[FFML] [Fanfic][Ranma / X-COM] The Road to Cydonia Chapter 25

[Justin Wagner]

Ah, an update! I'd hoped to have more chapters done by this
point in time, but circumstance didn't work out that way.
This chapter is half again as long as normal to compensate
a little for the wait.


As always,
Previous chapters of TRTC can be found on FFN
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2314624/1/The_Road_to_Cydonia

or on my site (which also hosts a UFOpedia and Character Info)
http://www.wagnergrp.com/JBW_Website/Fanfiction/TRTC.htm


-----

For six years, mankind has waged a Secret War against an enemy from
Beyond the Stars. The UNETCO timetable moves ever forward, but a new
complication has arisen as the alien forces in the Far East surge out in
unexpected numbers and with surprising fury. Though the Sirius
Conspiracy has been crushed, Cologne and the other corrupted martial
artists are among the aliens, refining the development of alien hybrids.
With Mousse and Shampoo in America with Perfume, India Squad heads off
for a mission without him - participating in a trap of Ranma's design.

-----

The Road to Cydonia

Chapter XXV
Doppelganger

-----

Written by:
Capn Chryssalid
jbraveboy (AT) gmail (DOT) com

-----

Somewhere in China

"Hey. You guys think Ukyou would go out with me?"

Ryouga looked up from the partly dismantled weapon in his hands to stare
at his team mate. "Excuse me. What was that?"

"Ukyou," Ryu said again. He had a perfectly straight face, too, which
meant he hadn't been kidding. He had already finished cleaning the
ejection chamber of his carbine style plasma rifle, but he hadn't
reattached the Aimdot or optical sight yet. XCOM-make laser and plasma
weapons were customizable to a significant degree, and most soldiers
preferred to reuse the same weapon over and over. As martial artists as
well as soldiers, it fell to them to incorporate the weapons into their
personal styles. It was an experimental and iterative process.

"Well?" Ryu asked again. "Do you think she'd go out with me?"

"Why would you even want to ask?" Ryouga asked right back.

"Come on..." Ryu replied, as if the phrase was, in and of itself, enough
of an answer.

"Ahhh, the fair Ukyou," Kuno mused from where he practiced nearby,
trying to adjust to the weight of his own plasma carbine as he stepped
into a sword draw. Kuno's style was the most rigid of all his peers' so
it took a fair amount of practice for him to adjust to the use of new
weapons and other gear. It also hurt that he wasn't naturally
ambidextrous like most of the other Nerima crew. Not willing to accept a
small handicap like that, he had started work on a sword drawing
technique that incorporated letting go of the weapon and moving it out
of the way without losing speed or momentum.

"Yes, I did ask the maiden out once, myself..." The swordsman directed a
haughty grin towards his comrades. "That cur, Saotome, somehow convinced
her to wear a proper school uniform and I found myself smitten, then and
there. A vision of loveliness... fragile, but fierce! ... so fierce..."

"She hit you with her spatula, didn't she?" Ryouga asked; a droll
expression on his face.

Kuno's perfect teeth sparkled. "Twas quite a blow."

Ryu shook his head sadly. "Did you actually ask her out or did you just
latch onto her like you do with Akane?"

The kendoist just chuckled. "Women appreciate gestures of affection, my
friend. Consider that some free advice."

"Yeah. I'll remember that..." Ryu turned back to India Squad's
Lieutenant. "You know what I mean, though. Ukyou's pretty... pretty hot,
isn't she? And she's a martial artist, just like us, and she's..." He
searched for a word, obviously a little unsure how to talk about this
sort of thing. "Spirited, I guess. I've never met any other girls like
her."

Ryouga lolled his head to the side and sighed. "I guess I can see what
you mean. I thought she was pretty cute, too, when I found out she was a
girl."

"You ripped off her shirt, did you not?" Kuno asked between practice
swings.

"NO!" Ryouga barked, blushing fiercely. "Who told you that?!"

"Twas the rumor I heard," Kuno replied with a casual shrug.

"Yeah, well..." He scowled, trying to force away his embarrassed blush.
"Just so we're clear: RANMA popped her top. And then the bastard kicked
me into a wall."

"Why would Ranma...?" Ryu started to ask, but then he remembered what
his squad leader had said in the past, particularly about how he'd
thought she was a guy at first, and figured it out. "You were about to
cave her head in, weren't you?"

"Huh!" Ryouga huffed defiantly. But he didn't dispute it.

"You guys have known her for two years, pretty much," Ryu reminded them.
"And she doesn't seem to be chasing after Saotome anymore...."

"I don't know about that," Ryouga interrupted. He had finished cleaning
his own plasma carbine, including the attached underslung grenade
launcher, and now took his time adjusting the optics arranged on the
flattop rail.

"You should remember that Ukyou trained for most of her life to fight
Ranma. She trained to get her revenge even longer than I did, thinking
of him as an enemy..." Ryouga looked down the length of the rifle, and
to his annoyance, he found it hard to imagine Ranma as a target to aim
for. He just didn't hate him enough anymore.

Maybe he never had.

"But when the time came, she didn't hate him," he said with a snort.
"She still loved him. Maybe it was a stupid childhood crush; maybe it
was true love. Who knows? But I doubt she's really given up. More
likely, she's just putting things on hold for a while."

Ryu frowned. "But he's going to marry Akane."

Ryouga grunted, and lowered his rifle to slightly adjust the scope.
"Maybe."

"Nonsense!" Kuno suddenly declared, but instead of stepping forward and
thrusting his sword upwards in dramatic fashion he simply turned and
spoke over his shoulder. "Do not mistake familiarity for affection!"

The two other martial artists stared at him in surprise for a few
seconds.

"Well!" Ryu eventually said, and with a smile. "That's actually pretty
deep, Kuno."

"Besides," Kuno then added with a grin. "Unlike a man, a woman is
permitted but one true love by the virtue of heaven. I believe we have
all seen how both Akane Tendo and the pigtailed girl yearn tearfully for
my affections!"

While the kendoist went back to practicing, laughing confidently at his
chances of hooking up with two women (one of which was actually a
heterosexual guy), Ryu and Ryouga exchanged glances that implied, 'why
even try and correct him?'

"Putting aside where you two would go on a date..." Ryouga returned to
the topic, though it seemed to annoy him slightly. "Why even worry about
it? I thought you wanted to take care of the Dojo thing first."

"That's the beauty of it," Ryu replied with a confident grin of his own.
From the Yamasenken master, however, the grin seemed entirely justified.
"Signing up for this job was probably the best thing to ever happen to
me! I've already got some money saved up, and with the money I'm making
now, I'll be able to make a down payment on a nice new piece of land.
Actually building the dojo won't be a problem. I'll have one ready in
just a few months. I've got the Yamasenken itself back thanks to you,
and soon I'll have a formalized Kumon version of it distinct from the
Saotome style, thanks to all the practice and training I've had with you
guys."

Ryu went on. "But, best of all, I realized that once this war is over
with, we'll be heroes. Think about it: we'll be famous! Students will
flock from all over the world to try and learn our martial arts - you've
said you don't plan on teaching anyone your family style, right? Ukyou
probably feels the same, and I know Mousse doesn't plan on ever taking
on anyone more than a single apprentice. That means the only two
teaching schools will be the Saotome and Kumon Styles."

"You don't sound worried about competing with the Saotomes..." Ryouga
noted.

Ryu chuckled and fell back against the grass. "Not at all! Mister
Saotome is too lazy to teach classes, and I doubt Ranma will want to put
much effort into it either. Ranma may be a great martial artist... but
have you ever heard him actually talk about teaching? Does the Saotome
style seem like it's designed for ease of teaching?"

"But I suppose you'd teach the Demon God Assault Bomb to anyone, is that
it?" Ryouga asked, his voice betraying a hint of dismay.

"Absolutely!" Ryu replied with another happy, if somewhat sinister,
laugh. "Anyone strong enough to learn it, and anyone willing to pay. Do
you really think its fair, keeping your best techniques in your family?"

Ryouga inclined his head. "I see what you mean. Not that I agree with
it."

The Yamasenken master nodded his head, respecting that his squad leader
didn't agree. It was a matter of how one saw martial arts. To Ryouga, to
most of the Nerima crew, martial arts were a strictly family affair. The
"true" art was only taught to a chosen successor, and that successor was
usually an immediate relative. Ryu had a more pragmatic, more populist,
view of martial arts: anyone with drive and determination should have
the opportunity to become a powerful martial artist. He didn't want the
Kumon Style to be an obscure and esoteric fighting art. He wanted it to
be recognized by the world!

"All I'll need after that," he explained, smile fading a bit. "Is a
family. I think the Kuonji style compliments my own plans for the Kumon
dojo. I was pretty impressed by how her father could use his restaurant
itself as a weapon..."

Ryouga smiled at the look on Ryu's face - so that was it.

It was hardly a surprise: most of the martial artists he knew weren't
really very romantic creatures. Most were either desperate or
calculating. From the moment he met the man, Ryouga had pegged Ryu as
one of the latter. He knew the breed fairly well, since he normally
ended up fighting against them. He'd typically thought of Ranma as one
of them, too, but he'd grown less sure of that assessment over the last
year.

"Ukyou isn't as powerful as her father," Ryouga observed, testing his
team mate a little to see what his response would be, and where his
interests actually lay.

"That's true..." Ryu admitted with a little sadness, but then quickly
perked up. "But she'll get stronger. I never actually thought a girl
could get as strong as she is already. I mean, I never ran into many
really good martial artists who were also women. Have you?"

Ryouga thought back to a few of them: Kodachi was pretty good, though
mostly only in her one narrow field of expertise; Asuza was kind of
formidable, but mostly she was just a nuisance; Akane was actually
somewhat mediocre, even now; Shampoo was very good, but again not really
great; he'd heard about a girl called Mariko who was really strong, but
he hadn't been in Nerima for that particular adventure.

"Hey, Kuno!" he called over to the practicing swordsman. "You remember a
girl named Mariko? Was she strong?"

"Mariko? Mariko..." Kuno paused, thinking back to that time, and to the
one girl who'd actually loved him.

"Cheerleader?" Ryouga reminded him. He'd heard some of the story from
Ranma and Nabiki before. "You don't remember, do you?"

After a few seconds of deep thought Kuno shrugged. "Nope!"

Ryouga and Ryu hung their heads in defeat. Kuno would have a mental
block when it came to remembering the one girl he'd ever really had a
chance with!

"I see your point," Ryouga eventually conceded. "Ukyou has been
improving a lot lately."

"Exactly!" Ryu nodded emphatically. The topic was obviously one he was
glad to finally be able to talk to a peer about. "She's the only girl I
know who could actually help teach the higher tier Yamasenken
techniques. She'd be the perfect addition to the new Kumon Dojo! Though
I guess she'd want it to be both a Dojo and a Restaurant... Which is
actually an interesting idea. We could charge students for lessons AND
food! This is a good plan..."

"In that case," the lost one speculated, mostly without thinking. "Why
not just skip the middle man and ask her father for her hand in... oh
no..."

"That's a GREAT idea!" Ryu snapped his fingers and cheerfully started
contemplating how he'd talk Ukyou's father into going along with the
'master plan.'

"I don't think that's actually very wise..." Ryouga cautioned, hoping
against hope to head off another Nerima-esque mess. "Maybe you should
convince Ukyou first, and then her father? Or better yet: don't do
anything at all?"

"Nonsense! It's a great idea! Ukyou's a martial artist! She'll
understand!" Ryu sounded convinced. Ryouga didn't. At all.

"Actually, she'll probably get angry and try and turn you into
okonomiyaki..."

It was at that moment that Ryouga's nearby helmet began to beep. Ryu and
Kuno both stopped immediately and waited as their squad leader put the
helmet on his head, and answered the comm.. Ryouga's head nodded a few
times, and he slipped the helmet back off as he stood up.

"Suit up and get ready," he ordered, tone of voice professional and
serious. "Ryu. When you're done, get Mint and Lime. Kuno. Double check
the perimeter. I want everything in place in ten minutes."

"Yes, sir!" both martial artists chorused, and immediately went to it.

