Project A-Ko Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction ❯ Nabiki 1/2 (A Very Scary Thought) ❯ Moonlight Rumble... ( Chapter 129 )

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.

"Damnation," Dimitri murmured softly under his breath, "How long must this go on? And where is Morgan? She was supposed to accompany us here…yet I sense not her presence."

"Ah, you know women, Boss," Darkwulf replied, "Maybe she went to powder her nose or something.

"Queen Morgan has been acting in a rather eclectic matter of late," Anakaris related, "But she knows how important this ceremony is and will do her part when the moment arrives for her to take action."

"The moment is already near at hand, fool!" Dimitri snarled, "So where is she?"

"Is there a problem, Dimitri?" the fiery Pyron turned to ask of his ally, "Or is this too inconvenient a time for you? Would you prefer it if we rescheduled things for another celestial juncture?"

"I do not appreciate the sarcasm, Pyron," Dimitri growled back, "I merely wish to know why Anslat has sequestered herself away from these proceedings. Do you not find it odd that she is not at my side, even if only to needle me with her constant japes and mockeries towards my manhood?"

"Actually, Boss," Darkwulf remarked, "You kind of put her in her place that last time, so maybe she's moping about it. You know how bitches get when they're in heat…they're either in the mood or they ain't, and sometimes it's impossible to tell which is which because they give us so many conflicting signals."

"Even in my time this was true," Anakaris related, "And Morgan is, at heart, still a woman with pride issues. Perhaps she feels…overmastered by your recent actions."

"Indeed?" Pyron said with interest, "Morgan Anslat is feeling piquish?"

"That is none of your concern, Alien," Dimitri glared at the fiery energy being, "Morgan belongs to me and she will serve my will when I rule the demon world. She just needs some…adjustments to grow accustomed to the new and improved me, a Dimitri whom she dares not mock 'lest I withhold my…benediction."

"You don't say?" Pyron sounded amused, "And have you finally found a way to get the upper hand with her? I find that difficult to credit."

"You mock me," Dimitri narrowed his eyes, "Very well, perhaps a little…demonstration is in order. Lilith!"

"What do you want?" the blue haired succubus snapped, "If you don't mind, Lord Dimwit, I'm trying to pay attention to Lord Jeddah, and so should you if this ceremony is as important to you as you keep saying it is."

"I merely request a moment of your time, Lilith my dear," Dimitri said grandly, "Would you come here so that I may show Lord Pyron something rather interesting that I have recently acquired?"

"This better be good," Lilith left the side of her fellow "B-Girls" and approached the renegade vampire lord with an angry, "I don't appreciate being called away to…OOOOOHhhhhhh!?!?" she reacted as Dimitri brushed his hand against her cheek then moved his fingers to the side of her neck and began to stroke nerve endings there that turned the blue haired girl's knees into rubber.

"What is this?" Pyron's flaming eyes widened in dismay as he saw Dimitri attack various places on the body of the young succubus, and by turns Lilith made groans and gasps as she fell to her knees, hugging herself as though in paroxysm of agony while her fellow B-Girls looked on in blank-faced incomprehension.

Dimitri continued his assault until Lilith started begging for him to stop, and once he did she continued to roll upon the ground, and then he smiled at Pyron and said, "Do you see now the nature of the power that I have gained? The power to make women grovel at my feet. I dare you to match that for all your terrible world-spanning might, O' King of Comets."

"Incredible," Pyron studied the way the succubus continued to moan, groan and shake with evident arousal, even going so far as to finger herself in a frantic need for self-stimulation, "And you used this power upon Anslat?"

"I did indeed," Dimitri said, "By now she is crawling with the need for my touch, and try as she might she will be unable to stay away from me. At last I have humbled her and made her a worthy queen to rule at my side upon the throne of Makai. Admit it…you are impressed."

"I am impressed that you have humbled the mighty Anslat with this strange technique that you have developed," Pyron admitted, "But how exactly does this gain for us the power we will need to defeat our enemies and crown you king?"

"I will show you that," Dimitri smiled as he started to move forward, only to find the other B-Girls were confronting him with much-annoyed expressions.

"Now just a minute here…what the hell did you do to Lilith?" BB Hood demanded.

"Zzzhe actzzz in wayzzz that are very much unlike her," the Queen Bee buzzed.

"You have some spell that is causing her to be this way," Atros scowled, "Release her now or face us, Vampire."

"Hmph," Dimitri smiled, then all at once his hands became a blur and all three women fell down and started to behave very much like Lilith, "As if the likes of you should threaten me. For that insolence you too may grovel until I relent to release you. No need to thank me for the pleasures that you are experiencing at the moment, it will last just long enough to be enjoyable, after which I wold advise you not to come within my reach again for the immediate duration."

