Ranmazoku

by RedMenace

Yes, this was my first fic - started in 2000, as a matter of fact. Ranma's father is - a secret. Update - just uploaded the rest of the fic, the special, and some goodies!

5. Ranmazoku to End of 1st Arc

Ranmazoku Chapter 4 - Soldiers of Darkness
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I own the rights
to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of these two fine anime. This
work is non-commercial and is done only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi
and Hajime Kanzaka. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights
owned by Viz and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor
Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno who
has the US rights, but it's there's not mine. (I'm drawing a blank)



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on Nighthawk's page
and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If he's reading this, I'm curious to
know what he thinks of all this. Questioning me would be like questioning
Xellos if you ask when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events, characters
and the like may not resemble canon. People who are rabid canon-thumpers
beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that Xellos is his
father, that he's not even human, studies black magic under Phibrizzo,
yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with Ryouga and curses a decent sized
crowd to act like Kuno. Read the previous chapters, really, I'm not good at
rehashing stuff.



I had remained in Wolf Pack Island overnight. Let them think I ran away.
OK, so I did run away.. big deal. I needed the time to sift through
Phibrizzo's leftover junk anyhow.

I had been sorting the enormous pile of stuff into three smaller piles. One
was composed entirely of utterly useless crap, like a necklace made entirely
out of the teeth of some sort of predator, or a battered spear. Presumably
they were relics from when Phibrizzo wandered the Desert of Destruction
alone, mementos of his centuries of solitude. The second pile was of
magical stuff that couls drained for the betterment of my power.

The third was the largest. With no one to talk to, Phibrizzo had written. A
lot. Volumes covered the history of the world, the major philosophies of all
of the races of the world, the creation of golems, curses. Curses. I put that
one aside, searching for more books that could be of immediate interest. A
scroll depicting the hierarchies of the four staffs upon the sea of chaos
caught my eye. Then I found a text on the history of the staff of Dorphied.
Jackpot. This was exactly the sort of thing I needed.

The first part of the book described how Hellmaster knew of my world and
how to collect information across the dimensional barrier. Boring. though
maybe I could make some use of it later. What I wanted was to learn about
potential enemies and sources of power in my world. I sat down, flipping
ahead until I saw the first mentions of the battles between Dorphied and
Death Fog Photobranigdo. Interesting stuff, that. I was lost in the book for
quite a while - longer than Hinako-sensei would ever have believed, for
sure. The interplay between the different dark lords and their lieutenants
reinforced a feeling I had gotten earlier, that if I was to succeed in my bid
to take over Maryuoh's or Hellmaster's positions, I needed underlings. I
already had a possible canidate in mind for my priest for a while. She had
all the necessary requirements, I felt, to be a devastating mazoku. And
she'd be easy enough to dupe into agreeing.

The parallels between this world and the one of my birth - creation,
whatever - were striking. There was even one who combined both aspects
of the shinzoku of that world and its mazoku like Gaav, although this one
was merely a lieutenant and not one of the major players like this Saffron
guy or Metallia.

A few chapters later, I came upon an interesting little tidbit. The Giga
Slave was actually known on my world. It had a different name, of course,
as it had been independently developed in that world. Not too suprising
when you thought about it. L-sama's power could be reached from any of
the four worlds. I really preferred the sound of this one, though, it was so -

Hmm...

I read the entry again, then flipped back a few chapters. This was
interesting. Hmm.

"I think I've found my general." I said in a hushed whisper, and gave a little
grin. Now I only had to figure out how to make the pitch.



I was back in the Tendo house the next morning and needless to say..
breakfast was interesting.

Actually, it was very normal at first. I pounded Genma, he pounded me
back, we both threw each other in the pond, and we went to eat. It was
during the meal that things got interesting.

First, Kasumi, demonstrating conclusively the way water is attracted to
cursed individuals, managed to knock a glass of water into Nabiki's lap,
causing her to immediately jump up and over the table. "Ranma.. make me
yours!" she purred.

"Ack!" Love! Kindness! Bad! Very bad! I tried to grab a cup of tea to toss
on Nabiki, but instead I only ended up knocking a cup of water onto
Akane's lap. "Crap."

Akane immediately pulled a bokken from stuffspace and immediately went
on the offensive. "Unhand the pigtailed boy!" she commanded, leveling her
bokken at Nabiki.

"Dammit! USE MY NAME!" I yelled. "The others do!" Nabiki jumped up
and pulled her own bokken out.

"Have no fear, Ranma, for I , the Ice Queen of Furinkan High, shall smite
this scoundrel!" she said. Soun and Genma just sat there, confused, as the
two sisters immediately started a duel at the table.

"Oh my! Nabiki, that's your sister! Akane! Please!" Kasumi covered her
mouth in shock and hid in the kitchen.

"Have at thee! Ra-tat-tat-tat-tat.." Nabiki yelled, attempting Kuno's multi-
strike technique and tearing up the room. Akane countered with a vicious
slash to the stomach that Nabiki deflected into Genma's head. The flat
thunk of a panda's head being impacted by a bokken sounded, and then he
fell face first in his miso. The soup was warm enough to change him.
Sighing, I picked up Nabiki's and Akane's soups and threw them. The
added anger was all fine and good, but dealing with hordes of the insane
was not.

At least I would be able to finish my breakfast in peace. School wouldn't
be as restful.



The route to school we took avoided the ladle lady's house entirely. None
of us wanted to take the chance of dealing with a Kunoized Nabiki or
Akane again. Fortunately, the sheer level of chaos caused by the mess had
prevented anyone - meaning Cologne or Nabiki - from asking the serious
question of just how Jusendo water happened to get under that battlefield.
But it would be asked. I needed to hurry up if I wanted to be anything
other than a bottom rung mazoku. I sighed. There was a wonderful
sensation as I entered the Furinkan yard: never had I felt such hatred.
Problem: Most of it was directed at me. A veritable wall of bokken waving
boys stood in the front yard.

Solution: One big Mokou Takabisha fake ki blast. The result - only a few
stragglers left standing to clean up. Just as I was finishing the last few who
were lucky enough to be standing, I turned to go in and was greeted by the
sight of fifty-odd guys getting up. "I FIGHT ON!" they chorused. Yup.
This sucked. I can't even let loose and just sadistically rip into them, that
would tip off Akane.

Later... too late, really, I finished off the door crowd and walked in. Now I
had girls draped all over me and Akane getting madder. Well, let her. I
need something to give me a recharge at this point. I waved Akane through
the door of the classroom, then walked through, scraping most of the
glomping girls off. The few who mangaged to retain a hold on me I
removed. I also noticed Hiroshi and Daisuke giving me the evil eye, and
Yuka and Sayuri giving me longingful looks alternating with ambivalent
ones toward Akane. At least Hinako is late.. Hinako late? Please, dear L-
sama, let her be sick...

"Saotome, you cad!" Hiroshi whispered in my ear.

"Evil sorceror! How could you! You were our friend! Release the beautiful
rose Sayuri and the fierce tigress Akane from your evil spell!" Daisuke
whispered in my other ear.

"Douse them with hot water." It was true. Heck, I really had put them all
under an evil spell too, sort of.

Daisuke got up, apparently deciding he had time before Miss Hinako got
there to get hot water. "Though I mistrust you, I, Daisuke, the True
Sidekick of Furinkan High -"

"Hey! I'm the True Sidekick of Furinkan High!" Hiroshi interrupted.

Daisuke seemed to have steam coming from his ears. "How dare you
accuse me of stealing my name!" The two picked up the bokkens they had
brought to school and were about to probably start a major riot, as the
other affected students all reached for their bokkens, except that Miss
Hinako came in the classroom at that moment. She held up her coin,
causing everyone to immediately calm down.

"Everyone return to their seats!" Hinako-sensei yelled in that annoying
childlike voice. The students sat down and sat very still. No one wanted to
set off the child teacher of Furinkan. Good thing the Kuno curse didn't
make them stupid. Then Hinako stood up on the chair and tilted her head
dramatically. "Only I, Hinako Ninomiya, the Little Princess of Furinkan
High, may date Ranma..." I groaned and put my head in my hands.



At lunch, I decided that it would be best if I fled the place. Some idiot had
turned the sprinklers on outside, and Furinkan descended into a pit of
chaos and violence the likes of which it hadn't seen since last Tuesday.
Regardless of the level of insanity and how tasty it was, I was getting tired
of the endless stream of attackers and female admiriers who were all
impossible to shake. So I jumped up on a roof and got as far away from the
school as possible.

I was female, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment. If
the sprinklers hadn't gone off I would have talked to Nabiki and tried to
bring her within my orbit, but since she wouldn't, I'd just search for my
other canidate. Probably better I was female for this part, actually. I quickly
transported to the Astral plane and began searching for the unusual magical
signal of my chosen general. There would only be one person with the
peculiar admixture of black and white magic I was searching for. They, like
Gaav, were L-sama's exceptions that proved the rule about mixing magic.

It wasn't too hard to find her. Spying on her, it was easy to see that I had a
good chance of winning her to my side. Just because I was mazoku didn't
mean I was devoid of sympathy. My own abilities had contributed to a
lonely childhood as well. I looked with sympathy on her as she was bullied
by the weak who surrounded her. Such as her should never have to answer
to the likes of them. If I won her to my side, I would cripple my enemies
and strengthen my hand considerably. Now, how best to make my offer...

I was walking back to Nerima, having gotten a cup of hot coffee from a
vending machine on the way back to restore me to my normal form.
Hopefully, the earlier Kuno madness had subsided, or better yet the battles
spread out, so I could taste the anger but not get involved in the actual
battles with the obsessed victims. The sight of the three guys standing in
the middle of the road around a compass stopped me, though.

"Which way is it pointing? It's been going nuts for the past hour or two."
said a mysterious figure in a scaled robe. His compatriots, a tall hulking
guy and a small guy with a wolf-skin hat (poor wolf), turned to him.

"It's pointing right down this street now, sir, and it's stopped jumping." the
wolf-hat guy answered.

"Ah" scaly robe answered. He then turned around and did a double take.
"YOU!" I took a quick look at his magic signature.. this ought to be
interesting.

"Hello there, stranger. Or perhaps I should call you.." I taunted, then
teleported behind him and yanked off the robe... "Princess Herb!" I
laughed.

"Grr!" The Dragon Prince ofthe Musk was livid. "How dare you call me
that!" A thought seemed to occur to him. "Wait, how do you know I was
cursed? You broke into my citadel before that damnable monkey pushed
me in."

"Your magic signature is similar to Jusenkyo victims I've seen before." I
said, smirking. "So, why are you here? Are you looking for.. this?" I said,
pulling the Chiusuuton I had stolen earlier out. I had been planning to lock
people who fell into the Ryouga pool with it, but we all know how THAT
turned out...

"You'll give that to us!" Herb commanded. "Or I will personally punish
you for your crimes against the Musk." I casually leaned against a water
fountain and inspected my fingernails. His lackeys circled around to flank
me.

I smirked. "What are you going to do? This?" Faster than the human - or
even part dragon - eye can see, I flipped some water from the fountain on
him with the Chiusuuton ladle. Herb screamed in rage. I just laughed and
held up the Chiusuuton. "Watcha gonna do, Princess?"

Herb smiled back. She then blasted be with a convenient hose, catching the
Chiusuuton with the spray. "Oh, just - what the?"

SHIT! That HURT! "AAAAAAAaargh! Ite ite ite iteiteiteiteite!" I yelled,
jumping up and down and in circles while screaming my head off. I knew I
had nothing to fear from the ladle because it was pretty weak ryuuzoku
magic and my mazoku powers would resist it (unlike Jusenkyo, which was
Death Fog's power), but I had no idea how much the process would hurt.
Still smoking where the enchanted water hit me and feeling absolutely
shitty, I summoned all of my power. I threw a fireball into the water
fountain, spraying me with hot water, and I stepped out male. "OK, you
little ryuuzoku bitch. You've had your fun. Now, I'm going to kill you."



You could see the gears turning on Herb's face. "You! You're a mazoku!"
she said accusingly.

"Right in one, sister. What clued you off? The teleporting, or the fact that
I'm smouldering like a pile of burnt tires right now?" I said. Truth to be
told, I might be in for a real fight. That damn water took a lot out of me.
Herb seemed to realize that, too, because her next command..

"Lime! Mint! Get the Chiusuuton!" she screamed. I immediately ducked
the punch from the slow guy, Lime, and dodged, or rather tried to dodge,
Mint's knife thrust. The blade merely glanced off, though. It wasn't
enchanted. I kicked Lime away and teleported to the other side of Herb.

"Feh." Herb said. She fired a blast of magic.

"So, you can throw magic around too." I smiled. "Looks like I'll get a
workout." I snarled, then threw a blast back one handed and teleported to
behind Herb's position. She had anticipated and flown in a loop.

"Ryuu Sei Hisho!" she cried out, and for the first time since I had unlocked
my true powers, I knew pain from an enemy's attack. I gritted my teeth -
had such a short absence from pain really made my tolerance so less. Or, I
suddenly realized with a start, was this the first time I had ever felt true
pain? "Hito Ryu Zan Ha!" Herb yelled, this time firing dozens of little
crescent shaped blasts. I teleported agin, this time to right in front of where
she was facing, correctly guessing Herb would try to catch me behind her
again.

"I've got you now, you little dragon bastard!" I roared, and caught her in a
bearhug. I tightened my grip with all my inhuman strength: even a
ryuuzoku would succumb to that. Except that Lime smashed a boulder
over my head.

While boulders smashing on my head couldn't shake my concentration -
and just where the hell is he getting those - it did distract me from Mint,
who sprayed me with the hose again. "AAAIIIIIeee!" I screamed, dumping
Herb as another set of burning splotches popped up across my arms.
"Dammit! You're going to pay for that!" I teleported in front of the guy.
"So you think you know wolves?" I said, grinning ferally. I transformed to
my monstrous body with the wolf's head. It was small and female, but I
still had the satisfaction of seeing the two goons piss their pants.

"MINT!" Herb screamed as I smashed Mint through the front of a store.
She immediately started blasting me with energy blasts again. I ignored the
pain and pounced on her, grabbing her and Lime each with one giant claw.
The little ryuuzoku bitch kept blasting me with those damn energy blasts,
and the other one was nearly breaking my claws off trying to escape. I
crushed both into the ground with my weight.

"JUST DIE, DAMMIT!" I roared, a truly deafening noise. Picking the two
up, I drove them into the ground with superhuman force. And again. And
Again. Until all I had was two battered unconscious forms. I just dropped
them and transformed back. There was probably a more elegant way to win
that fight, but I didn't know how. I picked up the Chiusuuton. "What the
hell am I going to do with this now?" I said aloud. Then I figured it would
be a good idea to flee. Come to think of it, people probably saw me
transform into the wolf. This was not good. Damn halfbreed ryuuzoku,
making me lose my temper like that.



