Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Gold Digger Fan Fiction ❯ Golden Oportunity ❯ Chapter 12 ( Chapter 13 )

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

Notes -

http://shi_hanna.tripod.com/

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Golden Opportunity
Chapter 12
Cory D. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2003
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Ashaton’s new cloak fluttered in the darkening sky as he walked down the cobblestone street in the northern part of Seer’s Hamlet just a few blocks form the Lower Palace. It didn’t have the same properties as his old one, such as the cloaking ability and invisibility, but it would work until he could find another magical cloak.

For the last several minutes, he had been wandering around looking for a few undead to take down, but for some reason he was having a problem finding them. He had been fighting them left and right less than an hour before, so he was a little confused. As far as he could tell the area seemed to be deserted.

What had him bothered the most was the dead silence that permeated the air around him as he walked along. His hand kept inching toward the handle of the large sword he had on his back. He moved over to a building and carefully looked in the small alley that was beside it for some kind of ambush, but it was as empty as the last few he had checked.

The lack of action was really beginning to worry him. Then he closed his eyes, listened to silence around him, and was a bit surprised when he actually heard something several streets away. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was hearing because it was so faint. He wasn’t sure what it was at this distance, but it was something that sounded like trouble.

It was just what he was looking for. Grinning a little, he ran down the street, turned the corner, and started listening for the sounds he’d just heard. It didn’t take him long to find the source as he ran, but he could instantly tell that something major was going on even when he was over two blocks away. The closer he got the louder it got and that could only mean something big.

He stopped running when he was about a block from the sounds. From what he could tell, a large gathering of undead was making the noise and he didn’t like it one bit. Whenever they started to gather in a large group it meant trouble. So far they had spent most of the day spreading throughout the city in small groups.

That was the only reason the paladins had been able to respond as well as they had in the first place. If there had been anymore undead spreading through the city they would have been overwhelmed in a matter of hours. He looked around, spotted an alley up ahead, and made his way over to it.

He carefully looked around the edge of the building and spotted an armored skeleton at the other end of the alleyway, just beyond the edge of the far end of the alley. It was swinging a torch around its head, yelling as if he was about to throw it, and waving a blood stained sword in the other hand.

Ashaton still wondered how a skeleton could even talk, but they managed it somehow. Insulting you as they fought and trying to kill you at the same time. For a second Ashaton was considered killing the thing from where he was standing, but he pulled back as he spotted several other skeletons suddenly wander over to the one with the torch.

The odds against a quick and easy killing were a little to low for his liking. They all started yelling at each other and patting each other on the back as some of them started to cheer. The sound was enough to make anyone nervous. He suddenly realized that the large gathering must have been on the next street over. A lot closer than he thought they were.

This was unlike anything he had encountered yet and it made him really nervous. He could easily handle ten or so skeletons on his own in a matter of minutes, but this sounded like a lot more than that. Considerably more than he expected to find in one spot.

Now he was starting to wish he still had his invisibility cloak. Losing it in the fire at the Compound had been a grave mistake that just might get him killed. Scowling a little, he looked around and shifted into his werecheetah form when he didn’t see anyone. Then he crouched down, and jumped onto the roof without making a sound. At least he could still move silently, even if he did have to change into his newest form.

He would have to investigate this from somewhere the things wouldn’t spot him. It was a bit galling, but it wasn’t as if he could really do anything else now. He didn’t have enough information on the situation to make decent plan of attack. So the instant he landed on the roof he dropped to his belly and carefully made his way across the slanted roof as quietly as he could.

He slowly looked over the edge off the roof to see a small open street full of skeletons. They were everywhere, at least two hundred of them if he was guessing right. All around them the houses and shops were being set on fire as the skeletons tossed their torches through windows. Even as he watched a building started to go up and the skeletons cheered again and started to high five each other.

At the end of the street was an important looking house and it looked like it was untouched by the fire and the skeletons. It was a large two-story building with a wide front yard. Surrounding the house was a sight that was becoming all too familiar.

When the people died, they would rise back up as an undead zombie a few minutes later. He’d seen it happen more than once during the day already. So seeing about fifty newly created zombies, men, women, and children all circling the building sent a chill down his spine.

He wasn’t sure what it was, but his werecheetah senses were telling him, by the smell in the air, that there were several people inside the building. Then he had it confirmed as someone suddenly shot a crossbow bolt out an upper story window. Right into the head of a zombie and knocked it off its feet. Ashaton knew that the things had a limited amount intelligence so when they didn’t retaliate he was a bit shocked.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the skeletons had just set the building next to it on fire by tossing a few torches into the thatched roofing of the older building. Then he noticed something he hadn’t been looking for. Standing way off to the side were a couple of paladins and a strange looking zombie of some kind.

Over the years, he’d met several different kinds of undead and this zombie looked a little different than the ones that were surrounding the house. Even from this distance his senses were telling him to stay away from the thing. It was an old man dressed in ill-fitting armor with a large double shot crossbow in its hands as hit knelt on the street next to the paladin.

The thing was hunched over with its head bowed down so that its chin rested on its chest. It appeared to be resting or waiting for something to happen. A shiver of fear went down his back as it lifted its head and looked around, almost as if it knew it was being watched.

He ducked back and made sure the thing couldn’t see him peaking over the edge of the building. It must have been a guard of some kind, but the two paladins had Ashaton confused. They should have been killing the skeletons, not standing around watching them burn buildings down.

Being in his werecheetah form, he lifted his head and sniffed the air, but there was too much going on around him to learn anything that way. All he could smell was smoke as the house went up in flames all around him. His tail twitched as he tried to think of something to do to help those people.

Adding more people to the growing undead army was something he had to avoid at all costs. Then he peaked over the edge of the roof again and took a closer look at the two paladins as the light from the fire flickered.

There were only a few reasons he could think of that might explain why they weren’t helping the people inside the house. They were traitors, possibly prisoners by magic, or something else even worse than traitors were. Then he glanced at the zombie again and wondered what it was about the thing that kept drawing his attention.

He shook his head and glanced at the building again. The fire on the building next to it was slowly going up in flames as the magical wards failed under the onslaught, but the skeletons kept the fires going. Every time they did this the wards would be weakened just a little more and would flare to warn people to get away. The skeletons just laughed and cheered whenever they flared up.

Reaching over his shoulder he quietly pulled his sword from its sheath and watched for a second as the light from the fires below reflected off the larger ruby set in the hilt. For the first time all day, he wished he had a bit of back up to call upon. There was no way he could take out so many skeletons and zombies on his own, even with his special abilities.

The super speed granted to the werecheetah would allow him to fight a while lot better though. He already had several ideas what he needed to do if he wanted to get to the house. Now all he had to hope was that he could make it before the building was set on fire.

“Damn, I’m running out of time. I’ll have to move as quickly as I can and hope the people inside realize I’m a good guy here.” He muttered to himself.

He narrowed his eyes and studied the building and all the undead around it and within a few seconds, he devised a general plan of attack that depended heavily on his magic sword and werecheetah speed. The large ruby in the hilt started to glow as it sensed is growing intentions.

He stood up and jumped off the roof before he could talk himself out of going. Landing in the street behind the skeletons, he landed with the skill of a true fighter and jumped at them. His massive sword lit up with a bright red glow as he brought it up and the skeletons began to notice him for the first time. Just down the street, the paladins turned to look in his direction when they noticed the sudden movement.

“RUBY SHINING WAVE!!” He screamed out and slashed through the air with his sword leaving a line of energy in its wake as the power woke up for the first time since the battle at the Compound. A wave of blood red energy flew from the blade, and expanded out in a razor blade thin beam of light shot out with a roar of sound.

It was twenty feet wide by the time it hit the first of the skeletons at the back of the pack. It seemed that slicing them into little bite sized pieces with the attack wasn’t their fate though, at least for the first few that were hit with the attack. Instead, they exploded the instant the energy hit them and the force from that took out those skeletons to the sides of each skeleton.

He raced forward just behind the wave, his sword striking out to decimate even more of the skeletons around him as he headed for the house. Taking advantage of the skeletons confusion allows him to use his werecheetah speed to make it all the way to the edge of the house before they even started to react properly.

By that time he had the newly raised zombies and he took a second to slash through several of them on his way through with his werecheetah speed They fell to pieces with a spray of thick blood before they can even react. Then, without slowing down, he shattered the wooden door with his fist and sped into the house.

His increased reflexes instantly knocked several crossbow bolts out of the air before they hit him. He took a second to glance around the room to see what was going on. He can see that the people inside of the house ready to ambush for the skeletons the instant they come through the door.

It was just what he had expected of them so he was glad he prepared himself for the attack before he even came in. There were several over turned chairs and tables being used as cover by various people. All of them were armed with swords and crossbows.

“We have to get you out of here.”

“Are you with the Edge Guard?” A scared old man asks as he nervously clutches is crossbow.

“Yeah.” He lied and whipped is tail back and forth to remind them that he was a in his werecheetah form. “Call me Raphiel. All of you need to get out of here as fast as possible before the whole place starts on fire. The wards on the building next door are already failing.”

The old man stood up just as Ashaton turned and grabbed a nearby couch just as several zombies tried to get through. They fell back as he pushed them back outside with the couch before wedging it in place. He made sure there was no way to get through the door and pretended to ignore a couple of swords suddenly shoved through it from the other side.

His werecheetah hearing could hear the paladins yelling orders to the skeletons and he knew he was in a lot of trouble. The skeletons really weren’t working alone. Their leaders controlled their movements and actions completely, so they were quickly overwhelming the city and he wondered what the coming days would bring.

“Those paladins are traitors.” He snarled under his breath.

“Naw, they were just killed and brought back as part of the army.” The old man said.

“What do you mean? They are even raising the paladins?”

“Yeah.”

“Blast! I hadn’t even considered that.” Ashaton said. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take care of any skeletons we meet when we go out the back door.”

“Alright sonny lets get the women and leave this place.” The old man said with a toothless grin.

There turned out to be four girls and three old men inside the house. As they gathered by the back door of the house, Ashaton noticed that all of them armed with a crossbow. They were preparing to run for it the instant the door opened.

The air was beginning to get a little smoky by the time all of them were gathered in one place. He hoped the house wasn’t on fire yet, otherwise there was going to be even more problems to deal with. His sword was still out, the large ruby in the hilt glowing brightly to warn him that there was danger on the other side of the door.

The group was eyeing him a bit nervously as he opened the door a tiny bit and tried to see what was on the other side. “Are all of you ready?”

“Let’s just get the hell out of here and head for the closest safe area.”

Ashaton nodded. “Get ready for a long run, cause the closest place is a ways off.”

“We’ll go as far as we need to.” One of the girls said and the others nodded.

“Then let’s go.” Ashaton said.

Stepping up to the door, he threw it open and looked out into the back yard. As he had expected, several skeletons were there waiting for them, and more started to stream in from the sides of the house. On their heels came the dozens of zombies.

He ran out the door and brought his glowing sword up again. “RUBY SHINING WAVE!”

Two dozen skeletons exploded into shrapnel as he completed the move and turned to confront the next group of undead heading for them. The people behind him seemed suitably impressed as they exited the house and fired several crossbow bolts into the heads of their formers neighbors and friends. “Where to sonny?”

“There!” Ashaton pointed towards the fence. “Were going that way!”

The old man nodded and looked over at one of the other old men in the group. Ashaton noticed for the first time that he was dressed in a black mage suit hidden underneath a thick cloak and hood. He had a long white beard that went all the way down his to his stomach and curled at the end.

“Albus take the fence out, you’re our secret weapon.” He old man said with a hacking laugh.

“Alright...FIREBALL!!” Albus said as an aura flared around him and he blew a large portion of the fence away in a large explosion that managed to take out more of the skeletons.

