Archaeological project NN-72

Camp designation: Ice Vault

Location: 6 miles south of the Krasnoyarsk ruins, in Siberia

Transmission reads as follows:
"Despite the remarkable progress we made early on in the project, we've faced increasing difficulties now that we've reached the third strata within the vault. I'm well aware that the security of this facility can't be compromised, and that there has been increased monitoring even in desolate areas like former Russia, but without more frequent shipments of tools and parts this entire project will rapidly turn into a five billion dollar camping trip. If you'll look at the attached surveys, you'll note that not one artifact has been recovered since my last report."

"Gretzkey says that the reason we're suffering so many breakdowns in our equipment is because of the magical energies saturating the chamber. I don't know much about it, but the theory is that the more magical power floating around our stuff, the more it messes up the physics and chemical reactions, which makes it hard for complex machines to work. It sounds kind of silly, but by now I believe it; there's one chamber in the vault in which NOTHING more complicated than a flashlight can turn on without fizzling. And usually the flashlights break down in under an hour. We've been making trips down there with oil lamps recently, but even lighting a match down there is harder. The other day, Jake's matches actually lit up on their own, without being rubbed against anything. Really freaky stuff."

"The vast majority of our equipment is broken, and half the time we can't even figure out why. Bad enough that our communications are so limited because of the secrecy and irregular magnetic fields, but none of our computers have been working reliably. The Commander's taken to having us back up our data on optical disks every night since magnetic storage keeps getting messed up. So here I am, writing notes on a legal pad like some kind of savage. If the stuff down here wasn't so amazing I'd be absolutely sick of this place."

"We can't afford to leave, though. The things down here... well, obviously, I don't know what to make of them, as I'm just the geologist and survivalist down here, but the others are really excited at what they keep finding, which makes the mood even more tense when we're stalled by technical difficulties. They claim that the jewel formations sealed in the crystal beds are some sort of information repository, and that some of the more arcane-looking stuff are actually unique tools. As for the crystal itself, that's what keeps me up at night; the stuff is as hard as granite and shows a bizarre capacity for self-replication, sort of like a living thing. Of course, all my best tools broke down long ago when I tried to analyze the crystal down in the vault, and my particular field hasn't been the one of primary interest to the Commander, so I'm pretty much stuck."

"There are two other issues which concern me, and have to do with security. One is that I've reason to believe that some items are being sold to a third party. I've no proof, but I've noticed on two separate occasions that artifacts that were scheduled to be taken off-location when our supply shipments come were separated from the rest of the items, with the explanation being that they were being held here for further study. This was suspicious all on its own, as it's increasingly hard to study anything at this base, and when I questioned the Commander, he said that the artifacts were, in fact, being shipped out. After the supply craft left, the artifacts in question were gone. Given my duties and responsibilities at the time, I was unable to determine whether the artifacts in question left as scheduled, and it's something that should be looked into. If we have someone leaking these kinds of items to somebody else out there, they need to be stopped immediately before we let something loose that we'll regret."

"Secondly, when the last relief squad came in to replace our guards, they were talking about a disturbing string of attacks on American research bases in the southern wastes. Granted, the Ice Vault is protected more by isolation and secrecy than by a fully loaded garrison like those other camps, but that also means that we have little chance of fending off an attacker if something does come our way. I advise an immediate reconsideration of our current safety measures. At present, we only have security drills and escape plans in place if the place is overrun by a zombie attack, a possibility which seems increasingly unlikely. A directed attack, however, could overwhelm us where hundreds of the undead would only prompt an elevated combat alert. I hope that you will consider shipments of additional troops and weapons for our next supply shipments before something bad happens."

- Warner Bram, secure transmission (Received two days prior to estimated facility shutdown)

Nexus II
by Black Dragon

Disclaimer: I'd like to note, because it IS actually disclaimer-related, that while I borrow many things from the widely known and respected lore of Dungeons & Dragons, I am not fully versed in that particular multiverse, and thus will arbitrarily make things up when it suits me. To that end, please expect that magical law may not function as all you other nerds out there know it.

Words in " " are presented phonetically, or is the primary language in a scene (usually English, in this case). {" "} is spoken in a different language than the norm, not that it makes any difference if you're not reading this on my home site. Sounds are italicized, thought is in ' ', telapathy is italicized and in ' ' and writing is now ignored because ff.net hates me..

Chapter 15
Enemy Territory

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Crrrrrrrreak...

The quiet grind of the heavy metal doors opening up to reveal the excavation elevator was just barely loud enough to be heard over the crackling bonfires that dotted the shattered remains of the American research camp, testament to how carefully the vault's equipment had been maintained during its exploitation. And even now, when much of the facility was rapidly burning to cinders, the shining, metallic seal placed over the greatest treasures in the northern wastes was perfectly pristine, left unscathed by the swathes of destruction that scarred the camp.

Tio frowned as he tightened his muscles, and a brief surge of pain wracked his body before several bullets were slowly pushed out of the puncture wounds in his rapidly healing skin.

The devil took a moment to peruse the destruction, noting with satisfaction that all of Doppler's attacks had landed with surgical precision.

Or, at least, as surgical as he could have expected to be under the circumstances. There was plenty of room for error. The armory, filled with small arms, generic scouting equipment, and light gear had been utterly demolished. As had the food supply cabinets, where a marine had been taking cover before he was dissolved into a puddle by a jet of acid. And last but not least, the barracks were a rapidly cooling pit of igneous rock, bits of bone and half-melted metal articles sticking out among the ashes.

Yet barely a cinder had fallen upon the artifact supply closets, the tool shed, the generators, the field lab, the data repository, or the general sleeping quarters, where the scientists would have kept their personal notes.

The fence was also intact, which really didn't matter much except that it would keep any wandering zombies from stumbling into the place and getting their half-frozen guts all over the keys that would unlock the very secrets of the universe. Doppler had always been one to worry about the details.

The armored double-doors sealing the tunnel in the middle of the camp finished opening, and the single remaining human on the premises walked away from the control console, his gaze blank and listless.

Doppler waited patiently in front of the vault entrance, his top two hands still smoking slightly from the higher-energy spellcasting while his lower two dusted themselves off. "Tio, are you almost ready? The entrance is open."

Tio quickly trotted up to his master, idly ripping a chunk of canvas from the computer tent to wipe the blood off of his twin scimitars. "I proceed at your command, Master."

Doppler smirked and stepped back, gesturing to the human. "Well then, please, lead the way my new friend!"

Said 'friend' nodded limply and staggered forward before pulling a switch at the base of the vault entrance.

Chung! A much louder noise than before heralded the ascent of an old pulley-based elevator that stopped dead with the elevator floor a good twenty feet below the entrance.

Doppler blinked as the brainwashed man slid down into a seated position on the edge, and then moved onto a ladder that the veirheelu hadn't noticed before.

"Are you serious? This relic is what you keep under that giant alloy shield? And you have to climb down to it?" He said critically as he himself hopped down and took hold of the ladder. "You really got shafted on the budget cuts, didn't you? I've seen pet shelters better equipped than this."

"Yes, Master," the scientist mumbled as he stepped onto the elevator floor.

Doppler snorted as he finished descending the ladder, annoyed by the response. He really didn't like the domination spell, despite it's power and variety of uses; there was simply no way to annoy someone whose only thought was to obey your every whim. Even the occasional amusing response was difficult to come by.

Tio hesitated as he looked at the flimsy-looking ladder that led down to the equally-flimsy-elevator, uncertain as to whether he should try coming along.

Doppler, wasn't nearly so concerned, and stepped clear of the devil's landing zone before gesturing to the blue demon. "Come on, hurry! We only have a few days to be here, and I'd rather not spend it waiting for you!"

Shrugging briefly, Tio finally sheathed the last of his weapons and then leapt straight down the tunnel, aiming for the center of the elevator platform.

Doppler's face darkened as he watched the blue mass plummet downward. "Hey, wai-"

CRACK! The moment the devil touched the floor of the lift, it promptly bent under him, and the pulley wheel snapped straight off the girder it was attached to.

Doppler himself felt a moment of sinking weightlessness, which was replaced with ordinary weightlessness after he began levitating.

The demon mage glanced downward as his servants plummeted to the bottom of the cavern along with the primary mechanism for accessing the place. Apparently Tio was trying hard not to scream in surprise, as an amusingly shrill squeal was bouncing up through the tunnel, like a shout uttered through clenched teeth.


WHAM!! CLUNK!! CRASH!!

Doppler clicked his tongue as he floated straight down the chasm, one hand wagging his pointer finger.

"Tio, Tio, Tio... it's not like you to be so clumsy." He sighed as the devil groaned. "And LOOK. Now our guide is splattered all over the ground. I can't even land without getting muck on my shoes. Good show."

Tio didn't bother apologizing as he struggled to remove a beam that had stabbed into his leg, knowing full well that the demon mage was enjoying this more than enough to make up for the inconvenience.

As the devil recovered from his sudden spill, Doppler took a moment to observe their surroundings more closely. The main shaft split into four tunnels arranged in a cross. One tunnel, the northernmost one, dipped downward, and immediately attracted Doppler's attention; it was bleeding magical energy like nothing he'd ever felt before. And not raw magical energy either, but rather the gentle, refined aura of proper magical items. That he should be able to sense such things with his level of magical sensitivity was no surprise, but the way the energy simply POURED out of the hole like a flooded river was astounding.

In fact, the sheer power of what he sensed provoked a rare urge for caution in the inquisitive demon lord, and he began observing his immediate surroundings more closely.

'Hmmm... these crystals that make up the walls of the tunnel... they must have been broken down with the heavy drill outside, yet the surface is smooth, like it was... hmm...'

Tapping a finger against the crystal wall, a small, firecracker-like explosion cracked open the surface, allowing the veirheelu to remove a small shard for closer observation.

"These are... these entire crystals are composed of a magical pattern," Doppler mumbled, perplexed. The shard reminded him of the small projectile stones he created when he found occasion for using his Earth spells. Specifically, the ones that appeared on the ground, speared people, and then vanished without a trace.

Which was what happened when you tried to create solid matter from pure magical energy; it destabilized and was absorbed back into the ether. Magic could be used to extend or expand matter, transform matter, or move matter from other pockets of reality to the current one and retain some sense of permanency, so long as the magus knew what he was doing. But creating matter out of pure energy was a trick of mere seconds; essentially one simply fooled the universe into thinking one was God long enough to skewer or bludgeon the enemy before reality reasserted itself and undid all one's hard work.

But this, this crystal that surrounded him like any other mundane rock, was an exception. It glistened prettily, and was utterly unflawed, though it was hard to appreciate that when the walls were made of the stuff.

'Wait, completely unflawed?' Doppler turned the shard, observing the point that had suffered the direct force of his earlier cantrip. The edge, which had been crumbling and cracked - he was sure of it - was now clean and perfectly angled.

Looking back at the hole he had dug the shard out of, he was intrigued to find that the cracks were slowly, but visibly, sealing themselves up like healing wounds.

"Master, are we going to proceed?" Tio asked, dusting himself off as he stepped through the splattered remains of the human that had accompanied them.

"Remarkable," Doppler said simply before tossing the shard away haphazardly.

"What is, Lord?"

"Oh, just that this entire cavern is an impossibility, that's all," the demon mage said conversationally as he started heading down the northern tunnel, idly summoning a ball of light into his lower right hand to light the way.

The devil raised an eyebrow as he moved to follow, his heavy hoofs cracking the crystal floor underneath him with every step. "You don't sound terribly impressed."

"Yes, well, working with magic tends to leave you jaded toward these sorts of things," Doppler explained, clutching two hands behind his back.

"Hello? Nikolai, is that you?"


Both Doppler and Tio blinked and shared a glance as a voice echoed down the cavern, and they stared mutely as another human, this one wearing glasses and a rather unkempt beard, turned the corner they were about to head into, holding up an oil lamp, of all things.

The man stopped short, his eyes widening as his brain rapidly processed the ramifications of meeting a four-armed man and a large blue monster in an excavation site full of ancient magical artifacts.

The torn remains of a colleague littered about a large blood slick did well in confirming his guess as to where this was going.

"Aw, SHIT."

"No, no, not yet, please," Doppler said immediately, holding two hands up disarmingly as he approached. "I still have use for you alive, and I can't abide such smells."

