Iczer-one Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ The Earth Child ❯ Showdown of the Avatars ( Chapter 41 )

The Earthchild

 

(An Iczer/Ranma/Sailor Moon Crossover)

 

Written by

Jim Robert Bader

 

Proofread by

Shiva Barnwell

 

(Inspired by the works of Rumiko Takahashi,

Naoko Takeuchi, Toshihiro Hirano, & Hitoshi Okuda,

with ideas and suggestions by TH Tiger and Johannes Huber)

 

 

 

 

 

“Is this the best that you can do, False Mother?” Iczer Two asked in cold disdain for the deadly array of defensive systems that were pointed right at her.

 

“It is more than adequate for dealing for most ordinary nuisances, true,” Big Gold replied, “But you deserve a special fate for all the trouble that you have caused me, Daughter...and I assure you, I most certainly am your mother regardless of what those C'thuwulf hags may have said to misinform you.”

 

“You may have created me to be your weapon,” Iczer Two replied, “But you are not my mother. I was born from the cellular matter of my real mother, Commander Cobalt. You used the Iczerio to clone me, but I am now and have always been my own woman.”

 

“Not so,” Big Gold replied, “Cobalt was merely one half of your parentage...but some of my genetic material was added to your own, making you both a hybrid and---in a very real sense---my biological daughter.”

 

“I see,” Iczer Two said grimly, lowering her gaze, “Then what I have suspected all alone is true...but it amounts to nothing. You may have helped to give me life, but it was a life devoted to the service of your evil, and I was never truly alive under you. I was flawed and imperfect...”

 

“You were perfection!” Big Gold countered, “You may bear the taint of humanity, but you are far more than Cobalt could ever have been, and she was the best of what the C'thuwulf had to offer. I know not why you turned against me, but while you were in my service you were my greatest of creations...”

 

“Then why was I so handily defeated by my sister?” Iczer Two replied, “If I was so much superior to her construction, why did she thrice defeat me in battle?”

 

“I do not know,” Big Gold replied, “It has perplexed me all these years, this riddle of how Iczer One could have bested you, though I suspect it had something to do with the human with whom she was partnered. Kano Nagisa was most exceptional for a human...though not much to look at on the surface, she had resources that allowed her to tap into the Iczerio to a degree not known by other humans...”

 

“Other humans have since proven to be just as adept as she at providing an interface for the Iczerio,” Iczer Two contradicted, “But then again...by now you already have learned that.”

 

“Yes,” Big Gold replied, “An oversight that I did not foresee this, that humanity might breed others who had the same potential as Nagisa. But still there is time enough to correct that oversight, and once I have the other partners under my control...”

 

“Forget about that,” Iczer Two replied, “You are through making decisions that affect the lives of others...Mother. I am here to put an end to your career once and forever...”

 

“A mighty boast,” Big Gold sneered, “But do you honestly think that you have what it takes to defeat your own mother?”

 

“I know that I bear the shame of having been created by you,” Iczer Two replied, “To have the taint of your genes polluting my matrix is abhorrent to my very nature. You are a filthy virus with delusions of godhood, a failed experiment gone horribly awry, the ghost of a long dead race whose folly lead to their own destruction. And yes...I know beyond question that I have what it takes to bring an end to you, Mother. You are a flawed embarrassment and you will taint the lives of innocent people no more...”

 

“Now you go too far,” Big Gold hissed, “I am more than merely some virus implanted in the seed of a long-extinct race, Daughter. I have incorporated the knowledge of the C'thuwulf into my very being...”

 

“But nothing of their heart,” Iczer Two replied, “Nothing of the soul of what means to be C'thuwulf. No sense of art or culture, no understanding of what it means to be alive, to have value and purpose. You are cold and unfeeling, a cancer in the very bosom of this world...”

 

“SILENCE!” Big Gold imperiously declared, “I will hear no more of your insolence! Daughter or not, you are here to be recycled, nothing more, and I will decide what is to be your fate and what form you shall next take when I use you to destroy those pitiful humans you embrace as your pets...”

 

“With what?” Iczer Two said scornfully, “The humans you so despise have a term for this, Mother...you and what army?”

 

“DIE!” Big Gold declared, unleashing the defensive weaponry of her audience chamber at Iczer Two, both energy bursts and tensor fields that would have reduced even a combat Mechanoid to constituent DNA, but when the lightning show had passed and the haze of ozone was subsided Iczer Two remained calmly where she was, not even slightly affected.

 

“I repeat my earlier query,” Iczer Two remarked, “Is that really the best that you can do...Mother?”

 

Rather than react in surprise Big Gold merely narrowed her eyes and said, “Impressive...you withstood enough force to tear even your Iczer Robo to pieces...your strength has increased geometrically from what I remember...”

 

“The me that you knew died long ago,” Iczer Two replied, “She died in battle with my sister...I am the phoenix that rose from the ashes to replace her.”

 

“Neos thought she had a use for you,” Big Gold remarked, “What a pity you disappointed her, just as you disappointed me, though I fail to understand why you would squander your strength helping those weak and genetically flawed humans...”

 

“You wish to know why?” Iczer Two replied, “The answer is that I love humanity, and I love them even when they are weak and flawed, imperfect and inferior...because in each and every human there exists the spark for greatness.”

 

“Rubbish!” Big Gold sneered, “They prey upon each other like wolves, victimizing the weak so that the strong may rise and assume a place in their social hierarchy. They coddle the worthless dregs who infest their slums, squander resources on the old and decrepit, nurture the genetically flawed and spurn the very science that could make their lives richly better if they would only cast off their maudlin sentimentality and superstitious dread of ancient tribal spirits. Even their leaders are chosen from the inbred cast of social parasites they call their elite ruling classes, and in the end they are selfish, petty, short-sighted individualists without a dram of social cohesiveness for all their pretense towards an overarching corporate structure...”

 

“There are such imperfections in humanity in a general sense,” Iczer Two noted, “But you see only the reflection of your own warped values. There is far more to humanity than you can ever know...so much of life that is beyond your understanding, your weak grasp of the true nature of the Iczerio, and your limited perceptions of worth and relativism.”

 

“You think to lecture me about these primitive creatures?” Big Gold scoffed.

 

“I think to do so would be a waste of time since you are incapable of grasping even the most elementary concept of what it means to be alive,” Iczer Two replied, “For I would be lecturing to the mother of all parasites, and that is true folly.”

 

“Now you truly are becoming quite annoying,” Big Gold sneered, “I know all that I need to know of humanity in order to rule them. But come, Daughter...do not scorn what I am and what I have accomplished. See here...this is but one complex of many through which I control a whole world. From here I have mastered the resources of an entire planet, converted entire cities into factories and have evolved myself to my present ultimate structure...”

