The World at War: Chapter 2

I sighed, rubbing my temples slowly to relieve a headache that was
quickly becoming a migraine.  Ryu wasn't a bad guy, he even had a lot
in common with me, at least as much as any one person can, but he
absolutely would not give up on the idea of completing his mission.  I
was almost ready to believe that he had somehow been programmed to
take out the Umbrella building.

"I have to do this, Ranma.  If the viral agents stored within that
facility are released into the atmosphere the world will be ravaged by
monsters and civilization will cease to exist!" Ryu shouted.  Fully
energized and no longer using his chi just to stay active, Ryu Kumon
had a chi force at least as strong as mine.  He couldn't properly use
it, only knowing the Yama-sen-ken and a rudimentary chi bolt maneuver,
but it was there, and the martial artist wasn't attempting to restrain
it.

"Newsflash, the world is already ravaged by monsters and civilization
went down the tubes about three months ago.  This virus you talk
about, the one that makes monsters and zombies, has already been
released into the atmosphere.  Remember all those zombies and the
monster yesterday?  You exploded quite a few of them.  The winds up on
top of the building were higher than average, more than powerful
enough to spread out infected blood over long distances." Hell, if
things kept getting worse, the remaining people of the world might
turn to the Alliance willingly, just for protection.

Ryu's mouth gaped open, but he snapped it shut and said,"You don't
know that for sure.  The virus may not take hold long enough to spread
from just those zombies.  The Umbrella installation has to be
destroyed or the virus will definitely spread.  You haven't seen the
labs, Ranma, there are warehouse sized caverns full of nothing but
incubation tubes with monsters like the one I fought yesterday.
Thousands upon thousands of them." Maybe he was just an idiot and not
really programmed to do this.

"Fine then.  So, how are you going to destroy the place?  Last time I
checked, NOTHING that goes boom went boom.  I don't suppose you're
going to walk up to all the zombies and ask them to tear it down for
you." I have all intentions of transporting that entire mountain into
space, but the idiot wants to go inside and do it himself, alone.

Looking sheepish for the first time, Ryu said,"I was hoping you could
teach me some magic, you know, something that would blow it up?"

I shook my head disbelievingly.  This guy was unreal."One day you'll
be powerful, but your power is several orders of magnitude below what
would be required to cast such a spell." I wasn't about to tell him
that he actually could one day destroy the mountain, he didn't need to
know that now.  I didn't want the place destroyed, that left too many
chances for something to survive.  I wanted it 'gone'.

Ryu remained silent.  I continued,"You see?  I have the capability to
do the job, so I'll do it."

****

Teleporting a mountain is the kind of thing I don't like to do(I have
done it before, though), but the alternatives, mainly Earth as zombie
heaven, didn't sound very fun.  The kind of work involved in
transporting a mountain as large as this one was more than I felt like
doing.  In this day and age you just can't let yourself become
exhausted, not and remain intact and breathing.  So, I didn't do the
work, I used a couple of crystals in my possession that made me the
most powerful being on this planet(that thought just makes me feel all
warm and fuzzy inside).

In one powerful grab, I appropriated an enormous amount of raw energy
from the Silver Imperium Crystal and used the lens crystal of my own
creation to focus and shape that energy into a space warping spell.
Katya, the older, wiser, more beautiful, and less insane sister of
Setsuna a.k.a Sailor Pluto, a spatial mage and the other Senshi of
Pluto, had taught me the spell and I'd pretty much worked out all the
bugs.  I wouldn't use it to transport myself with anything more than a
few hundreds kilos of mass for a few more years, but that wasn't
likely to be a requirement either.

"Wha-?" was all that Ryu managed to get out before the giant whole in
reality formed above the mountain and sucked it and a large part of
the surrounding forest into space.  If I'd been doing this unaided,
I'd have drawn a complex spell pattern and been left exhausted for
hours.  Shit, I'd better start relying more on more on personal power
or my reserves would begin to atrophy.