"I see," Pyron softly mused, "This technique works primarily upon women."

"Indeed," Dimitri approached the lone figure at the center of a magical circle, strapped down naked upon a pillar and struggling for release as she glared with hateful eyes upon her captors, "And now you shall see that my power works even upon the body of a queen…is that not so, your highness?"

"Dimitri!" Ling-Ko spat as she struggled against the chains that held her spread-eagle facing upward upon the altar, "Whatever sick games you are playing, this will never avail you anything! I'll see you staked for this and your body left out for the worms, I'll-!"

Dimitri casually stretched out a hand and began tickling the bottom of one bare foot upon the Queen vampire, and all at once Ling-Ko's venomous threats were cut off in mid-sentence as something other than raw anger caused her to tense up and wiggle against her bonds, and then moan very softly at the unexpected way in which her body reacted to these delicate caresses.

Lord Jeddah, who had been in the middle of his chanting, broke off to give his vampiric ally a harsh glare before saying, "Dimitri, I don't mind you showing off so much, but would you please keep your hands off of my sacrifice and servants?"

"My apologies, but I feel that our celebrity guest is feeling…uncooperative," Dimitri said as he played his hands across the naked flesh of the helpless Blood Queen, "I thought to elicit her full and complete cooperation. After all, without her this ritual would be useless."

Jeddah frowned (but then again, he always seemed to be frowning, so one could hardly be blamed for not having noticed until then,) "Very well, but please do not disrupt the ceremony further. These are delicate invocations that I am crafting here to achieve our holy designs, so keep in mind that her…cooperation is not necessarily voluntary. This demoness must suffer for her many crimes so that God may be appeased and spare his righteous wrath that he might otherwise visit upon such godless sinners."

"Oh, but she is suffering," Dimitri leered as he gazed down at the writhing form of the Tsiel tribe Blood Mother, "Is that not right, my dear? You are indeed suffering through the torment of the damned because my touch has rendered her utterly helpless and vulnerable to my will. You feel helpless now and unable to control the responses of your body, and that gives me the power to cause you great ecstasy and agony in one and the same venture."

"Suffering?" Pyron said, "Sounds more like she is having an orgasm."

"Several of them combined," Dimitri smiled, "But I am denying her the act of total fulfillment, so the energies will continue to build and cycle within her body until she all but bursts with the need and desire for release, but though she squirms and groans for mercy, I will not allow it."

Ling-Ko did indeed squirm and groan within her restraints upon that altar, making incoherent sounds that filled the night with her cries of frustration and yearning. The sight of her nude body writhing in helpless tension, straining at her bonds with the titanic might that only a Queen among Vampires could manifest, and were her chains not forged to be near unbreakable she would surely have snapped them, or crushed the altar beneath her back as her agonies multiplied and her nervous system screamed with the fire of sexual need resonating back and forth without with no where to go but from her brain to her sexual organs and back again.

"Dimitri…is this…necessary?" Jeddah asked, feeling faintly troubled by the blasphemous implications of hedonism being used to torment the undead.

"More than necessary, Jeddah," Dimitri reassured him, "Long overdue as matter of principle. See how she is in agony, unable to climax as she cycles her energies to a higher and higher level of excitement? Imagine feeling the pleasures of the flesh multiply without being permitted to go the distance? Surely Hell itself must bear such torments for the damned to endure through their endless perdition. I am merely giving her a foretaste of what is in store for her while rendering her more…amenable to the act of sacrifice that is in store for her when we complete the ritual of summons."

"I see," Pyron remarked, "A rather unorthodox method…but quite astonishingly effective."

With great effort the Blood Queen managed to grit her fangs then growled out, "Di-mi-tri…!"

"Don't bother thanking me for the pleasure, my dear," Dimitri said as he gripped Ling-Ko's chin between his thumb and forefinger, "I must say, you do not seem so proud and haughty now as when I once petitioned you for your favor. You do remember that event…it was in Paris over fifty years ago during the rebuilding that followed the war. I spoke words of admiration for you and you threw them back in my face. Not so superior are we now while you are spread out before me with your legs parted and your treasures on full display to all who might see them. Perhaps now you have some small appreciation of the great gift that I offered you then, and why you now must suffer for your hubris to me. Queen or not, you are still only a woman, and as a woman you will bow down to me and submit your will, to beg me for the release you crave so desperately."

"N-N-NEVER!" the Blood Mother defiantly cried, only to wince as Dimitri used one of his long nails to slice her delicate skin, causing blood to flow out onto the altar, even as Ling-Ko cried out with a shocked, wide-eyed expression.

"What are you doing, Fool?" Jeddah demanded, "You will release her energy prematurely!"

"No, wait!" Pyron declared, "I sense…a surge of her energies…as if the act of clawing her somehow has brought her to an even higher pitch of arousal."