 

“You boast of this?” Iczer Two disdained, “What of the lives you have ruined in order to achieve your goals? What of the humans who slave in your gene factories as workers and drones? What care you of the breeding stock that you use to perpetuate your army? Is humanity nothing more to you than yet another resource to be exploited and discarded? Do you see nothing more in their individual lives than yet another tool to be serviced and squandered?”

 

“That is their function in this world,” Big Gold replied, “They are graced to service my need for raw genetic material with which to create my legions. They should feel graced to be found useful at all when I harvested this world and made it the new seat of my absolute power...”

 

“They would be better graced by death,” Iczer Two pronounced, “But then again...that is the true secret behind this chamber of horrors that you call your citadel of power. None of this is truly real...this is a shadow world created by you out of the raw clay of subspace using the imprint of the former reality that my sister left behind when she recreated reality and excluded you from it!”

 

“You know this much?” Big Gold's eyes narrowed even more, “Then you know why I must conquer and dominate the Earth plane...”

 

“Because this reality is unstable,” Iczer Two explained, “It is held together mainly by the force of your will, and were it to come apart then you would have nothing, no reality whatsoever, and might even cease to exist with all the rest of your creations.”

 

“I am not a flawed and helpless being who can be put aside like that!” Big Gold haughtily declared, “I am the Incarnation, the very embodiment of the World Computer left behind on the now-extinct C'thuwulf homeworld...”

 

“You are nothing more than the corruption that infested a clone of our chief scientist the true Gold, in whose image you were copied,” Iczer Two scoffed, “My sister was right to exile you to this Null space that is your prison. Such a thing as you has no right to even exist in our world, no more than you have any right to inflict your poisonous presence on our reality...”

 

“And what of you, Daughter?” Big Gold countered, “Do you have any right to exist since you are dependent on my having existed for your very creation?”

 

For the first time Iczer Two hesitated, but only for a second, “It is true...Neos Gold reconstituted me from the ashes of this shadow-world that I might serve her, the true legacy of your infection of the homeworld. I should not even exist given the logic that I was born to be your champion...but my reality was affirmed through the use of the Iczerio. I was given new life by the source of all the C'thuwulf power, and when I met my partner...then I truly became alive. I exist now because I define myself by what I am and by my actions, by the people whom I interact with and who acknowledge my existence. As such I have far more right to exist than you, and I have a place in the greater scheme of things. I am the Defender of life, and I live to protect my chosen people.”

 

“A noble speech,” Big Gold disdained, “A pity such sentiments are wasted.”

 

Once again the concealed weapons within the room came into play, gravity generators and force protectors that battered down upon the Iczer without warning or relent...but all this did was cause Iczer Two to square her stance and cross her arms over her chest, holding on in spite of the crushing pressure and ignoring the bombardment of the energies being directed upon her.

 

“How do you like the feeling of one hundred time the gravity of Earth being employed against you, Daughter?” Big Gold sneered, “A single strand of your hair now weighs the equivalent of a ton, and were I not reinforcing the floor beneath you your feet would go crashing down to the Earth's core. Shall I make the pressure even more terrible...say a thousand times Earth's gravity? Even more?”

 

Iczer Two made a small sound as she felt herself being slammed by the new energies, but again she held out and ignored the crushing pressure, summoning her Iczerio ki and drawing upon the true source of her internal power, the warming glow that was Sayoko.

 

All at once she cried out and threw her hands wide, unleashing her power in a massive burst that reverse the flow of the room's energy and bent the gravity and force projectors against themselves so that they shorted out altogether.

 

“WHAT?” Big Gold reacted, “But how...?”

 

“Pitiful fool,” Iczer Two said contemptuously, “Do you think your petty treachery could impress me? You are playing well beyond your ken, Virus, if you think to bring to bear sufficient energy to match what I have become.”

 

“Your strength...it far exceeds that of any mere Iczer,” Big Gold surmised, “But how? You could only be drawing this power from a direct line to your partner, but I know that she is not with you now...or is she? Can it be? Even you would not be that ruthless...”

 

“Try me,” Iczer Two made a point of cracking her knuckles, “Do you recall the power that defeated you once in the past? The same power that remade an entire world and excluded you from it?”

 

“You are synchronized?” Big Gold sounded more awed than frightened, “Then you are the very embodiment of the power...”

 

“I am far more than you could ever hope to understand,” Iczer Two replied, “I am the true incarnation, the living embodiment of the Iczerio itself, and as such your executioner...Mother...!”

 

Saying this Iczer Two balled a fist and drove it forward, only to encounter resistance as yet another field of energy sprang up in the space before her, a force that resisted even the incredible discharge of energy that she unleashed in the next second.

 

This time it was Iczer Two who expressed surprise, “What...?”

 

All at once a hand gripped her...a hand as large as her head, and Big Gold gripped her daughter tightly by the throat, lifting her from the floor with an ease that an adult might display with a mere child, her body being huge and massive, far larger than Iczer Two at over nine feet in height.

 

“Did you think I had learned nothing in over twenty earth years of planning?” Big Gold sneered, throwing her own fist forward and unleashing a blast far more intense than what Iczer Two had used against her. But---to her amazement---Iczer Two twisted out of her grip and planted a kick that connected solidly with her head and forced the giant incarnation to stagger several steps backwards.

 

“I had been prepared for that possibility, yes,” Iczer Two smiled confidently, “But it hardly matters if you think that you are prepared to do battle with me. I am still beyond your understanding, Old Woman, and I know that whatever you try will still avail you nothing.”

 

Big Gold roared as she charged her body up and fired a point-blank burst that would have exploded through a moon-sized object and did considerable damage to one portion of the throne chamber, literally bursting a wall outward, though her actual target was nowhere within the radius of destruction. The golden hued giant barely had time to register this when Iczer Two appeared directly behind her, and then the redhead plunged her own fists forward, driving her hands at great speed to land a series of focused blows all along he length of Big Gold's undefended backside.

 

“KACHU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN RYU!” she cried as a final fist sent Big Gold hurtling into the roof of her own citadel, the very force of her blows ringing like the sonic boom of a speeding comet. Big Gold barely at time to rebound off the ceiling, surprised more than stunned at the sudden abuse that she had taken, only to find the knee of her reputed daughter being driven into the small of her back with force enough to bend her spine double. She only had a moment to register this fact when Iczer Two was suddenly above her and driving both fists together in a piledriver smash that sent the golden incarnation crashing through the floor and into the underground basement.

 

Iczer Two teleported to where her foe finally came to a rest, seeing the giant pick herself up off the floor with dismay plain enough in her expression. Though yet sneering and haughty, there was new appreciation of just how formidable her own creation had become, though disbelief yet prevented her from accepting the fact that she was vastly overmatched in this encounter.

