Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Gold Digger Fan Fiction ❯ Golden Oportunity ❯ Chapter 11 ( Chapter 12 )

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

Notes - Here's the next part, it details more of what happened in the last chapter and expands on several of the other characters at the same time. Even Ranma and Sheila. It will also be introducing the last of the newest characters or reintroducing one that hasn't been seen since ch 09a.

Web Site: http://shi_hanna.tripod.com/

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Golden Opportunity

Chapter 11

Cory D. Rose

ertle2@msn.com

(c) 2003

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"This is a disaster Theo." Julia said as the two of them watched the attack on the base palace from the roof of a house some distance away. It was a two story house was just large enough to have a small storage area at the very top of the building. From the poor workmanship they figured it had been added some time after the house had been built originally. From where they were standing, smoke and fire could be seen rising from portions of the palace as the attack continued, thousands of skeletons united in an unending attack.

Theo just grunted. "This is worse than a disaster. I've never seen an attack quite like this one before. How could such a thing be set up without anyone having any clue about it?"

"You don't think your father is behind this do you? All these undead would be exactly what I'd expect him to use."

"I don't think so. He's powerless now that he isn't drawing his power from the Ether of the Undead Realm."

Julia glared at all the skeletons as they battled the remaining paladins. "He may not have the power to rule the Undead Realm anymore love, but could he perhaps have opened a gate way and let all these undead through?"

Rubbing his chin in thought, Theo took a second to think about what she was saying before he decided that it shouldn't have been possible. "No, when I cut him off from the Realm he barely had the power to cast a light spell. But I think that you may be right about a gate to the Undead Realm. If that is the case though, I need to get inside that base palace even more than I did a few minutes ago. There are special magical items up in the High Palace that are able to detect things like that. De'em used to use something similar when he was fighting that Venger guy a few years back."

"Even if we got through all those undead and made our way to the staircase room, it would still take us at least three hours to climb the stairs." Julia reminded him. She was all for exercise, but she thought the set up this place wasn't thought out enough. It had too many holes in the security and no way to overcome them in an emergency.

"No, there is another way than taking the stairs, but it's inside the base palace and needs an Arch Mage like me or any of the others on the council to activate it."

"A magical gate of some kind?" Julia asked; she had a little experience with this stuff from all the adventuring she used to do.

Theo nodded. "It used to be the only way to the top, before they even installed the stairs, these days almost no one knows about it. The Captain General doesn't know what it is either, just that he's been ordered to protect it just as much as the stairs. Though he is quite smart so there is a possibility that either he or one of his men might have guessed what it is. That is why we need to get inside as quickly as possible, before this turns even worse than it already is."

"Is there no way to teleport into the base palace itself, to bypass all these undead?"

"No, I helped design the spell that's in place right now to prevent just that sort of thing. It was done so the enemy couldn't do just that. I could cancel the spell given enough time, but I made it so no one could work around it without being in a certain place. Which happens to be inside the blasted base palace." Dr. Diggers explained. If they survived this he would have to make some improvements throughout the whole system just to make sure he had more options the next time something like this happened.

"I don't see any way to get into that place without one of these brainless piles of bones noticing us. Though we might disguise ourselves and kind of blend in with army to get inside." Julia said, though she sounded very unsure of the plan. "We might have to come up with something else, that plan is just lame."

"Like what? I can call down enough power to level half that army right now, but that would only alert them that we are here and who knows how many of those things have been enhanced. Or how many of them can be called up attack us once we begin to fight them."

"Then how about we contact some of the Edge guard and a few others to form of team that can help bring things together."

"You mean Ranma and the others?" Dr. Diggers asked.

Julia nodded. "Ranma isn't up to my standards, but he should be able to stand up to even the best fighters at the moment and he's learned over half of the moves he learned from those books he got from Shangri-la. He still has a way to go, but he did defeat Gar and that is no easy feat. Gar was a werecat at the time and Ranma still won."

Theo shook his head. "I don't feel right brining him into this. He isn’t even close to being ready to take on an army of undead."

"Well we may not have a choice." Julia explained and pointed down the street a bit to where Ranma and Sheila were scouting out the situation as well.

Dr. Diggers frowned. "I expected this to happen, but I thought they would find the other Edge Guard before getting this close to the army of undead."

Something occurred to Julia and she glanced at her husband. "You don't suppose that Onoli is still at the High Palace at the top of the tree do you?"

Theo nodded. "He just might be, he had that report to give and this attack started a little while after that. With the teleport gate at the top blocked he just might do something like come down the stairs to make a surprise attack."

"The responsibility that boy takes on himself at times." Julia muttered as she shook her head.

"Then lets go and collect the rest of the Edge Guard, this is likely to take a major battle to pull off."

"I think so too. It's a good thing that Healing Breath move I learned for the Tournament of Arms regressed my aging so much. This is going to tax even me." Julia said as she loosened her sword in it's sheath for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"Ranma and Sheila are moving off, back into town and away from the army." Dr. Diggers said. "Let's get after them."

"Alright."

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"What are we expected to do now that this undead Army has invaded the city?" Ranma asked as he and Sheila looked around the corner of the house at the army of undead surrounding the base palace.

Sheila gave him an odd look. "What do you mean?"

"Well we have to stop them right?"

She nodded, still confused by the question. "Yep."

"Just how are we supposed to do that? There are thousands of them and only a few of us." Ranma pointed out.

"Ah, that may be true, but undead are pretty easy to defeat one on one, it's when they get in large groups that different methods have to be taken. For example, while we were out in the swamp earlier if only one or two of those undead animals had been around we could have taken care of them easily. Instead there were hundreds of them and even a couple of very powerful fire balls didn't even stop them."

Ranma nodded as he remember casting that large fireball and just how little damage it did to those things.

"The same thing will happen here inside the city as the undead converge on their goal, but instead of just you and me to take care of them, there will be thousands of people around to destroy them. That means that we will only have to deal with a few dozen or so at the most and maybe a few groups worth. If every fighter and mage in the city takes out about ten or so, the army will be whittled down to almost nothing very quickly. If not the whole place will be overwhelmed by their numbers alone." Sheila explained. "Lets move away from here now, there are way to many of those things for just the two of us to take care of."

"But..." He started.

"Don't complain about it Ranma, there are times when we have to swallow our pride and know when to ask for help. Two people can not fight ten thousand undead monsters head on and survive. We need to find a different way to kick them out of the city." Sheila said as she gave him a side long glare.

Ranma sighed and nodded; no matter how much he disliked walking away from a battle she was right. There was no way he could take down that many of the undead, no matter how strong he was. "What did you have in mind?"

"Gar is usually our second in command and he leads most of the fights. With him out of it for the next few weeks we need to rely on either Onoli or..." Sheila frowned a little and looked away. "Tirga."

"That weretiger that attacked me that one time?" Ranma snapped.

Sheila nodded. "Yeah that's him. He is a very good fighter and leader, but he tends to let his lusts get the better of him."

"Your kidding?" Ranma asked sarcastically.

