Project A-Ko Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction ❯ Nabiki 1/2 (A Very Scary Thought) ❯ Dark Pathways... ( Chapter 125 )

Nabiki 1/2

(A Very Scary Thought)

Written by Jim Robert Bader

Proofread by Shiva Barnwell

Based Upon the Altered Destinies Storyline

Inspired by the works of such fans as

Wade Tritshler

Richard Lawson

James Jones

And Many Others

Standard Disclaimer: This is inspired by the work of Takahashi Rumiko and is not my original creation. All characters belong to her. This is only a fanfictional work, and is not intended to compromise the rights of the original owners, distributors and publishers of the Ranma series. I have no money to spare and would very much appreciate if no one tries to sue me.

"Hello? Is anybody here? Hello! Is there anyone else here besides me?"

Ranma glanced around at the grey haze of his surroundings, finding himself standing at a crossroads that seemed to lead off in two separate directions. It was dark on the horizon and with no signposts to indicate which way lead to what destination. Ranma tried looking one way, then the other, but could discern no difference between the two pathways, and so he murmured to himself aloud, "I wonder if I have to go somewhere…but which way?"

"Why not try the road not taken, Little Brother?"

Ranma whirled around and saw something that he would have sworn had not been there the previous instant, namely a small carnival tent with the flaps hanging open, and there inside the tent, sitting behind a round table, was his half-sister Kaoru, who was wearing some manner of fortune teller's outfit and had a tarot deck in hand, which she was shuffling like a professional card player.

"Where did you come from?" Ranma asked.

"From my mother," Kaoru responded, "I'm afraid that you're going to have to ask her for the details if you want to know anything beyond that."

Ranma glanced down at the cards that Kaoru was laying out upon the table then said, "What are you doing?"

"Telling your fortune, of course," Kaoru replied, forming the basic "Tree-of-Life" formation with the cards, then turning one of these over to examine the face, which turned out to be the Fool card, "Interesting…looks like you before you learned the Senkens."

"Uh…right," Ranma said as he saw Kaoru turn the next card over from the "Moon" position, and this time it revealed the Magician.

"You right after you started to masker the Senkens," Kaoru noted, then turned the card to the right in the "Venus" position and revealed the High Priestess, "And here's Nabiki, the girl you married after using the Senkens to help defeat her."

"What's behind the other card?" Ranma asked as he pointed to the one in the "Mercury" position.

"You don't really need that one, Little Brother," Kaoru replied, "That's the road taken by intellectuals and nerds…intellect without passion, the path of Ice, whereas you have chosen the road leading from the Moon to Venus, which is the way of Fire."

"So…what's next after Venus?" Ranma asked.

Kaoru reached for the card in the "Sun" position and revealed the "Heirophant" card, "Behold the Majestes, Hermes thrice-born, the path of enlightenment and wisdom."

"Come again?" Ranma asked, "How can somebody be thrice-born? Isn't once enough?"

"Not for certain types of people," Kaoru answered, "Hermes Trismajestes, or Thoth in the Egyptian cycle. This is the way of the Holy Man or Healer, who sits in a position of equilibrium where no opposition can be mounted and where Buddha himself protects him. This is where you are headed, Little Brother, the Way of Heaven or the Way of Hell, depending on your orientation, just as the sun can be Light or Dark depending on which side of it you stand, either nourishing or parching, a source of life or a way of depriving the body of life-giving moisture…it all matters on where you stand…and where you were at the ultimate beginning…"

And, saying this, Kaoru uncovered the Heirophant (or Pope) card and revealed the Inferno that lay underneath, and all at once Ranma's world went red as flames engulfed him and swept him away from himself to a world of light, sound, fury and darkness…

Ranma floated in a crimson haze of memories watching the ages melt away as his mind wandered far and crossed the channels of the ages. He found himself looking down upon a man who looked oddly much like himself save that he was clearly no longer Japanese and had reddish-gold skin, and his eyes were so blue that they were almost silver, and he was oddly dressed in ceremonial robes of an indefinable nature.

A man was speaking to him in a language he did not recognize, yet somehow Ranma heard the words as clearly as if they were spoken in Japanese, floating in as if in mid-conversation, "…situation is critical! We have lost too many cities! The enemy swarms without number and they are killing us, draining us of life, leaving nothing but ruins in their passing! This is worse than the fall of the old kingdom, this could mean the end of everything, the extinction of the human race!"

"But what you are proposing is lunacy!" another man declared, "To cast this spell would be to sacrifice our very humanity…"

"Would you rather lose our humanity or cause the death of the race?" a fourth man questioned, "It is the way, we have taken a poll, and the will of the majority has decided."

"Better to lose our lives than to lose our souls!" a fifth individual protested.

