Hellfire Days and Wild Knights ch6

[Atlan]

Thanks to TerraBull for the name. Thanks are also due to Josh Temple, Sopchoppy, and Dragonlord for inspiration. Thanks to Questara and J. St.C. Patrick, and TerraBull for proofreading it for me. Especially J. St.C. Patrick, the man is awesome. Oh, thanks to all the guys at Fukufics.com, for all their input, ideas and inspiration. Without them, this fic would never have occurred to me!
Spotlight goes to Rei-chan today for help with the real colours of the Moko Takabishia and the Shi Shi Hokodan.
“We codenamed her Lady Deathstrike,” said Harvey. “The soldier she was fussed with was called Yuriko Oyama.” The Doctor withdrew a coin from his pocket. “I had this coin made as a souvenir of this project, made from the last of our adamantuim.” He positioned it on his thumb. “Lets use it to decide. Heads, we call her the name of the personality we used, Yuriko Oyama. Tails, we call her by the name of the girl we used as the body to build on,” He flipped the coin into the air.
“Kodachi Kuno.”
I lay in growing horror as I heard the scientists talking. Kodachi? She was dangerous before, and now? I’d heard of adamantuim from Emma’s files. They said that it was totally indestructible. You could dump it into the sun and it wouldn’t even bend. A sword made from it would never need sharpening, or be possible to break. And these idiots had made Kodachi out of it?
I remembered how we parted ways, and shivered slightly. That girl wanted me dead. Way more seriously than Ryoga or Mousse ever had. After all, she had loved my guy form. When she found out that ‘her manly Ranma-sama’ was just an illusion created by the ‘Pig-tailed harlot’ she went psycho. She came close to killing Mom in her attempt to get me.
Something hit me in the mouth, and brought me back to reality. Inching back from the grate I’d been eavesdropping from, I spat out the intruder. It was the coin that the Doctor had flipped. Hard learned reflexes conditioned into me by Pop at a young age came to the front. The reflex of grabbing free money under any situation. I pocketed the coin, and turned around. Even if the two mutants were down here, I had to tell everyone about Kodachi, or Lady Deathstrike as they were calling her. Not that I couldn’t beat her or anything.
As I crawled snake-like out of the air vents, I could hear Dr Harvey speaking again. “Drat. Who wants to be the one to fetch the coin from up there? I really liked that coin.”
The reply was one of fear. “No way, sir. Not with the rats in the vents.” Wuss.
Harvey seemed to agree with my silent musings. “Rats! Grow a spine, dammit! Rats aren’t that bad! And for gods sake, you must be a hundred times its size!”
“But sir…. Rabies…” The scientist spluttered weakly.
Another voice spoke up. “Rabies is far from the scariest thing that those rats have to offer.”
“What do you mean?” The way his voice changed meant that Dr Harvey had just turned around to face the person who’d just spoken.
“In our testing the adamantuim bonding process, we started on rats. Several survived the process.”
“But they’re all in cages, right?”
“Have you ever had a pet rat, sir? I have. They’ll try to gnaw through anything. When you add in adamantuim teeth into the equation, you get something quite impossible to keep captured. I expect that, given the nano-probes healing properties, most of them are still alive.”
The conversation got too quiet for me to hear any more, but now I was beginning to get worried. Invincible, healing rats? Sounded like something from a cheesy game, but then again, so did the idea of a flying minotoar with tentacles and an eel for a tail. Or a three hundred year old woman standing on top of a shark, sending shark shaped waves as an attack. Or…. hell, most of my life.
…
Up above the Black Hand base, the deer and other animals that lived without any knowledge of what lived beneath their feet were treated to an unusual sight. True, as animals they were unable to understand the view, but even they knew that what was happening was something that no one had ever seen before. Emma Frost, the White Queen, perhaps the single richest person in the world, one of the most powerful telepaths in existence, and well known for her cunning, beauty, and elegance, was acting somewhat contrary to her norm.
The White Queen was currently smashing her head against a tree, and had been doing so for the last ten minutes. Had anyone listening understood English, they would have been treated to a variety of curses involving red heads.
In mid head smash, she paused. A trickle of blood could be seen trickling down from her forehead, but for once she paid her looks no mind. All her concentration was on the familiar touch she’d just felt. The touch of the accursed red head.