I was back in Juuban, searching for my future general. Ah, there she was.
Her earlier troubles had given me an idea. I staggered into the park where
she was, all covered in burns and bruises, and collapsed where she'd see
me. "Don't worry, lady." my chosen warrior said. She waited until my eyes
were closed. Then she tried to heal me. The pain was excruciating, but I
held on. Damn white magic anyhow.

"No.. don't.. " I said raggedly. "That kind of power.. doesn't work on me."
She seemed suprised at this.

"You've seen others who can do magic?" she said excitedly. I nodded.

"Of course. My name's Ranma."

"Mine's Hotaru." she said. Her hope from finding someone who knew
magic and didn't find her weird seemed to fade back into her customary
depression. I got up.

"Want to be friends?" I asked, and reached out my hand. She looked at it
uncertainly for a few minutes.

"Sure!" she said, as if making an important decision.

"Want to go get some ice cream?" I said. Having someone to really teach
in magic reminded me a little of being with Phibrizzo. Of course, she hadn't
accepted yet, but she had no other friends. I knew the feeling. If I could
win her over, I'd have an adviser that understood me, I think.

"So what do you know about magic?" she said, as we walked away from
the park. We passed this really strange pink haired girl on the way out. I
looked at her funny for a second; she reeked of white magic, yet was pretty
weak. But only for a second.



At the ice cream parlor I deduced several things. First off, that this girl was
up to her neck in trouble already. Second, that she'd probably end up
falling into hands of the forces of darkness. I could sense some kind of dark
bond between her and some other individual, presumably this world's
version of a mazoku. While that was my general plan too, I wanted them to
be MY hands. I took the pretext of going to the bathroom to go teleport to
Wolf Pack Island and fetch a specific magical item I had in mind that I
recovered from Phibrizzo's stash. Fortunately, I had not drained some of
the more useful curios.

"Ranma-chan! Whatever did happen to you?" Zelas said, seeing me in my
current state of bedragglement.

"Just a run in with an annoying ryuuzoku and his, er, her cronies." I said,
remembering Herb's face when I splashed him. May you rot with that
body, Herb. "I just came to pick something up. I'm doing a little
recruitment." She nodded and gave me a knowing smile. I rolled my eyes.
What the heck does she think I'm doing, picking up chicks? In this body no
less?

I got what I came for and came back. "Hey, Hotaru, check these out." I
said, holding up what looked like a pair of glasses.

"What are those?" she asked, picking them up and looking at them
curiously.

"Well, they let you see the true shape of anything that isn't too heavily
shielded magically. You'll see through anything untrue." I knew I was safe.
Mazoku have a real form that exists only on the Astral plane. Granted, she
would see my curse, but hey, it's just a curse. Nothing that can't be
demonstrated away. As long as I'm open about it. "Hey, look at me with
them."

"You're a guy!" she exclaimed. Then she glanced over the glasses, as if to
check. "Why do you look like a girl then? And whats that swirling stuff?"
she asked.

"It's kinda a curse." I said sheepishly. "The swirling energy.. that's my
magic." Actually it was probably my astral body, but that was fairly
accurate, nonetheless.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked inquiringly. Good point. Think fast...

"What do you think the glasses are for?" She nodded.

"That's cool." She looked around the room. Most of the stuff in the room
was normal, excepting me, so she wouldn't see much. "Hey, that plant is
really a girl." she said. I looked at the plant in question. Sure enough, there
were some weird emotions coming from the plant. Sort of disturbed,
actually.

"Huh? Let me see." I took a look through the glasses. Sure enough, I saw
the unfortunately unforgettable Tsubasa in there. "Ah , that's just Tsubaka.
Crossdresser, not a girl. Probably has a crush on some poor worker." I
handed her the glasses back.

"They showed you to be a boy."

"Yeah, but I'm under a curse. Tsubasa is just weird."

The walk we took after the snack was pretty strange too. I had given her
my life story, skipping the bits about me being a shapeshifting evil demon
with aspirations of power in a parallel dimension, and we had a nice,
depressing, cathartic talk. It was kinda funny, neither of us knew our
mothers and had obsessive dads. Both my fathers, actually. Eventually, we
ended up near Hotaru's place. It positively belched black magic. Even
Hotaru seemed to notice subconsciously.

"OK, Hotaru, you can keep the glasses." I said, smiling.

"Really?" she said excitedly.

"Sure!" With that, she went into the house, wearing her glasses. The lady
at the door she flinched at when she saw her. Good. That ought to get her
nice and suspicious.



I returned to the Tendo home to find a den of insanity and chaos
unmatched in the world. In other words, everything was normal, including
the three ring circus waiting for me to step in the middle. Shampoo and
Ukyou were there, though only Ukyou had food. Aha.

"No ramen?" I said innocently. Excellent. Ukyou and Akane got pissed at
me showing Shampoo any favor, and Shampoo got annoyed because she
didn't have any ramen to give her "Airen".

"No. Hibachan have stupid male guests. Not want to stay in restaurant."
she said, sulking. "Ranma take Shampoo on date, no? Shampoo bored."
Guests?

"Guests from China?" I asked, with that sinking feeling returning.

"Hai. Stupid Musk." she said.

Ukyou decided to speak up at that point. "I've got some fresh
okonomiyaki for you, Ranchan, with extra pork just as you like it!" I only
order the pork to annoy Ryouga, but hey...

"Not today. I feel kinda sick." With that I went up to my room and decided
to spy on the Musk.



I collapsed down and pretended to sleep as I spied upon the meeting
between Herb and Cologne.

"So, you say this mazoku was a red haired girl?" she asked. Herb stopped
stuffing her face with ramen and looked up.

"No, I said the mazoku turned into a red headed girl." Herb said, returning
to her meal.

"Really." Cologne said, her hands shaking. "I.. I think I need to call
Shampoo."

Herb seemed amused by this. "What, you know this mazoku?" she asked.
"What are you going to do, sing at him?"

Cologne looked troubled. "I don't know what I'll do." she said. "I'm going
to find out, though." She walked over to the phone and dialed the Tendo
house. I could hear the phone ring at both ends, a strange thing. "Hello,
Kasumi, is Shampoo there? Yes? Can you put her on?" There was a short
pause, followed by the sound of argument from downstairs and a splash.
"Ah, Shampoo. Is Ranma there? I'd like you to bring him over to the
Nekohanten as soon as possible, alright? He's sick?" She looked over her
shoulder at Herb. "Mazoku don't get sick, you know." she said, lidding her
eyes.

"How many Jusenkyo cursed people are there in this town?" Herb replied.

"Quite a few."

"That turn into redheaded girls?" Herb pressed.

"You're right." Sigh. Going back to the phone, "Shampoo, tell the Tendos
I need to perform a few tests. It is possible that Ranma has been possessed
by a demon."

I could hear Shampoo's "Aiyah!" all the way in my room. Perhaps this
might be a good time to get more lost than a Hibiki family reunion. I
quickly teleported out of the room to Juuban after assembling my pack.

I knew that this day would come, and I'd be known for what I am, but I
never expected it to be so soon.



I ran into a crying Hotaru at night. "Ranma!" she yelled when she saw me.
"It's so horrible!"

"What is, Hotaru?"

"The people in my house.. they.. they aren't people." She was shaking
badly. Jeez, what the heck was going on in that house? "And my father...
he.. he.." she said, crying. I grabbed her shoulders.

"What is it, Hotaru?"

"My father.. he's.. a monster..." she finished. I held her for a while. Her
emotions were those of extreme fear and terror, normally delicious, but I
refused them.

"What do you mean, a monster?" I asked. "Some people might call me a
monster, too." I put her down.

"He.. he's this.. this THING." She shuddered with revulsion, apparently
unwilling to describe the 'thing'. "And Kaolinite.. she looked normal, but
she had swirling energy like you. And she had these ugly little creatures
with her." I nodded. So this guy was cooking up home-brewed golems for
the local mazoku. Interesting, there weren't supposed to be many left, and
certainly not enough to pull off such a stunt. "And I noticed this black
path.. it was barely there before, I almost didn't notice it. But in the house,
I could see it. It went from me down into my father's laboratory. I didn't
see what was on the other end. I don't think I want to." She disintegrated
into mad sniffling again. I hated being the one to shatter her world, but
maybe it was for the best that I had decided to make this pitch, from the
sounds of it. I let her get it all out. The more completely she let go of her
old life, the more completely she'd fall into the new one I had prepared for
her.

"Well.. I'm going to be honest with you." Honesty was the best policy.
Mostly because the truth is the greatest lie of all. "I'm not human either."

"Really?" she asked semi-fearfully. I nodded. When I didn't jump out of my
skin and eat her, or whatever she was expecting, she seemed to come to a
decision."Yeah, but you're nice."

"I dunno. I'm like the distilled essence of black magic." She got this thrilled
expression, the kind people get in horror movies when they want to be
scared.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really." We were walking aimlessly around again.

"That's so cool. I wish I was like that." she said. "I wish I was strong,
instead of plain old Hotaru."

"You've got a lot of potential, actually. You know, I could make you into
a magical powerhouse too, you know." I said, offhand. Here it finally was,
the pitch. "We'd make a great team, I think."

"I don't know." she said. We walked in silence for a little longer. "I'll think
about it." We came to the Tokyo Tower. I figured by now Cologne has
search parties out for me or something. I'd have to hide as Hotaru's dog or
something. Of course, Nabiki would notice me, maybe, but I could handle
her.

"Stop." came a voice from right behind us. We turned slowly. A woman
with red eyes and dark green hair in a really stupid outfit was pointing a
staff at us. She must be a member of that team Zelas embarassed.

"What do you want?" I asked, half bored.

"I've seen you." the woman said. "I've been tracking you ever since I
heard reports that someone turned into that monster. I don't know who
you work for or what you're up to, but your work here is finished." She
levelled the staff at me and whispered "Dead Scream." A big ball of energy
slammed me into me, with some charring and smoking showing where it
had hit. At least I had a name to go with the face now. Pluto, by her magic.

I bit my lip and did not cry out. Some fights you won by not attacking. At
all costs I must appear better than the nominal good guy to Hotaru. "I have
no idea what evil you were about to do to this girl.." she said, firing
another blast, "but you'll never harm her." She smiled slightly at that.

"HARM ME?" Hotaru yelled. "Ranma is my friend!" With that, the
sorceress attacking me suddenly switched targets.

I jumped for Hotaru. "Hotaru! NO!" guessing correctly that the trigger-
happy Pluto would fire at me when I moved. Of course, it looked like she
was shooting at Hotaru. I took the hit in the back and slumped down.
Hotaru looked at me, crying once again.

"I wish I could do more than heal you.. but.." she whispered. She then got
a hard look to her eyes. "Do it."

"Huh?"

"Transform me." Oh yeah. That. I grabbed her and forced black energy into
her body, locating and severing the connections she had to both the one
known as Sailor Moon and whatever dark entity seeked to rob her power
in her house. I then gave her a bit of my power, just enough to transform
her into a mazoku. Her own latent power did the rest.

Hotaru stood up straighter, taller, head bowed, and pulled a wicked
looking polearm out of thin air. I recognized the device as the Silence
Glaive, a rather powerful black magic weapon that fell into the hands of the
forces of the enemy. Her outfit vanished in a black smoke, revelaing a
pitch-black version of the ridiculous outfit the other was wearing.

"I remember now. You used to make fun of me..." she said, in a leaden
voice. "All of you.. Venus... Jupiter.. Mars... but worst of all were the
outers." She looked up at a now shaking Pluto.

"How..how.. how did I miss this?" she said. "You! This is all your fault! I
have no idea how you defied the Gates of Time, but it won't last for long!"

"No, you won't last for long." Hotaru agreed. She then teleported right
next to Pluto and struck her with the butt of the glaive. I started to ready a
curse I had been taught for just such an occasion. Every mazoku knew it
for when a target had to be taken down without killing. And with Hotaru
providing a major beat-down as cover, I had all the time to prepare it.
Which was good, I wasn't fast enough with the curses to just throw it and
go.

"Hotaru! Get back!" Her complaince was immediate. I cast the curse at
Pluto, and was satisfied to see the red star seal appear under her feet. She
instantly was returned to her street clothes. "Not so tough outside of your
school uniform, huh?" I jeered. Hotaru smiled slightly and waved her
polearm uncertainly. I shook my head. "No unnecessary killing." She
appeared relieved. It wasn't like your morals got changed immediately
when you were turned into a mazoku, just your instincts. Or so I'd read.
"Let's go."

Meanwhile Pluto was screaming at her pen. "Damn you! WHY WON'T
YOU WORK!?!" She shook her fist at us as we retreated. "I'm going to
get even with you two for this! You just wait!" She then got a panicky note
to her voice. "Oh my god! If I can't.. YOU'VE DOOMED THE WORLD!
I HOPE YOU'RE FUCKING HAPPY!!!" Neither of us needed to look
back to know she was crying. The sudden relaxing of anger told us that.

"Will the world get destroyed because of us?" Hotaru asked worriedly.

"No. Not if I can help it." I said cheerfully. "That's our job!" Hotaru jerked
as if stung.

"But I don't want to destroy the world!" she cried.

I stepped in front of her and wagged my finger. "In that case, we'll just be
very incompetent at our job. Heh heh!"

"So, what are we going to do?" she asked me, curiousity shining in her
eyes.

"Well, do you feel that tingle three blocks west?" I saw her nod in the
darkness. "That's what we'll fight. It's a Daimon. We'll drain it, we'll get
stronger, and innocent people will be saved." I made a qucik detour to a
water fountain and splashed myself. Then I tried to use my power to mimic
what I had felt Hotaru do when she had transformed. The result: one
redhead in a dark black Sailor suit with a skirt the color of drying blood.
"Let's look like a team!"

Two groups of Senshi had already arrived on the scene. The redhead,
whose name was Eudial if I remembered right, and her Daimon were
duking it out with the large group of Senshi while the others were
inspecting crystal thingies. "Those ones fighting the witch are the inner
senshi. Those two who don't care are the outers." Dark fire flashed in her
eyes. "I'd like to see them suffer."

"For the crimes of a past life?"

"Close enough for me." she said. "I'm not weak any more. And I'll get my
revenge." We jumped down dramatically, and Hotaru rapped the glaive
twice to get everyone's attention. Every sentai group had a cheesy
entrance. We wouldn't disturb that fine tradition. "Deeper than the deepest
night, warriors of darkness arise! We are the Dark Senshi!" Hotaru spun
her glaive and took a crouching position. I took a one-legged crane stance
and smiled evilly. "Prepare for pain!"



Nice cliffhanger, no? This story is getting wildly different than what I
imagined, and yet it's still looping back to the same general end.
Sometimes I amaze me. I never thought this Ranma would ever end up in a
fuku, but the notion of dark senshi running around, draining Daimons
(convenient source of energy, that) and confusing the heck out of the other
Senshi.

The whole Saturn as black-magic misfit of the scouts came when I noticed
the similarities between the Giga Slave and the Death Reborn Revolution.
Both can go out of control and become the end of everything, both are
fantastically deadly spells. I figured if any senshi was to break from the
others, it's her. Oddly enough, the world is in less danger now that's she's
with Ranma, as Usagi will never give Mistress 9-in-disguise the chalice (or
whatever it was) thus putting the universe in mortal danger.