Ashaton used his magical attack to take out several more zombies and a couple of skeletons before they could get close. The girls used their crossbows to take out a few more zombies, but the ones that they had shot earlier were stating to get back on their feet.

“All of you run for it.” Ashaton yelled at the group. “We have to fight our way out!”

They ran for the hole and Ashaton watched as the skeletons started to pour into the back yard again. He had known it was only a matter of time before the rest of them were sent to stop them from getting away, so he charged up is attack as he turned to face them.

“RUBY…” Right as a wave of force slammed into him from the side and sent him tumbling across the yard. He came up almost instantly, but in that short period, that several skeletons had managed to get close enough to him that they could attack. So he brought his sword around to shatter three skeletons in one large swipe of the blade before he had even had time to think about it.

They converge on him in an instant, quickly taking the place of the fallen skeletons and screaming in rage. The jewel on the hilt of his sword flared to life and he launched his attack before they could get any closer.

“RUBY FLARE!”

More skeletons exploded as his less powerful attack slammed into them and he tried to buy as much time as he could for the small group to get away as safely as possible. Then he saw a flash of red cloth and looked to the side right as one of the paladins walked into the back yard, looked at him, and closed in for an attack.

It didn’t seem to hesitate as it pulled its long sword and tried to decapitate him in one smooth motion. Reacting on instinct Ashaton parried the soldier’s sword just as it passed over his head. Their blades slammed together with a loud crashing noise. Ashaton was surprised when he was nearly knocked off his feet just by blocking the blow.

“Traitor!”

“Time to die werecheetah.” The paladin said as his blade flashed around and continued to attack relentlessly. “You are not good enough to stand up to my skills.”

“You aren’t good enough to beat me!” Ashaton yelled as they attacked each other.

A whirlwind of steel flashed around them as their blades slammed into each other dozens of times as they tried to kill each other. The sharp retorts of steel hitting steel filled the back yard for several seconds, but then Ashaton made a mistake.

He fell into a pattern and the paladin took advantage of this to alter his attack at the last second by reversing his blade and sliced right into Ashaton’s side.

“Pathetic.”

He screamed and staggered back. “Damn it!”

“For a werecheetah you aren’t very good at fighting are you?” The paladin mocked him. Then he sheathed his blade and held up his gauntlet, making a fist, and it started to glow. “Time to die.”

Ashaton snarled as he forced himself to ignore the pain in his side. “Not yet!”

“FORCE BALL!”

Moving as quickly as he could, he dived out of the way and felt the magical burst of energy miss him by only a few inches. It nearly severed his tail from his body as it flew by him. The pain rose to new levels as the attack forced him to move before his body could regenerate.

He brought his sword around the instant he was back on his feet and met the paladin’s blade again. This time the blow rattled the while blade and it was almost knocked from his hand and stumbled back several feet from the force of the blow.

“Paladins have a lot of advantages and now that were dead we have even more.” His enemy said with a hint of humor in his voice.

“Where’s your partner?” Ashaton asked to distract him and gain a few minutes to regenerate.

“He took the rest of the skeletons after the old men.”

“They can defend themselves you know.” Ashaton said.

“Only for so long.”

Screaming in rage, Ashaton swung his sword around and it flared with red light from the ruby, even brighter than before. “CHAOS CONTROL!”

“SHIELD!” The paladin yelled.

The blade swung around Ashaton brought it up and pointed the tip at the paladin and a multi colored beam of energy lanced out and slammed into the paladin’s shield. For several seconds the two of them stood there, one using a shield of magic to block and the other firing a beam of energy and they couldn’t break each other.

Then Ashaton snarled and he increased the power of the move, forcing the beam through the shield with one final push. He watched as the paladin seemed to explode in slow motion, with flaming pieces of armor that rained down around the back yard of the house.

It was at that moment that the house wards finally gave out and burst into a full force blaze filling the darkening sky with fire. He turned and casually swatted a few more of the nearby skeletons out of existence. If he wanted to help those people, he would have to move fast since he didn’t watch which direction they had gone when they left.

He ran out the hole in the fence and looked around for a sign that would indicate which direction the group had gone. Just down the street he spotted several piles of skeleton bones scattered about. Then a zombie pinned to one of the buildings with a crossbow bolt through its head.

It was struggling to try to pull it out so it could continue with the hunt. He had to find that group and help them out before that other paladin got to them. They were a lot more dangerous than he’d thought they were if that fight was any indication what the other one could do. His side was also starting to regenerate now that he wasn’t moving around defending his life.

His wound was still a little sore, but he figured he would be back in fighting shape before he reached the next battle. He couldn’t even hear a fight so he knew they weren’t too close. He ran down the street, his sword out and leading the way as he tried to find them. Considering the number of skeletons he’d seen, they weren’t going to be too hard to find

All he had to do was follow the shattered remains of the skeletons and zombies that littered the road. For a group of old men a few girls they sure knew how to take these things down. It was the only reason he knew they hadn’t been defeated yet. The things were everywhere he ran and within a few minutes, he could hear the sounds of a battle in the distance. He homed in on it and hoped everyone was fine as he rounded a corner.

The men were in the middle of an open lot surrounded by a few dozen skeletons while the paladin and several of the zombies were watching from the sidelines. He watched as Albus, who was tired and sweaty, flared up and fired off several magic missile attacks. But, he wasn’t as strong as he had been and the skeletons managed to deflect the magic attack with their shields.

Behind the old men the girls were also nearly back to back as they held their crossbows up and tried to find a target to fire at. He could see that they were all scared out of their minds and hadn’t noticed him yet. Then Albus tried to fire off another magical attack and failed as he fell to his knees. He started holding his chest and gasping for air a few seconds later.

“Damn, this just keeps getting worse and worse.” He muttered.

“You’re a werecheetah?!”

He spun around and attacked, but stopped half a second later as the sword got knocked out of his hand, spun up into the air, and was caught in Julia Digger’s hand. She smiled at him and handed the sword back. “Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s okay. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be around to help me.” Ashaton said.

“Things are getting worse and worse.” Julia said as she looked him up and down. Other than that she didn’t say anything about his new form.

“I can use all the help I can get.”

“Well my husband should be arriving any second, so this shouldn’t last to much longer.” Julia said and pointed towards the lot. “There he is.”

Ashaton turned and saw that Theodore Diggers had just appeared beside old Albus and was helping him stand up. Then the Archmage turned and glared at the undead skeletons and zombies around him, raised his hand in the air, and snapped his fingers. One by one, every one of them exploded from the inside out and died a rather gruesome death.

“Theo’s showing off again.” Julia said.

“What the hell was that?”

“It’s a multi person attack spell. I’ve seen him use it on up to twenty goblins at once. We need to go and help him though he can only cast it a few times. He usually knows better than to show off.” Julia said and started jogging towards the fight.

There were still quite a few of the skeletons and zombies left even after Theo took a good third of them out with his spell. So Ashaton and Julia didn’t waste any time as they ran forward and added into the remaining mob of undead monsters. Within seconds the two of them had taken out a dozen skeletons.

Then Ashaton spotted the undead paladin and that strange zombie that gave him the creeps. Controlling his apprehension, he started to head for the two in order to take them down permanently. Theo, a somewhat refreshed Albus, and Julia took the initiative and attacked.

“RUBY FLARE!”

Another half dozen skeletons die as his attack hits them and it leaves Ashaton standing just a few feet from his goal. The paladin turned and looked at him as he walked forward and ignored the actions around him as the rest of the undead are whittled down.

“I’m surprised you managed to survive, but a werecats do have the ability to regenerate, so I’m not to broken up over it.” The Paladin said.

“You’re going to die next.” Ashaton said and took up his attack stance.

“I highly doubt that.” The Paladin said. “Jeb, are you interested in fighting him?”

The old man zombie turned and glanced at Ashaton with a pair of milky white eyes. Ashaton shivered a bit as the eyes seemed to bore into his soul, but then the thing shook its head. “No challenge.”

“Ah well, I figured I’d give you a chance to do something.”

“My prey is already here, let them wear themselves down a bit first.” Jeb said and turned away from them.

“Well it looks like it’s just you and me now werecat. How would you like to die? With your skin still intact? Or would stripping it from your body in small pieces work better?”

“Your partner didn’t do to well against me, so don’t get to over confident.” Ashaton lied.

In one quick motion the paladin grabbed the hilt of his sword and ran at Ashaton. He brought his sword down low and tried to do a cut right up between his legs, but Ashaton blocked it with the flat of his massive sword and palm punched him in the chest to knock him back a few feet.

Then the paladin took a step back and held up his sword in a ready position. “Not bad, you at least know how to use that thing.”

“I expected more from you.”

“Oh there’s more where that came from, I haven’t even begun to fight yet. We sent the other paladin after you because he was such a pathetic fighter compared to the rest of us.”

Ashaton shot forward, attacked with a thrust, and cut attack, but the paladin simply hopped back and blocked him effortlessly. “Pathetic!”

Then he shot forward at an incredible speed, far faster than anyone wearing full body armor should have been able to move. The air around Ashaton lit up with pain as the paladin seemed to cut him several hundred times in the blink of eye.

Stumbling back, Ashaton felt the edge of the paladin’s sword resting against his neck. “Wha?”

“Paladin’s come with quite an arsenal of magical attacks, it’s one of the reasons we are so dangerous to our enemies. You, I’m afraid, just don’t stand up to most of our enemies. You’re really kind of pathetic and weak, but it’s been fun playing with you so I’m to disappointed. Just bored.”

“You are so dead.” Ashaton growled.

The sword was pressed against his neck a little tighter and the paladin just seemed to be enjoying himself too much. “Any last words?”

“How about…pay attention?”

“Huh?”

A fireball suddenly slammed into the paladin from the side and sent him flying into the wall of a nearby building. Most of the wall developed a crack pattern from the impact and the paladin slowly slid to the ground and landed on its feet.

Looking up, Ashaton saw that Dr. Diggers had helped him out as he and his wife fought the rest of the undead. Most of them were gone by now as they cleaned up the last dozen or so. He stood up and looked at his arms and chest to see that his wounds were healing, but his new cloak was a total loss. Most of it was in shreds at his feet, so he ripped it off and tossed it away.

“How many of these things am I going to go through in one day?” He muttered to himself.

“He’s using a haste spell!” Dr. Diggers yelled as he detonated another zombie.

Cursing himself for not seeing it, Ashaton did a couple of stretches and made sure his body was working right. For some reason the arrogant paladin hadn’t killed him in that flurry of attacks, and it was the only reason he wasn’t dead. He would have to repay the favor.

“I’m still not used to his werecheetah form.” He muttered as he looked over at the paladin. It looked a little confused as it finally managed to shake off the attack and he realized that there might have been more in that fireball than just fire.

“CHAOS CONTROL!” Ashaton screamed and fired off his attack again.

The paladin held up his gauntleted hand and formed a shield, just like the last paladin. As the blast bounced off the shield, Ashaton sighed and cursed under his breath. These things were a lot stronger than they looked.

“Looks like I’ll have to use plan ‘B’ after all.” He spun his sword and got into a special stance.

“Bring it on wimp.”

Two glowing red eyes flared behind the paladin’s helmet as his hand started to glow. It suddenly flared and multiple burst of fire erupted from the gauntlet as several fireballs fired out at Ashaton. The werecheetah shifted and weaved his way forward through the barrage with a snarl. He was getting tired of fighting these things.

Then the paladin was suddenly in front of him swinging his sword downward in a lethal attack. Cursing his carelessness, Ashaton pulled back and tried to dodge and block the swift attack with his large blade, but the paladin was faster. As their blades met Ashaton knew his blade was at the wrong angle.

With a shower of sparks, the paladin’s sword skidded down Ashaton’s blade and he ground the tip of his blade through the werecheetah’s shoulder. Dropping to his knee in pain, Ashaton realized three things, the paladin’s blade was making the pain worse, there was an open palm in front of his face, and that he’d just been defeated.