"Oh no, he once lead twenty men into a burning church to save all the monks and make sure the library attached to the building didn't go up. Then right in the middle of the celebration party he tried to seduce one of the nuns."

Ranma laughed. "He just won't back down will he?"

"No, but he will do when Onoli or Gar aren't available."

"What about that other guy? Thokane?"

The female werejaguar gave him a weird look then realized what he was talking about. "You mean the Thropan? The werepanther?"

"Um...yeah, I think that's him." Ranma said with a couple of nods. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings as they moved deeper into the city and closer to the front lines of the fight against the undead army.

"Thropan has a somewhat bad reputation I'm afraid. He's very smart and is responsible for designing almost all of the magical weapons the Edge Guard uses, but his talents are sometimes to close to breaking the No Technology rule that the general public won't accept him as a leader. So he keeps to the background for the most part, builds weapons, and goes on a lot of solo missions for Onoli and the Council."

"Alright then, is there any way we can contact anyone from that Retreat you are protecting to get any help?" Ranma wondered.

B, who was still following along behind them started coughing as he heard the question. "Coughbrainlessmoroncough!"

Ranma didn't turn around as he heard the little bot, but he did role his eyes.

Sheila shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. That alarm you heard earlier signaled the city, letting those who needed to that all teleports within the city would be impossible until someone from the High Palace counteracts the alarm. Even the gateways into the Retreat have been closed for the time being."

They walked along in silence for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of battle going on some ways to the west. Out near the outer edge of the city where Ranma knew that most of the city militia was set up doing what they could to stave off the invasion. He wanted to run over there and join in, but felt it was his place to be here and to protect Sheila in case she needed saving from something. Though he wasn't that worried, she seemed to have a large dose of independence in her. "Hmm..."

She gave him another glance.

"Well what if we found that guy from earlier? Ashaton? I'll bet he would be a lot of help and he looked like he knew how to protect himself. You even said he defeated some Undead Knights to defend you a couple nights ago."

"That may work, but I don’t know where he is and finding him during this crisis will be even harder than finding the other members of the Edge Guard."

Ranma shrugged. "So? We'll just keep an eye out for him and ask around for the guy with the huge sword on his back. It's not like you can forget that thing the instant it's out of sight."

"True, but we will have to take care of a few other things as well."

"Like what?"

Sheila pointed down a nearby street as they walked by and Ranma noticed that there were a large number of people setting up a barricade in the middle of the street. All of them were carrying various kinds of weapons and tools as they worked to set up a large evil looking wooden structure. He even recognized that one of the civilians was wearing a grey mage suit underneath his coat and gloves and would occasionally cast a spell on the wood. From the looks of things everybody knew what they were doing, so he was a little confused.

"Do you want me to help them get that set up?"

"Not that! Me, you, and the rest of the Edge Guard have to be on constant alert for undead anywhere we might be in the city. The paladins will take care of the citizen militia like those guys and sets to the work doing various things around the city. While the Edge Guard mobilizes to take down the main threat or to stop the thrust of the attack, we've got the easy job." Sheila said with a smirk.

"That seems to be a bit much." Ranma said as they walked past the street and continued on down the road, keeping an eye out for any of the people they were looking for.

"It is a big responsibility, but normally we would have had some kind of advance warning that this was coming and had time to set a couple of plans in motion. I'm not sure how they did it, but they got through all our barriers and magical detection devices without activating them. That has me worried, but if we are to do anything besides run around and save people randomly, we will have to find Onoli or Tirga I guess. Either of them should be able to help us out in some way."

"So where do we begin?"

"I was thinking that Onoli was to give a report to the mage council this morning. So our best bet would be to head over to the High Palace and head up the stairs to see if he's up there." Sheila explained in a rather resigned voice. "That of course is impossible at the moment with all those undead surrounding the base palace."

Ranma nodded. "What about..."

"Sheila!"

They stopped and turned to see Sammi from the bar she had gotten into that fight with Hanza. Then she noticed what Sammi was wearing and nearly facefaulted right then and there. Sammi was a short girl, small in every way that counted and could barely be called a fighter at the best of times. So it was with a bit of surprise that the girl seemed to be wearing an iron pot over her head, a lid to some large pot over her chest and tied in place with a string, and her waitress outfit under it all. "Hey! What are you doing out at a time like this...dressed in that thing?"

Sammi dove in for a hug and grinned up at Sheila. "I haven't talked to you in ages!"

Sheila gave Sammi a weird look then just shrugged. "Sorry, I've been busy."

"Me too! Hey is this that guy you were telling me about that day?" She said and pointed thumb at Ranma, giving him a look over.

"Um...oh yeah, this is him." Confirmed the rather confused werejaguar.

Turning serious, Sammi walked around Ranma as if examining a side of beef. It made him feel rather uncomfortable for some reason as she eyed his stomach and lower regions for several seconds and wondered if she was going to actually reach out and touch him. "Um..."

"HE'S GOURGOUS!" Sammi screamed and bounced from foot to foot. "I never thought you would get over that Tirga guy!"

Blushing a little, Sheila tried to quiet the girl down a little and ignored the odd look that Ranma gave her. Then she hit upon an idea. "Sammi, this is Ranma. Ranma this is Sammi, a friend of mine."

"Hello." Ranma muttered.

"HIHOWAREYOUDOING! I’MSAMMIANDIWANTTOKNOWEVERYTHINGABOUTYOU!" Sammi said at super fast speed.

"Um..." Ranma muttered; he'd never had to deal with girl quite like this before.

"Sammi, we don't have time for that now? Why are you running around outside like this when there are undead monsters invading the city?"

Sammi squeaked and jumped back a foot or so and paled. "I forgot! I have to go and buy some flour for when the paladins come into eat! Gotta go! Bye!" She yelled as she took off down the street.

"Who the heck was that?" Ranma asked.

"A friend, though she is the definition of the word ditz."

"I see." Ranma said and exchanged a look with B who was still following them around.

"Ranma, she's perfect for you!" B yelled. "Run! Catch her before she gets lost on the other side of the street!"

What?!" Ranma yelled.

Then B was crushed under a tiny werejaguar foot, shattering the ground around him as Sheila joined the conversation. Her eyes were glowing as she glared down at the little robot. "What. Did. You. Say?"

"N-nothing..." B groaned out.

"That's what I thought you said." Sheila growled out between clenched teeth, and then she smiled and turned to Ranma. In a perfectly happy tone of voice, as if she hadn't just tried to kill B with her foot, she asked him a simple question. "What do you think of my friend, Ranma?"

B made some frantic motions to try and indicate that Ranma shouldn't even recall that the girl ever existed. This was kind of hard to do for a Peebo who's whole body was shaped kind of like a fat land mine and had no extra parts to show it's emotions other than it's eyes. Ranma didn't see a thing and just shrugged. "She seemed nice enough, but a little flighty if you ask me. She should learn a few martial arts moves and improve herself."