"Our souls?" a woman spoke this time, clear and melodious and strangely familiar, her features cast like bronze in the dull light of crystal braziers that glowed like torches, "Our souls will be lost anyway if we do not undertake this gesture. The Rakshasa absorb life energies down to the base Monad, preventing a soul from attaining rebirth as a glorified human. Would you rather begin the cycle of renewal from the level of a mere insect, to spend countless life cycles in constant rebirth through progressively higher stages before we are returned to something equivalent to humanity?"

"Perhaps the Eldren will do something to move against these demons."

"The Eldren live apart from us…they are immortal and do not understand the concept of death as it afflicts we callow humans. A human may live for centuries but they have thousands of years to look forward to. Do you think that they will come down from their havens and risk their lives to do battle with demons who cannot be killed by mortal weapons?"

"It takes strong magics to fell even one Rakshasa," another man spoke up, "Magic swords and other weapons barely faze them, unless you are one of the wielders of the Holy Seven. Their thirst for blood is insatiable, and I have witnessed the sort of death that they subject their victims to. It is truly hideous, a slow consumption within their bellies as you dissolve gradually, fully awake the whole time. I would not wish such a death on another human if it can be avoided, so we must choose to act to protect humanity, even if it means that we become living death ourselves. So the council has decided."

All at once the man nearest to him turned to Ranma and said, "What do you say, Ka'ar-Nathu? Do you agree with the will of this quorum that we must debase ourselves by casting a spell that will turn us all into creatures like these demons? Or will you side with the minority who believes that we should await the decision of the Gods to strike? The Gods have been strangely silent over these matters…"

"Indeed," another man noted, "I heard one God, Crom Kriuch the Serpent, voice the opinion that humanity must redeem itself, that if we are worthy of continued like that we must prove ourselves against the likes of the Rakshasa."

All at once Ranma heard himself speak aloud, "There is no more time for us to debate, the time for action is upon us, and if we must sacrifice ourselves to save humanity, I, for one, would prefer to die fighting on my feet rather than sit passively by and let the demons destroy us."

Time seemed to pass rapidly from that point onward as Ranma and the other robed men and women moved to a different chamber and began to enact a series of ritual gestures and invocations with lots of fancy symbols in the room and many curious chants that gave him an oddly unpleasant sense of coolness. As Ranma tried to focus upon these chants and symbols a sense of growing familiarity made him feel as though he could actually recognize the nature of the powers being so channeled. In fact, the more he looked upon the pattern of the floor the more and more certain he was that he understood its intrinsic nature, like a recognition of a long-faded memory, and in that moment he jolted to an awareness of what was happening that left him stunned and dumbfounded.

To his amazement he found himself comprehending the intricate weaving of geometric patterns and forms inside one another, forming a circle whose intent was to mimic the shape of a human body in the abstract. All at once he knew that it was the Tree of Life that was wound up inside of the pattern and that he was standing upon one of the cardinal points symbolizing Fire while other points were held by the rest of the dozen-strong Archmages who stood about the circle chanting and joining in with crafting a spell that was intended to invoke the dark powers of the Netherverse, the world that existed in opposition to the Earth Plane as a dark mirror image would cast a negative reflection.

The words were actually a complex alchemical spell, like the weaving of an elaborate computer program, and they activated the hidden power within the circle, calling forth a terrible light that rose up from the floor to color everything the bright red colors of a hellish nightmare.

All at once he heard the woman-Ayesha?-call out in a startled voice, "He is coming!"

"Let him come!" an Elder within the circle boldly intoned, "We stand ready!"

At once a terrible presence filled the air and Ranma felt his soul curdle like spoiled milk before a dark shadowy shape that rose to fill the air above the chamber. It was not a human shape he beheld, yet there was something strangely familiar about it, as if facing an old enemy who had come in through the backdoor and was ready to burn your house down. A voice more terrible than any he had ever heard rang out, "SO-YOU SEEK TO STEAL MY POWER FROM ME AND USE IT FOR YOURSELVES? THEN LEARN THE PRICE AND FOLLY OF YOUR PRESUMPTION!"

"We do not fear you, Rakshasa Lord!" the elder shouted defiantly, "Do your worst, you will find Humanity is not without our resources!"

"THEN LEARN YOUR PLACE AS MERE CHATTEL, FOOL!!!" the dark shape cried as it tried to break loose from the spell that contained it, only its terrible cry of rage transformed into something else entirely, a scream of pain and disbelief that sounded as if heaven itself were being ripped asunder, and all at once Ranma felt a terrible pain wrack his body, doubling him over as a weight came over him, and with it a most unnatural…HUNGER!

"You see?" the Elder called out in a voice that threatened to crack under the strain that he must surely have been feeling, "You see what humanity can do when we have our backs against the walls, Monster! Mor'dekai…we fear you no longer!"