"You are quite correct on that account, my Ally," Dimitri smiled, "Pain and pleasure are closely related, and sometimes by triggering one you can raise the level of the other. It's much the same principle that DeSade employed to break the will of his victims and turn them into willing sexual slaves. I intend to work the same kind of magic here to break the will of this Queen, after which she will yield her power with a hardly a whimper. Now then…you may continue with your mummery, Lord Jeddah. I have merely worked to weaken her resistance while intensifying her energy levels. When the time is right you may give her the release that she is so desperately craving."

"Yes, you are right, I can feel her energies," Jeddah declared in amazement, "They are…intensifying? Yes…whatever it is you are doing to her, Dimitri, continue doing it and we will have all the energy we need to complete the spell of entrapment."

Ling-Ko threw back her head and cried out in helpless dismay, reckoning death to be preferable than to be suffering these agonies and wondering if any kind of release would be in the offing before she exploded from pent up frustration.

Little was she aware but at that moment the cavalry was on the move, and coming to her rescue from some surprisingly different directions.

"Tell us about this Jeddah character you keep mentioning," Nabiki urged Frank as she and Keiko rode in the side-car of the Monster, holding on as the man-brute had his engine floored and was breaking every traffic rule in the book in order to get to the appointed destination in time to make a difference.

"Jeddah's a creep who thinks he's God reborn as a risen Jesus Christ," Frank explained, "Or, at least he was when I first fought against him almost a hundred years ago. He started out as a circus tent-show revivalist, had a number of psychic tricks he could perform to dupe an ignorant public…minor healing spells, clairvoyance, telepathy, stuff like that. The truth about him is that he's an Incubus, born to a male version of the Succubus line who made it with a human woman, so he's part Incubus himself, which is where he got his original strain of power."

"But I thought Incubi were sexual demons," Keiko related, "They need sex to live the way vampires need blood, right?"

"That was true of his old man, but Jeddah's a hybrid," Frank explained, "And his mother had some pretty interesting latent abilities that she was never taught how to use, so he's got talents from both sides of his genetic make-up, and the Incubus half makes him susceptible to emotions like an empath…only in really twisted kind of way since he fell victim to a nut-case religious fanatic when he was just a small kid, a real fire-and-brimstone Bible thumper, who taught the kid to believe that there are only two powers in this world, Heaven and Hell, and guess for which side Jeddah likes to believe he's an agent?"

"So he thinks he's an agent of God?" Nabiki asked.

"Worse, he thinks he is God incarnated as a reborn Jesus," Frank corrected, "Understand, his mom died when he was little, leaving him totally at the mercy of his adopted father's indoctrination. At first the guy was convinced it was Satan who was his father, but after years of cleansing his soul and attempting to be a good little Christian the 'Miracles,' as he termed them, started to manifest. Delusional his old man might be, but crazy enough to pass up on a great deal like a kid who could work actual healings? No way! So before too long he's working the carnival route as a miracle performer and saving souls by preaching the gospel. That's where the seed first germinated on the idea that he's come back to bring about the destruction of the world through Armageddon."

"And how did he plan to do that?" Keiko wondered.

"I'm coming to that part, Kid," Frank said grimly, "Comes from the nature of his abilities, and how addictive it was for him to prove to himself that he wasn't a hellspawn, that he really was on the side of the angels…and that's where the trouble really got started."

"How do you mean?" Nabiki asked.

"I mean the constant use of his abilities required a power source that was stronger than what his body could naturally product on a regular basis," Frank explained, "All those healings and other special talents…and where do you think the energy came from?"

"From the people who attended his rallies?" Keiko answered.

"Bingo," Frank grimly nodded, "When he was a very young man Jeddah discovered that he could channel the emotional energies of others and harness it to become a force by which he could control the minds and will of others. The downside was that he had a need for an audience, like an addiction, having people look up to him and expend their energies in prayerful worship that he could absorb and expend at his leisure. Wasn't too long after that little wake-up call that he started to allow people to call him a Prophet, then an Angel sent from heaven, then God incarnate. He then learned that he could take these energies stolen off of people who worshipped God in his name and use it to bolster his own power levels to really impressive degrees, and as he got stronger his following increased to an equal proportion. He gradually built up enough of a power base that he was able to make his presence felt on local and national politics, even as he learned to work larger and more impressive miracles to keep his audience happy. It all came to a head one day when he got hold of a stolen ancient artifact that he believed was linked to the Biblical prophesies of Babylon, specifically Sodom and Gomorrah…the real ones, not the later story you read about in the Bible."

"You mean he was after the power to destroy entire cities?" Nabiki gasped.