Pluto is sealed. She can't use the time gate. She didn't allow herself to
know who Saturn was, and Ranma is unseeable by the Gates of Time (his
name should provide a clue why) This is the same thing done by Mazenda
to Lina in NEXT, and is pretty much unreversible unless the mazoku
responsible is destroyed.

I have to thank everyone for all the mail. Keep on firing your questions at
me, the C&C, even flames, random comments, whatever. It's all fun.

Oh, and wild guesses are always welcome if you feel like predicting
Ranma's actions. I always try to respond promptly - I'm on the computer
most of the day, so I generally respond fast and often.

Ranmazoku Chapter 5 - The Mind Of The Mazoku
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I
own the rights
to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of these two fine
anime. This work is non-commercial and is done only in
imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka. Imitation
is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz and
Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon
belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno
who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a
blank)



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on
Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If
he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this.
Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask
when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events,
characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are
rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while
you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that
Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black
magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with
Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then
he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and is about to
bust a wall of hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Read the
previous chapters, really, I'm not good at rehashing stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between
Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.



The groups of Senshi and their idiot opponents were still
standing there, boggling at us in surprise. I snapped out of my
one legged crane stance and took a more sentai pose, legs
spread shoulder width, hand raised above my head. I then
dramatically pointed at Eudial. Hotaru made her own series of
flamboyant and pointless gestures, and I had to work to
suppress a laugh.

"I am the dread warrior of death, she who shall shroud the
world in silence!" she said, smiling evilly, leveling her glaive at
the Witch. "Sailor Saturn!"

I took my cue from her. 'I am the dread warrior of chaos, she
who shall bring strife!" I stopped pointing and made a fist over
my heart, and opened my mouth as if to announce my name.
Instead, I spat a blast of black energy at Eudial, sending her
flying head over heels.

"Hey! That was a dirty trick!' Orange Skirt yelled at me.
"You're supposed to let everyone make their speeches first." I
mentally indicated for Hotaru to take on Eudial while I drained
the Daimon.

"Who the heck told you how to fight, blondie?" I answered
disparagingly. The Daimon, being the first to recover as it had
no brains, immediately attacked the white-garbed scouts. They
immediately went into "jump and scatter" mode, running around
in a panic. "Pathetic." I said, summing up their battle tactics. I
looked at the scattered heart crystals that the two taller Senshi
were studying and gave a brief thought to draining them as well,
but decided against it. It was generally a better tactic to drain
people who were unsympathetic, like the Witches and their
Daimons. They didn't have allies. I fired a powerful blast of
black flecked with gold at the Daimon, drawing its attention
away from its hapless targets. Good.

Meanwhile, Hotaru had Eudial on the ropes. That magic
"Buster" thing was proving fairly useless on Hotaru - she had
no actual heart crystal to take.. And judging by the nicks and
cuts she got from the glaive, Eudial was going to have to leave
soon. I'd better get this over with. Teleporting behind the
Daimon, which oddly looked like some kind of mutant
bubblegum machine, I ripped a parking meter from the ground
and slammed it through the Daimon's back in one smooth
movement. "Die slowly and painfully" I said smugly, and
grabbed the Daimon with one hand while twisting the meter to
more fully savor the pain of the unintelligent servitor. Then I
started to yank out the raw magical power that the thing
possessed. It screamed and trashed as the real senshi quickly
got sick. I had gotten a good deal of the energy away before
Eudial called it quits and teleported away. I dropped what was
left of the Daimon. It reverted to a normal gumball machine. I
stomped on it, crushing it and sending candy rolling
everywhere.

"Feh." I said, giving a good sneer. The Senshi, still green-faced,
seemed to want to talk to us. I wasn't going to have anything to
do with a bunch of weakling prissy sentai types, so I motioned
to Hotaru to leave. She vanished with a swirl of black misty
energy, causing the Senshi to flinch for a second."See you
around, wimps." With that, I melted away into the Astral plane
and vanished from sight. [Hotaru, lets stick around and see
where they go.]

[OK, Ranma. You haven't steered me wrong yet.] Hotaru
affirmed. We decided to lay low until the Senshi left the scene,
and followed them back to a shrine.



We carefully moved about so as to not attract the attention of
the magically gifted Senshi. It became quickly apparent,
however, that we needn't bother. They seemed virtually
powerless once out of those Senshi costumes. [Pervert] Hotaru
thought to me impishly.

[Nothing I haven't seen before.] I replied, remembering their
detransformation sequence. [Wonder what kind of hentai
developed the spell they use, though.]

Hotaru was silent for a second. [It was Artemis. I don't
remember much about him, though. He was an aide to Serenity,
though, so he must have been quite powerful.]

[Heh. Quiet.] The Senshi, who had been just killing time and
grabbing snacks until now, were sitting near an open door and
talking about.. us.

"I don't know. They can't be members of our team. You saw
what they were wearing." said the one they called Rei. "We
don't wear black. Especially not with leather and spikes."

"Rei's right. They are likely to be our enemies too." Ami added.
"I analyzed the energies they emitted. They were very unlike
ours. Some similarities to what Jadite and the other Negaverse
generals were using, but not an exact match."

"Waaah! Why do we always have to have more enemies?"
Usagi wailed, doing a credible Soun-imitation. "Why can't we
have a bunch of new Senshi for once?"

"Grow up, meatball head." Rei snarled.

"At least these enemies are also enemies of the Witches Five."
Ami said, trying to defuse the argument between Rei and Usagi.

"That's not any relief. They were kicking around Eudial with
ease. And they don't fight alone." Makoto added, trying to help
Ami get their attention.

[Their enemies attack one at I time?] I snorted. [What idiots.]
Hotaru giggled.

The Senshi, on the other hand, seemed to be struck dumb by
this new tactic we had used. Having multiple powerful enemies
strike at once... it must have shattered their little world. I
couldn't begin to comprehend how these fledgling white
sorceresses and their ditzy phoenix-kin leader could have
managed to defeat half the enemies they were reported to have
destroyed.

[Hey, look at this.] I thought to Hotaru. I called her over to
inspect the Usagi girl's head. [Most of her brain is empty. Look,
there's only a few strong thought elements and all of this
gibberish in there.] I could feel Hotaru's presence moving closer
to mine in the Astral plane, and could tell when she started to
poke around in Usagi's head - the blonde started to rub her
head. [Careful, there, you're giving her a headache.]

[This isn't gibberish.] Hotaru thought back. [This is some kind
of magical programming. Look at the magical alterations done
to her brain.] I took a closer look. Sure enough, if you looked
at it - now, that's only a metaphor for what I was doing, my
normal senses aren't terribly useful on the Astral - kind of
cross-eyed, like one of those stupid American 3-D puzzles, a
depth previously hidden popped out. It was like the brains of a
few hundred people had been stuffed in this girl's head.

[Cool.] I thought, inspecting the hidden depths. [Very cool. I
would have never thought to try that. It must be an advanced
Silver Millennium technique to protect them from mental
attacks.] I could feel Hotaru nod.

[That's about right, by my memories.. each royal family of the
different planets had their own methods, but the inner royalty all
used the lunar pattern on the Senshi.] she thought.

[That still doesn't explain why all the extra space is filled with
gibberish.] I thought. I mentally plucked at one of the mental
thought paths.

[NO, DON'T-] Hotaru yelled. Usagi suddenly stood up and, as
if in a trance, held her slice of pizza in front of her face and
gestured.

"MOON... HEALING... ACTIVATION!" she called out,
performing a perfect, stereotyped magical blast, sans magic.
The other girls just blinked at her.

"Gee, Usagi, the pizza wasn't THAT bad." Makoto joked.

"Yeah, it isn't like you cooked it," Rei said snidely. "But a
Moon Healing Activation couldn't heal your cooking." The rest
of the Senshi laughed while Usagi turned beet red.

[Not bad,] we both thought to each other.

"I.. I.. " Usagi said, confused. "Hey! I didn't mean to do that!"
she protested, getting another round of laughter from the
Senshi.

Minako broke out of the latest giggle fit. "Wow, it must be
automatic for you when presented with harmful substances."
She poked at the pizza with one finger. "This stuff tastes like it
was cooked by the Mallet Girl."

"The Mallet Girl is just an urban legend!" Ami spoke up.

"One of my friends in Nerima says it's true."

"Your friend in Nerima saw a guy turn into a duck."

"EVEN SO..."

[So that's what those thread strings are. They must have
hardwired the spells into the brains of the Senshi.] I mused.
[Wanna have some fun?]

[Sure, what do you have in mind.... oh.. that!] Hotaru mentally
giggled for a while. [That'll be fun! What do you want to do?]
she thought, starting to poke around in her head some more.

[Let's alter all the spells to fire Dragon Slaves!] I thought
excitedly. Then I realized the downside of that, and felt shame
as Hotaru put out an aura of disbelief. [On second thought let's
not. How about if we give her the.. hmm... Rah Tilt? I don't
think the Senshi can handle black magic anyhow, and giving
them the Dragon Slave would be an invitation for trouble...
they'd start shooting them at us. Well, she might only shoot it
off once.. but even still!]

[Ranma, you're rambling.]

[Oh.]

[Let's just swap all of the Senshi's spells between them. I really
don't know how the mental programming was carried out, so
we wouldn't be able to swap in any new spells anyhow.]

[Too bad. Let's just cycle all their magic one person to the left.]
That turned out to be Usagi to Makoto, Makoto to Ami, Ami
to Rei, Rei to Minako, and Minako back to Usagi. Not that we
didn't run into snags.

[Hey, stop shoving! Oops.] Hotaru thought, as the two of us
were transferring the mental programming from Usagi to
Makoto. While we were ah, arguing over whether to transfer
the old useless weak spells or not, sh accidentally brushed up
against one of the few non-magic related threads in Usagi's
mind.

"ICE CREAM!" she yelled, disrupting our work and rushing
from the room.

[Well, that one's shot. Maybe we should just AAARRGH!] I
thought, panicking. THEY were here. I could feel them.
Hideous, shadowy, evil... I'd like them if they weren't all out to
kill me.

"We can't find them anywhere." the black beast said. Talking c-
c-c-caaats... what kind of hideous monsters were these Senshi?

[Ranma, what the heck is wrong with you?] Hotaru whispered.

[C-c-c-c-cats!] I thought back, freaking. Hotaru sweatdropped
(a hard feat when incorporeal). I shuddered and tried to remain
as still as possible, not really feeling relief that I was in the
Astral plane. The black one seemed to be looking right at me..
right before it opened its horrible mouth...

Then the white abyssal creature opened its fang-filled mouth.
"Frankly, I feel they were just some sort of ruse created by our
enemy... did anyone hear that growl?" he said.

I could see prey. My pridemate was signaling her worry, but I
did not heed her. I materialized to take down my tormentors
and their allies. "MRROOWRR..." I rumbled, shattering the den
of these vile creatures. The prey scattered and screamed, then
poking their heads up from behind. Panic. Fear. Terror.

The hunt will be a good one. I drool.

I hear words.. but I do not understand them. I only understand
the weave, the ripple of magic. I see in shades of fear. There.
Ghastly black raven's claws shred the threat before it hits.
Fragments of shattered magic fall across my snout. I yowl, an
inhuman sound, a sound not meant to be heard by the ears of
man. I smell urine - is this the territory of another? Or is the
prey preparing to flee?

I snarl viciously, leaping forward at the two small cat-creature,
seeking to rend their very flesh. They freeze, stunned, as my
claws reach to shred them apart... I am struck! Fire!

I turn around, seeing the females. They look different. More
confident. Less scared. Not fun. Not tasty.
"grrrrrooooowwrrrrrr..." I rumble, then gather my breath.

"KROOOOOAAAR!" bellow my lungs, power coursing
through the roar, shattering windows, blasting them backwards
from sheer sonic force. I leap forward and grab the one that
burned me in my jaws. I tear apart their lair and rush to my den
with my prize. I feel the presence of my pridemate near me.
Worry? I will destroy what worries a part of the pack.

The Pack?

No, it is a pride.. a pride.. I snarl. What is this noise in my head?
I drop my prize and turn around.

I am confused. I am a wolf. No! I am a cat...a cat...

I feel a pain in my head, and my world goes black.



I came to on the Astral plane, my presence enveloped in
Hotaru's. [Ranma, what just happened?] she asked fearfully.

I swore. [Neko-ken.] Damn. Just what I needed. I suppose I
should go hunting for the scouts tonight - they were likely to be
having tasty nightmares for a week. Unfortunately, I had other
things to do. [To make a long story short, the person I thought
was my father decided to throw me in a pit of cats until my
mind snapped and I thought I was a cat.] I looked around and
decided I'd much rather be on the material plane. [Look, just
materialize and I'll tell you the whole story.] With that, I took
my normal, chinese-clothes wearing form, and Hotaru
materialized soon after. We were pretty far from the temple the
Senshi had been in, but still in Juuban. "I'll tell you as we walk
back."

"I thought you said everyone was after you back home." Hotaru
asked confusedly. "You're just going to walk right into the
firestorm?"

"Why, you have a better idea?"

Hotaru grinned wickedly. "We could hunt down the outers. I
mean, it was fun watching you rip into the Inner Senshi like
that, but it's the Outers I really want to hurt." Her eyes went all
distant on em. Apparently she was reliving her previous life.
"They're such hypocritical bastards, all of them."

"In that case, next time I'll handle the Witch and you can beat
on them a little."

"A little? Hey, you haven't told me why you went nuts yet, you
know."

"Ah." I said, taking a long breath. "There is this martial arts
technique said to be invincible in combat. A technique so
dreaded and terrifying that it has been sealed. The technique is
the Cat-Fist, the Neko-ken, that models its fighting on the spirit
of the c-cat. Unfortunately, anyone who learns the technique
becomes deathly afraid of cats."

"Why?"

"Because, Hotaru, to learn the Neko-ken, the student must be
wrapped head to toe in fish sausages and thrown into a pit of c-
cats. Hungry c-cats. C-cats that will rip and shred and claw and
bite and.. and.." I mumbled madly, seeing those little slit eyes
glowing in the dark, reaching, reaching, claws... "NO!" I yelled,
then suddenly looked around. "Oops."

Hotaru sweated a little. "I think I've heard enough. So, the
person who raised you was a moron?"

"Don't say that. It's insulting." I said, scolding Hotaru.

"What? But he - he.."

"No moron should EVER be compared to Genma!" I said,
turning back towards Nerima, careful to keep a straight face. I
managed to keep it even when I heard Hotaru giggling.



Nerima didn't look too different since I left. A bit more banged
up, to be sure, but not all that suprising, given the fact that a
small army of demented kendoists had been fighting earlier. For
all I knew, and in fact odds alone favored it, there were still a
few of the accursed fighting it out over girls.

Of course, who did I see upon entering but Ukyou.