“Time to die flesh bag.” The paladin snarled as his gauntlet flared with fire.

Ashaton looked at the paladin, saw something and just smiled evilly. “I really doubt that.”

Julia cut the paladin’s arm off as she landed, reversed her sword, and cut him in half in two quick motions. Then she kicked him away and turned to look down at Ashaton in irritation. “I thought you were better than this?”

“Normally I am.” He grunted. “The thing caught by surprise with that cheap shot.”

“Use your abilities. You are a werecheetah, aren’t you?” She snapped.

“Don’t push me woman.” He said as he stood up and examined his shoulder.

“I am not your babysitter, so I may not be able to save you next time.” Julia growled, turned, and slashed several of the oncoming zombies into smaller pieces.

Gritting his teeth, Ashaton decided not to push his luck. He knew how good Julia Diggers was and that she had a bit of a temper when she got going in the middle of a fight. “I’m sorry, I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

The red head just nodded and headed for the next group of undead, but a sudden sound in the distance caught their attention. At the same time a ring of explosive fire surged forth from around Theo and incinerated several skeletons and zombies. They could see that his face was a bit tired form casting so many spells in such a short period of time.

“Theo, what is that noise?” Julia called.

Ashaton listened for a second realized that there was an echoing sound bouncing off the houses and making the noise more than it was. He turned to Julia. “It’s marching feet.”

“Us?”

“I highly doubt it.” Theo said as he recognized the sound a few seconds later.

Julia pointed her sword at Jeb. “He’s the only one left, let’s take care of him before the other s get here.”

Forming a ball of fire between his hands, Dr. Diggers just nodded and clenched his teeth.

Jeb, who was kneeling on the ground, slowly stood up and assumed a slightly stooped over stance. His head cocked to the side as if he was listening to something. Then he glanced over at Dr. Diggers. “I have orders to make sure you are brought back to the palace.”

“We aren’t going anywhere zombie.” Julia snarled.

“Indeed, you will find that we are a lot stronger than you think.”

“You are weak.” Jeb stated. “You have limits, weaknesses, there is no way you can stand against all of us!”

Rank after rank of skeletons and zombies started to march out from between some buildings behind Jeb. Ashaton groaned as he lost count of the number of undead heading their way. It didn’t help that over two thirds of them appeared to be the recently dead citizens of Seer’s Hamlet. He could even see several figures in red walking along beside the mounted Undead Knights.

Dr. Diggers growled and fired his fireball right at Jeb, who he could tell was the biggest threat. As it crossed the distance between them, Jeb gestured with his hand and the remains of the paladin near Ashaton lifted up off the ground and flew right into the fireball.

It exploded with a larger than normal explosion that sent a wave of air in all directions. The fire from the explosion dissipated quickly and didn’t cause any damage at all. Jeb grinned and loaded his multi shot cross bow. “This should be easy enough.”

“Theo, what is he?!” Julia yelled as she ran over to her husband and kept an eye on the expanding wall of undead behind Jeb. Ashaton used his speed to run over to the couple and stand on the other side of Dr. Diggers.

“I’m not sure, but he was raised differently than a normal zombie, I can tell that just by looking at him.”

“Can you read his aura? Like you did with your father?” Julia asked.

Theo frowned and concentrated on Jeb for a few seconds as they watched. “He’s got a massive aura of power around him, almost demonic.”

“We can’t fight him and all these others at the same time.” Ashaton muttered. There had to be close to three hundred undead crowding in around Jeb, the Undead Knights, and the new paladin’s were taking up their places on either side of the zombie.

The Undead Knights pulled their swords out and held them aloft for a second and all the skeletons quieted down, though a few sniggered evilly. Then the swords dropped and pointed at Dr. Diggers and the undead mob rushed forward with a howl.

Jeb watched as his targets went back to back as the skeletons surrounded them. “Don’t interfere in my fight!” He snarled at the closest Knight.

The thing turned and glared at Jeb in silence for a second and Jeb backed down and nodded. “All right, but I don’t like it.”

The zombie turned back to them and snarled. “The Leader wants to talk to the Mage! Tie them up and bring them along!”

As the skeletons closed in Theo made a gesture that told Julia to let them get captured, but Ashaton didn’t see it. Ashaton suddenly shot forward and his sword started to glow.

“RUBY SHINING WAVE!”

The blast quickly blew a hole through the ranks of undead and Ashaton ran for it and glanced over his shoulder to see how far behind the Diggers were. Then he realized that they hadn’t even moved and were already captured by the skeletons. He slid to a stop for a second and considered going back for them, but the look Dr. Diggers sent him squelched that idea.

Nodding, he turned and ran down a nearby street as fast as he could, quickly breaking the sound barrier and vanishing into the city less than a second later. Back at the clearing Jeb nodded as the Diggers were quickly tied together. Then herded out of the lot and into the streets at sword point as the skeletons fell into step around them.

**********

Five dark and blurry forms moved among the bushes at the base of the cliff where Rook’s Tower rose into the sky. The light and shadows seemed to play about their bodies, making it impossible to keep track of them as they blended in with scenery all around them.

Moving with the quick and silent step of professionals, they knelt down in the lengthening shadows next to a large rock and all but vanished from sight. The one in the lead edged back into the shadows a little more and pulled a hood off his face and the air about his body seemed to waver for a second before his dwarven features stood out.

He wore a simple leather outfit, decorated with studs and spikes, all of it of the deepest black. Upon his head was a small black circlet being used to keep the hair out of his eyes while he worked. Reaching into his cloak he brought out a small black object that when sat on the ground looked like a very tiny upside down tent.

Even when you knelt close the little tent it was almost impossible to see the little pearl inside it. Everything was black except the faint pulse coming off it. He places his hands on either side of the device, closes his eyes, and concentrates for a second as the men about him tense, prepared for anything that might happen. They did not like working with magic, but they would when it was the fastest way to get the job done. Dwarves did like efficiency, no matter what he source was.

Arrayed in a half circle around the first dwarf, they were kneeling on one knee, and held oddly shaped crossbows shouldered and ready for action. Currently, they were pointed down at the ground, they scanned the darkening land all around them for any signs of attack.

After several seconds, the first dwarf carefully lowered his hands and opened his eyes. Taking several deep breaths, he calmed down and picked up his device. Folded it back up, and placed it with in the folds of his cloak before raising his fist in the air.

Another dozen barely seen dwarves swarmed out of the shadows around them and took up a defensive position around the first group. They knelt on the ground with their weapons shouldered, but they were facing in a different directions.

A large dwarf held up his and made several gestures in quick succession so that the magic using dwarf could see. They had adopted a simple sign language for their missions, so that they could make as little noise as possible. The mage quickly made a series of gestures as well.

‘Well?’ The second one signed.

‘The traitor isn’t here anymore, leader.’

‘Then where is she? Gondola must be brought to justice.’

‘The tracker says she is about a twenty leagues from here.’

‘That would mean that she is in Seer’s Hamlet wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes Leader.’

‘What about the other problem?’

‘All we have been able to tell is that a very large army came through here about twelve hours ago. They seem to have destroyed everything in their path so far. The burned down farms and the lack of bodies suggests that all those that were not killed are now apart of the army.’

‘They were heading towards Seer’s Hamlet as well?’

‘Yes Leader. It is possible that the traitor is helping them in some way’

‘She hasn’t given up all her honor yet, she would never help FILTH like this.’

The first dwarf just shrugged. ‘My readings on her location seem to indicate that she is apart of this in some way. Other wise how would she have gotten all this way in such a short amount of time? Why would she even be in Seer’s Hamlet after that fiasco at the Tournament of Arms?’

‘I don’t like this at all. It must have something to do with that human female that kidnapped her right out of the dungeon.’

‘Perhaps more than teleport magic was involved?’

The second one nodded. ‘You are correct Warmage.’ He waved three fingers at his men and they all stood. ‘I hope we can get there in time. This mystery needs to be dealt with as soon as possible. Let’s go! To Seer’s Hamlet, we need to hurry!’

The Warmage brought his hood back up and he vanished from sight, blending in just as he had before they stopped to get a directional with the beacon they were using to track G’nolga. He motioned for the group to follow him and started to sprint across the field moving with the speed that only a haste spell could achieve.

Behind him, one at a time, each of the cloaked dwarves followed in a blur of motion. As the last one left the safety of the shadowed stone, three more cloaked dwarves moved out of the underbrush and swept along the rear of the squad, making sure that there were no signs left that they had ever been there in the first place.

**********

“This isn’t good.” Sheila said as they watched as Julia and Dr. Diggers were escorted to the palace within a large group of undead. They had arrived on the scene just at the tail end of the fight, just as the reinforcements showed up to capture Dr. Diggers and Julia.

“We have to help them.” Ranma said as he paced back and forth.

“I know, but with that many undead in one area I’m positive we wouldn’t be able to get in, save them, and get out again.”

“Then what can we do?” The Saotome School had several sayings that Ranma liked to live up to, even if his old man was such a pain in the butt One of them was to make sure you would win if you went into battle, no matter what. That many undead would have been a challenge even for him because they all worked together, with one though on their minds.

“We need to find the others and attack as a group.”

“We’ve been looking for some time and still haven’t found them.” Ranma pointed out. “There has to be a better way to find them than to wander around this town at random.”

“What would you do then?” She asked.

“Take to the roofs, no one ever looks up at the top of buildings for some reason.” Ranma said.

“There are magical wards on the roofs of most buildings to prevent thieves from breaking in that way.” Sheila said.

Ranma continued to pace, desperately looking for a way to get the Diggers out of the middle of that army of undead or to find the rest of the Edge Guard.

“Seer’s hamlet is quite big, so they could also be any number of places by now.”

“We can’t get to the Upper Palace because the undead have taken over the base palace, and we can’t save those two because they are far too many undead around them.” Ranma muttered. “This is getting irritating Let’s just blast the hell out of those things. You know how powerful my fireball is when I take a few seconds to build up the power.”

“No Ranma, it’s just the two of us at the moment, we have to find the others.” Sheila insisted.

“What about the guy we saw leaving at the very end there? Can we track him down and get him to help?”

Sheila considered it and nodded. “I think we can, he was moving pretty fast though, so I’m not sure where he is. Could you tell who he was at this distance?”

Ranma nodded. “Yeah, that guy from the clinic a little while ago. The one that was resting in the waiting room.”

“How could you tell?”

“The way he moved and that massive sword of his. He’s the only guy in this city that I’ve seen with a sword like that, so it can’t be used by that many people.”

“He did have a tail.” Sheila pointed out. “The guy in the clinic didn’t have one.”

“He’s a werecat or something, like you, he was in his human form at the time.” Ranma said with a shrug.

“Maybe, but I’m not sure we can fully trust him and I know we can trust the other members of the Edge Guard.”

“My pop used to say that when you needed to find someone in an emergency, you needed to look in the one place you knew they would be. Where would the others go in a situation like this?” Ranma asked, though he did realize that most of his father’s wisdom was somewhat spotty at best.

Shelia thought about it for a second. “I think they would either be running around helping people around the city, or focus on the main threat. That would mean going to the palace.”

“Then let’s go to the palace, but take look around on our way there so that we might see one of the others.”

B looked up at Ranma and was starting to wonder who the guy in the Ranma suit was and what had happened to the buffoon that had been wandering around with them all day.

**********

Several thousand undead stood around the base palace now, in large groups of fifty to a hundred each, over half of the army was made up of the recently risen citizens of Seer’s Hamlet as well. Giving them all weapons hadn’t been in the plans, so G’nolga had been forced to let them arm themselves in anyway they could. Therefore, a platoon of zombie housewives carrying frying pans and wearing tattered and revealing dresses presented a rather odd sight to anyone that witnessed it.