All around the circle the others were brought to their knees or doubled over as the dark shape beat itself frantically against the barriers, only to have its form be shred into its connective energy patterns, and like that the demon vanished, only to have portions of its malevolent be fed to each and every one of the circle of Archmages, who began to change before Ranma's very eyes even as his own body changed and shifted, and all at once the Dark was within them, and with it a sudden awareness that they were fundamentally changed, corrupted by the very nature of the evil that they had invoked.

"It is done!" the Elder declared as the light faded from the room and they all collectively straightened up and looked around at once another in confusion and uncertainty, "Now we are reborn with the power of the Rakshasa woven into our very blood by dark magics. Now we must go forth and serve our people by converting some into our minions, and thus raise up an army of the Undying to oppose the beasts who walk freely among us!"

And that was precisely what the Twelve proceeded to do, to find cowering humans in their shelters and to beseech their aid in a war against the Darkness. In doing this they discovered the limits imposed upon them by the nature of the spell, that they could not cross a home or threshold without first seeking the permission of the occupant, that crossing moving water was a problem, that the touch of anything dead that was once living could actually harm them and that the Sun needed to be shunned lest its lethal rays boil up the demonic agents of their blood and destroy them. One by one they took their victims aside and changed them, converting them to the Legion of the Blood, and with them face off against the Rakshasa, who were not prepared to encounter humans with the sort of powers that these possessed.

With greatly enhanced strength, speed and ferocity the Vampires tore into the Rakshasa and slew them in great number. Their hands became clawed weapons, sharper than steel blades and perfectly synchronized with the wavelengths of the Rakshasa so that their ethereal foes could be rent and shredded by the touch of any Vampire. With their newly gained invulnerability to non-living substances (such as most metals, exempting only Gold, Silver and Cold Iron) they could withstand great punishment and survive attacks that would slay a healthy human, and their ability to regenerate damage was phenomenal. In next to no time they had the Rakshasa on the run and were hunting them down with a terrible ferocity, and then the Rakshasa fled from the world rather than be faced with their own destruction, leaving the Vampires to rule the night, the dark saviors of a crumbling Atlantean Empire.

But once victory was achieved then humanity faced a new threat from their nominal protectors, for the Vampire thirst made these dark predators every bit as much of an evil as the Rakshasa. Only the memory of their lost humanity kept the Blood Kin from reaping a terrible wrath upon the humans whom they had protected, but the surviving members of the council found it impossible to control their own appetites, and so they met again one night to seek a cure for their affliction, much though the Elder himself had predicted that none would be forthcoming.

"Alas, it is as the Elder foretold before his death in battle," Ranma heard himself inform his Kindred, "The spell we crafted was designed to resist any and all attempts at reversing it 'lest we free Mor'dekai and unleash the wrath of his Rakshasa minions once more upon the world. Vampires must continue to exist to preserve the peace of humanity…but we cannot resist the hunger that we have inherited from the Rakshasa, and so we must find other means to curb our numbers 'lest we become the very thing which we once hated…"

And so they cast a new spell, one that invoked the Higher Powers, rather than the Lower Aspects of before, and 'Lo the power shaped itself at their behest and created a negative avatar, something as strong as Vampirism yet existing in an entirely polarized context.

And somewhere amid the ruins of the once-great cities of crumbling Atlantis, a Shepherdess tending her flock felt herself suddenly wracked by the most terrifying pains that had yet to be imagined. Like a woman being reborn that night she felt her body fill with a terrible strength and enhancements, and then she discovered her own dark purpose as she sensed a danger in the night and confronted her first vampire, reacting at first in terror, then in wonder as she oughtfought and slew him with a wooden branch taken from the fire that she had been tending…

And thus was born the Slayer, first in a long line of Chosen women who lived to curb the numbers of the vampires…and as Ranma gazed upon her aspect she saw the woman transform into a card, and then recognized it as Temperance, being held up by the hand of Kaoru, who once more was standing in her tent shuffling the Tarot deck and smiling at him as if expecting him to get the joke at any minute.

"And so it began," she explained, "And so the spell remains in effect, empowered by a demon trapped between the realms of light and darkness. This was the birth of the Kindred, Little Brother, their dark beginnings…but there is much more to the story even than what you have been told. You see, Mordecai had a son by a Vampire who became a Rakshasa of terrible power, and he in turn created another offspring who bore his darkness…two offspring, one born to a Vampire, the other to a Human. Cain and Abel, they oppose each other to this day, Dimitri and Donovan, and yet even there we are but scratching the surface to a deeper story."