Ryouga took a moment to look up at the darkening sky. The moon glowed
brightly in the sky, and the stars were starting to come out. They'd
been told to expect to fight around this time of day, but he'd still
hoped the aliens would get overconfident and attack during the daytime.
It looked like they wouldn't be so lucky. A terror mission at nighttime
was about the worst of circumstances. At least they wouldn't be at a
complete disadvantage...

'Thank God for night vision,' he thought, echoing the sentiments of
countless other XCOM soldiers over the last few years. High overhead, a
star twinkled.

It was time to get back to work.

-----

The alien battleship approached from the northeast using the cover of
darkness to mask its approach. Contrary to popular perception, alien
UFO's did not naturally glow as they maneuvered. A UFO "running silent"
was almost invisible to the naked eye by virtue of its profile and
speed, particularly at night, and radar was also rather unreliable at
tracking the alien craft. The conception of a UFO "glow" was actually
dependant on the distance between the UFO and the observer. At a certain
distance, and under the right conditions, the atmospheric distortion due
to the anti-gravity drive created an optical illusion similar to an
unearthly light suspended in the air.

In most cases of "rapid approach" the UFO is basically invisible up to
and until the last ten or twelve seconds before it reached its
destination. Even the largest alien ships could stop literally on a
dime, but when on approach to a sensitive target that could be
vulnerable to overpressure wave damage, like a house, the craft began
its rapid deceleration a kilometer and a half beforehand. This sent a
series of low intensity overpressure waves off into the atmosphere and
away from the target on the ground. Once hovering safely above the
target, the UFO would quickly land, typically taking between seven and
eleven seconds, depending on terrain. This limited the exposure time of
the craft and gave any victims on the ground less time to react or flee.

Terror Missions were much the same, even though in that one case, the
aliens were committed to destruction rather than discreteness. The alien
battleship approaching the supposed UNETCO "sanctuary community" made a
textbook approach, and a textbook landing in the most obvious and
advantageous area. It even oriented itself in the expected direction. Of
course, normally, the aliens would know exactly who was below, and even
know what they were thinking, due to ship mounted mind probes. This time
their probes were being jammed and filled with static. It would have
made them more cautious, but they firmly believed their HUMINT was
accurate, and that actual defenses on the ground were basically non
existent.

The first alien to disembark was a Sectopod, followed by a squad of
Muton terrorists. Encountering no resistance, they secured the area
below and around the three story high UFO. It had one main lift that ran
up the center of the ship, and that one lift (including a large airlock
pod on the bottom level) was the only way in and out of the UFO. More
aliens quickly poured out of the double sized airlock doors. They began
to spread out, looking for victims... and their human-disguised
comrades.

Ryouga's eyes narrowed behind his helmet's faceplate, watching the
aliens in viridian tinted night vision. Crouched nearby, Ryu and Kuno
waited with Mint and Lime. The lost one had his right hand on the
ground, fingertips gently brushing up and down against the soft earth,
almost as if he were typing or playing an invisible piano. He waited -
and waited - until a second armored terror unit exited the UFO. It was
another Sectopod.

'That's two. Intel expected two armored terrorists and four
bioweapons...' He remembered, and his middle finger twitched. A part of
him wanted to wait, see if another armored unit would emerge, but the
aliens were starting to spread out too much. He couldn't risk holding
back much longer.

It was time.

"Let's see you dance..." he whispered, eyes widening as his attentions
turned to the aliens on the perimeter of the field. One the green
skinned mutons took a step onto an inconspicuous patch of grass. He
disappeared in an eruption of orange flame. The blast wave knocked
another Muton back and onto the ground he'd just walked over. He, too,
disappeared amid a cloud of fire and ash.

At the same time, one of the Sectopods took a step back and to the side,
when an even larger explosion erupted beneath it. This explosion was not
omnidirectional like the previous two. Using the Misznay-Schardin
effect, the blast was sufficient to fire a steel plate upwards with
enough force to penetrate 76 millimeters of battle tank grade armor. It
would kill or cripple a Muton, too, but against a Sectopod the effect
was less dramatic. It crumpled and damaged some of the armor around the
bipedal robot's heavily armored left foot, but more importantly, it
overstressed and broke the articulation joint that attached the foot and
leg to the main body. The Sectopod automatically locked the limb in
place to keep from falling, but it was effectively crippled and
stationary.

Ryouga's pink finger twitched against the ground, and he directed
another M-21 anti-tank mine towards the second Sectopod. Already the
aliens were heaving towards cover, and two had tossed plasma grenades
towards open spaces that were obvious targets for land mines. Ryouga's
index finger brushed against the ground and a second later a dozen
bounding mines emerged and leapt into the air. A concert of explosions
filled the air with murderous shrapnel - enough to shred a platoon of
men in an instant. Two explosions then engulfed the staggering second
Sectopod, blowing out another one of its legs.

The two explosions from the alien grenades, quite effective at clearing
normal human landmines, did nothing to stem the onslaught. Ryouga's
fingers worked feverishly, as he directed the deeply buried mines up and
under their targets. He quickly expended his heaviest explosives
crippling the Sectopods, and then he directed the rest of the AT mines
to picking off the Mutons. Normal anti-personnel mines would have been
largely ineffective against the night-impenetrable hide of a Muton, but
an anti-tank mine was generally more than sufficient to blow off a leg,
send nearby Mutons flying, or tear an armored torso in half.

The barrage ended after eight horrific seconds.

"Bravo-1, this is India 1. Ordinance expended," Ryouga said, speaking
over the TeamComm. The order to engage came immediately afterwards.
UNETCO snipers opened fire, raining burning plasma death down on the
stunned and crippled aliens. One of the Sectopods barely got off a shot
before four plasma blasts melted the front half of it into dribbling
slag. The other was less fortunate. It struggled to turn to its side, to
try and fire back, but it never made it in time. The rugged alien terror
unit absorbed several bright flashes of plasma before crumpling into a
broken heap.

Then the martial artists were among them. For his part, Ryouga could run
at a sustained speed of over ninety kilometers per hour. Mint was a lot
faster. He appeared in a literal flash ahead of his comrades, blade
already dug deeply into the throat of one of the still standing Mutons.
Even a master of the blade, like Mint or Kuno, couldn't really risk not
attacking a vulnerable area. The thickest sections of Muton organic
armor could stand up to an anti-tank missile. Luckily, XCOM scientists
had identified weak spots were the armor was relatively thin, and not
one man present had not done their homework the night before.

Ryouga kicked one of the fallen Mutons nearest to him up and against the
side of one of the battleship's five landing pods. Pressing his forearm
against the creature's neck, he pressed down and twisted, crushing its
neck, and breaking its jaw and spine. It felt like deforming a four inch
thick rod of steel, but it was well within his physical abilities. They
didn't have time to fool around outside, however. Stepping on another of
the aliens and burying it face-first into the ground he quickly reached
out to activate the battleship airlock doors.

"Find cover!" he yelled, and the four martial artists under his command
reacted instantly, hugging the walls of the central pod that contained
the airlock. Sure enough, just as expected, the moment the doors opened
something small and fast wizzed out past them. A half second later, an
identical 'golden BB' shot past, stopped in mid air, and buried itself
into the ground. The Blaster Bomb explosion dwarfed anything that had
come before from the man made anti-tank mines. Anyone not braced against
something immobile would have been tossed like a leaf in a storm by the
overpressure wave. Anyone not armored or protected would have been
immolated by heat and impaled by debris. A second explosion, far off,
could barely be heard amid the dying and howling winds.

"Go! Go! Go!" Ryouga barked, holding the airlock doors open. Mint
vanished in a flash of inhuman speed, followed by Ryu. The massive Musk
warrior Lime hustled past in third; exchanging the massive (and normally
vehicle-mounted) cannon he'd used before with a delicate looking plasma
carbine. Kuno followed fourth, ready to draw his blade against any foe
that came too close. Ryouga wanted to follow them... to lead them... But
he knew his limitations, and so did Command. Alien battleship interiors
were more mazelike than most other alien ships.

He couldn't risk getting lost, and besides: someone had to watch the
door.

Altogether, though, things were going very well. He would have to
congratulate Ranma on coming up with a plan that didn't completely suck
for once. The first time he had tried something like this it had been a
total fiasco. Fooling Happosai using some mystic Amazon incense and a
bunch of high school actors (including himself, though he didn't
remember the P-chan parts) had completely backfired, though things
always tended to backfire when one was dealing with that ancient lecher.

This time, Ranma had wisely left the execution of the illusion to
someone much more experienced. For almost five days now, Herb had
maintained the illusion that the six Jyusenkyou-cursed Sectoids had been
in a place called "Sanctuary Community 004." The Dragon Prince already
knew about the strength and weaknesses of the hypnotic incense, and he
had crafted the illusion "perfectly, of course." Anyone within the area
of effect would see what he wanted them to see, and with the aliens
exposed to the incense, their now-human perceptions would be skewed to
accept it as reality. Day and night the Prince of the Musk Dynasty had
done this, without rest, without food, and without water. Not once had
the illusion slipped, though the Prince's choice in menu fare had become
something of a running joke.

The effort had exhausted him, however, which meant he wouldn't be able
to participate in taking the battleship. Still, that wasn't too bad. The
biggest remaining threat was the battleship's Ethereal Commander. But
Ryu had trained to develop much improved psionic defenses since his
first run in with an Ethereal, and Mint was always eager to speed blitz
an opponent. As for Lime and Kuno, both of them were resilient, if less
than skilled, in psionic combat. Their chances were good now that the
two Sectopods (basically immune to martial arts attacks) and most of the
ship's Mutons had been taken out of action.

Ryouga reloaded his plasma pistol after dispatching one of said Mutons.
The green skinned giants were too tough to even use laser weapons to
finish them off. Valuable plasma had to be spent to reliably finish the
job the anti-tank mines had begun. Two shots to the head from a couple
meters away were generally sufficient to fry away most of the creature's
brains and guarantee a kill. Even then, much of the aliens' armored skin
and skeleton survived, mute testament to their constitution. It was just
too bad for them that an intact skeleton didn't do much good when it
went with a poached brain, scrambled in-the-skull.

He took aim and grimly fired; planting another two burning plasma bolts
into one of the crippled half dead Mutons. Ryouga didn't feel
particularly sorry for them; they had come here to kill women and
children, after all. They were just mass produced soldiers, castrated
and engineered to serve the Ethereals. Captured Mutons rarely lived more
than a few days in captivity, anyway, cut off as they were from their
psionic masters. Besides, they had orders to kill all invading aliens
and secure the battleship as quickly as possible. The only exception was
the Ethereal Commander, as XCOM was always eager to pick the brains of
the alien leadership. Literally.

Interrupting that thought, a ping on his HUD motion sensor alerted India
Squad's Lieutenant to an incoming visitor in the airlock - roughly man
sized and not moving particularly quickly. It was probably a scout.
Since he already had a potent enough weapon in-hand, Ryouga turned to
face the UFO's access portal. As it opened, he could see inside, and his
target wasn't green; wasn't a Muton. He saw glittering orange.

"Ethera--!"

The movement was fast, even for his martial arts senses, knocking aside
his plasma pistol before it could discharge. He hadn't expected anything
other than a telekinetic strike or telepathic assault, but the attack
had felt distinctly like a physical blow. Acting on instinct to
compensate for his deflected aim, Ryouga struck with his elbow, but the
orange hued form slipped outside the range of the strike. Extending the
distance, he slid into an axe kick, and fired as his opponent slipped,
like a ghost, around the attack.

'This guy... he's pretty good!' he couldn't help but think, as the
titian blur slipped around his attacks, and easily avoided the trio of
shots from his plasma pistol. 'It pinpointed the optimal distance
between my normal reach and the effective minimum range of my weapon! Is
it reading my mind... or...?'

Then the ghost like figure slipped and spun around, trying to find the
blind spot behind his back. It would've succeeded, too, if he hadn't
side stepped and turned, doing the exact same thing. As it was, the two
ended up back to back.

INTERESTING

I WASN'T EXPECTING YOU TO BE HERE

The telepathic projections, in lieu of words, did remind him of an
Ethereal. But there was something to them, beyond how uncharacteristic
they were, that seemed out of place. The thoughts weren't nearly as
solid or as forceful, for lack of a better term. When an Ethereal
'thought at you,' it was like being hit by a rock; this was more like a
wet sponge.