The man immediately backed away to the wall. "Look, just kill me and get it over with! I won't help you!"

"Oh, don't say that," the demon chided as he continued to approach. "Then I'll have to dominate you, and all my cruelly flippant comments won't have any punch at all. I much prefer that you cooperate out of some absurd hope that I'll leave you alive."

As the mage carelessly stepped within arms' reach, the human grabbed a knife from his belt and lashed out desperately, hoping that he might be able to surprise the intruder.

He had no such luck, as Doppler's hand glowed briefly before grabbing the blade of the knife mid-swing.

"Yes, yes, and now you've had your heroic 'at least I died trying to fight back' moment. Can we get on with this, now? I really want to get a look at what's down in those tunnels."

Without another word uttered, the blade of the knife started to glow a sickly green, and both Doppler and the human let go of their respective ends of the weapon before it rapidly dissolved, hitting the ground as a puddle of glimmering silver liquid.

"I... I told you. I won't help you," the man said defiantly. "Even if I COULD."

Doppler raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You have no knowledge that could be helpful to me? What's your name, human?"

The man glanced over at the devil as the mighty blue-skinned demon stepped closer to the confrontation, though the beast remained calm and silent.

"I'm Warner Bram. I'm a geologist. That means no fancy technical knowledge, no theories about ancient civilizations that could have existed here, and no bloody clue what any of the 'magical artifacts' are supposed to be."

Doppler grunted in disgust and threw up all four of his hands irritably. "Well, that's just great. So much for commandeering the most deadly and ancient forces of the universe in time for Labor Day. Do you have ANY idea how much of my barbeque turnout was banking on my ruling the entire free world by then?"

Warner didn't respond to that, his near future far too grim to give even a regretful chuckle at the joke.

"Of course you don't. Idiot humans, always looking ahead into the future with your 'big picture'," the veirheelu mumbled as he stepped past the scientist. "You nerdy ones are the worst. Can't even plan out an enjoyable weekend of unleashing dark cosmic horrors upon an innocent and unsuspecting populace. Too busy tip-toeing around arcane powers beyond your feeble comprehension. Bah!"

With a sharp gesture, Warner suddenly found wisps of smoky darkness slithering up from the shadows and wrapping around his wrists. "Hey, what the-stop!"

"Don't wanna," Doppler said simply, pointing toward the human's feet.

To Warner's growing distress, more shadows appeared and wrapped around his ankles before he felt a none-too-gentle force yank one foot forward. The moment his foot touched ground again, his other leg was moved to follow, and soon the hapless scientist was being awkwardly forced to walk after his captor.

"Master, are you certain we need this one? Was he lying about how little he knows?" Tio asked, giving the human a bored look.

"That would be a 'no' to both questions, my friend," Doppler admitted, "but past experience has taught me that it's rarely a good idea to slaughter every helpless human in a base when your objective lies in recovering information."

The veirheelu turned toward the struggling human as his upper right arm gestured to the crystal walls. "So tell me, Mr. Bram, if you're a geologist, what's your opinion of these formations here?"

"Ergh! Shut up!" Warner growled, still trying to force his wrists apart, it was obvious that there was no actual mass to the strange shadow, but whenever he tried to tear it his arms would simply be pushed back by some inexplicable force.

Doppler sighed and then poked the geologist in the forehead. "Compulsion."

"The crystals seem to be part of an artificially created barrier," Warner said immediately, suddenly finding the information pouring out of him excitedly as a strange urge to share his work overwhelmed his common sense. "When we started digging, this entire cavern was a series of rock tunnels filled with solid crystal. We drilled through the crystal easily enough, but it seems like it's slowly trying to repair itself; a week ago these walls were barely two inches thick, and still shredded from the excavators. Now the surface is smooth, and the walls are almost a foot thick."

Doppler nodded and started walking again, looking around him as they trekked deeper into the tunnel. "Fascinating. Were you aware that the crystals are a stable mana complex?"

"I don't know what that means," Warner admitted promptly.

"Never mind, then. I'm sure you have better things to ponder right now than that. Continue."

He tried to stop himself, to clench his teeth, to bite his tongue, but some force beyond his control simply pushed everything but the excitement of his studies out of his mind. "The regenerative effect only seems to work in the Vault. All the carved-out crystal we brought topside disintegrated in a few hours, and we couldn't do anything to stop it. I did get to run a few tests, though. I found that they're very sensitive to high-frequency sonic emissions. Most long-wave bursts cause the crystals to break apart, but some short frequencies actually cause the crystals down here to grow faster, and in strange, partially controllable formations! Two days ago, I-"

"Okay, okay, you can shut up, now," Doppler said wearily, gazing down further into the cavern. "... But before you do, explain what's wrong with this area."

Indeed, the path ahead was much rougher than the rest of the tunnels, which had generally been very even and straight. This section was very uneven, with many crystal stalactites, and as the tunnel sloped down, the path rapidly became narrower.

"This is where all our drills keep breaking down... or exploding," Warner said ruefully. "We've actually taken to digging the rest of the way by hand. Personally, I don't think it's worth it, but most of the team disagrees."

"And just my luck that I've already killed them all," Doppler said regretfully as he stepped forward, lowering his head under a slender spear-like crystal formation hanging above. "Well... actually, I suppose luck had very little to do with it, huh? Oh well!"

Warner growled incoherently, bemoaning his fate. Every time Doppler spoke, he would go silent and regain control of his faculties, but at every command he was helpless to resist. He had heard about such spells before, but as he understood it they usually place the victim into a helpless, golem-like state, unconscious of what was actually happening. He couldn't help but wish he had the luxury of a coma right now.

Tio grunted as he snapped off a length of crystal that was in his way, though he still had to stoop down considerably to push himself through one particular passageway. "Why are these regions so narrow? Do you not have to bring equipment down here?"

Warner shrugged best he could as ducked his head down; to his annoyance, the smoky bonds that were forcing his movement weren't very careful about some of the longer crystal protrusions sticking out in his way. "Most of our equipment breaks down in this room when we bring it in. Also, the crystal walls grow back much faster. If we're not constantly digging it out, we can be trapped out of the inner sanctum completely in a day."

Doppler hopped down a smooth, glimmering slope that rounded a column of stone, and then blinked as he stepped out into a much larger cavern at the end of the tunnel.

"My, my... I believe this is what we're looking for..."

This area, unlike the others, had obviously been excavated exclusively by hand, and there were pickaxes and sledgehammers lying on the ground next to a number of candles. The digging appeared to have been slow and haphazard, with the express purpose of simply widening that area instead of tunneling further.

What was more interesting, however, was that the crystal in the walls of the cavern were much thicker, indicating that further tunneling had to be done. And what was most interesting of all was that Doppler could plainly see objects trapped in the crystal beyond.

"Tio! Human! Come here! Look at all this!" The magus shouted excitedly, brushing a hand against the crystalline barrier protecting the artifacts.

Warner growled as he was forcibly tugged into the opening, despite Doppler making it sound like a request. There were also a few grumbles for Tio, mostly because he had a hard time squeezing his huge frame through the entrance to the cavern.

"Magnificent! This is what we're looking for, all right!" The veirheelu cheered, rubbing his upper hands together. "Although... why are these artifacts still here? Haven't your people had enough time to extract them?"

Warner snorted. "Whatever's causing the crystal to regenerate is exponentially stronger the further we get toward this cavern; we had to keep someone on duty working at the walls twenty-four hours, or else the crystal growth would seal up the room again. It was actually my shift when you... joined me." He gestured toward one of the objects locked in the glimmering prison; a headband of some sort, although it was difficult to see through the barrier of translucent stone. "When we get close enough to that thing, whatever it is, it starts beating us back; we literally can't carve away the crystal faster than it grows back to protect it."

"Excellent," Doppler said ominously, steepling the fingers of his upper hands. "Then this will be my first prize."

With an incoherent whisper, the lower hands of the veirheelu started to glow a ghastly white, and the light sphere he had been sustaining floated off into the distance.

"You'll want to stay close to me!" Doppler shouted, his upper hands gesturing above his head.

Then he brought his lower hands together, the energy within building explosively before he threw his arms outward, toward the crystal wall. "Voln flare!"

And then, just as quickly, he brought his arms down just as Warner and Tio dashed toward him. "Dome of silence!"

A faint distortion in the air marked the edge of the spell as it encircled the trio, and it shuddered mightily as Doppler's other spell smacked into the crystal wall, bursting into blinding light show.

Warner didn't know what to make of it, though he'd later admit that he was glad to have lived through such an awesome experience (albeit barely). Absolutely no sound penetrated the bubble of energy around them, even as the entire cavern shook violently, causing Warner to waver back and forth despite the magical bonds holding his ankles and wrists in place.

And then, almost all at once, the crystal shattered. ALL of it.

In a beautiful cascade of destructive light, the wall of shimmering blue broke apart into chunks, which then cracked into pieces, which split into shards, and so on. In a bare second, before the crystals above the ground had barely had time to fall, the walls, floor, and ceiling of the cavern had become shiny dust.

Naturally, the walls and floor breaking apart wasn't that big a deal, considering there was a stone floor below the crystal. The ceiling... was more of a problem.


"Gack! Oomph!" Bwoom! A small explosion blasted crystal dust into the air, and Doppler rapidly staggered to his feet, shaking his head to clear it of the fine, glittering sand. "My. I didn't expect the sonic flare to be THAT effective. Also, I should have remembered that the dome would do nothing to hinder shrapnel. Tio? Tio, are you all right?"

No response greeted the demon magus, and he frowned briefly before snapping his fingers.

"Right, right. I must have stumbled outside the shield. Dismissal." A green spark flared suddenly from his palm, and a mighty growl suddenly filled the cavern as a mound of crystal dust rose up from behind Doppler.

"GAAUGH!! Master! Master, where-"

"QUIET yourself, Tio," Doppler chided, turning around as the devil suddenly stumbled, having his hearing suddenly restored. "I am unharmed. What of the human?"

A shifting noise, now audible without the dome of silence, came from next to Tio's hooves, and the demon snorted before reaching into the layers of dust and pulling out their unwilling guide.

"Well, now. That was a bit crude, I admit, but effective. Thank you for your information on how to break the crystal down, Mr. Bram," Doppler said amicably. "Now that it's all been destroyed, it should disintegrate fairly rapidly. Which, conveniently, will make my collection of the artifacts much, much easier!" He turned around toward where he last saw the headband. "Now then, I'll... just... what?"


The source of Doppler's confusion was evident: Where before there was a headband locked in crystal, there was the same headband, mercifully free of its prison. The new complication, however, was that it was around someone's head.

Doppler cocked his head to the side, perplexed. Yes, there was someone new in the cavern now, lying on the floor in the fetal position. A human, by all appearances, with dark skin and straight, almost wire-like golden hair that reached the small of his back. He was just taller than Doppler, of average height for a human, and was decently muscular, though the demon wouldn't have pegged him for a fighter right off the bat. He was also naked, though that seemed far less important than how he had gotten here and why he had an ancient artifact around his head.

"Huh. Well, this trip has been just full of surprises, hasn't it?" Doppler mumbled. "Hello? Are you awake? You'd best regain consciousness and convince me that you're useful to me, because I already have an unwilling servant and those black snap spells aren't easy."

The newcomer did indeed stir, and slowly opened his eyes, revealing them to be a strangely prismatic hue. "Hnnnjl?" He mumbled.

"Pardon?"

The new human pushed himself up uncertainly, standing up straight and holding his head. "Ukl'eg opnoh j'hg'neeh? Zallam."

Doppler raised an eyebrow. "Tio, I don't suppose you recognize that language, do you?"

"I do not, Master," the demon said apologetically, "but if I had to guess, it sounds strangely like upper Lumenas, don't you think?"

Doppler shrugged. "I suppose the grammar seems to be the same if the inflection of the words is anything like-"

The mage was cut off as the dark-skinned man suddenly glanced toward him, the headband over his forehead glowing.

"Ah. I see. 'English' is the language? Good." He mumbled to Doppler, pressing his lips into a thin line before he looked down and inspected his body. "It seems I was well-preserved, at least."

Doppler cocked his head to the other side. "A spell to comprehend languages? So you're a magi of some sort?"

"A magi?" The man asked, turning back toward the demon. "I... Yes, I suppose you could call me that. I am a magi."

