"You should pay more attention to me, Natasha!" Mimi said. "Last time you stood between me and innocent lives. This time you stand between me and my sister!"
The following sunburst erupted just under the charging vampire's chin and brought her pause as she was forced to recover from the attack. Mimi was already readying her next attack, but this time, of course, Natasha wasn't fighting alone. The ghoul charging forward took the brunt of the light wave allowing his queen to escape unharmed.
Elsewhere in the cave, other people were also battling.
"Damn!" Brianna shouted. Her weapons blasts were doing tearing through the oncoming skeletons, but more just kept coming. "They just keep coming! What the hell are they trying to do!? I can't get a clear shot past these jokers!!"
"That's the point! She's trying to mob us down," Julia said, slashing at another skeleton coming in from another line of attack. "That's what undead use skeletons for, to throw bodies at you so you can't move and fight back. She wants to leave us alive, I just don't know why! Theo?"
"I am in much the same position as you and Brianna, dear," Theo said. "They're replaced as soon as they're dealt with."
"We have to do something," Julia declared. "The others are already cut off!"
"Did she just call him 'honey'?" a skeleton asked.
"Just a dirty old man isn't he?" another added.
"Hey! Quit calling my dad a dirty old man!" Brianna shouted.
"You know," a skeleton said. "I'd feel much happier if I could get a look at whatever's under that tin can."
"Seen it," another said. "Bri's got the goods!"
"Her mother's pretty good too!" another chirped in.
"To them sweet apples!" the skeletons yelled as they charged forward.
"What the bloody hell, do all these skeletons have to have Master Leep's personality?!" Julia demanded.
Strype was having less difficulty avoiding the mob of skeletons. He was blinking across the battle field attacking here and there, never staying long enough for the undead catch a bead on him to pin him down. But nor could he remain in place long enough to make sizeable difference, for fear of being neutralized in the same manner as his wife's family. And so he was neutralized in entirely another way.
"Ooo, look at this little tasty boy," the vampire lady said stepping forward, flanked by her ghouls as she approached Ranma. "This one's mine boys, stay out of it!"
"Ah the vampires get all the fun," a ghoul complained.
"Yer gonna want those friends of yours, lady," Ranma said, cracking his knuckles. "You ain't alive...and there's no reason to hold back on a corpse."
"Ooo, you're scaring me," the vampire said. "Now, just come along and be din-din!" She gestured at him displaying her cold skin to tempt him forward.
"Lady," Ranma said. "You're trying the wrong trick on the wrong guy."
"Oh, just my luck," she sighed. "Gay."
"Huh?" Ranma said, completely lost.
"Well, I suppose that leaves," and then in an instant she was charging forward roaring. "MORTAL COMBaYAHYAHAAhYAHaYahaYaAH!!!?! HELP ME!!!!"
"Uh, she said stay out of it right?" one ghoul asked another.
"Yep, so I guess that means we can go home," the other said, soon to be followed by that vampire's ghouls making a bee-line for the gate-back home.
"Now, that I don't like," Ranma said, twirling the now dizzy vampire between him and the fleeing ghouls. "Mouko takabisha!!!"
A flash of light passed from him through the vampire and into the ghouls, slashing easily through the weakened minor vamp and its ghouls.
"Get out of my way, corpse," Inu-Yasha snapped.
"Watch your mouth, boy," the vampire said. "You'll be joining us soon!"
"Weaklings!" Jetta snapped angrily, viciously tearing through the ghouls and vampires set against her and Thabian.
"We need to shut down that gate!" Thabian declared. "Cut off their reinforcements!"
"We need the mages for that," Jetta snapped. "And they're being kept busy." Strype flashed into being near them then and noticed they'd pretty much had everything under control.
"Wait, get Dr. Diggers here!" Thabian shouted. "We need him to shut down the gate!"
"Got it!" Strype said.
"I warned you!" Inu-Yasha declared leaping forward. "CLAWS OF STEEL!!"
Fauntleroy paused in his futile pursuit of Strype Gia to see the hanyou destroy a few minor undead at the same time as he gouged several rips through the floor of his lair.
"STOP WRECKING MY LAIR!!" he demanded. He swiftly turned to face his dragon-wives. "Wives! Teach that..." His face soured as he saw the trouble besetting his wives.
"I can't claw them! I can't claw them!!" Six was yelling.
She stumbled back and swatted at the swarm of wraiths surrounding her. Her claws passed through the undead monsters with no resistance and the wraiths continued to silently step forward to drain her life force.
"Hold it together, Six!" Thirty-Eight shouted, though her voice sounded ragged. "Use your breath!!" She released a blast even as she spoke, dispating several of the wraiths, but they were coming at her from all sides.
"Damn it," Fauntleroy said, breaking off from his own goal to head for his wives.
"Hey, dog-boy!" Ranma shouted, kicking the head off of a ghoul. "Those dragon ladies ain't going to last much longer!"