Sheila's eyes were glowing again, expecting any kind of answer that Tirga might have given and got that instead. It quickly deflated her anger in mid snarl. "THAT...is, exactly what I would say too."

"So how about we go and ask around for Onoli or Ashaton?" Ranma suggested, nervously. "I know someone must have seen them in the last couple of hours."

B sighed in shock and rolled his eyes.

Smiling happily Sheila turned and started walking down the street and Ranma breathed a very quiet sigh of relief and wondered how it was he kept running into scary women. Then looked down at B. "Geeze, I can't believe you said something like!?"

"There is one thing I do know." B said with a rather shift shrug, as best a peebo could do one. "Though..."

"What?"

"I'm stuck; think you could dig me out of here? Pretty please? With sugar?" It asked as it blinked up at him innocently, batting it's eyes a couple of times for effect.

"If you ask me I should just leave you there." Ranma muttered as he knelt down to extract the mobile bomb from the hole.

"I'll make you pay for that!"

"Yep, I'm sure you will. But it won't be any time soon." Ranma said with a smirk. "She doesn't seem to have done you much damage."

"HOHOHOHOHO! Like a little thing like her could damage a creation of Brianna Diggers!" B said as it laughed.

"Ranma! Come on or I'll leave you behind!" Sheila yelled from half a block away and waved her sword around for effect.

He sighed. "This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"You think this is bad? I think she scratched my paint." B complained as it tried to eye it's back side as it moved around in several circles.

Ignoring the robot and knowing it could follow along with them just fine, Ranma jogged after his friend. They continued on their walk a few seconds later. "So Sheila how come I don't remember seeing the base palace from my first trip here? That and the Tree, thing is massive!"

"You can only see them from a certain direction."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, it's a protection measure they built into it a couple hundred years ago. If you approach it from the sides or the back you won't be able to find the place as magic subtly redirects you away from the place no matter how careful you are to approach it. To see it you have to walk down a certain street and this allows the paladins that guard it to see you coming and determine if you are a threat. Once you get close enough to see it you can then wander around the sides and even behind it if you wanted to. That's how the skeletons were able to surround the place."

"How big is the place?"

"I'd say large enough to hose about two thousand or so soldiers, two soldiers to a room with a bit of discomfort." Sheila said as she tallied up the number of paladins in her head.

Ranma whistled. "That's huge!"

"What's even weirder is that the whole place is for the paladins only, there isn't one person in the whole place with a drop of royal blood in them. The elegant style of the place is a distraction, in reality the place is one big maze of rooms and doors that can be used to isolate huge groups of people and keep them from making it to the room where the stairway to the Great Tree begins."

"Then those undead won't be able to do much even if they take the place?"

"I'm not sure, but with that many it wouldn't take much for all those things to fill the base palace from top to bottom."

"Oh! Lets hope they don't do that then." Ranma said

Sheila opened her mouth to continue, but right then a red armored paladin ran up to them from a side street and saluted. "Sheila of the Edge Guard?"

She nodded in surprise.

"There is a situation a couple of streets over and I was asked to see if you wanted in on the capture of a wanted criminal?" Then our Captain noticed you walking by a little while ago and remembered that you have a bit of a history with this one and sent me over here to let you know what was going on."

"Just who are we talking about here?" Ranma asked.

The guy turned and gave Ranma the impression he was looking down at a bug. "That is none of your concern go home and let the professionals take care of it."

"Why you..." Ranma growled as he reached for an open section of the guy’s breast plate just as the guy pulled back with a start and reached for his sword. Sheila moved between them and glared.

"Calm down Ranma, they don't know who you are and they are trained to keep all civilians away from the battle zones unless they are part of the militia and you aren't wearing the armband."

"Armband?"

"He shouldn't be here; we have a job to do without people getting in our way." The paladin snapped and pointed at Ranma. "You, leave before I force you to."

"Calm down." Sheila said. "He's with me, don't argue Private."

"Yes Ma'am." He said, though Ranma could hear the contempt in the guy’s voice.

"Lead the way."

The guy nodded and Ranma thought that wearing all that armor had gone to the guy's head. One thing Ranma had learned to despise over the years was a snob and this guy had all the signs. He could deal with a nasty attitude with ease and insults were useless against him, but every time he got within twenty feet of a snobbish jerk his fists began to itch. He had to resist the urge to grab the guy and peel that armor off his snobbish little body and beat the man to within an inch of his life for treating him with such disrespect.

"Calm down Ranma, beating him up won't accomplish anything and we have to protect the city first." Sheila whispered to him.

"Fine, but if he makes one more remark after this over I'm going to teach him some respect the same way my old man used to teach me." Ranma growled out. "Who do you think they might have caught?"

"I'm not sure, but I have an idea or two. There aren't very many criminals within the city right now that would cause a paladin to ask for my assistance personally and that narrows the choices down quite a bit." Sheila said. "Let's wait and see what happens when we get there."

The Paladin kept quiet as they walked and Ranma was quite sure that the guy was trying to find a reason to get rid of him. For the most part Ranma just ignored him though; he'd dealt with the type several times over the years. Arrogant students who just had to defend their position when he would come along and prove just how incompetent they really were.

A few minutes later they rounded the corner and found themselves in an alley behind a nearby bar. It was one of those dead end types with a high wooden fence keeping people from using to much of it. There were two more paladins standing about half way down the alley with their swords out as they kept a very familiar looking person from getting away. She was wearing a black and green armor with a cape and a long staff strapped to her back and an evil look in her eye as she glared at the people around her. It also looked like she had tried to escape a couple of times already from the looks of the burns on her arms and legs.

"Hanza!" Ranma snarled.

"Just who I thought it might be." Sheila confirmed with a nod. They both had a grudge against the woman at the end of the alley and they could tell she didn't look to happy to see them either.

Hanza growled when saw them and the look of anger on her face seemed to go up a few more notches as she turned a death glare on them. "Of all the places to run into you two!"

"I didn't exactly expect to meet you here either Hanza, but since we got you here, you're under arrest for the murder of Raphiel Ray, a junior member of the Edge guard." Sheila yelled back. "I think we can also tack on Assault and Battery, Breaking and Entering, and anything else I can think of."

One of the paladins looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Murder?"

Sheila nodded. "She's the one that set the Compound on fire earlier this morning according to someone that I talked to, a witness."

The guy nodded. "Let's take her down boys; this one thinks she has bigger teeth than she appears to have."

Hanza smiled evilly. "You don't have a chance in hell you pathetic wannabe toy soldiers!"

The paladins growled and all of them moved to grab their weapons, but Sheila stepped in front of them and shook her head. "She has a magic ring that allows her to turn invisible and move incredibly fast, so I'd like to try something else before we let you guys take her on." Sheila said as they looked at her. "Think you're up to fighting her again Ranma? You deserve a rematch with her."

He grinned, cracked his knuckles, and punched his fist as he glared at one of the people that seemed to haunt his dreams lately. Calling him a loser over and over again and confirming just how much of a failure he was. "She caught off guard last time, this time I know what she's capable of doing and there is no way she can beat me."