There were many other groups that caught Dr. Digger’s eye as they were marched down the road to the base palace. For the most part the skeletons weren’t being to rough with them as they walked. The occasional push here and there just to let them know who was boss, but that was about it.

The Undead Knights and their mounts had moved to the front of the column and forced everything out of their way. Occasionally one of them would come across a zombie or skeleton that was too stupid to move and the horses promptly plowed them under.

It wasn’t the most well organized undead army ever seen, but Dr. Diggers and Julia had to admire just how fast they got things done. They were still trying to figure out how certain things got accomplished so fast. He had also noticed that the undead didn’t quite understand what a magic user was.

They hadn’t taken any precautions to make sure he didn’t suddenly start casting spells and it had him worried. If they were that stupid, they would never have made it as far as they were now, even with the surprise attack in the early morning. The two of them very carefully watched everything going on around them as they neared their location.

Dr. Diggers was not in the best of moods and Julia could tell just by looking at him. The set of his jaw, the narrowed eyes, the slightly glowing eyes, and the way his mage suit seemed to be absorbing light and turning his skin just the slightest shade darker. He was an Archmage and holding himself back like this just so he could get closer to a magical item was galling.

When this was over something like this would never be able happen again, he would make sure of that. They had secured themselves just a little to well. He had no way to get up to the Upper Palace high in the branches of the tree above them. Blowing away most of the city with one spell was easy, but simply teleporting up to there was impossible while the anti-teleport spells were in effect.

“It seemed like such a good idea at the time too.” He grumbled under his breath and the skeleton behind him shoved him forward.

“Move it scum.”

Julia barely managed to keep herself from tearing into the things around her. She did not like to play possum it irritated the hell out of her. One of the skeletons had even take the sword her daughter had made for her a few months before for the Tournament of Arms.

She hoped she got it back when this was over, that sword meant more to her than just a useful weapon. “Theo, I hope this idea of yours works.”

“It will.”

“Quiet!” The skeleton barked at them.

A few seconds late they started down the entrance path to the palace and could see that the undead had already started to make themselves at home Kneeling on either side of the gate were a pair of Combat Wraiths, just waiting for the order to kill someone. There wasn’t a mage on the continent that was stupid enough to create them, yet there they were.

The doors opened as they approached and four paladins marched out and stood on either side of the doors. G’nolga walked out a few seconds later and saw that her guests had finally arrived. “Ah good, it’s about time you two showed up.”

“G’nolga…” Julia stared to say, but the skeleton behind her used the hilt of its sword to hit her in the back of the neck. She was more shocked than anything else, so she dropped to one knee and glared up at the thing.

The dwarf ignored Julia as she walked over to Dr. Diggers and stared at him for several seconds. “I sent the skeletons out to bring you in so I could torture some information out of you that I would need.”

Dr. Diggers kept his calm as he watched G’nolga and saw that her eyes were somewhat vacant. “And then what?”

Her baldhead tilted to the side and she started at him. “Then a little while ago this nice old wererat stopped by and we made a trade, a spell that would give me what I wanted and all I had to do was leave his realm alone.”

He had a feeling he knew where this was going and he didn’t like it.

“It was an easy deal to make, really, we had no plans to go there in the first place, so it made things even easier. The only thing we had to worry about was the time it took to set up the spell around the stone.”

“That stone was designed to be resistant to tampering.” Theo told her.

“Indeed, but the nice wererat told us that his spell was designed to work around that little flaw, after all, he did have a hand in its creation all those years ago.” G’nolga said mildly, the necklace that Rook had placed over her head gleamed in the last rays of the setting sun as she stood there.

“Gothwrain.” Theo growled.

“The old wererat wanted me to get rid of you as well and since you and your wife are now useless to me, I have no problems getting rid of you. An Archmage will make a good addition to my army.” G’nolga said with a grin as she turned away and sauntered over to Julia. “You on the other hand…”

“G’nolga, snap out of this possession, you are stronger than this.” Julia said.

G’nolga ignored them as she turned and started to walk back into the palace. She motioned for ten newly risen paladins to come forward. “All of you, prove your loyalty to the Lord, kill them.”

That was all Theo needed to hear and his face seemed to turn to stone as it lost all life and the shadows suddenly started to flow around his body. In the blink of an eye he was gone and in his place was a man made of shadow and fire. The skeleton that was holding him, and every other one within twenty feet vanished in a wave of fire as it spread from his body.

“You don’t think you can get away that easily do you G’nolga?” Theo asked, as he turned his flaming skull to look at the woman.

Off to the side Julia also took a second during the confusion to free herself and take the sword from the skeleton that had hit her. It didn’t survive a quick slash maneuver and clattered to the ground with a curse. Then she turned and made her way over to Theo as he did his all powerful Archmage impression, throwing up a quick magical wall around them so that the army behind them couldn’t suddenly surge forward and overwhelm them.

It also left the way clear for them to head into the building. The paladin’s didn’t seem to impressed with Theo’s display, but they arrayed themselves in front of the doors to the palace and raised their gauntleted hands as G’nolga headed deeper into the palace. She called back to them just before she vanished through a door. “Hold them for a few minutes, the spell should be done by then.”

“Theo, which ones do you want?” Julia asked mildly.

“The wererats have involved themselves in this, we don’t have time to play around.” He growled.

“Then speed things up, you haven’t done much since we headed here anyway.”

His head turned to look at the paladins as they prepared to fire and his body lit up with a massive aura. “Die.” He said and the word, backed by his power was all it took to set off the spell he’d been building for several seconds.

With a bright flash of light, the front area of the palace went up in a massive explosion. The wind and flying debris flew a hundred feet into the air and the underneath them shook and heaved with the force of the blast. Then two forms emerged from the smoke, with Theo’s eyes glowing evilly as he stalked through the rather large hold that now made up the front of the palace.

“Nicely done, you don’t let lose enough.” Julia said as she walked along beside him.

“True, now let’s stop G’nolga. I should have just taken her down when we first saw her.”

“No, she’s mine. I’ll stop her, you need to get to the room where the stone is being held and stop the others from completing the spell.”

“This ends now.” Theo said as he looked at another group of paladins and they ceased to exist, along with a large section of the hallway, as he made a quick gesture at them.

**********

When they reached the outer edges of where Seer’s Hamlet should have been, they were met with quite a surprise. The city existed within a sub space pocket, it was famous for it in fact. So as the dwarves came to a stop about half a mile from the entrance to the city, stopped, and knelt down in the grass.

The sight of several dozen zombies standing guard in front of the entrance wasn’t as surprising as seeing the gate wide open and flickering. The Warmage watched the zombies for several minutes. Next to him, the Commander motioned for him to hurry it up a bit.

‘We need to get through the gate there.’ The Warmage signed.

‘Isn’t there another way in?”

‘Not unless we can teleport right inside the city. We tried that before we left and it didn’t work.’

‘Then we need to destroy the zombies and move on.’ The Commander said.

‘Yes, but we have to be quick, these are only the tip of the rock, there will be lots more inside if the number of tracks we encountered on the way here is any indication of the army’s size.’

The Commander turned around to see his men and held up his hand, made a complicated gesture, and watched as everyone followed the order he had just given them. With just a gesture, he could implement any number of plans. All around him, the cloaked dwarves readied their crossbows with a number two crossbow bolt. They carried enough bolts that they almost never ran out, and if one of them did, it was because of poor shooting.

‘Is ‘she’ still going to be contacted?’

Nodding, the Commander lifted his arm into the air, turned to look at the zombies, and chose his target. Dropping his hand, he grabbed his crossbow to his shoulder and fired. All around nearly two dozen bolts flew out of the grass field around the gate at the zombies.

Less than a second later, before the first volley had even reached its target, he had his second bolt loaded aimed. Then the enemy started to explode into little chunks of meat as the blessed crossbow bolts did their work. He fired at his second target just a second behind the rest of the team, but it didn’t matter.

Zombies couldn’t react well to surprise attacks, so within thirty seconds, nearly fifty zombies ceased to exist. The only thing left was several piles of burning ash that had once been a zombie. The fire was the second part of the blessing, destroying everything that was evil by purging it with fire.

‘Let’s go!’ He motioned and darted out of the grass and headed for the gate. They edged up the magical door as it flickered in and out of sight, and peaked inside. The Zombies appeared to have ripped a large hole in the sub space pocket that housed the city and marched the army right through.

‘Commander, if this gateway is damaged, the other three probably are as well. I’m surprised the city is even visible right now.’

‘We will worry about that later. Get inside and make sure it’s safe for us to cross here.’

Gesturing for one of the dwarves to follow him, the Warmage peaked around the corner and quickly entered the doorway. The walkway that led into the city was intact, but there were several skeletons at the far end waiting for anyone to try and cross. He quickly counted twenty of them and five zombies, far more than he could take alone.

He motioned for more dwarves to follow him in and held up his hand to indicate that he wanted them to load the quick shot bolts. It required a quick, but silent, modification to the crossbows. With it they could quickly fire multiple shots at moving targets without having to worry about reloading. The only problem with the quick shot was that the bolts didn’t have as much force behind them as they normally did.

He made sure the ten bolt clip was in place, and glanced over at the others just as they finished loading as well. The Commander motioned for him to hurry it up and took a second to place a number three bolt in his crossbow, as back up. One everyone was ready, the Warmage bowed his head for a second and said a few words of magic.

The four dwarves around him suddenly appeared to be look like the walls around them. Then he stepped out onto the bridge and knelt down before the skeletons could get a good look at him. The others quickly followed suit, knelt down, and they all raised their crossbows.

“Now.” He said aloud and ran forward in a blur of movement that caught the skeletons by surprise.

They quickly fired the crossbows, mowing the weak skeletons down with a ‘clickity, click, thock’ sound. I filled the air for fifteen seconds before the last skeleton went down. Then two of the dwarves let the crossbows dangle from their shoulder straps as they grabbed their battle axes and quickly turned the zombies into quivering chunks of meat.

A quick search for more skeletons or zombies didn’t turn anything up, so the rest of the team came across and they passed through another gate. There was a spell on the entrance that usually made anyone using it drop a few coppers to enter the city. Whatever had been done to get around the entrance made that spell ignore them as well.

‘We’re in sir.’ The Warmage said as he let his spell fade the rest of the men fanned out around them, looking down the empty streets. They were in the main square, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

‘Where is everybody?’

‘Unknown sir, I’m not sensing any life signs anywhere nearby either.’

‘We need to get G’nolga, now, what does the tracker say?’

One of the dwarves made a gesture and pointed to the roof of a nearby house. The Commander glanced over that way and raised his crossbow as he saw some movement. “Are you sensing anything?”

‘Yes, but it’s faint, as if he’s trying to hide is aura.’

“Then he isn’t dead, perhaps one of the citizens then?” He whispered.

They saw a head peak over the edge of the roof, look down at them, and appeared to make a decision. The Dwarves kept their cool as he jumped off the top of the building and landed in a crouch, allowing them to see his fur and tail.

“Dwarves?”

“I don’t recognize you as one of the Edge Guard.” The Commander said, aiming his crossbow at him.

“I’m Ashaton, and I’m help out with the fight.”

“Where is G’nolga?”

“That female dwarf?”

“Where is she!”

“At the base palace, just up that street there, along with about three thousand or so undead.” Ashaton told them.

A quick check of the tracking device and the Warmage confirmed the information. “He’s telling the truth sir, she’s that way.”

He lowered the crossbow, but didn’t relax as he continued to scan the area around him. “What has she been doing?”

“Leading the undead army.”

The dwarves all growled and looked like they wanted to go and shoot her right then and there.

“She’s leading them?”