Unlike the first time, where I had inadvertently drawn the senshi and
myself into another dimension along with a small mountain, this one
didn't leave behind a super smooth surface.  There was, instead, an
enormous chunk taken out of the Earth, leaving a gaping crater-like
maw.

Along the jagged edge of the crater, large rooms and storage areas
remained undamaged.  Within some of those rooms I could see the
incubation tubes mentioned by Ryu.  Most of the rooms, though, held
zombies that wondered around aimlessly, cages that housed a several
varieties of mutant and undead creatures, and broken equipment.  At
least Ryu would get a chance to complete his mission, sorta.

"Hey, Ryu, wanna see who's the most accurate?" I asked.  Of course the
entire inner area of the crater would have to be incinerated, but for
now nothing was going to escape that hadn't already done so.

"Huh?" I think the whole disappearing mountain thing had adled him a
bit.

I snapped my fingers in his face a couple times until his eyes
unglazed, then repeated,"I asked you if you wanted to see who could
blow up the most zombies from here." I wasn't going to use magic, if
that's what you're wondering.  I wanted the guy to at least have
something of a chance.

Ryu grinned, all signs of shock, sullenness, and anger gone."None of
that magic crap?" I nodded, reminding myself to pound the value of
magic into Ryu sometime in the near future.

By the time we found an area that would allow us to cover the most
ground, some of the skinless ape creatures were scampering up the side
of the crater.  They had a good distance to climb, still, but we
agreed to pick them off first.

I unleashed my chi, letting it burn around me in a tight, liquid-like
battle aura, while constraining the energy with my will so that none
of it would be wasted.  The effect was that I became barely
recognizable as anything but a glowing green and gold humanoid shape.
Also, I began to gather excess chi from nature, carefully screening
out any magic that almost always came with it.  I'd agreed to no
magic, but Ryu was going to get one hell of a demonstration.

Ryu was more straight forward.  He crossed his arms over his chest and
they were enveloped in a dark bluish-purple aura.  He must have
thought that by limiting the chi burn to his arms that he was saving
energy, and in a way, he was, but that also kept him from building up
a much larger charge or queing a series of attacks into his aura.  As
his arms uncrossed, the forearms split into three sections and
expanded outward about three inches.  The battle aura flowed between
them heavily but I could still see the metallic innards of Ryu's
cybernetic body.  From the central section of the mechanism, a black
bar of metal began to pulse, eventually turning into a steadily
glowing white light.

I didn't ask what exactly was happening.  I'd only agreed on not using
magic.  Oh well, maybe this will be a better game than I'd thought.

Ryu may have some powerful tech on his side, but he doesn't have the
knowledge or skill to equal a true master.  I decided to fill him in
on that real quick.  My first attack came in the form of a pair of
energy blasts, each connected to the other by a thin filament of chi.
Moments before slamming into a single skinless ape, the two spheres
rocketed away from each other, still connected by the chord.  The chi
filament bissected four of the ape things at various levels and the
main attacks smashed into the rock wall, raining debris and ape pieces
down on other ape things.  Total: 10

I looked to Ryu and saw him shake his head in what I like to think of
as wonder.  His attack was a variant of the kijin raishu dan, a much
larger and stronger one.  I'm not totally sure, but it appeared as if
he used the vacuum of the blade to encase a large amount of non-
magically harnessed plasma.  The now white hot blade of energy,
slammed into the wall, vaporizing three of the creatures instantly and
killing eight more in the ensuing fall of debris and quick flowing
motlen rock.  Total: 11.

My next attempt created a thermal void and sucked all the heat from a
dozen of the ape things, freezing them solid.  The shock wave created
by such a rapid atmospheric change shattered the frozen mutations.
Ryu next targetted an outcropping of rock directly above a large pack
of ape things.  This time his attack was a girating cable of chi that
he held in check and guided with some kind of force generated by the
mechanism within his arms.  That got him a dozen.  Damnit, I don't
intend to lose.

Concussion wave. 13.  Weird metallic disk of death. 12.  Ah ha, a tie!
That pretty much took care of the wall crawlers.  Far below, zombies
were gnawing on one another and undead pooches were getting the
stuffing beat out of them by giant monsters that resembled the one Ryu
had fought.