"Ranma!" she yelled, and glomped me, earning an angry stare
from Hotaru. Ukyou glared right back. "This better not be
another new fiancee, Ranma. Don't tell me she's another
fiancee."

"Well, if you say so, I won't tell you that."

"RANMA!" Ukyou yelled. "Be serious!" She got a more
concerned look and stood closer to me. "I've heard the most
awful rumor about you going around town!"

I shifted uncomfortably. "And what rumor would that be?" I
asked, having a very good idea.

"They say you're some kind of demon, Ran-chan." Ukyou said
in a dangerous tone. "Something called a mazoku. Cologne says
it like you're the most horrible thing around... is that so?"

I sputtered in feigned outrage. "Ukyou! How can you believe
such things! That's like something Kuno would say!"

Ukyou gave me an even more dangerous look. "Then explain
your actions lately, Ran-chan. You've been acting very strange.
It's no suprise the bimbo and our good gorilla girl haven't
noticed, but I like to think I'm smarter than them. You've either
got a new girlgriend or are secretly sneaking off to do whatever
demons do." She glared at me and grabbed her spatula,
something that got Hotaru to take a step to the side, the better
to blast Ukyou without hitting me. "It had better not be a new
girl."

"I'll tell you if you keep it a secret." I said, smirking.

"That's fine with me." Ukyou said, giving Hotaru a new glare.

"I'm a mazoku like Cologne thinks."

"So I still have a chance?" Ukyou asked, suddenly hopeful.

"W-What?" I asked, having to peel my face off the ground after
that. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Hotaru doing the same.

"When the other girls learn you're a demon they'll break off
their engagements! And then you and I can get married and
URK!" Ukyou gasped for air as Hotaru grabbed her throat in a
viselike grip.

"What makes you think Ranma would ever marry a weakling
mortal girl like you?" Hotaru growled, then smashed Ukyou
into the street.

"Why would he marry a short little underage dem..on.. girl..."
heh heh.." Ukyou laughed lightly. "Sorry! Gotta go! Discretion
is the better part of valor and all that!" she yelled over her
shoulder as she fled Hotaru.

"You aren't developing a crush on me, are you?" I teased.

"N-no! Of course not, Lord Ranma." Hotaru said. "I just can't
bear to see you pawed like that." she continued, looking away.
"We should get going now, shouldn't we?"

[Oh HELL no... she does have a crush] I thought, pinching my
nose. I noticed Hotaru blush and stumble and then ruefully
remembered that she could hear any of my 'louder' thoughts.
Oops. I shook my head. This was not happening to me. This
was not happening... "Let's just get Nabiki and get out of here.
They obviously know and believe I'm a mazoku - we won't be
welcome here."

Hotaru nodded. The two of us quickly phased to the Astral
plane and started our search for Nabiki where Cologne's posse
couldn't reach.



We found Nabiki in the Tendo home, along with Kasumi. They
were the only ones present... apparently, Cologne had recruited
the rest into hunting me down. As if!

"I still can't believe he was a demon, Nabiki." Kasumi said,
sitting down. "He was always so nice..."

"Neither did I, Kasumi. Pass that over here." Nabiki gratefully
took the bottle of sake form her older sister. "And I'm
supposed to be on top of this sort of thing. I suppose I should
have known Ranma wasn't really a werewolf."

Kasumi looked at her sister very strangely for a second. "Why
would you think he was a werewolf?" she wondered aloud.

Nabiki poured a large amount of sake in a glass, handed the
glass to Kasumi, and started drinking from the bottle. "Just
some little things. All of it must have been a smokescreen. Had
to have been." Nabiki stopped drinking and stared at the ceiling.
"He was always too dumb acting. It should have been a clue."

Kasumi looked at her in confusion.

"It's something I should have known, Kasumi. The best way to
hide anything sneaky is to act stupid. No one suspects a dumb
guy of anything."

Kasumi nodded, sipping at her own sake. "He never did seem to
display quite the same brilliance outside of his fights, did he?"

"Yeah." Nabiki looked glum. "I should have known. I should
have known." She shook her head and left to her room. "'Night,
Kasumi. I'm going to bed."

"I'll see you in the morning little sister." Kasumi said, clearing
away the mess.

Ranma and Hotaru silently followed Nabiki from the Astral.
[Hotaru, stay offplane. We could use a nasty suprise at the
worst possible moment if someone attacks.]

[Can't you just crush them yourself? That Herb person you
talked about isn't around here, and the others are just those
cruel mortals.] Hotaru complained. [I don't want to be stuck on
this plane while you have all the fun.]

[Just stay there for now. I like my suprises to be final.] As
Nabiki closed her door, we phased through and hovered by her
bed. I tried to mask my voice. It was time to have some fun
with the Ice Queen herself. "NABIKI....." my voice boomed out
in her room. Nabiki jumped up and looked around.

"Ranma! Show yourself!" she commanded. I materialized
behind her, poking her with a finger. "EEEK!" she shrieked.
"Don't do that!" I put a finger over my lips.

"I thought I would be able to fool you. It's good to see you
aren't so easily fooled." I said, inspecting the sleeve of my shirt.
I straightened up and looked her in the eyes. "I think I'll make
you an offer you can't refuse." I said, stepping towards Nabiki.

She pointed her finger towards me. "Don't come closer or I'll
scream." I laughed.

"Like I really give a damn." I grabbed her and walked over to
the window and yanked it open. "Oh look, I'M IN NABIKI'S
ROOM! COME AND GET ME IF YOU CAN YOU OLD
DRIED UP TROLL DOLL!" Then, in a squeaky falsetto, I
added, "Please! Come save me, he's stealing all my yen!" I
stood there checking an imaginary watch for a few minutes. I
heard Kasumi beating on the door but I could ignore that. "Oh
well, I suppose no one wants to rescue you. How tragic. Now-"

The door exploded inwards as Kasumi lowered her leg from a
high kick. "You! Get away from my sister!" Kasumi said, tears
shining in her eyes. She advanced on me rustily, yet showing
signs that at some age she had been a good martial artist.

"Too bad you never bothered to develop your talent," I said
appreciatively, "but I'm not letting your sister slip away. Bai
bai..." I said, and teleported with Nabiki to Kasumi's room
down the hall. I savored the sweet nourishment of Kasumi's
heartrending scream. She thought her sister had been spirited
off to some hell.

Nabiki reeled back her hand and slapped me across the face.
"You inhuman bastard!" she yelled. "That was Kasumi!" I
cocked my head to the side, pretending to think.

"Yes, I suppose that was uncalled for. Would you like me to
reassure her that you're all right?" I said, careful not to smile.

"Of course!" Nabiki said.

"I suppose you'll have to do very well in your training, then." I
said, tapping my chin with one finger. "Otherwise, you might
die, and I can't do that. It would break her heart. On the other
hand, if you were to help me, you'd have the kind of money and
power you've always wanted." I dangled the bait and waited for
a nibble.

"What kind of training?" Nabiki asked, still hatefully. "I'm not
stupid enough to get fooled by you again."

"Oh, Nabiki," I put my hand to my forehead dramatically, "what
must I do to convince you of my sincerity?"

Nabiki just glared at me.

"Oh, come on. If you die or go away, who's going to handle the
finances? Who's going to get the tax man to conveniently look
away when you pay none? I could ensure that that will never
happen, that you can go ahead and manipulate to your heart's
content, and never fear anything the government or yakuza
would try to do to you."

"I'm not fool enough to trust anything said by a demon."

"Even an honorable one? Do I go back on my word?" I pressed.

"You'll just find a way to twist the words around." she
countered.

"I promise not to twist any words around. In return for your
service to me as a lieutenant of a future Lord of the Mazoku, I
will ensure that you are capable of protecting your family and
providing them with the wealth they need to survive. Few if any
of this world will be able to hurt you." I smiled; I felt the
familiar stirrings of greed from Nabiki.

"Immortality?" she asked, licking her lips.

I glanced up. "It might be mine to offer, if you accept."

"With immortality, I wouldn't even need to work hard for a
fortune. Time would do it for me." Nabiki paced for a moment.
"I need your word that I will not die."

"I give it. Barring, of course, being attacked by something
stronger and an enemy of ours." I answered.

Greed shone on her face. I needed no special empathic ability to
know that. "I'll take it." With that, I opened the gate to the
Slayers world and shoved her through.

[Hotaru, follow her. I'll join you in a second.]. I waited until a
teary eyed Kasumi opened her door. Seeing me she grew
enraged and attacked. "It's nice to see you, too."

"What have you done with Nabiki!" she raged.

"Nothing much, just sent her to another world. I'll bring her
back, don't worry. I won't kill her or anything." I turned
around, ready to open the gate again.

"Or nothing.." she whispered. I looked at her.

"What was that?"

"Before, you would have said 'I won't kill her or nothin'"
Kasumi said. "How long have you been hiding it? Does your
mother know?"

I thought. "I hid it even from myself, it seems. And I don't even
know my mother. So I can't tell if she knows. Someday, I'm
sure, I'll ask her." I opened the gate. "Don't follow me."

I stepped through the gate, looking back at Kasumi. The anger,
as usual, had fled her face. Unlike her sisters, she would have
never made a good mazoku.



The Desert of Destruction. It's lonely, level sands stretch for
hundreds of miles in every direction. It is an expanse of endless
baked rock and flying sand, inhospitable to life.

It was Phibrizzo's home.

I had opened the gate to the middle of the great expanse of
sand, and allowed Nabiki to collapse there. She was huddled up
in a small ball, shielding herself from flying sand and rock. It
also protected her from the brutal heat of the sun. This entire
area was like one big, huge oven. The mummified remains of a
camel lay perhaps forty feet away. "Ah, Nabiki, I see you've
made it to our garden spot."

"What the hell is this place?" she yelled, her voice fighting the
driving wind.

"It's a desert. THE desert. One that makes the Sahara seem
tame in its total lack of life. Nothing can long remain alive here.
I wonder how long you'll last?" I said, giving her an appraising
stare. "Hotaru, you can stop hiding on the Astral." With that,
Hotaru materialized.

"I thought you said you wouldn't hurt me!" Nabiki yelled.

"No, I promised I'd make you immortal. Now, see, Hotaru here
was part mazoku to begin with, so I could just purify her. You,
on the other hand, are human. So, in order for me to make you
a mazoku, you have to die first, so I can remake your entire
spirit. Also, I said I wouldn't hurt you. And I won't. The
desert will do quite well, thank you."

"Damnit Ranma, that's not what I meant!" she wailed.

"I'm not giving you what you want. I'm giving you what you
need." I said, explaining things, much like a teacher. "You want
to be immortal? You want to be strong? Fine. I can get you to
be that way. But they don't come easy. You've been slacking
off and protected by how small-time you were in your little
operations. But that was a dangerous road you took. Eventually
you'd piss someone off enough, and BANG - no more Nabiki."
I turned her over, forcing her blinking eyes to make contact.
"I'm correcting your own mistakes, and giving you an
oppritunity you never dreamed of! So stop your whining!"

"Just kill me and get it over with!" she screamed.

"No! You want this, you have to earn it. How much power I
grant you is going to be determined by how long you last before
you die." I turned away, dropping my old pack out of my
subspace pocket. "See what you can do with this. Necessity is
the mother of all invention, and I want your mind at a razor's
edge. Stay alive." I teleported, Hotaru following.



Hooray! It's done! It's over! The chapter 5 mental block is
doen with! Now I've got to write chapter 6....

Chapter 6 will feature Ranma and Hotaru meeting Gourry,
everyone's favorite mush-brained swordsman. I meant for it to
happen here, but the chapter dragged on.. I try for 30 KB more
or less... I will only be posting this to the PMFFML, the Delphi
Fanfic Chat, and sending it to a few FFML readers who may not
have the PMFFML, because I plan to be making the rest so
soon. Dunno if I post tomorrow or not. Hey, three are taken,
one remains. What should Chaotic Blue's world be? Currently I
lean towards Trigun, but my mind is rarely made up...
suggestions? There's no real reason for the series to eventually
cross over with it, but it might be interesting for Ranma to run
across references to the series and such in his researching.

We all know who Ranma's priest candidate is, right? She's
going to have a fun time out in the sand.

If Hotaru's character is off here, remember she's just been
turned into a mazoku, is actually strong now and not easily
winded and sickly, is slightly older looking, and has had her
Silver Millenium memories returned. And no, she doesn't look
back with much fondness; Saturn was shunned then too.

Ranmazoku Chapter 6 - The Right Blade For The Job
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I
own the rights to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of
these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done
only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz
and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon
belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno
who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a
blank)



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on
Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If
he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this.
Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask
when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events,
characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are
rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while
you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that
Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black
magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with
Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then
he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of
hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on
the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Read the
previous chapters, really, I'm not good at rehashing stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between
Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.



Ranma and Hotaru teleported to the edge of the town. "Now,
we heard that they're still travelling together for a bit after
destroying Phibrizzo. This sword is one of two that I know of
that is capable of doing what I need. So.. take your disguise." I
said, turning to Hotaru.

With a look of intense concentration Hotaru shifted her form,
growing shorter and... cuter. Her former short, dark blouse and
skirt transofrmed into an annoyingly cute white travelling outfit
complete with cape and pink trim. Little ornaments with star
degins completed the look. "I look... I look..."

"Kawaii." We both made faces at that. Getting a little water, I
splashed myself, then began altering myself.

"No.. no.. a bit shorter.. the eyes are more orange, you're red..
hmm.." Hotaru looked at me pensively. "Something seems to be
off."

I looked all over my (altered) female body. "What? What? I
don't see anything wrong with me.."

"I think you're a little too big." Hotaru answered.

"Too big?" I thought, looking down. "Hey! I am not
overweight!"

After recovering from her facefault, Hotaru shook her head.
"No, your breasts are too big. Make them smaller." She smiled
evilly. "Akane sized, from what you've told me." I made the
necessary adjustments and noted that Hotaru's expected
devotion to her lord was a little less platonic than I hoped.

"Let's just hang out on the Astral plane until Lina and Amelia
are separate from the rest." I said, wondering why I was picking
up girls right or left. And Hotaru was a mazoku, she shouldn't
even be in love...



Our targets were sitting in an inn. And doing a job of eating that
put would have put Genma or I to shame.

"Gourry! That one's mine!" the real Lina Inverse said, grabbing
a particularly choice portion of meat. Her blonde companion
managed to deflect her from taking most of his food, however,
and retaliated, swiping a salad form in front of Lina. Lina
attempted the difficult two-drumsticks-at once feat and
protected her plate with her elbow.

Only one who has long studied Anything-goes can appreciate
such artistry, such mastery.

"They're slobs." Hotaru said, distracting me from my learned
observation. "Look at all the food they're spilling." The two of
us had gotten bored spying on them from the Astral, and it was
possible that Lina might notice us if we stuck around too long
like that. So instead, we were hiding under robes in the corner
of the inn.