Ashaton nodded. “Yeah, the undead have spread across the city over the last few hours, fighting anything that moves and burning down homes, and killing everyone. Some of the people I’ve talked to told me that she was the one giving out orders.”

“What else do we need to know?”

“There are some really freaky undead monsters running around this city

“Sir, remember that Rook’s tower was empty. This whole situation suggests that he’s the one behind this attack.”

“I know, I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

“Who is Rook?”

“He seems to be an Undead Knight, but he’s a lot more dangerous than the normal kind. For one thing he’s able to think for himself and raise any undead he wants.”

“That might explain that one zombie I met a little while ago.” Ashaton muttered.

“Who was that?”

“That would be me.”

The Dwarves spun around to see Jeb looking down at them from the roof of the building behind them. The old man, with grey skin and barely any hair dropped off the roof. He stared at them and just grinned, revealing rotting teeth.

“You.” Ashaton growled and felt Jeb’s odd vibes again.

The Dwarves raised their crossbows and growled at the undead thing as it looked them over. “I was just following the coward here and look who I happen to stumble across.”

“What are you?” Ashaton asks as he brings his sword up and the ruby flares with energy.

Jeb just chuckles and straightens up a little. “I’m your killer!”

He jumps forward and makes a grab for Ashaton, the Dwarves fire, and several bolts slam into his chest. Stumbling to a stop, he glares down at the bolts. Then a hands grabbed him by the back of the neck, lifts him off the ground, and throws him about fifty yards down the street.

“Ah…”Ashaton started.

“Ranma Saotome, sorry about this, figured you guys might need a little help.” Ranma said with a smirk. Then he held up his hand and a small ball of fire formed as he launched it down the street and hit Jeb just as he was getting up.

The explosion blew a large hole in the street and sent Jeb flying into the side of a nearby building. Surprisingly he wasn’t on fire like a normal zombie would have been. Instead he just slid to the ground and lay there for a few seconds before getting up and glaring at them.

“Ranma you didn’t need to run off like that!” Sheila yelled as she ran up and kicked him.

“Ow!” He yelled and bounced on one leg holding his foot. “What did you do that for?!”

“You ran off and left me behind!”

“Um…” The Commander said.

“They needed help!”

“You didn’t need to leave me behind!” Sheila growled, transformed into her human form and lifted Ranma off the ground by his shirt.

“Eh hehehe.” Ranma laughed nervously as Ashaton sweat dropped.

“Well?!”

“Sorry?” Ranma asked nervously.

“Hey, you two can argue later, that thing is coming back this way.” Ashaton told them.

“He’s tougher than he looks.” Ranma said as Sheila put him down and he adjusted his shirt. “Where’s B anyway?”

“He’s still trying CATCH UP!” Sheila yelled and transformed back into her werejaguar form.

“Heh, well I can’t help it if he’s slow.”

“Don’t you even start.”

He shrugged. “I can take this guy easily enough.”

“Can you point us to the palace?” The Commander asked. He figured letting them take care of the thing would give them time to get to G’nolga.

“I can take you.” Ashaton said. “Unless Ranma here wants me to stick around.”

Sheila turned to him. “Do you know where the rest of the Edge Guard is?”

“Sorry, I haven’t seen any since this morning.”

“We can handle this then, can you take them to the palace?”

“No problem.” Ashaton said. “Come on, let’s go, we need to hurry”

The Dwarves took a second to reload their crossbows and the Commander checked the special bolt he loaded a little earlier. The tip was glowing just a little, making it stand out more than a normal bolt would. As they were leaving Sheila stopped dead in her tracks and turned to watch as Ashaton vanished down the street.

“Ranma, was he a werecheetah?”

“Uh, I have no idea, I wasn’t really looking to see what kind of werecat he was. Why?”

“I wasn’t either, but if he is a werecheetah, he’s going to cause a lot of trouble if he sticks around the city.”

“Why?”

“Werecheetahs are supposed to be all but extinct. As a matter of fact Britanny is supposed to be the last surviving member of the werecheetah clan. There is no way that guy should even exist. Even Raphiel turned out to be a very complicated golem in the end, so I’d like to know where that guy came from.”

“Weird, we can worry about that later, that thing is coming back this way.” Ranma said and punched his fist into his palm. “Let’s take this thing down.”

Sheila pulled Ice Fang from its sheath and spun it around a few times. “Sounds good to me.”

Even though Jeb was still several yards away, Ranma shot forward at high speed and jumped into the air. He quickly formed a ball of fire between his hands and threw it at the zombie. At the same time Jeb reached behind him and pulled a large crossbow from out of nowhere. He quickly pointed it at the fireball and fired.

Instead of firing a regular crossbow bolt, a bolt of pure magic launched off the end and slammed into the fireball, making it explode long before it would have hit him. As the outer portion of the fireball washed over him, he turned and fired a quick shot towards Ranma as he landed.

“Blast!” Ranma yelled as the bolt hit him in the chest and sent him tumbling to the side.

Jeb sneered and ran forward firing multiple shots from the crossbow as if it was and automatic weapon. Ranma launched into the air as he sent a giant gust of wind towards him and managed to scatter some the energy bolts. Instead of stopping Jeb, it seemed to work to his advantage as he took a second to carefully aim at Ranma.

He grinned.

“ICE KAPOWIE!” Sheila screamed as she sent her swords ice attack flying at Jeb.

The attack didn’t even seem to slow Jeb down as he ran forward, aimed the crossbow at Ranma, and held his other hand at Sheila’s attack. Ranma landed and instantly jumped to the side, sending another fireball at Jeb, hoping that the two different elements would work to his advantage.

The zombie sent an energy bolt right into the fireball once again and used a shield to block Sheila’s attack. They were close enough to him though that they still managed to go off right on top of him, laying waste to the street. It also created a giant fog bank that quickly filled the streets around them.

“Since when can a zombie use magic?” Ranma muttered.

“PATHETIC!” Jeb screamed from within the fog. “Don’t think for an instant that I’m normal!”

Cursing, Ranma jumped to the nearest roof and looked down at where he thought Jeb was standing. He saw the fog swirl around the guy as he became visible for just a second, but that was enough time to see Sheila use her human form to sucker punch the guy.

Ranma grinned as he remembered that all of Sheila’s strength was in her human form. The zombie is knocked back several feet even as Sheila vanishes into the fog again. He used his Ki senses to make sure he knew where Sheila was as he formed a large ball of white energy and fired it at Jeb

Even while it was in the air he flipped off the top of the building and landed on the ground. Then as the fog enveloped him, he used his momentum to launch himself towards Jeb. His senses were actually showing a blank area where Jeb should have been, but the magical ones were making bits of him glow like small stars.

Especially something inside the guy’s chest where his heart should have been. “What do we have here?”

“Ranma?” Sheila asked as she appeared beside him for a second.

“Can you fire another attack at him about half a second behind my blast?”

“Sure!” Sheila yelled as she quickly judged the attack as it flew threw towards Jeb. Then slid to a stop, pulled her sword out, and quickly threw her attack after Ranma’s own attack.

Jeb appeared just like Ranma planned, right as his attack slammed into him with a flare of light made him stand out like a beacon in the fog. Then Sheila’s attack slammed into him and enveloped him a wave of ice even as Ranma reached him and punched the ice with a glowing fist.

The ice and Jeb shattered in an explosion of ice, sending pieces of both flying into the air around them as the fog started to clear. Ranma stood over the mangled body and massaged his fist. He hadn’t expected the ice to be that hard. There wasn’t much left of Jeb except a few pieces here and there entombed in ice.

“What did you hit him with?” Sheila asked as she walked and transformed back into her werejaguar form.

Ranma couldn’t ignore the skin tight look of the spandex Sheila was wearing, no matter which form. He ignored that and focused on the question though. “Same thing I hit that Hanza girl with, Dispel Magic.”

“How in the world did that work? Even with Hanza that was an amazing attack that caught her completely by surprise.”

“I’m not completely sure, but Dr. Diggers explained it to me as a spell that disrupts magic, all it has to do is overpower the magic it’s dispelling. I just read the magic level of my target, form the spell at about twice that level, and throw it.” Ranma said with a shrug. “Easy.”

She gave him a half lidded look. “Right.”

“What?, I can’t help it of that guy is as pathetic as the rest of this moronic army?”

Sheila was about to give him a piece of her mind, when something else interrupted them.

“YOU JERK!”

Ranma jumped about four feet in the air and landed a few feet away and looked around to see B speeding towards him. “Wha…”

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

“B? What’s going on?”

The little bot stopped a few feet away and a small missile rose out of its back and launched. “YOU LEFT ME BEHIND, IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO CATCH UP! DIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!”

“Ah crap!” Ranma yelled as he ducked the missile and made a run for it.

“GET BACK HERE!” B yelled and took off after him.

“That little robot is freaky.” Sheila muttered and chased after them “Wait up!”

**********

“Well it’s about time.” Ashaton said as he looked around the corner of the building and down the street.

“What is it?” The Warmage asked as he and the others looked around for a any undead.

“The people are finally pulling together enough to attack the palace and rout the undead.” Ashaton said.

The Commander looked around the corner and spotted several hundred people forming up into large groups as they prepared to attack the palace a little ways down the road. “Why didn’t they do this sooner?”

“I’m not sure, but I think that is why I haven’t been able to find any people lately. See that group over there?” He said as he pointed down the street. “Those old men, they are the one’s I saved from that attack I escaped from just before I met you.”

“You said there were girls with them right?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure where they are. The only girls out there right now are those Amazons.”

“The girls over there wearing next to nothing and the great bodies.”

“The one’s showing all that skin?” A dwarf asked and looked a bit sick. “That’s gross.”

“Don’t worry about it soldier, just ignore them and let them do their job. We have our own goals to accomplish.” The Commander snapped, though he looked a little pale as well.

Ashaton made a mental note not to mention half naked human girls again. “We need to get by them if we want to get to the palace. Do you want to go through or around them?”

“I don’t want to get caught up in this human problem.” The Commander said. “They are taking care of it on their own, we have other things to worry about at the moment.”

“Then we go around them.” Ashaton said. “You do realize we will have to fight our way through the undead right?”

“Yeah, though I’ll avoid them If we can. All I want is G’nolga in my custody.”

Ashaton shrugged. “It looks like they have everything under control. I even see some mages over there using their magic to conjure up equipment for the army. How about we circle around and wait for them to attack so we can use the confusion to get in to the palace?”

“That’s exactly what I was planning.” The Commander said and nodded.

Nodding, Ashaton pulled his sword out and pointed down an alley across the street. “Let’s head that direction and come around the east side of the palace.”

The Warmage pulled a map of Seer’s Hamlet out of his cloak and made a quick check of the direction. “That looks good, we can come around to a side entrance as well. The Undead may not be guarding the side entrances as well as the main one.”

“Excellent, let’s move. We are running out of time.”

“You have a time limit?” Ashaton asked.

“Yeah, I’d like to get in and out of the city within an hour or less”

“We may not be able to pull that off.”

“We will still try.” The Commander snapped as he adjusted his crossbow. Then he turned to the rest of the men. “All of you load the special bolts, it’s time to put them to use.”

Each of them quickly unloaded the regular crossbow bolts and replaced them with red winged bolts. Ashaton pointed at them. “What are those?”

“We use them to kill problems down in the Halls.” The Commander said with a smirk. The rest of the dwarves laughed with him as they glanced about evilly.

“Um, right, well hurry it up.” Ashaton said nervously.

“Ready.” Each of the dwarves said quietly.

“Let’s go.”

Running down the street, Ashaton noticed that the dwarves were easily keeping up with him so he picked up the speed until they started to fall behind. Whatever magic they were using to run it sure made them faster than he expected them to move. They quickly circled around the palace and came to a stop at the entrance to a park that led to the park that heralded the next entrance.

