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UVR2- THE DESTRUCTION CONTINUES
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SECTION NINE
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_The Ring_

"ROBERT GARCIA!" (KOF95)

        "Yes! It is I, the most swaggering of the swaggerers, the coolest
of them all, the one who's so hip he has trouble seeing his pelvis! Damn,
but I'm good! Of course, I owe all this to my teacher, Takuma Sakazaki,
and my pal Ryo, and my girlfriend Yuri..."

        Yuri ran up to him as he entered the ring. "What took you? You're
blustering again...what did you do this time?"

        Robert tried to portray innocence and failed. "Um. Nothing."

        "Did you buy another new car?"

        Robert looked guilty.

_Somewhere Else_

        Doom, but not Doom, certainly not Doom's body for this one was not
scarred, floated through mist. But was it really mist? Maybe it was smoke.
No, change that. Shadows. Shadows merging and dissolving...no, colours.
Disorienting colours surrounding him, passing through him at times.

        Is this death? Doom mused.

        The colours were suddenly shadows again, but not quite shadows...
more like walls in his path...but the walls were receding and breaking
apart, and there was light, an intense light, normally it would hurt but
right now it didn't for some odd reason even though it was like staring
into the sun...

        I can only surmise that I am to go there.

        Doom went.

_The Ring_

"MARSHALL LAW!" (T2)

        Fei Long was sitting in a corner, trying very hard not to cry. His
hopes again had been dashed. Bruce wasn't alive. This wasn't Bruce.

        Life simply wasn't fair.

"SUB-ZERO!" (MK3)

        The entire robot population of the Eliminated seating started
shooting at the ring. Of course, the forcefield automatically caught the
shots. Dural, the only robot present without a projectile, jumped up and
down a lot in anger.

        Up in the booth, Birdman stared down. "What the hell are they all
doing?"

        Of course, Sub-Zero was totally oblivious to everything...except
the bothersome tabloid reporter.

        "Excuse me! Could you please tell us whether or not you're the
Sub-Zero who fought in the first Mortal Kombat tourney, or the one who
travelled to the Outworld? People want to know!"

"KIM DRAGON!" (WHP)

        "HAIT! HAIT! WA-TOW!"

        Fei sunk lower. Kin Dragon was just another reminder of his pain.

        Meanwhile, up in the stands, Ryoko had taken a seat next to the
Silver Samurai.

        The Silver Samurai looked at her. "You're awfully CUTE."

        Ryoko looked at him. "You know, I've heard you SUCK."

        The Samurai nodded, and pulled out a large jug. "Sake?"

        "Please."

"SAGAT!" (SFA)

        Sagat wasn't paying attention to the ring. His eyes were fixed on
the Eliminated seating...and more to the point, on one man.

        "It can't be. I killed you! You're dead! DEAD! I broke your spine!
You can't be alive! You can't..."

        But Donovan Bane was walking through the seats, to a group of
fighters.

        Sagat was scared.

_Eliminated Seating_

        The group of Haohmaru's defenders had grown somewhat. Kyo Kusanagi
had joined them, along with Jon Talbain. And Donovan Bane had just joined
them. Mai Shiranui was being held by Andy Bogard.

        Everybody was suddenly quite scared-looking for some reason.

        "So, that's Shao Kahn and Bison, Rugal and Number 27. Only four of
them? I think we can handle that..." said Charlotte.

        Jon Talbain interrupted. "Waitaminit! What about Pyron and Mizuki?"

        Ryo looked at him. "I was just getting to them. That's the
thing...we won't know for another ten minutes or so."

        Jon looked confused. "I don't get it."

        Ryo nodded. "I know. The problem is Demitri."

        Jon shook his head emphatically. "Nah. Demitri's a minor player in
all this. He's just workin' for Pyron."

        "Trust me. I heard him talking to Blue Mary..."

        Andy Bogard interrupted. "Wait. Terry's Blue Mary?"

        Mai Shiranui looked pained. "She's not 'Terry's Blue Mary.' She's
her own person. They've barely started dating..."

        Ryo stopped the argument before it could start. "Whatever! It
doesn't matter, because Demitri's enslaved her."

        Mai whitened, as did Andy. "Oh god..." muttered Andy. "How are we
going to protect Terry?"

        Ryo looked at him sadly. "We aren't. That's a minor problem. Right
now are main concern is whether or not Demitri succeeded."

        Heavy D! looked at him. "Succeeded at what?"

        Ryo rubbed the forehead. He was getting a stress headache. "He was
planning to enslave Pyron and Mizuki...maybe M. Bison if he got the
chance. Plus, he was going to contact the Dark Guy once he got Mizuki. He's
going to enter in about five minutes, so we'll know then."