'What the Hell are you?' he thought back, projecting the thoughts like
he'd been trained to at the Psi Lab. 'You sure aren't an Ethereal.'

A strange wave of all-too-human amusement tickled the edges of his mind.

NO

I GUESS I'M NOT

-----

'Sectoid? ... How convenient!'

Ryu slammed one of the relatively frail aliens into one of the UFO walls
and planted a plasma round into its chest for good measure. His boot had
made quite an impression on the creature's flesh, but the plasma round
he fired did far more. It burned a hole clean through the Sectoid's body
before the rest of its superheated fluids erupted, tearing most of the
rest of it apart.

He cautioned himself against feeling cocky when it came to the seemingly
weak aliens. It was true that, compared to Ethereals and Mutons,
Sectoids could be thought of as small fry... but if one got in a good
shot, or pulled out a grenade, or if a Leader pinned you with a psi-
attack... well, that was all it would take. Normally, he wouldn't be as
aggressive as he was, given the situation, but they had to secure the
UFO quickly. This was part of their revenge for the Amazon village; this
was the same alien battleship that had escaped before; it wouldn't be
allowed to do so again!

He also took the opportunity to observe his Musk partner, Mint.

The Saotome style specialized in appropriating (or getting "inspiration"
from, or technically stealing from) other martial artists and their
schools. The Kumon style Yamasenken that he was building had a similar
philosophy, though by design it tended to be more rigid than the
original. In particular, he was interested in Mint's incredible speed.
Ryouga had explained that the Musk got their uncanny powers from their
mothers several generations removed, all of whom were beasts cursed by
the same Jyusenkyou spring that turned Ranma into a girl. Mint was part
wolf, if the story was to be believed. Regardless, there had to be an
underlying mechanic behind his speed, and if the mechanic could be
understood, then a derivative technique could be developed.

"Circling around!" Mint announced. His voice reminded Ryu of Konatsu's
soprano tone, though a bit more boyish due to his younger age. Mint took
two steps and vanished from sight. The kid was fast. No doubt about it.
It was impossible to read his muscle tension under the personal armor,
but Ryu did detect a non-random ki surge around the kid's feet that rose
in pitch and then warbled, like a long note hit by the string of a
guitar.

A year ago, he'd only have had a vague notion of it, but training with
high-elite tier martial artists, learning their tricks, and practicing
in the Psi-Lab and Psi-Gym had heightened his ki awareness and
understanding significantly. The training there had also broadened his
knowledge from a purely technical standpoint. UNETCO research into
telekinetic stoichiometry had led to a system of equations used for
measurement. In these, they used a unit of measurement represented by a
lower case form of the Greek Zeta.

Called a "tik" in parlance (short for Tele-Kinetic or TK), it was
originally defined as an approximate unit of force required to move a
kilogram weight against the force of gravity at sea level. In this
application, it was basically equivalent to one "g," or the force of
gravity in meters per second squared. However, unlike, say, a Newton of
force, a tik of telekinetic energy could also be expressed as and
directly converted into equivalent heat force per second, as well as
many other things. In other words, a tik was an intermediate variable
capable of intrinsically bridging fundamental principles in physics,
chemistry and biology. There was apparently still some debate as to
whether a tik was an abstract particle or not, since it was impossible
to apply telekinetics in a way that isn't measurable in mundane means.

That theoretical stuff Ryu left to the eggheads and labrats.

What mattered was that he could perceive that intermediate force being
applied in different ways. Every martial artist of his caliber could see
or taste or smell or hear ki being used, it was always different, but
through training, Ryu had learned to perceive not just the use of the
force, but also its intensity... its magnitude. Going by what he heard,
by its pitch and tone, he could surmise that Mint was first using his ki
as a purely accelerative force, bypassing his muscles almost entirely
and propelling him into a burst of high speed. But that was only half of
the trick: what gave him his incredible speed was that he 'ran' along a
corridor of ki, literally riding it from one location to another. It was
a cross between controlled flight, and sticking explosives under your
feet.

Of course, it sounded simple, but actually using your ki in that fashion
had to be incredibly difficult. One wrong mistake and you'd tear your
feet apart, completely lose control of your momentum, or maim yourself
internally. There was a good reason why it was best to self-modify your
body instinctively, using the subconscious, rather than the conscious.
Mint's speed technique was an order of difficulty, or two, harder than
even something like akichi, the so called 'vacant land' technique. Ryu
used a virtually identical family variant of that technique, and all it
did was reduce the friction between yourself and the ground, allowing
you to "skate" in one direction at high speed. Mint's technique wasn't
just faster, but more versatile as well.

He'd have to be careful when he tried to adapt it into the Kumon Style.
He'd never tried conscious body-modification himself, but all the
ancient masters and weathered scrolls warned against it. Hopefully, he
wouldn't have to do anything brutal to get that far. He wasn't keen on
mauling himself like a certain Special Lieutenant...

Those thoughts, and more, came and went in an instant.

Ryu silently chastised himself for being distracted, even for a few
moments. It was hard to help, though. He was just unusually excited
about the progress he was making in refining and improving the
Yamasenken, and yes, he was thinking a little about Ukyou, too. He had
been for a while, but he'd taken a real liking to her during the
training, and after she got into a drinking contest with him that
night... The girl really could hold her liquor!

'Come on, Ryu! Focus! Remember your mental discipline!' He nodded
imperceptibly, concentrating back on the task at hand. 'You've never
worried much about girls before, and now isn't the time.'

"Tangos!" Mint announced over Team Comm, though he sounded more amused
than worried. "Ooooh, and they're angry!"

"Need help?" Ryu offered. He could easily double back.

"Naw," Mint said with a little chuckle. "I'm good, I'm good!"

'Suit yourself, kid.'

There was nothing nearby on motion sensors; nothing on PAWS; nothing
unusual on chatter besides Mint's little fight... of course, just
because nothing nearby was moving didn't mean there wasn't an alien
lying in wait. That was the advantage they had on defense. Palming open
the door ahead of him, he quickly swept over the room. It was a narrow
space, maybe nine meters wide and forty meters long. This was the second
floor of the battleship, in the southwestern quarter. There was another
door ahead that led to some sort of technical engine room or the like,
but training had informed him to be careful sweeping through it.

He palmed open the next door. Inside were several staggered rows of
alien devices, rising from the floor to the ceiling. They looked sort of
like missile tubes, or what Ryu assumed missile tubes would look like,
but they were a mixture of dark purples and reds, with protrusions
sticking out and leading into the floor or the ceiling. It was pitch
black inside, with no lights or glow to measure distance or orientation
by.

There was another antechamber further south, and he knew to check that
first before he wandered around the engine room... or whatever it was.
Sweeping his aim down one row of the strange devices, and then another,
he saw the door. Standing to the side, he palmed it open. There was no
movement on his sensors, so he quickly breached.

The room seemed empty.

That was until he felt a telekinetic blast strike him in the face,
nearly plucking the eyes out of his skull. Ryu cursed, yelled "Tango!"
but didn't panic. Instinct cried to shield his face with his hands and
his arms, but that would have been a useless gesture, and probably just
what the alien wanted. Instead he took a step back, out of the room, and
swept his arms. He'd meant to unleash a few Kijin Raishu Tekidans (Demon
God Assault Grenades), but with his concentration shot by nearly being
blinded, the vacuum blades merged into a single, big ragged tear that
hovered in midair.

It was a sloppy mistake to make, no matter the circumstances, but then a
ray of luck shone through the clouds. The vacuum tear imploded as the ki
he'd used to construct it became used up, and as it sucked in everything
nearby, it also pulled a rather startled alien down from where it had
been hiding, propped up against the ceiling. Ryu saw a blur of orange
robes, and pushed yet more mental energy into his colorless battle aura.
It flared bright blue just as he opened fire into the room with his
plasma carbine as the Ethereal launched another telekinetic attack even
as it propelled itself back into the air and out of the way.

Ryu ignored the pressure in his skull even as he recognized the attack.
It was a common one he'd been warned about, and one of the favorites of
the alien Ethereals. The "pull your eyes out" move was new, but the "pop
blood vessels in your body" one wasn't. XCOM had been encountering that
friendly little trick for a few years now. With the attack nullified,
however, he sneered and popped the top on a grenade before tossing it
into the antechamber.

It was a plasma grenade. Probably one scavenged from a dead alien a few
years back. At this close range, it would definitely kill even an
Ethereal, a task most ordinary grenades weren't quite up to. The only
thing the alien could do was get out or try and TK the grenade back the
way it came. The latter was almost suicidal, since alien grenades had a
telekinetic-sensitive trigger. TK-ing an alien grenade would make it
explode almost instantly. Ryu trained his rifle on the doorway, and sure
enough, the Ethereal swooped out, riding a cresting wave of telekinetic
force.

He let loose with a trio of blasts, even as the buffeting energy
threatened to knock him off his feet. As it was, his aim suffered - the
first shot went wide. The second was on track, but as the last moment
its trajectory altered by a few degrees, hitting the Ethereal in the
right arm instead of the chest. The limb vanished in a spray of plasma
and atrophied husk-like flesh. The third shot wasn't quite spot on, but
it wasn't deflected either, and it hit the alien on the side. It would
have been a mortal wound to any normal humanoid, but the Ethereal simply
floated back and behind one of the strange devices in the engine room.

'Two mortal wounds...' Ryu thought, with a tinge of anger. 'Mortal, that
is, if their bodies weren't basically dead already.'

Ethereals wouldn't loose blood from a ragged burning wound. They
wouldn't go into shock and loose consciousness. Unless you hit the heart
or the brain, they'd still be dangerous, if not fully active. This alien
still had its rifle, too. But it had to be hurting. Even a floating
corpse couldn't just brush off losing an arm and half of its guts.

Ryu used his jaw to active his Team Comm. "India-2, confirmed hostile.
Ethereal. Leader class."

"Romeo-2," Mint replied after a moment's delay. "I hear ya. Gimme a few
seconds."

Ryu calmed himself, took a step back to access the situation, and
grimaced as another telekinetic barrage slammed into him. This one was
different from before, focused, shaped even, and it drilled through his
battle aura. He'd guessed before when he'd said the alien was a Leader
class Ethereal, but now he was sure. This was an impressive level of
psionics, even aside from the slight plasma bolt deflection it had done
before.

He briefly considered using a Kijin Dai Ran Bu, but they'd been asked to
avoid damaging the inside of the battleship, and the Demon God Big Mad
Dance was pretty indiscriminate in its path of destruction. He reminded
himself that he wasn't alone. He wasn't fighting alone; he was part of a
team, with objectives and expectations. It didn't matter who killed this
alien. He didn't have to take stupid, unnecessary risks.

Focusing on his telekinetic defenses, he layered a second battle aura
under the first, intercepting the alien's attack. It was similar to a
mental lance at first, but then it split, branching out in different
directions. Ryu had trained hard to be proficient in using his battle
aura as a psionic barrier, but he was far from a master. He relied
mostly on brute strength to get the job done. This alien was good. It
was better than him.

'But you're hurt... not at a hundred percent...' he thought, viciously.
'And I bet I've got more stamina than you do right now. If I were you,
and I realized this, then...'

Ryu ducked behind one of the engine room devices a second before a
plasma blast splashed into the wall behind where he had just been
standing. As always, his sakkijutsu had paid off, warning him of some
approaching threat. Combining that danger sense with the intuition
developed from battle, it had been easy to guess at just what the alien
planned to do, and from where. Of course it would try and pin him down
and shoot him. Ryu flattened his body, took aim down the second row of
alien devices, and fired a quick snap shot.

An alien hiss filled Ryu's mind, as the Ethereal mouthlessly shrieked a
death cry.

"Heh!" The Yamasenken master smirked as he took a few steps closer,
confirming the kill. "Tango down."

"Awww. I missed him?" Mint asked, appearing almost out of thin air a few
seconds later. The Musk warrior took a moment to look down at the fallen
Ethereal. It was mostly crumpled up inside its blood stained titian
robes. There really wasn't much to see.

"Looks like we're done here," Ryu said, heading back towards the central
lift. "Time to head upstairs and check out the Penthouse."

