Project A-Ko Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Vampire Hunter (Darkstalkers) Fan Fiction ❯ Nabiki 1/2 (A Very Scary Thought) ❯ Betrayals and Reversals... ( Chapter 132 )

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.

"So, this is Nerima, the place where my husband has taken such an interest of late," a lone figure remarked as she surveyed the area from the vantage of a low hill, "Doesn't look like very much, does it, Byron?"

Her sole companion answered as if by rote on that, "You of all people should know better than to judge by appearances, Eve-chan."

"True enough," the leather clad figure sniffed, "But if the dealings that are allegedly going on here are as dire as everyone predicts, then I'd at least expect something grander than another glaring example of Tokyo sprawl to signify the amount of attention that it has been receiving of late. As it is I don't even know why I'm bothering to stop by here, other than to appease Vlad's intense curiosity."

"You know that your husband never does anything without careful consideration of the issues," Byron noted, "And if he thinks this place warrants careful scrutiny, then I would tend to concur that this is a very good suggestion."

"That's it, take his side," Even sniffed, "You men are all alike, even when you're synthetic. I prefer to go with my own instincts about such matters, and in my unvarnished opinion this place hardly looks like it would be worth the trouble that Vlad's people are going to. In fact…"

All at once the woman sitting astride the motorcycle reacted with a start as she felt something vibrate in the air, a disturbance that her keen nature could not help but register, and as she turned her gaze towards a certain direction her face hardened with a fierce continence that seemed to brook no obstacle to the probing power of her gaze.

"What is it?" Byron asked, sensitive to the changing needs and longings of his rider

"I don't know," she said, "But it's bad, bad vibes all around, major league all around, and nine will get you ten that my Ex is up to the thick of it, like always, the bolt-necked baka…"

"That does tabulate with past findings," Byron drolly noted, "So…you intend to investigate?"

"What else?" the woman known as Eve replied with a slight smile upon her features, "I wasn't made to be idled on the sidelines like a proper lady, and I've always preferred to face my problems head-on instead of waiting for them to find me."

"Besides which you also enjoy a good scrap, is that it?"

"You know me well, old friend," Eve smiled as she revved her motorcycle's engine, "Besides, I'm eager to see what kind of trouble Frank has gotten himself into this time. It ought to be worth a hoot, to say nothing of triggering my in-built sense of nostalgia…"

From the time that he had been a young man, so very long ago that it almost hurt to try to remember the "good old days," Jebediah Ramori had dreamed of bringing peace to the troubled world by uniting all souls under the balm of a benevolent god who would care for the poor and afflicted. He had dreamed the dreams of a starry-eyed youth of being the one who brought an end to the injustices of mortal existence, who brought about the tribulation where the wicked were separated from the saintly and given their just rewards, the evil doers given oblivion while the good were given their reward in paradise. Since being found and adopted by his father, the Reverend Williams, and given his Christian name (as opposed to his Japanese name, his former family being long since forgotten) he had striven to be a good disciple of the Lord. His parents were long dead and all he had of them was the memory of his mother, and the story of how his family had fled from Japan when he was a small boy, escaping religious persecution. Many had died to bring him to America and the salvation of the Lord, and to honor their memory he had to be one of the elect chosen who brought peace and light to all of humanity.

To do this he had studied hard, committing the Bible to memory and following the example of his mentor, learning from him the technique of preaching to the masses, converting unbelievers into the faithful and using his natural gifts to impress upon people the power of the Lord to bestow favors to those who pleased Him. Though he had encountered stiff prejudice and widespread animosity among the White people whom he encountered-who saw him as nothing more than a "Filthy Heathen Chinaman," or who questioned the real source of his abilities and whispered privately that he his abilities might have a much more serious source than from Heaven. He had not listened to these ramblings, of course, and had disregarded the rumor that his father was NOT a human being, preferring to believe that he had been singled out for a purpose God's holy mission and had merely been granted his abilities as a means of demonstrating to the doubters that the Lord was Mighty and that His power was never to be questioned by any mere mortal.

To this end he had performed the deeds that the Reverend Williams had commanded and gave proof of his commitment to the holy cause of his adopted father by shining like a beacon to his faith. He had healed the sick, comforted the weary, unveiled secrets unknown to any other soul and had even managed a few 'carnival tricks" such a levitation and minor feats of prodigious strength. In time he had learned to move objects with the power of his thoughts and could discern when he was lied to or when he heard the truth being spoken, a talent that had many useful implications, not least of which was looking into the heart of a true believer and persuading them with his voice to follow the Lord's way. He had only to suggest something and people would do his bidding, and in time he discovered that his suggestions could be powerful and would make people believe without the need for lengthy explanations about the grace of the Holy Spirit. It truly became inspirational when the gifts that he had been endowed with grew in strength with his following until his powers were almost Biblical in proportion, and the more he preached the more his talents multiplied accordingly, as if the favor of Heaven were being laid across his shoulders like a mantle.

It did not take long for him to imagine that he was so gifted because Heaven had singled him out for a reason, and since the Bible taught that all true miracles came from the divine favor of God (without Whom no true miracles or magical feats could exist) then he had to be someone very special whom the Lord had chosen from the ranks of all other mortals. It was not a very far step from there to imagining that he might possibly be a reborn Apostle, or a Prophet, or even Jesus Christ himself reborn into the world to do battle with the Anti-Christ and bring about the Armageddon. The only alternative was unthinkable-that he might be the Anti-Christ or a messenger from Satan spreading false good works in order to mislead and dupe the gullible masses-and since he lived a clean, pure life that possibility was never to be imagined.