"Help me!" Warner suddenly shouted, struggling with his wrist bonds again. "You've got to stop this guy! He's-"

The scientist was silenced as Tio struck him lightly (as far as the devil was concerned) in the back of the neck, causing him to stagger forward and collapse onto the floor.

The newcomer was obviously disturbed by this. "What do you think you're doing? Why are you harming that man?"

Doppler sighed, and his fingers started crackling with arcane energies. "All right, all right, let's just calm down. First of all, who are you, anyway?"

The man stared at Doppler defiantly. "My name is Kais. You have that human magically bound. Release him at once!"

"No," Doppler said blithely. "So you're Kais? Just Kais? No surname?"

"No surname," Kais confirmed sharply. "You would invite my wrath?"

"Well, to be fair, you invited mine first," Doppler reasoned as lightning suddenly started wrapping around his arms and hopping from one hand to the next, creating an electric rectangle. "I mean, you just wake up and start barking orders like you're some sort of big shot. How do you think that makes me feel, hm?"

Kais' eyes narrowed. "I AM a big shot. Very big."

Doppler blinked. "Oh. Well, okay." He turned his head toward Tio. "Kill him."

Before Kais could do much more than yelp, the devil lurched forward, clasping one great, armored hand over the man's neck before slamming him into the wall of the cavern.

Shnk! Tio's other hand slipped an oblong metal ring off of his belt, and Kais' eyes widened as a huge, glowing blue blade of energy emerged from one side (the side facing away from his knuckles, obviously).

Without hesitation or fanfare, Tio drove the weapon into Kais' gut, spilling a wash of hot, sizzling blood onto the cavern floor as the blade sliced through flesh, bone, and organs to stab into the rock face opposite the mighty demon.

"I know you just learned English, so you might not be aware of all the little cultural nuances to the language," Doppler explained as a sharp, crackling hiss filled the cavern, "but 'big shots' do not typically get themselves impaled by bodyguards. It leaves a poor impression. If not on your enemies, then on your spine, at least."

Kais gasped painfully, and acrid smoke started coming from his wound, but Tio noted with some discomfort a general lack of the usual pained thrashing or grudging acceptance that humans usually displayed when he ripped holes in them. This fellow was obviously in pain, but it looked as if he was readying himself for action rather than death.

"Devil... I have only just awoken..." Kais said in-between pained breaths, "and so... am trying to catch my bearings..."

Suddenly, his hand rose up and pressed against Tio's forehead, startling the creature. "I can't guarantee that this will be quick, and it CERTAINLY won't be painless."

'A spell? In his condition? How can he concentrate? How can he even BREATHE?' Tio attemped to drive the blade up into Kais' heart and squeezed the strange human's throat tighter, but it was too late.

Fshassssssss... A brief flash of light heralded a strange, anticlimactic hissing noise, and Tio stopped trying to eviscerate his victim as he realized that Kais seemed far more confused at the ineffectual display than he was.

Kais raised his hand, smoke still rising from his fingers, and stared at it as if he had never seen it before. "Oh. Oh, no. I'm missing my arm."

"Not yet, you're not," Tio snarled, pulling his blade out and then throwing Kais face-first into the cavern floor.

Whomp! The devil stamped one plated hoof onto Kais' back, prompting another short spray of blood onto the ground.

"Tio, halt," Doppler commanded as the devil raised his energy blade. "As much as I love the irony of that last exchange, he piqued my curiosity. Kais, what did you mean you were missing your arm?"

Kais wasn't listening to Doppler. Instead, he was looking around the room, searching for something among the slowly dissolving hills of crystal dust. And he seemed unusually calm doing so, considering his upper torso had a thirty-inch long laceration running through it.

On one side of him were several stones of power, along with several rings that used to have a crystal aligned within them; apparently whatever mechanism that had destroyed the crystal prison had destroyed the device that created it in the first place.

"Hello? Are you listening to me?" Doppler frowned, annoyed. "Tio, take off a leg. Apparently we're going to have to stab some manners into him."

"With pleasure, Master," the devil growled, raising his blade.

"Guh!" Kais gasped as he felt hot energy separate his leg from his torso mid-calf, and grit his teeth as he turned his head to scan the floor further.

On the other side of him were several rods and sharp, nastily serrated blades that were unusually dark for any metallic weapon. The rods, for the most part, were a small collection of exquisitely constructed wands and magic staves, most of them constructed of light, sheer white materials and decorated with intricate and obscure runes.

"Now this is getting ridiculous," Doppler grumbled, noting that his second prisoner still seemed more concerned with the trinkets on the floor than with his imminent dismemberment.

Tio snorted and grabbed Kais' remaining leg before lifting him up into the air, blood still spurting freely from the man's wounds.

Kais still didn't acknowledge his tormentors, his eyes instead locked onto something that was laying on the cavern floor behind him.

"Ah! There!"

Doppler raised an eyebrow as he stepped to one side of Tio to see what the strange man was staring at.

His other eyebrow rose once he saw the artifact that Kais was so interested in.

It was a black, left-handed gauntlet with a shining white gem set in the wristguard.

"What is this?" Kais said with increasing anger in his voice. "Where are the other pieces? This is all that is left?"

"Yes, that's a shame, isn't it?" Doppler deadpanned as he stepped past Tio toward the glove. "These humans are rather efficient in their-"

Right as the demon magus reached for the piece of armor, it suddenly rolled out of arm's reach.

"Eh?"

The veirheelu blinked dumbly as the gem in the wristguard gleamed brightly, causing the guantlet to tremble and the fingers of the glove to start twitching.

Doppler made to grab for it again, only for it to suddenly flip over his hands and land on its fingers before crawling, spider-like, toward Kais.

"Tio!" Doppler barked.

Without a word, the devil deftly grabbed the gauntlet out of the air just as it had leapt for Kais, clutching it far above the head of the flailing (and still bleeding) human. "Ha! It struggles like a living thing!"

Doppler nodded as he walked up to his minion, rubbing his chin as he stared at the guantlet. "Yes... I don't think that our friend here is actually controlling it, given the concentrations of magical energies, but rather this is a semi-autonomous object seeking to rejoin its owner." Chuckling, he leaned past Tio and called out, "Such a fascinating toy, don't you think, human?"

Doppler blinked. "Human? Are you there?" Not seeing the man immediately, he stepped past Tio and scanned the ground before scratching his head, confused. "He escaped?"

Tio immediately whirled around, ignoring Kais' yelping from being yanked about. "What? But, the spell..."

Doppler's upper left hand snapped its fingers. "Ah! The destruction of so many mana-resonant crystals must have destabilized the local ether flows. The spell decayed much more quickly than anticipated. Drat. If I hadn't dispelled the dome so quickly, I might have noticed."

"Shall I pursue, Master?" Tio asked, snorting acrid smoke from his nostrils. "The tunnel had a ladder access. If not stopped, he'll make it to the surface!"

"No, no, cutting down civilians does not suit you, my friend," the magus said, his lower hands moving intricately. "I have more expendable servants for such purposes. Summon Lesser Insect!"

In a dazzling display of lights, a tiny breach in the fabric of reality spat out a black, red-striped wasp about the size of a roll of quarters, not accounting for its legs and wings. As it landed on Doppler's outstretched finger, its tiny hooked jaws chittered eagerly, and a small, gleaming stinger that more resembled a sewing needle extended from its abdomen.

"Ah, perfect. This should do nicely." With a brief mental command, the goblin wasp (so named because the pitiful creatures were its favorite egg repositories and, by extension, most larvaes' first meal) gave a hiss and took to the sky, immediately zipping off toward the tunnel entrance.

"Why are you doing this?" Kais asked, breaking his long silence as he bled continually on the ground (Doppler was really starting to wonder where it was all coming from). "That man is no threat to you. And I imagine anything of value that he had, you've already taken. Leave him be."

"You seem to have a persisting problem," Doppler began, turning around. "You have this idea that you are someone to be obeyed. Or even listened to, really. This is in conflict with the reality of your current state of dismemberment, and exacerbated by your bizarre resilience. I recommend that you either cease talking entirely, or expire."

Kais crossed his arms over his chest as he considered the veirheelu. "Your manner of speaking... it's very complex and precise, even for a mage. Are you a scholar?"

Doppler pointed to Tio, who promptly twisted Kais' remaining leg. Crack!

"To answer your question," Doppler said as Kais grunted painfully, "around here people of my profession are referred to as 'scientists'. I'm considered to be of the 'mad' variety. As in, I'm rather 'mad' that you've lost an estimated twelve gallons of blood but still persist in whining about useless humans rather than giving me valuable insight as to your invulnerability."

Kais sighed wearily, then grimaced. "I cannot imagine that any good will come of my revealing my nature to you. I will regain my lost power and dispatch you quickly, then search for the remaining pieces."

"I must be honest: I don't see much in your current predicament that would promote such an outcome," Doppler deadpanned.

In response, Kais pointed to the gauntlet still squirming in Tio's grip.

Fzash! The gauntlet immediately pointed its index finger at Tio's face, and a small bolt of light blasted out of it, striking the devil in the forehead and creating a layer of magic crystal over his eyes, nose and mouth.

This was startling enough that the demon released just enough pressure on the gauntlet that it could squirm free, leaping onto Kais' waiting hand.

Whatever the glove was supposed to do for the golden-haired man didn't happen fast enough, as Tio promptly swung Kais around by his broken arm, slinging him blindly toward the wall.

CRACK! Doppler winced as the cavern walls shook from the impact of Kais' broken body, and then shook his head sadly.

With a muted growl, Tio balled one hand into a fist and smashed it into his face, shattering the crystal barrier obstructing his sight.

Kais slumped to the ground, convulsing slightly from the multiple fractures through his spine and shoulders.

Hmmmmmmm... Doppler and Tio halted at the soft humming noise that filled the cavern, and Tio stepped back as a bright white light encompassed Kais, raising the human's body off the floor slightly.

After a second, Kais pushed himself into the sitting position as the light continued to surround his body, displaying the sudden recovery of his spinal column. "And now-"

"NOW, I think it's time you stopped resisting," Doppler countered, pointing one palm at Kais. "Domination."

A mere ripple around Kais' head was the only indication that the spell had been cast, the enchantment failing immediately as Kais raised his left arm, the gauntlet on his hand glowing with power.

Shlunk! That arm promptly fell back down again as Tio sliced it off, and then the devil smashed his hoof against Kais' head, grinding it into the rock wall.

Doppler's eyebrow twitched as he continued looking at the severed arm, noting that the hand seemed to be continuing whatever it was doing, unabated. Fzash!

The veirheelu snorted at the patch of crystal blotting a section of his barrier, and once again gazed at the arm.

A bright white thread had appeared from the edge of the severed bone, which wound back up to Kais' bicep wound, and seemed to be actively tugging the extremity back to the increasingly battered main body.

'I can feel it... the guantlet has formed a link through the ether to the... the headband? Not the host body itself. Fascinating.' Doppler thought. "Tio, the guantlet. Take it."

Kthunk! Tio stabbed a blade through Kais' gut and into the rock beyond, and then turned to make a grab for the piece of armor.

"Too late," Kais whispered, his eyes flaring a brilliant white.

A fierce, echoing howl filled the cavern as waves of force pushed Tio back, sending him stumbling across the stone floor, but failing to knock over the mighty demon.

Kais grunted as he tried to move, blood seeping from the implement lodged firmly in his abdomen. "You creatures... you should not be here."

A weak hiss issued from his arm as his bicep re-attached itself to the rest of his body, a pale mist pouring from the breached skin as it rapidly sealed.

"I will dispose of you..." The gauntlet on his left hand trembled slightly as strange, unknown energies emanated from the gem set in the wristguard.

Doppler snorted, stepping forward. "Your resistance to physical damage - or at least the ultimate result of organ failure and blood loss - is most impressive. You remind me of a young man I worked with once..."

Fsh! Zwom! Bright lights suddenly danced in Doppler's palms as he spread his arms out.

"As you confessed to being a magi, you will meet a magi's death. Come. See your path to oblivion woven in the strands of the ether."

Kais flinched and raised his hand, several crystal shards appearing around him. "Zehruun glaftallim sierrn!"

"Lightning orb! Flash burst! Ionis crush!"

ZRRRRRASH!!