-----

The alien drifted towards the ground, seemingly none the worse for wear
after protracted hand to hand combat with a man who could literally bat
a normal human's head off his shoulders. Ryouga stepped out of the
crater he'd had with his right foot, snarling at his lack of progress.
Very, very, few individuals could go toe to toe with him for more than a
minute. So far, the alien had done little more than dodge and soak up
the occasional testing blow. It was frustrating, but it had given him
some measure of how this strange new alien fought.

Plus, he still had his plasma pistol, and one or two good shots with
that would almost certainly end the fight. This Ethereal was a strange
one, though; there could be no doubt about it. It seemed certain that it
had had martial arts knowledge uploaded into its mind, and that the
information had made it unstable, just like those Mutons and Floaters
UNETCO had encountered a while back.

THIS PLACE ... THIS TRAP

I WONDER

AHH NOW I SEE

The rapid sequence of thought projections cut off abruptly.

"It was Herb, wasn't it?" the alien suddenly asked, speaking in perfect
Japanese. "It must've been. Can't imagine anyone else with this level of
skill... and I can still smell the incense. Was it your idea or
Ranma's?"

Ryouga stood there, stunned, for all of a second and a half.

An Ethereal that spoke?

It was unheard of.

"Wait. Who am I kidding? Of course it was Ranma's idea! Well, he had to
have a good one sooner or later..."

The alien took a moment to look to the side, where a few Spartan
buildings stood. The Sanctuary Community was just a converted military
depot with a few fake buildings thrown in. It was the foundation for the
Illusion Technique Herb had used on the captured aliens, but to anyone
not under the spell, it was drab, abandoned, and all-together un-
community-like.

"I see you haven't figured it out yet," the Ethereal said, sounding one
part amused and two parts disgusted. Reaching up with a light skinned
hand marred by a dozen jutting curves of bone, it pulled down the
protective wrap covering its face before drawing back its hood. What it
revealed was not the pale or purpling flesh of an Ethereal, drawn tight
over an alien skull. The face was recognizable, though not altogether
human.

"Well, we always were a sucker for disguises!" The alien noted with a
chuckle, clearly amused by the shock in Ryouga's aura. The creature had
his face: his jaw, his nose, his brow. Its upper lip was curled back,
however, displaying a mouth full of sharpened shark's teeth. Creeping
under its skin, black veins pulsed darkly, and in place of eyes, it had
pale pupil-less orbs. Its head was either hairless or shorn with monk-
like precision.

"What the fuck are you?" Ryouga spat, taking an involuntary step back.
"Some kind of... of clone?!"

"Eh?" the alien/human gnarred, voice a mangled reflection of his own
gruff tone. "A clone? Don't insult me!"

What passed for its smile - just a curve at the corner of the mouth -
slowly sank into a frown as it pointed a muscular finger. "Don't think
I'm just some copy of you, either. I'm the reason the Mind... the
aliens... let you go. They figured: he'll lead us to the others. He's
useless anyway, since we can just make a new one that's already half
alien. I guess they were impatient."

"So you're a Trenchard?" the lost one surmised, "An alien grown
Trenchard."

The other Ryouga opened his mouth and made an inarticulate, inhuman
sound that sent a chill up the original's spine. His sakkijutsu had been
registering a low to mid level warning since the clone had emerged from
the UFO, but now it was going off like mad. Worse than that feeling...
far worse... was the sick feeling he felt when he looked at the copy. It
wasn't just a perversion. He could see himself reflected in its growing
battle aura.

"India-1! This is Bravo-1. Do you need backup? What's going on out
there?"

Ryouga triggered the Private TeamComm. "Bravo. Take a shot at this
Ethereal when you get the chance. I'm going to flush it out into the
open."

"Roger that. The snipers were getting bored."

Switching from the private communications to his helmet's external
audio, Ryouga drew his plasma pistol with his right hand, and began to
charge the left with emotional ki. The depression, the hatred, the anger
and the resentment... it all came easily, bubbling out from the slashes
and pores in his skin, seeping out of his personal armor and tainting
the air green and black. The alien/human hybrid facing him began to
laugh, smoky black coils of mental energy rising out from its mouth and
the corners of its eyes.

Ryouga crossed his left arm under his right at the wrist, training both
his pistol and his ki attack on his opponent. Any normal martial artist
would have been unable to see his finger tense on the trigger due to the
light and hue of his building ki attack, but this eye-less copy of
himself was not so easily fooled. Its pupil-less eyes saw past and
through, and it moved to avoid the packets of bright green plasma
streaking through the air.

'A little slower than my dodge speed,' Ryouga gauged, trying to adjust
his aim as his target dodged to the left and right, leaving zig zag
trails in the ground. 'Not fast enough to keep dodging forever. My
plasma pistol has 26 shots to a clip. Will it wait for me to run out,
or...?'

The copy made an abrupt turn, and accelerated off to the right, trying
to cut the distance between them, titian robes flaring out around and
behind it. Ryouga stepped into an akichi of his own, shooting off to the
left and presenting his right side. Normally, he would have wanted to
keep his opponent within an arc of fire where he could use both hands to
stabilize his aim, but in this case he was hoping to close the distance
enough to use his shishi hokoudan. He didn't expect a cloud of dust to
rise up and envelop his opponent. It was the bakusai tenketsu, but he
hadn't...

"What's wrong?"

Out of the dust and smoke, a fast shape appeared and snared his left
hand. Looking down, just for a moment, Ryouga saw another hand, fingers
curled around the shishi hokoudan he'd been holding. The green orb of
energy wavered and flickered between the two hands, vibrating at a
dangerous level as it lost cohesion and control.

'It's... holding my Lion Roar Shot...?' Ryouga gaped. That shouldn't
have been possible. Even if this was his copy, it couldn't just grab his
ki attack. The energy between their hands, his energy, let off a small
shockwave of green as it further destabilized. Looking up, he saw his
doppelganger. While its left hand neutralized his shishi hokoudan, its
right hand had his plasma pistol pinned against Ryouga's chest.

"You won't beat me like you did Pill..." It boasted; sharp teeth
slightly parting as it smiled. "You won't beat the new Cologne like
this, either."

Ryouga hid his shock. "You know about that?"

The double just laughed - a rough and nasty sound. Without warning, the
bubble of energy between their mutual left hands exploded, sending them
flying. It was force enough to concuss a normal man and break his ribs,
but the two Hibikis landed easily on their feet twelve meters apart.
Ryouga glanced down at his plasma pistol, and then back at his double.

It held the ammunition clip in its right hand.

Ryouga frowned and holstered the pistol. He had a spare clip, of course,
but he'd never get the chance to load it under these conditions. His
doppelganger just tossed the clip behind him and into the rising dust
storm. Ethereal robes whipped up into a frenzy, the hybrid held out his
hands, fingers splayed wide. Beneath Ryouga's feet, the ground began to
tremble in a building up-swell.

"Let me show you one of the differences between you and me..." the
doppelganger chortled as a cloud of dust and smoke rose out of the
ground in a thousand tiny eruptions. Cursing silently, Ryouga quickly
switched his armor's visual mode to infrared to compensate. It worked
for a moment, but rapidly started to degrade into static.

"Mettayatara Metsubushi." (Indiscriminate Blindness)

"Hibiki!" Tsuchihashi, the operation's commanding officer, sounded
somewhat panicked. "What the Hell is happening out there? There's some
kind of dust storm..."

"I..." Ryouga never finished the sentence. He'd been hit by his fair
share of strong fighters over the years, but given his skill in
grounding, it rarely knocked him off his feet. As he regained his
balance and footing, he quickly tried to wipe the accumulating dust off
his helmet's visor. It shouldn't have been sticking at all, really. The
helmet visor was made of transparent alien alloy, and it was either
inert or repulsive to most materials. It would never get fogged up; mud
should slide right off; soot would simply not accumulate.

'It isn't so much sticking to the armor... its sticking to my ki. My
battle aura.'

Better than anyone alive, he could appreciate the nuance of the move.
This copy wasn't just using his old moves. It had made up new ones to
take advantage of its inhuman abilities. The technique it had called
Indiscriminate Blindness was well named. It would probably stick to the
aura of any living thing and migrate towards its center. This meant it
wouldn't just stick to the body, but get into the nose, mouth, ears and
eyes.

Another blow came in from the side, but Ryouga turned at the last
millisecond, partly deflecting it. One advantage he had was that it was
easier to anticipate what this hybrid would do, since it had his
baseline proclivities. Sliding one arm back, he tried to strike back,
fists blurring as he tried to anticipate where he'd be, if he were
attacking. It was a desperate gambit, but every so often, his opponent
would block a blow instead of dodging it.

'I've improved my Nian Jing since we parted ways...!'

Nian Jing was the Chinese martial art technique of maintaining contact
with an opponent, and using that contact to determine their posture and
intentions. Also called "sticking" jing, it meant that he could read his
opponent after just a moment's contact. He wasn't as good with it as
Ranma, but then he'd never needed to be. He wasn't the type of fighter
to favor dodging anyway, so he tended to make plenty of contact with his
opponent by default.

After a few seconds of frenzied combat, and some two hundred and forty
six blows, the doppelganger tapped his foot. Ryouga felt the move more
than saw it, and he did the same. Between them, the ground cracked and
caved in. Widening his stance, Ryouga grounded himself; his perception
of the world altered slightly, becoming something more akin to
echolocation, as his aura detected the changed in the web of breaking
points all around him. His fight with Pill had heightened his senses
when it came to the bakusai tenketsu, and he felt that martial rush wash
over his senses again. He was already a master of the baseline
technique, and he'd been working harder than ever before to go beyond
the next level.

'You want to match tenketsu with me?!' he thought angrily, and swept his
foot a few inches to the side. Implosions shook the ground to his left,
and an explosion went off several feet to his right. Taking a step
forward, a half dozen breaking points triggered prematurely. He didn't
need to move to trigger the points, but he did need to keep his front
facing his foe. Then two pinpricks of light emerged from the all
concealing smoke, carving apart the thick clouds as they came closer. It
took a moment, all of a quarter second, to realize what he was seeing.

Whirling his arms in an instinctive blocking motion, he partly deflected
the two shishi hokoudans. Instead of going off square in front of him,
most of their concussive force instead projected out and to the sides.
The attacks had been smaller, but much more... concentrated... than his
own ki attacks. His own shishi hokoudan had a wide area of effect,
partly because it was designed to hit an opponent faster than himself
(namely Ranma), and partly because it was very hard to concentrate large
amounts of ki into a small space. It was akin to trying to hold a gas
together; it naturally tried to disburse back into nature.

'A pin-prick lion roar shot... ?' he wondered, but could guess at the
effects. Instead of spreading the concussive force across the entire
body, it would direct it in a narrow cone. That would be bad, even for
someone with his constitution.

He felt another series of breaking point attacks building, this time
from all around him. He countered every one, but then he saw another
flash of movement. Unable to block or dodge in time, another blow
hammered into his face. His personal armor had an aerogel layer that
helped to soften the effects of impact, but that was designed to
mitigate trauma caused by explosive impacts and shockwaves. At this
level of force, it was all but useless.

Another blow came, this time to the neck, before he could counter a
third to his temple. The double was obviously trying to take his helmet
off. Ryouga shrugged off the danger, the worry about that, and stepped
into a blow of his own. He felt it connect all down his arm, knocking
the hybrid Ryouga back. It felt good to get a hit in again, but although
the blow had been sound, his double immediately sprang back into action.

'It didn't even phase him?' Ryouga wondered, trading blows. He could
hear the other him laughing, and then it did something unexpected.

It head butted him.

The lost one fell back, hit the ground, and sprung back up to his feet.
Even through his personal armor, the blow had stung. It wasn't really a
surprise that he'd be strong enough to hurt himself; he'd head-butted
Ranma before, knowing it would hurt the pigtailed fighter much more than
himself. The other Ryouga emerged from a cloud of dust, chuckling
menacingly.

"This would have been more fun if Ranma had been here instead of you. Or
maybe Akane or Ukyou..." The alien's sharp toothed smile seemed to grow
even wider. "That way he can understand what we went through when we saw
Akari torn apart... that look of impotent agony... I think it'd look
good on him, don't you?!"