Emma, torn between joy and rage, sent out a telepathic tendril, finding the wayward girl. Adrenaline surged through the link, as did a combination of joy, bloodlust, and irritation. A fight. A covert operation, and she’d managed to find a fight. Emma smacked her head into the tree again. She should have known.
She opened a link with Ranma. This would be far more difficult than when she’d spoken with Shampoo. Shampoo was able to transmit her thoughts with her own telepathic gift, effectively halving Emma’s workload. With Ranma, she’d have to transmit her thoughts as she read the red head’s mind to find out the reply. While this was within her capabilities, it was neither pleasant nor easy.
‘Ranma? Are you there?’ The White Queen asked, removing any hint of anger from her tone.
A slightly panicky response came back to her. ‘Emma? That you?’
‘Yes. Now where have you been? Your mind disappeared completely ten minutes ago. What the hell happened?’ Some of her irritation leaked into her ‘voice’.
‘Ten minutes… I think that’s when I went into the fourth floor.’
‘Telepathic shielding, I guess. Though I thought that only Magneto and another black opps force had access to that technology.’
‘Hydra?’
‘Yes. How did you know?’
‘I saw some scientists from there on the fourth floor. They were working together on some kinda experiment. You ever hear of Kodachi Kuno?’
Emma got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘Yes. She was considered for membership under the old plan. She was denied because of her family history of insanity. Nabiki also provided some information on her.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t believe what I just saw. They were using her for an experiment.’
Frost went even paler than normal. ‘Hydra… They started the weapon X project, with her as the subject.’
Over the link, Emma could tell that Ranma was smirking. ‘No. She ain’t a mutant.’
The White Queen breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank god.’
‘They did something worse.’
Emma’s blood pressure shot right up again. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, they took out her bones, gave her hollow addymantium ones. They gave her namo-snot healing; her fingers turn into long, addymantium knives. They made her stronger, faster, and stuck another mind in her, so she’s half psychotic martial artist, half evil soldier.’
Emma almost fainted on the spot. ‘Shit.’
‘Hey, at least she might be fun to fight.’
Emma remembered something. ‘I can feel that you’re fighting. Is it her?’ She asked with trepidation. With a home field advantage, the new and improved Kodachi would be unstoppable. And knowing the ego of the pig-tailed martial artist, she wouldn’t even consider running away.
‘Nah, just some rats.’
‘Rats?’
‘You don’t wanna know.’ Ranma said with finality.
At this point, she was inclined to agree. Less news meant less bad news. ‘Where are you now?’
‘Just coming out of the air vents. Should just be a moment or two. You found the prisoners yet?’
‘Shampoo thinks that Bishop is on level three. She’s on route now.’
‘Once I pop out of these vents, I’ll be there too. Tell Shamps to keep a lode out for me.’
‘Lode?’
‘Like, in her head? Her telepathy?’
‘Lobe. And yes, I shall.’
…
I felt Emma’s touch leave, and got back to more immediate matters than missing mutants and my crummy vocabulary. The CyRats (well, what else would you call cyborg rats?) were persistent as hell, and seemed intent on having martial artist for dinner. They were biting my feet as I crawled through the vents, with my kicks having little to no effect.
People are always saying that rats are stupid, but I was being the victim of their intelligence. When they came at me from in front I could chi-blast them. Having all the flesh burned off their metal bones was something that even they couldn’t recover from, but apart from my Moko Takabishisa, nothing I could do worked. And while I’m handsome, beautiful, smart, and the best martial artist in the world, even I couldn’t shoot energy blasts out of my feet (though I had plans to train to change that).
I saw a glimmer of light up ahead, and made for it as fast as I could. The CyRats stopped for a moment, surprised by the sudden thrashing I was doing. By the time they got their courage up again, I was at an exit grate. With no time for subtlety, I punched the grate with all my force, ripping it like toilet paper and sending it flying across the hall.
