Okay, everyone, here is the prologue of TWILIGHT OF THE DEAD. Anyone
who's started reading knows what it's about. If you haven't been reading
- it's a dark fic crossing Ranma 1/2 and Day of the Dead.
So, please C&C to me or the list. Flames and all...
NOTE:
((Thanks to Morgan Hudson for his help on this story so far. An excellent
pre-reader, and a good friend.))
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Twilight of the Dead -- Series I
A Ranma/Day of the Dead crossover
by James T. Jeans "The Man With The Machinegun"
================================================================
"With You"
Theme: Twilight of the Dead -- Series I
"Now we are lost and are all alone
All things have changed and we can't go back
But I will always really care for you.
Though you are not near
I won't give up, No! No!
Even if to only hear
Those three small words - I love you
I will be, joined with thee, just wait and see
It's a lonely life, such a lonely life!
This has been one great big nightmare
Stranded far away from you.
Even though, I don't know, could be true
I might just love you
And if this is found to be true
Nothing will ever keep us apart
But now I'm so lonely
and feel all alone.
And now, this I vow, I will be with you!"
---
(Lyrics by James T. Jeans)
(This song uses the melody of 'Little Date')
================================================================
PROLOGUE
Biological Weapon Ranma
"Oh if you see him coming,
Get away if you can.
Just keep on running,
Run as fast as you can.
He's a dangerous,
Dangerous man."
Alice Cooper -- "The Man Behind the Mask"
"Four-hundred thousand to one , Captain." The man
was irritated. Not only irritated, but frightened
as well. "We don't fair well against those odds."
He reached up to rub the back of his pudgy, short
neck, sweat coating the vicious, hard skin.
Captain Cooper stood slowly from his seat,
his thick, greasy black hair hiding most of his
forehead, which was twisted in agitation. He
placed his hands down on the table before him and
leaned forward. "I don't give a goddamn what you
have to say, McDermott," he began, his voice
quiet, calm. "I'm not risking any more of my men
so you can play a hunch that some quack, nut job
doctor came up with over a year ago."
Dr. Everett McDermott adjusted his glasses
and sighed deeply, an act that seemed to drain
great quantities of energy from the elder
scientist. "Well we certainly aren't going to
kill them all."
"We can try," Lt. Johnson interrupted,
sliding a bullet into the chamber of his newly
polished black 9mm berretta, to which the giant
solder had dedicated the better half of an hour
meticulously buffing the bulk of the weapon with
a fine cloth. He laughed, almost maniacally,
spinning the gun on his finger.
Everett ignored the ignorance and looked at
Cooper. "Dr. Logan was onto something with his
research, I am sure of it. If we can domesticate
them, if we can --"
"What?" Cooper barked, walking slowly
around the table. His finger tips traced along
its marble surface, causing a low, audible smear.
"Turn them into pets? Teach them tricks?"
"Teach them to behave," McDermott offered,
following Cooper with his eyes. His gaze fell to
the soldier's hand, and he watched each pale
finger slide across the table surface. In the
equally pale glow of the fluorescent lights,
the table and soldier both had an icy cold,
wintry look. Maybe it had less to do with the
lights, and more to do with Cooper, Everett
thought.
"At what price? My men's corpses as a
reward?" Cooper's expression grew dark. "I know
what that quack Logan did to the soldiers that
were sent to help his experiment. The man was a
fucking lunatic." Cooper rested his hand on his
revolver.
Everett's eyes followed Cooper's hand. He
gulped loudly, his throat drying. He was now
aware of the sweat mask that had enveloped his
face, despite the cool, stale air of the
underground bunker. The gun looked the size of a
canon.
"I don't intend to let you do the same
thing to me, McDermott." Cooper moved stridently
toward the seat next to Lt. Johnson, pulling it
from beneath the table, sitting in it slowly. "To
my men, either."
Johnson continued to go over his gun,
polishing it with the same fine rag. He placed
the gun in his lap and retrieved an empty clip
from his jacket pocket. Amazingly, he seemed
disconnected from the activities around him, as
if he hadn't a care in the world. As though he
could continue to polish his gun, and reload
empty clips with hollow point rounds. The premise
didn't surprise Everett at all.
The room sat in silence for a moment.
Doctors Kelly Preston and Evan Rembrant sat
quietly across the room from the only other two
soldiers -- Quinn and Brendan.
Kelly sighed and looked around the
dwindling group of survivors, her small, pale
face showing signs of fatigue and agitation. The
silence, in her mind, spoke louder than any words
that evening. "Look, this childish bickering is
getting us nowhere fast."
Cooper pointed at McDermott and said, "I
don't intend on letting your friend here endanger
the lives of my men by sending them out to round
up those things." Losing interest in Everett
for the moment, he eyed Kelly for a long, intent
moment, his ash gray eyes piercing her own light
blue orbs.