Warner winced as a strange noise, like metal being slowly ripped apart, poured from the Vault, and he took a deep breath before he steeled himself and continued gathering his notes, rapidly stuffing them all into a briefcase he had found under the remains of one of his colleagues.

While he truly regretted leaving the strange man down there to deal with the wizard and the devil alone, he had to make haste, or else he wouldn't live long enough to lament his selfishness. In addition to the pair of demons below (who surely must have noticed his absence by now), the earlier assault seemed to have drawn the numerous wandering undead in the area; even now, at least a dozen zombies stumbled around the exterior defenses of the camp, having been attracted by the unstable magics that Doppler had unleashed earlier.

Still, the geologist was willing to risk a slow, painful death being eaten alive in the wilderness to avoid a far more certain quick, fiery death at the hand of the veirheelu. "Here's Compton's synopsis... and Hilderman's... dear God, what am I going to tell his wife if I make it out of here?"

Despite his pained mumblings, Warner made good time in slipping the most important documents into the case before reaching for a pistol clip on the edge of the desk.

So consumed was the man in recovering his teams' work, that he never bothered to pay attention to the assortment of noises floating around the camp. Not that the soft buzz of a large insect's wings stood out well amongst a backdrop of subterranean explosions, overworked generators, and a cacophony of groaning zombies, but it was clear that Warner's senses had failed him as the goblin wasp accelerated toward its target, its abdomen curling to bring its gleaming stinger to bear.

"There!" Warner said breathlessly, snapping the briefcase latches shut before turning around. "Now I-"

Thunk!

Warner blinked at the noise, then looked down at the suitcase he was holding to see a freakishly huge wasp hissing and writhing against the surface of the leather exterior, its abdomen seemingly stuck in the side of the container.

Without a word, Warner promptly swung the briefcase over his head, bringing it down onto the table where he had been collecting his notes.

Splack!

Stopping briefly to scrape the ichor-splattered side of the container against the edge of the desk, Warner quickly pushed the minor assault out of his mind, heading toward the rear gate with his pistol in hand. At this point, he couldn't afford to be phased by such feeble attempts on his life, and he knew it.

'Either this information has to get back to the military, or it has to die with me out in the wilderness,' he thought, ignoring a pair of approaching zombies as he punched in an emergency code into the keypad outside the gate.

Clank! Clank! The fence gate started sliding open, and one zombie stepped forward too quickly, slipping its hand into the metal links as the gate was dragged back toward the rest of the fence.

Warner shouldered his backpack timidly, ignoring the sound of breaking bone and tearing sinew as the mindless creature had its arm ripped off.

'This is it. From geologist to survivalist. I can't believe it's really come to this.'

Warner didn't dwell on his misfortune any longer and dashed out the rear gate of the facility, drawing his pistol as the second zombie lunged.

Blam! Blam!

Thousands of miles south, amongst the remains of one of Mongolia's border towns, a sweltering, oppressive fog hung in the air over the sundered and scorched buildings.

A band of scouts and guards, consisting of lizardmen and a few grend commanders, stalked the one clear road that lanced through the ruined settlement that had been cleared to facilitate shipping and ground patrols.

The patrols were ostensibly to prevent incursions of bandits, but of course the guards never encountered bandits on their patrols; any raiders foolish enough to venture too close to Greken's lands quickly ended up as dragon fodder from the more frequent aerial patrols. The patrols' more common function was to prevent people from getting out of Dashtall Greken's territory, not in.

As demon lords went, the dragon tamer was hardly among the worst of them, but there were still a great many people who would have traded the dangers of the wastes for the oppressive taxation and dubious protection of their lord. Small groups of refugees were inevitably harder to track than large, armed warbands, and usually had much better knowledge of the obstacles they'd face.

Due to recent troubles, civilian flight had become considerably more common; nearly all of the populace had noticed when a full flight of dragons had left the fortress with great speed and deliberation, and although few had noticed when only one of those dragons returned, rumor spread quickly. Had Lord Greken angered enemies who were a match even for him? It seemed unlikely, but the uncertainty only fueled thoughts of rebellion and escape.

Unfortunately for the hapless lizardmen and their larger cousins the grend, their species were built for survival and combat. Interrogations of the populace as to why it was rapidly shrinking were often quick, brutal, fruitless, and left the populace even smaller. Lizardmen did not excel at negotiation or subversion, and made poor torturers. That, combined with Dashtall's mistrust of non-reptillians, ensured that he had a difficult time putting together information to explain his rapidly diminishing tax revenues.

In the end, the grend warlord approached the problem with the type of brute-force approach that characterized his species; stepping up patrols dramatically to catch refugees fleeing the settlement. Not knowing the routes they used was a painful handicap, but in the end, he figured that numbers and persistence would shut down the flood.


One of the lizardmen hissed as he lowered his head, his eyes narrowing. "Ahead... I ssssmell blood."

The leader of the group, an imposing grend brawler clothed in modern body armor, stomped forward and snarled briefly, causing the other nine soldiers to get in a three-line formation behind him.

With the group double-timing down the street, the source of the scent became apparent; in a fairly open lot between two gutted brick buildings, a small skirmish had occurred between one of the other patrols and a single interloper, who now lay on his back in the middle of the lot with a scimitar lodged in his stomach. Despite his being dead, he seemed to have fared better than the patrol, whose remains were scattered about the area, some having been slice apart, some having been burned to death, and a select few having been smashed into the surrounding debris.

The grend's eyes narrowed as it scanned the corpses of its brethren, noting the complete absence of blood despite the very savage slashing wounds that had been inflicted. "Hmmm... check for tracks. See if any others escaped from here."

Two lizardmen nodded hastily and scampered off into the lot, dropping forward into a quadrapedal position to make it easier to check the area.

The grend commander stomped up to the man lying in the middle of the field, snorting in contempt.

The body was large for a human, and clothed in a long, brown coat that was uncommon in these parts of Asia. On his chest, a single emblem stood out: a series of three parallel slash marks cutting through a crescent.

"A Dread Knight? Here?" The grend mumbled, perplexed. What did the Third Brotherhood have to gain from border skirmishes with Dashtall?

As he observed the body more closely, an uneasy feeling started to overwhelm the demon. The dark paladin had his weapon sheathed, which was odd for someone that had been impaled through the front. Also, the wound seemed too fresh. The blood had barely started drying, which meant that he had been wounded mere minutes ago. Yet the patrol hadn't heard any fighting.

"Be on your guard!" The grend snapped suddenly, causing the others to lurch to attention suddenly. "There is something wrong-"

Schlk!

The grend commander whirled around just in time to see two of the lizardmen in the rear of the formation tumble to the ground, blood oozing from around the blades stuck in their throats. A single human figure, his hair in a unique style that seemed familiar to the commander for some reason, stepped back from the fallen creatures, his hand reaching for the katana at his hip.

The third lizardman at the rear turned and began to draw his scimitar at the same time the human grabbed his own sword, the difference being that the human drew much faster, slicing a lethal wound across the creature's neck.

With a feral snarl, the grend commander gripped his sledgehammer tightly as the rest of his men turned to engage the interloper. "Kill him! Kill him now!"

Shlup!

The sound of steel moving through flesh and organs was not entirely unexpected, though the commander really expected most of the noise to come from in front of him, rather than immediately behind him.

Turning hesitantly - for he was wary about exposing his back to the short human warrior - he saw the Dread Knight he had been inspecting push himself up to his feet.

Recognizing that he had fallen into a trap, the grend wasted no time, bringing his sledgehammer around in a brutal swing aimed for the swordsman's head.

CRACK! The dark paladin's head snapped to the side as the weapon struck with perfect accuracy and considerable force, and the demon knight staggered for a moment.

But only a moment.

Before the grend could recover completely from his first attack, Rayden lurched forward and grabbed the demon's shoulder, holding his target firmly while he drove the scimitar (still wet with his blood) into its chest.

Schlurkt! Scimitars were not made to puncture torsos, but Rayden's brute force made up for the blade's design flaw admirably, crushing the reptillian's sternum before ripping out of its back in a spray of dark blood.

Without another thought, Rayden swatted the gasping demon away with a negligent backhand, and then turned toward the lizardmen who had been searching for tracks as they leapt at him angrily.


Meanwhile, the two remaining grends and two lizardmen that had made up the formation following their commander charged the human, unaware of the tussle their leader had gotten into.

Ranma, for his part, leapt backward from the infuriated reptillians, smirking as they dashed after him into the street thoughtlessly.

At once a circle of runes glowing a bright blue appeared in the middle of the street, just as the four warriors stepped into it.

Crackle! Arcs of green energy and silver sparks appeared at the reptilians' feet as their bodies were instantly paralyzed, the Judgment Circle meting out its punishment for the warriors' lives of oppressive brutality and murder.

Shwip! One sweep of Ranma's hand saw two daggers embedded in the throats of each lizardman while his other hand reached for his pistol (as the grends' scales were too hard for mundane knives to pierce).

Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Four rounds later, the grends were stumbling to the ground, bits of gray matter and skull fragments scattered amongst the cracked asphalt.

Ranma chewed his lip as the Circle trap faded away, its victims having expired. "Well, that was easy. These grunts are so dumb, using actual tactics almost seems unfair."

Thock! Rayden punched the last remaining lizardman in the face, smashing the creature to the ground before he lifted his foot up and grinned savagely. CRUNCH!

Kaze stepped out of the razed building adjacent to the lot, K on his shoulder, and grimaced briefly at the gory mess adorning Rayden's boots before turning toward Ranma. "Master Saotome, should we not be searching for safe lodgings for the night? While these creatures are easily dispatched, if too many of them should venture here and not return, it is only a matter of time until a larger party is sent after us."

"Yeah, I know. But it's not easy," the pigtailed rogue mumbled. "They've obviously got a pretty good patrol pattern going if we found two of them within twenty minutes of each other. And camping out in the open with dragons flying about is suicidal enough when those dragons AREN'T actively hunting us." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Of course, even if we set up on a patrol route, Ray doesn't need to sleep, so he could handle the watch... but if a patrol DID find us, he'd make such a ruckus killing it that the entire army would know where we were."

Rayden started chuckling. "Heh! Yeah, I totally would, too!"

"I see," Kaze mumbled, mulling over Ranma's analysis. "Well, then, there is but one other matter that needs to be addressed." He pointed toward Rayden's stomach, which still bore a long cut from where the scimitar had pierced his flesh. "Was it absolutely necessary to actually pierce Shikodan with the enemy's weapon, instead of merely constructing a simple illusion?"

"Not at all," Ranma admitted. "Why?"

Kaze and K winced, and the latter stretched his neck out closer to Rayden. "I think he's still a little miffed about being booted off the sandship," the metadragon whispered.

"Gee, ya think?" The Dread Knight snapped back, rubbing at the dried blood that now decorated his coat.

Ranma snapped his fingers, bringing his lackeys to attention. "All right, we need to hurry. Ray, hurry up and feed your sword or whatever. Koz, I want you to do a magic scan for the closest village."

Kaze raised an eyebrow. "Is it wise to sleep in a settlement controlled by the enemy?"

"No," Ranma replied bluntly. "Which is why I won't be doing it. You two will."

Kaze immediately looked confused and rather nervous, and even Rayden hesitated as he was about to stab his sword into the ground to collect the battle's bounty.

"This Greken sap is after me and K, not you two. Hopefully he doesn't even know you guys exist, and if he does, he doesn't care. He can't have all his people on the lookout for everyone I've ever met. With just K to look out for, it'll be easy for me to get into the fortress undetected. You two, however, are about as subtle as a salamander in a fireworks factory, and it doesn't help that you're both carrying really powerful magic items."

Rayden and Kaze glanced at each other, both of them looking extremely uncomfortable knowing that they were a burden that had to be left behind.

"So, we can't even help? You just want us to lay low until it's all over?" Rayden said, a bit of anger creeping into his voice. He could understand Ranma not trusting him to keep to stealth - hell, he wouldn't trust himself not to get in a fight - but he didn't join up with the wanderer so that he could mulch soldier grunts and then sit on the bench when a real fight was brewing.

"I didn't say that," Ranma snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. "But right now I'm not sure what to do; I haven't seen the keep, and I don't know what we can expect if we trigger an alarm. All I know right now is that we really need to avoid bringing down the entire local army on our heads, and that's going to be really hard if we all stick together. So I'm going to lay low while you two take the bikes and head toward civilization." He turned to Kaze. "You got anything that would allow me to contact you when I've scouted the place?"