 

“You truly are a fool if you think this will defeat me,” Big Gold sneered.

 

“And you truly are a fool if you believe that you have any chance of defeating me,” Iczer Two countered, “For ten years I have been preparing myself to defeat you. Even though I did not believe you still lived, still some part of me knew that the virus that made you would not die as easily as had seemed to be the case. In truth, you have lived up to my worst expectations of you, Mother, and that is why you must be destroyed utterly this time. I have anticipated you well and now stand ready to defeat you.”

 

Big Gold rose to her feet and sneered, “Then take your best shot at me, Daughter.”

 

“All right,” Iczer Two brought her hands together and cupped them into a ball, forming a sphere of force between her hands as she said, “I will!”

 

The giant tensed in readiness to meet this new attack, but to her surprise the Bioroid aimed her energy ball not at the obvious target but rather at a nearby wall, the force released shattering through steel and reinforced bio-plastics as if they were mere paper and wood projects on a Hollywood soundstage, revealing the chamber beyond, which had been concealed behind the false partition.

 

“NO!” Big Gold roared as she realized the true intentions of her opponent, but when she tried to close upon the Iczer, her foe savagely back-handed her and sent the golden giant crashing backward the full length of the complex. A second hurled energy ball was sent hurtling after her, to explode moments later with force enough to send Iczer Two's hair whipping sideways.

 

“As I said, a foolish gesture,” Iczer Two remarked as she strode forward, entering the adjoining room and at once taking in the vast array of machinery before turning her eyes at a single egg-shaped cubicle held suspended within a high-tech assembly.

 

“Nagisa...” Iczer Two stared in undisguised horror at the body floating inside the bio-preservative chamber, a body rent and abuse from years of organ harvesting and cellular plunder, not even truly alive in her state of non-decomposition, but surely not living with so many important pieces missing.

 

“I am impressed, Daughter,” a new voice said resonantly from a larger wall complex off to one side, “You found your way here against all my probable calculations.”

 

“It was easy enough to deduce that you were not fool enough to manifest yourself directly in an audience chamber, Mother,” Iczer Two replied, cold fury making her words seem devoid of actual emotion, “Your little trick of hiding behind the curtain while that useless puppet of yours performed as a distraction could not deceive me for very long. I knew before coming here that you have had many years to prepare for such a one as I to come pay you a visit, and I have had the benefit of probing the memories of at least some of your agents to learn the pertinent details that I needed in order to interface with your computer systems.”

 

“You mean...you hacked into my database?” Big Gold seemed genuinely surprise at this revelation.

 

“I only had to keep you talking while I scanned this complex to determine where the real you was hiding,” Iczer Two replied, “Fortunately I do know how you love the sound of your own voice, and while you thought you had me at a disadvantage I was planning each move with the aim of finding this complex.”

 

“And now that you are here?” Big Gold remarked.

 

“Now is where it ends,” Iczer Two replied, turning a sad look towards Nagisa, “And where twenty years and more of injustice finally meet their resolution. It is for this purpose that I linked with Sayoko, to fully Synchronize so that we could defeat you together.”

 

“You...you cannot do that!” Big Gold declared as she belatedly realized what the Iczer was intending.

 

Iczer Two's hand flashed forward and an explosive force roiled down her arm and off the tips of her fingers in a wave of force that took out more than half of the underground complex. When at last the dust and plasma settled there was an extremely large hole where Nagisa's remains had been floating, to say nothing of the machinery that had sustained her. A look of infinite sadness was in the crimson eyes of her executioner as Iczer Two softly murmured, “Goodbye, old friend...rest in peace...you have earned it.”

 

An incoherent cry rose up from within the machinery complex on Big Gold's end of the room, and all at once panels slid back and revealed a complex of machinery from which a cradle emerged, a huge hand reaching out to snare Iczer Two in its grip before she had time to avoid it as a crab-shaped mecha bearing Big Gold's incarnation snarled viciously, “YOU WILL PAY FOR DOING THAT!!! FOR THIS YOU WILL TRULY SUFFER!!!”

 

“More theatrics, Old Woman?” Iczer Two glared as she felt the crushing force applied to her body, but with a single surge of effort she freed her arms and shattered the hand that had held her, moving in closer to the chest of the Mecha and ripping it apart with her bare hands as though it were a child's toy cobbled together from used pieces.

 

Inside was revealed yet another Bioroid Avatar of the sinister virus, and this one had only seconds to live before Iczer Two drove her beam-saber clean through the head, then moving it to bisect the incarnation as the rest of the Mecha fell away into pieces.

 

Iczer Two then turned to confront the chamber beyond where this guardian had been situated and said, “It is over...you have lost.”

 

“FOOL!” echoed the booming voice of a computer-generated image, “I AM PART AND PARCEL OF THIS WORLD! I INHABIT EVERY FRAME AND CENTIMETER! I AM THE PLANET DOWN TO ITS VERY CORE! DESTROYING A MERE ASPECT OF ME WILL NOT HARM MY ULTIMATE NATURE!”

 

“Yes, I know,” Iczer Two replied, “This world is your creation, it is a shadow-realm created by your malevolence and you infest it with your evil, but that is your mistake and your ultimate undoing.”

 

“EH?” the malevolent image glaring down at her with hate and cunning, “WHAT ARE YOU---“

 

Iczer Two did not waste further words as she rushed into the chamber, encountering a wall of heavy forcefield resistance as she threw herself into the task of overcoming these last defenses. Slowly by inches she moved nearer to her goal with her fist aimed squarely at the center of the image.

 

All at once tentacle-like arms snared out to wrap around her, energy coils that caught Iczer Two in their grip and pulled her back from the energy field with titanic might that threatened to crush her or rip her to pieces.

 

“YOU THINK YOU CAN DESTROY ME???” Big Gold sneered, “I AM ETERNAL! I CAN NEVER BE DESTROYED!!!”

 

To her surprise Iczer Two just smiled, grit her teeth and said, “That is where you are wrong, Mother. You are already dead...you just don't realize it yet.”

 

“EH?” something in that confident declaration caused Big Gold to divert her attention away from her immobilized daughter to sense an anomaly that was disturbing her consciousness. To her dismay she found that many systems were already off-line, and that entire sections were shutting down as though something were interfering with her controls and rendering numerous systems non-responsive.

 

“WHAT HAVE YOU...?” she started to ask when the answer came to her, “YOUR ICZER-ROBO!”

 

“Precisely!” Iczer Two declared with a triumphal smirk, “You fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book, Mother...bait and switch. While you diverted attention towards me, my Beta Unit has been initiating the true threat against you. We call it the Anti-Gold Virus...and I think you will find it is most effective.”