Kelly looked at the floor, Cooper's
penetrating gaze feeling as though he could see
through her eyes, into her mind. She didn't like
that feeling at all. It reminded her of how her
father had often used such tactics to force her
into confession, weather it be true or not. She
hated the memory of her teenage years.
Everett McDermott shook his head. "Tokyo is
all but abandoned, Captain. The humans within the
main city have evacuated..."
"Which is why I don't understand this
bullshit mission." Attention shifted toward
Quinn. The young man looked around the small
group, his once soft features now worn and
chiseled, his face
a solid wall of confusion. "There's no one here.
We were sent on a mission of seek and rescue."
"Exactly." Cooper stood and walked to the
opposing wall, where the oversized map of Tokyo
hung from the wall. His hard, ash eyes moved up
and down the wall map quickly. He turned around
and gestured toward the three scientists. "We
weren't sent here to help you three yo-yos stop
these things by teaching them to be good little
boys and girls. We just happened to find you on
the way."
Leaning forward on the table, Kelly noted a
small folder sitting on the table opposite
Cooper's back. She watched for a moment, somehow
expecting it to vanish in a cloud of smoke,
accompanied by one of those cartoon-like 'POOF'
sounds. It didn't.
She couldn't imagine the world still being
organized enough to send a top secret group with
top secret documents. The surprises never ceased.
"You were sent here for a specific group of
people, weren't you? It wasn't just a general
seek and rescue."
Cooper hesitated, then nodded, turned, and
lifted the small manila folder. He tossed it
across the room, onto the table in front of
Kelly. She found the action rather jarring.
Cooper said, "A small pocket of resistance
has arisen in a large sub-district of this city.
It's been reported that they've killed no less
than 100 of these things."
Johnson slid the clip into his 9mm.
"Without guns," he added, placing his weapon in
his lap.
"Of course without guns," Rembrant spoke
up, shaking his head at the ignorance of the
militaristic buffoon that occupied the sleek,
marble table across the room from him. "Firearms
are as illegal as heroin in Japan, if not worse."
"Shut the hell up!" Johnson grunted, aiming
his gun at the estranged scientist.
Cooper grimaced, slamming his hand down on
the table. "Both of ya shut up or I'll shoot the
two of you!" He paused, looked between his two
subordinates, and then continued. "We want to
know how they've been doing this. We might have
some kind of fighting chance against these fuck
brains... If these people work with us. The NSA
consider these people, for lack of a better term,
'Lethal Weapons' of a biological nature."
"I find it hard to believe the NSA still
exist, frankly." Kelly opened the folder slowly.
She thumbed through the pictures and files.
She stopped on a picture of a young man
with a rather muscular frame for his apparent
age, and a long pigtail. His look caught her eye
more than the name on the file. "I've heard of
this guy," she said, thinking back. There had
been many news stories on the young man, and a
small group of his friends, not long before the
disaster. "He was a local hero in Tokyo, before
it all started. He had supposedly thwarted
several unexplainable attacks on the city."
"And 13 months in, he's still alive. At
least he's believed to be." Cooper turned back to
face the map. "In 28 hours, Quinn and Johnson
are going to accompany Weston in the chopper over
to this section of Tokyo." He reached up and
pressed his finger against a section labeled
with the word 'Nerima'. "I trust you all know a
little Japanese?" He looked over his shoulder,
glaring at Everett.
"Fluently," the elder scientist confirmed.
"I don't know about your men."
"Of course they do." Cooper turned to face
the room. "Why else would they have been sent on
this fucking mission?"
Everett shrugged wearily. He didn't much
care to press the issue. It was like giving a
ravenous wolf a hunk of cow hide, only to
decide you would take it back. It was a battle
best left alone. "Look, even if this man CAN
help, how do you expect him alone to stop a
planet overrun by the dead?"
"I don't. I expect him to tell us how he
does it." Cooper paused, as if to dramatize his
statement. "How his friends do it. What makes
them such powerful weapons?"
"What if he won't tell you?" Rembrant
asked, looking up from a stack of scientific
papers.
Kelly assumed that, as well as Johnson,
Rembrant had been essentially ignoring the
'briefing'.
"Tokyo is now under martial law." Cooper
smiled slightly to himself. A morbid pleasure
washed through him, like a shot of adrenaline.
"If he won't talk, I'll have him executed for
insubordination."
Kelly grimaced, her skin growing a dull
gray. Her surprise was anything but unobvious.
"Under whose authority? The NSA couldn't declare
martial law in a foreign country, let alone the
US Military. You have no jurisdiction."