"Ha you wimp, you think five to one odds will be enough to stop me!" Hanza crowed as pulled her staff off her back and started to spin it lazily. "You paladin wimps are nothing compared to me either." She snarled. "Nothing! I've been trained by some of the best arms masters alive and you guys just don't compare."

Pulling her sword Sheila smiled as she stepped to the side and motioned to Ranma. "That may be Hanza, but Ranma here is one of Julia Brigand Diggers advanced students and I truly doubt you have what it takes to take him on now that he's had time to learn about what you did last time."

Hanza snarled and glared, if anything, even more hatefully than before.

All three paladins turned to look at Ranma and seemed to give him a bit of grudging respect, though it was done silently. If Ranma noticed he ignored it completely as he walked forward flaring his aura high enough to make it look like he was covered in blue fire. "I've learned quite a bit since the last time we fought and no magic ring is going to be enough to save you this time."

"So we're going to start with you? Don't make me laugh you wimp, I beat you once, I can do it again and with less effort." Hanza crowed as she got into a defensive stance.

Ranma narrowed his eyes and noticed that he could see several different kinds of magic swirling around the girl in front of him. One of the things Dr. Diggers had taken the time to instruct him on was how to use his limited magic in a combat situation and up until now he hadn't had much of a chance to really let loose with it. With Gar he had used his martial arts skills combined with the Neko-ken to win against the guy, but this fight was going to be different. He'd had a lot of time to think about his mistakes and how to counter what she had done last time. Ranma held out his left hand and grinned. "I saw this in an anime once; you might get a kick out of it. All you have to do is watch the little birdie."

"Huh?" Hanza asked. Who in the hell said something like in the middle of a fight to the death?

A small ball of energy formed in Ranma's hand as he stared into her eyes. "Are you ready?"

Hanza didn't feel like waiting for whatever trick he had up his sleeve, so she screamed and swung her staff in a cross wise killing strike that was nearly impossible to block from the stance Ranma was in. Then there was a burst of light that filled the alley that threw her aim off by just enough that Ranma was able to catch her staff with his free hand and kick her in the ribs with the force of a bomb. It shattered the front breast plate of her dwarven made armor, blew all the air out of her lungs, and catapulted her body through the wooden fence at the end of the alley and into someone's back yard in the blink of an eye. Surprise didn't even begin to describe what she was feeling right then. Then she hit the ground hard and rolled for several feet before she came to a rest beside a small fountain and desperately gasped for air that wouldn't fill her lungs. Her sight was fuzzy as Ranma calmly walked on over and smiled down at her innocently.

"Sorry about not calling out my attack name, but we are at war so I thought I'd take you down as quickly as I could."

"W-what wa-as th-at." Hanza forced out between a coughing fit.

"Ah...just a simple spell I learned a few days ago."

"Spell?" She croaked out as she realized that nearly all of her ribs were broken.

Ranma nodded. "Dispel Magic."

The paladins behind Ranma started to crack up at the look on Hanza's face as she realized that her magic items, the armor, the ring, and the staff were all very dependent on magic and with that one little spell Ranma had effectively disarmed her completely. Taking her down with one very powerful blow. Her things would regain their magic in a few hours, but right at that moment she was at his mercy and didn't like the feeling at all. She knew what she would have done in a similar situation and expected to be treated the same way. He had taken her out with a kick to the ribs. Strong enough that it had cracked or shattered every one of them just as easily as it had shattered the metal of her precious armor. Rolling over onto her stomach took all the strength she had, but if she could just get away everything would be fine. The pain on the other hand was a lot worse than she had expected and she had to fight off the tears that came to her eyes.

"Sorry about the damage to your chest, I didn't think the metal of your armor would break like that. Back home we use armor too and it's designed to take that kind of punishment, who would have thought dwarven steel would be so fragile?" Ranma commented innocently as he reached down and picked up a piece and twisted it with his bare hands.

This time the paladins just fell over they were laughing so hard.

Ranma ignored them as he walked back over to pick up Hanza's staff and twirled it a few times. It was very heavy and completely unbalanced now that the magic had been dispelled from it. He turned to the Paladins as they finished laughing. "Are you guys going to arrest her or let her crawl off?"

"Aye! Let's take her in boys!" One of them said and laughed some more as he pulled out some cuffs.

"Good work Ranma." Sheila said as she grinned at him. "You just have to answer one question for me."

"What is that?" He asked as he helped the paladins remove the rest of Hanza's now useless armor and put her in cuffs.

"How did you cast such a strong version of Dispel Magic with only a few weeks of training in magic?"

"Ah...well..." Ranma muttered nervously.

"Only a few weeks?" One of the paladins asked suddenly. "It takes months to learn even the simplest spell and he's already casting them like this after only a few weeks?"

Ranma rubbed the back of his head.

"Damn! I've never heard anything like that before, then you must be a natural at using magic and those kinds of users are incredibly rare." One of the other paladins said as they picked up Hanza, she looked a bit shell shocked and in more than a little pain.

The snob just snorted a little and watched Ranma out of the corner of his eye as the three of them dragged the girl out of the yard and out into the streets. From there they would take her to the nearest cell and have her sent to the mines as soon as possible. She was a murderer and that was an automatic life sentence. They vanished from sight a few seconds later and Ranma relaxed a little, those guys had been giving him the creeps.

"Ranma, how long have you been planning to do that?" Sheila asked as she finally put her sword away.

"Ah, well when she beat me so badly last time, her use of magic pissed me off, and I needed to find a way to overcome it if it could. At first I thought to learn magic myself and Dr. Diggers was more than willing to show me a few things, but when I had problems figuring out why my magic didn't work like his I started to think of other ways to fight her and the first answer I came up with was to get rid of her magical advantage. After that I was positive there was no way she could beat me in a duel. Then I finally figured my magic out and added several offensive spells to my techniques. Dispel Magic was one of the first ones I learned out of my beginners book."

"That was amazing, but even I didn't expect you to take her down that fast." She said.

"Heh, I'm the best."

"Well Mr. I'm the Best, do you remember that there is full scale siege going on over at the base palace right this minute and we still haven't found anyone that could help us stop it? Thousands of undead soldiers attacking the place in wave after wave of gruesome destruction that bodes ill and all that crap?" B yelled as he wheeled up and butted Ranma in the foot a few times to catch his attention. "I just heard that the defenses of the palace have fallen."

"What?!" Sheila yelled.

"Go take a look for yourself." B said as he saw Ranma glaring at him again. "What? I just got bored watching you play with all these girls and went down there to check the place out on my own. Didn't you even notice I was gone?"

"Let's go and check this out Sheila, it wasn't that bad when we were there earlier."

"Are you sure things have gotten that bad, B?" Sheila asked the little bot.

It nodded as best it could. "Yep, yep, those huge catapults finally managed to break down some of the walls and that was all the undead needed to get inside."

"This is not good Sheila; just wandering around looking for your friends isn't working. We have to take a more direct method to deal with these things." Ranma muttered. "I hate not being involved in the fight when I can be of so much use."