 

“NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!” Big Gold cried out as she finally realized the magnitude of her error. She had been secretly sending out her tendrils and drones in an attempt to absorb the giant mecha, and she had been amazed at how little was the resistance guarding its onboard systems, so much so that she had thought to take it over.

 

Only now she realized just who exactly had been taken to the cleaners with this scheme. As her units had been working to absorb the giant mecha, the Mecha's own onboard systems had been pumping out different components of the anti-virus, allowing those to be integrated into those systems used to probe its memory and database, fragments which---when combined---formed like a binary component of a far larger set of command routines. To her amazement she found herself staring at the virtual equivalent of a multi-headed hydra, a complex array of diabolically clever subroutines that shorted out and canceled every bit of Gold's personality matrix that these rapidly disseminating worm programs encountered.

 

“You are dying, Old Woman,” Iczer Two informed her, “Betrayed by your own treachery...and the irony of it is that a mere human designed this program...and that you let it into your own Matrix! You have passed it along through your own filters, and now that it is within you it is spreading to infect every part of your overall system!”

 

“YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!” Big Gold cried in outrage, seeking to redouble her effort as she coiled her magnetically controlled tendrils and sought to tear her synthetic daughter apart, “DIE, DAMN YOU, DIE!!!”

 

To her amazement Iczer Two flexed her arms and tore those tentacles out of their moorings, crying out, “I HAVE NO INTENTION OF DYING AT YOUR HANDS, OLD WOMAN---BUT YOU CAN TASTE MY FINAL GIFT TO YOU, CARE OF THE WOMAN I LOVE MORE THAN MY OWN LIFE! CHOKE ON THIS---THE HUMANITY YOU SPURN---AT THE HANDS OF A FULLY SYNCHRONIZED ICZER!!!!”

 

With that she plunged her fist into the matrix of the Virtual Big Gold, unleashing the emotions that she had been holding in check the entire time, for the first time allowing herself to experience the full range of sensations that Sayoko had given her, which flowed through her systems into Gold's fragmenting profiles and brought the final touch needed to the anti-virus, causing a cascade effect that traversed the entire system...

 

 

 

 

“There's no end to these guys!” Kiiro declared as she sliced through her ten-thousandth Venomoid, by now inured to the way the creatures howled while they burst into a stinking mass of putrid slime and gristle.

 

“The Commander has been taking her time in there, don't you think?” Kawai noted with some strain to her voice, “How long do you think it should take to destroy a simple virus?”

 

“Long enough that I'd wager she's nearly finished,” Nami remarked as she ripped through a Void with her energized fist, “But I'll admit...this is a little more action than even I'm used to handling...and I doubt we can keep this up for much longer. Truly the legions of gold are without number...”

 

“Yes, and every one of these...things...represents a human life corrupted,” Kiiro snarled in disgust as she sent her boomerangs arching again to shatter a grouping of enemy Geos, “Who knows how many humans she keeps penned up as slaves in her body banks and gene pits? Raw material for her processors...”

 

“Horrible,” Kawai said as she energized her twin Force-blasters to slice through a lumbering Mecha, “Death would be preferable to living like that...”

 

“No argument there,” Nami agreed, “What this world needs is the cleansing fire of a good...eh?” she whirled about, “Something's coming through the portal...?”

 

The next thing any of them knew the world went white before their eyes as the portal which they had been guarding opened up like a massive cannon firing the force of a lethal burst that consumed everything in its wake with the fury of ten thousand simultaneously exploding nuclear warheads...

 

 

 

 

Down below Iczer Two had only a moment to contemplate her victory over Big Gold when she felt the shockwave passing through her and knew in an instant that death itself had arrived to claim the entire planet. The next moment the complex was entirely consumed in fire that reduced everything to mere ashes and sent a larger chain reaction into effect that would in turn be felt throughout the whole of the shadow-planet...

 

 

 

 

“Ooops,” Muku blinked her eyes, looking around at a void suddenly cleared of all identifiable matter, “Something tells me we just blew it...”

 

“That is an affirmative,” she heard Rhea reply with a note of disquiet in her voice, “The weapon detonated prematurely...but---fortunately for us---most of the energy was released into the portal itself, which seems to have contained and channeled the blast onto whatever lay on the other side. I just hope that no one was hurt by this...though I fear that an explosion of such magnitude will have dire consequences for anything within its radius of effect.”

 

“In other words we boo-booed,” Muku translated, “Well...at least we're still alive...I think. Where the heck is this place anyway?”

 

“We still in Subspace, my Love,” Rhea replied, “Only the explosion disrupted the integrity of the nearby landscape...that is why we are seeing nothing all around us for many kilometers...matter in this realm is subject to the rules of the mind, and without a mind to hold and focus the illusion the substance dissipates into its natural free-flowing state.”

 

“You mean...this stuff can be used to shape almost anything?” Muku wondered.

 

“Well,” Rhea gently smiled as she allowed, “Anything that can be imagined by a mind that is sufficiently powerful to affect the flow of thought-form energy that exists within this system...”

 

“So thinking stuff hard enough can make it happen here,” Muku reflected, “I wonder what all that could mean...the possibilities...”

 

Rhea suddenly noticed something flashing on her sensors and said, “Hold up on that thought, Muku-chan, I'm detecting several energy signatures in the midst of the disruption...they're Iczelions...and one full-fledged Iczer...”

 

“I'm reading you,” Muku did not even bother to question her own growing proficiency in interpreting and operating the controls from her chest-capsule station, it seemed that she only had to think about something and the Iczer Robo responded to her commands and supplied her with the information that she needed, “Four figures...all of them familiar-looking...HEY! Aren't those...?”

 

“Aunts Nami, Kawai and Kiiro,” Rhea replied with growing concern, “And...Aunt Two! But what could have happened to them? Their energy levels have been badly depleted...”

 

“Not your aunt,” Muku corrected, “I'm still making her energy levels out at...is this right? That's even greater than your mother's!”

 

“It's a mystery all right,” Rhea remarked, steering their Iczer Robo in the direction of the hapless Iczelion crew, “But I intend to find out right away. Something happened on the other side of that portal, something powerful enough to knock out the most powerful of our Iczelions and leave my aunts in a semi-conscious state...”

 

“Something...like that explosion we caused?” Muku reasoned.

 

“Exactly,” Rhea smiled with mild irony, stretching out the hand of her Iczer-Robo to catch the tumbling, weightless forms of Gold, Silver and Black Iczelions, then employed her other hand to draw Iczer Two closer through the use of a tractor field.