So what if his adopted father collected money in the forms of donations to continue with their mission, and so what if they kicked some of it back to the Carnival proprietor, keeping only a "tithe" to support their own chosen and austere lifestyle? They were holy men of God preaching the Good News to a thirsty public starved for spiritual answers in a corrupt and degenerate world that valued money and power far above the good deeds that might be done for their fellow human being. Material concerns were of small interest to men who walked in the footsteps of the Saints, and as the end of the 19th century approached with the beginning of an entirely new millennia it was becoming more and more evident that the world was going to Hell with a speed that was truly alarming. The world needed men of God to lead it through the fires of perdition…

And then came the time of the Fall, when the innocence fell from his eyes like the scales of a fish, leaving Jebediah without the guiding influence of his priestly mentor. For a long time Jebediah knew about his adopted father's frequent visitations to the Houses of Ill Repute that he made at every stop in every town and city that their carnival went through, but always he believed when his father told him that he was preaching to the unclean masses and doing the Lord's Will by attempting to lead the fallen back to the path of salvation, and always the Reverend Williams had come back early the next morning looking refreshed and spiritually buoyed, ready to do battle once more with Satan in their Revivalist congregations, preaching hellfire and damnation to those who failed to heed the signs and portents prophesized in Revelation.

Always he had told Jebediah to stay and watch over the carnival, and always his adopted son had obeyed, though he wished that he could accompany his father on these missions. He was still a young man in his early teenaged years and had little experience with city life or its people, and though his father warned him of the devious temptations that Satan put in place for the unwary, still Jebediah had his faith for armor and felt confident that he could assist his father in dulling free sinners from the grip of Hell's dominion.

But one day the good father came back to their tent from a visit to the city looking drunk as a sailor and clearly suffering the effects of some sort of narcotic, which Jebediah deduced to be that new wonder drug, cocaine, of which his father had spoken so often about with detest loathing. At first Jebediah had thought someone had attempted to poison the Reverend Williams, or one of Satan's minions had done the deed, but soon his father disabused him of these hopeful notions by insisting that his condition was self-inflicted, that he was an adult and knew how to handle himself with these dangerous substances. In fact the excuses that he was making for himself sounded suspiciously a lot like the kinds of things that addicts would say to justify their own long-term habits, but Jebediah vehemently denied to himself that his much beloved mentor could be one of those self-serving reprobates who were always turning up to hear the word of Redemption.

In point of fact he said as much to the Reverend Williams and was treated to the most amazing display of righteous wrath from his self-proclaimed "Guiding Light" and adopted father. In the heat of the moment, his tongue loosened by the combination of booze and drugs, Williams proceeded to outline to his young ward a horrifying tale about Jebediah's supposed birth and actual pedigree, revealing the story of how a young Japanese girl had come to America with her husband, mother, uncles and aunts, only to fall prey to town prejudice in one of the outlying settlements that had supposedly been their Christian refuge away from the persecutions of the Japanese system. Williams related how he had found the girl as the lone survivor of their party, which had been raided by some malevolent force that-at first glance-the Reverend had taken to be a band of renegade natives. The girl herself, however, told a different story entirely, of how a single creature had been responsible for the slaughter of her family and her own distressed condition. She told about the "red-eyed demon" who had come to them seemingly as a friendly guest and had stayed the night sharing food and victuals, only to reveal himself in the dead of night as nothing less than a fiend from the very pits, a carnal being who had singled out the young virgin in their midst as his intended prey.

Though he was not well versed in matters of the occult, Williams was familiar with the legends of the Incubus, a form of demon who preyed upon women the way a vampire would such the blood from its victims. An Incubus sought human women to mate with, and a lone and pretty girl was easy prey to his carnal lusts, though this Incubus claimed to be an immortal being who was revered as a God in his realm, who only came to Earth on certain nights to claim a mate with whom he had hoped to bear offspring. When her parents and family objected the demon had slain them without a second thought or a shred of mercy.

On this occasion the mating proved to be successful and the girl was with child, but so great was the shame of her ordeal that she wanted nothing less than to end her life and begged the Reverend to assist her in this endeavor. It was with great fortitude and compassion that Williams had prevailed upon the girl to abide until her son was born, after which she grew pale and sickly and for all the assistance a doctor could render she did not last a month past childbirth.

Williams was therefore left with a half-breed Japanese boy of unknown parentage (at the time the Reverend had not been able to credit the thought of an actual demon impregnating a child since only God could create life, and why inflict an innocent woman with such a burden?) and so he resolved to raise the boy as his own in spite of their racial differences, a tremendous act of compassion and good faith for those troubled times when racism against Asians was a nearly universal social condition.

But as the boy grew older and started to manifest his unusual "talents" the reverend had grown fearful that he may well have aided and abetted in the birthing of the Anti-Christ. He therefore prevailed upon the lad to learn the ways of the Lord so that he might escape the temptations of his demonic pedigree. The boy proved to be a model son and an obedient child who could make any father proud…but every so often his demonic origins would show through in some tell-tale sign or unintentional manner, and Williams would feel the fear returning, even as he grew to be envious of the lad for his smooth-talking ways and healing arts, to say nothing of the boy's uncanny way of knowing things without having to be told them.

Reverend Williams could justify a little trickery in the name of Jesus, had even resorted to cheap carnival tricks and slight-of-hand gestures to beguile the sheep who became his flock in the old days, but presented with an obvious example of miraculous powers that could not be explained by reason or science…his fears drove him to drinking, and then to drugs, hoping to ease the strain of having to shepherd a "Demonspawn" onto the path of the Angels. In time Williams had grown to both love and loathe the boy, beseeching God to take this burden away from his shoulders, or to explain why a youth such as him had been so blessed with divine favor while Williams-a noble man of the cloth-had not been so favored and could not so much as lay hands upon the crippled, weak and afflicted.

Fear turned to resentment, resentment to hostility, and hostility to hate, though he tried always to mask these dark emotions behind a stern and uncompromising visage. Until that moment his supposed "son" had never suspected his "father's" true feelings, but provoked to rage Williams let it all spill out, and displayed a shocking vocabulary utterly unworthy of a man of God. Jebediah was taken aback, and then, very slowly, he started to get ANGRY…

Jebediah, upon hearing his mentor denounce his nominal pupil, turned the fires of his righteous wrath upon the good Reverend Williams, faulting the man for every tiny little detail that the boy had ever noticed or wondered about his father, and then going on to call the man a hypocrite and a coward whose faith was lacking and who preached falsehoods while pretending to be holy. Something dark and imposing rose up in him that black day, transforming the boy into the very "Old Testament" prophet that Williams had only pretended to be, and for once the boy's full charismatic power manifested and overwhelmed the hapless preacher. The force of the young man's personality alone was enough to break the old man's frail heart, but to be denounced by his very capable apprentice was an ego-shock from which the reverend could not hope to recover, and though Jebediah never laid so much as a hand upon his alleged father it was as if he had reached into the man's chest and crushed his cardiac organ as easily as another man might have squeezed a grape between his fingers.