I popped out of the accursed vents, and turned around. It could have just been my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw fear in the eyes of those rats. Animals know when they’ve looking at the next thing up on the food chain. And right now, they were quaking in their little metal boots. I smirked the smirk that had driven Ryoga mad with rage, the smirk that had struck fear into the hearts of property owners all over Nerima. The Saotome Smirk ™.
I raised my hand, pointing palm first at the vent. The rats backed up a little. “Moko…” A light illuminated my hand. “Taka…” A golden ball the size of a basketball appeared in my outstretched hand. Sure, that was far bigger than normal, but the little fuckers had really been chewing at me. It was like learning the Neko-Ken all over again. “BISHIA!!!” The basketball sized chi blast fired straight into the vent. There was a flash, and the scent of roasting meat. Smoke billowed out. “Opps. Too much.”
When the smoke had cleared, I was rewarded with the charred metal skeletons of a dozen rats. I grabbed one with slightly more meat on it than the rest, and stuck it in my pocket. After all, I couldn’t have anyone thinking that it was NORMAL rats that were giving me so much trouble. Like chewing holes in my feet. I looked down, and snorted with disgust. There were bloodstains on the floor where I’d hopped out of the vent. Stupid rats.
I took a look around the corridor that I’d emerged into. There was no one in sight, just like before. I hazarded a guess that everyone was busy taking a look at Kodachi, or Lady Deathstrike as they were calling her now.
Kodachi and I had never got along. Of all of my fiancée’s, of all the women who were interested in me, I came the closest to hating her. I tried my hardest not to hate any of them- who could blame a woman for falling in love with me, after all? But her, I couldn’t stand the sight of. Shampoo, she’d drug me occasionally, sure. But being drugged to hug her was totally forgivable. Ukyo, she’d plot every once in a while. But she always tried her hardest not to get anyone hurt. Kodachi, now she didn’t bother with the nice things like that. She’d paralyse me with drugs, while claiming that we loved each other. She’d blackmail me with photos of things that never happened. And that was just my guy side.
My cursed form, she’d go psycho at. She would genuinely try to kill me. The only time she wouldn’t attack me on sight was when I was with her brother, which was a cruelty all of its own, and she knew it. Akane found out the hard way, and I know I’ll regret that I couldn’t save her ‘till the day I die. I think if I’d failed to save her from Saffron, I’d feel better about it. At least Saffron only tried to kill her.
I shook off all the deep thoughts. I had a mutant to rescue, and he wasn’t going to get any more free if I just stood around looking at the blood on my feet. I picked a direction at random, and jogged off.
…
In the same vent that had just been a battleground, something moved. Stealthily, seeming like nothing more than a trick of the light, a small fury shape crept out of the hole in the wall. It gracefully landed on the floor, not making a single noise even though it had fallen over a metre.
It made it’s way to the bloody footprints left behind, sniffing carefully. The creature was the same size as a single one of the red marks, yet it showed no indication of caring. It sniffed the blood like a dog might, though it was far smarter than any mere dog.
The quiet animal looked up, and stalked in the direction that the blood went. It now had the scent of its prey; nothing would stop it from finding the intruder. A casual observer might have noticed its tail undulating slowly in the air. But no one was around to watch. No one was foolish to go down to this level without notifying the guardian. Except this new, bleeding intruder, and it was going to learn the price of crossing Catseye.
…
Now, I’ve said it before, and most people who know me will agree- I have no feminie modesty. Why should I? I’m a guy, even if my curse happens to be locked. So I don’t care particularly about exposing my chest, usually. Now, if I was in the middle of the street I wouldn’t go topless, ‘cause everyone would notice, and I’d stick out like a saw thumb. And I wouldn’t go topless for my friends at school, (no matter how often they’d ask) because having other guys lusting over me is just gross. So if no one was around, I wouldn’t care if I was wearing a shirt or not. Unless, say, it was cold. Or I was running.