 

“So...you're saying they were on the other side, huh?” Muku asked, “Won't they be, like...kind of cross with us for kind-of lobbing that bomb at them...?”

 

“That is a possibility,” Rhea replied, “But it does open up a number of other questions...which might be better solved if we take them back with us to New Gamora for some quick healing...”

 

“Ah...” Iczer Two suddenly moaned as she stirred in the palm of the giant Mecha's hand, then she pushed herself into a sitting position and said, “Save your concerns for the others, Niece...I am...functional enough to proceed on my own power...”

 

“You're all right?” Muku asked.

 

“Evidently,” Iczer Two glanced at her own arms then turned to regard the two partners looking down at her from their respective cabins, “No rest for the wicked it would seem...and by your comments shall I take it to mean that we owe it to you two for that blast that destroyed the shadow-world that Gold had created?”

 

“I'm afraid so, Aunt Two,” Rhea replied, “We had this bomb that gold was dropping on our city...”

 

“And you thought to return the package to its sender,” Iczer Two replied with a smile, “How apropos...and poetic justice all around. You did well, Niece...and your mothers will be very proud to hear of your actions.”

 

“Thank you, Auntie,” Rhea said, “But...what happened? Did you have a fight with Big Gold?”

 

“I did,” Iczer Two replied, “And you need no worry about her any more. She will not be troubling anyone...ever again.”

 

“You destroyed her?” Muku asked.

 

“In a sense she destroyed herself,” Iczer Two replied, glancing away, “But I was the instrument of her demise...and since a part of her is in me, it was her own hand that did the deed...that and one other...whose noble sacrifice deserves to be honored.”

 

The pair was about to ask in unison what the Bioroid meant when they sensed the approach of a ball of blue-white energy that hovered in the air and approached Iczer Two, who stretched out her hand and absorbed it into herself like magic.

 

Iczer Two then clenched that hand and brought it up to her body, murmuring softly, “Thank you, Iczer Beta, for your efforts in destroying our enemy by the forfeiting of your mortal shell. You will live again my other self, this I swear...you and Sayoko, who gave me the strength to triumph over our enemy and to redeem the souls of those who perished at Gold's hands...including Nagisa...”

 

“What was that?” Rhea asked, “What about my mother?”

 

“She's fine,” Iczer Two turned and smiled at her Niece's capsule, “Sorry to worry you, there's nothing for you to be concerned about, Rhea-chan. I am just saying goodbye to the ghosts of my own past, the better to move on to the more important subject of our future.”

 

“So...it's all over...and we can go home now, huh?” Muku asked.

 

“Unfortunately no,” Iczer Two's tone became more grim, “There is still the less critical matter of Neos Gold to be dealt-with...but I sense this is a matter that will be resolving itself very shortly.”

 

“Eh?” Muku blinked, then turned her attention elsewhere as she said, “Rhea-chan...over there! Do you sense what I'm picking up, Honey?”

 

“I...see it, Muku-chan,” Rhea replied, “Something is happening in that section of Subspace...but what...?”

 

“Retribution,” Iczer Two replied, “I believe we are about to witness more history in the making. We had better hurry if we don't want to be late for this party...”

 

 

 

 

Some minutes before this occurred...

 

 

“Neos Gold,” one of the two Tenma's whispered, “We're really in for it this time...she's the worst of Big Gold's servants...”

 

“Yeah, we've met,” the other Tenma replied, “She's bad news all right, but no tougher than any other baddy who thinks she's got the upper hand here.”

 

“Is that a fact?” Ranma said as he cracked his knuckles and looked confidently at the enemy Bioroid, “Doesn't look so tough...”

 

“Looks can be deceiving, Sugar,” Ukyo cautioned, “Remember Saffron? You thought he looked pretty goofy the first time we met that Jackass.”

 

“She is...bad news all right, Lady Saotome,” Atros cautioned, “And you will only hurt yourselves in attempting to face her in battle. She has destroyed entire worlds in the pursuit of her own self-aggrandization.”

 

“Atros,” Neos said haughtily, “I killed you much too quickly the last time. This time I will see to it that you suffer pain and humiliation to compensate for a lifetime!”

 

With but a mere thought she directed a stream of energy particles into a devastating blast aimed at Atros and where she was standing, but Ken stepped in front of his partner and suddenly the air around him formed into an energy globe that disrupted the attack and harmlessly deflected it away from the others nearest to him, including Atros and the Saotomes.

 

“Unit Seventy Two---charge up!” he cried, and the robotic form beside him flew apart, the different components attaching themselves to his suddenly-nude body (which afforded the people nearest to him---Atros in particular---a very good study of his backside and profile).

 

“I see,” Neos Gold remarked as she saw the armored man now standing protectively between her and Atros, “You have found a protector, and a mere human at that...”

 

“That's right,” Ken replied, looking much taller and more impressive in his Iczelion armor, “A mere human that's going to kick your butt if you try anything more like that against Atros-san!”

 

“Atros-san?” Ukyo repeated.

 

“You got a few secrets you've been keeping from Sakura, Guy?” Ranma asked.

 

“Actually, Sir, she knows all about it,” Ken replied, “But now's not the time for explanations...”

 

“Neos-sama!” Godai spoke up, “Let me deal with this scum! I defeated him before, and now I'll be certain to finish the task once and for good!”

 

“You're welcome to try,” Ken adopted a fighting stance, “But it won't be that easy the second time around, Baka, and you're more likely to get hurt, like Gel-san.”

 

Godai cast his sister to one side and his body became more heavily armored than before, an energy sword flashing up in both hands as she cried angrily, “I WILL DESTROY YOU FOR THAT! YOU ARE DEAD, TOFU-SAN, DO YOU HEAR ME?”

 

With a leaping cry he brought the energy blade down and struck the earth where Ken had been standing, but the armored male Iczelion easily vaulted into the air and hovered out of reach, even as Atros moved to the side and the rest of their group vaulted backwards and to the sides to put themselves and the non-combatants out of the immediate sphere of action.

 

“Interesting,” Neos mused, “A battle between men, I take it...is this what they call a cockfight, and are they fighting over you, Atros-san? How refreshingly primitive...”

 

Atros glared at her nominal “creator” and grit her teeth in rage though she felt inadequate to the task of taking her on by her lonesome. Even as she thought this, however, she felt her energy levels begin to surge from within, and for a moment this distracted her so that she was taken by surprise as Neos appeared behind her and made a downward slash that would have surely taken her out if the energized fist had actually connected.

 

But Neos had not taken into account the presence of the others, having dismissed them out of hand as “mere humans” and thus not worthy of serious attention. Therefore the kick to her masked face came as a complete surprise, landing as it did totally out of the blue as Ranma had been fast to react with more power to his blow than would have been seriously credited. The towering Neos actually staggered backward, sparing Atros to gasp as she too had not believed a mere human capable of such an unbelievable feat.