Kaze nodded and then rummaged about in the small rucksack he carried under his arm.

Ranma blinked as the evon held out a small, silver clamshell-shaped device made of plastic. "This is... you have a cell phone?"

"Of course," Kaze said. "I do not share the view of certain doddering old - mostly elven - magi that Earth Realm technology is worthless, unreliable alchemy to be shunned for older practices."

K's brow furrowed. "But... if you had a cell all this time... shouldn't you have called home to tell your church what happened to you? I mean, they still don't know you survived, right?"

"Are you out of your armor-plated mind?" The priest shouted incredulously. "Do you have any idea what the roaming charges for this thing is? We're over two hundred miles from the nearest service area! My family may be rich, but I live on stipends and gambling winnings!"

Ranma shrugged. "Well, whatever. This isn't really much use unless we have two of them, anyway. I was actually thinking something more on the magic side of things."

"Ah. I believe so..." The evon priest tapped his chin in thought, and then snapped his fingers. "Hold here. A few enchantments and we'll be on our way!"

Ranma nodded as Kaze scampered off into a roofless building where their supplies and bikes had been stashed. "Okay, get that done as soon as you can." Then he turned toward Rayden, frowning. "Look, Ray, I know you got in this for big fights and glory and all, but you're really going to have to tone it down until I get back in touch with you guys."

The demon knight immediately sunk into the most pathetic sulking expression Ranma had seen since he had been doused in holy water.

'Geez, he looks like someone shot his dog,' Ranma thought, sweatdropping. Not that he imagined Rayden to own a pet, or to get particularly depressed at its passing. "Okay, let's be reasonable about this. I know I'm asking too much if I try to keep you from getting into fights. That's fine. I won't ask. You're going to be off without me in enemy territory, so I just know you're going to see a target you can't pass up, or some bad guy is going to get on your nerves, or SOMETHING. All I ask is that you not fight any dragons."

Rayden looked slightly mollified at that, though he still didn't seem satisfied. "But they're all OVER the damn place..."

"I know, which is why I'm making this official," Ranma said sternly, crossing his arms over his chest. "I don't care if you squash a hundred lizardmen or grants or whatever the heck they're called. From here on out fixing those messes is up to you and Kaze. But I am ORDERING you, as group leader, not to fight any dragons no matter what. If you see a dragon, don't bother it. If a dragon attacks you, run away. Got it?"

The demon knight sighed. "FINE. If it means so freaking much to you, I'll let the scaly jerks live. For now," he snapped, sounding far more like a teenager conceding to a curfew than a proper paladin of either ethical persuasions.

"Good. With all the soldiers on full alert looking for me, hopefully nobody'll be looking to get in a scuffle with a Dread Knight," Ranma mumbled, scratching his head. He had no idea how far-reaching the reputation of the dark paladins were amongst demons, but he had to imagine that it was better established than among people like him. "But the idea here is to lay low until we're ready to attack. I'd really prefer that you stay in one piece until then."

"No promises," Rayden said tartly.

"All right, it's finished!" Kaze said, emerging from the ruined building while holding up a small green jewel.

"What is it?" K asked. Although he had been carried along and had seen the entire enchanting process, Kaze had refused to explain what he was doing, consumed as he was with actually doing it.

"This is a crude and unpopular psionic node that I've enchanted to link to me specifically," the priest explained happily, holding out the stone to Ranma. "Simply hold it in your bare hand and we'll be able to read each other's 'surface thoughts'. Specifically, the images and words that are foremost in our conscious minds at a given time. This will allow us to communicate telepathically over a fairly long distance."

Ranma blinked as he took the stone, though his gloves were still on. "Wait... 'unpopular'? What did you mean by that?"

Kaze nodded sadly. "It is well understood by psychics, and rarely considered by others, that knowing what other people are thinking all the time is more of a nuisance than an advantage. Frankly, it can be downright disturbing sometimes."

"You mean like if you're meeting someone who seems nice, but they actually hate you?" Ranma asked.

"I mean like if you're introducing someone to your mother, and they find her extremely attractive," Kaze deadpanned.

The others immediately recoiled, horrified.

"Wow, I... I hadn't thought of that," Ranma said uneasily, tugging on the collar of his vest.

"Few people do until it happens," Kaze said miserably. "Anyhow, the telepath jewel will only function for a few days before it loses power. Do make haste in your travels."

Ranma nodded. "I will. You guys be careful too. K?"

The little metadragon quickly leapt from Kaze's shoulder and landed on Ranma's as Kaze started rummaging in his sack for his divination tools.

"I'll contact you guys tomorrow morning, but I won't tell you where I'm making camp," Ranma said as he began to walk off. "Not that I don't trust you... well, I mean, I don't really trust you much either, but it's just not safe in general."

"Yeah, we get it. Have fun," Rayden said wearily, waving as the pigtailed man turned and dashed into the ruins. Almost immediately the demon knight lost track of him.

"Hmmm..." Kaze closed his eyes and concentrated as the Eye of Malakai floated before him, a vaguely-defined map of the surrounding area drawing itself outward from his position in his mind.

"Yes... I think I see a settlement... and the nearest dragon nest as well. Ugh. Far too close to each other for my tastes."

Rayden listened half-heartedly as he tugged one of the hoverbikes out of the rubble they had used to hide the vehicles. Then he stopped suddenly as a thought occurred. "Wait. Dragon eggs don't count as dragons, right?"

Kaze twitched immediately. He had heard Ranma's request, and agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiment of his orders. "Yes, of course they do."

"No, I'm serious!" Rayden said excitedly. "It's like how human babies don't count as people until they're born, right?"

"Last I heard, there was considerable debate on the topic, but that point is moot," Kaze explained sharply, trying to project an air of control despite being quite sure that he stood no chance of preventing Rayden from going where he pleased if the warrior insisted. "Raiding a dragon's nest will almost certainly end with you fighting a dragon. There's really no other way it could end."

"Well, maybe if-"

"While I can understand and even admire your persistence in finding a way to bend the rules and do what you wish, I really must ask you to reconsider," Kaze said hastily. "I may have trekked here willingly, but I've had quite enough of fighting dragons. Of course, in this environment, I'm quite certain that leaving you and wandering off on my own would be only slightly less suicidal than letting you lead us into conflict. For MY sake, please, let's just head for the village and spend the night there."

Rayden frowned, looking unconvinced.

"Look, we'll find you something to kill without making too much fuss when we get there, all right?" Kaze said, sighing.

The demon knight crossed his arms over his chest. "Promise me."

"Only if you promise to fulfill Master Saotome's orders as best you can," Kaze demanded.

The pair shook hands firmly, and then turned to get on their respective bikes.

'A bare two minutes of being in charge, and already the responsibility is trying. Saotome is a strong man indeed,' Kaze thought, slipping onto the seat of the hoverbike as it bounced gently above the shattered concrete below.

As the priest gazed at the various blinking lights and switches, a thought came to him. "Uh... Shikodan, it suddenly occurs to me that I rode double with Master Saotome on the way here. I'm not entirely sure how to work-"

SHWOOM! "YEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" The priest was almost knocked off his vehicle from the backwash of Rayden's passing, chunks of debris being lifted off the ground and flung straight upwards in the wake of the abusive anti-gravity fields.

"Sigh. Now I remember why I was so willing to take on the role of hapless student when I met Saotome in the first place," Kaze mumbled as he started toying with the controls and hoping for positive results. "Certainly leadership is no place for me, avatar or no. How in Kleimjun are you supposed to start this thing?"

Click! The next switch he flipped activated a bright red light, and a promising whine started to come from the engines of the vehicle.

What, exactly, the sound promised was up for debate, as well as whether it would be beneficial or not, but Kaze was really getting tired of sitting around in place.

WhoooooooooOOOOOOOOORRNNNN...

Kaze frowned as he glanced back at the engines, which were trembling as the energy built up within their cores, eager for release. "Well, this is hardly getting me-" SHWOOOOOM!! "GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..."

"Master, are you certain we should have left? Surely we could have slain the fool with time and patience."

The words emerging from the hybrid devil's mouth didn't seem to stir Doppler as he stalked through the ice-laden forests of Russia, his hands gripped into fists and all of his arms held ramrod straight.

Compared to the demon mage, the armored brute following him seemed to be the very picture of reason and sensibility, gently recounting the encounter and proposing the solutions he thought appropriate.

"Though his unique regeneration was powerful, we never did try beheading him," Tio noted, raising his index finger to accentuate his point. Tio didn't like beheading people, mostly because he was large and used heavy swings that were meant to cleave through large, armored parts of the body rather than striking small, vulnerable points.

In response to Tio's helpful suggestion, Doppler slashed one hand upward, and a zombie that had strayed within the magi's line of sight staggered for a moment before a thread of light suddenly lanced down from above, straight onto its head.

THWOOM! In a split-second, the thread of light became a pillar of energy that smashed the hapless corpse into a fine, salty dust coating the bottom of a small blast crater.

Tio sighed. "Master, please..."

"Tio, this is not a matter I care to further analyze," Doppler said irritably as he crossed his lower arms over his chest. "That... That THING was no magi. At least, none of a sort that I've ever encountered."

The "battle" had been embarrassingly short and far more one-sided than the demons could have hoped. Within minutes Kais had been scorched, blasted, pummeled, and sliced apart by the perfect coordination of Doppler's spells and Tio's punishing brutality.

Yet the man had continued regenerating, his body pulling itself together, bones pushing themselves back into place, and skin sealing before their very eyes. Although the pair could cause damage far more quickly than Kais seemed able to heal it, nothing had proven able to push the mysterious human beyond the barrier of life and death. Acid had eventually neutralized, fire had eventually abated. And still, the man would not die.

It didn't help that all of Doppler's higher-order spells refused to touch the man, either. While normal evocations worked wonders on Kais' bare, naked flesh, he had otherwise proven completely impregnable to enchantments, transmutations, dimensional rifts, and every half-decent necromancy he could come up with.

"After all that, to trap himself in some sort of barrier... hmph!" Doppler had spent a full ten minutes analyzing the cloudy glass-like shell that had entombed Kais before he'd finally stomped out in a huff, leaving Tio to quickly gather up the artifacts on the cavern floor. Patience was a common virtue among magi, but Doppler was a busy demon, and had many other plots, betrayals, and cruel experiments to bring to fruition.

The magus was equally frustrated to find that the body of his former unwilling guide was nowhere to be found among the dead in the camp, and that the back entrance was open. Incidentally this also let a wave of zombies into the camp to feast on the dead, raise more of their own, and in general make nuisances of themselves.

Finding out that the human was not only alive, but had stolen away most of the notes, left the demon lord absolutely furious, which was why he and his most favored servant were now engaged in the most un-lordly task of tracking a fleeing human through the snow.

"I really wish I had bothered to remember that fool's name," Doppler mumbled, staring up at the snow gently falling from above. "A quick divination would make all the difference right now."

Tio grunted unintelligibly, and then crouched on one knee, staring at the ground. "Hmmm... Master, if his tracks are still here, I can't find them. The zombies drag their feet about wherever they go, and they seem to be congregating in this area; any tracks he's left have been ruined." Not that Tio would have been able to track very well otherwise. His upbringing had involved more language studies than survivalism, frankly.

Doppler growled fiercely for a moment, and was promptly shocked still when he heard growling come from a nearby bush in return.

The demon mage was preparing a small fire spell to eliminate the threat when it emerged from the bushes, immediately giving him a possible solution to his current predicament.

"Gggrrrrhhh..." emerging from the bush was an undead wolf, half its ribcage exposed and its rotting organs spilling out its side. Its legs were mangy and coated with blood, while its maw was cracked and the jaw closed unevenly; evidence that this particular creature had fought since being raised.

Doppler grinned, and let his fire spell dissipate as his upper hands worked a different pattern. "Control undead."

Before the zombie wolf could get anywhere close to lunging range the spell hit it, promptly linking the masterless drone to the demon mage. It immediately stopped advancing and sat down in the snow, awaiting orders.

"Perfect. And this time, I'll follow the mindless servant to make sure it finishes the job." Stepping closer to his new, rotting slave, he stopped about a foot away and pointed to a mess of crushed snow below him. "There! There is a human that traveled along this path! Follow it!"