        Mudman's eyes widened behind his mask. "Woo-hoo! That's bad bad bad! If
vampire gets demonic power, becomes much much very harder to defeat!"

        "Great. Any ideas on how we can stop him? Think we could cut him
off from his power source?"

        Rasputin shook his head. "No chance. Demitri, assuming he gets
this power, will be directly linked to a massive power source. It would be
like trying to singlehandedly dam the Volga."

        "Once again, terrific news. Does *anyone* have an idea of how we
can stop him?"

        Caffeine Nicotine spoke up. "We could build an enchantment circle,
lure him into it..."

        Anakaris shook his head. "No. He's to smart to fall for that. But,
we could use that circle to power up one of our own to fight him."

        Donovan grinned fiercely. "Excellent. I have a little knowledge of
enchantment circles...I could help with the construction and then stand
guard."

        Rasputin nodded. "Yes...it could probably be done. I have the
neccessary skills to begin such an enchantment, even though it isn't my
forte..."

        Ryo grinned. "All right, then. We'll..."

        Rasputin interrupted him. "I said "probably". We still have
problems. Firstly, I need a power source to strengthen this enchantment
sufficently. If we tried to do it without that, we'd be killed as the
energy was sucked from our bodies and spirits. We need a fighter with a
direct power link..."

        Everyone fell silent as Kyo Kusanagi summoned the Source to his
hands. After letting it play over his palms for a few seconds, he ceased
the flow. "Will that do?"

        Rasputin bowed. "Excellently. But that's not all. Secondly, we
need someone with a link to divine power. None of us have that..."

        Ryo pointed to the newly entered Nightwolf. "Will he do?"

        Rasputin looked at him for a bare second. "Yes...he has traces of
the divine in his aura. We can use him."

        Ryo looked at him. "You said secondly. Is there a thirdly?"

        Rasputin looked peeved. "Yes. Well. Finally, my enchantment skill is
not *quite* good enough to finish off this enchantment, not even with all the
magic-users here helping me out. I need someone specialized in enchantment,
and the only person I can think of who even fits the bill is Rose."

        Ryo's face fell. "And she's still in the ring, and we have no way
of contacting her."

        Rasputin shrugged. "Hopefully, she'll be eliminated. If she does,
we only need her for the final segments of the spell anyway...but we can't
do it without her."

        Ryo thought for a second. "You only need Rose for the end?"

        "Yes."

        A decision was quickly made. "Okay. Take the mages and find a
section of the sub-basement with only one entrance to it, so it's
defensible. We need some guys to help Donovan guard them..."

        Lei Wulong raised his hand. "I volunteer."

        Heavy D! stood up (incidentally towering over everyone). "Me too.
If one of those stinkin' vampires comes around, I can giv'im what for."

        Ryo looked confused. He didn't seem any more lucid when Heavy D!
opened his jacket and revealed a foot-long wooden stake attached inside.

        "Where the hell did you get that?"

        "Ah, it was a gift from my second cousin at a family reunion a
couple months back. Y'may have hearda him...he's called Vampire Hunter D..."

        Everyone digested this information for about two seconds before
Ryo spoke up. "Whatever. Okay, those who are leaving, get going. I'm gonna
go find my dad...who's with me?"

        Mai spoke up. "Well, for a start, you aren't."

        "What?"

        "Look, Andy and I are used to working together..." She noticed
Andy smiling faintly and blushed. "Not like *that*, I didn't mean that."
She elbowed him. Then she saw the faintly pained look on Ryo's face.
"Sorry, Ryo. Anyway, we'll go. You stay here with...whoever's left..."

        Yoshimitsu looked offended.

        Ryo gave in. "You're *sure* about this? I'll go."

        "No, you won't." Mai got up, leading Andy as she left.

        Ryo suppressed a scandalous thought about what they'd do once they
got out of sight. It wouldn't happen. They weren't so lust-crazed that
they'd ignore the fact that the world was in danger. (Of course, a part of
him was loudly saying "Bollocks" but he ignored it.)

        Donovan Bane had hung back for a few seconds. He looked at Ryo.

        "Y'know, kid, you're being one hell of a leader here. You should
consider soldierin', not fightin'." With that he left.

        Ryo looked after him. "I'm not the leader! I'm a lousy leader!
Rasputin's in charge!" But Donovan was gone.

        Suddenly he looked around. Yoshimitsu was the only one left.

        "Yoshi, where's everybody else? I don't recall Colossus or Jon
Talbain or Charlotte saying they'd stand guard."

        "The answers my friend, are blowin' in the wind. The answers are
blowin' in the wind."

        Ryo was puzzled. Where were they?

_The Ring_

"MAGNETO!" (XM:COTA)

        Magneto floated down to the ring. Everything went silent for a second.