 

“You---DARE---do that to me?” Neos cried as she reared back and readied to rid herself of the annoying “insect” standing so insolently in her path.

 

“Hey, don't take us guys so lightly,” Ranma grinned as he adopted a classic combat posture, “I don't like fighting with girls, but then again, you ain't no lady.”

 

“DIE!!!” Neos Gold cried as she unleashed sufficient energy to level a large city, only to find her blast returned on her with redoubled force as a barrier sprang up to block her off from her intended targets.

 

Neos staggered backward at this and stared in disbelief at the solid wall of crystalline matter that had sprung up in her path without apparent cause and warning.

 

“WHAT---?” she reacted.

 

“Surprised?” Tenma asked, “Bet you never expected that from any mere human, huh?”

 

“How could you---?” Neos started to ask when a flashing energy sword slashed dangerously near to her, causing Neos to erect her own shielding as Atros took the offensive, finally losing all restraint and attacking the one she had once referred to as her “mother.”

 

“Sis!” cried yet another Iczer from her vantage point inside the chest capsule of the Iczer Robo known as Delos Gamma, only to react with dismay as she felt a solid impact against her mecha, turning an angry glare to the side and saying, “Not you guys again? Go away and stop bugging me already!”

 

Yui felt the repeated blows against the armored body of the mecha she now commanded and said, “What do I do to fight back? We can't just stand here and let them pound us!”

 

“I'm way ahead of you, Gorgeous,” Nova replied, “Link with me and I'll show you what to do to get rid of these assholes!”

 

“How rude of you,” said the Bioroid whose name was given as Carbon as she surveyed her own construct as it rained blow after blow against the Delos Gamma, “Forgetting all about us...”

 

“Not wise to do when we are the ones who will destroy you two,” Vine added as she made hand motions that caused her massive plant creation to attack the Iczer Robo from its unprotected backside.

 

“You are history, you antiquated piece of junk!” Ice declared as her own Frost Giant pounded the Iczer Robo with fists with the size and impact of solid glaciers.

 

“You three are having way too much fun,” Jetstream mused as she watched the trio hammer away at the unresisting Iczer Robo, so she gestured with her own hands and formed a massive tornado-like wind, shaping and focusing it with her hands until the gusts of winds became concentrated funnels of super-intensive energy, and then she directed her creation to strike and those razor-sharp winds lanced out and struck the Delos Gamma in the chest with the force of a sword-thrust.

 

“OW!” Yui winced, “I actually felt that!”

 

“Right,” Nova replied, “The other guys don't hit as hard as they think they do, but that one's the real problem. Makes you kind of mad having the four of them gang up on the two of us, huh?”

 

“Mad?” Yui grit her teeth as she felt her rage bubbling up inside her, “I'm ANGRY!”

 

“Then let it all loose, Girlfriend!” Nova urged, “Let Delos Gamma turn your emotions into raw power, and use it to sweep these losers into the garbage heap...see what I'm thinking?”

 

Yui felt the mental image spring up in her mind and at once responded with an enthusiastic, “RIGHT!”

 

If there is one thing in all creation that is remarkably easy to do, it is to make a Hibiki angry, and at that moment Yui was VERY, VERY super-annoyed at being used like a punching bag, and that fury became a flame that burned the air all around the giant mecha, and all at once that flame erupted into a blazing inferno that rocketed out from the radial point that was the Delos Gamma, catching the other constructs in its all-consuming embrace.

 

“WHAT---?” Carbon recoiled in unfeigned horror as she saw her Carbon Monster burst into flames and explode into oily fragments.

 

“What power---No way!” Ice cried in disbelief as she saw her creation melt and fall apart into evaporating fragments.

 

“How can they be doing this?” Jetstream's own cry was drowned out in the roar of hot winds that tore her Tornado creature into mere wisps of butted smoke, “It's impossible! Insane!”

 

Vine could only scream incoherently in sympathetic pain as her latest plant monster was scorched to a burning cinder.

 

“YOU ASSHOLES HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE MESSING WITH HERE!” Nova cried out from her capsule before glancing up and saying, “Show `em why it ain't smart to take us on, Honey-bunch!”

 

Yui was much too enraged to take issue with the Bioroid for once again taking presumed liberties with her affections, the clear and obvious target of the enemy Bioroids being much too ready at hand as she caused the Iczer Robo to extend an arm while she cried in outraged vengeance, “MARS CELESTIAL FIRE IGNIGHT!!!”

 

The four Bioroids very wisely vacated the location where that hand had been pointing, but they were unprepared for the sheer ferocity of the flaming energy burst that lanced out at the virtual ground and caused a virtual volcano to explode where they had been standing. The force alone created a massive shockwave that caught the four in its grip and sent them rocketing in all directions.

 

“Hah!” Nova sneered, “That'll teach `em not to mess with us! C'mon, Yui-chan, let's go help my sister and your buds deal with the real nuisance, Neos Gold!”

 

Yui was far too much into her righteous wrath to refuse such a tempting offer, but as she turned to watch she was struck with the sight of an uneven battle being waged on three fronts, one by Neos Gold and the Saotome clan, the second part being centered around Godai and Ken's private battle, and the third aspect arising as Gel Kuno recovered her wits and prepared to renew her own part in the overall struggle.

 

“Sister,” Perm was urging her recumbent twin, “You must return to us...to me! Please wake up and stop acting like this! You are not in control over your own actions...”

 

“WRONG!” Gel cried as she continued to lash out at the injured Perm with electrified streamers that sought to entangle and overwhelm her, “I know perfectly well what I am doing, and you---on the other hand---are the one who is woefully misguided!”

 

Perm was trying her best but was tiring from her purely defensive actions staying one step ahead of the deadly whips that were flailing in her direction. She was still favoring one arm and had no weapons of her own to counter her twin's unorthodox assault. She had attempted to rely upon reason and persuasion to do her fighting, but it had become immediately apparent that her sister was beyond reason...even more than ever since Gold had played around with her perceptions.

 

It was inevitable that she would eventually stumble and fall, and with Gel turning up the landscape with her attacks, and when Perm fell she was too weak and exhausted to put up much of a struggle.

 

But this was not true of someone else who had been holding back and watching the whole time, and as Perm braced for what would surely be a painful example of sisterly abuse, she looked up with a start to find the coils being deflected by a whirling staff that caught and turned aside the attack. With a gasp of surprise Perm said, “Great-Great Grandmother?”

 

“Interesting,” Gel remarked as she stared levelly at her nominal elder, “Are you now my enemy, Great-Great Grandmother?”