"If you have my memories at all..." Ryouga replied, disgusted by what
he'd just heard. "You'd never go through with it. No one should go
through that."

"Don't make me repeat myself, original." What it said next, it said with
macabre seriousness, "I'm not you. Killing them... would make me feel
really good right now."

Ryouga couldn't believe it. "They were your friends, too!"

The double scoffed. "They just used you. They're still using you. Even
Akari... would she love you if you hadn't beaten her pet pig? Remember
how she kept trying to tell you to train with her pets instead of by
yourself? You were just a tool to make their family stronger."

"You're remembering now, aren't you?" It hissed behind clenched teeth.
"'Ryouga-sama, why don't you teach that move to Katsu-chan?' 'Ryouga-
sama, why don't you train with Mori-chan today?' 'Ryouga-sama, what did
you think of the Banryu farm champion? Did you see any weakness we could
train to exploit?' 'Ryouga-sama, I'm worried about your training. You're
already so strong, why don't you spend more time teaching?'"

"You're twisting things..." Ryouga did remember those words. He hadn't
thought about them in a long time, though. "She loved me."

"What do you suppose she'd have done if you refused to train her stupid
sumo pigs? Would she still love you, even if you were hit by something
like the Moxibustion?" The doppelganger shook his head, and breathed out
a wisp of smoky black hate-filled ki. "No. She'd leave you. The only
thing we're good for, the only thing the world wants out of us, is our
strength. Human? Alien? There's really no difference."

Ryouga's hands balled into fists, tight enough to start to deform the
gloves he wore. "Those are hollow words coming from something neither
human nor alien."

"You think we're different?" The doppelganger just laughed. "You think
you're human? Really human?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" the lost one snarled, but the
hybrid him slipped back into the whirling clouds of dust. Ryouga chased
after him, not wanting to wait for the next attack, but the doppelganger
was gone. Sensing that he'd been left behind, he took a moment to check
the motion detector mounted on his plasma carbine. After a little
calibration, it had no problem filtering out the particulate clouds and
white noise caused by the Mettayatara Metsubushi. His double was nowhere
nearby, however.

Only moments later, he heard the tell tale sounds of plasma fire.

Without hesitating, Ryouga ran blindly towards the noise.

'Please! Please don't let me get lost!'

-----

The fastest time on record for clearing a fully crewed alien battleship
was officially eleven minutes and thirty four seconds, held by four
squads from Duiwelskloof, South Africa. Not that Ryu was keeping track
of the time, or that he really needed to beat that record, but he knew
about it. He also expected to beat it by the end of today. He also knew
that that Battleship had been crewed by Floaters. Taking down an
Ethereal and Muton crewed Battleship in less than half that time, even
if it was due to a cheap trap at the beginning, was one hell of an
impressive feat.

Again: not that he was rushing because of that...

They had been told to take the ship "with all due haste" after all.

"HAAA!" He had to be careful, though, even in his 'haste.' The case in
point, and at the receiving end of his snap kick, was an alien he'd not
encountered previously. It was called a Celatid, but to the ambitious
young martial artist and soldier, it looked like a floating forty pound
booger. Not that he planned to describe them as such in his reports, or
to Ukyou when he caught up with her later, but the description was apt.
Celatids were one of the non humanoid forms of alien XCOM was familiar
with, looking like nothing more than a blob of pulsating flesh with no
mouth or sensory organs of any kind.

It was dangerous, though, and he had to be careful in manhandling it.
Celatids could excrete and project a spray or squirt of highly caustic
chemicals. The technical name used in the UNETCO literature was
"alkahest," so named because it was very nearly a universal solvent. It
would dissolve almost any matter it came in contact with, including
cocky XCOM troopers in personal armor. He'd been told repeatedly not to
take the "acid spit" lightly and that it would kill as effectively as
any plasma beam... but slower, and more painfully.

Which was why he hadn't hit the fat floating booger very hard. Not only
did it have caustic blood, but a sack full of even more potent alkahest
inside its body. Celatids could and did splatter pretty easily when hit
by projectile weaponry, like cannons, spraying acid death in every
direction. More than even the Chryssalid, it was not an alien to get
into close quarters combat with. If you were fast enough or just plain
lucky, you could avoid the "armor piercing wang" of the Chryssalid, as
some troops called it. But Ryu wasn't keen on trying to dodge acid, or
hitting something that had blood strong enough to burn away his hand.

The kick was soft enough to merely knock the Celatid against the wall.
Ryu's plasma carbine took care of the rest. Plasma worked wonderfully on
Celatids; the superheating of the blood caused by the plasma neutralized
the most potent elements in the Celatid's "universal solvent." Ryu
didn't know how, but he'd been told it did, and he trusted the source. A
solid center of mass hit nearly disintegrated the stunned Celatid before
what was left of the body exploded from the rapid internal rise in
temperature. Carbonized fragments rained down, staining the walls of the
UFO.

That took care of one of the room's occupants.

Ryu took an instant to check on Mint, glancing in the boy's direction,
before heading for his original target in the room. The two of them had
barged in on two Mutons and their little pet flying booger. One had been
setting up a Blaster Bomb, and the other had been covering him. By
unspoken agreement, he and Mint had hit the Mutons first. Mint was, in
fact, still hitting his Muton.

Unlike Ryu, Mint was both a swordsman and weapon master. Fighting with
him was sort of like fighting alongside Mousse, except while Mint was a
good deal faster, he wasn't quite as versatile. Compared instead to
Kuno, Mint's sword was not as powerful, but much faster. This didn't
help terribly fighting against Mutons. The green skinned humanoids could
survive taking a rocket propelled grenade to the chest. Mint's initial
efforts to slice his target up weren't proving very successful.

Ryu swept one arm at his own enemy, unleashing a vacuum wave powerful
enough to carve an iron Buddha in half. The Muton he'd initially
attacked using his Moko Kaimon Ha (Fierce Tiger Crashing Through Gates),
and which was halfway back on its feet, took the attack straight on. The
vacuum blade scratched the creature's organic armor, but didn't even
draw blood. He'd expected more damage, but something about the Muton's
outer carapace seemed to be making his cutting and piercing attacks less
effective.

Still, it kept the big alien immobile, allowing Ryu to open up on it
with his carbine. The Muton was quicker than its bulk would've
indicated, however, and it avoided the second and third shots with speed
and agility enough to impress an Olympic gymnast. Again: it shouldn't
have been that surprising. Most aliens were already the equivalent of
human Special Forces, and Mutons were the crack shock troops of the
alien army. It was still odd, though. Ryu had thought his aim was spot
on.

"Not fast enough, though!" Ryu said with a vicious smirk, firing another
three round burst before ducking back enough to dodge a bit of return
fire. The Muton was slow to die, even after three plasma rounds tore
into its body. Lying on the floor, bleeding deep orange gore, it tried
to return fire with a sidearm. Ryu danced out of its aim, kicked the
weapon out of its hands, and followed up with a ruthless descending heel
kick to the back of its head. To his amazement, the blow didn't cave in
the alien's skull. It did prove the literal straw that broke the camel's
back, however.

'Tough bastard...' Ryu turned to see Mint slam into his target at high
speed, pinning the Muton against the wall.

"Stand back," Ryu began to say, "I'll..."

"No. You stand back!" Mint laughed, though it sounded more like a
mischievous "hehehehe" instead of a proper sinister chuckle. Then his
sword hand began to move. Not just a little, either. It quickly became
less than a blur, as it moved a couple millimeters up and a couple
millimeters down, in a rapid sawing motion. The Muton on the receiving
end of the blade groaned, opening its mouth and showing teeth, as Mint's
sword sawed into its chest.

Vibrating his hand at such a speed... Ryu had to give props where they
were due. No one did speed like the little Musk kid. In seconds, he'd
cut through the tough outer hide of the Muton, and broke through its rib
cage with a sound like a chainsaw struggling to get through a
particularly tough knot of wood. Not quite cutting all the way through,
Mint tore his sword free and took a few steps back. The front of his
armor was covered in blood, much more than before, but it all started to
slowly slouch down like water off a raincoat. He was still a gory mess,
though.

"I think you got him..." Ryu observed, as the Muton, a long gash sawed
from its right shoulder down to its left waist, fell to its knees. Then,
to the Kumon heir's surprise, it lifted its arm and started to reach for
something: a fallen plasma pistol. Ryu quickly shot it for good measure,
twice, in the head.

"This is Lime! We're pinned down near the Command Room!"

"Read you," Ryu responded, and quickly changed the clip on his plasma
carbine. "We're on our way."

-----

Of course he was lost.

Not only was it basically impossible to see where he was going, but he
couldn't make use of any audio or emotional cues either. His damned
doppelganger hadn't just kicked up a cloud of blinding dust; he'd
literally swallowed the entire battlefield in it. He could hear over the
comm. that other XCOM troopers were similarly enveloped and forced to
rely on thermoptics and re-calibrated motion sensors. He could hear the
sounds of fighting, but only over the intercom. It made him anxious -
emotional - and the more wound up he became, the easier he became lost.

"Command? What is my position? Where am I now?" he hoped he didn't sound
quite as desperate as he thought he did. "Command? Command?"

"Be quiet for a moment, would you?" A familiar voice, but not the one
he'd expected, entered his ear. "Boy, you are lost!"

"I was trying to get out of this... cloud..." he explained, but cut to a
question just as quickly. "Nabiki, what the Hell are you doing here?
Where's Rachael?"

"She was getting you even more lost than normal, so they forwarded you
to me," Nabiki replied. "I've been briefed on the situation. We don't
have a lot of time. Do what I say exactly when I say. And no back talk.
Ok?"

'If it gets me back to the fight...'

"Roger that," he complied. "What you say; when you say."

"You know left from right, don't you?"

"Of course I know left from right! I'm not retarded!"

"Turn left. Thirty degrees."

He did.

"Turn right. Thirty degrees."

He did, though with growing annoyance.

"Damn! No wonder you're always getting lost!"

"Hey!"

"Ok ok..." Nabiki thought for a second. "Hold your right arm out.
Straight in front of you. I want you to use your hand as a point of
reference. Now: turn your head thirty degrees to the right. Now turn
your head fifteen degrees to the left. Alright. This'll do."

Ryouga just frowned. There were few things he hated more than having
his... family disability made fun of. Still, Nabiki was being less crass
about it than he'd expected. It was awkward at first, holding his hand
out, moving his head, and then running in that direction, but after a
few seconds he barely thought about it. Instead, he just followed her
directions.

"It's hard to tell where the fight is exactly," she noted after a minute
of frenzied highway car-chase speed running. "You're getting close,
though. Do you see anything?"

"No..." he looked around, but he also searched with his ears and with
his battle intuition. Unfortunately, the latter often got him lost, too.
His hearing was generally reliable, though. "I hear gunfire... plasma
fire... but from multiple directions."

"Ok. Hmm." Nabiki paused again, thinking it over. "According to Keyhole
Intel, that dust cloud is only about twelve meters high. I've seen you
and Ranma just onto the roof of Furinkan High, and that's four stories.
Jump up, turn around, and let me take a look."

He actually tried jumping and looking before, but it hadn't helped.
Still, he had promised to follow her directions without complaint or
comment. Wiping away his visor and helmet sensors, Ryouga tensed his leg
muscles and jumped. The dust cloud grew much thinner as he got higher,
and a moment later, he crested the top of the cloud entirely. It was
late twilight outside, still quite dark, and he could only linger at
this height for a second or so. Spinning, using momentum from his
initial jump, he turned around 360 degrees, and fell back down.

"Let's see here..." Nabiki muttered, and her voice faded away for a few
seconds. "Ok. Ryouga - left fifteen degrees. Run!"

He did as ordered, shooting blindly through the dust and smoke.

"Stop!" She suddenly yelled. "You're almost there. It's stopped.
Careful. There's friendlies up ahead, too."

He nodded imperceptibly, and cautiously raised his plasma carbine to his
shoulder while keeping the muzzle directed down. Walking forward, trying
to follow an invisible line set by his weapon's aim, he began to feel
it. His sakkijutsu was flaring up again, telling him he was close. His
IFF Motion Detector registered two nearby friendlies up ahead, at a
range of about ten meters. He still couldn't see or hear anything.