Williams fell back and lay dead with a look of abject horror on his face, his eyes staring vacantly into infinity as the shocked young man attempted to revive him, to no avail as it seemed for once that his healing powers had utterly failed him. It would not be until many hours later that very morning that the other carnival folk would find the two of them in their wagon with the young man cradling his dead father in his lap and keening like a lost soul who had lost his will to live altogether.

For three days and three nights Jebediah had lain like one dead in his bed following this incident, refusing all comforts or attempts to reassure him that his father had died of a heart attack and was in no way his fault, only to rise again on the fourth day like one reborn with a new conviction and a resolve very different from that which he had been raised to believe. On that day the old Jebediah had perished, along with his youthful innocence and childhood beliefs, to be born anew and re-baptized as "Jeddah X," his own self-creation. Never again would he allow himself to be blinded by the miseries and temptations of the world, now he would seek a new unity and resolve by blending the faiths and wills of others and bending them to his vision of the "Lord's Work," which was geared towards the coming Apocalypse with the hopes of saving many by joining them in the "Great Rapture."

And accompanying him was a dark ball of energy that some saw while others could not, which followed him around like a shadow or a faithful puppy, doing his bidding and occasionally running his errands. Ever since he was a small boy he had always imagined having a make-belief friend or pet (his father had forbidden him any contact with other boys his own age, nor would he allow animals to be near him, judging them as "unclean beasts" not fit for human companionship). To fill the gap his childhood mind had created a friend whom he called his Majagin (a word his early mind had translated as the word for "Magical"), a companion who was invisible to others with whom he could confide all his troubles. Now his companion would stand him in good earnest by being his sole ally and guiding angel, his "Voice" for advice and consent, and now Majagin would also serve to help him gather up the energies of the lost souls whom he encountered.

In fact that became his primary mission from that point onward…to seek out the souls of the lost and to join them into one circuit, to link his followers into a central hub and to draw upon their combined essence to strengthen his own power and fortify his mission. He knew in time that Satan would sense his intent and move against him, and so he had to be strong, stronger than anyone on earth, stronger than anyone whom he encountered in order to complete his mission of bringing all the lost souls of the world together.

It was this resolve that brought him into contact with the Darkstalkers, after Jeddah had gathered enough energy to create his Void Sphere, his ultimate great scheme for fulfilling his life's mission, which did indeed draw in a great many lost souls into a zone of Nullity that created a darkness in the world to which the things of Darkness were attracted. Some came drawn by curiosity, others by the need to fight, while a few came to protect the earth and put a stop to Jeddah's plans for Universal Re-unification.

At first Jeddah merely assumed that they all were the minions of Satan come to oppose his great ideals, but over the course of several battles he witnessed acts of courage and nobility that caused him to question this blanket assertion. When his plans ultimately met with defeat, he was himself cast into the Void, to arrive as a prisoner in some dark nebulous dimension, and it caused Jeddah to experience the first seeds of doubt as to the authenticity of his mission, for how else could he account for the servant of an invincible god being defeated by creatures of darkness? Perhaps it was true what some of them had said, that he was a willfully blind fanatic bent on proving himself a Messiah because he wished to deny his own darkness, and if so was it not a blasphemy to presume himself guided by a mission? If so, then was it not an act of piety to prevent his plans from coming to final fruition?

The near-century that Jeddah next spent in the void having to fight for his survival had further tested his resolve and forced him to dig deep into his core beliefs and ultimate values in order to test his faith and determine if he were truly the much hoped for Messiah. A century of interacting with demons and creatures of the Darkness had hardened him and toughened him as a warrior for the Almighty, and when at last he effected his return he was much transformed as both a visionary and a prophet. He sought to quell the raging doubts that were in his heart by finding and defeating the Darkstalkers who had effected his defeat from before, and then he had attempted to recreate his Void Sphere, drawing in a new gathering of loyal followers who heeded the calling and responded to his cry of ultimate unity and annihilation.

But once again his efforts met with defeat, and this time Jeddah resolved to think long and hard as to the reasons, why God had raised him to be such a powerful force for ultimate good yet had twice permitted his enemies to overpower him in battle. This caused Jeddah to take a good, long and hard look at the world around him and at the many changes that had been wrought since his days as a simple revivalist. In many ways he found these changes to be good…a higher standard of living, a longer lifespan, more leisure time for the working men and women of the world and a great many technological wonders that had been beyond the dreams of the most imaginative fiction writers of his day. The telecommunications media alone provided a rich, abundant forum in which to spread the Word of Jesus to portions of the globe that had been dark and mysterious unknowns when Jeddah was but an infant.

But in many respects the world had also gone downhill with considerable reckless abandon as old institutions had been worn away and replaced by a spirit of hedonism and promiscuity beyond the dreams of Babylon and Canaan. Carnal devices and lusts of degradation had devalued the spirit and left the world in such a sorry state that surely Satan alone was smiling, but not the poor unfortunates and forgotten lost souls whom Jeddah had always cared for and protected. If anything this convinced him more than ever that the world was in need of a cleansing, but how to go about it this time in such a way that his enemies, the Darkstalkers, would not be able to interfere and prevent the achievement of his mission?

That was when he began to truly immerse himself into the arcane marvels of technology and the hierarchical organizations that could make small time businessmen into giants of industry. He studied the ways of the Pentagon (that artifice of Satanic militarism the world over) and how military structures were patterned and then he made contacts with those in the extra-legal world of Paramilitarism, the soldiers-of-fortune, the Mercenaries, the survivalists, the underground cults that preached a militant form of Jesus worship and who sought for a "return to traditional values," men whose conservative leanings made them ripe subjects for conversion, especially in the Army of the Lord that Jeddah was helping to put together in the name of his Lord Jesus.