Running topless is not a lot of fun, trust me. My… attributes… have a habit of bouncing, and bouncing painfully. So even though I was all alone in these corridors, I would have swapped my favourite Dragon Ball manga for a shirt. Or even a bra. Hell, a scarf I could have wrapped around my chest would have been perfect. But no, I was reduced to having a pair of pants. Pants picked out for their ability to help me in battle- tight but not restrictive. So my options were be shirtless, or rip off a leg and tie it around my chest. My fear of Ucchans wrath at loosing her shirt AND destroying her pants stopped me. What is it with (real) females and clothes?
I slowed down, and came to a halt. Not because running hurt, but because I might miss a detail or two while running, a vital detail that would lead us to the captured mutants. It was vitally important that we find them, and just because there was the side effect of my chest feeling better, it was ONLY to improve my concentration that I stopped. Really.
A noise from behind me caught my attention. I whirled around to face it, my hands moving into a defensive position, and my feet sliding just far enough to give me the necessary foundation to launch attacks from. After a moment to see what the source of the noise was, I grinned and lowered my guard. It was my blue haired wife.
“Shampoo! Any luck?” I had to ask, even though I didn’t see anyone with her.
She favoured me with a sultry smile. “Yes, I just found a topless redhead.” I groaned. It was bad enough having perverts like Hirosuke and Daisuke as friends at school, but both my wife AND my fiancée were way more perverted than them.
“I meant about the mutant. Did you find him yet?”
“No, I haven’t seen anyone on this floor but you. You find anything?” She asked, still leering at me.
I just rolled my eyes. “No, just a couple of rats and Kodachi.”
She stiffened. Shampoo hated Kodachi with a passion that was almost holy. I always had been of the opinion that Shampoo saw Kodachi as giving her a bad reputation. They both made death threats, but Shampoo made them to sound tough, and scare off weaklings. Kodachi did it because she meant it. And they both drugged, but the Amazon did it for love, while the gymnast did it for lust. They looked to bystanders like they had the same personality, and Shamps never forgave the Black Rose for that.
“Why she here?” Her English suddenly reverted to the same quality as her Japanese. She was too angry to pay attention. On the plus side, she was too busy being pissed to be drooling over me.
“She’s the guineapig in an experiment. Tell ya the rest later.”
She clenched her teeth and nodded. “I no sense anyone here. Maybe mutant not here?”
I bit my lip in thought. “Maybe. But when I went to the fourth floor, Emma couldn’t sense me. What if the prisoner’s cell is like that? Telepathic shielding?”
Shampoo’s face lit up. “Give me a moment.” She put her fingers on her temples, and frowned cutely. I stood there watching as she stared off into blank space.
A minute or two later, Shampoo lowered her hands, and her eyes re-focused. “Emma says that there is a shielded area on this floor. Lets look there.”
“Gotcha. Lets get going.” I followed my Amazon wife down the corridors.
…
Meanwhile, forgotten, a lone okonomiyaki chef sat on the floor. Her combat spatula lay next to her. She was ‘guarding’ the exit. Of course, there was almost no one around to guard it from, so she was reduced to reading the magazines she brought with her. It could be said that no one in their right mind would bring reading material into a hostile military base, but then again few people thought Ukyo was in her right mind. For some, this was because of her okonomiyaki obsession. Others considered her semi nuts because of her obsession with Ranma, a ten-year hunt to kill him, then changing her mind because he called her cute. A select few in the know considered her loony because of her Sailor Mercury obsession.
Unlike most would guess, while the chef might have been a little concerning to a psychologist, she had a perfectly rational reason for bringing magazines with her. With Ranma around, everything became weird. A trip to a shrine could result in having to deal with an insulted horse; a childhood battle would return to haunt years later wearing a pig mask; a canoe test could end up as three girls and a aquatransexual left amongst twenty virus infected lusty boys on a Hawaiian island that had no business being where it was. Weird shit happened if Ranma was within twenty kilometres.
So, Ukyo had figured before leaving the hotel, if having time to read the latest issue of her favourite magazine in a place that should be filled with armed soldiers was the most unlikely thing to happen, she should plan as if it was a certainty. So as a result of this unusual- but correct- logic, she was reading the latest issue of Okonomiyaki Monthly while sipping on a glass of coke- with ice.