"It's about time you figured that out, cross dresser." B yelled as he continued to butt into Ranma's foot. Just to irritate the guy. "We'll smarten you up yet!"

"B!" Ranma and Sheila yelled.

"What? I have to motivate him somehow?" He said innocently.

**********

There were only twelve of them left now as they ran down the halls with a hoard of undead on their tail, if the sight wasn't bad enough, the smell of rotting corpses filled the air all around them making things ten times worse. The Captain General knew that there was a pretty good chance the base palace would fall this day. The odds had been overwhelming enough to make even him hesitate before going into battle, but even he hadn't anticipated that things would take a turn for the worse this fast. He glanced around him to get a better look at his remaining men as they ran in a last ditch attempt to make it to the sealed room just under the stairway as it climbed from the back of the palace and wound it's way around the tree above them. This wasn't something he wanted to do, but a last resort measure that had to be activated if the base palace was to fall to an enemy. With the things as they were now he had no choice in the matter an he was just hoping he would make it in time. Just getting to the room would take a miracle as far as he was concerned. The main portions of the base palace had already fallen as his men fell one by one and got back to switch sides. He recognized Necromancy when he saw it, a very rare magic that only the insane would use. What bothered him was that Necromancy required that the wizard reanimate the dead with a spell and that wasn't happening, instead all the dead were just getting up and following the orders of the Undead Knights as they stalked the maze like hallways of the base palace.

His men were nearly dead on their feet as well and he prayed that none of them just dropped dead with the way things seemed to be working out. The magic of their armor was completely depleted now and it would be beyond help for at least twenty four hours before they could be used again. He knew that he wasn't completely drained yet as he glanced down at his gauntlet for a second. He figured he had enough magic left for one large blast of destructive energy or a couple of smaller shots, and then it too would be out of magic and leave them with only their swords. His gauntlet was a magic amplifier for offensive spells and could make low level attack spells fire off at ten times their normal fire power, a gift he had received years before from Gaja of the Edge Guard for performing a delicate service. Without its extra power he would never have been able to make it this far with the men he had left, he needed at least twice as many just to make it through the next battle. The gauntlet came in handy when he was being overwhelmed, sending waves of destructive energy out to decimate small portions of the never ending horde of monsters. He could blow skeletons and zombies to hell with any of his magical weapons, but that didn't matter when there were just so many of them running around in the first place.

"Keep up the pace; we're only a few doors away!" He yelled at them, hoping it would help keep them from dropping right then and there.

His men kept quiet, but they picked up the pace a bit as they descended a set of stairs, ran down a long corridor and managed to make it to the next room much quicker than expected. A couple of quick turns and drop walls managed to cut off the undead masses that had been following them for the last hour. Now they had a chance to relax a little as they systematically started to activate more drop walls and isolated this section of the palace. They managed to ignored all the sounds of the advancing skeletons and zombies as they swarmed into the now open front gate of the base palace a few minutes later, but knew that it meant the beginning of the end for them. They just had to pray that activating the last resort plan would be enough to protect the Higher Palace high in the Great Tree above. The Captain General leaned against the wall and took a second to recall what he had seen earlier; when he realized that the whole plan had failed miserably. He had watched as two of his own men, now undead paladins, shuffled up out of nowhere while his men were trying to fight off part of the latest attack and swiftly removed the locking bar and threw the door wide to let the enemy in. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes he would never had thought his men could be used against him like this.

The worst thing though had been being unable to stop these freshly risen paladins from instantly attacking those they considered friends and converting them as well a few seconds later. The effect had been horrifying to watch and even worse to remember as he realized that it must be some form of Necromancy. He could tell that escaping from this place would probably be the last thing they ever did, but even this little group of survivors the he had managed to pull together during the last second retreat had a chance and that was all they needed to have even the tiniest bit of hope of survival. All they had to do was make it to the room set right underneath the stairway and activate the last resort plan set up generations ago when the thing had first built.

"Sir! We're almost there!" One of his men said a few minutes later.

"I know, Private." He said as he straightened up and looked around to see just how close they were and managed to hear quite a battle going on a couple floors up. "Lets get going, we can walk from here, it's only a few minutes away."

"Listen to that, they have to be all around us!" Yelled one of the stragglers as his red helmet whipped from side to side, trying to figure out where the sounds of marching feet was emanating from.

"Calm yourself soldier! Panic after we have the job done and not before!"

"Aye Sir!" The nervous one said.

Then they all heard the screaming from a couple floors away and they all shuddered a little as they realized a survivor had just been taken by the enemy and turned to their side. They had heard the scream at least a hundred times in the last half hour alone and always sent a chill through their bones and sapped their strength to the core. Hanging his head the Captain General started walking down the hall again and motioned for his men to follow him as best they could; they were running short on time. His shoulder cape was slashed in half and hanging off his back at an odd angle, evidence of when one of his own comrades had tried to kill him at the height of the siege a few hours before. The man hadn't even been undead, but a traitor that had killed the original private a couple months before when he showed up for the newbie's practice. He had never learned the man's name and would forever remember using his gauntlet to blast him to a fine red mist to survive the encounter. He wasn't positive, but he had a feeling that if he looked into the guy's past he would find that he was a bandit of some kind. Just like so many other bandits that seemed to be running around these days. All of the Edge Guards work hadn't managed to do anything except fill the local mine with convicts that he would bet were now among the zombies currently attacking the base palace.

The long corridor finally made one final curve and they took a second to set off another couple of drop walls and sealed off the passage. From there the men continued on until they found themselves standing in front of a plain wooden door covered in metal bands. It stood about six foot tall and looked exactly like the rest of the doors used throughout the base palace, but in this case that was just it's disguise. Something used to keep people from going inside and even if they did all they would find would be a small storage room covered in dust. Great lengths had gone in to it's construction several generations back and only a few people knew what was in this room, even some of the council members were ignorant. The Captain General reached into a hidden pocket built into the inside of his armor and pulled out a large iron key and inserted it into the lock, carefully, so as not to trip one of the secondary defense spells placed on the lock itself. If a thief managed to actually get down here and tried to pick the lock, they would have instantly been teleported half way across the planet, leaving their clothing and everything else behind.

Gaja, the old leader of the Edge Guard, had used his abilities to set up the trap by coordinating a spell with and old friend of his from the Retreat. At the same time a number of magical wards had been placed at various areas around the area to keep the wrong sort of people away. Up until today they had worked perfectly, but the Captain General would be the first to admit that something really weird was going on considering just how fast this invasion had happened. There was a loud click as he turned the key and a very small flash of light as the key vanished, then he pushed the door open and waved at his men to follow him. His men trooped in as swiftly as they could and quickly took up positions around the room. It was quite cramped except for a small walkway that ran down the center of the room to a small empty alcove at the back of the room. They all glanced around at the wooden boxes piled to the ceiling and looking as if they were all about to fall apart with old age. Then they noticed large amounts of dust that covered the room in a thick blanket and made it a little hard to see as they kicked the dust up moving around.