This one was guarded by undead as well, but there were only a hundred or so on this side. Ashaton pointed it out to the Commander as they hid behind a large bush.

“It looks like they are expecting the army to attack the front of the building from the front.”

“G’nolga isn’t that stupid sir.” The Warmage said.

“She might have made a mistake.”

“I doubt that, this feels like the kind of trap she likes to set up.”

“We don’t have time to choose another entrance.” The Commander snapped.

“There are over twenty of you.” Ashaton pointed out as he glanced at the multi shot crossbows. “We can get through them in a jiff with our speed and a sneak attack.”

“Let’s do it.” The Commander said. “Silent running!”

Nodding, the dwarves slowly spread out around them and took aim at all the skeletons in front of the small side door. The Commander raised his open fist, pointed at each dwarf and at the target they were supposed to take. Ashaton kept quiet, having seen something like this on a couple of occasions.

Moving professionally, the dwarves pulled their hoods up and the magical cloaks made them blend into the fauna around them. Gesturing for Ashaton to stay where he was, the Commander rose up and aimed his crossbow into the center of the enemy. As one group they all surged forward, firing quickly and precisely.

“Thicketta thock thicketta chock!”

Ashaton watched as the enemy started to exploded one after another as the dwarves swarmed at them from the front and sides. Panicking, the undead pulled their swords even as they exploded into small showers of bone. Within seconds the whole areas was dead silent as the dwarves knelt in a large semi circle around the door.

Then one by one they made their way to the door and knelt down to either side of it. Ashaton quickly ran over to the group and knelt down as the Warmage cast a spell at it and nodded. He glanced at the Commander.

‘Warded.’ He signed.

‘Get rid of it.’

‘There are Zombie Paladin’s on the other side, waiting.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Can’t you smell them? I can smell the stench of the recently dead.’

Scowling, the Commander glanced at the door for a second and nodded. ‘Now I can.’

‘What about using the Pot?’

‘I wanted to save that, it’s the only one we have the G’nolga won’t anticipate.’

‘Flash crystal?’

‘Against zombies?’

The Warmage frowned and rubbed his chin. ‘Hmm…’

“How about we use our speed to rush in, tie them up into a large group, and take them out with one of those explosive bolts of yours?” Ashaton whispered his suggestion.

“Sir, we don’t have much time.” One of the dwarves said, the human army is beginning its attack on the palace.”

The Commander sighed and nodded as he motioned at the Warmage. “Get ready, follow your training and this will only take a few seconds. Remember not to look at your target.”

“Sir!” The men whispered.

“The time for silence is over, let’s just move.”

Ashaton knew a well trained team of men when he saw them and was a bit amazed at how well they worked together. He made sure his sword was out of the way and let the Dwarves take the lead as the Commander motioned for him to stand back.

Normally he would have resented that, but this situation was already out of control and they needed to move fast. He would only get in the way as the team moved forward. “What do you want me to do?”

“You are our back up, follow along behind us as we move through the palace and make sure no one sneaks up behind us.” The Commander said.

He sighed and nodded. “Good enough, I want to get this while day over with so we can get things back to normal.”

“Then let’s move.”

The Warmage tapped the door and it swung open, slamming into the wall, and nearly ripping itself form its hinges. Not even a second later the first Dwarf was through the door and firing into the surprised zombies on the other side. Within seconds the whole area was filled with that odd sound the Dwarves crossbows made as they went into rapid fire.

Decomposing bits quickly covered the room from floor to ceiling as nearly two dozen zombies were removed from the room. Ashaton watched as the Warmage used his abilities to set the room on fire as they left it, ridding it of any chance that remains might follow them. Zombies were a tenacious bunch even at the best of times.

“Why couldn’t the paladin’s defend themselves against these guys?”

“They were overwhelmed by hundreds of undead, not just a few of these wimps we are encountering. I’ll also bet that G’nolga sent the main portion of her army outside to defend the palace, so we won’t encounter to many in here.” Ashaton said.

“Warmage, where is G’nolga?”

The tracker was quickly pulled out and consulted. “Sir, she’s three hundred yards in that direction.” The Warmage said and pointed down a corridor.

“We need a map of this place.” Ashaton muttered as he looked into an empty room and spotted a large hole in the far wall where something had melted it’s way through.

“We tried, but the council doesn’t give things like that out and there are rumors that they rearrange the walls in this place every now and then just to make it harder to take.”

“Check that hole out, it looks like something came through here recently.”

The Warmage glanced into the room. “I don’t know of any undead that can do that, but a mage could easily pull it off.”

“You think there’s something more dangerous than undead in here?”

Ashaton considered it for a few seconds before shaking his head. “No, but I think whoever did that might be on our side.”

“Let’s hope so, but just in case be extra careful.” The Commander said and turned to his men. “You and you, head down that hallway and scout around a little bit.”

They saluted and pulled the hoods of their cloak up just before they ran down the hallway and vanished. Seconds later the two Dwarves returned at a run. “Sir, there is chanting coming from the big room at the end of the hallway.”

“Chanting? As in magic?”

They nodded.

“Let’s move, we need to stop them. Whatever they are doing can’t be good for anyone.”

**********

Dr. Diggers was not in a good mood. Most of the undead in the palace was moved outside a little while after he started to roam around looking for G’nolga. That was good, but the Dwarf had actually managed to trick him by setting up several magical traps, one way corridors, and other low level magic that was used to confuse people.

He hadn’t fallen for any of them yet, but it took a few minutes and more and more of his magic to defuse everyone he encountered. If that wasn’t enough, G’nolga had set up traps for him where zombies of the people from town would attack. He really didn’t like killing people he knew by name, but that was what G’nolga was using them for.

“Honey, are you sure this is the only way to get to the inner hall?” Julia asked. “We can…”

“G’nolga used the secret passages to get into to the palace. So we can’t use them to get there, they are probably just as booby trapped as this hallway is.”

“Still, I think it would be easier than what we are going now.” Julia said. “G’nolga is entrenched in this building more than expected.”

“This whole plan was designed ahead of time, they are just performing the plan as they were trained to.” Theo explained and pointed at the small ruby trap just a few steps away. “Those traps are way to easy to set up, all she had to do was toss them on the floor after making sure they wouldn’t go off when she or any of the undead neared them.”

“Have we figured out who is behind this yet?”

Dr. Diggers shook his head. “We know who is leading the army, but not the one behind the army.”

“Any guesses?”

“There are only a few people that have the power to pull this off. My father could do it, but he would have shown up by now if it was him, just so he could gloat and finish me off once and for all.”

“I’ve had a bad feeling ever since we entered this place.” Julia said.

He pointed his finger at the ruby as it started to glow and a beam of red energy fired out and hit the ruby, reducing it to dust. “Me too, but until we can figure out what’s causing it we have to press on. It reminds me off that mine we explored that one time.”

“The one full of orcs or the abandoned dwarven tunnels where that shadow dragon took up residence and roasted all the dwarves for lunch?”

“The second one, remember that dragon pumped out fear aura like it was bout out of style.”

“I forgot about that, it made moving around that place almost impossible. That isn’t what I’m feeling though.”

“True, but there is a hint of it in the air as we get closer to the inner room.”

Julia glanced around and used her senses to take a closer look down the hallway. “You think one of ‘those’ might be here? It is an undead monster, though they are completely unpredictable.”

“I was considering it.”

“I hope not, they are hard to kill even for us.”

“It’s all those protections they carry around.”

“Let’s not forget how they like to collect undead and improve on them, making them stronger and more powerful.”

Theo stopped and looked around. “Can you hear chanting?”

Concentrating a bit, Julia nodded a few seconds later. “Yeah, I would recognize that anywhere.”

“Let’s move, we have stop them, once they finish that spell it will cause more problems than what G’nolga knows about.” Theo said as they started to move down the hall a little quicker, stopping ever now and then to remove a gem lying in the middle of the floor.

“Like what?”

“The city protections will fail, even the one that keeps it inside the dimensional pocket.”

“How is that bad, the area around Seer’s Hamlet is an open grassland for a reason.”

“The city will take up it’s former space, but it will also rip apart all the spells that make the city run. We anchored to them to the dimensional pocket a long time ago.”

Julia paled a bit and nodded. “If that happens every thug and criminal on the continent will come here and cause problems now that the paladins are almost completely gone and the Edge Guard can’t handle more than they are now.”

“I will also collapse the gate to the Retreat that we protect.”

“Will they be trapped?”

“No, but getting across the barrier will cost about a hundred times the time and power just to open the gate. They chose that place for a reason and if the gate falls they will be unable to leave for quite some time. It would take us several months just to get everything set up to open the gate again as well.”

“Do you think this is what G’nolga is trying to accomplish?”

Theo didn’t answer as he carefully took out the last gem sitting on the floor at the end of the corridor. Now that they were at the door he could hear what they were chanting and he paled a bit. “G’nolga might not be going for that, but she got that spell from Gothwrain and he would.”

“Then let’s stop them before it’s too late.”

Nodding, Theo placed both his hands on the door and started to flare his aura, quickly building up a massive amount of power. “Stop them as quickly as you can, I’m going to shatter the stone.”

“No problem, I doubt any of this spell casters can put up a decent fight.”

“Don’t underestimate them.”

“I know what I’m doing dear.” Julia said with a smile and made sure her sword was ready. “Any time you’re ready.”

“Then let’s go!” Theo yelled as his aura surged to his hands and door exploded into the room, sending wood and metal bits flying everywhere

Dr. Diggers, in full Archmage mode walked into the room with his aura bright enough to blind anyone that could see him. Sitting in the middle of the room was the small pedestal where the stone rested. Someone had moved it out of the adjacent room and placed it in the middle of a spell circle. Ten cloaked mages sat around the pedestal performing the chant.

There was a circle of stones and debris around them, but it was obvious that a shield had protected them. Behind him Julia sprinted across the room and started to take down the undead faster than they could react, moving faster than humanly possible. Theo rarely saw her move like this, but he didn’t have time to watch her work. He had other things to worry about.

“Stop the spell or you will regret it.” He threatened the mages.

“They are caught up in the spell Dr. Diggers.” G’nolga said as she sat in a throne like chair across the room.

She appeared to be relaxed and didn’t seem to care that he was there at all. Or that Julia was laying waste to the undead about the room in a brutal and efficient manner. The Dwarf stood up, the pendent around her neck glinting in the light of Theo’s aura and just started to walk towards him. She wasn’t even carrying a weapon as far as he could tell.

“The spell you are casting isn’t the one to break the spell on the stone…”

“Oh I know that, Gothwrain said it would have some side effects, but that it would break the spell.”

“You will upset the magical balance throughout the city, thousands will die…”

“So what?” G’nolga snarled. “I have my goals and will make any sacrifice to make sure they are achieved. Anything that dies along the way will join my army.”

Theo realized he shouldn’t have engaged G’nolga in conversation. Now that she was so close he would only have time to attack the mages once and he didn’t know what kind of shield they were using. He glared at G’nolga for a few seconds. “Then you don’t leave me any choice in the matter.”

She just grinned at him and took a fighting stance. “Julia can fight me to a stand still, but you don’t stand a chance. Wizards are wimps, I’ve been fighting them for years and know every trick and tactic you might even think of using.”

“I doubt that.” Theo said and gave her a small grin of arrogance.

He scanned her as she just stood there, wearing what looked like an outfit made out of leather. Somewhere in the last few minutes she had changed clothes. Now she was wearing an outfit unlike anything he’s seen her wear in all the time he’d known her. The first thing he noticed about the outfit was the skin tight black mage suit she was wearing.

Over the last couple decades warriors adopted the mage suit, usually black, for its skin tight qualities. G’nolga had added to it though, starting with a white and red vest, silver gauntlets, and a headband. It allowed her the freedom of movement that a lot of fighters liked to have, but covered her at the same time.

