I do not own Ranma, Shampoo, Akane, Kodachi, The Lich King, or any character or object in this chapter.

Death Knight Hunters

Prolouge

It was a sunny day in the city of Nerima. School was out for the week, the kids had money to spend at the various restaurants, and all was well.

"RAAAAANMAAAAAA!"

"Ranma Darling! Come to your dear Kodachi!"

"Airen, come back to Shampoo!"

"Ranma, wait up! You left your dinner!"

Well, all most. Ranma was running as fast as he could to get away from his quadruplet of Fiancés (actually, one of them just happens to love him so much she considers herself one), two of which wanted him to spend the evening with them, one of which was trying to get him to finish the dinner she made especially for him, and the other trying to kill him for being with the other three, even if he had no say in it.

He was a tall boy in a red Chinese shirt, and black baggy pants with his black hair tied in a pigtail which flapped like mad in the wind as he dashed across the roof tops with inhuman dexterity, agility, and speed. His breath was barely heavy as this was a normal thing to happen to him on the weeks they had no school, and he continued on trying to lose the madwomen. He looked behind him to see how far they were, and his eyes bulged as he saw the woman who had screamed at him first getting almost in range to smash him with an oversized mallet that was poised over her head. She wore the standard blue school clothes that all women had two wear at their high-school, and had blue hair that hung down to her neck, and her dark blue eyes burned with hatred as just about caught up with him. He made a sudden turn to the right just as she swung, not only causing her to miss, but causing her to lose her balance as she tried to turn with him, something that is not easy to do. She would have succeeded, but the momentum of her mallet pushed her even more off-balance, spinning her, and then, with no control over situation at all, plummeted into the ground screaming.

"There goes Akane" Ranma thought to himself. "Now to lose the other three." He looked behind him again to see, what he thought was the worst of the four, a woman with long dark hair in a pony-tail that reached down past her shoulder in a black leotard wielding a long black ribbon with the effectiveness of a whip.

"Ranma darling, come back with your dear Kodachi!" She crooned loudly as she snapped her ribbon at his waist.

Ranma barely jumped over the ribbon, as well as a dwarven statue that was in front of him, causing the ribbon to wrap around it instead. As it turned out, the statue was not fused to the roof it was on. Before she realized it, she reflexively yanked on the ribbon, and pulled the statue right to her…. And making full, shattering contact with her head, knocking her out. Ranma didn't stay to make a guess as to how long, as he still had two more girls after him; a chinese one wearing a red dress that split all the way up to the hips with a yellow sash belt with purple hair flowing down to her calves, and the other wearing black leggings and a blue gi-like waitress outfit with a golden belt that would hold her gigantic spatula that looked like it could flip human sized pancakes, and had her hair brunette hair flowing halfway down her back, and a white bow that served as a hair-tie. And they both were VERY close.

Ranma immediately back flipped behind them, causing them to skid along the roof-tops trying to change-direction. Unfortunately, or fortunately for Ranma, as they spun around, the huge spatula slammed into the Chinese girl's face causing her to fall backwards off the rooftops. As she fell, she grabbed the back of the other girl's shirt, bringing her down with her. This gave Ranma enough time to get away from the four girls. He hopped rooftop to rooftop for about three miles before he landed in an alleyway to catch his breath.

"I swear," he gasped, "those girls are going to be the end of me."

"No, they won't."

Ranma jumped in surprise and quickly spun around in a combat ready stance to see who was behind him, and then immediately froze.

The figure before him just seemed to strike fear into his heart just looking at him. It wasn't just the fact that the man standing in front of him was dwarfing him at about eight feet tall. Under the plated chest and calf armor was what looked like a heavy dark brown leather. The necks of his boots looked to be covered by heavy white fur. Under his shoulder armor flowed a long blackish blue cape that extended past his feet. His large belt was flat and seemed to be studded with meaningless gems in perfect circles all around his belt. His wrist guards had two spikes sticking out at the wrist, revealing huge gloves that made his hand look as if it could crush his head, which Ranma was believing he could. Skulls were everywhere they could be on his armor aside from the chest.