The wolf let out a gentle whine from deep within its dry, bloodied throat, and then glanced to the right and the left before it went back to staring at Doppler.

The demon mage raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong? Take his scent!" Doppler demanded.

Seeing as the zombie continued to do nothing but stare (its tail twitched slightly in a weak imitation of a wag, though), Tio frowned. "Master, do you think a basic zombie such as this has the intelligence to retain and differentiate smells?"

Doppler frowned as well. "Hmmm... I don't know, honestly. Undead are hardly my usual field of study." Then he glared down at the dead canine, pointing down sharply once again. "Find the human! I don't care how you do it, find him and kill him!"

The zombie wolf cocked his head to one side, and then stood up, walked closer to Doppler, and licked his hand happily.

Snap! A vein popped up on Doppler's head as he raised his hand, which was now wet with filthy, gooey puss full of clumps of dry blood.


BWOOOM!!

Tio winced and turned his head away, grunting slightly as a few smoldering chunks of wood that used to be a full tree bounced off his back.

"Come, Tio. Back to the camp," Doppler demanded sharply, stomping away from their previous route (and the blast crater) into the forest.

"We're giving up, Master?"

"Yes," the veirheelu snapped. "I was ill prepared for this scenario. We will depart for the research base immediately, and gather what resources they have remaining. This operation has fallen far short of my expectations... but these things happen, and all told, we gained much and lost nothing here," he reasoned.

Then he stared at his hand in disgust. "Except perhaps our dignity."

"I'm sure you'll find a way to conjure dignity magically if the need somehow arises," Tio deadpanned.

"Hmph. Let us make haste back to the camp and clear the undead filth from its grounds. This entire exercise is already taking far longer than I'd imagined..."

"Ssssah! Faster! Faster!" The grend snarled, waving its scimitar in the air threateningly as dark-scaled lizardmen with leather armor and spears marched by, their bodies bent into a near-crouch and their heads bobbing low to the ground in their rush.

"Two patrols failed to return today! Sssssss... find the rebels! Raze the town AGAIN if you have to! I want no rock unturned! Find them and kill them all!" With a feral snarl, the reptillian banged his weapon against his shield to further rouse his troops.

"SSHRREEEEEEAUGH!!" A great scream echoed from far above, and the sound of heavy wings flapping heralded the arrival of a mighty fire drake being flanked by two wyverns that tailed it at a respectful distance.

The grend hissed in satisfaction as he gazed upon his force, and then jumped into the middle of the lizardman formation, eager to take his men to the fight.


"Huh. Pretty good response time for a military without any radios OR magic," Ranma mumbled quietly, crouching on a tree branch well away from the road as he chewed on a wad of jerky that Rayden had made from some of the leftover dragon meat.

"Yeesh! You've got to be kidding me!" K said as he watched the serpents overhead fly into the distance. "After all those losses to the IEF, they still have dragons sitting around to send on worthless missions like that?"

"Well, it was too much to hope for that he sent his entire army to its death," Ranma reasoned. "But it doesn't matter. This was never about fighting his army, however big it still is. We're here for the big lizard himself."

K frowned as Ranma hopped down from the tree, and slowly hovered down to land on his shoulder. "Speaking of which... what exactly are you going to do here? You can't take on the army that's hunting you, so... what? You're going to just kill Greken and hope it all ends?"

"That's Plan B," Ranma said as he dashed through the high grass that dominated the landscape surrounding the roads. "This was never a straight assassination mission. I need to figure out what this guy wants from me, and why. Then I can figure out if just killing him is going to do the trick."

"So, wait, you're going to talk with him? And give away the element of surprise?" K asked. That didn't seem like a good idea. Or at least, no better than just killing the demon lord outright.

"Yeah, well, contrary to what Rayden thinks, sometimes killing your enemy creates more trouble than it stops."

Suddenly, Ranma dropped down onto the ground, obscuring himself beneath the grass as the beating of leathery wings once again filled the air.

"We're isolated in the middle of enemy territory, and I'm basically stuck with allies I can hardly rely on. I don't know any of the civilians around here, and the patrols seem to be a lot more intent on keeping people IN than keeping invaders out. Barring an incredibly convenient undead invasion like last time I fought a demon lord, I can't see myself getting away very easily." It had also helped that Saffron's army and territory were both relatively small; escaping from a mountain was one thing, but Dashtall's territory was measured in villages, not acres, and as always the threat of being assaulted by dragons was the paramount concern.

Ranma waited until the sound of the dragon's flight faded away, and then poked his head up above the grass, scanning the area before he moved on.

"If I just kill this guy, the best I can hope for is not being chased IF I manage to escape afterward."

"And if you talk to this guy, the best you can hope for is... what? That he puts everything on the line in a dramatic, one-on-one duel instead of just having you captured and executed?" K retorted.

"It happens more often than you'd think."

Ranma suddenly turned, startling K briefly as he approached a rock outcropping.

"Okay, this'll do for the night."

K recoiled. "What? This? This isn't going to hide you! These rocks are hardly bigger than you are!"

"Which is just the right size when you're going to be burying yourself under them," Ranma clarified.

K watched, fascinated, as Ranma fiddled with his left sleeve for a moment, and then swung his arm out.

Shkng! The metadragon gaped as a full-sized halberd suddenly slipped out into Ranma's waiting hand, the head of the weapon seeming to simply materialize as the polearm's shaft slid down out of Ranma's sleeve.

"Oof! Damn... never tried it with something this big before," Ranma complained as he started pulling the shaft the rest of the way out of his sleeve. "I should probably try to keep the weapons shorter, I guess. This would be too hard to handle in an actual fight."

"Whoa, wait, hold it!" K shouted, shaking his head wildly. "What the hell? Where did that thing come from? How did you do that?"

Ranma raised an eyebrow as he finished pulling the haldberd free of his clothes. "Well, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I've been carrying more and more weapons on me since the Amazon village, you know?"

"W-Well, sure, but... those were like, knives and stuff!" K protested.

"Well, obviously I have to start with easy things," Ranma explained, planting one hand on his hip. "Throwing knives, wakizashi, wood axes..." At seeing K's incredulous stare, Ranma shook his head. "Look, the short of it is, I saw that crazy Mousse guy use this to summon weapons from his clothes, and it looked really useful. So ever since then I've been experimenting with the technique."

Walking past the baby dragon, Ranma jammed the halberd's spiked head down into the dirt next to the rock, and then lifted out a large wad of dirt, using the polearm as a shovel.

"At first the best I could do was keep knives up my sleeves without hurting myself when I was moving, but with a little practice, I found that I could sort of fold knives over knives... well, that's a weird way of saying it, but basically I could hold as many knives as I wanted, and they wouldn't weigh me down. It was a lot harder to do with weapons that aren't made to be concealed, but I'm doing okay. I can fit a few battleaxes and like one long weapon on me, but if I try to add any more big ones I start feeling the weight build up, and there's a lot of tension in my clothes, like they could just tear apart at any moment. So I'm kind of thinking that I don't really need to work on it anymore; it's not like heavy weapons are even my thing, right?"

"R-Right..." K said weakly as Ranma continued digging out the shelter to a respectable size. "When did you learn this stuff, though? Between the killing and you almost getting laid, we were hardly in the Amazon village at all!"

"Well, it wasn't easy," Ranma admitted as he leaned down to check the dimensions of his shelter. "But when I met Rayden and noticed that he could fight without breaking all the whiskey bottles in his coat, I knew I was on to something. After observing him for a bit, I had the basics down." He stood up again and started cleaning up the outer edges of the hole. "He only used the technique for keeping his liquor in one piece, though. And I don't know if he even does it consciously. I had to practice hiding the weapons we find after a fight a lot to reach this level."

"What? You've been taking the extra weapons?" K asked. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah... taking things without anyone noticing is a skill I picked up way before I met the Amazons," Ranma said dubiously. Then he stepped away from his shelter, wiping his brow. "That'll do. A bit dirty, but with the rock on top it should be safe."

K's head was still spinning slightly from the previous conversation, but he managed to push Ranma's bizarre storage technique to the back of his mind. "Okay, so... what now? Are we turning in already?"

Ranma shook his head, and then stabbed the halberd into the ground. "No, not yet. There's a different technique I've been trying out the last few nights, and... well, I was hoping you could help."

K winced immediately. There weren't many ways in which he could imagine helping Ranma in his training, and most of the ways he COULD imagine placed him as the target. "Uh... is this going to hurt?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that," Ranma said reassuringly. "Just... keep a sharp eye out, all right?"

SssssssssSSSSSSSHOOOOOOOOOOM!

The sound of overworked turbo booster screamed across the landscape as two gleaming vehicles shot across the plains like silver missiles, clouds of dust and small debris rising in their wakes.

The one in the rear, though it seemed to jerk from side to side a bit unsteadily, had slowly gained on its partner over that last few dozen miles, and its pilot grit his teeth in frustration at the poor progress as his long white hair whipped about in the wind.

'Just a little closer...' Kaze thought, trying desperately to steady his craft as it bounced a little higher because of some rocks strewn on the ground.

'There! Shikodan! Shikodan, can you hear me?'

Rayden blinked in surprise as he suddenly heard... or rather, felt a gentle whisper in his mind. "Eh? Who's there?"

'It's me, Kaze! I normally try to restrain my use of telepathy, but with the distance between us and the NOISE these things make, I hardly have a choice! Listen, would you slow down?'

"Slow down? Why?" Rayden asked, shouting against the wind despite the message being telepathic.

'Well, for one thing, these devices make an incredible racket! We've already been spotted by four patrols, and we barely lost that last wing of wyverns before they got us!'

"Well, sure, but we DID lose them!" Rayden allowed, turning and tilting his vehicle sharply to aim the anti-gravity units on the bottom at a rock crag sticking up out of the ground. The hoverbike promptly went air borne, sliding sideways over the length of the spike and launching into the air. "YEAH!! I love this thing!"

Kaze twitched as he zoomed past the crag, and then began the slow and nerve-wracking process of turning around. 'Well, there's also the fact that we passed the village we were headed toward.' Thanks to the depth of the telepathic link, Kaze was able to put a satisfying amount of irritation into the sentence.

Rayden blinked as his vehicle came crashing down to Earth, bobbing barely an inch from the ground before it bounced up again over a fresh cloud of dust. "Oh. Well, we should turn around, then."

'Yes, we should,' Kaze thought-deadpanned. 'Also, I have been thinking of how we will approach the settlement, given that we've been spotted already, and will inevitably cause quite a stir amongst the locals, if not the guard. I believe I've found a solution.'

By this time Kaze had managed to turn the hoverbike back toward their destination, and Rayden promptly accelerated after the white priest to follow, rather than taking off with the turbos like last time.

"Okay, so what's the plan?"

'I plan to make use of our status within our respective churches. I don't have time to relay all the details, but our cover story will be that we're on a diplomatic mission for our factions, and have chosen this village as neutral territory for our negotiations.'

Rayden nodded, though the gesture obviously didn't make it through the telepathic link.

'All right, there's the gate up ahead. When we get there, let me do most of the talking and follow my lead. And don't forget, we're on a DIPLOMATIC mission, so please restrain yourself from killing-'

WHAAAAOR! Before Kaze could continue that thought, Rayden kicked in his turbos once again, blasting forward in a burst of blue energy and displaced Earth.


"There! Do you sssee it?"

A massive grend, his small, beady eyes shielded by a protruding, bony ridge, shook his head as he stared out onto the plains. "Don' worry 'bout it," the creature said gruffly, turning away. "The patrols're out 'n force. They'll get anyth'n at's out there."

The lizardman who had noticed the distant glint reflected from the waning late-afternoon sun glanced at his commander's back nervously, a pike held tightly at his side.

The village was rather well-fortified for such a small settlement, with a tall wooden palisade and hefty iron gate at the front supported by a pair of watch towers (unmanned most of the time, as reptilians usually made poor marksmen, and machine gunners were fairly rare). All around the road leading up to the gate were several wooden stakes set in the ground with human bodies and the occasional non-human raider impaled upon them; a warning both to those who would seek to invade, and to those who would flee.

"Wait! There it isss! I can make it out, now!"

The grend commander groaned at the nervous yapping of the smaller creature, and turned around laboriously before stomping back to his subordinate.