"Weird," Ranma said as he shook himself loose from his trance, "So this half-breed Rakshasa guy is the one responsible for the creation of Dimitri? That's just swell! So what does that got to do with me, Sis?"

In answer Kaoru held up another card, revealing the face of the Devil, which she then turned around while pronouncing the word, "Reflection!"

Ranma suddenly felt a dark presence move from off to his left and turned in readiness to face down a perceived attacker. To his amazement he found himself confronted by another Saotome Ranma…but this one very different in that his face was snarling, and you could see the fangs that he was so-prominently protruding from his mouth.

"N-Nani?" Ranma gasped.

"Dimitri bit you, Little Brother," Kaoru said, "You face now a reflection of his evil presence inside you, the taint of a Vampire's influence seeking to corrupt your very nature. Resist it now or perish, but know that you cannot destroy the hunger it represents, you must extinguish it through the way of Buddha."

"And how the hell do I do that?" Ranma asked when his opponent attacked him.

The Vampire Ranma threw a punch his way and human Ranma moved to block it, surprised at the speed and savagery of the lunge as he side-stepped a blow that would have hurt a LOT if it had connected. At once Ranma counter-attacked with a spinning kick, yet his foe easily dodged the attack and launched a flying kick of its own that connected.

Ranma felt himself be tumbled for an unknown distance before righting himself and recovering his bearings. To his dismay, his foe attacked with greater speed than expected, and it was all that he could do to block a hundred strikes that were launched with more than Amaguriken speed, giving ground all the while as he studied his opponent and tried to probe him for a weakness.

He had none.

To his dismay, Ranma found himself outmatched by a foe who understood his moves, who knew everything that Ranma did, every counter, thrust and technique in his arsenal, including the Senkens, only he could perform them with greater speed, strength and dexterity, at least three times as great as Ranma's own best efforts.

But then he reasoned that his foe could not perform every feat in perfect reflection of the real thing, and with that he extended his right and left arms and prepared to summon his Elemental allies. With a wave of one hand he sent Latisha hurtling out in a spiral of fiery ribbons, then sent Sharil hurtling forward through the center of the resulting vortex, creating a horizontal version of the Hiryu Shoten Ha, only aiming it at the vampiric Ranma.

Not surprisingly, the other version of himself attempted to mimic the same gesture, to fall upon similar energies, only to falter at the last since he was only a pale imitation of the true master. Dismay replaced feral arrogance and suddenly it was struck by the force of the Water Elemental who was allied to the true Ranma, and all at once his body dissolved into a black shape that hung like a shadow in the air, a shadow that tried to get away from the triumphant true Ranma, only that was not to be as the Saotome heir was prepared for confronting just such a creature.

Summoning up the power already unleashed, he cast the vapors of fire and water elementals into an enveloping blanket to ensnare the shadow-creature, then with a triumphant cry he said, "SENKEN SPECIAL MANUEVER-CONTAIN AND CONFINE ADVANCE!"

With that he collapsed his net back into his body, reeling the shadow in and causing it to condense into a vapor, and that vapor reentered Ranma's body, to become a part of him once again as he braced himself for the feelings he knew that were to shortly follow.

Sure enough-exactly as it had been in his dream-he felt the dark power enter him and attempt to change him over, to alter his body and convert his very nature into a dark and predatory creature, to erase the Ranma who was and replace him with the embodiment of the shadow-copy even as a terrible hunger wracked his body, a hunger for human blood and soul energy, which he yearned to drain like the beast that he was on the verge of becoming…

"No…" Ranma whispered to himself, falling his fists and fighting the cravings as his mind suddenly filled with visions of lovely female necks that he might suck for their life juices…Ukyo, Shampoo, Perfume and Nabiki…all four of his lovely wives who would surely yield up their essence to sustain him…and so many other women he might drain for food, such as Keiko and Kodachi, or even Kasumi and possibly even Akane…

"NO!" he cried out again, banishing the visions, refusing to give in even as he felt his fangs grow more pronounced by the second…

"You cannot resist by force this hunger," Kaoru's voice suddenly filled his mind, "You can only master it by following the path of Buddha."

"B-B-Buddha?" Ranma gasped, "Gimme a break! You think I'm like him…?"

No sooner had the words left him mouth then Ranma suddenly understood their true meaning. Who was Buddha originally? A god made flesh, as taught by the Hindu? No…he was a man like other men, a Prince named Siddhartha, whose love of humanity had caused him to renounce his wealth and fortune in search of an answer to human suffering, which lead him on the path towards enlightenment, which had been further refined by Zen mystics over the ages.

The essence to the lesson of the Buddha was that human suffering was caused by the desire for material pleasure, that wanting for something created an imbalance within ones nature, and that the senses deluded and distracted the mind from the True Reality, blinding the seeker with the illusion of the Maya, keeping one from attaining enlightenment and grounding the soul on the path of endless birth and rebirth.