"Not just cities," Frank explained, "The entire world was his original target, but we Darkstalkers beat him before he could carry his horrible plans to fruition. You see…it involved this tablet and a scarab that were used to create a Null Sphere of incredible power, and with it he opened up a number of portals leading to the various Hell dimensions, and if the things that lived on the other side had managed to cross over onto this world…"

"Yeah, that might not be too much fun to live through," Keiko remarked, "So, how did you guys wind up beating him last time?"

"Well, the Null Sphere attracted the attention of a number of Darkstalkers and we all kind of converged in a transitory middle way-station of a realm, a sort of parallel gateway where we duked it out under the mistaken impression that one of us was to blame for causing it. Eventually the strongest among us figured it out and went up against Jeddah, and it took a literal miracle that time for us to beat him, let me tell you! At the time we thought he'd been croaked, and after we sealed off the gates and went our separate ways we all just kind of tried to forget all about it, up until about three or four years ago, when Dimitri tried to raise the power anew in an attempt to get enough power to take on the Demon World of Makai. Naturally we beat him up a bit but he escaped to plot new mischief with his allies, whom we nicknamed the Dark Pack. Dimitri's goal has always been to conquer both the Human and Demon worlds and bend them to his well, and it looks like his latest plan somehow involves a reborn Jeddah, though how Pyron figures into this is another matter altogether.

"Something bothers me about this, Big Guy," Keiko noted, "If this Jeddah creep is such a religious fanatic, than how can he stand to be working alongside Dimitri?"

"I can answer that," a voice said from close nearby, causing Keiko and Nabiki to glance up in order to see a winged Morgan pacing their motorcycle, "Jeddah's been changed since you last faced him, Doctor…he's a different man entirely, but he still believes he has a heavenly mission to perform by ending the world as you humans know it."

"I was afraid of something like that," Frank said grimly, "Let me guess…Jeddah didn't really die when we sealed him up, he somehow survived in one of the demon realms, and now about eighty or ninety years later he's back for more, only his fanaticism's been tempered from living on one of the various demon planes."

"Your instincts and deduction are as sharp as always," Morgan acknowledged, "Jeddah has indeed been changed, but he is still a religious fanatic. He's a lot grimmer and more ruthless than before, and during the past three years he's had time to quietly build back his old power base by selecting a core group of followers and training them to be elite soldiers in the army of his god, and they are none to nice about carrying out the will of their master."

"Guess that explains the hi-tech Mercenaries who keep popping up shooting up the place," Nabiki murmured, "And why they're working alongside souped up version of Zombies and renegade vampires."

"The Goya serve Dimitri as loyal foot-soldiers because they are beast-like and enjoy killing and violence," Morgan answered, "The Zevumbre are cybernetic killing organisms created using a blending of science and magic to make them stronger and harder to kill than regular zombies. Raptor animated the corpses of the recently dead with the help of Jumaji, and the rest was merely a matter of convincing the right people who dwell on Frankenstein-like black-book government and corporate projects…no offense implied, of course."

"None taken," Frank scowled, "If there's one thing I really hate it's soulless bastards who think they've got a right to play God with the lives of ordinary people, and scientists who think it's fun to poke and prod bodies to get them to move in ways nature never intended. People like that got no business even calling themselves human, especially the ruthless gray-suited executive types who give funding to these black-ops programs…"

"The ones who think nothing of ordering the deaths of innocent thousands to create an elite breed of killers who do their bidding," Morgan acknowledged, "Yet who lack the spine to do their own killing. I would agree with you, such people are not very examples of what it means to be human."

"And what about you, Lady?" Nabiki called out, "You side with Dimitri when he cooks up a scheme like this, only now you double-cross him because you don't like the way he uses my husband's Senken?"

"I have no need to justify myself to children," Morgan remarked, "I do what I must in order to regain my right place in Makai. My father used and discarded me as his tool when it amused him, and ever since I have dreamed of nothing less than paying him back for his betrayal. At first Dimitri was a mere diversion, a useful ally who shared much the same vision, but in time I came to understand that there is a strength within him that the demon world needs, leadership that is sorely lacking…"

"You actually think that guy would make a better ruler than your dad?" Keiko wondered.

"You do not know my father," Morgan's expression grew grim, "Lord Beliol would make your mortal tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin and Pol-Pot pale by contrast. He rules by terror and cunning, playing the great houses against one another, preventing any one of them from posing a serious challenge to his rule, and he delights in toying with the lives of those who amuse him. He would think nothing of slaughtering whole legions if he thought it would amass even greater power to further his dark ambitions."

"So why hasn't he tried to take over here?" Nabiki wondered.

"The doorway between Makai and this world is not easily crossed and has many snares for the unwary," Morgan answered, "To unleash a force suitably strong enough to defeat the armies of your earth wold take a great deal more energy than he might consider worth his while. And besides…my father is a very old demon, and he tends to be rather conservative in his ways. He prefers to play the game of balancing his agents against those of his rival demon lords in the various other dark dimensions."