 

“I have enough to know the truth of matters here,” Cologne replied, “The Gel I know is buried there inside of you, but the creature you have become is a mockery of everything that the Amazons have stood for since time itself began. Therefore I am forced to violate the wishes of my great-granddaughter, your mother, and take an active part in your subdual.”

 

“You think you have what it takes to face me now, Old Woman?” Gel sneered, “You ancient bones will not stand up before my lashes!”

 

“Is that a fact?” Cologne asked mildly, “Why don't we put this theory to the test, then, if you truly believe that I have nothing to teach you...Great-Great Grandchild...”

 

Godai was growing frustrated at his inability to land a solid blow against Ken's defenses, their beam sabers catching and deflecting one another in a battle that was as much fought in the air as on the ground, neither one of them gaining a decisive advantage.

 

“You fight well,” Godai sneered, “Better than you ever did in practice...”

 

“I never had this much riding on the outcome before,” Ken replied, “And you'd be amazed what I can do with the right motivation.”

 

“Indeed?” Godai formed a condescending smile as they locked blades together, “And what do you offer as stakes for your side?”

 

“My life for one thing,” Ken replied, bracing himself as the two of them fought to gain the advantage with their blades holding one another in place, “And the affections of a certain lady...”

 

“Indeed?” Godai remarked, “Then you lose.”

 

With that he vanished in a haze of pixilation, causing Ken to stumble forward while Godai appeared behind him with his saber at the ready, but as he prepared to slash down he suddenly found a hot blade stabbing backward into his chest. The biologically altered Samurai stared wildly down in disbelief at the wound he had just taken as Ken calmly stepped away and withdrew his blade, then turned and smiled at him in a manner that was neither condescending nor friendly.

 

“I could have laid odds on you trying the same trick twice, stabbing me in the back no less,” Tofu remarked as he raised his saber but made no further threatening action, “And you tend to strike slightly to the left and in the blindside of your opponents, which helped me out a lot in knowing just where you'd be standing when I stabbed at you just now. You will notice that I did not strike a vital organ, but that spot is one my armor tells me plays a critical role in maintaining your artificial systems, so taking it out will likely cause a short-out that is system wide, leading to a gradual shutdown of everything but essential systems. Correct me if I'm wrong about that or whether you want to keep things going now that you're the one with the disadvantage.”

 

Godai tried to speak but all he managed to get out was a very faint, “I hate you...” and then he fell face forward, his enhanced body indeed shutting down to where only life-maintaining systems continued to function.

 

“Yeah, well...I get that a lot,” Ken remarked, “And---if you want to know the truth of it---I never much liked you either...”

 

“BROTHER!” Gel cried out as she sensed her sibling's fall.

 

“Worry about your own hide, Upstart!” Cologne imperiously commanded as she pressed hard against her transformed kinswoman's defenses.

 

Neos staggered backward, having taken a spatula to the face, feeling battered and abused from all sides but in no way ready to concede the battle. She stared in disbelief at the members of the Saotome clan presently giving her such a rough time in this surprisingly uneven battle, then at Atros herself, who seemed emboldened by the support which she was receiving. Her greatest disdain and dismay came from the two young boys who coordinated their attacks together, both Tenma and his doppelganger counterpart, the latter of whom was the greatest surprise in this matter.

 

“How could you betray me?” Neos snarled, “How can you betray Gold?”

 

“Hey, Snot-face!” the Doppelganger retorted, “How can you betray somebody who betrays everybody one way or another?”

 

“Yeah,” the real Tenma affirmed, “You bad guys ain't exactly famous for loyalty, so what if he decides to help the good guys?"

 

Neos reared back on her tail-like lower body, looming at her full height as she snarled, “Then you should know that there is a price to pay for standing against me!”

 

With that she played her latest trump card, having watched the way the small human girl hung back out of the fray watching everything with rounded eyes, though the lion share of her attention was clearly being directed towards the Doppelganger Tenma.

 

The Bioroid in question, however, saw the shift in her focus and sensed immediately what she was intending, “NO!” and at once he threw himself with an impossible leap that carried him to Yuki's side, just in time to intercept a massive bolt of energy that would have fried the girl on the spot had he not taken the brunt of the force with his own body.

 

“NOOO!!!” Ukyo cried out, seeing what looked like her own son being struck down by a bolt of lightning.

 

“BASTARD!!!” Ranma declared as his hands shot forward and he hurled a point-blank Moko Takabisha that caught Neos full in the face and further staggered her backwards.

 

“That's it, you've had it!” Tenma cried, cupping his hands as an affect he had been working to form was finally ready to be unleashed on its intended target, so he shouted out aloud, “HEY, FRIEZA!!! WE GOT SOMEBODY HERE WHO THINKS SHE'S TOUGHER AND MEANER THAN YOU ARE!”

 

To the surprise of everyone a figure shaped something like a lizard with a bulbous head and a tiny little mouth appeared with a strangely off-kilter voice saying, “Oh, she does, does she? Well, we'll just have to see about that...”

 

“What?” Neos declared in disbelief, only to receive a very solid punch to the chest by the strangely alien being whom Tenma had conjured up from seeming nowhere. A second blow hit even harder and drove the serpentine Bioroid even further back as the creature referred to as “Frieza” continued to hammer away, while Tenma concentrated and coordinated its actions.

 

“What in the frel?” Atros asked as she watched the Noh puppet drive her former master on the defensive, unaware as she said this how much she sounded like her real biological mother.

 

“Don't ask...don't tell,” Ken remarked as he came to stand beside her, “Looks like Tenma's made a new friend...sort of. Are you all right?”

 

For some reason the question both annoyed and pleased Atros as she replied, “Fine...I'm fine...and you?”

 

“Never better,” Ken stared down at the places where he had been wounded earlier, “That regenerator thing of yours is pretty remarkable...just a slight twinge where the muscle's been regrown. Might have scar for a while there, but...that's preferable to the alternative...and besides, you should see the other guy.”

 

“That's...good,” Atros said mildly, “Very good...” and then the both of them made a point of glancing off in different directions, the Bioroid coloring slightly.

 

“It looks bad,” Yui said, “Somebody got hurt, and it looks like Godai's down for the count...again.”

 

“Must be a regular thing from him if your memories are right about that clown,” Nova replied, “Don't know what that one kid conjured up, but it's keeping Neos plenty busy...won't hold her for long, though, so it looks like we'd better step in and tilt the odds for the good guys...”

 

“You'll be going up against one of your former allies,” Yui noted.

 

“Hey, it ain't like me and Neos were ever close or nothing,” Nova replied, “Besides...you're my family now, and Neos is the worst of grandma's minions, so---HEY!” she cried out as vines suddenly wrapped themselves around the chest of Delos Gamma.