"Careful, Ryouga," Nabiki warned, her voice more intense than it had
been before. It felt like she was almost there with him, side by side.
Or maybe with her in front, since he couldn't find the way on his own.
"Take a step to the right..."

He did.

"It's there," she all but whispered. "Stopped moving when you came
close. But it's there. Be careful."

"What about the friendlies?" he asked, breaking his silence.

"There's... something wrong with them," Nabiki replied, sounding
worried. "They might be dead. But... it's hard to tell."

Finally, they came into view, close enough to see the two prone bodies
even through the thick dust cloud. It was two of the men from Irkutsk's
Uniform Squad. Neither moved, but both seemed otherwise intact. Ryouga
kneeled down, and cautiously reached for the closest body with his left
hand. He had a Medikit, but doubted that he'd be given the opportunity
to use it under these conditions, if, indeed, it would do any good at
all.

The moment he touched the body, he felt something strange about it. It
only took a few seconds to realize what it was that he felt, not with
his fingers, but with the extrasensory perception than came from
Cologne's brutal breaking point training. It remained a fact that alien
alloys (or 'exotic alloys') were immune to the breaking point, but
UNETCO personal armor only used those alloys for part of the outermost
layer. Beneath the alloy plates was a weave of conductors and coolant
fluids inside an aerogel, and beneath that were two environmental
layers, one of which also handled power channeling. It included hundreds
of feet of fiber-optic and copper power line.

All of these had breaking points of varying complexity.

"No wonder..." he mused. His doppelganger had scrambled the personal
armor's inner components, rendering them into a useless mess. With his
target immobilized and unable to communicate with his or her peers, the
other Ryouga had simply struck at vulnerable points with killing force.

"Figured it out yet?" a voice asked, from within the surrounding
darkness. "I'm amazed you found me this quickly. Don't tell me that they
fixed you, too?"

"What does he mean?" Nabiki asked, hearing every word.

"You bastard..." Ryouga stood back up, and faced the source of the
voice. The other Ryouga, still garbed in the robes of an Ethereal,
emerged. For a few seconds, the two glared at each other. Then the
doppelganger's teeth parted and it laughed darkly.

"I don't curse you for killing my comrades," it said, and a bone studded
hand slipped out of its robe. "Why curse me for doing the same?"

Ryouga instead changed the subject entirely. "You were wrong. About
Akari. About everything."

"Oh?" it asked, still grinning.

"I did hate training those pigs," he admitted. "I did resent having
someone question my training practices. I do wonder if... if she'd have
given me the time of day, if I weren't a martial artist. Maybe it wasn't
perfect, but I was happy. You have those memories, too, don't you?"

The doppelganger stood, silent.

-----

THIS ONE IS UNSTABLE

IT CAN NOT BE USED ANY MORE

IT IS CLOSE BUT NOT PERFECT WE MUST REFINE THE PROCESS

THE TESTS HAVE RUINED IT

He stood alone in the center of the chamber, blood dripping from his
arms and running down his chin, chest heaving. Strewn about, in bloody
pieces and broken bodies, were a dozen others just like it. There had
been sixteen at first, each with different degrees of human and alien in
their make up. Lying in a pool of blood, one looked entirely human. Yet
another, torn in half at the waist, looked almost exactly like an
Ethereal. Seven had been weeded out through science. Six had been weeded
out through competition. In the center of it all, black ink colored ki
leaking out from between bloodstained teeth, the strongest survived.

THIS WILL NOT SUFFICE

OUR NEXT EFFORT SHOULD BE TO MODIFY THE ORIGINALS

AGREED

-----

Cologne smiled slyly. "I've arranged a mission for you. Your first and
last. I promise you'll find it interesting. Ranma may even be there. Or
even Akane."

"Ranma? Akane...?" he asked, looking past Cologne to the Ethereal
Commander hovering nearby. He felt the mental constraints that had
shackled his mind unlock. What began as a trickle of memory and emotion
quickly turned into a deluge. His hands balled into tight fists.

"How do you feel?" she asked. "Well?"

Blood dropped from between his fingers.

"That's right..." Cologne said, stepping aside to let him walk out of
the tiny room where he had been sequestered and kept for study. "It's a
terror mission. So just act naturally. Do what you feel like doing."

-----

"Those memories you cherish..." the doppelganger hissed; dark lapping
curls of mental energy rising out from its body. "Fill me with hate."

With a monstrous howl, it charged. There was little point in trying to
catch it in breaking points, or, apparently, in using the shishi
hokoudan. With renewed determination, Ryouga crouched into a combat
stance, and received his other self. Unlike before, it seemed to be
slipping more and more into a berserker fury. Ryouga let his own darker
emotions rise up to the surface, providing him with power.

This time, there was no attack and feint.

The two martial artists stood, face to face, and slugged away at each
other's lives. His helmet, being very nearly a seamless assembly of
alien alloys, actually proved to be the most resilient part of his armor
to repeated blows. But he had to be careful and keep it from being torn
off by the force of the blows. Without it, he'd be choking on dust in
seconds.

Still, as they traded blows, Ryouga began to realize that while the
doppelganger had developed some new moves, he fought in hand to hand
much like Ryouga himself had several months ago. There was a difference
in skill between them, honed by days of hard training and fighting
between himself and other martial artists. He hadn't just been refining
and developing special techniques since he'd joined UNETCO; he'd been
improving in general skill as well.

Blocking a blow and seizing an opening, he planted a brutal crouching
roundhouse, snapping the doppelganger's face back and sending a spray of
blood into the air. Bringing his leg back down and around, he spun into
a palm strike to the solar plexus. The other Ryouga flew back from the
remaining force of the blow; the fraction of it that had overcome his
stance and grounding. Landing on his feet and skidding for another meter
or so, he held out his hands. Ryouga charged after him, unwilling to let
him retreat back into the dust cloud all around them.

Seeing that his double left itself open, Ryouga struck with full force,
nailing it in the throat. Flattening his palm, he then struck the
doppelganger's Migi Kiri Point with enough force to cut down a tree. Its
left foot cratered the ground from the force of the body blow. Ryouga
didn't relent - he brought his elbow up from the same arm that had
struck the Migi Kiri and hit the side of the double's head. It was only
the set up for what came next: a tiger strike to the shuigou ("water
trough") pressure point in the midline of the nasal philtrum, 1/3 of the
way from the nose to the edge of the upper lip. It was one of the body's
most vulnerable points, and one that if struck properly, could cause
instant death.

The doppelganger staggered back a step.

It was a blow that would have killed not just any human being, but
almost any other martial artist. In all their fights, and for all their
rivalry and brutality, he and Ranma had never tried to strike each other
in a spot like the shuigou. For a moment, Ryouga wondered if the
doppelganger had died on its feet. He'd heard of it happening: the body
could move and fight for moments even after brain death.

Then it lashed out, grabbing him by the arm.

"Yuuten..." (Melting Point)

"Shit!" Ryouga jumped back, tearing his arm out of the hybrid's grip. He
could feel his personal armor warp and distort around his left arm. The
material burned red hot and expanded, crushing his flesh and bone
against the outer layers of alien alloy. This was how those other men
had been killed... or at least painfully immobilized. The pressure was
incredible - almost unbearable. Before he could try and detach the left
arm module of the armor, it split and heaved, tearing itself open.

Facing him, the doppelganger chuckled, wiping a trickle of blood off its
curled lower lip. How it had survived the blow, Ryouga couldn't imagine.
The only possibility was that it wasn't entirely human on the inside.
Reaching up to his side, to the bandannas wrapped around his upper left
arm, he retrieved a dozen. It was a long shot, but it didn't look like
his opponent had much need for a bandanna of his own, given the lack of
hair.

"That won't work either," the doppelganger warned, and then it patted
its Ethereal robes. Ryouga tried anyway, loosing a dozen of the bladed
bandannas. They looped through the air, circling and then plunging down
into the hybrid Hibiki. Nine bounced harmlessly off the alien material;
acting as it they had hit adamantine steel instead of billowing cloth.
Two buried themselves in the creature's arms, but didn't cause it any
apparent harm. It took a moment to look for the twelfth bandanna, and
that was when Ryouga struck.

A line of breaking point explosions distracted and hemmed in the
doppelganger, allowing Ryouga to akichi into its defensive zone. It
tried to move to defend itself, but when it did, it found itself unable
to move. Ryouga smirked to himself. Of the bandannas he had thrown, he
had detached a length of string from four of them. When they had looped
around and circled the doppelganger, it had tangled him up in the thin
lines of string. Now, under the effect of the tetsununo "Iron Cloth"
technique, that string was a wire strong enough to suspend a car in
midair.

It was a move he'd developed to use against Ranma, but it would work
well here, too. Inside his enemy's guard, Ryouga reversed the drop of
the twelfth bandanna in his hand, and plunged it into his double's
throat, between the jaw bones. He'd barely done so, however, before the
double head butted him, and kicked him to the ground. Rolling back and
onto his feet, he saw the hybrid break free; using the same brute
strength he'd always prided himself on. Then, amazingly, it reached up
to the bandanna impaling its throat, and tore it free.

Just as easily, it plucked out the bandanna's spearing its arms.

"Ryouga..."

He'd almost forgotten Nabiki was there.

"Yeah. I know," he cut her off, adjusting the TeamComm to make sure he
couldn't be overheard. "Nabiki... I want you to make sure Lieutenant
Tsuchihashi knows my position. If my vitals drop out, I want him to
Blaster Bomb the entire area. Level everything."

Nabiki hesitated a second before answering.

"...Ok."

"I said I'd show you our differences, didn't I?" The doppelganger asked,
wiping away some of the blood on its neck. Then it held out its hand;
held it up to its mouth, and started to breathe. Dark black smoke
drifted out from between its triangular teeth, but instead of billowing
away, it began to collect in the hybrid's right hand.

Reaching behind him, Ryouga wrapped his hand around the grip of his
plasma carbine. In his left hand, he began to build up energy. This
alien human abomination knew his shishi hokoudan, and had knocked it
aside before. If that was the case, he'd just have to make it less like
a bullet, or even a wave, and more like a shotgun. He'd destroy
everything in front of him, and shoot down whatever remained.

Inside his glove, his fingers bled as he pumped more and more mental
energy into the technique. It didn't even hurt anymore, not after his
training. Instead, he felt a parasympathetic numbness spread through his
fingers, hand, and arm. Green flared into dark green, and then it grew
brighter as he kept the orb from growing outwards. The color changed,
turning mint and then white save for the jade tinted periphery. Flecks
of discordant energy rippled out from his fingers, carrying away shreds
of ruined armor.

In the doppelganger's right hand, a tiny black pin prick burned.

'How is he concentrating it so much?' Ryouga marveled.

-----

"Ethereals and Sectoids have two special organs in their brains,"
Captain Ben-Solomon explained, holding up a device the size of his hand
with a strange crystal set in the center. "These are the ampullae
psionic and the corona lucis. They are connected by a network of tissues
called the rete exertabile. This system gives the aliens a natural
ability to control their psionics that we can only emulate using
technology, like this psi-amp."

"However," the Captain warned, "Even with this, your greatest advantage
will never be your level of finesse. Instead..."

-----

"I see. Maybe I was wrong to think of you as human," Ryouga said, facing
his doppelganger.

"And I told you," it replied, holding out its hand, black shishi
hokoudan sending shockwaves through the dusty air as it strained to be
let loose. "You're... almost as inhuman as I am."

With an echoed roar, the two fired.

------

A duet of explosions cleared out the corridor leading into the Command
Room. There was only one entrance inside, with the hull of the
battleship opposite the door, and only two approaches: the left and the
right. It was a handy defensive bottleneck, but Ryu and Mint had caught
the aliens by surprise. Rounding the corner, they saw a mauled alien
corpse burning softly on the ground. Two alien plasma grenades had done
their work on the Muton that had been keeping Lime and Kuno pinned down.

"Follow up after we open the door. You know the drill," Ryu ordered,
speaking to the two martial artists heading their way. "Don't bunch up.
We're moving in four, three..."

They couldn't be as conservative in handling the Command Room, not with
a possibly Blaster Bomb armed alien lying in wait. Flashbangs were out
(they were of dubious effectiveness against aliens in general, anyway),
and they'd been ordered to try and minimize damage to the battleship
itself. That meant no short fuse plasma grenades where they could
demolish sensitive equipment. Luckily, they'd come prepared.