Acquainting himself with technology and personnel, however, was only the first step towards the much larger goal of bringing about the Tribulation, and as Jeddah pondered his next step he found that God himself provided the answer by steering Jeddah to an ancient artifact being kept in a museum in Cairo, a tablet said to possess great magical power, which described how, during the reign of the Pharaoh named Ahknaton (the first known Egyptian Monotheist), the priests of Aten-Re (who populated his court) had attempted to perform a forbidden ritual that was said to bring about a change in the world that would make the rule of Aten-Re (their name for God) supreme and absolute the entire world over.

Through means of a few phone calls Jeddah was able to obtain possession of the tablet, then-putting to work a team of linguists and occult experts-he had it translated and explained on a cultural basis. By this means he was able to determine that the tablet contained one part of a spell that could be used to open a gateway to a dark and hideous dimension from which the foulest demons imaginable could be summoned. The second part of the spell was contained in India as one of the Sutra texts preserved for countless centuries as the property of a Maharajah, and once that was in his possession he had yet more researchers on his payroll go to work reconstructing the linguistic basis for the spell, its somatic components and the ultimate goal to which it had been crafted.

By this means he determined that the purpose for summoning the demon race (known as the Rakshasa) had been to "Cleanse the World" in the name of Aten-Re by unleashing the demons to punish the wicked and separate them from the innocent. It seemed that Pharaoh Ahknaton had been convinced that the world was too impure to receive his vision of an absolute Kingdom of purity and righteousness and so had effected to create the spell in order to cleanse Egypt, and he had come within a hairs breadth of succeeding in his aims before something went terribly wrong to disrupt the spell and bring about the fall of his dynasty.

And the name of that downfall had been the Blood Queen of the Vampires known far and wide as Ayesha…said to be one of the last surviving members of the Old Race of True Vampires, and whose blood had been shed to effect the spell, which was itself a variation of the necromantic arts of Atlantis that was said to be the cause for the vampire race coming into existence. Ahknaton had captured Ayesha and was about to offer her up as a sacrifice when her minions, the Vampires, had disrupted the ceremony and killed the Pharaoh (along with a goodly numbers of his high priests and acolytes) and ended the great experiment in monotheism that had predated even the founding of the Jewish nation (which itself was said to be the product of one of Ahknaton's surviving disciples, a fellow named Re-Moses).

The fall of Ahknaton's reign had been a mystery to scholars for a great many ages, but what had been known was the result of when the priests of the Old Gods of the two Kingdoms of the Nile returned to prominence and power, and how they had banished the followers of Aten-Re to the Semitic lands of their Cananite client states that dotted the fringes of Egypt's holdings in Arabia. What emerged from that was a renewed Monotheism under the same god by a different name, but that was of only secondary interest to Jeddah when contrasted with the knowledge that he might well succeed where Ahknaton failed in bringing about a universal cleansing.

The one obstacle to his plans was the continued survival of the Vampire Nation. Queen Ayesha had long since been gone from the scene, allegedly slain by her enemies and turned into an obsidian stone block, yet still the memory of her struggle lived on in the surviving tribes of vampires, which same might yet live to oppose the Rakshasa if not neutralized by some appropriate manner. That was when Jeddah had hit upon the idea of allying himself with the renegade Dimitri, an honorable sort (for such a hideous monster) who had his own list of grievances with the High Council and who might be persuaded to join Jeddah's cause if informed of the other purpose by which Ahknaton had sought to summon the Rakshasa.

Namely to gain the power of a God by drawing a certain Lord of the Rakshasa to earth in order to destroy him and use it to gain power over all the world's legions of vampires.

Dimitri had been easy to persuade (once his initial suspicions were allayed) and then the two of them had set about recruiting the assistance of Lord Pyron, who himself had been nursing his wounds after his defeat at the hands of the half-demonic spiritualist, Donovan Bane. Jeddah needed an ally to balance against Lord Dimitri in case of treachery on the latter's part (almost a given with such alliances) while Pyron needed revenge against the one who had defeated him, Dimitri's half-human brother, and so the three of them had put together a new Dark Pack and combined it with Jeddah's own holy branch of the Justifyers Inc. (a franchised paramilitary Militia branch that rented itself out as hired muscle to like-minded Evangelical groups) and together hatched the scheme to lure a conclave of Vampire chiefs to the outskirts of the Tokyo region and from there hope to gain the attention of one or more of the ruling High Council to offer up as sacrifice for the completion of the holy ritual that would claim for them the power of a lord of the Rakshasa.

The plan, while not so nearly flawless as Jeddah would have preferred it to be, had worked out quite well and now there was division and dissention among the ranks of the Vampire nation, and with the next phase of the plan already in motion, they had only to complete the invocation and make a blood atonement and the ritual would be at long last completed. Thirty-five centuries after the time of Ahknaton that long dead pharaoh would have his revenge on both the human world and the nightstalking vampires.

And Jeddah? He would have his long-delayed mission finally come to fulfillment, after which he could face his God with confidence and resolve, clearly having vindicated the righteousness of his mission (and proving once and for all that he was not the "demon-spawned Incubus" that his late father had claimed, thus setting aside his own personal demons). It was all or nothing for him this time, and if his third attempt at bringing on the cleansing of the world met with failure…then he did not want to survive in order to attempt another.

Right now he was at the place of power, drawing in the energies that had been gathered from the Blood Mother in order to complete the spell, and with a few more chants he was certain to know victory. He could taste it within his grasp, a sweeter flavor than the bitter, acrid taste of defeat that had twice been his lot. Only a little ways to go now and they would have everything in motion with nothing left to go wrong save only the interference of another well-meaning fool or dupe of Satan.