"Sounds familiar," Frank scowled, "He and Ashteroth oughta compare notes sometime…no, scratch that! That's one dark alliance I hope never gets considered."

"I've got just one question for you, Anslat-san," Keiko glanced back up at the winged succubus, "Do you actually love Dimitri, or is this just a partnership of convenience?"

Morgan reacted with a start, "How dare you ask such a thing of me! Do you wish to risk another draining?"

"Do I take that for a yes?" Keiko confidently smiled back.

Morgan fell silent and scowled straight ahead without offering an answer.

Nabiki glanced at her friend, at the succubus, then at Frank and asked, "And what about this third player…Lord Pyron?"

"He's bad news all the way," Frank replied, "An energy being who looks like a literal devil, only he came from other space in the form of a comet about two centuries ago. He brought a plague to the countryside of feudal China, which is how the Ko sisters got after his case. He's been reported killed almost as many times as Dimitri, and I wouldn't recommend facing him as his lightest touch can burn you."

"Oh, that's right," Morgan said with a nasty lilt to her voice, "You have a thing about fire, about the only medium that could possibly destroy you."

"It ain't that," Frank said grimly, "I can handle a few flames. It's just…long time ago…I kind of learned this dangerous technique from my personal trainer and…well, you know how you got a thing about cats, Kid? Well, with me…fire's a bit of a problem…"

"I see," Nabiki said, thinking that one over.

"Boss, we're almost at the cemetery!" Shelley alerted them, "I've got readings out the wazzo! There's undead creeps all over the place, and I'm picking up some low-level static that might mean radio communication."

"Got it," Frank replied before speaking into his throat-mike, "Look alive, people…showtime's about to begin!"

Almost reflexively Nabiki turned a glance to catch the sight of many forms floating in the air not too very far overhead, the rest of their Posse and the Nightbreed being prominent among them, and leading the pack was the winged, softly radiant form of her sister, Kasumi, who seemed more angelic every time Nabiki saw her oneechan drifting across the moonlit sky with a silvery halo…

Little did she know (though if she had listened to her emotions she would have felt it through their psychic connection) but Kasumi was glancing back down her way even as this happened, feeling a certain thrill about going to the rescue of her little brother at Nabiki's side, no longer a burden or a useless appendage to a fight but an actual player in the Posse, and that gave her a tingle of excitement that canceled out any nervousness that she might otherwise be feeling.

Close nearby, the rest of her family and friends were still getting used to the idea that they were floating in air without any visible means of support, held aloft by the power of Kasumi as she telekinetically transported these fighters from her home to the place of battle, and with such ease that she might as well have been handling a sack of groceries. The ease with which she sustained their airborne status gave pause to even those few who did not find this matter entirely too disturbing, but none could dispute the benevolent nature of her new abilities. They felt "right" in some indefinable way, as though the source could only be a positive one and in no way negative in nature.

Natsume, Kurumi, Tatewaki, Mousse, Nodoka, Happosai, Soun and Genma were all doing their level best to cope with being several hundred meters in the air and drifting as leisurely as sakura blossoms on a warm summer breeze. Natsumi and Miyuki were doing their best not to lose their lunch while Himiko, Nagi, Miyu and Yui seemed to be taking it all in stride, while Julian clung to the arms of Yasmina and Leguire flew on his own vampiric power, and the mysterious D kept pace with Talbain by leaping from roof to roof much nearer to ground level.

"Our new Queen is tres formidable, eh?" Leguire asked of Yasmina as they drifted side-by-side together.

"Her power is unimaginable in one who has so recently been converted," Yasmina agreed, "Even Ling-Ko could not manifest such a powerful curtain of force to carry this many into battle."

"It's not really so surprising if you think about it," Julian remarked, "After all, Tendo Kasumi is not merely a Queen now…she is a virtual Vampire Goddess."

"A goddess?" Leguire replied, glancing at the winged Kasumi, "Aye…that does appear to describe her most recent transformation, doesn't it? But will even a goddess be of use to us when we face the combined might of Dimitri and his allies?"

"That is the question, isn't it?" Julian said as he scanned the city below them, then pointed abruptly, "Over there! Lady Tendo! I believe that I see where we need to go!"

"Oh my," Kasumi said as she followed the man's gesture, "I think I see what you mean, that bonfire burning over on the hill overlooking where mother is buried?"

"That isn't a bonfire, Lady Kasumi," Larva said from where he, too, was floating under his own auspices, "That is Lord Pyron, our enemy…and even more dangerous than Dimitri."

"That's one of the guys we've got to fight?" Kurumi said with obvious reluctance.

"He is a literal devil, is he not?" Tatewaki said grimly, "But we will send him back to Hell and all those who side with him against the good people of Nerima."