Hidden Weapons technique was a godsend.
…
The corridors were finally starting to show some change from the ones everywhere else. That was a major relief, as I’d feared that we were as lost as a certain martial artist with a pig curse. There were a lot more alarms all over the walls, probably encase of a jail brake. I pointed this out to Shampoo, who nodded.
Barely a minute after the alarms got more common, we came to a door. Unlike every other in the place, this one didn’t seem to be made out of metal. It was smooth, and reminded me of a flowerpot. Ceramic.
I shuffled nervously. “I guess this is the place then, huh?”
Shampoo nodded. “Yes.” She reached forward, index finger out stretched. “Basu Tenko!”
The basu tenko, otherwise knows as the breaking point, is a Chinese Amazon technique. To my shame, it is one of the few techniques I’ve seen constantly yet do not know how to do. I understand it, in principle. Focus chi into the end of a finger, and release it into an inanimate object. To the untrained eye, it looks like it creates an explosion, while the truth is more complicated. It causes the entire object to fall apart- with the same intensity that it holds its self together The trick lies in getting the chi right- it has to be totally chaotic. Organic things have enough chi in them that the breaking point is useless.
To a beginning level fighter, the main use of the technique is the enhanced durability it brings. The skin get so beaten that the user’s damage resistance goes up ridiculously. To advanced fighters, it gains more uses- smoke screen, pits, timed explosions in the battlefield, mines (not mining for gold, mines that go ‘BOOM’ and kill people), avalanches, and general day-to-day uses.
Day to day uses can include destroying tough doors.
I watched with interest as the sturdy looking door ripped itself apart, showering us and the corridor with shrapnel. I used my speedy hands to catch all the debris heading for me, while Shampoo just let them bounce off her. That was a really useful side effect.
When the rubble cleared, we were treated to the amusing sight of an empty cell, and a dusty man stuck to the ceiling. The way he was positioned, with his arms pushing against one wall and his feet pushing against the wall opposite, showed quite clearly that he had been planing to fall on whoever came into his cell next. As escape plans go, I gave it a 6/10. Smarter than playing sick, but no where near as clever as sticking to the inside of the door, just below the peep hole.
I couldn’t resist. “Hey, hows it hanging?” I was rewarded with dirty looks from both the inmate and the Amazon. “Um. You’re Bishop, right?” God, I hoped I was right. If there were heaps of prisoners to rescue, this would be ridiculously time consuming.
The man still plastered to the ceiling coughed a lungful of dust. “Yeah.” He may have been a little surprised at having his cell blown open by a pair of hot babes.
“Are you planing on getting down any time soon? ‘Cause this jail break will go a lot harder if you stay there.” At my prompting he let go of the celing and fell down, managing to land on his feet, though the shock of impact looked like it hurt him. He turned around, and faced us.
“So, who are you?” Well, that was subtle. And rude. I liked him. Not THAT way, though a lot of girls would. He was darker than a normal American, almost as black as Happosai’s heart. He was muscly, far bulkier than I ever was- that meant that in a fight, he’d go with strength over speed. His hair was long, black, and curly. He looked about 20, and he had the beginnings of a beard. His most distinctive feature was a large M tattooed over his right eye. It, like his left one, was focused on my chest.
“Well, we’re the…” I started, only to be cut off by Shampoo.
“She’s taken.” She stepped in front of me, shielding me from Bishop. I was rather surprised by this. Shampoo looked jealous. Territorial. “WE are the Hellions. I’m Shampoo, and the red-head’s Ranma. We heard that you needed help.” Hellions? First I’d heard of that name. I let it lie, since it might have been mentioned when I wasn’t listening.
“Right. You came into a guarded military base, risking life and limb, because you felt like helping someone?” Man, he was suspicious as hell.
“Pretty much.” Shampoo, without looking, elbowed me in the gut for that. I decided to shut up and let her do the talking.
“There are many reasons, but lets wait until we get out of here to tell them.” Shamps said. I was really impressed at how good her English had gotten so quickly. “Didn’t you have a friend here who needed rescuing too?”