His allies were clearly restless, especially that Jezebel, that Whore of Babylon, Morgan. She was clearly fidgeting with an urgency for Jeddah to finish with his seemingly endless chanting, an unusual degree of energy for her since she was usually the one bored to ennui by the jaded passions of life. With what little portion of his attention that Jeddah could spare to the harlot queen of Makai he wondered at what cause might distress Anslat to such a degree that she looked ready to climb the walls in frustration. Surely she was not lusting for Dimitri yet again? Those two never ceased their bickering whenever they were together, and at times Jeddah was not certain if they were mortal enemies or truly lovers, and he doubted rather much that even they knew which was which with any true conviction.

"Is he done yet?" Morgan was just then whispering at the level of a tightly suppressed shout.

"Not yet, my dear," Dimitri answered, "Have a little more patience…unless you would rather I give you something pleasantly diverting…"

"Get stuffed and blow away ye cocksure leach," Morgan grumbled back, though it was plain from the tone in which she growled this that she was seriously considering Dimitri's offer and just barely managing to refuse it.

Pyron, by contrast, was a model of calmness and tranquility, a burning pyre in the shape of a man who masked whatever alien thoughts ran through his mind and who seemed quite content to wait out the full chanted invocation (which had taken Jeddah's research team the better part of a year to reconstruct with proper grammatical structure and tonal inclination). The self-described "Galactic Tyrant" seemed to have a proper sense of how delicate this spell actually was at this point and how a single mispronounced syllable could throw it all into disarray, rather much like a computer program that had to have all the ones and zeroes organized in the exactly precise frame and order.

For Jeddah the spell was a torture of obscene proportions, even though he had rehearsed his lines to an exhaustive degree over the months of working with his linguistic research team. He knew it so well that he could pronounce every particle and nuance in his sleep, and that was a very good thing since it required so much of his personal energy to keep the mental concepts in sharp focus. The spell was long because it had to cover contingencies and redundancies the likes of which these fools could not imagine, and it was very easy to believe that the spell really was some sort of computer program as it took a 128 Meg memory chip just to verify that the translation was consistent with the overall spell structure.

That being the case, however, his ordeal was nearly ended and he had only a few moments to go before his life's work would finally be ended…and then the tribulation would finally begin and let the corrupt and wicked governments of the world beware for the unrighteous sinners were soon to be swept from power, and a new millennium would truly begin as was promised by God in the holy Revelation.

"Yes," Lord Pyron spoke, breaking a long silence, "I can feel it happening…the gates are finally about to open, and already I can sense a mind of immense breadth, scope and power start to take notice of the opening of the portal."

"Finally," Dimitri breathed with a sigh, "It has come at last…the day of reckoning is at hand, and soon my demonic father will know what it means to have a prodigal son express my deepest regards for the one who sired me and gave me unholy life."

"And then you mean to take his from him, eh?" Morgan asked rather archly.

"But of course," Dimitri turned a look of genuine concern towards his succubus companion, "What troubles you, my dear? You are most unnaturally upset for what should be a time of jubilation. You have always thirsted for the fight, and now that we approach the river you act as if you would rather be…elsewhere."

"It's not that," Morgan replied, "It's just…Dimitri, you and I…we come from different worlds but we have always known a certain thrill and excitement from being in each others presence. Whether as enemies or…as something else…I have respected you as a man whose true strength lies beyond his mere ability to do battle."

"What do you mean?" Dimitri seemed genuinely surprised by that statement.

"That you show courage in a fight, but there is a kind of rude nobility about you that I find…exciting and forbidding at one and the same instant," the succubus queen answered, "You may battle to the death, but you will never press a fight if you find the prey less than a challenge to your prowess. You can be merciless and pitiless, but you respect an enemy's courage and will honor a foe who does valiantly and fails by granting him a fitting death as a warrior, sometimes almost an equal. That speaks a lot for the man you are beneath that cool and icy demeanor…a man who finds as much joy in testing his limits as I do, and who bores easily with the trivial, petty concerns of day-to-day existence."

"What are you getting at, woman?" Dimitri asked, "I always thought you lived for the fight, just as I do. I thought we were having fun, either when clashing as enemies or allies or…as something else altogether."

"Fun?" Morgan responded, "I had all but forgotten what the word meant until I met you, Man, and yet…it troubles me greatly this thing we are about to do together. It is like your acquiring that Kama-whatsis maneuver that you were using on me before."

"Yes?" Dimitri smiled confidently, "What about it?"

"Just this," Morgan looked him sincerely in the eyes and said, "If the plan succeeds and you gain the powers of a god, powers enough to crush your enemies and claim dominion over the worlds of Makai and earth…then what next for the remainder of your existence?"

"Eh?" Dimitri asked, "What…next?"

"What does my lord do when he no longer has enemies to oppose him?" Morgan asked, "When there are no more enemies worthy enough to battle against you? When every battle is a foregone conclusion and you win without effort? When there is no more challenge, no more horizons to work towards, no more territory to conquer, no more lands to be vanquished…what then? Won't life become just a wee bit too predictable when there are no more battles and every day is the same as another, ruling over two worlds as a God who is absolute and unquestioned?"

Dimitri actually blinked at this, and then he softly said, "You know…I had never really looked at it in…quite that perspective…"

"DIMITRI!"

"Confound it, what now?" Pyron snarled, displaying the first signs of impatience in the better part of the past half-hour.

Jeddah, not being at liberty to break his train of concentration, could only move his eyes to see the shapes that were forming in the space off to his right, but one glance was all it took to make him wish that he could spare the breath to curse the fates as his hated enemies had at last arrived, along with those annoying kids who had been causing such a ruckus before, including the one whom Dimitri had identified as a new Blood Mother.

Recognition of her was almost enough to make him forget about the others since it meant that all hopes for a blood sacrifice would not rest entirely upon Morgan…

"You again?" Dimitri growled as he turned to survey the Darkstalker/Tendo Posse alliance, "I take back what I was going to say about having enemies. It would be a pleasure to rid myself of your kind now and forever!"

"Feeling's mutual, Fangs," Frank growled, brandishing his fists, "Let's rumble!"

"Sounds good to me," Ranma agreed.