But want and desire were emotions that enslaved mankind, that the way to master them was by ignoring their temptation. To feel an emotion did not obligate one to be enslaved to the passion, and by finding one's center it was possible to ignore the wants of the body, to find sustenance from within and fulfillment through inaction. One had only to center one's innermost being around the Naval of the Cosmos and the Universe itself would provide one with all that they needed to live the path of the true wise man. By teaching one to ignore the handicaps of the physical body, true miracles could be performed and a man might truly obtain an enlightenment that would make him as "One with the Buddha."

Since Ranma had been taught to meditate from a very early age he had already obtained a form of meditative Satori where the early stages of enlightenment were found. By calling upon his center now he was able to rekindle the fire of the light that burned brightly from inside him, and then Ranma summoned the power of the Arashisenken and rose from the ground to hover in full lotus posture while feeling the sun burn from inside him, gradually dissipating the shadows and causing the hunger to fade away, much like a sound that one could ignore in passing.

Slowly, gradually the hunger subsided, and then it was gone entirely, to be replaced by a new kind of energy that filled his being the more that Ranma sat and meditated. All at once he felt his right leg grow warm as if filling from within with the touch of a new kind of power. Ranma slowly opened his eyes to see that the same flowing lettering that covered both of his arms was now flowing over his right leg in shifting letters whose meaning he could only vaguely guess at.

A swirl within the air caused Ranma to open his eyes in time to see a female form take shape before him, naked and beautiful with a terrible kind of light within her eyes. She smiled at him and her voice had the gentleness of a morning breeze as he said, "What is your will, Master? My name is Karina."

"Karina?" Ranma replied, then softly moaned, "Oh no…don't tell me it happened…again?"

"Afraid so, my Master," the strange woman smiled, only to become more solid to his eyes, and then Ranma saw with a start that she looked exactly like his sister, Kaoru.

"Kaoru?" Ranma blinked, then self-corrected, "I mean…Karina?"

A gentle laugh that felt like a spring rain greeted his confusion, "Kaoru is but the form I choose to take for you since her image was so strong in your memories. I am a Sylphan Wind Elemental, and I am now yours to command, Master, since you passed the test and won through your trials and visions."

"Ah…you don't say?" Ranma winced slightly and added, "Nabiki is gonna kill me…"

"Oh, I would never permit that to happen, Master," Karina assured him, "I can sense that you are kind and gentle, else Latisha and Sharil would not have bound themselves to your nature. I live to serve you now, dear Master, and I would bid that you command me to help free you from your prison."

"My prison, huh?" Ranma blinked, "What prison?"

"Why, the prison of the body that your mind has yet to perceive," Karina smiled, "Do you wish me to show you?"

All at once Ranma awoke with a start, glancing around at a darkened room that he was somehow left within. He glanced around and then noticed that he was upright, and that he could not move his arms for some strange reason, and then he glanced up and saw the reason why and went, "Oh…," with dawning comprehension.

In his mind he heard Karina's voice say, "Never fear, Master. The chains are cold iron, but you have the strength within you to seek your freedom."

"You don't say?" Ranma responded, then mentally shrugged, "Well, I guess I could always try, since the guy who left me like this could come back at any moment…"

His arms felt like lead and his shoulders were aching but Ranma still have enough tenacity to make use of his legs, which he proceeded to do as he swung himself back and forth, gradually building up momentum to attempt a gymnastics feat of swinging his legs up while leveraging his body into an upward roll, gripping the chains with both hands as he brought his feet up against the roof of the tomb-like dungeon, and then pulling with all his might against the rusted iron that held him until a few links began to give way, at which point he snapped them…and then found himself obeying the pull of gravity that dropped him head-first towards the concrete floor beneath him.

He managed to roll into an upright position before actually landing, then he slumped to the ground with the belated sense of numbness overwhelming his upper body. The effect of renewed circulation sent pins and needles up his shoulders to his spine and for several moments he groaned faintly until the fire left his arms and he could twitch his hands once again, and then he leveraged himself up into a sitting position and took new stock of his present situation.

"Oh man…I feel light-headed," Ranma murmured, "Where the hell am I?"

"In a chamber deep beneath the ground, Master," Karina spoke to him again, "You have to hurry, others are approaching your way."

"Right," Ranma crawled to his feet then searched around for an exit, only to pause as he heard voices coming from one specific direction, so he cast about in the other way in hopes of avoiding a direct confrontation…at least until he knew who and what he was up against.

As he sought shelter in a convenient nearby alcove, however, he took notice of the fact that several feminine voices were among those approaching the chamber, and that one of them was saying at that particular moment, "…won't the boss be thrilled when he sees what we've done? Of course we've also gotta rouse up Dimitri from this crypt and see what the Dark Pack is up to. Ready to have another powwow with your Big Sis, Lil?"