As Mint opened the door, Ryu fired a stun grenade in through the crack
before it had even fully widened. A heartbeat later, Mint did the same,
firing another grenade from his carbine's underslung grenade launcher.
The stunners were of alien design and manufacture, but XCOM had adapted
them to more conventional use. With a little disposable shell and some
minor modification, they could be easily fired from a standard grenade
launcher instead of the bulky apparatus the aliens originally used.

With a muffled crack, the Command Room filled with purple gas.

Ryu was about to signal Mint to quickly close the door, when his eyes
widened. Somehow, the Ethereal had gotten out of the room. His first
instinct was to fire, but just before he did, he remembered his
training.

"Tango!" "Tango!"

Ryu and the Ethereal pulled up their aim just as they fired. Plasma
splashed into the ceiling, ran along it, and spread out in a messy fan
all around them. Neither had been hit. It had been a close thing. The
Ethereal - the real Ethereal - was fast.

"You ok?" Ryu asked.

"That was close!" The Ethereal replied, sounding rather exactly like
Mint.

"Tricky."

"How did it do that so quickly?" Mint-as-an-Ethereal asked. They glanced
at the now closed Command Room door. "To both of us?"

'It's good,' was the answer. Ryu frowned; the illusion wasn't
dispelling, either, even though they'd both realized it was just a
trick. None of their tutors had been able to project telepathic
illusions this quickly. Abruptly, he remembered firing at the Muton
earlier, and missing when he was certain he'd have scored a center of
mass hit. And that wasn't the only instance.

'It's very good...' he realized. All this time, it had been using minor
mental tricks to try and skew different fights in the aliens' favor. His
armor had been blaring sporadic psionic warnings since they entered the
ship, but that was to be expected. Simple proximity to an Ethereal (and
sometimes a Muton, if it was receiving orders from an Ethereal) tended
to set off the sensitive detector. It worked perfectly against Sectoids,
but it wasn't as handy against Ethereals, who all used psionics all the
damn time.

Ryu remembered what his instructors had said about telepathic, instead
of telekinetic, attacks. While direct mind control was considered a
fourth, separate, discipline, there were three broad and basic
classifications: "Illusion" type, "Power" type, and "Trap" type. All
were dangerous. Power attacks could kill you outright, wiping out your
consciousness and turning you into a mental vegetable. Trap attacks were
used to stun or immobilize you, often for abduction purposes, or to
delay a powerful psionic opponent. Illusion attacks were used to cause
panic, and make you a danger to those around you.

This one had almost worked, too.

"Wait. Where are Kuno and Lime?" Ryu asked, looking behind to where the
other two should be coming. It had been much longer than five seconds.
They should have rounded the corner as backup.

"Command! Situation Analysis, ASAP!"

Nothing.

Ryu slowly turned back, and Mint was gone.

"Well, this is just fucking wonderful!"

This was a high order Trap type telepathic attack. A bad one, too. Ryu
fought down the urge to panic or move. If he did, he'd almost certainly
end up running into the worst possible place, and either do something
suicidal or shoot one of his comrades. He had to stay still and
rationally examine the situation. Fear and Panic were the two things he
had to avoid more than anything else.

What did he know?

They had opened the door. He had fired. Mint had fired. They had gotten
back behind cover and closed the door. Moments later, both he and Mint
were trapped in a telepathic mandala. Or was he just trapped in it? That
was possible, too, but less likely. But where was Mint? Where were Kuno
and Lime? Why wasn't command responding?

Ryu took a few deep calming breaths, though the air tasted and smelt
strange.

'Focus!' he reminded himself. 'Focus. Stay calm. Don't do anything
hasty. The Illusion itself is harmless. Do not panic. Do. Not. Panic.'

And then just like that, it was over.

The first thing Ryu noticed was that his helmet wasn't on. Blinking, he
saw Kuno standing nearby. The kendoist motioned to his right, where Ryu
saw Mint and Lime. The young Musk warrior had someone's helmet in his
hands. Assuming this wasn't another illusion, that meant...

"Sorry," Mint apologized, and handed the helmet back. "I thought... it
looked like you were..."

So he'd been tricked into removing the helmet?

Ryu quickly retrieved the invaluable lifeline, and put it back on.

"Command? India-2. Confirm, please."

Command replied promptly, "Command Confirmation 7821-9044. You're
reading clearly. Intrusion at 0%."

"Well..." Ryu let out a sigh of relief. "That was unpleasant."

"Do you believe the gas has had the required effect?" Kuno asked,
staring at the door to the Command Room with open hostility. The whole
episode, with the distorted sense of time and all, had only reinforced
why XCOM had a policy of backup and conservatism when it came to anti-
psionic warfare.

"No way to tell without looking," Ryu said, reloading his carbine's
grenade launcher with another stun round. "Time for round two."

Kuno nodded, and he and Lime fell back again.

"You ready?" Ryu asked Mint. The younger fighter seemed rather shaken by
the whole ordeal.

"I'm good," Mint replied, nodding. "I'm fine."

Ryu counted down with his free hand: 3, 2...

The door opened, and they immediately fired another two rounds. He
ignored the fact that it looked like Mint was in the room, firing at
him. Similarly, he could guess that Mint ignored a similar illusion.
Even if it were somehow real, their suits were NBC resistant, and the
worst that could happen was that they ended up stunned. Then, without
warning, plasma fire rained down from inside the room.

"Get down!" Ryu yelled, spinning to find cover with his back to the
wall. It was impossible to tell if all the shots were real or not, but
either way wasn't worth the risk. Then a sudden flare of pain blossomed
in his chest, and he looked down. He'd been hit? When? How? The burning
sensation started to spread as blood ran down his waist and legs into a
pool on the floor.

'No!' Ryu rejected it. 'There's no suit damage on my HUD. I couldn't
have been shot.'

"Damnit... I've had just about enough of this...!" Forcing himself to
stand, Ryu took a wide stance, and swept his arms. It was barely even a
half hearted version of his normal Kijin Dai Ran Bu, but given the pain
lancing through his body, and the size of the room, it would have to
suffice. The Demon God Big Mad Dance filled the air with vacuum blades,
tearing apart the cloud of purple gas, and ultimately impacting
harmlessly against the walls of the room.

Immediately, the pain disappeared, and his vision cleared.

He heard footsteps (had it only been five seconds?), and saw the
Ethereal Commander in the back of the room. If it was weakened by the
stun grenades, it didn't show it, as it held one of Ryu's vacuum blades
suspended in the air in front of it. The crescent wavered and twisted,
but didn't implode. For the first time, Ryu saw the alien's face: it was
a twisted thing, like all Ethereals, with one eye fused shut and another
hideously glaring in his direction.

It began to raise the plasma pistol it held, wardingly, between it and
the vacuum blade suspended in air. It was only at that moment that Ryu
realized he had dropped his rifle when he had thought he'd been shot.
His eyes darted back and forth, looking for it. Mint wasn't around
either. Was this just another trick?

"Hyo!" A familiar aristocratic voice yelled, and a wave of solid air
shimmered across the room, blasting away clouds of nearby gas in its
path. "Shin Kokuzan!"

Ryu grinned, instantly recognizing the technique as the "New Sky Arc
Decapitation" developed by a certain team mate of his. Kuno truly had
improved along with the rest of India Squad. As arrogant and annoying as
the kendoist was, he wasn't keen on being left behind by his peers.
Anyone who thought four of the world's premier martial artists, training
together almost non stop against a ruthless enemy, wouldn't improve had
to be out of his or her mind.

The Ethereal Commander clearly tried to stop Kuno's attack, too, using
its formidable telekinetic mastery. But taken together - the two attacks
and the effects of no less than four stun grenades - were simply too
much for even an Ethereal Commander. First Ryu's vacuum blade imploded
against the creature's body, and then Kuno's blast of solid air slammed
it hard into the wall. It hung there for a second before falling to the
floor.

"Heh!" Ryu looked over to his side, where Kuno stood, sword drawn.

"An alien Commander," Kuno mused. "Among our elite cadre, I believe I am
the first to lay claim to such a prize. It is fitting, is it not, my
friend?"

"Your timing was good, I'll give you that," he replied. Behind Kuno, he
could see Mint and Lime. It looked like they'd been separated just after
firing into the room. He'd have to spend more time at the psi gym
getting used to facing and ultimately breaking these high level
telepathic illusions. He'd developed an effective anti-telekinetic
defense using his battle aura. He wouldn't be caught flat footed the
same way twice!

"Command. This is India-2," he took a few steps over to the Ethereal,
and nudged it with his foot. "Battleship secured and intact, as ordered.
We bagged an Ethereal Commander, too. Primary and Secondary objectives
have been met. How's the situation outside?"

They answered him.

Ryu's eyes widened, and he pointed to Kuno. "Lime. Mint. Police the ship
and get this Commander bagged and tagged. Kuno, you're with me!"

-----

The east face of the building crumpled, raining broken aluminum panels
and scattering steel rods and old equipment. Inside, wooden crates were
neatly stacked in two long rows, up to twice the height of a man. The
metal facade that had once made up one of the building's walls now let
in tendrils of dusty air. Walking out of the soot, a titian colored form
hopped through the hole in the wall and into the depot storehouse.

"And another!" it yelled, snapping out its left hand.

A black bullet shot out from its palm, screaming through the air and
hitting a small pile of rubble. When it did, the force of the impact
sent debris flying in every direction, and one particular object
skidding across the ground, into and through two wooden crates. Boxes of
ammunition broke open, spilling thousands of rounds onto the floor.

A second later, a lance of green energy erupted like a geyser from
across the storehouse, engulfing the cloaked doppelganger. Overhead,
light bulbs shattered, while below, boxes tumbled like dust bunnies on
the edges of the beam. The wall that had been deformed inward, deformed
outward, and for a moment the air outside parted and cleared.

Shoving aside a forklift he'd plowed into, Ryouga lowered his hands.
Between his fingers were eighteen spent rifle cartridges which he let
fall to the floor. Slowly getting back up, he winced and cradled his
side. At least half of his body armor was ruined, split and torn and
cutting into his skin. Blisters ran up and down his left arm, flanked by
a single long scrape that had sheared away enough flesh to leave bloody
stains against whatever he leaned in. Worse: those black shishi
hokoudans he'd been hit by had caused some much more serious internal
damage. He was coughing up blood, and he hadn't done that in a while.

Not that he terribly minded the injuries. He was pretty damn resilient,
and the pain wasn't that big a deal either, but it was frustrating was
hitting someone over and over and not doing much if any damage. That had
never happened to him before. No one, no thing, had ever taken blows
from him and just shrugged it off. Lime came close, but he didn't have
the bizarre invulnerability this alien/human hybrid had.

"Ryouga! Just hold on! Ryu and Kuno are coming!"

"Are they?" he asked, but didn't doubt Nabiki. He wasn't sure either
would be particularly helpful, though. Ryu was strong, very strong, but
not strong enough. Maybe Lime... but even then, it was only a
possibility. Ironically, Kuno, despite being probably the weakest member
of India Squad (ok: he was), could cut through almost anything with his
new sword. That is: if he got the chance. Kuno wasn't very quick...

A dark laugh came from outside, as the doppelganger stepped back through
the hole in the wall - now wide enough to drive a small car through. He
seemed to be plucking little pieces of metal out of his face and
flicking them into the walls. Each one hit with a resounding 'clang' and
deformed from the force. Craning its neck, it then spat a bullet out
from inside its mouth.

"Using a ki attack to fire bullets?" it asked, and added, "Doing this
reminds me of our Badinggong training."

Reaching up to its right eye, it plunged its fingers in and grabbed hold
of something. Pulling its fingers free, it examined one of the spent
bullets, flattened into a mushroom shape. Flicking it onto the ground,
it started to advance towards him. Ryouga couldn't help but smirk; his
copy sure wasn't making this easy. As for Badinggong, the shaolin
exercise of plucking nails out of a wood plate, how could he forget?
Those had been good times spent learning the Art!

'Improvisation really isn't my thing...' he thought, with a bit of
annoyance.