The next hour rapidly degenerated into a cosmic pissing contest.
Behind by three, with the sun just about to set over the horizon, I
lost my patience and performed the mother of all bakusai tenketsus.
Mother doesn't really describe the cave in that followed.  I had to
jump to safety, followed closely by Ryu, as the much abused wall of
the crater collapsed inward, throwing up a mushroom cloud of dust.
When it settled, thanks to a little help from moi, there wasn't much
more than a lake-sized dimple in the ground to identify the resting
place of lots of nasty little things.

"Guess I win, eh?" I asked, allowing myself to gloat a bit.  It had
been fun, a true test of skill.  I just had more skills.

"You sure that last one wasn't magic?" Ryu asked.  With all the super
weapons he had pulled out, Ryu shouldn't have cared if I used a little
magic.

"No magic, just something I learned from the Amazons."

****

As we travelled through the wilderness of China, I passed the time by
either teaching Ryu magic or teaching him to fight.  There wasn't
really that much else to do.  The war was far enough behind us that
the only hope of meeting an Alliance force would be if they were
coming for their stuff.  The few villages we passed through were
little more than patches of firm ground in between rice paddies and
their inhabitants didn't come across as friendly, taking careful aim
as they did to kill us with their bows.

Ryu himself, aside from teaching him, was an entertainment.  The
Japanese government had built so many different weapons into his body
that just watching him try to form a martial arts style that would
incorporate them could become a fire works display.  I also studied
him.  If they could make one, though Ryu was most likely the strongest
by far, there could be others, even if it was unlikely they were
capable of moving.

I'd sent Demon with a warning to Usagi about Umbrella and the danger
posed by the remnants of their experimentation.  The pokemon had
returned slightly scorched and battle weary, but the message had
gotten through and the senshi were prepared.  Heh, I'll bet Saffron
won't mess with Demon again, not after their first encounter.

"So, who's the chick, Ranma?" Ryu asked.  I was flying low, nearly
skimming the trees and the cybernetic martial artist was hovering
right along.  He couldn't fly yet, but he knew enough to augment the
magnetic jump thrusters throughout his body to simulate the feat.

"Huh?" I'd been thinking about Ami and all the things I could have
done to those who had harmed her if only I'd been in my right mind.  I
looked over at him innocently.

Ryu snorted."Please, don't deny it.  I've seen the way you zone out
every so often.  You may not know it, but sometimes your eyes start to
glow and you give off 'pissed' vibes.  I know the signs.  My dad was
the same way when mom got killed." Ryu wasn't stupid, despite his
behavior all those weeks ago.  For his benefit, I'd decided that he
had been programmed to take out the installation.

I shrugged."Some Amazons tried to kill me.  They got Ami instead.
Right now I've got her frozen in a stasis spell until I can find a
cure for the magically constucted poison she was exposed to." Here I
go, getting depressed again.  Bastard, why couldn't he mind his own
business?

Ryu didn't want to mind his business and he didn't let the matter
drop. "Amazons?  I thought you were all buddy buddy with them." Fine.
If he wanted to know, then I'd tell him.

"I was, but then they decided to take over the world.  I decided to
take over their takeover and some of them didn't like it.  The ones
that are still alive are constantly reliving a demonic gangrape.
Their souls, well their souls would probably much rather be in hell
right now." I'm not too sure about that one.  If I tried, I could most
likely get the Dark Prince to see to them personally.  Next time I
talk with him, I'll bring it up.

"Ah...that's nice.  Shit!  I mean it's bad that Ami got hurt, but it
is nice that you got them back.  Yeah, that's it.  I hear demons are
very thorough." Ryu nodded vigorously.  I'm Ranma Saotome, and I
strike fear in the hearts of some of the world's most powerful men.
Grin.

"Yeah, nice."