Granted, Genma and I were less messy than these two. But
there was a certain ferocity, a barbaric brutality not seen in my
own food duels. At this rate, the food would soon be finished,
even given the copious amounts they had ordered. I was ready
to cry. The sacrifices I had to make for my mission! I pulled my
hood down closer over my head. From where we were seated,
the companions couldn't see us. Our plan was simple. First, we
wait until Lina and Amelia separate from the others. Then, we
descend upon the small-brained swordsman and 'borrow' the
Sword of Light. The only problem was that the people in
question were finishing off a meal fit for fourty and showing no
signs of slowing down. "This is getting old. Wait right here." I
got up and walked into the kitchen nonchalantly. It was a
whirlwind of activity, chefs running all over the place to try to
keep ahead of the ravenous demand from one table.

"Hey! What are you doing back here?" an annoyed waiter said,
bumping into me. I gave him an evil smile, and punched him.

A waiter flying headfirst into a giant pot of soup will grab
anyone's attention. I worked fast, smashing as much of the
kitchen as I could while fending off the wild attacks of the
cooks. For a trained martial artist, defeating a horde of
untrained but highly motivated attackers is child's play. Even
Akane can do it. Defeating said horde while simultaneously
demolishing a room and devouring all the food (except for the
soup), that takes skill. I finished off the chefs and left through a
window. I didn't want Lina to catch me coming out of the
kitchen. There would be hell to pay if that happened.

I walked back in and sat back down with Hotaru just as Lina
got word of the untimely destruction of the kitchen. "WHAT?"
she screamed. The waiter was picked up and looked as if he
were about to piss his pants or something. Lina could have
taught Soun a thing or two about the demon head strike. Then
she collapsed and turned big teary eyes on the waiter. "Then..
no strawberry cheesecake?" The waiter shook his head stiffly.
"No ice cream parfait with cherries and whipped cream?"
Amelia was beginning to feel a little teary at this, too, as the
waiter shook his head. Lina dropped him back on his feet. "No
apple cobbler?" She was answered by a final shake of the head.

"No miss, our kitchen was destoyed by some.. er... what are
you doing?" he said, nervously looking down at the growling
Lina. He was quickly pulled back by a nervous Gourry and
Zelgadis.

"Look, you don't want to be near her when she hasn't had her
sugar fix for the day." Zelgadis said calmly.

"I beg your pardon?" the nervous waiter asked. Lina, on the
other hand, was marching across the inn to some scruffy types
at the bar.

"Just watch. She has to let off steam somehow." Zelgadis said,
taking a sip of tea and keeping one eye on Lina. I elbowed
Hotaru. Lina and company weren't the only ones getting a good
meal at this inn, and we could tell the fun hadn't even started.

"Let's see what happens. We might be making some changes to
our plans." I said, standing up. It didn't require mazoku senses
to tell the shit was about to hit the fan.

"ALL your plans seem to be redone on the fly." Hotaru
mumbled as she shifted in her chair. "Can't you ever commit to
one course of action?"

I loked wounded. "Don't be silly. Flexibility and adaptability are
my trademarks. And you get that by NEVER committing.
Especially this early in the game." I turned back to Lina. "I bet
those guys are bandits, or wannabe bandits, and she's going to
have them for dessert."

Sure enough, Lina walked up to the biggest and meanest of the
lot and poked him in the shoulder. "Hey. I've heard you boys
are thieves." she said conversationally. The big guy shifted
around in his chair to face her.

"So what if we are..URK!" he answered, then got a look at his
questioner. "It's LINA INVERSE!" he gasped. The rest of the
roughs got up in shock. Lina preened, assuaged by her
notoriety. "The natural enemy of all who live!" That made the
anger roll off of her in waves. Hotaru and I took a few steps
closer to the cornucopia. Most of the people had a slightly
different reaction.

"I dunno about that, Mr Bandit," she said, keeping her gaze
low. "But I'm sure as hell the enemy of YOU!" With that she
stretched out her arm. "FIIIIREBALL!"

The fight was predictably short and was all that could be
expected. Namely, that when confronted with a sorceress of
ridiculous power like Lina, they were lucky to survive at all. I
nudged Hotaru and slightly changed my costume. We wanted to
look like obsessed fans for this, not long lost twins. "Me Ranko.
You Jain." I said, smiling.

Hotaru stopped and rested a finger on her chin. "I don't like
that name. How about..." she trailed off, thinking. "Sharra!"

"Sharra?" I asked flatly.

"Well, it was my name back in the Silver Millenium. So why not
use it?" she answered. I shrugged and wove my way through
the crowd of onlookers. Hotaru started subtly changing her
own costume in a move away from Amelia's style (and with an
eye toward less kawaii overkill). Lina Inverse was currently
wiping her hands and smiling nastily as she walked away from
the still smoking bandits. The inn ownder was nowhere in sight.
He must have had an attack of brains and decided he needed to
be somewhere. Anywhere. Preferably away from Lina.

I poked the smiling sorceress. "Yeah, whaaaaa-?" she said as
she turned around. She looked me up and down for a few
seconds in confusion. "Did Mom have another GAAAH..." she
said, now noticing Hotaru. She then fainted.

I looked over at Hotaru. "I think the idea of two Amelias was
too much for her." We heard a few another thud behind us and
a large crash. Gourry and Zelgadis were both lying face down
on the ground too.

"Mr Gourry? Mr Zelgadis?" Amelia asked worriedly. She then
noticed Lina was out. "MISS LINA!" she said, running over to
the prone sorceress. Lina regained just enough consciousness to
see Amelia and Hotaru again, and passed out again.

"I think the concept of two Amelias is a little too much for
Lina." I looked at the two other prone victims. "Or anyone, for
that matter. Let's help them to their room." We quickly got up
and dragged Lina's friends up the stairs, following Amelia.



In the Slayer's room we finally got a chance to talk to Amelia.
Interestingly, she wasn't fazed by our resemblence to Lina or
herself. "Wow! You two are Lina and I's biggest fans? And the
only people I thought were after us were angry bandits,
townspeople and my older sister!"

"Yeah!" I said, wearing a mask of false cheerfulness. "There's a
whole town of people after us too!"

"Wow!" Amelia jumped onto a chair and assumed a suitably
dramatic pose. "Did you exchange brave words of how you
fought for justice and smite your foes?"

"Yeah, sort of." I said, thinking of the Senshi. "Mostly they're
after us for things we didn't do (yet) and stuff.. you know what
it's like."

"Yeah! Usually they're after us... well, usually they're after
Miss Lina for blowing up something, or setting things on fire, or
causing a famine, or... er.. come to think of it, why haven't I
shown Miss Lina the power of Justice!" Amelia stood over the
still-comatose Lina Inverse and dramatically pointed at her.
"Miss Lina! For your repeated crimes against justice, I demand
redress! You will -OW!" Amelia said, having been slapped.

"I save the world on a monthly basis. Cut me some slack." Lina
said, shaking her hand. She then noticed me. "ARRGH! It's a
clone!"

Annoyed, I kicked a convenient pail of water on Lina. "Who's a
clone?"

"GAH! What did you do THAT for?" Lina fumed.

"Somehow that sounds familiar." Hoataru whispered giggling.

"Don't mock the mazoku." I whispered back, wagging my
finger. Lina grabbed it and pulled me over hard.

"I'm waiting for an apology. You can provide it promptly or
posthumously." she said, showing the fireball in her other hand.
Fortunately, I remembered how I was supposed to be acting
before I told her where she could stick that fireball. My face
went from annoyed to starstruck in a flash.

"It's LINA INVERSE!" I said, putting my hands together and
batting my eyes: kawaii factor 4. Hotaru matched my rapt
expression and cuteness-overload as fast as she could. "I'd
never think I would have gotten to meet you! I mean, you're
always on these great quests to save the world and everything!
Aren't you the most talented and beautiful sorceress in the
whole world?" I continued, laying it on thick.

"Yeah! I heard you killed a piece of Shabranigdo! And that you
killed Phibrizzo, the Hellmaster!" I shot Hotaru a dirty look for
a second. "And you can call upon the power of the Golden
Lord of Nightmares!" Lina beamed with pride, a huge smile
lighting up her face.

"Yeah, that's me all right." she said, ego continuing to inflate.
She then looked at me for a second. "Oh, apology accepted."
she said offhandedly. She then sat down on the edge of the bed,.
Gourry and Zelgadis, who had been wakened by all the noise,
flanked her. "we're always happy to talk to fans of.. oh, Amelia,
grow up." Said princess had been sniffling and giving Lina dirty
stares after she got slapped.

"You hit me, Miss Lina!" Amelia complained. I cringed for a
second, noticing Hotaru doing the same. Now that we were
actually paying attention to it, we could feel the anger rolling
off of the young princess. Except it was still tinged with that
nauseating sweetness. At least a spoonful of anger made the
sugar go down easier.

"Stuff it, Amelia." Lina turned back to us, a happy smile
adorning her face. "So, what brings you to this corner of the
world?"

"We're on a quest for a legendary sword!" I exclaimed. Hotaru
gave me a fishy look out of the corner of her eye, as if
wondering if I had lost my mind by telling them the truth. I had
to have a talk with that girl - the truth is always the greatest lie
of them all, since it can't be ddisproven. "It's.. ooooh, the
Sword of Light!" I bounced over to Gourry. "Can I see? Can I
see?"

Gourry, the quintessential dumb swordsman, scratched his head.
"No, miss, heh, I don't let redheaded sorceresses get their hands
on my sword. So, um, no." I sighed.

"Come on, Gourry, it's not like they can just walk out of here
or something!" Lina said. "They can look at it." Gourry held his
sword protectively. I sighed. He was so stupid, he'd have to be
smarter to be able to be fooled here. Well, there was always the
Umi-Sen-Ken. I shook my head when I noticed Lina returning
her attention to me. "Hey, what's your name, anyhow?" I
opened my mouth, then remembered my alias.

"I'm Ranko. My family lived out in the Desert of Destruction."
Hotaru and I had made our plans for where we would be from.
Nothing that could be easily disproven. Heck, I'd even altered
my appearance to include a tan. "I got curious about the outside
world and left. I ran into Sharra here in southern Elmekia."

"Elmekia! Wow! Gourry's from there! Hey, what's your last
name - maybe Gourry's heard of them before." Lina asked,
turning to Hotaru.

Sweating, Hotaru answered with the first thing that leapt to
mind. "Er... I'm Sherra Saturn!" she said enthusiatically, trying
to cover her nervousness. I rolled my eyes. What a lame name.
At least there's no planet named Saturn here.

"Gourry, you remember any Saturns back in Elmekia?" Lina
asked Gourry.

Gourry scratched his head. "Um.. no?" Lina sighed in
resignation.

"Stupid Jellyfish brains... I should have expected that." Lina
turned back to us, having dropped the swordsman from her
thoughts. I could now see why L-sama took such an interest in
this human. She burned bright and with a storm of chaos in her
soul. She jumped from one thing to the other, yet still remained
focused. A paradox L-sama would treasure. "Do you guys need
any help with your quest? It's been pretty boring around here."
I had overheard that there were three separate forest fires
started by stray fireball barrages, an evil wizard waylaying
travelers had been killed, and a small crossroads villiage was
currently a lake after being ground zero for a Dragon Slave. All
in one week. Boring indeed.

"Not really. I mean, meeting you guys is a bonus, but we want
to do this one on our own." I could see that wasn't enough to
deter Lina, so I continued. "My magic is strong enough. Think
about the Desert of Destruction and the kind of magic you'd
need just to survive there. My father and his friends are
powerful mages, and I'm continuing in the family tradition."

"OK, if you say so." Lina said, still not sounding convinced but
willing to let it go for now. "Nice meeting you two." With that
we left the still trashed inn and began hiking north.



"Aren't you going to take the sword from them?" Hotaru asked
as we headed north. I looked at her incredulously.

"Are you nuts? That girl nuked a piece of Shabranigdo,
destroyed Rezo the Red Priest - twice, flattens cities for fun and
profit and most recently channeled the spirit of L-sama herself
to kill Hellmaster Phibrizzo. I am not mixing it up with her if
I can make the choice." I assumed a more neutral tone. "Look,
your friends are a matter of circumstance, your enemies,
however, are yours to choose. We don't want her as an enemy.
Our current crop of people out for our blood is problem
enough, even if they can't actually hurt us. Our strategy must be
to keep problems seperated so we can tackle them one at a
time."

Hotaru digested this, then asked another question after a little
while. "Then what is our goal?" I opened my mouth, then
closed it.

What WAS my goal? Power was nice and all, and it would
ensure that I'd never be bossed around like I had for so long. I
wouldn't be helpless in the face of society with my power. But
once I was free, what would I do then?

The solution seemed pretty obvious, put that way. The Senshi,
from all that Hotaru had told me and that I had read in
Phibrizzo's books, were hellbent on resurrecting some ancient
monarchy. They'd be after their so called 'good' ideals, but at
what cost to freedom? Same with the Amazons, always wanting
to enforce their repression on others, and the Musk...

"We're going to crush everyone. We're going to level the
playing field. We'll smash the world and spread anarchy. Let
people do what they want. Absolute freedom. It's what L-sama
would want." I said. "It's our obligation to spread chaos and
disorder. I can think of no better way to do this. No one will
ever step on us again."

Hotaru nodded. "There will be a lot of killing. A lot of death... a
lot of destruction. People rely on society for a lot of things.
What we'll do is like yanking the bottom floor off of a
skyscraper." A ghostly smile crossed her face and sent a shiver
up my spine. Even now I still shied from the idea of widespread
strife, but it struck a chord in her. No wonder she was the
Sneshi of Destruction. "First we'll have to bring the Senshi to
heel."

"We could present evidence of their plans to the Diet." I
mulled, "and let them do our dirty work for us. They won't like
the idea of some cheerleaders with magic taking over the world,
especially given the proof of their power." I smiled.

"You want to offer the government a counterbalancing force of
magic?" Hotaru asked, smiling.

"Heck no! I plan to offer a counterbalancing force of magic. I'll
find the dissatisfied, the angry, the ambitious. Those will be our
troops. I just want the government to fight the Senshi. After
everything is done, we'll be in charge by default, by virtue of
our power." I smiled. I had successfully identified my
opponent's weaknesses and successfully exploited them outside
of battle again. I was getting better at this.

"Speaking of the ambitious, what about Nabiki?" Hotaru asked.
I blinked. "Forgot about her, didn't you?" she said, laughing.

"Yes, I did. Should we check in on her? She should be fine. It's
only been one day, and it's getting dark. She should last at least
a few days, anyhow."

"We should. I'm hungry." Hotaru replied.

"Oh, alright. It should be good for a meal. Let's go."

Now, I'm making an announcement. After the first arc of
Ranmazoku is over, I'm switching off of the first-person
perspective, because too much is going on with Ranma. I'm
also going to devote more time to Garden Of Ranma, which is
currently on the back burner, and start another fic or two also
as 'pilots' to see if anyone's interested or not. So Ranmazoku
will be coming out slower. Though fear not, for I shall probably
speed up again, I think. Right? ::looks at schedule:: Yeah, for a
while. I really need to get away from this stuff that's eating all
my time up. I mean, apart from papers and studying. There's
not much I can do about that. Oh, and work too.