"Yes, we will," Natsume avowed, gripping the naginata that she had borrowed from the dojo for this purpose.

"Just make sure you two don't get in my way when I go to rescue the cutie," Happosai called in warning to his two star pupils.

"Oh, we would not dream of it, Master," Soun assured him.

"Thought never crossed our minds," Genma seconded with equal fervor.

"Perhaps you two should have remained in hiding back under the floorboards of your house," Leguire called up to the two floating fathers, "At least your woman showed courage and ability in that fight, which is more than I could say for the both of you."

Soun frowned, taking umbrage at that comment, "There is a great deal of difference between taking evasive action and fleeing in cowardice."

"They had guns and we didn't," Genma insisted, "But this time we're better prepared, and you'll see for yourself how martial artists handle people who attack our home and loved ones."

"Heads up everyone!" Nagi called out, "We are coming in for a landing!"

"Look!" Miyu called out, "I can see Ling-Ko!"

"So do I," Himiko remarked, "Only…what are they doing to the Blood Mother? It looks as if she's suffering from some kind of torture."

"Yeah," Kurumi said, "Bad direction…the place looks like some kind of a monster movie set, complete with glowing pentagram and the complimentary sacrificial altar…"

"The fiends!" Tatewaki declared, "To chain a woman nude like that and to inflict upon her such base degradations?"

"Just try not to drool on anyone when you say that, Dear," Natsume said in arched warning.

Kasumi guided her group to a relatively clear area and was about to set everyone down when all at once the night sky erupted with fire from the ground, bullets hailing up at them from dark forms who appeared from places of concealment. At the same time another figure broke cover with an oblong object lifted to its shoulder, and all at once the tube spat fire and out from the front end shot a very large bolt that traveled across the yard towards the street and down the lane, homing in on a particular target.

"Nabiki!" Kasumi cried as she saw the shoulder-fired rocket heading unerringly towards the speeding motorcycle commanded by Frank and at such a speed that it made avoidance all but impossible.

But that was not reckoning upon the lightning-quick resourcefulness of the man-monster who was a legend in his own time, and Frank saw the puff of smoke long before the rocket sped towards his position and cried, "Shelley!"

"On it!" Shelley barked as mini-rockets spat out of her front end and collided with the oncoming rocket, the combined force being enough to be lethal by itself but for the sudden explosion of jet energy that propelled the bike up into the air and over the explosion, leaving Keiko and Nabiki to cling to the rails as the shockwave kicked them skyward.

Talbain and D saw this and paused in their own forward momentum, then the werewolf growled out, "It's an ambush! They got snipers everywhere!"

D's hand moved faster than the eye could perceive and snagged a crossbow bolt that had been aimed for his head. In driest tones as he snapped the thing in two he murmured, "So I have noticed…"

"Oh my," Kasumi saw the airborne trio sailing high over the railing surrounding the cemetery, then watched as the motorcycle touched down and just barely avoided collision with a cement block marker. Frank brought it in with a squealing of tires then came to a halt even as more figures popped up from concealment and started firing on them, using automatic weapons and even shot-guns to rain fire on his position.

"Take cover!" Frank snapped, only to find that his charges had already bailed on him and were in motion before he could track them, "Oh hell!"

"Nabiki!" Kasumi called out, even as more bullets whizzed past her and the others, but then Kasumi turned a hard look towards the shooters and all at once the bullets began to bounce off an invisible shielding that extended to cover the rest of her party.

Yasmina and Leguire-still airborne, decided to take advantage of this fact and swooped down on the nearest of these gunmen and immediately went to work silencing their rifles.

Once their own feet had touched the ground Miyu and her companions went to work, going from passive defense to offence, Larva being the quickest to take advantage of his peculiar nature, swarming over several gunmen and rendering them incapacitated, even as Miyu and Nagi followed suit with their own means, and Yui hung back to cover them while Himiko laid down cover fire with a pair of handguns that she produced from within her jacket.

"Stay here, Lady, and let us defend your honor," Julian urged Kasumi before drawing his butterfly blades and heading off into battle.

"But…" Kasumi started to say when the rest of her family and friends broke free from the protective cover of her bubble to launch their own attacks in their own distinctive fashions, to which she could only say, "Oh my…"

Natsume was first to throw herself into the fray, whirling her naginata like a helicopter blade and lashing out at gunmen left and right with Tatewaki following close upon her heels laying about with his bokken and cleaning up what she left standing.

Kurumi took off like a shot and her speed was literally blinding, leaving Mousse to cover for her with his arsenal of thrown weapons to cover her flanks, not that the enemy had any chance of nailing her since she moved like a mongoose and was little more than a blur even in the eyes of her nominal "Airen."