"Are you sure this is the right place sir?" One asked as he gave the room a once over and found it very unsanitary.

He just grinned. "Look at the floor." They all looked down to see just more dust collecting on their shoes and looked back at the Captain General with a confused air. "We all just walked into a room that is this full of dirt, in a building that is cleaned almost religiously by the most powerful spells the council could cast. What seems to be missing from the floor?"

"I don't understand, sir."

"Look closely, this may be the only time you’ll ever see this room again so I want you to remember this. It's a lesson I had to learn and if any of you advance to my position one day you will be asked about this eventually."

Turning back the Captain General shut the door with a soft bang and put his key back in it's hidden pocket after using it to lock the door from the inside. His men were all wandering around the room looking at the floor, looking more and more confused. If this situation wasn't at dire as it was he wouldn't have minded sitting on a nearby box and watching the men for the next day or so and getting a good laugh out of it. Sadly he didn't have time to pull such a joke, so he would have to cut this short. He would give them another minute to rest up a bit and get their minds off the undead army. Besides, they needed a short break.

"Ah! I understand!" The first one yelled. "There's all this dust, but none of us are leaving foot prints in the dust!"

The Captain General smiled; at least one of them had some brains underneath all that muscle and armor. "Correct! Everything in this room is a mix of misdirection and illusions to make sure it's secrets aren't discovered. The Council wanted anyone that found it to think it was a long forgotten room that hadn't been touched in centuries." The other paladins all wondered what the room could contain that would require a set up like this as the glanced around. None of them could tell what was real and what was fake or illusion.

"Where to next sir?"

He strode over to the wall were a pile of boxes looked like it had lain there for several centuries. "Through here."

"Do we have to move the boxes? That pile looks like its about to fall on us anyway." The straggler muttered.

"Nope! It's supposed to look like that." He said as he climbed up on top of the front box and stood in front of the next level in the pile, moved to the far left and counted six boards over and kneeled down, tracing his finger along the length of the board. The instant his finger stopped there was a barely heard click as the whole board moved back just the tiniest bit and the whole section in front of him swung inward on a pair of concealed hinges. His men gasped at the small crawl space that appeared. "Let's go! Last one in remember to close the door behind you."

The tunnel was about three hundred feet long, about three feet by four feet, and hidden among the walls of the base palace. They all grunted and panted as they crawled along the long passage, it was to short to really let them stand up and walk easily, and hoped they wouldn't die in a place like this. They were paladins after all and had a reputation to live up to. Their full body armor made it impossible to move around inside this small space and defending themselves would be impossible if they were caught in here. The Captain General just kept his doubts to himself and continued forward to what appeared to be a complete dead end and paused for a second as he let the men catch up. The crawl space was hot, stuffy and situated in such a fashion that if they made to much noise they would be in a lot of danger, but luckily they were about ten feet underground right now. "From here we need to be extra careful, there is a chance that the enemy will hear us once we enter the room beyond this wall and if they do we will be trapped with no way to escape."

"We understand sir; let's get out of here as quickly as we can. Being cooped up like this isn't what a soldier is for anyway. I'd rather fight." The smart one said.

The Captain General nodded his helmet at them and traced a crack in the wall beside him with his finger. As his finger went down the crack, the wall blocking the hole slowly started to descend into the floor. For several seconds all that could be heard was the soft grind of rock against rock and the heavy breathing of a dozen men preparing to give their lives to complete their duty. Then the wall lowered enough for them to see the room behind and they were able to see an oddly shaped ceiling that rose from the floor and slowly rose several feet in the air, it was shaped like an inverted staircase. "This gentleman is directly underneath the stairway next to the Great Tree."

"What are we doing here sir?" One asked as they all crawled into the small room and glanced around. They all glanced around the triangle shaped room and wondered why no one had ever noticed it before. It was large enough to hold most of them quite easily.

"You guys are the only one's left alive right now, so I brought you along just for that reason. I'm here to do something that will piss off the mage council to no end, but they set up this plan as the Last Resort and in this situation I feel justified using it."

"And that would be?"

"Collapsing the Stairs." The Captain General explained as he walked across the room and stood in front of a stone wall that didn't quite match the rest of the stone around them. Instead of being lots of smaller ones, it was one huge piece that rose right up to the staircase ceiling. He patted the stone with his gauntlet and turned to look at his men.

"What?!" Most of them asked.

"We have lost and we have to keep these things from getting to the top at all costs."

"But sir, that's crazy!"

He shook his head. "I've thought this out for several years you know. We are safe in this room. It is the most heavily supported room in the whole base palace and can withstand tons of punishment."

"But sir, there is nothing here to help us survive..."

"Private, this is a last resort maneuver and one that keep those undead monsters from getting to the Higher Palace."

"But to collapse the stairs!" Another one yelled.

"We are all that is left." The smart one pointed out. "We need to stop the enemy at all costs, this plan just might work."

"See, now all of you stand back while I crush this load bearing stone." The Captain General explained.

"Are you sure this room won't collapse down upon us?"

"Not really, but at this moment I don't really care if it does or not. With over a hundred of the paladins dead there is a good chance that I won't have a job for much longer anyways. I will do my duty and deal with the consequences later." He snapped as he tapped a small sapphire on his gauntlet and watched as its primary purpose was activated. Even with no magical energies left it always had enough to for this tack from a separate well of magic set into the metal itself. The glow quickly brightened in intensity as he placed his hand on the center of the stone. Once it reached full power all the energy would be shoved through the wall and shatter the stone into a pile of dust. The sudden loss of it's main load stone would set off a chain reaction through the lower portion of the staircase and collapse it from above. It would take at least fifteen minutes once he destroyed the stone.

He could sense the energy building and was a bit curious why his gauntlet wasn't charging like it was supposed to. His men stood behind him in a small huddle waiting to see what would happen. So they failed to notice the gathering of a fine white mist across the floor of the whole chamber and began to gently drift back and forth across the room like a wave of water lapping at the shore. As the seconds ticked by the mist slowly grew thicker and thicker as the light from the Captain General's gauntly hid it's entry into the room. Then a dark female form rose out of the mist behind the men. It's physical features were a bit hard to make out, but one could see it's folded arms, the swell of its breasts and hips, and long hair tied in a pony tail that hung nearly to the floor.

It's hand came up and fired a bit of white light at the Captain General even as that same hand curved into a claw and disemboweled the paladin in front of her, slicing through the red armor like a knife through butter. He died in a shower of blood, screaming with such intensity that the men froze in fear as they recognized it instantly. Shaking in total fear they all snapped their heads around to see the shadowy figure slowly dropping out of sight through the fog at their feet. It's giggle was the only sound it made and that was enough to scare them even more. Then it began as one after another they were systematically killed, one blow each, with a single scream that could freeze one's blood in the pits of hell. As the last one died she rose up out of the mist and turned to see the Captain General still standing by his precious stone, his gauntlet still glowing. Her head cocked to the side and one could tell it was grinning. She had cast a pause spell on the Captain General a few seconds before and he had no clue his men were dead. The only thing she hadn't been able to stop was the build up of energy, but it had been child’s play to slow its gathering energy down to a crawl. The gauntlet was as old as the stairs themselves and had been worn by the Captain General for close to ten or twelve generations now. So it didn't have the modern day types of magic built into it like some items did.