The black guy looked relieved for a split second, before going back to suspicious. “Yeah. Goratschin. My old drinking buddy. He tell you to find me?”
Shampoo shook her head. “No, but when we heard what they’re doing to him, we had to include him in the jail break.” She knew slang as well. I was beginning to suspect that she’d kept more of those English lessons that she gave us than she was telling. Eh, Anything Goes. I live by it; I couldn’t fault her for doing the same.
Bishop frowned sadly. “It was supposed to be ME getting HIM out. But then a guard walked by while I was untying his restraints, and I got caught.” He brightened up. “But I do know where he is, if they haven’t moved him. He’s on the second floor.”
I grinned. “You know, right now, everyone with a gun is on the fourth floor. Apart from us, the only people on the floors above this one are janitors, secretaries, and a repair guy. I bet there’s no one stoping us from just breaking that cell open, and walking out with him…”
Bishop grinned wolfishly in reply. “I like that idea. Follow me.” He picked a direction and started jogging off. Well, I guess you could call it jogging, though to me it was a fast walk. Dam non martial artists.
It was then that I realized that I still had no shirt. “Pervert.” I growled, thinking of how he’d been staring at my chest. Shampoo nodded sagely next to me, then we both followed Bishop.
…
At that point, the White Queen was smiling. After keeping that meeting under telepathic surveillance, and having lead Shampoo and Ranma to the shielded area, the task was almost done. Just one more stray to pick up, and then back home in time for dinner. And the most surprising part was that after over an hour in the base, there was only a door, a vent, and some rats as casualties. Emma had halfway expected that by now, half the base would be levelled and the alarm would be ringing. Perhaps the foreign martial artists COULD keep collateral damage to a minimum.
And perhaps best of all, she’d managed to limit her interference to but a single message to Shampoo, telling her to say ‘Hellions” instead of ‘Hellfire Club’, which she would have to remember to explain in full to the three girls later.
Emma wiped the blood off her forehead, and hoped she looked as presentable as normal. “You can show yourself now, LaBeau.”
A rustling could be heard from the bushes, and then a man emerged from them. His clothing was distinctive- he wore a black mask that covered his ears and the bulk of his hair, except for the top of his head. The rest of his outfit was more normal- a faded trench coat covered the rest of his dark clothes. He sported a goatee and small beard on the underside of his chin. One could easily mistake him for a bum or a biker, but his black eyes with burning red pupils and the deck of cards that he nursed in his hands were clues that he was no ordinary man. He was Remy LaBeau, Gambit.
“Chérie. How you Remy’s name, huh?” The Cajun asked. His deceptively mild tone of voice masked the subtle movements of his hands, as one went to his quarterstaff, and the other grabbed a card.
Emma smirked. She loved this sort of thing. “I was waiting for you to come, Gambit, though I was suspecting that Magneto would send Sabertooth. We’re hear for the same reason, I take it?”
Gambit’s eyes narrowed. “Gambit’s here for de ‘speriment. He wants to find out wa de Black Glove is doing.”
Emma laughed. “Then we have different reasons for being here. I thought Magneto would have been interested in expanding his acolytes.”
“’Den there is a mutant here, mon ami. Gambit wondered.”
“And the mutant is with me now. You can go home now, Remy.”
LaBeau frowned. “Gambit doesn’t like taking orders, femme. He has a job to do.”
A glint appeared on the face of the White Queen, but the rest of her expression remained unchanged. “You were late. One of my team has already witnessed the experiment, and learned all there is to know.” Emma smirked slightly. “And as strong as you are, I doubt even you could withstand what they created.”
“Well, de boss, he don’t like failures. So mebey you tell Remy what he wants to know, and we all be happy, eh?”
Emma sat up straighter. “I have a better idea. You tell Magneto to meet me in Bayville, in two weeks. At the roof of the school, midnight. He’s welcome to bring all of his acolytes, if he wants. There, I’ll trade him the information he wants, and some extra.”
Gambit glowered at the white clad woman. “And why do you think that he go there, chérie? He have many enemies in Bayville.”
Emma’s eyes locked onto the Cajun’s, and spoke directly into his mind. ‘Tell him that the White Queen of the Hellfire Club assures his safety, and promises that it will be worth his while.’