If Hotaru's character is off here, remember she's just been
turned into a mazoku, is actually strong now and not easily
winded and sickly, is slightly older looking, and has had her
Silver Millenium memories returned. And no, she doesn't look
back with much fondness; Saturn was shunned then too.

Ranmazoku Chapter 7 - No Ordinary Walk In The Woods
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I
own the rights to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of
these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done
only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz
and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon
belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno
who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a
blank)



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on
Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If
he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this.
Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask
when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events,
characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are
rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while
you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that
Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black
magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with
Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then
he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of
hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on
the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Then they went
to the Slayers world and met Lina and Co under false identities.
Read the previous chapters, really, I'm not good at rehashing
stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between
Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.



The Desert of Destruction was an amzing place. Even the
Sahara on my home plane isn't as deadly, as forlorn, or as
unrelentingly inhospitable to life as this endless sea of stark
white sand. The blasted stones and parched, long dead trees
that crumbled at a touch provided the only relief to the eyes for
as far as his magically enhanced senses could reach. Not even
Hotaru and I were visible to break up the monotony. And this
was at night, when the overhead canopy of stars, an endless
dazzling shower of diamonds on a deep black sea known as the
night, provided something interesting to look at. During the
day, the monotony was such that it drives lesser people insane.

Imagine spending centuries here, with no one else to talk to, no
one else to see, nothing to do. Just sitting there, slowly going
mad in the still desert air. No wonder Phibrizzo went mad.

"I've never seen such beautiful stars." Hotaru said, from beside
me. Or, of course, you could take life's lemons and make
lemonade. An astronomer would likely kill to be able to put a
telescope up here. No clouds, no other people to put up
annoying lights and buildings... the only negative would be that
the place was only marginally less of a blast furnace at night
than it was during the day. I wonder why, really - most deserts
are cold at night. I should know. That idiot Genma dragged me
across a few.

"Yeah, it's something, isn't it?" I said noncommitally. I looked
around and noticed footsteps wandering west. "Looks like
Nabiki decided to move west in search of water. Don't know
what she's thinking. She couldn't find water at the ocean. She's
a city girl, not an adventurous type like me." I shrugged and
started following the tracks. "Let's take a little stroll through
the sand, Hotaru. Looks like dinner is on the move."

We found Nabiki on the western side of a sand dune. She had
tossed a tarp over a pit to rpvide some relief. We could hear her
panting, It was pretty easy to find her, really; she was absolutely
swamping the area in hatred and anger. Hotaru poked her still
invisible head through Nabiki's tent. She quickly grabbed me
and hauled me back over the dune.

"What the heck?" I blurted, forgetting to remain silent. Why
had Hotaru pulled me back from the pit? The closer we were,
the more energy we'd get.

"She's not decent." Hotaru said, blushing. I stopped for a
second. But only one - I had to retrieve my camera from
subspace. "Hey!" Hotaru yelled. "What do you think you're
doing?"

"Getting revenge." I said simply, and walked back over the
dune. "I'm going to get her back for all the times she's seen me
naked." I could see Hotaru getting steamed. This was kind of
funny, actually. What would Hotaru's blunt instrument of
choice be? "I'll take a few pictures of her sweaty, heaving,
luscious-" I dodged the sudden swipe of the Silence Glaive.
Mental note - do not tease Hotaru. "Ack! Hey, lay off!" Hotaru
ditched the Glaive and tackled me.

"Dammit! Don't be a pervert! What kind of evil demon are
you?" she growled as she tried to gouge my eyeballs out. She
worked her leg up and kneed me in the balls, forgetting that
wouldn't work on a maozku for the moment. Not that it would
work on me even if I were human for the moment, as I was still
in my "Ranko the Sorceress" disguise.

"A mazoku!" I said, struggling to keep her from hurting me.
While she couldn't do much harm with physical attacks, she
could rip up my disguise some. We both froze when we saw the
(naked) form of Nabiki crest the dune.

"Who the hell are you perverts?" we heard her say as we phased
out.



"It's a good thing she can't see in the dark like we can." I said
in annoyance to Hotaru as we returned to walking north of the
town where we had met Lina earlier.

"What on earth is she doing anyhow? Why is she running
around naked like that?" Hotaru fumed. "What kind of a perv
did you pick up for your Priest, anyhow?"

"If I wanted a pervert for a lieutenant I'd have gotten
Happousai!" I thundered. "She probably stripped down because
it's hot enough to melt lead out there!"

"She was PROBABLY expecting you to drop by to check up
on her and was planning to seduce you!" Hotaru shot back.
Why did every girl I ever met seem to get this way? L-sama
must hate me.

Or, more likely, there was yet another curse attached to me that
was all Genma's fault. Some sort of "Attract Violent Girls To
Me" spell. Maybe I could shift it to Happousai or something
and put it to use.

"Get real, Hotaru. We don't feel those sort of emotions, so why
would she try?" At least, we shoudln't feel those emotions,
from what I've read, but Hotaru was acting like Ukyou right
now.

"I feel those emotions. Or are you insinuating that I'm not
really a mazoku? Are you?" she yelled, pulling out the Silence
Glaive again.

"Jeez, Hotaru, calm down. I'm not interested in Nabiki like that.
She's a snake, a viper. She's a backstabber nonpareil and a
master manipulator." I said, trying to defuse the situation.

"Yes." Hotaru agreed, then fixed a withering glare on me. "The
perfect wife for a mazoku!"

I sighed. Obviously, I couldn't win. "Look, Hotaru, I'm not
interested in Nabiki like - get down!" I said, tackling Hotaru
and rolling us both into a ditch. The spot where we had been
standing just a few minutes before was now a crater.

A woman was floating off the ground, a broad sword held in
one hand resting across her shoulder. "Well, well. If it isn't
Xellos's kid."

"Who the hell are you?" I said, brushing myself off.

"I'm Sherra. And you, my young friend, will never become one
of the Lords of the Mazoku." the woman said, materializing a
powerful aura of magic that seemed to suck the heat out of the
ground.

I gulped. This would be ugly.



Ugly, but not unwinnable. Not if I fought smart, and I'm
nothing if not a smart fighter. I grinned, calling up the
confidence I didn't really feel. "Come on, you might be strong,
but do you really think you can take on two of us at once?" She
smirked and arched an eyebrow.

"I've killed more people than you've met in your whole life.
I've killed my fair share of mazoku, too. You two," she said,
indicating us with her sword. "aren't more than a warm up." I
nodded, smiling happily, and mentally signaled Hotaru to follow
my lead. We didn't have a chance unless we ambushed her. Of
course, as we were already confronting her, this would be a
little difficult.

But not impossible.

I darted forward, screaming loudly as I brought my power up. I
pulled forth the magic that was my birthright, and directed into
my hands, preparing a powerful blow. Sherra settled back on
her feet and readied her sword, tendrils of magic wrapped
around it to block my attack. At the last minute, I shifted my
stance, and fired the blast into the ground.

"GO!" I screamed, teleporting away blindly. As I went I yanked
the also-teleporting Hotaru along with me, and came out in a
small clearing. "Again!" I yelled, this time physically dragging
her along. This time we were on top of a bar. Over and over
again we teleported, each time to a different place. Finally, I
stopped, feeling tired. "Good. She can track us. But she wont'
find us."

Hotaru looked at me funny, so I felt the need to explain, power
rushing back into me as we stood on top of the local jail. "She
can follow us. But I hit the same place several times, looping
around. She can't tell which way we went any more, following
our magic like that. Which means it'll be a bit before she finds
us. But before she does, we're putting some distance between
us."

"If we teleport, she's going to just keep tracking us." Hotaru
pointed out in a bored tone.

"We're not going to teleport. We're going to use a powerful
technique - the Saotome Secret technique." I said, smiling.

"And what would that be?"

"We steal those horses and don't use magic."

"Oh.."



"You realize that that woman is going to catch up to us before
long. She won't stay fooled forever, and we can't avoid using
magic forever, too." Hotaru said as we rode, the sun rising to
the east. The horses, which had originally been tan, sleek
creatures, were now foaming and ragged. We had ridden
without regard to their health through the night, and both were
near death.

"No, but she won't have the advantage of suprise. We've been
reducing our magic signature and she's trying to track us. We'll
see her before she sees us, and we aren't out teleporting around
the world like we were. This time, its us who have the initiative.
And we're going to use the Glaive to cut her down to
something more our size."

"That's right, you told me half her power is in that sword."

"Right. When she comes, you're taking that damn thing out of
the fight. After that.... I don't think she's interested in a fight to
the death. At least not her death, anyhow. If we give her
enough of a kick, she'll go away. She wouldn't want to start a
war with the Metallium family, not if she got that banged up
trying to off me." I said, giving my horse a kick with the spurs.
It wanted to slow down, but I wasn't about to let it until I was
as far as I could get from Sherra. At least my confidence was no
longer feigned; I was pretty sure about my assessment of the
situation. We'd beat up Sherra, change Nabs into one of us, get
the sword, and return to Nerima. I figure Nabiki and Gos can
keep the wrecking crew occupied while Hotaru and I go after
the big prize: Jusendo.

Hotaru and I rode in silence for another hour or so, until her
horse tripped and broke its leg. That kind of ended our pleasant
little trip. I let my horse go in the valley, while we headed for
the river. If we were going for speed without magic, it looked
like I'd have to get wet again.



"Have you ever used one of these things before?" Hotaru asked,
looking at the boat we had just lifted. I gave it a once over and
turned to her.

"Nope. How about you?"

"Me neither. Uhh... isn't this supposed to be extremely
dangerous and exciting?" she said, looking at the river. It was a
raging torrent of white, swirling water and big rocks.

"Yes, basically. That's why I figure it should come naturally to
us -"

"HEY!" a big burly guy yelled, cutting us off. It was the
woodsman whose boat we had just stolen, waving a big axe.
Hotaru raised her Glaive to blast him before I yanked it down.

"You wanna bring Sherra on top of us like a ton of bricks?" I
asked sarcastically. "Get in the boat." Hotaru suicidally dove
into the boat, which probably would have broken her arm if she
were human and tried that. I hopped more sanely into the boat.
The woodsman, apparently not noticing or not caring about the
swirling waters of death we were in, ran into the water. "Are
you out of your fucking mind?" I yelled at the guy, He
immediately lost control and was swept along by the current.
"What a moron. I thought only Kuno and Ryouga were dumb
enough to pull stuff like that - OW! What was that for?" I said,
rubbing my head.

"Stop babbling about the idiot and help me!" Hotaru yelled,
having smacked me with the Glaive again. She was using it to
pole off of rocks as we careened wildly down the raging river. I
grabbed an oar and pushed off of any rocks that came near.
Occasionally we'd get wedged against something, but hey, ten
years of martial arts trainging wasn't for nothing. Every time we
got stuck I managed to pry us loose.

"Give me a place to stand and I can move the world!" I crowed,
having moved not the boat but the whole damn boulder this last
time. As we lunged forward again, I looked over the waters.
"Wonder what happened to that guy. Probably dead by now."
Suddenly, the boat spun sickeningly and tilted, nearly dumping
us in the water. Bloodied and soaked, the bedraggled, psychotic
looking woodsman hauled himself out of the water, axe handle
clenched between giant, bucky-beaver like teeth. 'No way could
that guy survive that!' I thought, incredulously.

"Foolish thief! I, Mikhail of Garym, plan on sending you to a
watery grave." Hotaru and I sweatdropped, which was almost
disastrous as we slammed against another rock. Seeing as we
didn't get stuck again, we turned back, to see that Mikhail's
wounds were gone. Instead, he was frothing and snarling.

"Damn, he's crazier than the Kunos! Kick him overboard,
quick!" I yelled, fighting to make myself heard over the roaring
water. As I moved forward, though, a ham-sized fist lashed out
with an axe at inhuman speed. I ducked, missing a bad haircut
by inches. Another swing, again lightning fast, and I was nearly
pitched in the water as the boat lurched again. "Can't we talk
this out? If we fight here, you're going to die even if you win."
And with the boat lurching too much for me to keep balance
while dodging, not to mention me unable to use magic to heal
or else Sherra would come, that was a better bet than I would
have liked. "Perhaps.." I ducked again, the axe whizzing over
my head. With perfect timing Hotaru brought the Glaive down
and sliced through the haft of the axe, sending the head into the
river. Also with perfect timing, I pushed him just as he was
taken off balance by the missing weight of the axe. He fell
down, catching the ropes along the side just before he fell in
"Good move, now... ah..."

"You think that helps you? I haven't even begun to fight." He
spit at me. I can't tell if he hit; partially because there was a lot
more liquid than spittle in the air. But the distinct cracking
sound he made as he bloated up was the main factor. He
seemed to just gain weight, bones and skin sickeningly
rearranging itself, with the side of the boat splintering form the
strain. Fur burst out of his skin - he had been hairy before, but
now he was a monster - and his mouth filled with teeth much
too big for my peace of mind. In a guttural, snarling tone, he
spoke again: "I'd have rather hacked you up with my axe. But..
this'll do just fine." The bear Mikhail the woodsman had
become lunged forward sweeping its two paws forwards,
hoping to rip me in half with his claws. Deciding that I was
going to have to abandon my feet, I jumped straight up as the
boat lurched again. Heedless of my absence the bear continued,
bulling over Hotaru and slamming into her with such force that
she went sprawling.

"AHHHHHHH!!!" she screamed, grabbing ahold of the railing
as she stumbled over the side. She dug in with the Silence
Glaive, and pulled herself over the side. She came face to face
with the berserk bear, which lashed out at her with an oversize
paw. She screamed, having to choose between getting drowned
or having her face torn off. Granted, both would only be
temporary, but Sherra would come by to make it permanent if it
happened...

I fell on the back of the bear, kicking hard into its head and
turning a blow aimed at Hotaru's head into one aimed at the
deck. Which meant we were now taking on water, as the bear
ripped its arm free and a good chunk of the bottom of the boat
with it. It turned to face me, some of the fury spent. It roared,
and charged.

Dodging frantically as the water inexplicably calmed, I wound
my way around the bear, dodging its blows with more ease now
that I didn't have to worry as much about the bobbing boat. Of
course, if a bear and two people decide to have a rumble on a
boat, it's going to rock anyhow, but it wasn't as bad. The bear
roared even louder. Then I noticed it's mouth wasn't open.
That was when I saw the waterfall.

"AHHHHHH!!!!"

"ShrriiiiiEEEEEEEK!

"GROAAAAAAAR!"

The three of us fell, free-falling down the side of this majestic
torrent of clear glacier water. Down below, a nice, sparkling
pool of water was waiting for us. Right now though...

I wrestled the Glaive away from the screaming Hotaru and
kicked off the boat, adjusting my fall in mid-flight. It was a
good thing Hotaru was so terrified that she forgot how to fly;
we'd be in real sorry shape if Sherra showed up now. Grimly I
set the Glaive under my arm, twisting to aim it at the heart of
the bear.

