Nelo Angelo was not having the best of days.
Being summoned up by some conqueror-wannabe was never something he'd enjoyed. Looking down at the circle at his feet, he could tell which book the idiot had taken the spell from, and could catalog the minor flaws in the magic circle that reduced its effectiveness. Hell preferred people not to know just how weak the control of most of these circles was; it was much more useful to let people think they knew what they were doing, and thus damn themselves further.
On the other hand, once he saw the people he and his were supposed to fight, he didn't mind so much. These were the sorts of heroes who should be stomped down on general principles so that other people didn't start getting ideas.
The girl with the sword that charged him wasn't much more than an amusing diversion. The boy who attacked with her was more impressive, but there was a limit to how much he could do without weaponry that could get through the armour. Eventually, he tired of this and used a diversion created by their teammates to swat the girl at Nightmare so he could deal with her.
The dent in his armour left by the boy would serve as a reminder not to let arrogance blind him again. That had actually hurt. And with only his fists, yet. Fortunately, the boy was more interested in rescuing his girlfriend than continuing the assault, and Nelo Angelo dropped back a few steps to straighten his back, letting the invulnerable bulk of Nightmare act as a shield for a few minutes.
Nelo paused once he had a moment to think. These people actually had a fairly significant level of power, but the way they were fighting was off. The giant pink heart might have been an embarrassment of an attack, but it was a potent embarrassment, none the less. But they seemed to be fighting defensively. Certainly a group with this much power could afford to mix it up a bit more. The cavern was large, but not so large that Griffon could really make use of his flight.
And why was the older mage in the back just standing there, powering a purely defensive shield spell when there weren't many back there to protect?
…
Hadn't there been somebody else in the back when they came in?
Of course, that explained the odd tactics: the entire fight was just a diversion for them. The heroes were after something else. And there was the missing one, doing an impressively good job of sneaking along the wall, given that he was a werewolf in a tuxedo of all things.
It would be an embarrassment to the Four Generals of Mundus, and to him personally, if he let them get away with such a transparent ploy.
With a burst of speed few others would have been able to follow, Nelo Angelo launched himself across the room, thrusting his sword through the werewolf from the back, then casually took the orb away from him.
A bit too casually, perhaps; a bullet bounced off his helmet. It did no damage, but it distracted him just enough that the wolf managed to grab the orb back before being flung away. Not exactly what he'd wanted, of course, but he was sure the girl's scream would be appreciated by the one who had summoned them.
A quiet settled over the battlefield for a couple of seconds in the wake of Sailor Moon's scream.
The next sound was Brianna screaming “Bastard!” and firing her gun on full auto at the figure in armour, forcing Sailors Mars and Jupiter to dive for cover themselves. Nelo Angelo winced as the first few impacts actually punched through his armour, then started blocking and dodging the stream of fire. He didn't have to dodge the bullets, after all, just the person with the gun, who wasn't aiming all that accurately at the moment.
Unfortunately for Brianna, she'd taken her weapon off of its original target, and Griffon was not happy with being shot up. The blast of lightning that hit Brianna fried a good chunk of her hair off. It also caused the explosive bolts on her power pack to detonate, throwing it clear before it detonated and blew the entrance door to splinters.
If Nightmare could chuckle, it would have.
It had one captive broken and sobbing in one nightmare world, about to be set upon by her own imaginings; the other was backed into a corner by cats, of all things, and barely hanging on to control. Nightmare started emotionlessly cataloging other possible approaches to Ranma, other fears to exploit. It didn't take long to come up with a new one, similar to what would have affected his friend. If the only reason he was hanging on was to save his friend, why not show him he had already failed?
Ranma looked up as a portion of the mists in front of him cleared, showing an image of Sheila looking afraid as she tried to press herself back into a wall, zombie versions of the rest of the crew shambling towards her. She was back in her ‘weak’ hybrid form, the tattered threads of clothing having been mostly ripped from her. Finally, a grotesque parody of her brother Garfield grasped her one-handed by the shoulder and lifted her up, pulling out his weapon with his other hand. Sheila was finally shaken out of her stupor, and screamed, a primal scream of fear.
Ramna's control slipped.