…
The three of us came to a stop by an elevator. Bishop had stayed in the front, mostly because I could make sure he wasn’t looking at my chest, and Shampoo had stayed in the middle, for the same reason. She was acting like she was jealous or something.
The black man looked at the open elevator. “We go up this elevator, turn left, and walk to the first door we see. That’s where they’ve got Ivan.”
I looked over Shampoo’s shoulder at the elevator. “That’ll be a tight fit.”
Shampoo looked like she was thinking the same thing. “We should split up. Ranma, you go first. Then Bishop and I will go.”
I looked at Shamps. “No way. This is way more dangerous than the next floor up. Kodachi might be on the prowl. You too go first.”
Bishop put in his two cents. “Shampoo, why don’t you go, and I’ll go with Ranma.”
I shook my head. “Uh uh. I’m a way better fighter than you. You first.”
It looked like the argument was going to go on for ages, so I did what I do best- the unexpected. I shoved the amazon into the elevator next to Bishop, hitting the ‘next floor’ button and getting out. I watched the doors close on their surprised faces.
…
In the elevator, Bishop and Shampoo stared at each other. Shampoo was the first to speak. “She’s mine.”
Bishop narrowed his eyes. “She sure seemed to like me.”
“She’s a lesbian.”
“She didn’t mind showing me her… features.”
“We’re already together.”
“We’ll see about that.”
…
Ukyo closed her magazine. The article about the new way of preparing the seaweed for Okonomiyaki was really interesting- she made a mental note to try it out. She folded the magazine in half, and drained the last of her coke.
Relaxed and off guard, she never noticed the soldier walking up behind her. She was completely unaware that she was being watched as she put the magazine into her cleavage using Hidden Weapons technique.
Her first and only warning was when she felt a slight tickling on the back of her head. She swiped her hand back to scratch it. She had a split second to feel the cold metal barrel of a gun, before the soldier pulled the trigger.
Out side the room, a secretary jumped at the noise of the gunshot. Inside, the soldier stood impassively over the body of the chef, watching her brain matter slowly drip off the wall.
…
I waited outside the elevator. I never was the most patient of people, and waiting in front of an old elevator in the middle of an unreasonably empty military base was far from exciting. There was nothing happening, nothing at all.
‘Pit. Pit. Pit.’
The sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway. I mentally cursed myself. Saying that nothing was happening was like saying ‘Oh wow, I haven’t been splashed all day today.’ It was just asking for bad stuff to happen.
I focused on the noise. It was lighter than a person. Too light to be a guard, or Kodachi. Too light to be a CyRat. I listened to the timing, and realized that whatever it was had four legs. Mutant? Another experiment? I wasn’t sure.
I slipped into a defensive position, and spread the fingers on my right hand. It started glowing gold. Concentrating a little more, the glow turned into a luminous tennis ball sized sphere of energy. Instead of launching it, I held it. It was unpleasant, and difficult, but experience had shown me that when it comes to inhuman enemies, you should expect the worst.
The sound was getting closer, and I could tell it was just around the corner. I mentally prepared myself, imagining what it could be. A hideous monster, with addymantum bones? A robot? Something like the monsters from Resident Evil? My mind crawled with possibilities.
It rounded a corner, and I realized that all my thoughts were nothing compared to the truth. It had huge fangs, a mouth full of them, dripping saliva and malice. The beady eyes held a murderous rage, and the ears looked like they could slice a limb off if they touched someone. The tail writhed like a thing alive, and must have been as thick as Bishop’s leg. Each of it’s four, sinister legs was lined with massive claws, designed for ripping the flesh of its prey. The beast itself was almost as tall as I was, and I knew it was a predator. I knew I had no chance at all.
The energy ball in my hands faded away o nothing, and I pressed myself flat against the wall, shivering uncontrollably. As I cringed before the horrific visage, it gave it’s sinister battle cry, the cry that carried the promise of death.
“Meow.”
…
Authors Rant: Mwhuhahahahaaahaha! I’m so evil! And I have one hell of a cliff-hanger addiction.
To those of you who wanted to know what Ukyo’s power was, and heard my promise to reveal it this chapter- I lied!