"Be mindful of what they warned us about that Jeddah creep," Nabiki noted with more caution in her voice.

"Oh yeah," Talbain averred, "He's easily as nasty to deal with as Dimitri."

"Oh my," Kasumi all too audibly murmured.

"You will regret coming here to face us now," Pyron said with flames intensifying around his eyes, "For in doing so you have fallen into our carefully laid trap, and since we really cannot afford to have you distract us at this critical a juncture…"

"What?" Keiko averred, then instinctively snapped, "Everybody get back-!"

All at once the ground in front of them was sliced open by a huge scimitar that acted as if with a mind of its own to create a gaping furrow directly in the path of where the heroes would have been had they advanced without said warning.

"Nani?" Natsume gasped, turning with a look of dismay to see the one who had hurtled the accursed blade so near to where they would have been standing.

"So," Donovan smiled with a wicked grin, "You didn't fall for that one…never mind, I can innovate as need be for the situation."

"Donny?" Talbain reacted with a start, "What…?"

"Donovan," Frank scowled, "What are you…?"

All at once the massive sword, Dhylec, came swooping down, altering its trajectory from vertical to horizontal pitch, and whirling at them like a giant helicopter blade at general neck level. Had any of the Posse and Darkstalkers not ducked down that very instant they would have been short a head with their souls sucked from their bodies, but as it was Nabiki and her allies straightened up in time, even Frank having avoided decapitation, and as one oriented towards the new sense of danger radiating from the man who was supposedly their ally, only grinning now in a manner that was the very opposite of saintly.

"Why is he doing this?" Kurumi gasped, "Isn't he supposed to be on our side?"

"Obviously he is an imposter," Tatewaki declared, "A true priest of good order would never behave in such a base and treacherous manner."

"Unless…that is him, but not the him that he's supposed to be," Mousse suggested.

"Huh?" Ranma said, "What are you talking about?"

"I get it," Nabiki said as she pointed, "Look over there!"

"Huh?" Frank turned to see what she was indicating then did a double-take, "I don't believe it!"

"Donny?" Talbain also saw what they were indicating, a large crystalline object that had been unnoticed until now as more than just a break in the featureless landscape. Instead it turned out to be some form of prison in which a pair of motionless shapes could be discerned, one of a very large man, the other a small girl of not more than twelve seasons.

"Uh oh," Keiko remarked as she paid more attention to that second figure, "That means trouble…"

"You have that right," said the Anita who was smiling at her from only a few feet away, aura glowing brightly as she summoned up reddish coils of energy and was preparing to unleash them.

Kasumi saw the sword returning on yet another murderous arc and said, "Um…excuse me…but we're still in danger here."

"Everybody down!" Nabiki cried, this time flattening as the sword passed around about waist level, slicing through what would have been their mid-sections had anyone been slow to react.

And yet for some odd reason the sword managed to avoid Kasumi altogether, singling her out as the one who was obviously not a target for dissection, which prompted her to say, "Oh my…is he avoiding me? That doesn't seem very…right somehow."

"How correct you are, my dear," Dimitri crowed as he appeared directly behind Kasumi and attempted to lay hold on her, yet with no apparent difficulty Kasumi avoided his lunge and turned to face him directly, seeing his slightly vexed expression and clear intent of grabbing hold of her on the next try…

"What did you do to him?" Frank snarled as he moved to avoid becoming a victim of the whirling demon blade, "If that's not Donovan Bane…!"

"Oh, but it is…that is the beauty of this," Pyron crowed, "My old nemesis has been separated from his dark half and trapped in amber like a fly while his shadowy demon side is free to prevail upon you, his accursed allies. Run though you might, his sword will find you eventually and then your agonies will be long, sweet and endlessly painful…"

"Oh yeah?" Ranma snarled, "Then try this on for size, asshole!"

Ranma extended a hand and all at once a powerful wind kicked up and created a massive vortex, which same he then hurled into the path of the demon sword, deflecting its arc so that it hit the ground with a massive "THUNK" and sank halfway into the soil. He made another gesture and all at once the ground solidified and hardened into rock, which then became a quartz-like crystal that froze about the sword up to the hilt and held it there immobile.

The false Donovan Bane went from a fiendish smile to a demonic snarl of fury, stretching out a hand and obviously straining to pull the sword free from the ground, but Ranma strained just as hard to hold it there, obviously expending energy despite the demon sword's own attempt to break free of its prison.

The false Anita blazed with unholy light and with a furious attack lashed out at Keiko Arigami, who had no chance at all to avoid the telekinetic effect and was instead slammed into the ground by a force to rival that of a titan.

"Still think I'm just a little girl now?" the false Anita smiled, "I should have left you a withered old hag, which is what you are, Big Sister…but instead I think I'll just squash you like a bug, which is what you're worth to me…"

"Sure kid," Keiko murmured faintly, going limp, "Do what you have to…that's all we can do in this world, you know…not like the world hasn't given you reasons…"

"Huh?" the false Anita blinked, "You're not fighting back? You're no fun at all! Do you think I'm just gonna go easy because you won't put up a fight, well, do you?"

Keiko did not reply, just continued to act like a limp rag doll while the false Anita applied crushing force and attempted to grind her into the earth, creating a deep rut without a response from her opponent.

"Die!" the false Anita cried, "Why won't you die? You should be screaming for your life as I crush the life out of you! You're not even fighting me! What happened to your resistance?"

"What resistance?" Keiko suddenly declared from directly behind the little girl, "You're not even real, and neither is your attack. All you're managing to do there is crush another illusion."

"What?" the little girl started to say when a hand pressed against her neck and she suddenly went limp, her eyes rolling up into her head as she lost consciousness altogether.

"Sucker," Keiko grinned at the unconscious little girl, "Think I didn't already know that nothing here is real unless you believe it to be the truth? By not believing in your attack I made myself invisible to your powers, and by projecting an illusion of myself where you believed me to be I got you to expend your powers without having to actually resist you. Pretty neat, huh Nab-chan? Nab-chan?"