The result was not quite what Nightmare had expected.
Ranma's conversion into a lycanthrope had merely softened and buried the trigger to the Neko-Ken, not completely erased it. His time with Sheila had given him pleasurable experiences with cats to dull the effect as well. All of Nightmare's work had dug back into the old mental wounds, exposing them once more… except this time in a lycanthropic body.
The demon was confused when Ranma switched forms from hybrid to fully feline. The confusion lasted until Ranma leapt at the window in the mists and slashed with his claws, where it was rapidly replaced by pain. The surprise of that cost Nightmare some of its own control over its internal realms, and Ranma continued his leap through past Sheila's shoulder into the zombie Garfield.
Ranma spun like a whirlwind, his ki-claws tearing the shambling figures to shreds, and leaving tracks in the stone. Nightmare struggled to try and play to Ranma's fears again, but the animal mind now in control didn't think far enough into the future to have the same sorts of worries and nightmares.
Sheila was, thankfully, already catatonic, so she was spared the sight of Ranma ripping the zombie Garfield apart, followed by the others; nor did she see the way they seemed to dissolve into mist after being destroyed.
Nelo Angelo was straightening himself back up from being shot with the lycanthropoid's anti-magic cannon when he realized that things were far too quiet.
The werelioness who had screamed before wasn't screaming anymore.
No, now she was glaring at him with a hard look, as though she had passed through being angry and come out the other side. She quietly said, “You… You…” She then grasped her gem tightly, and was promptly engulfed in bright light. He could feel the power levels from her surging upward.
Nelo Angelo barked an attack order, pointing at her with the end of his sword, then started moving in himself. If he couldn't take her out before her power-up finished, he wasn't sure he could prevail.
Griffon opened up his mouth to blast her with lightning, and quickly got hit with a Fire Soul from the similarly dressed weretigress, who had fired it straight into the bird's mouth. Griffon let out a raw scream of pain, then fell down, flailing about. One wing nearly knocked Nelo Angelo over at the impact.
Phantom crouched, and leapt toward the lioness. The tall werejaguar in green sat up, and launched a Jupiter Thunder Dragon at him while he was in mid-arc and couldn't dodge. Phantom remembered what happened the last time that hit him, and immediately pulled his legs in and tried to hide his face, something which he couldn't do easily because of the damage to his neck. The lightning played over his face, and the distracted Phantom landed on the ground badly, smacking hard into the stone floor.
Nightmare did nothing, just sitting there and shaking.
Nelo Angelo cursed as he now had to dodge around his own comrades while he raced toward the changing lioness. He didn't notice as, in the back, the black-suited mage dropped his shield spell and instead cast an explosive spell on the ground directly in front of the running General. The gravel and sand peppered him, doing no damage, but it distracted him just enough that he placed his weight down wrong as his foot went down into the crater left behind by the explosion. His toes caught on the lip of the crater and he skidded on his chest most of the way toward the werelioness.
He got met by a foot in a black shoe as the tuxedo-clad werewolf he'd stabbed before apparently decided that being laid out on his back didn't prevent him from retaliating. The kick to the face knocked Nelo Angelo a distance back, but it was enough.
With a bright explosion of light, the werelioness was no longer enclosed in a bright cocoon of light. Everybody stared at her. The Senshi had seen Usagi in her ‘Moon Princess’ guise before, but this was different. This was no princess: this was a queen.
Her hair was still done up in the usual buns, but now the tails dangling from each side had been braided together in a loop behind her to keep them out of the way. The dress was a long but narrow gown, much less showy than her Moon Princess clothes, practical formal dress rather than a ball gown. The Spiral Heart Moon Rod had transformed into a full-length sceptre almost as tall as she was, with the Ginzuishō mounted on the top.
She glared at the armoured figure on the ground. “You do not belong here.”
Inside Nightmare, Ranma had disposed of the all the zombies and was slicing holes in the walls searching for an exit, a path like the one he'd sliced open to get here.
Other cats of various sorts kept attacking him, along with several dogs, and Ranma casually took them out, often barely noticing he had been attacked. He knew they weren't real animals, they didn't smell right, and they were attacking, so that made them enemies.