The bear slammed into the water, and I slammed into the bear,
ramming the Glaive through its chest. The woodsman-turned-
bear died instantly. Having your chest torn out does that to you.
Wrenching the Glaive loose from him, I turned and swam
underwater, looking for Hotaru. She had swallowed some
water, I could sense, and would need to find her.

I fished her out. She was out cold and not breathing, which was
normal for a mazoku, but the constant ebb and flow of magic in
ehr body was slowing. She'd die unless I used magic. Unless...

I had always figured I'd do this first as a guy. Though Mikado
stole that from me, I figured the first time I voluntarily kissed
someone I'd be a guy. But there was no question that, unless I
gave her some of my magic to get her jump started, we would
both die when she regenerated.

I took a deep breath and opened Hotaru's mouth. I tried not to
think of her lips; I thought of my own possible imminent death,
which worked wonders in clearing my mind. I wouldn't think
about how luscious the lips were, or how soft her face was.
Nope. Didn't cross my mind.

I breathed a little magic from my throat, just a tiny bit, enough
to get Hotaru's magic working again. That's when she grabbed
my head. Hotaru's eyes opened and locked on mine. I quickly
shook her loose.

"What were you thinking? Can't you swim!" I yelled.

"I was LOOKING for my GLAIVE. Which I see someone has
stolen!" ,she fired back, immediately getting lost in the fight.

"Stolen? What do you mean, stolen? I had to kill the damn
werebear, sionce you were more intent on screaming loud
enough to be heard in Seyruun!" We continued screaming as we
walked away from the river. The dangerous moment on the
shore was fast forgotten. I could rest easy, now.

And I'm back form my long vacation. I'll keep writing this and
the other stories, don't worry! I am most assuredly not dead. I
did, however, have quite an eventful summer. Multiple
disasters, a new computer, a pile of new manga, and the normal
wandering around the nation occupied my time quite fully. And
now, within a day of ending that adventure, I write a chapter of
Ranmazoku. Let's hope that's an omen.

Heh, it gets more interesting, no? One of the chief antagonists
for the next arcs of Ranmazoku puts in her first appearance. If
you don't know who she is, Ranma will be explaining it to
Hotaru soon, so just sit tight. If you do know, hey, more power
to ya. Things will be heating up soon. Ranma's plan is coming
to a head, and people who can actually hurt Ranma and aren't
hotheads who just charge in blindly are moving against him
now.

Also, the whole river scene was basically ad libbed, but it's all
good, I think. Someone was annoying me on Delphi, and
somehow it inspired the fight. A bear on a boat in a river, where
Ranma can't dodge easily or use magic.... heh. Worked well, I
think. How about you?

If Hotaru's character is off here, remember she's just been
turned into a mazoku, is actually strong now and not easily
winded and sickly, is slightly older looking, and has had her
Silver Millenium memories returned. And no, she doesn't look
back with much fondness; Saturn was shunned then too.

Ranmazoku Chapter 8 - The Demon Queen Of Furinkan
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I
own the rights to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of
these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done
only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz
and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon
belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno
who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a
blank)



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on
Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If
he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this.
Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask
when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events,
characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are
rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while
you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that
Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black
magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with
Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then
he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of
hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on
the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Then they went
to the Slayers world and met Lina and Co under false identities.
Read the previous chapters, really, I'm not good at rehashing
stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between
Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.



We had made good time to the north after stealing another pair
of horses. The north of this world is a beautiful place, cold,
desolate, and forbidding. The granite peaks hold the dome of
the sky above their frosty peaks as the pallid sun sets in the
frosty north, its warmth fizzling in an arctic embrace. No
wonder this is the land that heros dread, the hunting grounds of
the Demon King of the North. Beyond it lay only the arctic sea,
and the kingdom of Dynast. Sherra's home.

I wonder if Dynast knows what Sherra is doing. He's too
rational and calculating to risk a war over my little ambition. On
the other hand, Sherra is impetuous and might very well be
planning to become one of the lords of the Mazoku herself. In
which case she's being foolish. There's two positions available;
why risk everything in killing me? Is it because of her old
problems with Xellos? Some kind of revenge against my father?

I wonder how Nabiki is doing. I can't check in on her because
of that damn Sherra. Of course, if she dies and I can't get to
her, she's going to stay dead. I'd like to have some
reinforcements.

Reinforcements...?

Reinforcements!

"Aha!" I said, thumping my fist into my hand. Hotaru was
looking over at me, having already sensed my excitement. "I've
got it. I know how to defeat Sherra - the Saotome Secret
Technique strikes again!" I laughed, then realized something
didn't sound right.

"You can't do a proper villainous cackle." Hotaru noted.

I nodded. "You're right, of course. Now, let me explain what I
have in mind here. Nabiki is in the desert and awaiting death so
I can turn her into my Priest, right?" Hotaru nodded, frowning a
little at the thought of Nabiki. Well, perhaps a little rivalry will
help sharpen those two. "Now, Sherra is looking for two
mazoku. Two. Not three. Now, I feel fairly certain that you can
distract her enough during the battle, since you'd have a clear
field of fire. You drop the power of the Glaive on her head and
let that keep her occupied for a bit, and I'll get Nabiki
transformed. Then we'll gang up on Sherra. The three of us
should be able to cut her down to size."

Hotaru patted her Glaive, smiling sweetly. "I think I can
manage to worry her a bit." She got a far off look in her eyes
that was replaced by a hard glint. "No, that won't be very hard
for me at all."

"Let's go."



The Desert of Destruction was unbearably bright, even to the
superhuman senses of the mazoku that normally could handle
even the most disorienting and painful vistas without
discomfort. The light didn't just play tricks on your mind, it
actively deceived it. The perfect place for an ambush. "Nabiki!"
I yelled, hoping my voice was carrying over the howling wind.

An inhuman figure crawled over a nearby dune. Red, cracked
skin untouched by sweat, burned raw by sun and sand was
covered by rags and bits of cloth, most of it having been ripped
off by its owner in a futile attempt to get cooler. Her eyes were
glazed by the heat and dehydration. "Ryouga... imagine meeting
you here..." A sepulchral hiss escaped her; I realized it was a
laugh, or an attempt at one.

"She's hallucinating." Hotaru said, poking her with the staff.

"'Kane?" Nabiki collapsed, tongue lolling out. "Please...."

"Damn...." I said, looking at her. "How long will she live?" I
hoped soon; Sherra had to be on the way, if she was looking for
us at all. "Well, she'll die in the crossfire, if nothing else."

Hotaru scanned the disorienting horizon, nodding again. "Of
course. We're going to be dropping magic that could flatten
cities out in this wasteland."

I crouched over Nabiki. "Hey, don't worry. You're going to die
soon, and everything will be better then. Except for-"

"-SHERRA!" Hotaru yelled, and blasted her with a Silence
Glaive suprise. Good reflexes on that girl, severed Sherra's arm.
Of course, it regenerated, but hey...

I scooted over and grabbed the sword as the fight between
Hotaru and Sherra intensified. She was being pretty arrogant,
leaving the sword, but she probably thought she could kill
Hotaru without it if I wasn't helping. Trouble was, she was
right.

I took a look at the combat as I crawled back to Nabiki, still not
using any magic and supressing my ki. I didn't want Sherra to
get a whiff of my position. Once I was about ten feet from
Nabiki I watched the fight. [Hotaru! Come around halfway
towards me!] I said, tapping into our mental link. Hotaru didn't
respond, but the next time she teleported she popped up where
I wanted her to. [Stick and fight! When she readies a magical
blast... jump now!]

The beam of energy, one of several Sherra had been carving up
the sand dunes with, neatly bisected Nabiki's head. It wasn a
stronger enemy - not my fault - I kept my end of our bargain.
Hoping I wouldn't spend too long, I dove for her corpse.



"NABIKI!" I screamed, my voice whipping into the howling
mass of shadow that was Nabiki's quickly fading mind. A few
half-coherent tendrils of thought wandered up to me. "Good,
you're not quite gone. Hang on." I hadn't ever done this, hadn't
even read much about the process - all I knew was it was
something as natural to a mazoku as breathing.

Even as Nabiki's mind got blacker, fading into death, I felt her
firming back up again, a new power flooding into her. It was a
power familiar to any mazoku.

Hate.

Fear.

Pain.

Rage.

"'The dark side of the Force they are!'" I grumbled, the line
form the old movie coming back to me. "Thanks, but one old
troll is enough." I took the dark power, the chaotic, angry
thoughts, and started forming her into another wonderful
mazoku.



I turned my attention to the fight as I finished up my part of
transforming Nabiki. The former Ice Queen now had bolts of
black and purple lightning racing across her body, wracking it in
hideous convulsions. At this point, she'd finish her
transformation on her own. Hoatru was taking a pounding now,
as Sherra had finally started to use superior power to take the
upper hand in their slugfest. Sherra was strong, stronger than
either of us, even stronger than both of us - possibly even
stronger than the three of us, whenever Nabiki joined - but
merely being outgunned hadn't fazed me before.

I smiled. There's a lot one can do with skill. Especially if you
happen to be me. I took a fraction of a second to analyze the
fight.

Sherra was pumping out a tremendous amount of energy. If I
thought I could draw her in a spiral I would, but Sherra's style
didn't lend itself to that. She was soundly pounding Hotaru
now, who had transformed out of that silly Amelia getup and
into the "Dark Senshi" uniform she favored for a fight. Hotaru
was leaking energy from at least a dozen cuts. Scratch the
Hiryuu Shoten Ha, it would get her, too. I didn't have access to
emoptions that wouldn't merely heal her if used in a ki blast,
and she would see me coming with any direct physical attack,
even with the heat rising off the sand and playing havoc with
our vision.

The heat...

Time sped up for me again as I burst into a magically enhanced
run. Sherra immediately spied me and kept one eye on me as I
screamed in, rapidly pinwheeling towards the fight. At the last
minute, I dove - not into Sherra, who was ready, but into
Hotaru, pushing her out of the fight - and summoned a magical
heat, powerful and more intense than a blast furnace, for a
second. Cold might be needed in a Hiyruu Shoten Ha, but that
was auras, not weather. The sudden burst of heat caught and
lifted the spinning hot air, along with a lot of sand, and threw us
into the ground.

Down below, Hotaru crashed into a dune and lay panting, using
her healing abilities to recover her strength.

"Let's see how well you fight in the air, hothead." I yelled, my
voice swept away by the wind. In reply, she popped a pair of
wings free. I just smiled. A true master of midair combat didn't
need wings to fight in the sky.

...especially not if he had magic.

With a shout I fired a powerful blast of magic, as fast and
strong as I could make it, straight behind me, sending me
rocketing towards Sherra at dizzying speed. "Shooting Star
Kick!" I screamed, finally back in my element - a furious martial
arts battle. Sherra, unprepared for my burst of speed, got
smashed out of the whirlwind. Angling slightly to change my
own exit vector, I grabbed onto her.

"Hentai!" she screamed. I instinctively let go, and she kneed me
in the stomach. "Hehufff...." she said, as I grabbed her leg and
used it to launch my own punch into her chest. I popped a set of
nasty talons out of my fingertips and grinned savagely.

"KATCHUTENSHINAMAGURIKEN" I screamed hurriedly,
not wanting to give her a chance to counterattack. Though it
was awkward doing it one handed, I quickly turned her chest
into shredded ruin of dark power. "That was for beating up
Hotaru. This," I added, "is for kicking me." I grew a set of
talons on my other hand and dug them in.

"AHHHH!!!" she screamed, then backhanded me with an
intense pulse of power, incidentally ripping up her leg more as I
was ripped off of her. I tucked, rolled, and landed relatively
unharmed.

Sherra ignored me and concentrated on her injuries. "You little
bastard, you're going to pay for this." she whispered. She lit up
with her own battle aura and pulled out a knife. "Die, Ranma!"

I was distracted from the pleasant nostalgic feeling by a shout
from Hotaru. "SILENCE GLAIVE.. SUPRISE!" A thunderous
silence came into effect and blew away, as several acres of
desert suddenly Ceased To Be. Sherra, however, was still
standing, surrounded by black mist that must have been the part
of her body that was blasted off. She looked like some character
in a fantasy anime after a fireball.

"Yuk it up, kid." she growled, and teleported. This time,
without the familiar advantage of midair, Sherra was proving
that a few thousand years of trial and error in fights, not to
mention a ton of power, easily made up for my martial arts
training. She blocked most of my shots and ignored the rest; she
didn't have convenient pressure points to press; she didn't tire,
and in terms of sheer stamina she made Ryouga look like a
ninety pound weakling. Plus, the close in fight we were doing
wasn't really suited to help from Saturn; that Glaive was a little
clumsy and her magical attacks weren't exactly picky about
who they flattened.

All that was negated when a sudden weight threw us both to the
ground and a sharp pointy blade was rammed through Sherra's
chest and about two inches of mine. Sherra turned around and
looked her assailant in the eye.

"Who the hell are you?" she growled, then punched her
assailant off. It was Nabiki, but it was hard to tell that. Her skin
had gone pale as fresh snow, and her hair was a truly disturbing
orange. She also had picked up a few inches in height and a set
of wicked hooked claws. 'Must be her mazoku form' I thought,
grabbing the distracted Sherra before she got back to pounding
me. I held her head tight in a headlock, and extended my power
across the Astral plane, in a complex magical hold to prevent
her from teleporting or changing shape. She stopped moving
physically and lashed out on the Astral plane.

I screamed, my mind on fire, energy ripping away and streaming
into the sky like so much steam. Sherra had stopped being
stupid and fought me on her very best battleground. I felt my
fingers slip loose, my power beginning to break up. There was
no way I could hold off this assault myself.

"DIE!" The scream was Nabiki's, the sword was Sherra's, and
with Sherra so concentrating on destroying me in the Astral,
Nabiki nearly chopped her material form in two. Sherra
screamed and fell to the ground, most of the left side of her
body bursting into eldritch flames. A small lizard touched by
them grew three feet and was suddenly covered in drying blood.
Nabiki stood triumphantly with her sword on her shoulder. I
don't think she realized her gloating pose had been stolen from
Kuno.

Hotaru walked over and kicked Sherra, who we happily
stomped for awhile. She wouldn't be any threat to her.


"I've fulfilled my promise to you, Nabiki. You're immortal.
You've got power beyond your wildest dreams." I said.

Nabiki twitched. She still hadn't gotten the hang of changing
her appearance, and her hair was a bit off. "Yes, and I report to
you." she said flatly.

"Yes, and I report to no one. I don't like being oppressed by
others, and I'm not about to start causing trouble for my own
followers. Now," I said, waving my finger " you can do pretty
much anything you want to. Terrorize the local Yakuza, corrupt
politicians with the promise of magical power, etcetera,
etcetera. All I want is that you also keep me informed of what's
going on in the big wide world and sometimes do a few, small
errands for me."

"Like saving your butt from that demon woman?" she remarked
snidely.