Ranma was really good at improvising new moves and new special
techniques on the fly, and perfectly adapting them to the situation even
in the midst of battle. That was the scariest thing about Ranma: you
could never tell what he'd think up next. Ryouga tried to be creative,
too, but he wasn't half as good as his rival. He relied too heavily on
preparation beforehand. It was exactly why he'd lost the shishi hokoudan
duel with Ranma at Furinkan, back then... he hadn't been able to think
on his feet. He'd assumed he'd be able to just overwhelm Ranma with his
perfected technique.

'Lost my carbine. Lost my sidearm. No grenades, either. Nothing's worked
yet...' he observed, and quickly searched with his eyes for anything in
the room he could use to his advantage. No eleventh hour miracle ideas
came. 'All right! I'll just play to my strengths then...'

Putting his hands together, Ryouga took a few steps back. There was
nothing he could put between himself and his doppelganger that would
really stop it... aside from space. And his double didn't seem to be in
a hurry anymore. Black smoke began to billow out of its mouth and down
into its hands, forming two more black shishi hokoudans. A sweatdrop
rolled down Ryouga's temple as he licked away a bit of blood left on his
lower lip.

Closing his eyes and locking his hands together with only his index
fingers pointing upwards, he focused his thoughts, just like they'd
taught him at the psi lab. It was doubtful that he'd be able to pull off
a convincing illusion attack against an alien human hybrid, much less
one of himself, but that was ok. Even if he did nothing but concentrate,
it would probably cause the doppelganger to pause and check its own
mental defenses.

It wasn't the real target anyway.

It took all of a second, but in that second, the self-induced delusion
dredged up every painful memory, every miserable moment, every feeling
of hopelessness and suicidal depression; every curse and scream and tear
he could remember shedding. In that second, the memories formed a
kaleidoscope of soul crushing misery. Ryouga's battle aura constricted,
retreating into his body, before exploding outwards four times larger
than before.

A ragged breath left his mouth, and tears streaked down his face. He'd
practiced this before, at a lower level, but he'd never gone all the way
with it. It hurt more than any physical wound ever could. He let out
another choked gasp, and his battle aura expanded even more. The
depressive ki, the heavy ki, grew thicker and stronger than ever before.
Rows of stacked wooden crates shattered under the pressure.

It was time for the Final, Perfect version of the shishi hokoudan.

He was half way through gathering the ki, forming the move, when the
doppelganger rushed through the battle aura. The weight of it slowed the
hybrid down, but not enough. A black orb of energy shot out from one of
its hands, and Ryouga had to dodge or risk taking the shot to the chest.
His concentration on the perfect shishi hokoudan wavered, releasing the
pent up energy as a massive shockwave and a fountain of unfocused ki.
The former shattered what was left of the equipment in the storehouse,
while the upward eruption literally tore the roof off its supports.

The next thing he knew, the doppelganger's other hand was on his left
shoulder. The black orb of energy it held in its hand dug into his flesh
and tore away already ruined armor. Instead of exploding, however, it
twisted and tore straight through before exploding out the other side of
his body. Ryouga spun from the pain and the force, but kept on his feet.
This close, he had a chance...! With his left hand, he plunged his fist
up, holding what he had hoped to be his trump card. His belt, hardened
to the strength and sharpness of a sword, and with Ryouga's strength
behind it, entered the doppelganger's lower torso.

"..."

The inhuman hybrid stared at the blade impaling it, and at the tip that
was now just sticking out of its left shoulder, having slipped between
its ribs and its clavicle and scapula. It was an almost perfect strike:
spearing or slicing the lungs, heart, and liver. For a few seconds, they
stood there, neither moving or saying a word.

Then:

The doppelganger drew back its hand, fingers flattened into a spade.

"What do you think I am? Human?!" And with that, it stepped forward and
plunged its hand towards Ryouga's chest. Only a last millisecond block
deflected the killing blow, sending it down and into his midsection.
Bone studded fingers tore through flesh and sinew, deeper and deeper
into his body.

"Now..." it reached for his helmet, just under the chin. "Let's see what
we look like, so close to death!"

Tearing the helmet off, it saw itself as it was in its memories. The
thought of it, of that past, of those people, only sent another spike of
rage through its inhuman mind. How it hated this original that Cologne
and the others thought they could turn. How it hated being created
having such a useless and painful past. How it hated the human emotions
that corrupted its thinking, but that provided it with power! Black hate
leaked out of its mouth; so filled to the limit was its body and mind
with that burning, all consuming emotion.

Ryouga vomited blood and bile, splattering the doppelganger's face.

It just laughed. No amount of human physical training could fight off
the effects of blood loss. No human was tough enough to survive for long
with a hole in their abdomen. The doppelganger's vicious grin deepened
as it pushed a little harder, driving its hand deeper into Ryouga's
body, almost to the spinal column.

"Ryouga!" a someone cried, barely audible outside the helmet in its
other hand. It took a moment, but the hybrid recognized the voice.
Bringing it closer to its face, it took a tentative look inside and at
the HUD, which was still active.

"Nabiki," it said, but didn't see a video feed. "So that's where you've
been..."

"Let him go!" he heard her cry. "Or we'll destroy that entire area!"

"Do it now," Ryouga snarled. "Fire, now!"

"No! You're still alive! Ryu and Kuno..."

"They're coming," the doppelganger cut in. "I know. Those two, I'll kill
quickly. They don't have anything to do with this... and neither do you,
Nabiki."

"St...!" she never got a chance to reply, as the doppelganger pulled the
plug, disconnecting the helmet from the suit and tossing it away.

"Now..." it paused, as a hand reached up and seized it by the throat.
"Choking me? How stupid. I've been designed to survive in a vacuum."

Ryouga's grip was weak, too weak to effectively choke anyone anyway.

"You never had what it took to kill me," the double continued, digging
its hand a little deeper still. "Not after you lost your weapons. It
wasn't that you were weak, that you lacked power or skill... you're just
too human. As for me... my humanity is only skin deep...! Cut me. Slash
me. Break me. All useless!"

Slowly, Ryouga looked up at him, eyes narrow and defiant.

"So you don't believe your eyes?" The hybrid asked, and it grabbed a
handful of viscera. "Well then... your broken body will feel the truth
instead!!"

It began to pull when a burning sensation started to build, not within
its victim, but within itself. Half dead, Ryouga's battle aura remained,
flickering weakly within its own. The doppelganger could feel pressure
building up inside itself as it got hotter and hotter. It didn't,
couldn't, really feel pain... not in a human sense of the word, but it
did know discomfort and distress. Something was wrong with its body. It
hadn't been stabbed or broken or beaten. This was different. Almost
like...

-----

"Ryouga-sama..."

He stood, once more, at the shore of the river Sanzo. How often had he
been here, he wondered? How often had he been on the verge of death,
watching, with envy, the dead on the other side. He could see Akari
there, on the other side, and the shadows of his grandparents. It was so
peaceful here, by the river, just waiting to cross.

"Akari-chan," he whispered, but he knew she could hear him. "Akari...
I..."

For a few seconds, she started at him, and then briefly at Ryu. He could
see how his words bounced around in her mind as she thought more about
it, and tried to assimilate it. She didn't become discouraged, like a
part of him had feared. She learned. She kept trying. And it impressed
him.

And he wished he'd seen this side of her a year ago.

"Good match," Ranma finally offered. They'd had to delay breaking in the
new Dojo for a day, but it had been worth it. Ranma grinned broadly.
"Good fight!"

Ryouga nodded. "Good match, Ranma. Good fight."

"This isn't over until he cries uncle!" Mousse stomped on the back of
Kuno's head again, and grinded his foot savagely. "Give up, Kuno! You're
a ten years too early to be challenging the likes of me!"

"Roguish vagabond! None may tread upon the head of Tatewaki Kuno!"

"But here," Konatsu spoke with genuine happiness. "Here, I am doing
something that is just... and right. I'm making a difference, and I'm
part of something gratifying. For the first time in my life, I think I'm
doing something my parents would have been proud of. That makes me
proud, too, and I don't mind if I don't have the spotlight. I wouldn't
even know what to do if I were thrust into it."

"India Squad isn't Juliet Squad," he said, as if sensing her churning
ki. No: he did see it. And he felt it; too, resonate more and more with
his own. "Am I right?"

Ryu's own spiritual pressure was more restrained, but promised the same
level of carnage. "Don't think you'll last long here if you aren't
willing to fight with all you've got. When we hammer down a nail, it
never sticks back up!"

Tetsuya frowned, but nodded in approval. "You'll give 'em Hell. I know
you will. Hibikis may forgive, but we don't forget."

"Kasumi," he gasped, trying to ward her off with the backs of his hands.

"It's alright, Ryouga-kun, it's alright," she said softly and leaned in,
resting her forehead against his.

"Time is an investment, too, in both business and friendships," Nabiki
said, and far more succinctly and accurately than he'd have been capable
of himself. "And we are your friends, Ryouga-kun. So waste some time
with us, ok?"

"Ryouga," Mitsuko said, with that other strangeness now over. "Welcome
back."

He stared at her for a second before smiling honestly. "Glad to be back,
mom."

"You're acting like an idiot," she snapped, her normally stentorian
angry tone of voice unusually subdued. "Don't you ever want to be
anything except angry? Anything but bitter? You can't live like this!"

His shoelaces tied, Ryouga finished buttoning up his shirt, and silently
threaded a plain black tie around the neck of his shirt.

"I know about Akari, about how it happened," Akane persisted, after his
lack of a response. "And I'm sorry. We've all lost people we knew, but
you lost someone you loved. I know it hurts, but don't be like this. I
know you'd be happy to help me, you already have with my training, but
the one who really needs help is you. You, Ryouga-kun!"

"You're probably right," he admitted, with disturbing calmness. "But I
can't fight my way to the stars with depression. They won't let me. But
anger. Hatred. They don't have as much of a problem with those things.
To live with myself..."

-----

Ryouga's grip tightened; fingers digging into flesh.

"The truth," he growled, one hand on the doppelganger's throat, the
other keeping him from pulling his hand out of the gaping wound in
Ryouga's midsection.

"Is that..." The double's hand came up, trying to pry his hand off its
throat.

"Things have changed!" Pulse after pulse of ki shot up Ryouga's arm in a
steady rhythm, visible to the naked eye as it rippled over his skin. The
doppelganger began to squirm, body convulsing as the mental energy broke
down and infiltrated its battle aura, pouring directly into its nervous
and circulatory systems. As the dissonance reached its brain, its
connection to the Mind faded, and it made a hoarse, pained howl.

"Nothing... has changed!" It roared, and seized Ryouga in an identical
grip. "I've been watching you... and Cologne, and all the others! I'm no
dead end! It wasn't all for nothing! I'm the future! I'll prove it right
now!"

Its mouth widened, not just a little, but enough to part the cheeks.
Ryouga gritted his teeth and squinted hard; he could feel bits of dust
from the Mettayatara Metsubushi technique creeping into his mouth, up
his nose, into his eyes. His double roared as its veins began to bulge
and burst, jets of crimson hued steam breaking the surface of its skin.
Its voice broke as its eyes exploded - poisonous black ki and boiling
steam mingling in a fevered hellstorm around the two fighters.

Even as the free water in its body boiled away, it still stood, still
fought. Its grip was like a vice, and Ryouga's throat was starting to
give way under its insane pressure. He was weak from blood loss, and it
was draining his superhuman durability and constitution. All his spare
energy had to go towards stabilizing the wound in his stomach and
directing ki into the water in his double's body. Then his leg gave out,
and he fell to one knee with a painful crunch.

The doppelganger loomed over him, its grip on his throat never slacking;
burning flesh and hollow eyes not even giving it pause. Then, finally,
as its brain began to cook inside its skull, its howl began to fade.
Through his hands, and on his throat, Ryouga could feel how hot the
doppelganger's body had become: hot enough to scald or burn almost
anyone touching him.

I

The disjointed thought cut into Ryouga's mind.

I WON'T

DIE

SHE

won't

want

me

And just like that, the gathering dust clouds fell harmlessly to the
ground in a downpour of sand and soot. The night sky became visible
again through the lack of a roof, and the moon hung clearly against a
sea of stars. Batting away the double's hand from his throat, Ryouga
fell to his other knee as he tried t