely by a chain of Naruto clones.

“Keh, they aren't leaving me outta this.” InuYasha said, taking off towards the rubble.

“I'm going to end this!” Luffy yelled, stretching out and clamping onto the platform. Yusuke quickly grabbed onto his back and was carried up with the rubberman.

“Ranma...” I turned to see Akane, looking determinately at me. “Go for it. I can handle things here, you know I'm stronger now.”

“Akane.”

“Go, you're place is up there. They'll need your help.” I was reluctant, but she was right. I nodded and found my path, leaping up after the others.

Akane
“So you believe I will be that simple to take down Shadow?” Eggman was taunting us again. “Well, the good sir Avarus gave me a few gifts for helping him out here. One of them being this tower!” The tubing coming from his little cockpit went taunt across the ground; shimmering with electricity. A few seconds later, the ground began moving. His cockpit rose up, and walls began circling upwards towards it. He was going to seal us up in here.

“Move!” Shadow said, grabbing me and leaping out the closing walls. We fell for a few seconds when a man I recognized as Tien grabbed onto Shadow.

“Gotcha!”

“Put us down over there!” Shadow yelled up over the slowly increasing storm. We settled down on the roof of a building below us the streets were filling with water, it might have been close to ankle deep already. Above us the whole tower was moving as four pillars running the length of the tower became visible and moved away of their own accord. The outer wall seemed to form plating as it shifted, leaving a skeleton of the former tower behind. I could see Neko and the others fighting at the new top; meanwhile Eggman's machine settled down. The four enormous legs consisted the bulk of the craft, but all along those legs were plates and I could make out gun turrets along move of the machine. At the top rested the comparatively small cockpit.

“What's the plan?” I asked turning to Shadow.

“Usually when he gets these big things we just climb on top of them and make our way to the cockpit. But those legs are a sheer climb, and without the Crystal there's no way I could run all the way straight up.”

“There's several of us that can fly up there though.” Tein said.

“Not the best idea, there's a lot of turrets waiting for anyone to get close, any minute now they'll go online and we'll be flying through a storm of bullets.”

“Then we need a distraction.” I pointed out. “Some one who can fly fast enough to draw fire while someone else gets flown up.” Shadow nodded a little thinking.

“The problem is we've got to rely on the natural fliers, the airships have been grounded by the storm.” Tien said.

“We might be able to cripple it though if we can get close enough.” I turned to the new voice to see Piccolo standing behind us. “Those legs are fairly bulky, but they taper down to a much smaller point near the top.”

“We might even be able to cut through down here if we put enough muscle into it. We surely have enough.” Tien said.

“Let's start there then, if we can do some damage at the base we might be able to stop it immediately. Or at least cripple it enough to get higher.” Shadow said. “Go gather the strongest people still able to fight, we might be able to take this thing apart, even if its piece by piece!”
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