        Guy could be seen to mouth something like "Oh shid." But
lipreading techniques aren't that easy these days. We could be wrong.

"JUBEI YAGYU!" (SS2)

        "Kill Haohmaru...I must kill Haohmaru..."

        As Jubei jumped into the ring, Guy ran over to him (fresh from
being zapped by Magneto). "Jubei! Man, glad you could make it. We need
reinforcements to take out..."

        He never finished his sentence, as Jubei began a Hasso Happa on
his body. Blades sliced at Guy, and the Bushitsu master fell back in pain.

        Rose saw this. "What are you DOING?" She was answered as Jubei
began running at her.

"CINDER!" (KI)

        Still slightly wobbly from the beating Captain Kidd had given him,
Cinder staggered down to ringside. Stopping for half-a-moment, he
practiced a quick flipkick to make sure he was all right. When he landed
on his feet, he grinned and entered the ring.

        Of course, he didn't know about the small steel sign Glacius had
stuck on his back which read: PuT mE oUt.

_Room 519, RumbleDome Hotel_

        Number 27's eyes widened behind his sunglasses.

        He turned on his com unit. "Rugal?"

        "What?" Rugal's voice was clear if somewhat tinny. But, that was
the price one paid for a private channel.

        "We have trouble."

        "What is it now? You didn't insult Magneto, did you?"

        "No, no...he's with us."

        "Good. What's the problem, then?"

        "Someone else has control of Jago."

        "Huh? I thought..."

        "I still have control of his soul, yes, but Jago's body has been
possessed. I can't stop that."

        "Damn. Cut our losses and destroy him."

        "That would be easier if he were still here. He's down in the
lineup as we speak to enter the ring..."

_The Ring_

"SHEEVA!" (MK3)

        Sheeva was visibly confused. Kintaro was a traitor, but the Kahn
was acting dishonorably, but Kintaro had broken oath when he fought Kahn,
but the Kahn was dishonorable so there was no harm in breaking the oath...

"WULF!" (TK)

        Wulf ran down to ringside, brandishing his sword.

        "Excalibur!" he shouted.

        Meanwhile, Kilshred, in the Eliminated seating, responded. "ah,
who cares. i'm better than your crummy sword any day...probably made outta
tin..."

and, the final fighter of this section...

"DEMITRI MAXIMOV!" (DS2)

        The Dome darkened as lights went out everywhere. One lone
spotlight illuminated Demitri as he strode arrogantly down to the ring.
His orchestral theme blared out of the speakers as intricate violin
harmonies meshed with a steady techno beat.

        His aura stretched out occasionally, to snap at fingers. Dressed
entirely in blue, he cut quite a different figure.

        Axel Hawk, Birdman's current broadcast partner, noticed this.
"Geez. He looks like an evil Superman or somethin'."

        Birdman said nothing. His jaw was down. Any further down and it
would have hit the floor.

        Of course, the impressiveness of Demitri's entrance was doubled
when he started shooting fireballs at all in the ring. But these weren't
his usual Wipeouts...these were Vampire Rage fireballs, screaming and
growling as they approached their targets.

        Guy, realizing the danger, ran in at Demitri, but the vampire was
ready for him...and leapt up into a Demon Cradle, blue swirls surrounding
his body as he did so.

        "BRANT!" Birdman yelled into the com.

        "I don't know how he did it! I don't! But now, it looks like his
energy meter is stuck at the maximum level!"

        Birdman's eyes widened.

        In the Eliminated seating, Ryo groaned. "He did it. He bloody did it."

_Sub-Basement 328-34E_

        Charlotte ran through another stairwell.

        All this talking, this blabbering, and the fools had yet to
realize that it was painfully simple to defeat evil. All they had to do
was kill the evildoers. It wasn't hard. And her beloved Haohmaru would be
free.

        Suddenly, she heard someone coming up behind her. Her first
challenge. She readied her epee...

        ...and lowered it as Colossus ran into the room.

        "Why did you follow me?"

        "My fellow X-Men have disappeared here. I wish to search for them.
I believe that maybe you might be going in the right direction anyway."

        Charlotte nodded. "Good thin-"

        Her sentence was cut off as an Optic Blast hammered her in the
back. Colossus saw his friend Scott grin as the French woman was knocked
to her knees.

        "Scott! Why do you do this? She is not evil!"

        Cyclops looked at his teammate. "It's not your fault, Piotr! Don't
worry! We can show you the way!" As he entered the room, Janne and Wolf
entered in behind him.

        Charlotte lunged to her feet. "I will show you MY way, plebians!"
She thrust out with her epee.

WHO WILL LIVE?
WHO WILL DIE?
WHO IS NOW THE LEADER OF THE GOOD GUYS?