The mist faded and the shadows that covered her body slowly withdrew to reveal a very skinny woman in a skimpy outfit kneeling on the floor. Her hair was wild and unkempt as it trailed down her back and onto the floor. Then there were the two features that stood out the most, her eyes, which were sewn up as if someone had removed them long ago. And her teeth, which were pointed and blood stained. She slowly stood up with her arms hanging and walked over to the frozen Captain General and appeared to look at him. Her master had given an order to capture this one alive if at all costs; otherwise he would have been the first one to die during the battle. Grabbing on to his shoulder cape she used her magic to pull him back from the wall. The movement canceled the spell holding him in place and she threw him across the room, making the gauntlet discharge it's built up magical energy uselessly into the air to ruffle her shirt a little. The Captain General groaned as he realized something had gone wrong and looked up just in time to see the girl's foot connect with his face. He barely had time to throw his arms forward in a lame attempt to block when he realized that there was a bit of magic behind the kick. With a loud grunt he was lifted off the floor and sent crashing through the stairs that made up the ceiling of the room and out into the main room of the base palace.

Stars danced before his eyes as he hit the wall next to the stairs, bounced off at an angle and landed hard. He rolled the rest of the way down the stairs, about ten steps or so before hitting the floor and sliding to a stop at someone's feet. Then he was grabbed him by his hair and jerked him to his knees and he found himself in front of G'nolga and noticed that there were about twenty of the recently deceased paladins standing among the ranks of the undead behind her. "Captain General, how nice of you to finally join us."

"What's going on...?” He muttered as he looked up a little to see the red armor of one of his paladins holding him in place. There was a large hole where his stomach used to be, but he still had the unmistakable signs of a recently raised zombie.

"You have something I want Captain and if you don't give it to me I will have to start torturing you to get it." G'nolga explained in her emotionless voice. She barely noticed as her pet ghoul floated up out of the room below the stairs and landed nearby with that weird giggle as she appeared to look right through his soul.

"I won't give it to you." The Captain General groaned.

"I believe you will, you haven't been all that cooperative so far, but I think you and your people will change that here pretty soon." G'nolga said. "Take him to the room next door; we can make him tell us what he knows from there. If he still resists we'll just wait until Rook gets here and we can have him killed and revived as an intelligent zombie instead of a mindless one. Go!"

"I'll never talk!" He yelled as his former friend dragged him out of their room by his hair, down the hall a ways and threw him into and empty storage room.

G'nolga turned to her pet and beckoned the girl over. "Did you get them all?"

She nodded as she kneeled at G'nolga's feet.

"You were not what I expected to find at the bottom of Rook's tower, but you have come in handy little ghoul. Your power has matured to a level that few of your kind has ever achieved. I think I know what your next assignment will be. Go up the stairs as fast as you can and secure the Upper Palace where the Mage Council is hiding out. Take as many of them alive as you can though, Rook needs them for the next part of his plan."

The ghoul nodded again as she stood up, ran across the room and started bounding up the stairs five at a time. G'nolga watched her impassively for a few seconds before turning to the recently deceased paladin that had just returned from tossing the Captain General into the empty storage room. It plodded over and stood at attention. She wondered when the Captain would realize that she had lied to him a little. Even when turned most of the zombies just switched loyalties and could still function somewhat normally. Most of them had already told her what she needed to know about the base palace, but she still had a few unanswered questions. Like a lot of Rook's recently revived zombies this one looked nearly exactly like all the other paladins so it was nearly impossible to know which one you were dealing with. Rook had explained that the full body armor helped to make the paladins stand out a bit from the masses while keeping their identities a secret incase they were ever infiltrated. A good plan, unless you died and were converted over to the other side. "Where is the teleport node that allows instant transport to the higher palace in the tree above?"

"Only those on the council itself have the activation magic to use that device." It explained.

G'nolga growled as she walked out of the room and made her way to the main room of the palace where several of her undead knights were gathered with a small platoon of skeletons. She was going to post them in the room she'd just left and throughout the base palace to make sure no one had a chance to remove them. She was really hoping to find a quick way up to the top instead of taking the five hour climb. Things would work out better if they could start teleporting everyone up to the top right away. He had given her some very strict orders before she left with the army at her back and that meant she had a time table to keep. Climbing the stairs had been included in that table, but it was hoped she could find a way to bypass it like the other mage's of the council did. Rook had even explained that he had his transportation taken care of, whatever that meant.

"Commander."

G'nolga turned to look at one of the recently converted Paladins. "What is it?"

"One of the Mage Council has just been spotted a few streets away and headed in this direction."

"Oh? Which one?"

"Dr. Theodore Diggers and his wife."

G'nolga didn't show any emotion at all upon hearing either of the names; she just nodded and gave the orders to make her job a little easier. "Excellent, if anyone can use that emergency teleport node it's Diggers, kill his wife and bring him to me as quickly as you and the others can." She turned to one of the undead knights. "Round up several of the other Paladins to help you out if you think you need help."

"Yes commander." The paladin said with a short bow.

**********

Life in the mines was always tough, it made a Dwarf out of you if you survived. At least that is what Tavis Stoneslicer had always believed and he was a Dwarf. Now however it seemed that the King had other things in mind other than mining. After surviving the beating that human had given him by using that thrice damned magic of hers, Tavis had woken up some place he hadn't wanted to wake up. In the Special Section, a hidden part of the mine that wasn't used anymore. It had no official name and only the King and his advisers knew where it was officially. To the rest of the mine it was nothing but a rumor with no way to prove or disprove if it existed. The instant he opened his eyes he instantly knew that it was no mere rumor and that he didn't want to be there. He was bandaged from head to foot, all his injuries treated with professional care and could even tell that they had forced him to drink a healing potion that was slowly healing him from the inside out. What scared him were the two Dwarves standing on either side of his bed with crossbows in their hands and giving him the evil eye, as if accusing him of betraying the mine by being beat up.

They were wearing thick black leather armor, gloves, and weird cloaks that had their hoods up to disguise their faces. Even these were covered in a black facial mask that covered their eyes and left the beards to dangle down. What exposed skin he could see, which wasn't much more than a bit of the chin, was almost completely white, chalk white and it made then scary as hell. The King had endured several assassination attempts on his life from various factions in the mines that didn't like the way he ruled and his answer to this had been the Hidden Hammers. An elite group of Dwarves trained to take on any situation. They were the hidden body guards and a group that took out traitorous Dwarves from the shadows. In the last year alone over twenty Dwarves had been found with midnight black crossbow bolts sticking out of their heads. All of them had been well known for not agreeing with the King and working against him in attempt to ruin him. Surprisingly enough every time it happened the King would call a meeting of the Families and explain why he'd sent the Hidden Hammers after these individuals, presenting evidence that clearly showed that they were indeed plotting against the King.