Natsumi and Miyuki, on the other hand, took immediate cover and fired from the partial concealment of any obstacle that was at hand, picking targets carefully and making each shot count against the bad guys.

"Cover me boys, I'm going for the Nookie!" Happosai declared as he took off in a bound, skirting the major action and heading for the altar that they could see off in the distance.

"But Master!" Genma cried, only to flinch as a bullet passed a little too near him for his comfort.

"Saotome, we can't stay here, we're too exposed to their fire," Soun declared as both men took shelter behind a mausoleum.

"I know, Tendo-kun, but what can we do about it?" Genma asked.

"I have an idea," Soun declared and straightened up, leaving himself exposed to the greatly diminished fire of the enemy.

"Father…" Kasumi started to say when she saw her father square his shoulders, summon up his Ki, then all at once Soun appeared to expand his battle aura enormously, and all at once the face of his "Demon" aspect appeared overhead, causing many of the gunmen to falter and hesitate in their fire, momentarily distracted by the "Demon."

"Tendo!" Genma cried, and all at once he vanished from his place of concealment, moving so fast that he himself was a mere blur and all at once those gunmen had something else to worry about besides a figurative demon…

Not far away Nodoka paused in the act of slicing through the kevlar armor of one opponent to smile in the direction of her husband, and then in a soft undertone she said, "I knew they had it in them, all they needed was a little spark to their pride…" and then she left the thought unfinished as she stabbed with her sword through the face mask of yet another assailant.

Meanwhile, back at the altar, Dimitri paused in the act of completing yet another act of stimulation to Ling-Ko to turn an annoyed glance in the direction of the weapons fire, and then he growled, "What now? Yet another interruption?"

"Who are these interlopers?" Pyron asked, "Is someone else coming to the party?"

"Whoever they are, my Apostles will deal with them," Jeddah declared, "Humans or Darkstalkers, nothing may be allowed to disturb the ceremony at this all-important critical juncture."

"I quite agree," Dimitri smiled, staring down at the helpless Ling-Ko, "Now my dear, where did we leave off…?"

"Don't you think that you've done enough with her for now?" Pyron asked.

"Hardly," Dimitri exposed his fangs, "I have only just begun to work my will upon this strumpet."

"Stop it, Dimitri," Jeddah snapped, "You're behaving like an adolescent. The spell is near completed, and soon we will not need this Jezebel to complete the final phase of the ritual."

"It will be ended when I say that it is ended," Dimitri snapped, "And I say that she has not yet experienced the full measure of my…"

"That is quite enough," Pyron scowled, "It is apparent that you are suffering from some malady that is causing you to lose your self-control. The Dimitri Maximoff I know would never allow himself to be distracted from the main purpose by his lust for a mere woman."

"Mere woman?" Dimitri's eyes blazed, but then he paused and thought about it, "Self control? Adolescent? I wonder if…can it be? Did I take more than just the knowledge of the Senkens from that boy? But…how can this be? I have never before…"

"Before what?" a wizened old voice inquired, "Before Moses wore his first pair of sandals?"

"Eh?" Pyron and Jeddah said together, discovering that there was a diminutive old man standing astride the writhing Ling-Ko and glaring at them like an angry gnome of vengeance.

"Shame on you boys," Happosai declared, "Making a pretty girl suffer like this when any true gentleman knows that she has to be allowed to know fulfillment, which is as simple as applying pressure to the following nerve zones."

Before anyone could stop him Happosai moved to touch Ling-Ko's body in a number of key areas, and all at once the Vampire Queen arched her back and cried out in a gasp that caused her whole body to tense up as a wave of energy poured out of her and shook the entire night as she screamed with long pent-up emotion. So great was the energy that she radiated that her metal bonds were snapped like brittle ice, the titanium steel shattering as Ling-Ko sat up and shook with unholy emotion.

"What have you done?" Dimitri cried, "How could you interfere like that? You will pay for your effrontery, old goat!"

"Aw, yer mother sucks turnips!" Happosai shot back, turning to the side and adding, "How you coming along there, Toots?"

Ling-Ko was on the ground rolling with wave after wave of residual lust, fingering herself furiously while glaring up a storm in Dimitri's direction.

"YOU-WILLL-PAAAAYYY!" she snarled with undisguised attention.

"Don't just stand there, fools!" Jeddah called to his own minions, "Capture her! The ceremony is not yet completed!"

"I will tend to that little detail," Pyron said, giving Happosai a contemptful snort, only to find the little man moved to block his way, heedless of the threat posed by the flaming giant, "You seek to die, little man?"

"From what?" Happosai snorted, "Your breath? Just try and get past me!"