 

“What the blazes?” Yui tried burning the vines off, but more of them wrapped around her own cockpit, which began icing up all over, leaving her in no doubt as to the cause of their current troubles.

 

Nova realized it too, finding the footing of their Iczer Robo glued to the spot by mounds of carbon fibers that had sprung up out of no where.

 

“AW NO!” Nova winced, “Not those clowns again!”

 

“You made a mistake turning your back on us,” Carbon glared.

 

“A little setback cannot deter us from prevailing!” Vine seconded.

 

“No matter how strong you are, we will be your undoing!” Ice predicted.

 

“The Masters of the Heavens will not allow you to win!” Jetstream boasted, the four of them combining their efforts to bring down the Delos Gamma, and so they were not prepared to be greeted in kind by a casual voice whose disdain was less emphasized, but no less contemptful.

 

“Masters of the Heavens, You?”

 

“That is a laugh and a half,” another voice seconded.

 

“EH?” all four Bioroids turned at once, only to be greeted by four others who were smiling back as if sharing a private jest.

 

One of these gestured with hands that suddenly converted into a pair of oversized blasters.

 

“SURPRISE!” she declared before unleashing hell on these would-be pretenders...

 

“Hold on, Sugar,” Ukyo pleaded with the young-seeming boy lying across her lap, “You took it pretty bad, but you'll be all right...”

 

“Thanks...Mom...” the Doppelganger said weakly, looking scorched and bloodied with third degree burns that made it plain that he was in very bad shape, “...That...helps...”

 

“Ten-chan!” Yuki pleaded, “Don't die! Please, be all right!”

 

“Hey...you okay, Son?” Ranma asked, sparing a portion of his attention from watching his other son coordinate the puppet fighting against Neos.

 

“Kinda...Pop...” the Doppelganger gave a faint laugh and said, ...If I were human...I'd be already dead...”

 

“No,” Ukyo whispered the word, knowing in her heart that the boy in her arms was dying, and that it felt like losing her own Tenma, a fate so overwhelming that she knew in a few moments she would break out in screaming.

 

“There's got to be something you can do!” Yuki pleaded, “We can't let him die...”

 

“I don't think it's up to us, Kid,” Ranma said reluctantly, looking hard at the boy, “For what it's worth...you did good, Son. You're a Saotome, don't let anybody ever tell you different.”

 

The boy in his wife's lap could only smile weakly at that, but already he knew that his internal damage was far more extensive than was visible on the surface, and he could measure his life in the number of seconds he had left before his synthetically created organs went into terminal shutdown failure.

 

Unnoticed by anyone, however, strange fibers creeping across the ground made their way to where the injured boy was breathing his last, and---unseen by even Ukyo or Yuki---attached themselves to the Doppelganger Tenma, seeking a connection and determining the extent of his terminal condition...

 

Ranma turned away to hide his rage and self-disgust, knowing he had to keep it in for the sake of appearances or his wife would never be able to hold it together. The sight of the badly burned boy was enough to make him yearn to lash out, to give vent to a rage that would have shaken the very heavens, and the thought of dealing punishment to the one who had callously inflicted this on a child...regardless of that child's true nature.

 

Just then his real son cried out in pain, drawing Ranma's attention back to the real battle, seeing Neos standing there with her fist buried deep into the chest of the puppet called “Frieza,” which same was sputtering and coming apart as the young boy's concentration faltered.

 

“Son...are you all right?” Ranma asked as he came to the other boy's aid.

 

“Sorry Pop...I wanted to get even...couldn't make him strong enough...” Tenma replied as he felt his father's reassuring hand upon his shoulder.

 

“I know, Boy,” Ranma said as he turned a grim-eyed stare upon the true villain of the piece, “You did as good as you know how...now it's time to let someone else take over.”

 

Neos shook off the last disintegrating fragments of the dispelled puppet and sneered, “Did you think a mere child's toy would be a threat to me? No matter what tricks you use, in the end I will destroy you all!"

 

Ranma sighed as he said, “Guess it's up to me, huh? Well...no biggie...I've met worse than you, and some of those preferred playing with grown-ups, not beating up little kids to get their kicks.”

 

“For that you will die first---!” Neos started to say when Atros appeared at Ranma's side with beam sword in hand, further emboldening her wrath, “You wish to die with him, Traitor?”

 

“He is a brave human, and his sons have shown great courage,” Atros replied, “I can do no less...with the debt I owe his family...”

 

“Debt?” Ranma blinked, “What are you...”

 

“Trust us, Sir,” Ken assured as he took his place beside Atros, “We'll explain it all...if we get the chance.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Ranma said with an arched eyebrow, “Sounds like you got some explaining to do, but you're right, let's save it until after we sent stinky-face over there to the scrap heap.”

 

“Actually, honored sir,” a new voice intruded, on the setting, “We would much prefer that you leave that responsibility to us. After all, we have issues going back a long way with our former employer.”

 

“WHAT?” Neos Gold reacted as Ranma and the others spared a glance to the side, seeing the oddly garbed figures standing there, the lead of whom caused Tenma to gasp and say, “Fiber-sama?”

 

“Hello, Ten-chan,” said a much changed Fiber, who coolly turned to regard the astonished Neos, “Sorry to be so late...we were...disturbed in our incubation cycle by the sense of your battle. We half feared that we would arrive too late, but here you save the best for us...how thoughtful.”

 

“You...failures!” Neos snarled, “You dare show your faces around me?”

 

“Look who is talking about faces?” said another of these strange features, a leonine woman whose red hair was almost enough to give Ranma a case of the shivers.

 

“We are simply former minions here to speak with you about receiving our back-pay from our former master,” said a strangely insectoid woman whose chitinous armor was strangely beautiful in a samurai-like way.

 

“Or should we make that...our pay-back?” another armored woman faintly snarled the word with a glare that left no doubt as to whom she was directing her venomous inference.

 

“Oh...and by the way,” said Fiber, “If I were you people I'd take shelter right now...there is about to be a rather nasty explosion, and I would be pained to see friends of little Ten-chan come to harm in any way.”

 

“Huh?” Ranma asked, “What are you talking about---?”

 

One might think that a lifetime of experience would have cautioned the Saotome elder to never ask such an obvious question of the fates, but the next instant later a tremendous wave swept through the very fabric of the void, and Subspace itself underwent a savage transformation, leaving everyone else to gasp in dismay as a field of white washed over everything, and for a prolonged, eternal moment seemed to swallow up the whole of existence...

 

 

 

Continued

 

Comments/Criticisms/Miraculous Conclusions: shadowmane@ridgenet.net