alliancesjr | Secret War, Chapter 2

So I do know when I'm going to finish this chapter, after all.

I'll probably post the first, scrapped version of this chapter later.

Secret War
Chapter 2

Choosing a Proper Name
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“This,” Raynor said, leaning back in his chair, “is nothing like the briefings I got with the Confederacy.”

Buffy glared at him. “Is that a problem?”

Raynor smiled. “Problem? Hell no, I hated that kind of formal stuff. Just give me a gun and point the way, that’s what I always said.”

Jack raised his water bottle in a toast. “I’ll drink to that.”

<So what’s the deal with everyone?> Tobias said, shifting on his perch. <I mean, we’re not exactly familiar with each other, right? Why did the Ellimist pull us all together?>

Jack frowned. “He said he chose us because of our counterparts, but also because of our backgrounds. Something about a wargame, which I never had a fondness for.”

“The only way to win is not to play,” Marco quipped.

Xander’s eyes brightened. “How about a nice game of chess?”

“Oh, great,” Buffy grumbled. “Now there’s two of them.”

Off in his corner, Ranma made a comment. “‘If this Ellimist chose us because of our counterparts,’” Jack translated, “‘perhaps he also chose those who would fit well with each other.’”

Raynor, Marco, and Tobias had made it most of the way to the warehouse before Tobias noticed that they were being tailed. He silently alerted Marco and Raynor, and doubled back to get the drop on the man behind them.

The man turned out to be a surly Japanese teenager, who didn’t understand more than a few sentences of English. Tobias, due to the nature of thought-speak, was able to talk to him, though he didn’t understand much of the boy’s speech, either.

After a few harsh telepathic threats, the boy gave two names; one, which was his own, being Saotome Ranma, while the other was what convinced Tobias that he was on their side. The Ellimist.

Tobias told Ranma to come with them, and they hiked the last of the distance to the warehouse without incident.

When they arrived, however, was another story. Fortunately, Marco was able to morph away the knife wound when explanations and introductions were made.

Xander, in his exploration of the warehouse, had found some relatively-normal looking chairs, and had arranged them in a large circle. Ranma had dragged his off to a corner and watched the rest of them, warily, as Tobias relayed the conversation to him. Jack, as it turned out, had a workable proficiency with Japanese, and was able to translate the gist of what the boy said to the group.

“So let’s see what we have,” Raynor said. “We’ve got two soldiers, two shapeshifters—”

“Animorphs,” Marco corrected, while Ranma made a face.

“—Animorphs,” Raynor continued. “A martial-artist, a Slayer, and a carpenter.”

<Definitely a mixed assortment of characters,> Tobias agreed. <Remind me to ask about the whole Slayer thing sometime.>

Buffy shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

Xander stood up, and made his way to the large computer terminal on the north wall. “So we’ve been plucked from our various universes, placed on a planet somewhere by a powerful being, along with our greatest enemies, and told to have at?” He fiddled with the console for a moment, without gaining any results. “You know what that means?”

Marco’s eyes shone, while Tobias groaned. “We have ourselves our own Secret War.”

* * *

“Echo Base.”

“Too cliché.”

“Tracy Island?”

“Fortress of Solitude.”

“Not enough crystals.”

Buffy fought off an impending headache. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Xander and Marco glanced at each other. “If this is going to be our base of operations,” Marco said, “we need to give it a proper name.”

Xander nodded. “Yeah, we can’t just call it The Warehouse, can we?”

“How about Alpha Site?” Jack suggested.

Marco considered it. “Nah, too dull.”

“Too dull? It’s good enough for the SGC, isn’t it?”

Xander shrugged. “You’ve got a point.”

Marco shook his head emphatically. “Come on, guys! We’ve got something major here, and we can’t just give it a boring name like that. Where’s your sense of fun?”

Buffy crossed her arms. “Back home. Which is where we need to focus on getting, remember?”

Ranma shook his head in exasperation, and leapt up to the catwalk above; presumably to brood in privacy.

Marco and Xander fell silent. Buffy closed her eyes again, taking in the tranquility.

“Baxter Building.”

“We’re two-story, man.”

Tranquility didn’t last very long.

* * *

On the opposite side of the alien metropolis, Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, sat in contemplation. While her compatriots sniped at each other in thinly-veiled threats and barbs, she cast her mind to the situation set upon the seven of them.

She had been pulled away from her Swarm, with no Brood, not even a single Hydralisk to help her. She had been given her second-in-command, Duran, but even his experience was limited.

Still, he was quite an asset. And it helped to have an ally you were familiar with than five you didn’t. Especially since they were apparently going up against Jim.

Jim.

The bastard hounded Kerrigan with every move she made. Even when she’s pulled away to some unknown planet, he found a way to follow her.

It was some human sense of justice, she thought. Revenge for killing Fenix, mostly.

He probably did it out of some sense of duty. Perhaps he blamed himself for letting her get taken. Perhaps he thought that he was doing Sarah one last favor.

The misguided fool. Sarah was dead, gone forever, and nothing he did would bring her back. Kerrigan would make sure of that.

“Amazing sight, isn’t it?”

Kerrigan spun at the sound of the voice. The cheerful one, Wilkins, had approached her, without her noticing. Either she had been a bit too absorbed in her thoughts, or he was more formidable than she had realized.

“I’m sorry?” she replied.

“The view.” Wilkins sat down next to her – the nerve! – and gazed out to the cityscape below them. “It always warms my heart to see civilization at its finest. You can just feel the sense of community, of civic pride, drifting from them.” He turned to look at her, wearing a genuine smile. “Somewhere down there, there’s a marketplace, full of wide-eyed youngsters and happily wandering customers. An economic paradise, that’s what it is.”

Kerrigan just stared.

“It’s astonishing, really, what you see when you know where to look,” he said, using the same cheerful tone of voice. “For example, that charming little Drode creature that brought us here, he had just the tiniest amount of smugness on his face when he spoke to us. What that could mean, though, is anyone’s guess.”

“What do you want?” Kerrigan snapped, tiring of this prattle.

“Same thing you do,” he said, not missing a beat. “I want to get back to my city, to my plans. Of course, I’m dead there, but I’d like to go back all the same.” His smile didn’t fade, but his expression hardened into something...dangerous. “And as long as I’m here, I’d like to take care of that smart-mouthed Slayer that is here. The same as you probably want to take care of your counterpart.”

Kerrigan didn’t answer. She wanted to be rid of Jim’s annoying persistence, but did she really want him gone completely?

Yes. Yes, of course she did. He was a hindrance to her rule, and such things needed to be removed.

Not for the first time, she banished that line of thought from her head. She would deal with it when it was appropriate, and not until then.

* * *

At Raynor’s request, the group pulled themselves back together and discussed their various abilities. He got their support fairly quickly after mentioning that if they were to rely on each other on a battlefield, they should know what they were capable of.

After a few demonstrations of morphing and Slayer-strength and speed, they decided to discuss their counterparts.

“Knowing each other is good for us, knowing our enemy is better. What to expect, what to not expect. How they’ll work together. It’s never a good idea to take anyone for granted; that will just get you killed.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “I’ll go first. The Ellimist said that the one chosen for me was Sarah Kerrigan, also known as the Queen of Blades.”