She glanced around and saw why the one she addressed was not paying attention to her particular situation at the moment, for Ranma was still locked in a visible strain against the vicious looking false Donovan, and from the looks of things it was a very uneven struggle.

"Ranma-kun?" Nabiki blinked as she saw the strain on her husband's features, and at the sword that he was somehow holding fast in rock with an extended left arm gesture, "How did you do…?"

"I'll explain in a moment, Nabchan," Ranma said between grit teeth, "Somebody…take out that guy quick!"

"Already on it," Natsume said, "Kurumi…to me my sister!"

"Hai!" the fleet-footed girl declared and at once charged at Natsume, leaping onto her back as the older girl hunched down to provide a ramp for propelling the younger girl airborne. Kurumi leaped from Natsume into the air and whipped out her pink hair ribbon, whirling it into a vortex at such a speed that the air around the Ki-charged thing caught fire, even as Natsume straightened up and began whirling her rub beater in a pre-set pattern, declaring as she did so, "ANYTHING GOES SPECIAL ATTACK RYU-SPIRALING ICE-DRAGON!"

"FOOLS!" the false Donovan Bane declared as he ceased trying to will his sword free and instead made a double-hand gesture that caused a figure to appear in the air directly above him in ghostly outline. The over-image radiated Ki power, and yet when Natsume's Ice-beam struck the man bold in the chest she disrupted his concentration and banished the spell before it could be completed, and then all at once he was encased in a block of ice as thick as a small mountain, the air literally congealing about him to a hardness and consistency worthy of diamond.

"Whaat?" Natsume herself seemed surprised at her own achievement.

"Wow, Oneechan," Kurumi marveled, "Your ice beam's really gotten a heck of a lot stronger…"

"No doubt magnified by the subspace field itself, not to mention your Slayer powers," Frank remarked before turning to scowl at Pyron, "Got any more tricks up your non-existent sleeve, buster?"

"Incredible," Pyron said, "Had I not witnessed it with my own eyes…"

"Eh?" Dimitri paused in his futile attempts at grasping hold of the ethereal Kasumi, "My fool of a brother…defeated by a mere mortal?"

"Hey, she iced him pretty good," Keiko grinned, "Don't mess with Nachan, she's a pretty cool number."

"Thank you…I think," Natsume dubiously remarked to the kickboxer.

"I would take the compliment for what it is, my love," Tatewaki turned to lord Pyron and said, "Surrender now, base villains…you are outnumbered and outmatched."

"You must be joking," Dimitri dismissed, "In another few seconds the victory will be ours and…that is odd…why did Jeddah just cease his chanting?"

"Because he needs his wind for something else at the moment, my lord," Morgan replied as she held the Lord Jeddah by his neck off the ground, extending him one-handed at full arms reach, "Forgive me but I cannot allow this farce to continue. This accursed spell that this fool is so intent on pronouncing could be the death of us all, and not just because you are trifling with a King of the Rakshasa."

"Morgan!" Dimitri was visibly shocked at the behavior of his lady partner, "How can you do this? To betray me…and when I am on the verge of achieving godhood?"

"Forgive me, but that means less to me than you might think it should, my Lord," Morgan replied, "In my eyes you are already a god, and you have always been, my Lord Dimitri. No spell cast by man or priest can alter that bedrock certainty. You are the man I choose to rule beside me over Makai, and I chose my lot with you rather than my own treacherous father. You are the sun and the moon to me, and I bask in the light of your glory, and this was true long before you borrowed the knowledge from that boy that gave you the power to delight and bewitch me, my dearest lord Dimitri."

"Morgan…" Dimitri said, words failing him for the moment.

"And that is why I cannot allow this priest to blaspheme the good name of Dimitri Maximoff by sullying you with his filthy enchantments! You are too near and dear for me to see you elevated into some charade of omnipotence! This mad priest of Apocalyptic visions will not touch one whit nor hair of my chosen lord with his foul recital of a dead pharaoh's mad attempts at godhead!"

"Uh…is it just me," Talbain ventured aloud, "Or did that not make any sense whatsoever?"

"I'm telling you, pal," Frank murmured at a low stage whisper, "Women just don't make any sense when it comes to romance and stuff…"

"Tell me about it," Keiko mused, earning a curious side-glance from Nabiki.

"Morgan," Dimitri said, "You don't really mean that? You would give up on power, on the ability to reap vengeance against your father and all his minions, to sacrifice your life's ambition to rule over Makai…just to keep me as I am, not to compromise for the sake of achieving godhood?"

"Think beyond yourself, Man!" Morgan snapped, "This be about more than any mere godhood. Think of the cost to you, to us, if this fool is allowed to complete his invocation! Do you think me blind and a fool not to see what he was planning all along? He was about to betray us, to use this spell to entrap and bind you and Lord Pyron while he offered me up to your loathsome father as an offering to seal the pact and open the way for universal slaughter!"

"What are you babbling about, Woman?" Pyron said, "Entrap us? How?"

"By exchanging energies between worlds to effect the transfer of power to Lord Dimitri," Morgan replied, "You would have been absorbed and transferred into the world of the Rakshasa, my dear lord Pyron, while Dimitri would have achieved his godhood but in a state where he would be unable to use it in any intelligent manner. You would have been a mere tool towards achieving his end, while I…I would be quite dead and of no use to anyone. So…thank you but no, my dear Lord Jeddah, I think a half-breed Incubus such as you is quite clever enough without being offered your mad wish on a silver platter."

All at once a dark whirlwind appeared in the midst of the unearthly setting, and then several figures appeared, at the center of which was Lord Raptor and the surviving Dark Pack of Darkwulf, Gunther and the B-Girls, who looked around in understandable confusion, no longer bound as before but quite out of sorts and unable to make out what changes in the script had been allowed to happen.

"Don't worry, Boss, the fun has arrived…" Raptor proclaimed, only to do a comic double-take as he saw Morgan holding a blue-faced Jeddah at arms length, "Um…did we miss somethin' here?"