[Questara]

Well, dang, either imortality, something like multiple beings, or Ukyo's dead. Ouch.
So much for a low key insertion, stupid cats.

[Atlan]

I can garuntee that Ukyo's power has nothing to do with Imortality, or multiple beings.

[AscendedWarrior]

I can't believe you killed off Ukyou... either that or she has very funky power that I cannot think of right now... hmmm... oh well I guess I'll just have to wait for the next chapter.

[Waruiko]

BUT... BUT... NO!!!!! NOT UKYO!!!! NOW HOW WILL RANMA BE INVOLVED IN HOT LESBIAN THREESOMS!!!

[J. St.C. Patrick]

Another good chapter. Here's what I found - G & Sp, comments and quibbles:

“The soldier she was fussed with was called Yuriko Oyama.”

fused

“Lets use it to decide.

Let's

And for gods sake, you must be a hundred times its size!”

their (quibble)

The White Queen was currently smashing her head against a tree, and had been doing so for the last ten minutes. Had anyone listening understood English, they would have been treated to a variety of curses involving red heads.

heh. oh yeah:
redhead

With Ranma, she’d have to transmit her thoughts as she read the red head’s mind to find out the reply.

redhead's

They made her stronger, faster, and stuck another mind in her, so she’s half psychotic martial artist, half evil soldier.’
Emma almost fainted on the spot. ‘Shit.’
‘Hey, at least she might be fun to fight.’

heh.

Having all the flesh burned off their metal bones was something that even they couldn’t recover from, but apart from my Moko Takabishisa, nothing I could do worked.

Takabisha

"BISHIA!!!”

BISHA

Smoke billowed out. “Opps. Too much.”
When the smoke had cleared, I was rewarded with the charred metal skeletons of a dozen rats.

Question - no smoke alarms?

Of all of my fiancée’s, of all the women who were interested in me, I came the closest to hating her.

fiancées

It made it’s way to the bloody footprints left behind, sniffing carefully.

its

Now, I’ve said it before, and most people who know me will agree- I have no feminie modesty.

feminine

Now, if I was in the middle of the street I wouldn’t go topless, ‘cause everyone would notice, and I’d stick out like a saw thumb.

did you mean:
sore thumb
or is this a case of Ranma's poor diction?

My fear of Ucchans wrath at loosing her shirt AND destroying her pants stopped me.

Ucchan's

She’s the guineapig in an experiment.

guinea pig

Lets look there

let's

Lets get going.”

Let's

There were a lot more alarms all over the walls, probably encase of a jail brake.

incase
jailbreak

“Basu Tenko!”
The basu tenko, otherwise knows as the breaking point, is a Chinese Amazon technique.

Bakusai Tenketsu

It causes the entire object to fall apart- with the same intensity that it holds its self together The trick lies in getting the chi right- it has to be totally chaotic.

itself
together. The (you left out the period)

I watched with interest as the sturdy looking door ripped itself apart, showering us and the corridor with shrapnel.

Minor quibble - strictly speaking shrapnel is small bits of metal in a projectile that explodes showering fragments all over - as invented by Henry Shrapnel. Fragments are what showered the corridor - though Ranma might not know or care about the difference.

The way he was positioned, with his arms pushing against one wall and his feet pushing against the wall opposite, showed quite clearly that he had been planing to fall on whoever came into his cell next.

planning

Smarter than playing sick, but no where near as clever as sticking to the inside of the door, just below the peep hole.

nowhere

“Hey, hows it hanging?”

how's

“Are you planing on getting down any time soon?

planning

I’m Shampoo, and the red-head’s Ranma.

redhead's

There are many reasons, but lets wait until we get out of here to tell them.”

let's

“No, but when we heard what they’re doing to him, we had to include him in the jail break.”

jailbreak

Dam non martial artists.

Damn

After keeping that meeting under telepathic surveillance, and having lead Shampoo and Ranma to the shielded area, the task was almost done.

led

He sported a goatee and small beard on the underside of his chin.

a goatee is a small beard under the chin. Did you mean he had a small tuft of hair under his lower lip?
btw - what I have on my Avatar is a circle beard - a goatee does not touch the mustache.

How you Remy’s name, huh?”

you know Remy's

We’re hear for the same reason, I take it?”

here

You too go first.”

two

I shoved the amazon into the elevator next to Bishop, hitting the ‘next floor’ button and getting out.

Amazon
----------------
My God you killed Kenn.. Ukyo!
-----------------

The energy ball in my hands faded away o nothing, and I pressed myself flat against the wall, shivering uncontrollably.

to

Authors Rant: Mwhuhahahahaaahaha! I’m so evil! And I have one hell of a cliff-hanger addiction.

Author's
or
Authors' (if there is more than one or you have a split personality)
There you go!

[Atlan]

In all honesty, I have no idea what i'd do without you to check my work, Pat. As always, thanks a bunch.