However, the two things that stuck out of the whole appearance were what immobilized him in fear. First was the sword. Past the hilt was what looked like an evil ram skull with its horns wrapped around the hilt of the sword, an evil smile, and a chilling blue mist seemed to dissolve into the air from its eyes towards the ground. From behind the cheeks protruded small curved blades and the blade itself stretched about as long as the man's leg and it also had the same type of blue mist coming out of it. It had runes emblazoned upon it in some language that he couldn't recognize, but he could tell they weren't Asian.

The second thing was the man's helmet. It covered his entire head only faintly showing his nose and mouth, had long spikes that seemed to reach about a foot up all around his head, and waves of wispy white hair draping till about shoulder length. His eyes, however, were what fully did the job. His eyes had no irises. They were an eerie blue with the same mist coming out of his sword evaporating out of his eyes.

"You are powerful for such a young child."He said in a deep voice that seemed to penetrate his entire being. "But your power is wasted on this town. Someone with your potential is destined for much greater things. I can aid you in this. I can grant you power to become invincible. Do you wish for this, or are you willing to let your abilities fall to waste here?"

Ranma blinked. He had barely just met this man, and already he was offering him power? After all the chicanery he had experienced, he had learned to be wary of such offers. "If I were to accept your offer, what's in it for you? Why do you want me?"

The man threw his head back and laughed as if Ranma was not seeing something obvious.

"Your service to me is all I ask for."

Ranma blinked again. This man wanted him to serve him? Warning lights were blaring in his head.

"Thanks but, I'm good."

And with that, he jumped up onto the roof top, and left.

At least, that's what he tried to do. Just as he cleared the roof, he felt something wrap around his waist, and sharply pull him back. He twisted in mid-air, and yelped as he just barely avoided the blade with just a nick across his back.

He swung his right foot around to hit his head, but was surprised when he hit his gauntlet instead. His surprise quickly faded as he felt pain shoot through his foot. He had just buried his foot into the spikes on the man's gauntlet. Ignoring the pain, he twisted away from the man, avoiding another swing of his blade barely cutting him in half.

As he landed, he felt a sharp pain shoot up his leg, causing him fall onto one leg. With one foot, he jumped away as the man swung down with his blade with such force that the ground where he hit seemingly exploded. Ranma twisted and spun to avoid the flying debris while he did his best to ignore the pain that persisted in his foot. When he landed, he looked up in time to see the man swinging his sword at his head. He dropped to the ground and lashed out with his left foot, knocking the man's legs out from under him. Ranma jumped out of the way of the huge man, leaped the left wall of the alley, and rebounded off of it, winding his right hand back to knock the man out.

Before he knew what had happened, however, the man was on his gripping Ranma's left shoulder with a powerful vice-like grip, and a pain in his abdomen. Ranma looked down and his eyes widened in horror. The man's sword was buried all the way up to the hilt into his stomach. Ranma began to feel weak as the sides of his vision began to turn fuzzy and black.

"You had the chance to enter into my service willingly, and if you had, I would have let you retain your memory. Now you will be nothing but an empty harbinger of death in my service, Saotome."

None to gently, he tore the sword from out of Ranma's body, let him fall to the ground, and sheath his sword.

"How?" Ranma asked himself in disbelief, "How could I have lost? Who is he?"

His hearing began to slowly fade as the man picked him up and slung him over his shoulder.

"Why are you taking me with you?" Ranma weakly inquired. "I'm about to die. I'll be of no use to you."

The man reached his hand out and summoned a purple, eerie portal big enough for him to walk through it with a horse skull on top of it. The portal's entrance was swirling with different shades of purple and black, which played heck with Ranma's head. The man spoke with satisfaction in his voice.

"You will serve me in death."