"Yeah, what gives?" Darkwulf demanded, "Why's Anslat siding with the good guys? And why's everyone standing around looking like it's a morgue, not a party? I thought by now the fireworks would start to happen."

"Wolfie's not the only one who'd like to have a bone or two throne here," BB Hood said uneasily, finding herself disarmed and surrounded by people who would like nothing better than to kick her butt.

"Yes," Lilith agreed, "Is the spell on or off yet, and if so, why do we see no Rakshasa?"

"The answer here is quite simple," Dimitri replied with a rakish smile, and all at once he made a gesture with one clawed finger, and suddenly Morgan cried out and reached for her hand, reflexively releasing her death-grip on Jeddah, who backed away clutching at his windpipe and sucking in air in an attempt at recovering his bearings.

"Dimitri…what…?" Morgan gasped as she saw her blood oozing from the scratch that she had just taken.

"I am so sorry, my dear, but I cannot abide you interfering at this point," Dimitri informed her, "You were quite correct in your analysis…up to a point, but in no way was I intending to let Jeddah make a sacrifice of you. I only let the fool think he had the upper hand because I knew that he would be more…tractable and easy to manipulate if he thought he was the one who would betray me."

"And you kept knowledge of this from me?" Pyron asked.

"But of course," Dimitri answered, "We are allies, but only up to a point, and I know perfectly well that you were intending to betray me once I had obtained the dark powers of my father, at which point you meant to slay me and steal those energies for yourself, correct?"

"I see that I made a mistake in underestimating you," Pyron scowled, "However, I was prepared for such an exigency, and if you had attempted to use your demonic powers against me you would have found yourself confronted with a very nasty surprise the likes of which even a god would find disconcerting."

"I would have weathered your amusing attempt to circumvent my abilities and allowed you to expend force in your attempt at mastering me," Dimitri said, "And then I would have shown you how I deal with fools who think themselves too clever for their own good. Of course I have no doubt that Jeddah was also plotting his own contingency spells and had crafted into the general lay several backup programs that we both would have found rather nasty."

"Wait," Talbain pleaded, "I'm getting confused here. Who was going to betray who here?"

"Sounds like a mutual party," Frank scowled, "And ordinarily I'd wish the lot of you a fun time if not for the annoying detail of some rather nasty Rakshasa who'd be swarming about the place."

"A few of my father's dark minions hardly constitutes a swarm, old friend," Dimitri said dismissively, "And I could have handled that few once I had gained the full powers from mastering my father."

"Are you sure it was only going to be a few?" Nabiki asked.

"Eh?" Dimitri turned to her, "Why do you ask?"

"'Cause Nabchan senses the same thing I do, guy," Ranma spoke up, his eyes round with alarm as he stared up at the formless gray heavens, "There's a lot of really bad vibes in the air, and they pretty much are a swarm, a lot more than just a few, and more than I'm sure you'd want to handle."

"Bah!" Dimitri scowled, "My minions would deal with the few dozen or so who might seek to slip past me unnoticed…"

"Ah…boss?" Darkwulf said uneasily, "About those minions…er…I'm afraid we're all that's left, and we're fresh out of Goya minions."

"Eh?" Dimitri reacted with growing alarm, "You are certain of this? They are all dead?"

"Azzz fliezzz on a toxxxic blowfizzzh," Queen-Bee answered.

"Oh dear," Dimitri said, "Then perhaps it is just as well that Jeddah has not completed his spell, or else…"

"FOOLS!" Jeddah cried, having regained his wind and what passed for his senses, "I was nearly completed with Morgan interfered, but I have but one word to speak and the spell will be empowered, and HE is coming now…Satan and all his minions! Mor'ghul is listening to us now and hears you spew your plots and treasonous obscenities against him! He hears and he knows what you were planning, and he is not amused, nor am I, my false friends and supposed allies!"

"He sounds like he's gone totally nuts," Keiko remarked with aversion.

"Insane is giving him way too much credit," Natsume reasoned, "Even sanity would not sound so…imbalanced."

"You know what they say about crazy people," Nabiki shrugged, "At least they're committed."

"It is often truly said that a fanatic is someone who acts as he is certain God would do were he possessed of all the facts," Tatewaki reasoned.

"Careful," Frank cautioned, "He's a lot stronger than he looks, and he's got powers and abilities that rival Donovan's at full tilt, and it won't be easy to touch him 'cause he can drain your energy and use it to fortify himself."

"He's gotten fast too," Talbain added, "Years of fighting to survive on the demon worlds has make him a pretty powerful scrapper, so don't take him for granted just because he's loonier than a fruit bat."

"Oh my," Kasumi averred, looking very distressed as she took in the whole situation.

"Fools," Jeddah said once again, this time a bit sadly, "I am done with fighting, the petty squabbles we've waged have achieved nothing for any of us over the years, and so I am prepared to make an end of it, to end all suffering and doubt with me forever. If I am truly blessed with a mission by the Almighty, then I will succeed this time for all your valiant attempts to stop me, but if I fail…if my whole life has been for nothing…then I do not care to see it to the end. And so I make the final testament to my faith, to my belief in my cause, in my mission by giving this ritual the sacrifice it needs in order to be completed."

With that he whipped out his curving belt knife and brandished it, earning a contemptful snort from Morgan, whose hand had fully healed by this point, allowing her to concentrate the full measure of her venom in a sneer at her nominal ally, "What d'ye plan to be doing with that, Man? Scrape the dirt from my fingernails?"

"No, wait!" Nabiki cried out, already seeing the direction in which this was headed.

"No," Jeddah replied to both her and Morgan, "You both wait. I am done with waiting forever…"

And with that he reversed the direction of the knife and with both hands plunged it into his chest, gasping out two words before his heart was pierced through the center, "Ramori Venu!"

At that the sky darkened and all at once a lighted area opened up over Jeddah's head, and a ruby eye stared down at the astonished Darkstalkers and Posse before an unearthly voice rumbled out a thunderous, **I SEE YOU!**

"O-shit," Talbain faintly whispered, earning a faintly disapproving glance from an equally distressed Kasumi…

Continued

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