"Ecstatic," the other feminine voice replied, "By the way…where are the Dark Pack? They were supposed to meet us in this chamber."

"Zzztrange," a third feminine voice remarked, one that buzzed with a curious form of accent, "I can zzzenzzze their nearnezzz, but they are further on inzzzide thezzze catacombzzz."

"You don't say?" the first speaker remarked, and as Ranma peered from his hiding place he saw an attractive blonde girl wearing a crimson hood while packing enough hardware to start a minor military campaign on her lonesome, "Wonder what's up? Think they're having a conference?"

"It is worth investigating," the blue haired girl beside the blonde remarked, "I can feel my sister is somewhere close nearby…but I am getting the strangest sensations from her…as if she's in the throes of something…really intense…"

"Yeah?" the blonde asked, "Good or bad?"

"Good," the blue haired girl replied, "Very, very good…so good, in fact, that it is almost painful…sweet agony…intense stimulation…"

"Zzzoundzzz azzz though zzzhe izzz getting it on with zzzomeone," the third girl-the one with short pink hair and a pair of insect-like antennae with eyes that were like faceted green emeralds, and her body was oddly striped the more than Ranma tried examining her more closely, "But who, that izzz the quezzztion."

"What say we find out?" the blonde inquired, "We're on a timetable here, a countdown to Armageddon, and this is no time to be screwing around. The Boss expects us to deliver the goods on time, and if Dimitri isn't there to play his part he's gonna be sorry, even if I have to light a cap under his dead ass…"

Their voices started to dwindle off when the blue haired girl suddenly glanced back over her shoulder, and for a moment Ranma wondered if she were looking right at him, as if she had somehow managed to penetrate his disguise in spite of the Umisenken maneuver he was invoking, but she continued on with her companions as though nothing were amiss. Ranma was not reassured, however, and decided to leave his safe vantage to attempt to sneak out of the place using his stealthy attention-avoiding techniques to hide his movements.

He only got a few meters when all at once strong hands accosted him from behind, and then he found himself slammed up against a stone brick wall, and then he found himself confronted by the blue haired lady who was smiling at him in a nasty way that he did not like.

"Well now, look what I've got here, girls…an invisible boy…only he looks pretty solid to me now…"

"Well, well…a spy…or target practice," the blonde said as she cocked the triggers on a pair of nasty looking handguns and stuck them in Ranma's face, "What say I blow his brains out and we'll see what color his blood is."

"He doezzz not zzzmell like the undead," the Bee-girl buzzed, "He zzzmellzzz…human."

"Well, if he isn't dead now, he soon will be," Lilith promised.

Deciding that the tenor of this discussion was not going in a direction to his liking, Ranma suddenly exploded forward into motion, striking at all three girls with a speed that took them by surprise as he broke free from Lilith's grasp and took the guns from BB Hood before tossing them away, and then moved beyond the reach of the Queen-Bee.

However-much to his amazement-the three girls did not fall to the floor in paroxysms of ecstasy, which left Ranma feeling fairly stunned himself as he stared disbelievingly at the trio before him.

"He's fast," Lilith remarked, "I barely even sensed that attack."

"Yeah, but what was that business all about?" Hood asked, "You trying to cop a feel on us or tickle us or something?"

"I think he wazzz ezzzpecting zzzomething more from uzzz, judging by hizzz expression," Queen Bee buzzed in some amusement.

"Nani?" Ranma looked at his hands then stared at the deadly trio, "What gives? Is it gone?"

"Is what gone?" Hood asked as she produced another firearm, "Your brains?"

She fired at point-blank range but Ranma easily moved out of the way before she completed pulling the trigger, and then he struck her again, this time using a more conventional attack that sent the blonde careening into the wall where he had been before.

"Well, that worked," Ranma said when all at once Lilith attacked, moving like a blur with a powerful swing that he just barely managed to avoid by moving sideways. Several more swings forced him on the defensive, but then he reversed momentum and got within the guard of the blue haired girl's reach. One uppercut later and he sent her careening off of the ceiling, at which point the Queen-Bee launched her own attack by sending a swarm of killer insects flowing from her outstretched palm to where Ranma stood alone and unprotected, but before she had a chance to sting him to death with her loyal servants, Ranma raised his own arm and instinctively called forth a new Senken, and all at once a wind blew up around his hand, catching the bees in its spiraling vortex and sending them careening back towards their Queen, who was taken by surprise and sent tumbling to the far end of the crypt chamber.

"Whoah!" Ranma said as he paused to stare at his own fingers, "What was that?"