People were a little worried about the Hidden Hammers, but for the most part they were still only spoken of as rumors that were used to frighten small children. With two of them standing less than three feet away Tavis knew that even half of those tales were true, he would be one dead Dwarf if he didn't place his pick axe just right. The one on the left lowered his Crossbow and glared at him for a second. "Good you're awake, I'll get the Leader and let him talk to you."

Tavis paled a bit and gave a slight nod. Life sucked, that was the only explanation for him being here, his life just sucked. The other member of the elite squad just stood there as if waiting for him to jump up and start killing people, his hand ready to pull the trigger on that weird looking crossbow in an instant if need be.

A couple of minutes later the first guard, or one that seemed to be the first guard, came back with a slightly taller and even scarier looking member following him. The Dwarf was slightly stooped, wearing a pure black outfit that seemed to absorb the light before it could touch him, swathing him in darkness almost impossible to see through. They walked over to the bed and stared down at him for several seconds. The new comer raised a hand and the two guards stepped away from the bed and moved across the room where they appeared to vanish from sight as they kneeled down. Tavis barely managed to keep from gasping in shock, but then his attention was grabbed by the only one left in the room as he moved around the side of the bed. "Tavis Stoneslicer?"

"Ye-yes Sir." He said with a nod.

"You were recently found unconscious and beaten into the ground within the traitors cell. I'd like to know what happened in there."

Tavis gulped. "A human was there."

"A HUMAN!?"

He nodded again. "Yes sir, a human female. She broke into the cell to get the traitor."

"So G'nolga had help escaping." The Leader muttered.

"No...sir." Tavis hesitantly corrected him.

The Leader turned slowly and seemed to glare right through Tavis's soul. "Excuse me? What do you mean, by 'no'?"

Tavis shuddered. "The h-human broke into the cell and had an argument with G'nolga. G'nolga seemed to know the human and told her that there was no way she would go with her, that she had to atone for her crimes and regain her honor..."

The Leader snorted.

"...Then the human pulled this amulet or necklass of some kind out and placed it around G'nolga's neck."

"What did it do?"

"At first nothing, but by this time I had entered the cell and had my crossbow trained on the human and told her to drop her weapons and that she was under arrest. She just laughed and pulled this huge spear off her back and prepared to fight. Then G'nolga started to convulse and I noticed that the amulet thing was glowing, this lasted only a few seconds, but then she stopped and hung from her chains like a limp rag doll. Then she started to move around a bit and she lifted up her head." Tavis shuddered a bit. "Those eyes of hers were empty sir, completely empty as if that cursed magic had drained the life out of her."

"I see and what happened after that?"

"I go me wits back and tried to get the human to come with me and leave the cell, but she played with something on her hand and suddenly started to move so fast that I couldn't keep up with her and she beat me up with that staff in just a few seconds. Then just as I was fading, I think the Human pulled something from her glove, grabbed G'nolga, and they vanished from sight."

The Leader was silent for several seconds, as if waiting for more, but then turned away just as Tavis was going to ask if he needed anymore information. "Twelve!"

Another cloaked member appeared from out of nowhere at the end of the bed and Tavis nearly screamed in shock.

"Sir?"

"Was that what you were able to find out from the others?"

Twelve nodded. "Yes sir, though they mentioned something about the human being able to turn invisible."

The leader turned back to Tavis and growled out. "Why didn't you mention this?"

He paled. "I...I never s-saw her until she was i-in the cell with G'nolga."

"Twelve this debacle has to be cleaned up and that means getting G'nolga back here to stand her trial."

"Yes sir."

"Assemble the team, we're going to go and get G'nolga." The Leader said, then he turned on Tavis. "You and me are going to go through every step of the incident, second by second until you tell me everything that happened. Understand?"

Tavis whimpered at the feeling of evil wafting off the man even as he noticed the slight smirk that Twelve was giving him. "Y-Yes s-s-sir."

**********

To Be Continued...

End Notes - The Hidden Hammers will be playing a part in the upcoming battle against Rook and G'nolga as they move towards Seer's Hamlet. Let me know if you liked this chapter or not, I tried to give Ranma more of a spot light in this monster that has grown completely out of control.

^_^;;

The Edge Guard: http://www.monmouth.com/~roxikat/edgeguard.htm

Sheila is Gar’s sister. She has a rare werecat birth defect where her human form has her strength and speed instead of her hybrid form. She’s an adult in a teenager’s hybrid form. She chooses her hybrid form in combat usually because her human form lacks the healing and jagwere dexterity. Also, she’s accepted more as ‘one of the guys’ when she’s small, not as a gorgeous damsel to be put on a pedestal to court. Despite her insisted maturity, she uses words like pow and kapowie. Most of her elemental attacks are based around them. She’s infatuated with Tirga, but refuses to let him know.

Race: Jagwere

Class: swashbuckler/ fighter

Weapon: Ice Fang, scimitar

Special Ability: The fastest healer in hybrid form.

Gar is second in command of the Northern Edge Guard. A dark and brooding warrior since Brittany Diggers spurned his affections after he tried to defeat her lover Stripe in hand-to-hand combat. Since he was trained by the famous armsmaster, Julia Diggers, the fight was nearly his. Gar refuses to let go for reasons of his own. But Julia taught him first and foremost to have patience without hesitance.

Race: Jagwere

Class: Martial artist/ fighter

Weapon: Thunder Edge, partisan (spear)

Special Ability: During a solar eclipse, Gar can focus his power to perform the Lunar Rave, increasing his strength, speed, and size.

Tirga is a hedonistic, vain womanizer, who relies on his charm to get out of most scrapes. But behind his fun-loving demeanor, Tirga is a cautious, secretive person. Often uses disguises to blend into his surroundings when tracking his quarry.

Race: Were-tiger

Class: Rogue/Tracker/Tactician

Weapon: Fire Claw, morning star mace

Special Ability: His powers of vanity allow him to grow his hair to any length or style to aid in his disguises.

Onoli is the leader of the Northern Edge Guard, and their strongest and wisest member. Raised in bushido schools of thought, Onoli lets little disturb his tranquility. Well-versed in the laws of the Retreat, he makes an eloquent public speaker at the Council.

Race: Were-lion

Class: samurai

Weapons: Seraphim and Necro, swords of Light and Dark soul energy. The Jasper - Rain

Thropan is a mechanical artifact expert as well as a mechanical and magical engineer. He rebuilt and modified the standard issue Edge Guard elemental weapons and gear with his own experimental designs including the device that lets them gate around. With science and technology outlawed on Jade, Thropan toes the line with all his technological experiments using magic for power.

Race: Were-panther

Class: Magical engineer/ martial artist

Weapon: Earth Flail, dragon’s claw (bladed nunchaku)

Special Ability: Master of the School of Xiao Pai Long