"Do you have any plans?" Inu-Yasha demanded. "Because I'm feeling rather busy enough with my own problems!"
"I got em'," Ranma said. "I just need coverage!"
"You've got it!" Gar said, fighting his way to join Ranma and Inu-Yasha. "How long you need?"
"Give me six seconds!" Ranma shouted.
He fixed his sight on the sliver of postive chi slipping into the negative chi of the cave. Yin-Yang, there was always a little Yang in every Yin. And if you knew where to find it, you knew the way to bigger Yang.
"It might as well be six days, whelp!" Inu-Yasha snapped, slashing his blade out of the sheath and swinging wide. On the other side of the young-martial artist, the electrical spear did likewise.
Across the cave Strype appeared next to Theo and held his position with the three Diggers.
"The werewolves want your help closing the gate," Strype said.
"We'll need to cover some of this first," Theo said.
"Well, that's all the conventional ammo," Brianna said as her counters hit zero. "Now it gets interesting!"
"Theo, 'reap the whirlwind'," Julia said.
"Careful, honey," Theo said. "You could bring down this cave." He stepped back to get ready.
"Bri, dear," Julia said. "When I say now, hit everything you see as fast as possible, and walk forward at my pace! Then you get Theo to that gate, Strype."
"Full auto it is then," Bri said, snickering, her aura powering up as she spoke.
"I'm ready," Strype said in agreement.
"NOW!!!"
"KINETIC AMPLIFY!!" Theo called out, the entered Julia and she and Brianna stepped forward.
"WOOOHAAA!" Brianna called out as they started forward.
Their amplified attacks sliced through the undead hoards like a hot knife through butter. Julia's skilled attacks amplified by thousands of times by Theo's spell and Brianna's "ammunition" operating in ways that should have been impossible for a blasts fired from a gun. And the minions fell like dominoes.
"What the bloody hell?" Natasha asked, distracted by the unusual sight of a girl feeding magic into a gun.
"You should know that better than the rest of us!" Mimi declared tossing another sunburst at the distracted vampire.
In the wake of the blast, Natasha only barely saw Theo arriving with strpe at the gate to her realm.
"No, no, no!" Natasha growled trying to leap back up from the ground and pass over the battle in the form of green mist.
"You're forgetting something, Natasha!" Mimi declared and another sunburst erupted between Natasha and her target.
And meanwhile, the dragons had taken several wraiths, but the sheer numbers were overwhelming them. Fauntleroy found himself bogged down in ghouls and assorted mindless minions and unable to reach his wives.
"If you want to save the dragons," Inu-Yasha said. "Nows the time, whelp."
"I don't get," Gar thought to himself. "He just seems to be spinning his hands around or something."
"Ready, now!" Ranma called out, reaching his hand upward and then yanking downward as if pulling a cord. "Hiryu-Shoten-Ha, revised! Calling the Sun!!!"
White light streamed downward through a crack in the cavern, following what seemed to be a thread into Ranma and then spilling outward away from him in a growing circle. Even as Theo, covered by the werewolves and Strype, brought the gate down.
Natasha hissed as the aura of channelled sunlight passed over her. It was too weak to kill her, but it burned her into irritation. The skeletons and ghouls were likewise unharmed, but inhibited by the weak light, but the wraiths were outright obliterated. And without the continuous reinforcements from the Undead Realm.
Her considerations were interrupted as Mimi attacked her again, and she was returned the strike with a strong backhand, sending the witch flying away. But it didn't matter, she was beaten, it was only a matter of time before the Diggers and their allies ripped through her minions.
"We'll try this again some time!" Natasha declared. "Farewell, Diggers." And then the vampire vanished in burst of greenish mist.
Ranma's technique faded as he slumped forward, and soon the channelled light faded away to darkness as he hit the ground in exhaustion. But the damage was done.
Between the sunlight and the lack of newcoming undead, the dragon's lair was soon cleared.
"How...How did you do that?" Gar asked of the martial artist as things calmed down.
"Feh, Chi channelling trick," Inu-Yasha said. "Like putting a damn on a river, making it flow where you want it to go."
"Are they okay?" Ranma asked wearily.
"They'll be fine," Theo said walking forward.
"We did not mean to cause you any trouble this time, Fauntleroy," Strype said. "A werewolf has enslaved friends of ours, and it seems he decided to decoy us here to give him a chance at our families."
"You and I still have business, Kryn," Fauntleroy said. Then he looked to where his wives were recovering their breaths. "But I am nobody's tool. Leave as soon as you can, but be prepared for our next meeting."
"The same goes for you, Faunty," Brianna said. "I haven't forgotten what you tried to do to Gina."
"Tried?" Fauntleroy thought to himself.
"Draw the circle, Theo," Julia said. "We need to go."
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(Posted Sat, 13 Sep 2003 22:08)
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