"What. What do ya-" the demon stopped as he immediately noticed a cloud of dust in the distance that seemed to be rapidly approaching the settlement. "Wassat? We got raiders?"

Another lizardman hissed and leapt up onto the wall of the palisade, clawing his way up and over to perch on the top for a better view. "Sssssss... no, it's jussst one..."

"Jus' one what?" The grend demanded. At this point the approaching object was big enough that he could see a spot of silver at the head of the dust trail.

"I don't know," the first guard admitted, lowering his head nervously. "But it approachesss very fast, yesss?"

The grend snorted irritably, his mind straining itself to absorb the situation. Something unknown was approaching very fast. It could be anything. Unknown things often proved to be dangerous. Dangerous things were usually handled by the town guards. He was currently in charge of those guards.

As his brain cells finally handed down their crowning achievement of the past week, the commander opened his mouth to speak.

Svooosh! By that time, of course, Rayden had already covered the rest of the distance to the gate, and once again turned his hoverbike sharply while tilting it heavily, exposing the anti-gravity system to the palisade wall and the two reptilian guards unfortunate enough to be between the two.

The dark paladin immediately hit the jump booster for the bike, normally used to vault the hoverbike off the ground over obstacles by feeding a surge of power into the anti-gravity field. In this case, with the vehicle nearly on its side and still zipping toward the lizardman and his commander, it used the burst to suddenly kill its momentum, stopping the bike dead.

Unfortunately for the creatures on the other end of that equation, magitechnology never had managed to neuter ALL of Newton's pesky laws.

BWOOSH! "SEEEEEAAAAAAH!!" CRUNCH! The grend grunted as the breath was taken out of him, his thick skin and hard bones resisting much better than the lizardman that had plowed into him, being crushed into a bloody mess from the impact.

Rayden promptly jerked the hoverbike back upright, feeling immensely satisfied with the manuever, and feeling confident that he could win at least a few of the many hoverbike races that he planned on challenging Ranma to in the future.

"I don't even know what Ranma's problem is," he said to himself as he stepped off the vehicle. "These things are WAY better than laying around that stupid IEF cruiser."

Grinning to himself, the Dread Knight turned toward the gate.

Shnk! Clank! Clink! Sh-tang!

He was nonplussed, though hardly surprised, to see half a dozen polearms aimed at his neck, and one very grumpy-looking grend stomping toward him.

"Wow. Four seconds, and I'm already surrounded by angry guards. That's pretty good, even for me," he said in a deceptively amiable tone as he started cracking his knuckles

The guards were mustering their courage to attack the intruder when the sound of a second hoverbike approaching arrested their attention, each of them afraid of being blasted aside like their comrade.

"Shikodan! Now look what you've done!" The lizardmen backed away uncertainly as the second hoverbike decelerated quickly, coming to a gentle stop immediately behind the strange warrior.

"Who're you? Wha's goin' on here?" The grend demanded, quite confused, his voice even more shrill and breathless from the earlier impact.

Kaze stood up on top of the floating hoverbike, and then stepped off of it, descending toward the ground as if he was walking down invisible stairs (hardly the most efficient use of a levitation spell, but it left a good impression). "I really MUST apologize for dear Shikodan's behavior; he can be MOST inconsiderate at times."

The grend's forehead scrunched up as he tried to reconcile crushing a guard with being "inconsiderate".

Before the demon could finish that calculation, Kaze stepped up to him, shaking his head. "Oh, and you're hurt, too! Really Shikodan, would it trouble you so much not to use sentient creatures as braking mechanisms?"

"Probably not, but that's like the best part!" Rayden retorted, causing the guards to wince.

Kaze's hands started glowing a vibrant white, and he held his palms close to the grend's chest as healing energies went to work knitting cracked bones and ruptured scales. "I'm sorry for your loss, but I ask that you please excuse his rudeness. We do have a good reason for being here."

"Who are ye two?" The commander snarled, though he seemed to relax slightly at Kaze's words (not to mention the healing magic).

"Ah, of course. Introductions." Kaze stopped healing the grend and backed away before bowing. "My name is Kaze Toren, avatar of the Order of Malakai."

The response was instantaneous. The lizardmen hissed sharply in surprise, and immediately stood their weapons upright, not wanting to offend or provoke an individual of such status. Rank was a concept that had a lot of sway in their culture, and nearly overshadowed the fact that Kaze wasn't on their side.

Kaze promptly gestured to Rayden, who was withdrawing a bottle of beer from within his coat. "This is Rayden Shikodan, avatar of the Third Brotherhood, the cult of Kharak."

The results from that admission were just as obvious. Two of the lizardmen actually dropped their weapons and knelt, suddenly aware how close they had come to having their heads smashed in. The rest seemed to hold on to their dignity, but they were trembling and gripping their weapons tightly, hugging them closer to their bodies.

The grend was slightly less impressed, but even his dull intellect could piece together that these men weren't to be dealt with callously. "Why're two AVATARS snoopin' aroun' here? 'Aint nothin' here but farms 'n dragons."

"Well, yes, that's why it's perfect for our purposes," Kaze said happily, stepping past the grend and idly kicking aside the dead lizardman as he stepped up to the gate. "You see, we're on a diplomatic mission to settle a territory dispute amongst our two churches, and required neutral ground to hold the meeting. Greken's land is conveniently located between our respective cathedrals, and possesses... exhaustive security measures. So naturally, we decided to hold the negotiations in your fine village here." Of course, Kaze didn't know if the Third even HAD a cathedral on Earth, much less where it was, but he had long found that it was easy to cram little lies and bits of misinformation into a patchwork of truth.

Then the priest rubbed his chin. "Surely you knew we were coming, didn't you? We sent several messengers to inform Lord Greken of this matter. Did something happen to them?"

The lizardmen winced and glanced at each other nervously. A messenger speeding across the landscape probably would have been spotted by the patrols, especially if it was headed to the capital. And the only people that the patrols were ordered NOT to kill were traders, who were merely harassed and searched for refugees on their way out.

And even then, the dragons could be quite indiscriminate when they got hungry.

"Uh... right... the messenger. I'm... sure e's just runnin' late," the commander said weakly, rubbing his head. "Well, since ya came all 'is way, least we can do is make yeh comfortable." He promptly turned and gestured sharply to a lizardman standing on the palisade, who promptly leapt down to open up the gate.

"Ah, thank you very much for your hospitality," Kaze said pleasantly, smiling as the gate slid upward in front of him. "Please have your men bring our vehicles to a clear empty lot, pull the ignition key from the dashboard, and then return the keys to us."

The lizardmen nearly tripped over each other in their rush to comply, dropping their weapons while scurrying toward the vehicles.

Kaze idly adjusted the clasp on his robes as he continued. "If you have a moment, I'd like you to lead us to an appropriate inn; preferably one that doesn't cater to you and your men. We prefer human food. Also-"

BLAM! One lizardman's skull popped like a balloon just as it was reaching toward Rayden's hoverbike, and the body wobbled upright briefly before it tumbled forward.

Rayden aimed his bolt pistol at the next closest guard, smoke still wafting from the barrel. "Don't touch the bike. I'll park it myself."

Kaze sweatdropped. "You could have said that back when I asked them to move it."

"Meh." Rayden shrugged and gulped down the last quarter of his beer, then tossed the empty bottle over his shoulder, bouncing it off another guard's head. Then he grabbed a latch on the side of the hoverbike, tugging it along behind him.

The evon sighed, and then smiled apologetically to the grend commander. "I really am sorry about him. He doesn't usually consider others as having any inherent right to live. It's a rather common cultural trend where he comes from, I hear."

"Dun worry 'bout it," the grend grunted as the gate finally finished opening. "I did'n like tha' one anyway. Come on, then. I'll lead ya to a nice inn. An' then you can get ta your... 'diplomacy'."

K hopped along the ground for a bit, his head held up high in the air as he searched the area all about him.

It was difficult to do, given the height of the grass, but he felt he had a pretty good view of the area surrounding him. He could have taken to the air and gotten a much better view, but as he was still trying to avoid the attention of any scouts or wandering dragons, the metadragon opted to stay grounded.

Not seeing anything, K lowered his head.

"Marco!" He shouted.

"Polo!" Came a voice far to his right.

K immediately scurried to off toward the voice, the grass around him falling in a narrow wave as it was clipped by the blades on the edge of his wings.

After a few seconds he stopped, noticing that the grass in the area looked completely undisturbed except where he had passed earlier.

'Then again, Ranma's got light feet,' the metadragon thought to himself. 'A little grass would never give him away so easily

Lowering his body to the ground, he squinted his eyes carefully as he slowly looked over the surrounding area.

A slight flicker in the air to his left immediately grabbed his attention. It was very brief, short enough for most people to dismiss it as their imagination or a trick of the light, but it was all K had to go on. "GOTCHA!!"

Bolting into the air, the metadragon zipped forward into a headlong charge, and was rewarded when the negligible flicker became a strange, wavy blur before materializing into Ranma's image.

The pigtailed boy caught K roughly, barely managing to keep his balance from the impact. "Whoa! Whoa! Easy there, little guy! Fine, you got me. Calm down." He smirked as K hopped away and landed lightly on the ground. "What gave me away?"

"Not much," the metadragon mumbled. "I saw a little blur or something as you moved. If I hadn't seen you turn invisible in the first place, I wouldn't have thought anything of it."

Ranma nodded in satisfaction. "Okay, so the technique is almost perfect..." then he sighed. "Except that it's exhausting to keep up for long."

K raised an eyebrow. "What? Does it take up a lot of energy or something?" Frankly, he thought that Ranma should be completely satisfied with the incredible achievement of being able to turn completely invisible without the aid of magic, but the pigtailed wanderer never seemed to be satisfied with just accomplishing the impossible.

"Naw, not that," Ranma clarified, swinging one arm out sharply. A short sword immediately slid free of his sleeve and into his waiting hand. "It's just that every time I touch something, I can feel the vibrations trying to let light into..." he trailed off, unsure of how to explain the technique properly. "Well, basically, when I touch stuff my body wants to turn visible again, and it takes a lot of concentration not to. So even walking slowly is pretty tiring." Then he held up his right hand and snorted as he stared at the bejeweled gauntlet. "Then I've got THIS thing screwing up my ki... not an easy technique at all."

Without further comment, he tossed the weapon on the ground in front of K, who immediately pounced on the steel morsel.

Chomp! Clang! "Mmph! So, how did you Clink! develop this technique so quickly Gulp! anyway?"

Ranma shrugged. "I didn't, really. It's a revision of that illusion clone thing I learned from the Shisou. And I've been practicing pretty much every night."

Chomp! K finished swallowing the blade of the weapon, and then looked up. "Really? Nobody ever noticed that you were up and about."

"Well, yeah. That was kind of the point," Ranma deadpanned. "Not that it would have been any challenge to sneak around you and Kaze when you sleep; you guys wouldn't wake up for anything softer than open machine gun fire."

"What about Rayden?" K asked as he picked up the sword handle in his foreclaws and started nibbling on it.

"Yeah, well, he was my main test subject, but not a very good one," Ranma admitted, sitting down in the grass. "He might be awake twenty-four hours, but that doesn't make him any more aware than anyone else. Still, it was decent practice up until now."

Gulp! K polished off the rest of the sword, and then looked up at Ranma. "Do you think you'll really be able to get into the fortress with that?"

"I've gotten into lots of fortifications without being invisible, but it's hard to say," Ranma said, shrugging. "But I'm pretty sure that I can at least get close without raising the alarm." Then the pigtailed man stretched his arms into the air as he yawned. "For now though, we need to get some rest right away."

K looked at Ranma strangely. "Now? It won't even be completely dark for another half hour! If the distance estimates you worked out are anywhere close to accurate, then we could make it to the capital outskirts before the night's over!"

Ranma snorted as he walked back to his shelter and the rock that was sitting over it. "Yeah, and then we can sleep within spitting distance of Greken's entire army. No thanks. I need to be well-rested when I reach the capital. Besides, lizardmen are really sluggish in the morning, especially when its cold. It'll be much easier to dodge any more patrols."

K immediately bowed his head to the barrage of experience coming from his human companion, and scurried forward toward the shelter. "All right, all right, good point. But I'm going to have a hard time sleeping this early!"

