"Do what, Happosai?"
"Why that... you?!" Happosai gulped as he heard a voice he hadn't heard in centuries. He turned slowly to behold someone he hadn't seen since he'd first left home to become a martial artist. "oh dear."
Happosai meant "eight treasures" - which meant that he was the eighth child of a man named Ryu Mishima. Each had gone on to do something with their life. "You."
"Yes, I." The sixth brother had become a hero. A great physician who had travelled the world seeking to help others. The only one of the brothers who'd been kind to the runt of the litter.
Happosai gulped. "So, it's my time, is it?"
"No," disagreed the brother. "Little brother. What have you done this time?"
"Just a little harmless fun?" Happosai suggested.
"By distracting them in a life-or-death battle, my brother, you killed them. By summoning forth the being known as the Lich King, you killed them." The brother turned a pitying look towards the Anything Goes founder and formed a vision between his hands. "Look at them now. Are they still 'pretty ladies'?"
Happosai wretched briefly as he saw what was left of them.
"Little brother," said the ghost. "Look at what you have done. Can you do nothing to fix that which you have done."
"But I... But..." Happosai couldn't look any further and turned away. "I don't know how. The Lich is too powerful, he can't. No."
"Then my little brother truly has been lost," said the ghost.
"But I..." Happosai turned around but the ghost had already left. "The pretty ladies..."
-----------
Ranma dodged a black World Shaking, danced around a Deep Submerge, and avoided the jeweled sword Brendan was waving about.
Which meant that, with everyone focussing on the golden boy/werecheetah loaded down with magic, that others were free to act.
Julia Diggers was the Armsmaster of Jade, a world of swords and sorcery. One got to be the Armsmaster by being the absolute best in nonmagical combat, just pure skill. Anyone who had reached that rank of Armsmaster had honed their skills fighting all sorts of opponents in all sorts of conditions and doing it quite well.
Theodore Diggers was an archmage of great power. Though he used Aura Magic, if he had some time to prepare - he was no less formidable than his wife Julia and quite capable of rearranging the landscape in a major fashion.
Brianna liked big guns.
The former office ladies, sararimen, middle management types, salesclerks, and lawyers shuffled forward like the undead they now were.
Blaster fire ended their menace. Brianna noticed that certain frequency ranges were more effective than others and adjusted her rifle's settings.
"What are you doing? Those used to be people!" Nabiki was rather upset at how casually the zombies were being reduced to smoking piles. Though not so upset she didn't pay attention to where wallets and purses were landing.
"They're already dead," said Shiela, who had practical experience with undead. "The body can only survive so long without a soul in it. If you demonically possess and pervert the essence like these were - it's just a husk. You can't normally restore people from the dead except under very very exceptional circumstances. Duck."
Nabiki puzzled. "What do you mean 'duck'? Uh oh" Nabiki ducked just before clawed hands could close around her throat.
Shiela slashed out and removed a demonic bank teller's head from her body. "I mean avoid getting killed."
"Sounds good to me," agreed Nabiki from where she was hugging the ground.
Brendan continued trying to hit the wildly dodging boy with his life-draining sword. The boy was faster than the average werecheetah and seemed to know something about avoiding swordstrikes. Nonetheless he was relatively certain that
Crak!
The Uranus Space Sword had been linked to the life force of Sailor Uranus. Sailor Uranus was dead. That had allowed the Lich King to use a simple polymorph spell to alter it.
Unfortunately, that had sped up the rate of decay, making it easy for someone who knew how to break such weapons to do so.
Julia Diggers finished her manuever after having broken the sword, rolling past and throwing a brace of knives to distract the werewolf.
Brenden turned to deal with that, only to find that Jetta wanted to discuss matters with him and wasn't willing to put it off any longer. Also that he had four knives currently imbedded in him.
"Disintegrate!" Theodore Diggers turned from the pile of ash blowing through the remains of the Sailor Neptune fuku. The Sailor Uranus zombie had been eliminated earlier.
Ranma stopped as he realized this was a personal grudge match. Emphasis on the grudge.
Snap!
Julia apparently disagreed, dropping Brenden's body. "We have no time for this. We have to deal with the Lich King once and for all."
(Posted Tue, 28 Jan 2003 13:34)
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