It was questionable as to whether Nightmare was actually sentient. It did, however, have a certain interest in self-preservation. After the werejaguar Ranma had done two cross-slices through Nightmare's wall and then blown the pieces out, it decided that the current tactics weren't working. The feline mind didn't really have enough ‘hooks’ to prey on his fears. Attacks on either him or Sheila had been met with immediate destruction. And attempting to keep him contained was likely to result in Nightmare's dissolution.
Deciding that if Nightmare was no more, it would be unable to maintain containment on the werejaguars anyway, obviously holding them was less important than its own continued existence. As a result, as Ranma knocked through the next wall, he could see the outside.
The feline-form werejaguar picked up the smaller hybrid-form one by the scruff of the neck, and jumped out through the hole, dragging Sheila's legs and sword behind him.
Nelo Angelo picked himself up and took quick stock of the situation.
Ordering the others back to the summoning circle, Nelo Angelo stepped back into it himself. If the idiot nogitsune who summoned them survived, he could deal with these folks himself.
Sailor Moon slammed her sceptre down into the ground, shouting “Begone!” A bright white light rippled out from where the tip of the sceptre touched the ground, flashing out. Ranma jumped over the light with Sheila, quickly dashing back toward Jupiter.
When the wave of light hit the summoning circle, it flared up and obscured the demon Generals from view as it continued around. A set of loud cries from behind the summoning circle indicated when the wave hit Claudius and those with him.
As the wave finally subsided, leaving everybody blinking in the near-darkness, the summoning circle had been wiped from the ground and all the ground within it scoured clean and polished to a mirror finish.
A grin spread across Sailor Moon's face, making her look far more like Usagi again, and she managed to say “I did it!” in a happy little-girl's voice before collapsing. Her gown vanished into fragments of magic as she fell, leaving her mostly nude by the time Rei managed to catch her.
“Let's move it, people!” yelled Sam Fisher, wanting to get everybody out before any of the others could recover from the blinding light that hit them.
Jupiter looked from Ranma and Sheila to Mars and Moon. “Mars! Can you do that?” At the confused look, she added, “Full animal form?”
Mars still looked confused as she said, “I think so, why?”
Jupiter patted Ranma's cheek, then placed Sheila face down on his back, trying to get her to hold on. “You're a tiger, you're the biggest. You carry Tuxedo Kamen so he stays flat.”
Mars nodded, and handed Moon over to Sam. “Hold her for a moment, will you?” Sam looked down at the nude werelioness that had just been leaned against him, wrapped his arm around her so she wouldn't slump to the ground, and decided that not saying anything was probably his best course of action. Especially with her boyfriend lying on the ground over there, watching.
As Mars transformed, her clothing shifted, leaving her with just a large red collar and armoured material wrapped around her torso. Jupiter ignored Mars' grumbling about this being undignified as she carefully laid Tuxedo Mask out on the tigress' back, then took the Chromatic Orb and gave it to him to hold.
Jupiter then took Moon back from Sam, said “Thanks!” then threw her over into a fireman's carry, and started out the back, where Dr. Diggers was holding open a portal. Ranma happily trotted along behind her as they all headed through, Dr. Diggers pausing to scoop up Brianna before closing the portal behind him.
Claudius was pissed.
He was also blind, having not seen anything since that wall of white power that wrapped around the summoning circle and slammed into him. This had not helped his mood.
He wasn't even sure how many of his minions had survived, much less were still bound to him. And if Hikaru Gosunkugi were still alive, Claudius would kill him personally for this stupid plan.
He spun around as he heard a sound, someone flying down from high above. He sniffed quickly at the air. Female. Raven. That meant it had to be possibly the one good thing that Gosunkugi had managed to do. “Miyo. The fortune-teller.”
He could hear a slight scraping as she bowed to him. “My lord.” Yes, definitely her.
Claudius drew himself up to his full height. “You were untouched by her attack?”
Miyo calmly said to him, “I would have been of no further use if I were hit, so I stayed out of the way. Now, I have come back.” Claudius could feel her hands touch his cheeks as she tilted his head down slightly to face toward her. “Let me be your eyes, my lord.”
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(Posted Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:14)
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