He made a gesture and formed a sphere of force around his body. “Well? Are you going to stand there all day?”

G’nolga just grinned and held out her gauntleted hand. With a flare of light her sword appeared in her hand. “Why not?”

“Don’t underestimate me.” Dr. Diggers said as his aura grew.

“Do you think I haven’t seen a display like this before? All you magi are the same, weak and predictable.”

“It isn’t a matter of power G’nolga, it’s how you use that power that makes us so dangerous.”

“Aura users are vulnerable to metal, that places you at a distinct advantage against me.” G’nolga said and let the light of Theo’s aura play off the flat of her blade. “What makes you think you will be any different?”

“Experience.” Theo said with a grin and made couple of gestures with his hands. “Just watch and see what I can do.”

“Enough!” G’nolga yelled and ran forward, crouching low to the ground and trailing the edge of her sword in the air beside her.

Thrusting his hand forward, Theo calmly completed his spell and the whole room began to shake. G’nolga was to experienced to let a moving floor slow her down, so she just ignored it. Until it came up to meet her, literally, as pillars of stone shot out of the floor in front of her.

Her eyes widened as one came up beneath her and slammed into her chest and lifted her off the ground. The sound of grinding stone filled the air as she rolled off the rising pillar just before it hit the ceiling with a thunderous amount of noise. Twenty feet in the air, she twisted and bounced off a dozen or more pillars as they rose to meet her on the way down.

“Pathetic mage!”

This time the gesture was almost unnoticeable, but G’nolga saw it and instantly changed the direction of her fall. The pillars around her started to explode one by one, showing the room with smoke, dust, and small pieces of stone shrapnel. She landed on the floor a few seconds later and used her sword to bat pieces of stone out of the air.

Through the smoke and haze she could see Dr. Diggers glowing like a star as he stalked towards her. She growled deep in her throat and just grinned evilly. There was one in the world that she liked above all else and that was a good fight. She glanced to the side to see Julia finishing off the last of the undead and gave a little nod.

Fighting Julia wasn’t part of her plan right now, there were more important things she had to take care of first. Reaching into her vest she pulled out a small pouch and turned back to Dr. Diggers. Even Julia, after all their fights, hadn’t seen all her fighting skills. Rook’s orders echoed throughout her mind as she quickly decided on a course of action.

Off to the side the mage circle continued to chant in a higher and higher voice as the spell took control of them. It swept them up in an orgy of power that they craved above all else. The wererat had brought them and explained the whole spell and it’s advantages they brought with them. Humans were such weak and pathetic creatures at times.

There were so very few of them that could withstand dwarven strength and live to talk about it. Corrupting the rest of them was so easy that even she was amazed at times that the race was still alive. Those like Julia and her family were a different story, they were always dangerous and unpredictable. Pouch in hand, she launched herself across the dust filled room and focused on Dr. Diggers completely.

A voice in her head told her to finish this fight quickly and open them way. She acknowledged it silently and threw the pouch at Diggers. “I got you!”

He gestured and bag exploded, just like she wanted it to. Even through the dusty air she could read the look on his face as he realized he’d just made a mistake. The same mistake that allowed her to take down so many mages before him. Aura Magic is vulnerable to metal, disrupting any spell in an instant and collapsing it around the caster.

A metal tipped staff could easily penetrate a force field created with Aura Magic, a simple throwing spike could break through the guard of any mage that wasn’t paying attention. Experienced mages like Diggers knew this and used it to their advantage, but in the end they were still vulnerable. Her pouch was full of iron powder and simple flour.

“&%$#@!” Theo yelled as the grey cloud exploded form the bag in a wave.

“Theo!” Julia yelled as she ran across the room.

Reaching into her vest, G’nolga pulled out a match, lit it with her thumb, and tossed it into the cloud. The iron dust disrupted any spell he might cast and the flour, while floating around in the air, was highly dangerous. The match ignited the flour and the area went up in a giant fireball.

Then G’nolga turned, held her gauntlet out towards Julia and glared at her. “I’m not ready for you yet.”

The gauntlet glowed and Julia was hurtled across the room and slammed into the wall. She slid down with a groan and lay there for several seconds before she started to move. Then G’nolga stalked over to the mages and passed walked right through the barrier protecting them. An instant later the chanting stopped and the stone flared with light.

“Finally, I knew distracting them would work out.”

“G’nolga!” Julia screamed as she flipped to her feet and at the group.

Ignoring her, G’nolga reached out and touched the stone and vanished from sight.

Julia slammed into the sphere of magic and pounded her fist on it. “NOOO!”

“Damn it, that dwarf has got to be the slipperiest criminal I’ve come across in some time.” Theo said as he limped out of the fire.

“What are we going to do? She has to be stopped or something worse is going to happen.”

Dr. Diggers was covered in soot, but his aura was still flaring around him as he stood beside her and placed his hand on the barrier, or where it should have been. Instead his hand passed right through it. “Interesting.”

“Huh?”

After stepping through, it took him about three seconds to remove the mages from the fight with a simple stun spell. Then he turned and looked at the rock. Julia watched as he picked it up, the thing was already starting to break into pieces, but it was happening slowly.

“Can you fix it?”

“I’ve been wanting to get rid of this thing for a very long time, but the others wouldn’t hear of it. They don’t like change.”

“How long do we have then?”

“I’m already stabilizing the spells so that the while spell web doesn’t collapsed around us.”

“What about G’nolga?”

“She’s up top now, I just hope someone up there is prepared for her.”

“Teleport me up there, I’ll stop her, I owe her a few more broken bones for when she blackmailed me into throwing that fight.”

“I can’t.” Theo said as he sat down on the floor and a circle of magic formed around him.

“What?!”

“The stones power needs to be stabilized, it’s already to late to stop from falling apart, but I can reset most of the spells temporarily and use my own power to make sure they keep working.”

“What about this spell shield that is still up.”

“It’s the only thing that kept the whole web of spells from collapsing in an instant. Gothwrain must have known what he was doing when he created this spell of his.”

“Then I’ll take the stairs.” Julia said as she quickly repositioned her sword on her back.

“Hurry, we have to stop this.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve taken the stairs up…”

“She most likely sent quite a few undead up the stairs at some point, be on guard as you circle around the trunk.”

“No problem, good luck.”

Theo just nodded as she turned, ran across the room, started up the stairs at a full sprint. There was a hole in the middle of the stairs a little ways up, but she jumped over that easily and continued until she vanished from sight a little while later.

**********

G’nolga stood at the top of the stairs and saw that the rock had teleported her right into the rest area at the top of the stairs where one normally teleported to when they came to the Upper Palace. She scowled as she glanced around and noticed that there was no sign of Dr. Diggers as far as she could tell and they had teleported at the same time. On the other hand there was someone waiting for her.

He glared down at her, draped in a cloak that covered his seven foot frame and hid most of his features. Then, she got a glimpse of his facial features and realized that he was a werelion, one of the rare breeds that didn’t like to be in the human lands if they could help it. “Onoli, commander of the Edge Guard.”

“G’nolga.” He said mildly as he carefully removed his cloak and tossed it to the side. He was wearing loose pants, a tight shirt with no sleeves, leather arm bracers, and a sword belt with a pair of swords resting on each hip. “Please back down and let the Council of Mages see if they can counteract the brainwashing that was used to turn you into this pathetic version of who you used to be. There is still time for redemption, you know this.” He implored.

She sneered as she recalled all the times that the members of the Edge Guard had humiliated her on one occasion or another. The first had been Sheila, then Tirga had gotten her, then that pair Gar and Luan had played her for a fool just a few short months before when she was to fight Julia in the Tournament of Arms, which reminded her of the titanic failure that endeavor had turned into. She growled in anger as she gazed upon the being that lead the team that one point in time had caused her world to fall down around her shoulders.

Then she recalled everything she had ever heard about the man himself and knew she had to be careful, there were rumors that the only reason the man wasn’t one of the Weapon Masters of Jade was because he had never tried to gain the position. He was very dangerous, even more so than the group that he led as well as or better than the Wizard Gaja.

The man was tempered by his soft spoken ways and access to a magical item that could reduce the great tree they were standing on to a giant pile of splinters with on titanic blast if he wanted it to.

She also suspected that he had several other tricks up his sleeves as well, but even as she glanced at the two short bladed katana at his waist she wasn’t sure just how good the guy really was.

“Brainwashing? Redemption?! What makes you think that I even need any of that kind of crap?”

“All one has to do is look in your eyes.”

She let out a mirthless laugh and rotated her head from side to side to pop her neck a couple of times before she turned the full force of her glare on the being in front of her an grinned just enough to show her teeth Holding her hand out she flicked her wrist and her collapsible staff elongated with a loud snap. “You have quite the reputation Commander, but you aren’t up to my level and that means I will crush you.”

The werelion didn’t even flinch under the glare of a fighter that had made lesser fighters wet themselves in the middle of combat. He calmly crouched down a little as he gripped the hilts of his two swords Seraphim and Necro.

As they left their sheaths they began to glow just a little. Seraphim with an inner brightness and Necro with a kind of anti-light of the deepest blue, as if they were fueling each other with each other’s energy. “I will stop you G’nolga.”

“You are a hundred years to early to take me down Lion!”

“Without honor you are nothing but a leaf blowing in the wind and you abandoned honor the day you cheated in the middle of the Tournament.”

If at all possible G’nolga’s glare increased a thousand fold as they watched each other. “I will kill you where you stand.”

“No, I don’t think you will.”

G’nolga screamed and launched herself forward in a sprint, keeping her body low to the ground. “AGHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!”

Almost instantly, Onoli recognized the move G’nolga was using as one Gar experienced just a few short months before when he faced off against her A Master move, a lethal one that was powerful enough to shove G’nolga’s staff through his chest and explode out his back the instant she hit him Normally he wouldn’t have been to worried, but he wasn’t sure his regeneration would be able to keep him alive after such a blow.

He stayed calm as she ran towards him with every muscle in her body tensed to complete the attack. With his eyes narrowed his senses started working so fast that the world around him slowed to a crawl as he entered the state of mind that the monks that raised him called The Void. In this state of mind, G’nolga’s attack wouldn’t be as effective as she wanted it to be.

In an instant a hundred countermoves flashed through his mind, most of them fatal, the others less so. He quickly chooses the one he wants and moves. To the outside observer Onoli seemed to glance at the oncoming G’nolga and calmly use his left sword to knock the staff to the side as she moved in for the kill. At the same time he twisted the blade in his other hand around and punched her in the forehead with about half his werelion strength. Far more than he would normally use, but against G’nolga holding back is not an option.

She grunted in shock as the sledgehammer like fist slammed into her and sent her to the ground, hard. In an instant she rolls out of the way of an unexpected follow up to his attack would’ve cut off her arm at the elbow. Reacting on instinct as she rolled, twisting the staff in her hand and thrusting it into his stomach with a growl of fury.

Even with the amulet influencing her actions, Rook allowed her to make certain decisions on her own. She would never been allowed to lead Rook’s army if she was a mindless slave. The Undead Knights followed her reluctantly, but when it came to combat, that was where she had to most control over her own actions. She had no intention of letting yet another inferior bastard stop her from completing her mission.

Her attack wasn’t a hard blow, not even by G’nolga’s standards and not to a werelion, but it was enough to knock him back a couple of steps It gave her all the time she needed to get to her feet and spin the staff around to block a sudden flurry of sword slashes. Compared to the kind of attack she remembered Julia using against her, she knew that Onoli wasn’t as good as she was. He just made up for it by not panicking even when he was in the middle of a fight.

“Heh, you do have some skill.” She hopped back a few steps and glared at him.

“Indeed, you seem to be outmatched.” Onoli countered as he stood in a relaxed stance that would allow him to block anything she might throw at him. “I thought you were better than this.”