"You like it?" Karina spoke into his mind once again, "I leave it to you to name it, but that's just a sample of my power, and you can command me to do greater things if you like."

"All right," Ranma smiled, "I will…only…why couldn't I use the Kamasenken right now?"

"Well, you still have the memories…but…there seems to be a blockage there that I cannot penetrate for you, Master…a darkness is shrouding your memories…and I think someone borrowed them, made a copy of the file and left a dummy file to block your access."

"Say what?" Ranma said, "You make it sound like a damned computer."

"In a way the same principles apply, Master," the elemental spoke into his mind, "But you will come to understand this in good time. For now, I will try and help remove the blockage so that you can use the Kamasenken that was stolen by the pretender."

"Somebody took my Senken maneuvers?" Ranma frowned, "But…"

"Talking to yourself?"

"Uh oh," Ranma said as he started to turn around, only to have a powerful right hook take him down as Lilith got in a good one that laid the Saotome heir out like a lightbulb.

"Is he down? Ow!" Hood rubbed the back of her head, "Damn, I wanted another shot at him!"

"Who do you zzzuppozzze he izzz?" Queen Bee asked as she, too, started to recover.

"A dead man when I get through with him!" Hook started to draw yet another of her firearms, only to have Lilith grip her by the arm, at which point the blonde snarled, "What?"

"Hold a moment," the succubus urged, "He interests me. There is something about him…I can't quite put my finger on it, yet, but I suspect he may be here for a reason…"

"He izzz a formidable fighter," Queen Bee pointed out, "Lord Dimitri may take an interest in him…if he has not done so already."

"Yeah?" Lilith said, moving Ranma's head to the side and parting his collar a bit to reveal a tell-tale bite mark, "Oh yeah…Dimitri's put the bite on him all right, but not enough to drain him dry. Must mean the old Vamp is keeping him alive for some reason, and from the way he was talking I think I know what it is."

"You mean…Fangs wanted to absorb some of his memories and abilities?" BB Hood figured out.

"That would exxxplain why he thought hizzz first attack would be more effective," Queen Bee mused, "And I zzzuzzzpect, if he were fighting at full trim, he might have been a match for all three of uzzz."

"All the more reason for us to keep him around, eh girls?" Lilith smiled in a very nasty manner.

"Oh?" Hook arched her eyebrows, then caught the meaning of the succubus's leer and said, "Oh…you mean…that?"

"What a prime zzzpezzzemin he is," Queen Bee mused, "He would make an exxxcelent drone."

"Let's tie him up and worry about it later, right girls?" Lilith smiled, "Right now we need to find Dimitri and tell him Jeddah's got the goods so we can put the plan into full motion."

"Right on that," Hood smiled as she produced a set of handcuffs and manacles, "Let's get loverboy trussed up then we'll take care of business. Pleasure can wait for later when we've time enough to fool around."

"And then," Queen-Bee chuckled malevolently, "It will be time to breed…and such fine pollen I will spread…he might even sire me a new and improved generation of my servants."

"To say nothing of providing me with sustenance after the spell has been effected," Lilith grinned, "And then my big sister will learn who is the true heir to the Anslat throne, and if there is anything left of him when we get done…"

"Right," Hood cocked a handgun, "Then fun time really will begin…with a bullet…"

Meanwhile, oblivious to this, something was happening further on into the catacombs, a very different trio was leaning up against the wall of a particular tomb chamber. Anakaris, using his bandages to create a makeshift listening device, was providing to his colleagues, Jumaji and Darkwulf, a very vivid audio play of what sounded like frantic physical activity going on with great abandon.

"Holy Damballah," Jumaji murmured after an indeterminate silence on his part, "They are still going at it?"

"They've passed their own record double over," Darkwulf remarked, "Didn't know Dimitri could get it up this long, and Morgan sounds like she's either in agony or she's died and gone to the good side of Hell."

"Probably the latter," Anakaris mused, "Seth take me, but whatever it is that Lord Dimitri took from that youth has given him the vitality of a god. Clearly he is enjoying his dominance over the succubus…"

"You think?" Darkwulf remarked, only to blink as he saw a pair of Goya vampires appearing near the entrance to the chamber, "Hey! You clowns! What do you think you're doing?"

"Following orders," one of the two lead Goya replied as they approached the door, "Lord Jeddah has commanded that we seek the Master to inform him of our successful capture of the Blood Queen…"

"The blood bitch is poached?" Darkwulf arched an eyebrow.

"With Ling-Ko in our possession," Jumaji rumbled, "The day of reckoning is indeed at hand."

"I would not enter the chamber if I were you," Anakaris cautioned the Goya.

The second Goya gave a sneering retort to that and said, "We do not take orders from you, Mummy. We answer only to the likes of Lords Dimitri and Jeddah."