"All right!" Dimitri snarled, "I will!" only when he lunged for Happosai the diminutive master somehow contrived to get himself directly behind the renegade vampire lord, and all at once Dimitri found himself propelled forward face-first into the altar, a feeling that seemed strangely familiar for some odd reason…

"What do we do now?" Darkwulf asked as he exchanged looks with Anakaris.

The Mummy shrugged, "What do you think we do? We help Lord Dimitri…"

"These churls are weak and useless minions!" Tatewaki declared as the last of the armed men went down before his furious onslaught, "If their master is any reflection of their poor battle prowess…"

All at once a shot rang out and the young Kuno heir stiffened. Natsume turned to see what was happening and saw her fiancé begin to topple over, at which point she forgot all about the fight and rushed to his side, seeing a spread of redness color his gi as she cried, "Tachi-sama? TACHI-SAMA!"

"Fool that he was to bring a wooden sword to a gun battle," a dark skinned man in the ceremonial dress of a Voodoo shaman declared, "And for the information of the rest of you, human minions are by no means the full extent of our resources."

"Ah…Oneechan?" Kurumi nervously called out as she saw another line of figures enter the battle, these moving with a stiffer gait yet somehow causing the hairs at the nape of her hairline to stand on end, even as Mousse moved to protectively flank her.

"HKs!" Julian declared, "They're sending in their cyborg killers!"

"Bring them on!" Nagi declared, brandishing his sword, "We'll see how tough their science is when compared to our supernatural might."

"Ah…but just in case," Yui said, "Perhaps we ought to proceed with a bit more caution," she said as she glanced at the fallen Tatewaki and judged their weaponry to be more than adequate to pose a mortal danger…

Meanwhile, Frank was busy taking care of business of his own, enduring withering gunfire directed towards him as though he were immune to the pain caused by the bullets, which struck him in a number of places yet failed to knock him down as he advanced upon three gunmen and promptly brought his hands together like a pair of fly-swatters.

"Wow!" Keiko remarked as she got through dealing punishment to a number of men who had gotten too near to her for their own safety, "Are you bulletproof as well as strong?"

"Hardly," Frank tapped his chest, "Kevlar vest under the leather, never leave home without it."

"Swell," Keiko paused to look beyond him then said, "Um…just for the record…will kevlar work against those guys?"

"Huh?" Frank said, only to turn in time to see a number of red-eyed figures advancing upon them, "Oh…wondered when you guys would get into the action. Better take cover, Red, 'cause you ain't grounded."

"What?" Keiko asked, only to blink as she figured out his meaning, "Oh!" and she promptly dove for the protection of a nearby headstone.

"Okay, boys," Frank declared to the advancing Goya, "You want a piece of me? Get in line…but here's a little taste of why it ain't smart for you guys to tackle with the Monster!"

As he balled his fists they suddenly started to crackle and glow, then blue-white sparks shot out from his battle aura to strike the nearest of the Goya, and almost at once those figures shriveled up and crumbled into dust, causing the others nearest to them to stare in dismay at their vanished comrades.

Frank did not give them the chance to regret their error as he formed a ball of lightning energy between his hands, then sent it flowing out from his body, creating a cascading field that leaped from Goya to Goya causing bodies to crumble and blow away until no enemies remained within a five meter radius of his indomitable presence.

"Well?" Frank asked of the remaining Goya who had been outside of the radius of his attack, "Any more takers want to share the electric bill? Didn't think so," he added as he saw the Goya back away and then start running.

"Wow," Keiko said as she straightened up from her place of concealment, "Is that the same attack you used to defeat the Mistress?"

"Naw," Frank replied, "Used a different sort on Lao, and much lower voltage. Can't do that too often, though, or the batteries start to wear out."

"Well, color me impressed," Keiko said before adding, "What did you think, Nab-chan? Nab-chan?"

Frank turned his head and said, "Oh hell…"

Pyron was blasting away at Happosai with flaming attacks that seemed to just barely miss the annoying old man who somehow seemed to anticipate his attacks before they were fully executed. Jeddah was looking quite perturbed and alarmed while Darkwulf and Anakaris hovered back and tried to avoid being casualties of the collateral damage.

Dimitri, meanwhile, picked himself back up from the ground and snarled, "That…hurt…and now I will see to it that you suffer…"

"You want another turn at the Master, you're gonna have to get in line."

"Eh?" Dimitri saw a pair of legs projecting from a tight set of trousers and followed them up to a willowy body with a nicely curving figure…and from there a disturbingly familiar face regarding him with cold, intense fury.

"Hi there," Nabiki said, "Remember me?" and all at once her fist filled the vampire lord's field of vision, and a moment later there were stars and pinwheels going off inside his head and he was moving at a horizontal angle with great speed in the reverse, and a moment later he collided with a tombstone and went plowing straight through it, not even feeling immediate pain as it took several long moments for the numbness to fade, at which point he knew that he was in for a battle…

Continued

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