“I expected nothing less from you commander, but you don’t’ seem to understand what is going on here. That attack I just used is a testing attack. I use it to determine if an opponent is worth fighting. Very few have the ability to block it. If they miss they are either dead or so seriously injured that they aren’t worth fighting anymore.”

“So what?” He asked mildly, unconcerned that G’nolga seemed to want to talk more than fight.

“I used it against your friend Gar a few months ago and he barely had the ability to block it and wound up spending a couple weeks recovering from the blows. It takes a special kind of talent and training to block it, now that you have proven yourself worthy, I will BREAK YOU!!” G’nolga screamed, the veins on her face standing out around her eyes with the force of the scream.

She exploded into motion, the staff moving so fast that it was impossible tell what she was spinning as she shot forward. Even while using The Void Onoli found that he had problems just keeping up with G’nolga as she used a master’s technique he wasn’t aware of. He was just a half a second to late getting his defences up and that was all the possessed dwarf needed to overwhelm Onoli.

Seraphim and Necro flared with energy and lit up with their two forms of light and for several seconds the two of them were nothing but a blur. The sounds of metal weapons slamming against each other at high speed could be heard for some distance. Every time Seraphim blocked a strike against G’nolga’s staff there was a shower of bright sparks and in the darkness of the upper branches of the tree it made for an eerie sight. In the back of Onoli’s mind he wondered where the sparks were coming from since her staff was made of a wood.

They didn’t fight with their eyes that would have been impossible as they left the lighted area around the top of the stairway and moved onto the wide branches of the tree where almost no light was provided. Sparks flew with each exchange and block and through it all G’nolga could be seen with a huge evil grin on her face as she forced Onoli back with each blow.

Not once did she use the same attack pattern as she forced him to use every bit of skill he had available. At this level she could tell just how good he was and just how far he had to go before he reached her level. There was a comparison, he didn’t stand a chance.

She suddenly stopped and let Onoli continue backing up a couple of steps as she shrank the staff down to it’s hand held size and put it away. “You’re no match for Julia, Onoli, so there is no way you can stand against me.”

The werelion gasped for breath as he had a second to calm down. “I have to admit you are better than me. That doesn’t mean I will give up though.”

“I don’t need to beat you anymore.” G’nolga said.

Onoli narrowed his eyes in confusion. “Why would you think something like that?”

“That would be because of me, werelion.” Said a rather loud rumble from the darkness behind Onoli.

The werelion’s eyes shot wide open as he spun around and he had a brief glimpse of a giant white clawed paw as it swiped him off the tree and threw him into the inky black sky that covered the land. He cried out in shock as, for just the briefest of seconds, he could make out the bulk of a giant Dracolich hidden among the leaves of the tree. There was someone else there as well and in that instant he knew he had failed as a ball of red lightning formed in the hand of a black armored man.

The ball flew out moving far faster than normal lighting and slammed into him with the kind of force unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. With a scream, his body flared as a red ball of lightning formed around his body and sent him towards the ground so far below that he couldn’t even make out Seer’s Hamlet. He had a brief glimpse of the sky above him as he fell as the lightning story started to grow out of control, forming a massive dome of arching electricity.

**********

To Be Continued...

End Notes – Rook has arrived and taken the first step towards his completing his plan. It’s a running battle now, in some cases literally, and it’s going to end with an explosion that will change Ranma forever. *Evil Grin*

At one point in the GD black and white series Gina stops a Daemon Mouse from killing people by hitting over the head with an iron frying pan. The mouse was strong enough to blow up the entire house with its aura magic, hell and Entire Mountain. G’nolga’s flour and iron powder weapon seemed like an ideal way to take out a big and powerful aura mage like Theo. A mage doesn’t usually think on such a simple level as using flower dust to create a fireball, but an experienced one who isn’t trying to do three things at once might not have been caught. Theo normally wouldn’t be caught by something like, but he was quite distracted and had other things on his mind and it fit what I wanted to happen in that scene.

On Ranma defeating Ol’Jeb, I made a lot of changes to how he was originally presented the first time. Back when Rook killed the guy a couple of chapters back and transformed him. Ranma has this unique talent to cast spells with almost no limit to them, but he doesn’t really trust the ability. He’s pushing his limits to see how much he can do at the moment and he doesn’t like what he’s finding. As for story Balance, don’t worry, things are going to change here pretty soon that will limit his use of magic quite a bit.

This Jade adventure also suffers from Character Bloat. Gods, I’m so tired of Jade. I’m trying to touch on so many characters that it’s just making the story way to big and I apologize for that. I’m shortening scenes and speeding through what should have been major fights, Ol’Jeb for example. I think it might have actually given the story a better pacing too, to figure. Shrug.

The final battle will take place in the next chapter and it will mostly revolve around Ranma and rest of the team trying to stop Rook as his plans are finally realized after centuries of planning. Will it be a big fight? Hell yes, but I will make it exciting and limit it to one or two attacks per person just to let all of you know how strong he is now. Just wait until you see what will happen to Ranma because of this fight. It’s a major turning point for this story. (BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!)

Thanks to Gordan Stevenson, Stephen Price, and JMerrit for prereading this story.

* This needs and explanation: Ashaton Chaos is a character created by a friend and he wanted me to use him in the story sometime. He has the same curse as Ranma, but that isn’t too much of a problem at the moment since this will probably be the only part where Ashaton shows up in. He is from another dimension after all. He is a bit of an over powered character though, so I’m toning his abilities down a bit to show more of his personality and characterization.


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

Omake by Gordon Stevenson:

“Ranma Saotome, sorry about this, figured you guys might need a little help.” Ranma said with a smirk. Then he held up his hand and a small ball of fire formed as he launched it down the street and hit Jeb just as he was getting up.

Then as Jeb was getting up, a weird ritual chant was heard echoing out of
the very air around them. So loud that it could be heard up and down the length of the street by everyone within hundreds of feet. What caught them by surprise was the fact that it wasn’t in any language that any of them recognized. Not even the dwarven Warmage.

Klaatu..Barada..Ni...cough...mumble...mumble. Then a voice said: “There I’ve said the magic words!”

With that pronouncement, a bolt of lighting shot down from the darkened sky above them. Just before striking the ground it suddenly split into two arching forks of electricity, writhing like snakes upon the ground. One of the forks struck at Ranma while the other lashed out at Sheila, throwing them off their feet. They were unconscious by the time they hit the ground, a bit of smoke wafting off them as they lay there. The dwarves could only look on in shock as this happened almost instantly.

After several seconds passed, one of the two figures moaned and began to stir, holding his head as he stood up and absent mindedly patted himself down, muttering a curse or two under his breath. He took a moment to stretch out muscles that were locked up by the lightning that arched through his
body, before the figure looked around and realized something profound. “Stupid Magical Books! The figure screamed into the sky.

Sneering, Ash stopped to take stock of his surroundings and noticed that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. “Damnit! I’m still stuck in the past! That Wiseman and his bullshit promises! He told me if I said the magic words I’d be sent home! And here I am still stuck in the past! Shit!”

It was then that Ash noticed something that had previously escaped his attention, he had both of his hands again. “Yeeesss!” Ash Whooped. He had both has hands again, no more names like Lefty or Righty. Both flesh and blood, and not one flesh and the other metal crap. No more problems trying to pick up things and the other problems that went along with a missing hand. He was cured! He had both his hands back and all was right in the world with him.

While exulting over his returned right hand Ash noticed something else as he danced around happily, in full view of a dozen sweat dropping dwarves and an undead twit.

Wait a minute here. Those weren’t his clothes. He wasn’t wearing these clothes when he said the magic words to go back to his own time. “&%$#ing magic books!” He growled and noticed that his body looked different to him. Looking around he spied a house with a window in it. He moved over to it to look at his reflection.

The face he saw staring back at him wasn’t his. It was the face of a young teenaged Asian male. “What the Hell?!” How did this happen and who was the face in the window? Who was going to pay!? It was then that thoughts and memories began running through his head.

Ranma Saotome!!!

That was the name of the figure in the window. Apprentice Warrior of Julia
Diggers (whoever that was) and Apprentice Mage of Theodore Diggers (whoever that was).

The book! The Necronomicon!! Somehow when he messed up the words it sent him here. Into the body of Ranma Saotome!

“Ah just great! This is all I need.” Ash Groaned. Not only was he not back in his own time he was stuck in someone else’s body.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d just noticed that the kid had apparently been getting ready to face off against another Deadite monster, a zombie. At least this he could deal with.

“Shit! Can’t I ever get away from those things?!” Ash Wondered.

“Ah well guess I better go help defeat this latest Deadite army I’ve come across, that is my job as the Chosen One. Maybe this time I can find someone who can send me home.”

After that pronouncement, Ash reached behind him, into subspace, and pulled out his trusty Chainsaw and his faithful Remington 12 gauge boomstick.

He stuck the boomstick into a sheath on his back and looped the Chainsaw’s strap over his head. The dwarves all moved back as the recognized technology, but of a kind that looked like it wasn’t used for good. The blood splatters and dirt that covered the gruesome weapon almost gleamed as Ash patted it like a new born baby. His grin was frightening and a little demented.

As he pondered his next move; more memories crowded into Ash’s Consciousness. Fighting moves and Spells.

“Well. Well it seems like I’ve got a few new tricks to show those Deadite Bastards!” Ash Crowed.

“Time to get at it and show those Deadites who they are screwing with!” Ash thought.

As he was about to leave to kick some Deadite ass Ash noticed his companion, a short fur covered girl. As he looked at her, her name popped into his head, Sheila, that was her name. Weird, her name was exactly the same as the girl he’d just left back in the 13th century. Also, it appeared that she wasa were creature of some kind. Specifically a Jagwere if his new memories were to be trusted, whatever the hell that was.

Ash didn’t really care about the specifics of what Sheila was, he just wanted some motivation to fight, girls were good for that. So he walked over to the recovering Jagwere, who had went through the same recovery process that he had. Only a bit faster thanks to her regenerative capabilities, though she still looked a little dazed.

As he walked over to Sheila he reached out for her and said his favorite pick up line (One guaranteed to work): “Gimmie some sugar baby!” and bent to kiss her before she could kiss him.

Sheila noted Ash/Ranma’s approach and seemed to snap out of her stupor as he reached out to grab her and kiss her. As his hand neared her arm she reacted with a snarl.

“You…You…PERVERT!!!!” She screamed. As she did this she reached in behind her back a drew out a large wooden Mallet, coated in white flames, which she swung around in an underhanded attack that took Ash in the lower chest.

“Oh &%$#!”

“MALLET KAPOWIE!!!” She yelled as the mallet swung through the air and connected with Ash/Ranma’s body. Ash/Ranma was too surprised by the sudden attack to block or dodge it and was knocked into LJO (Low Jade Orbit [Which is a lot better than JLO. Of course what isn’t?]) with a scream of shock.

As Ash/Ranma flew out of site. Akane Tendo wondered where she was. One minute she was working out in her family’s dojo, beating up a brick or two.
Then as she was going through her daily work out she heard a strange chanting in an unknown language, a bright flash of light, and a loud booming noise. The next thing she knew was that she was waking up in the middle of the street and in need of a shave. Then some pervert comes out of nowhere and tries to grab her. Well she and her mallet sama showed him. She had really Kapowied his perverted ass and taught him not to be such a grabby pervert any more. All boys were perverts!

As she relaxed after her mallet attack. Akane/Sheila looked around and for the first time noticed the village of Seer’s Hamlet.

Seeing the unfamiliar, medieval town Akane/Shiela let out a paniced yell
“Where on Earth am I now!” She screamed out.

Back on Earth in the mansion of Erwin “Pee Wee” Talon a certain bandana wearing eternally lost boy had the feeling that he should be suing someone for copyright infringement.

The End.