"No, he means it," Darkwulf said, "You really ought to wait a while before going in there."

"If we wait too long we will miss the deadline for the casting of the spell," the first replied while producing a skeleton key and inserting it into the keyhole of the iron doorway. A few quick motions and the sound of the tumblers falling into place was clearly audible in the corridor, and then without further preamble the Goya swung the door ajar, and then the second one entered first as if eager to make his report…regardless of the circumstances.

"Lord Dimitri," he began, "We…"

All at once a massive discharge of Soul Crushing energies lanced out and took the vampire in the face, and everyone else in the room had to flinch away rather than go blind from the intensity of that blast. It punched a hole into the wall behind where the Goya had been standing, and when at last the blast was done there was little to be seen of the malefactor save a smoking pair of shin bones sticking out from badly singed footwear.

The first Goya stared in dismay at the remains of the first and then they all heard Dimitri say clearly, "Really, my dear…must you always be so hard on the staff?"

"Close the damned door or I'll be doing far worst to the lot of ye!" Morgan direly called out at their cringing allies.

"No, the mood is spoiled for now," Dimitri sighed, "What is it that you wished to report, O' soon to be an ashtray?"

"Er…" the Goya seemed a lot less arrogant and self-assured as he replied, "Dread Lord…Lord Jeddah reports success. They have captured the Blood Queen and will sacrifice her at midnight!"

"At last!" Dimitri declared, "The hour is fast approaching when my dreams are fulfilled and my vengeance is at last at hand! Soon the one whom I hate more than any other will know suffering beyond his most fervent nightmares, and I shall rule as a god over all creatures of the night. Oh yes, and of course you will be there by my side, my dear, when we take back the throne of Makai."

"That's wonderful news, Dimitri dear…but can we go back to what we were doing just now and…finish things up?" Morgan asked a bit plaintively.

"Ah-ah, my dear, that would spoil the magic," Dimitri smoothly replied, "Let us tend to business first, then we can celebrate in style on the hour of my triumph."

"But Dimitri-!" Morgan pleaded.

"Patience, my sweet Morgan," Dimitri said as he appeared at the doorway hastily pulling on his pants, jacket and cape, "You want the full of my attention upon you when I bring you next to fulfillment? It will only be another hour or two at most…"

"An HOUR?" Morgan sounded dismayed.

"The time will pass before you know it," Dimitri turned and saw his three allies standing in the hallway, doing the equivalent of whistling off tune while staring at the ceiling, "You clowns have a part in this, so why are you still here? Get moving! Oh, and has anyone seen Raptor about? That walking bag of bones is so useless…"

"Uh…haven't seen him for a couple of hours, Boss," Darkwulf replied, "Maybe he went out to get drunk…you know how he likes to party."

"Well, it hardly matters at this point," Dimitri waved the point away, "Come with me now, we go to meet with our allies, and then we shall see how the so-called Dragon Queen likes being held captive like the helpless little girl that she is. In fact, I am very much looking forward to seeing Ling-Ko again…it has been quite some time, and I am curious to know if these new techniques work even upon a Blood Queen."

"But-my lord!" Morgan complained as she appeared at the doorway only partially dressed (which for her was not saying a whole lot), "Those techniques are for me…you promised!"

"Did I now?" Dimitri mused as he disappeared down the doorway, "Well, we shall see about that, shall we not?"

Instead of replying Morgan sank to her knees and leaned her back against the doorframe, then covered her eyes with a hand and said, "What have I done? What has he done? He's become a monster! And…and I want him to do me again…Chaos help me!"

The recent memory of her helplessness before the power of Dimitri's new skills at foreplay had made her weak and vulnerable in ways that Morgan had never experienced before with any man, and it was enough to shatter her self-confident self image as a strong and independent woman, and yet she had begged for him to pleasure her as though she were the lowliest and most baseborn slave. The artfulness with which he had mastered her body had been a soul-jarring affair, and now that she had tasted his Mastery she found that she actually wanted to be his dog, to crawl at his feet and beg for his favor, his very manhood…

"'Tis insane…what has come over me?" she moaned, when a curious thought crossed her mind, "It's the boy…he be the one I need to find! He must know the answer to my dilemma, and he will either tell me how to combat this...or I shall take it from him for myself…" she softly averred, thus setting in motion a chain of events that would bring the world to the edge of spiritual Ragnarok…not that Morgan much cared about what happened to the human world since it was her own dimension of Makai that she was supposed to be focusing on…not enslaving herself to the worst enemy that her family had ever known, and by the royal blood that churned within her she intended to see it through, to find a way of tilting the balance back towards her favor so that it would be Dimitri who groveled…while Morgan would be the one who lived out her days in relative triumph…

Continued

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