"My jurisdiction is infinite while on this
mission." Cooper turned from the map, ignoring
the stunned gazes of the people around him.
Rembrant said, "Our law doesn't apply to
the Japanese community, Cooper. You're an
American soldier. You don't have the authority to
instill martial law on this city." He watched
Cooper closely, removing his feet from the chair
in front of him. Sweat glistened on his forehead,
causing his dark walnut skin to seemingly glow in
the dull florescent lights.
Cooper's face grew dark. "He doesn't know
that. As far as the citizens are concerned, we're
here by declaration of both governments."
Quinn, Brendan, and Johnson all looked up
at their commanding officer. A mutual
understanding that something was amiss pulsed
between the men like a strong beckon.
Brendan shook his head. "It's immoral,
Cooper. Why should we go along with this?"
"Because you're under MY command, Brendan.
You'd be wise to remember that." Cooper looked
over toward the map, his eyes stone cold. He
turned his back on the room.
Kelly felt an gigantic glob of thick, cold
imaginary ice water slither down her spine,
causing her flesh to rise in many tiny goose
bumps. She shivered, foreboding engulfing her.
Brendan stood up slowly. "I won't go along
with this, Cooper. You're trying to pull
nonexistent strings on these people. They are not
puppets."
"That's a declaration of Mutiny, Mister,"
Cooper said, his voice low, dark.
Foreboding grew stronger, and Kelly felt as
she had before the earthquake last year that
destroyed her home and nearly left her open to
the
cannibal jaws of the walking monstrosities that
had once been like her.
Her lips began to quiver, and a foul taste
filled her mouth as her throat grew slowly dry.
"Yes sir, I suppose it is." Brendan watched
Cooper, his posture rigid. He let his hand drift
slowly toward his standard issue revolver. He
felt it, too. A strong sense of danger, like an
animal being hunted by a stronger predator. He
didn't know what hit him.
Cooper spun around suddenly and a loud
crack rang out through the room, causing everyone
to jump.
"NO!" Kelly jumped to her feet as Brendan
fell to the floor with a dull thud, a wash of
blood rushing from his chest, splashing across
the
concrete floor.
A sick feeling rushed the young geneticist
as almost instantaneously the odor of hot metal
and burning gunpowder filled her nose, mouth and
throat. She gagged.
Cooper looked toward Kelly, a stream of
smoke rising from the barrel of his own revolver.
After a moment of steady observation, he glanced
from person to person. "Anyone else have any
problems with how I run this operation?"
"Goddamn it, Cooper!" Kelly screamed,
turning on the soldier, the sour flavor in her
mouth aggravating her further. "You can't do this
to us!"
Cooper pulled his gun around slowly, the
barrel aiming at Kelly, toward her head. "You
have 'til the count of 5 to sit down and shut the
up."
"You listen to me you asshole," Kelly
Preston continued, her emotions fuming, "We are a
civilian operation posted here to work with
a team of the top Japanese geneticist in the
search to reverse what's happening. You don't
have any authority over us!"
"That's three you've wasted," Cooper
replied, pulling the hammer on the revolver back.
Quinn stood up suddenly. "Kelly, sit down.
Just shut up and sit down."
Kelly glanced towards Quinn. His eyes, like
deep, liquid pools pleaded with her, and shifted
quickly between her and the Captain. She looked
back at Cooper.
"That's 4."
Kelly looked around the room slowly, her
eyes pleading. Rembrant
looked at her, then Cooper, his eyes wide in
terror.
Everett stared at Cooper, unbelieving,
while Quinn watched Kelly, his gaze now
demanding. Johnson simply continued to observed
the activities around him.
Kelly Preston slowly lowered herself into
her seat. Her eyes glazed with spite, she avoided
meeting those of her peers, except Cooper. And
even through her hate, a chill passed through her
as she looked at those cold, gray eyes.
Quinn finally descended into his own seat,
gaze shifting from Cooper to Kelly, and back. His
first reaction had been, of course, to pull his
firearm and unload the 20 round parable clip into
his commanding officer, but something had stopped
him. Something he couldn't identify.
Cooper uncocked the hammer of his gun and
held it in a non-hostile manner, or as non-
hostile as a murderer could hold a gun the size
of a cannon. "I'm running this show now. Anyone
who fucks with my orders will be shot. Is that
clear?"
Everyone nodded, watching Cooper. He walked
around the table, over to where Brendan lay. He
took his coat off and threw it over the body.
Moving over to his seat, he looked up,
around the room. "We continue as planned. In 28
hours, we move in to search the Nerima sub-
district of Tokyo, and we don't come out until
we've found Ranma Saotome. Is that clear?"
Everyone nodded again.
================================================================
=============================
"Speaking of exploding sharks..."
=============================
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