"Yeah, yeah," Ranma mumbled as he rolled his eyes. "It's always something with you, isn't it? You want some pennies?"

For some reason that none of Ranma's party - much less K himself - could figure out, copper seemed to make the metadragon drowsy in short order, like a weak tranquilizer. It was one of the many mysteries of K's irritating metabolism.

After flipping a few cents into K's mouth, Ranma slipped into the shelter he had dug, stripped off his leather armor, and then placed it on one of the slopes to act as a pillow.

Ranma then moved the rock further over the top of the hole he had dug, and then finally settled down at the bottom of his shelter to sleep.

"Good night," K said automatically.

"'Night, K," Ranma responded, immediately feeling himself drift off.

"Don't let the deathcrawlers bite," the metadragon added, though it seemed more deliberate this time.

"........." Ranma promptly felt his alertness return to him, and his eyebrow twitched.

"Because their poison is lethal within minutes of injection, and their fangs can pierce standard-issue Kevlar, leaving you no defense if you happen to be unconscious when-" Whap! "Ow!"

"Shut up, K," Ranma demanded as night fell.

"Well, I was really hoping for something more 'Los Angelos Hilton' and less 'ye olde Green Dragon,' but I suppose you've done the best you could," Kaze said as he leaned back in his chair, a large smoked turkey drumstick in one hand.

The barmaid giving him a shoulder massage squeaked in surprise as the chair tilted too far back to remain balanced, and immediately a nearby lizardman jumped forward and held it up.

Kaze took a bite of his drumstick, pretending that he didn't notice. Chomp! Chomp! Gulp! "Really though, while it's nice of you to put all this security in place, it's quite unnecessary. Me and Shikodan get along quite nicely, and I can assure you there is nobody poised to disrupt these negotiations." As he spoke he pointed to his mug of ale, which promptly floated up off the table and into his waiting hand so that he could take a sip.

To say that Rayden and Kaze had caused a stir was less accurate than to say that the local guard's reaction to them had caused a stir. The humans in the tavern were mostly huddled into tables and booths along the walls to get as far away from the guards who had loosely encircled the two "diplomats" in the center, and even when it was explained to them who the large, rough-looking man and elegant, wealthy-looking evon were, very few of them understood the significance of it.

The lizardmen, on the other hand, were on the edge of their seats, so to speak. Every guard that had no duties or could possibly get out of them had crammed into the tavern to witness the historic event that had been passed along the rumor mill.

To Kaze this was troubling; he did not consider the gravity of his presence to be especially great, but that was probably because he had been coronated avatar in his home city (where people knew him very well, and usually didn't think very well of him) and had then traveled with companions who didn't care at all about his status or potential power.

Out in semi-civilization, however, the title of Avatar was of such prestige that his plan for getting into the village had worked perfectly... and had ensured that the rest of Greken's territories would know all about their presence by the end of the day.

'Oh well,' Kaze thought to himself as he took another bite of turkey. 'At least Rayden adapted easily enough to pretending to be the avatar of his cult. I was afraid that perhaps it was considered a blasphemy, as in mine.'

The grend commander, who seemed far less enthusiastic than all of his men about Kaze and Rayden's presence, cleared his throat. "It'll do, I'm sure. Also, m'name is-"

"Yes, yes, I'm sure you told me at some earlier date, and I just forgot," Kaze said, waving the demonic reptile off, and leaving unsaid that he didn't care for the grend to repeat himself. "So, about all the guards?"

The grend snorted. "Nah all of 'em are on duty. An' besides, it's necessary."

"For what?" Kaze asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What the hell is this?!"

Kaze and the grend both winced as Rayden shouted from the adjacent table before slamming his mug down.

The barmaid that had served the drink went pale, holding her serving tray up against her chest nervously as she backed away. "Is s-something wrong, S-Sir?"

"You call this beer? I've slogged through swamp muck better than this!" The Dread Knight snarled, swatting the drink off his table and onto the floor.

Then, before Kaze could do much more than gasp, Rayden snatched a pistol from within his coat and fired.

BLAM! "Gyaugh!" The lizardman lurched backward as its sternum collapsed from the heavy bullet, slamming its head into a wooden post before the round exited its back, along with many of its favorite organs.

The barmaid blinked, staring at the large pistol in Rayden's hand. "Uh... why did you shoot him?"

"Because I was pissed off!" Rayden explained, sitting back down with his gun down on the table. "Also, it was a female, not a male."

The young woman didn't bother to dwell on how he had been able to discern the reptile's gender so quickly, and planted her hands on her hips. "Yeah, but weren't you mad at me? Or at the bar owner, maybe?"

"Martial code, lady," Rayden muttered, fishing some crackers out of the bowl in the middle of the table. "I don't kill unarmed civilians. It's just lame."

"So you'll randomly kill anyone with a weapon instead? That's stupid," the barmaid insisted.

Rayden glared at her for a moment, and then pointed his pistol to his right, at a lizardman near the entrance.

BLAM! "Sreeah!" Thud!

"So that's it? Seriously? You're just going to shoot a guard every time you get mad?"

BLAM! "Hurgh!" Thump!

"What, now you're just shooting one every time I open my mouth?"

BLAM! "Whyyyyyy..." Whunk!


Kaze sighed. "Yes, I begin to see your point." Frankly, he was amazed that the remaining lizardmen hadn't scattered and fled yet, though some of them were upending tables to use as barricades. For that matter the humans didn't look terribly concerned either, but then, Kaze guessed that few of them appreciated the guards' presence in the first place.

"But anyway, shouldn'ya be gettin' on wit' your little meetin' by now?" The grend commander asked gruffly. "If ya delay much longer, I'm gonna run outta men."

BLAM!

"Right, right. It is as you say," Kaze mumbled, standing up from his chair.


"Budapest is the capital of Hungary," the barmaid said, her arms crossed over her chest.

BLAM! A lizardman taking cover behind a table was sent rolling backwards from the shot, blood spraying all over the floor as he learned precisely how little an inch of wood did to stop a 20mm bolter slug.

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," the young woman continued.

Click! Rayden blinked as he realized that he had run out of ammo, and then reached into his coat for his other gun.

"Ahem! Shikodan, I know you're having fun, but isn't there some official business to attend to?" Kaze said, placing his hand on the larger man's shoulder.

Rayden raised an eyebrow, though much to the reptillians' relief, he put his gun away. "Official business? Like what?"

Kaze's eye twitched. "Like, say, the whole REASON we came here tonight?"

Rayden stared at him blankly.

"The TREATY?"

Rayden snapped his fingers. "OH! Right. That. Sure. What about it?"

"We sort of need to work that out. Now is as good a time as any." Kaze sat down across from Rayden, and both of them noticed that suddenly most of the tavern quieted down substantially. "So! What exactly are the areas in dispute, Lord Shikodan?"

Rayden raised an eyebrow. "What areas? How should I know? This was your idea."

A vein popped up on Kaze's head, and he briefly reached out with his telepathic powers to the man across from him. 'Shikodan, would you play along already? I barely know the geography around Taer'Kul, much less Mongolia!'

"What, and you think I know anything about this area?" Rayden snapped back. "Ranma was the one leading us around out there, not me!"

'You've been traveling for years, you should at least be able to make something up that sounds believable! I don't know what the humans around here name their countries! And would you PLEASE respond mentally instead of speaking out loud?'

The Dread Knight blinked. "How do I do that?"

Kaze twitched as he quickly glanced about the room, noting the confused expressions among the guards that weren't still hiding from Rayden's arbitrary wrath. "Never mind," he mumbled.

'Okay, Shikodan is going to be absolutely no help here,' Kaze thought to himself, rubbing his chin. 'Hmmm... remember what Master Saotome said. Plans often fail, so flexibility is key. I'll have to use the tools I have available.'

Nodding decisively, Kaze took a deep breath before his expression turned deeply serious. "The first order of business is to discuss your faction's cruel and indefensible occupation of Park Place and Boardwalk!"

Crash! Every human in the room immediately facefaulted.

Rayden blinked. "Eh? Whaddya mean?"

"Your stationing of houses... uh, troops in these two vital regions have created an oppressive stranglehold on traffic to the Baltic and Mediterranean Avenue regions! Why, there are some who would rather sit themselves in jail than risk your blockade!" Kaze said, waving one hand in the air dramatically.

Rayden raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged. "Feh. We paid for the troops, so we deserve our fees. It 'aint our problem if some people just can't handle the toll."

"On the contrary," Kaze countered, straightening. "Your elimination of viable play... traders from the area causes considerable damage to a continental economy already plagued by the considerable dangers of the wastes, to say nothing of random stock market crashes and exorbitant tax penalties. That harms everybody, not just the bankrupted individuals in question."

"Hey, part of stationing those troops there is to keep those routes safer in the first place," Rayden retorted. "Besides!" WHAM! He suddenly slammed his fist onto the table, causing a deep crack to appear in the wooden surface and causing all of the nearby guards to flinch. "Between your holding both our water and energy supplies, plus that damn dog that owns all the railroads, we have to scrape by with every advantage we've got! You won't see us running off just so you can drive us into ruin! Put something on the table, and then we'll see about making a deal!"


One of the lizardmen near the bar hissed excitedly, turning to one of the other guards. "Sssurely, we are witnesssing history unfolding before our very eyesss! The Third and the Order forging a treaty could change the entire balance of power within the wastesss!"

"Indeed! I shudder to think of what a viciousss place this 'Boardwalk' mussst be!"

A man sitting at the bar next to them gave the pair of reptillians an odd look, and then leaned in toward the bartender. "They're not serious, are they? This entire 'negotiation' is a crock!" He whispered, although the guards were far too engrossed by the 'diplomacy' to pay any attention to some civilian's mutterings.

The bartender shrugged. "Hey, whatever keeps the big one from shooting up lizards inside. Cleanup is hard enough when it's just spilled beer and vomit, you know?"

"I hear that. Another shot of whiskey, please?"

"Better take two. I think they're gonna be at this for a while."

Thousands of miles away, a golden-haired man pulled himself up the last few rungs of the ladder leading to the surface, and away from the vacant, blood-stained tunnels below.

Kais frowned as he climbed over the great metal lip of the vault that the humans had built to protect his resting place (though they obviously knew nothing of it at the time).

The entire area around the vault entrance, save a few tents, had been absolutely demolished. Craters decorated the ground, and charred skeletons were everywhere, some of them piled high within bonfires that glowed with unnatural light, and burned without any apparent source of fuel.

"Hmmm..." Kais stared at the skeletons, and his eyes narrowed. "I sense the remnants of dark powers here. Necromancy."

He shook his head. This was all wrong! Necromancy was a terrible, baneful practice that should not have developed on this world. Did this realm's inhabitants somehow develop it on their own? Or was it introduced?

'Then again, demons aren't supposed to walk these lands either, and yet I've seen proof that they do,' Kais thought, looking up into the sky.

"I... I believe I may have failed after all. This... This..." a sudden, powerful shiver crawled through his body. "This region is MUCH colder than I remember it."

Indeed, Kais was still nude. Not only that, but despite being literally ripped apart, burnt, pierced, and partially dissolved in his tussle with Doppler hours earlier, the golden-haired man bore not a single scratch or scar to remind him of the conflict.

Pressing his lips into a thin line, he held out his left hand, which possessed the only article of clothing he possessed other than his headband.

The gem set in the wrist began to glow, and the snow underneath Kais' feet began to glow as well, the hard-packed, dirty ice turning into motes of glimmering yellow light that floated upward into the palm of the gauntlet.

The light gradually collected into a unique shape hanging down from Kais' hand, and then suddenly dimmed and vanished, revealing a long-sleeved shirt of unknown material that was colored a bleak gray.

Kais quickly put on the garment, and then more snow and dirt rose from the ground as bits of glowing light to form a pair of pants.

"Yes, that's much better," Kais said to himself as he slipped the pants on, feeling the cold wind battering against the insulation of his new, relatively thin clothing. He didn't bother making shoes though, immediately scanning the surrounding area carefully.

"I must learn more about the situation before I can find a way to correct it," the strange man decided, choosing a direction seemingly at random. "But first..." He glanced irritably at the gauntlet on his left hand. "First I must collect the other pieces."

Without another word, he headed out in his chosen direction, leaving behind the burning remains of his prison.

End Chapter 15