****

Xochial wasn't your typical Demon Lord.  Typical being large, dripping
explosive slime, and the screams of tortured souls escaping from every
orifice.  No, Xochial wasn't typical, but he was one ugly
motherfucker.  My mentor stood at just under eight feet tall and his
entire frame resembled nothing more than a snake that had grown arms
and legs.  His body truly was that thin, and looked as if it would
break into little pieces if exposed to a good breeze.  Nothing could
be farther from the truth.  Xochial was almost pure magic, dark magic,
but still magic.

I wouldn't have dreamed of facing him in his own realm, but even on my
own plane and equipped with the artifacts I possess, I still wouldn't
wager in my favor if such a fight ever came to pass(50/50 isn't bad,
but I'm not gonna bet for myself with odds that could swing either way
so easily).  He was currently scanning the vial of poison from which
Ami's plight originated.  I knew he wouldn't be able to offer a cure,
it wasn't within his power to effect the lighter magicks, but it
didn't hurt to let him look.

Ryu had quickly, but with admirable discretion, slipped away when my
old friend appeared before us.  I'd lost track of him after he covered
a few kilometers.

"Quality work," hissed Xochial, his jaw moving up and down without any
sign of hinged motion."The child's soul, the one used to lock the
spell, was also Talented," the Demon Lord continued."That gives it
potency and power, but also a weakness."

I perked up at this announcement.  I felt like bitch slapping myself.
If I had only sought out Xochial earlier, I could have saved months of
wasted time."A weakness?" I asked hopefully.

The snake-like head bobbed once."Yes, a small weakness, but a weakness
nonetheless.  A normal soul would have been consumed within decades by
the posion's power, but a Talented soul adapts to the power and
becomes twisted by it.  If you were to remove the factor which gives
the soul its Talent, the poison within your woman would become
powerless within a century." The demon who had helped raised me, who
had somehow found it within his black heart not to eat me when I had
asked for his tutelage, handed the small vial back to me.

I nodded once in return, all the appreciation Xochial would except
without getting weepy(you wouldn't believe me if I told you).  I
reached into my crowded spatial pocket and drew out the ancient tomes
I'd stolen from the Amazons and one of the gems.  The tomes wouldn't
travel across the dimensional barriers, but the gem, a black diamond
useful in death spells, would."Could you give these to the Dark Prince
when you see him?" I still think his name is Escobar.  I passed the
books to Xochial, then the gem."It's not really my kind of thing, you
keep it."

Xochial nodded again, and in a puff of sulfuricly reeking smoke,
disappeared.

****

Contemplating how I was supposed to remove the Talent from a
disembodied soul, I went in search of Ryu.  I had to travel for nearly
two hours before I could even pick up so much as a hint of his
location.

The martial artist was in a clearing, shredding a large pine tree with
those metal tentacles that he could extend from his palms.  He's the
swiss army knife of cyborgs.

"How could you stand to be around that thing?" Ryu asked without
preamble.  I could almost see his synthetic skin crawling with
revulsion.  I couldn't blame the guy, Demon Lords and their kin do
have rather disturbing auras.  Then again, so do I.

I shrugged, taking a seat on a piece of log that moments before had
been a living tree."Xochial and I go back a long way.  He's sorta like
my big brother." Ryu's eyes, probably synthetic too, threatened to
pop.
"Don't worry about it, he takes getting used to.  He told me a way to
help cure Ami, though, so I'm not complaining." Sure, if I felt like
waiting a century to revive her.

****

Author's Notes:  I'm going to cut this a bit short due to the
monstrous headache I've got.  I didn't mention it in the fic, but
don't you think that Umbrella has lots of other bases around the
world?  There are other companies that worked with the T-virus and G-
virus, too, so they too must have had such labs.  Now that there is no
way to contain their biological menaces, I wonder how long it will
take for the world to get even more fucked up.

Send C&C to dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

Thanks for your character submissions, all of you who entered them.  I
may not be able to use them, since I have to try to fit them into the
story as it forms within my head, but I appreciate the effort.  Anyone
who wishes to submit a charcater, sorry, you're kinda late.  I have
plenty to work with.  Maybe I can use them for something else someday
so keep any you've got already saved.