I brushed that off. "That's a one-time thing. I don't expect you
to become a front line fighter. Though you could easily beat up
on the merely human martial artists now. Oh, and we'll need
you to come with us on our nightly tours of Juuban. Need to
keep the Senshi guessing." I sat down and rested my head on
my fist, thinking. "Now, what I'd like you to do now is go back
and get Gos. Have him keep an eye on your sister and her
friends, amke sure they don't get themselves hurt. You go over
to Juuban once you figure out how to perfect changing form
and fill in for us "Dark Senshi" until we return."

"You want me to go around beating up some sentai team in
short skirts?" she asked, suprised.

I slashed my hand to indicate no. "I want you to destroy those
Daimon things and drain their power." Every one she got would
increase my power even more. That was the benefit of having
subservient mazoku under you. It's a kind of multilevel
marketing of evil. "Oh, and beat up the loser in the cape with
the roses. He reminds me too much of Kuno."

"Can I find out their secret identities and sell them to the
highest bidder?" she asked, smiling.

"Go for it." Nabiki got up and stood still, with a look of intense
concentration. Nothing happened. "What are you doing?"

"How do I go home?" she asked. I sighed. A portal of energy
opened and showed the inside of Kasumi's room. Hotaru was
smirking off to the side.

"It's really easy once you know how." she said
condescendingly. Nabiki fumed for a second, then carefully
schooled her features and walked through.

"You do realize you've gotten on her bad side, don't you?" I
said, trying to keep a grin off my face. Hotaru nodded happily.



"So why are you letting her go wander off by herself? It isn't
like she's the most loyal person on Earth." Hotaru said. It's
true. Loyalty is as much a part of Hotaru's being as that Glaive,
and furthermore, I had saved her from being used as a magical
attack dog - feared, powerful, never trusted fully - by the
Senshi. Nabiki was an accomplished backstabber and certainly
owed me no debt of comparable gratitude.

I sat on a rock, taking in the scenery. After beating Sherra
senseless, and after sending Nabiki home, we no longer needed
to hide from magical eyes. So we teleported right to the
mountains where my prize was waiting. It was a view normal
humans don't often see. The mountains, after all, are the home
turf of more mazoku than you can imagine. Fortunately, none of
them seemed to be willing to tangle with a Metallium. "The
answer to that is pretty simple." I said, having finished looking
at the mountains. "I want her to get a taste of power. Once
someone like that gets a little taste of power, they can't possibly
go without tasting it again. It's like a drug; they need a bigger
taste every time."

"So you want Nabiki to go kill a few Daimons and yank the
Senshi's chains... to just get her addicted to power?" Hotaru
said incredulously. "I don't think you needed to go to all that
trouble, Ranma. Personally, I'd have simply picked some other
person."

"She's a backstabber, liar, shameless hustler, and experienced
spy. She doesn't need power for what I'm using her for, and I
didn't give it to her. She's much less powerful than you." I
smirked. "If it weren't for that sword Sherra donated, I don't
think I'd even send her against the Senshi." I got up. "Come on.
It's getting late, and that place I'm looking for is near here."

"What are we looking for? You've never explained that to me."
Hotaru asked as we continued or trip through the mountains.
Navigating the rocky hillsides is far easier when you can fly. We
lazily weaved through the mountains.

"We're looking for that." Cleverly carved into the side of a cliff
- cleverly because it was made so as to be invisible from below -
lay a small fortress. It was well worn and hunched on its hilltop
as if it were deathly afraid of the mazoku who prowled the area.
Not that it should have, for even I had only found it by
following Hellmaster's specific written instructions.

We landed by the rusted, iron door and opened it. Nothing was
moving, and rank, stale air flowed out. It probably hadn't
moved since the War of the Monster's Fall, as the dragons
reckoned it. We walked in - who needs lights when you can see
in the dark - and down the main hall. "Turn left." I said,
remembering Phibrizzo's description. He had never found the
time to go up here, and had no use for the blade - but I did. It
functioned as a black magic lens.

The kind of lens I'd need to drain Jusendo dry.

I came to the door I sought and tried to open it. No luck.
Apparently, it had been locked, as if that were a problem. I
smashed it with a punch, stepped over the debris and lit a torch.
True, it was completely unnecessary, but it fit the mood. Inside
there were scattered coins, a rusted set of armor with a skeleton
inside, and lots of discarded weapons. There was even a statue
of some old knight posing triumphantly with a sword. "Keep
your eyes open. The sword we want should have a distinct
reaction to mazoku." What the reaction was Phibrizzo wasn't
clear on, but it was bound to be noticable. We stepped in the
room and started picking up swords at random.

A loud buzzing filled the room, coming from nowhere in
particular. "What the heck is that?" Hotaru asked, throwing a
broadsword over her shoulder.

"Probably what we're looking for." I answered. I walked over
to the skeleton and pulled out its sword. Nope, no luck. I
moved again and the buzzing increased in strength. Hotaru and
I both froze. We nervously looked around. Then Hotaru
gasped.

"Ranma... look at the statue." The stone sword the statue was
holding was buzzing.

That stone thing couldn't be what I was looking for, could it?

I stepped closer to it. An incredibly loud BRRAAAP sound
came from the stone sword, which then cracked. It shattered at
my next step, showing a mettalic glint through the shower of
exploding stone. .

Someone had hidden it inside the statue. How novel.

"The legendary Bras Blade... mine at last." I said, and took
another step. Now the sword was humming, and a fierce gale
was blowing out from it now that it was uncovered. Coins and
small trinkets rolled away from it, and my pigtail flapped wildly
in the breeze. "Nothing but a little wind! Hah!"

At the next step the wind strengthened and it seemed as if the
air grew thick with power. No, I realized, the air was always
thick with power, little bits of the hate and fear that the mazoku
love as well as other emotions. The sword was just increasing
the power of the dark forces nearby. I leaned forward and
started running to the statue.

The power emanating from the sword picked up fiercely. I dove
and dug into the ground, having formed the talons I had ripped
Sherra with earlier to keep a grip on the ground. The force from
the sword was strong enough that it was beginning to
destabilize me. My mouth lunged out for a second into a wolf's
muzzle before I could get it under control.

I climbed up the statue, dimly aware of Hotaru thrown against
the far wall, cracking it in the force of her impact. I began to
lose cohesion, lose form, as I reached for the sword.

"RANMA! NO!" Hotaru screamed, overcoming the sound of
sword and wind with her panic. "IT'LL KILL YOU! GET
BACK!"

I ignored her, concentrated on the humming slim blade of death.
The hilt had worn away the statue's hand with it's vibrations; it
was almost in my grasp.

I reached out and touched it.



Hotaru screamed. He had been there, and now he wasn't.
Ranma was gone. The sword was gone. What would she do
now?

What could she do?

Well, that's a nice cliffhanger, no? From here on out we're
going to see shifts from first to third person point of view from
time to time, as the world is getting a bit to complex for just
one viewpoint. Besides, Ranma has mysteriously disappeared.
How do you do a first-person without the person?

You like? I'm still on a roll. I have tomorrow off from my
writing duties, though. After all, I have the fourth to celebrate. I
might write if I have the time, but probably not.

If Hotaru's character is off here, remember she's just been
turned into a mazoku, is actually strong now and not easily
winded and sickly, is slightly older looking, and has had her
Silver Millenium memories returned. And no, she doesn't look
back with much fondness; Saturn was shunned then too.

He was gone.

Even the subtle link that every mazoku had to their superiors
had gone silent. As Hotaru sat in shocked silence in the ruins of
the ancient vault, her world shattered.

She was alone again.

A trembling hand reached out for the Silence Glaive.

Ranma, her only friend, had been taken from her. People would
pay.

She didn't much care who.


Ranmazoku Chapter 9a - The World Without Ranma
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I
own the rights to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of
these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done
only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz
and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon
belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno
who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a
blank)



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on
Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If
he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this.
Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask
when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events,
characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are
rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while
you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that
Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black
magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with
Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then
he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of
hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on
the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Then they went
to the Slayers world and met Lina and Co under false identities.
After that they duked it out with Sherra and Ranma vanished
after touching a magic sword. Read the previous chapters,
really, I'm not good at rehashing stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between
Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.



"So Lina, what do you think will happen now?" Amelia asked.
The adventurers - minus Xellos - were gathered at a tavern and
devouring all the food in the place. Lina had been worried, and
they wanted to hear why.

"It's the mazoku." Lina said, after taking a gulp of her wine.
"They've never had such a big shock to their order before. Two
Mazoku Lords dead, plus their subordinates... there are even
rumors of an attack on Sherra."

"Who's Sherra?" Gourry asked.

Lina brushed off Gourry's question. "Oh, just one of Dynast's
lieutenants. And that's just a rumor. But a lot of mazoku are
dead, and there's likely to be a lot of random violence as a
result."

"Why?" Amelia asked. "Shouldn't they be happy they've got
promotions? They're conniving monsters, after all..."

Lina finished off her third cup of wine of the evening and
looked Amelia in the eye. "Just because they're monsters
doesn't mean they don't have friends." She paused. "I
remember hearing tales of what happened when Gaav was
thought dead the first time, a thousand years ago. It was a
month of terror after that. I heard..."



Hotaru phased back to Nerima. Her face, normally beautiful
with a hint of evil, now fairly radiated malignance. Her hands
wrapped tightly around the Silence Glaive. Today was the first
time she had ever used her true mazoku form.

It was a terrifying sight.

Still largely human, the Senshi of Death had gained another foot
in height, until she towered over most of the people in the
street. Her dark "senshi" outfit, already armored and spiked,
unlike the prissy little outfits the hated other senshi wore, was
now ever darker and longer, seeming to drink up the light. Her
hair cascaded down in wild, uncontrolled stream. Lastly there
were the wings - two pairs of black leathery wings, slim and
terrifying.

Hotaru's sudden appearance sent most of the people scattering
for cover. Those who hadn't had fainted.

She breathed crazily, hyperventilating, even though she did not
need to breathe. Perhaps it was just some shadow of past
humanity rising up within. She snapped the Silence Glaive
above her head. "Brass Demons, come to me!" she screamed,
forming a troop of the disgusting creatures. "A wolf, from the
dark mists of Wolf Pack Island." And another shape rose from
the shadows, a large wolf, huge and shaggy. Hotaru jumped on
top of it. "Come! Come!" She rode off towards the house
where her 'father' and his terrible assistants lived. They would
be the first to feel her wrath. She had a special spell in mind for
them.



"Aww, Rei, are you sure it's this way? Ami says that the bad
guys are everywhere." Usagi whined as the Senshi darted
through the streets. She wasn't too happy about having multiple
daimons or whatever burning down different parts of the city,
but ever since seeing those Dark Senshi it was something they
had worried about. Especially after fighting that crazed wolf
thing. Ami's readings said it was related to those Dark Senshi
somehow. If that was their version of a Daimon, she wanted no
part of it.

"Usagi's right." Ami said, looking at her computer and running
blind. "They are everywhere. How can we know that it's the
right spot?"

"Yeah, there hasn't been anything destructive over there yet,
just a lot of-" Whatever Makoto was going to say was
interrupted by a blinding flash of light and then a thunderous
explosion. The Senshi screamed as they were blown over a
parked car and rolled like tumbleweed in the street.

"Does that count?" Rei snarled, coughing. Then she caught a
good look at Ground Zero. "What the hell was that?" Much of
the neighborhood was in a burning ruin. Granted, they had been
fairly close, but still...

Ami put out what fires she could with the Mercury Bubble
Blast, but they were forced to let most of the area burn in order
to deal with the real threat. Let the normal heros, the
firefighters and the police, handle this mess. "I don't really want
to fight someone who throws explosions like that around.
Moon, are you sure your magic is on the fritz?" Ever since that
incident with the fierce wolf thing that attacked the shrine,
Usagi's spells had been throwing lightning and such instead of
her normal Sailor Moon attacks. It was almost like she was
flinging around Makoto's magic instead of her own.

"We've got to fight it. No one else can!" Usagi said. They
penetrated the inner layer of smoke to find...

... one of the Dark Senshi taking on the Witches Five
singlehandedly. And winning.



Nabiki had popped back into existence in her sister's room,
snuck out to meet with Gosunkugi, and terrorized the Spineless
One by threatening to toss him in the Spring of Drowned Kuno,
which currently was being covered in concrete. The fact that
she thought that a dip in the pond would have improved him
notwithstanding, she felt Gosunkugi would do fine for what she
intended. Odd though, that buzzing feeling she got after being
transformed by Ranma was gone. Maybe she was getting used
to this form. Nabiki idly threw a mailbox fifty yards. She'd
really have to thank Ranma for this body; it really was invincible
- she'd even jumped in front of a truck at one point. Maybe she
should beat up Kodachi for kicks. Nahh....

Besides, she had to go see her sister and make sure she knew
she was OK. She had the perfect alibi for what happened to her.
Well, not quite perfect, but close enough.

Just before she entered her house, there was a flash of light. She
looked towards Juuban before realising it wasn't lightning. Her
newfound senses screamed to her that it was magical in nature.
"Odd, I guess those are those lesser magic users Ranma was
telling me about. He's got an odd scale if he think's that's
minor, though." She could see the glow from the fires; she
estimated it at around a city block or so. It would probably
grow before the firefighters put it out.

"Kasumi, I'm home!" she cried out cheerfully. A nauseating
wave of relief flowed out in front of her older sister. No wonder
Ranma acted jumpy around Kasumi. "Hey, hey..." Kasumi
grabbed her and instantly got a more serious expression.

"What happened? I thought he took you! Where did he take
you? How did you get back? Are you alright?" she asked,
rapidly. Nabiki held out her hands to stop her, then gently
pushed her back. Her sister had asked her a question...

'1000 yen, please." Seeing Kasumi facefault brought a smile to
her face. "Alright, this time for free. I don't know where he
brought me-" True "- I just struck out in a random direction
like Ryouga would - " Utter rot "- and I've never been better."
Which was more true than Kasumi would ever think. Nabiki
exulted in power and control, and she had more over her own
life than she ever did before.

Except that Ranma was her boss.

Ah, well, how much use could Saotome need of a manipulator
like her anyway? She was still mostly her own boss, and
immortality made up for a few odd assignments.



Hotaru dropped the body of Kaolinite, which rapidly turned into
dust and wafted away on the gusts of the growing firestorm.
She looked over her shoulder, giving the Senshi a murderous
glare. A shaky smile spread across her face.

"More meat." She looked at where Mimette was trying to crawl
away and hide. "Oh no... you're not getting away that easy."
She teleported over and rammed the Silence Glaive through the
Witch, spearing her to the ground like a bug on display.
Holding onto the Glaive with one hand, and sending bolts of
magical electricity into her captive. Mimette jerked as she was
fried, Hotaru's power greatly increased beyond anything the
Witches could match by pure rage. Then Hotaru stopped the
assault, and she looked death in the face. It was not a pretty
sight.

Hotaru was standing over her, holding a chunk of concrete in
one hand and smiling. The Senshi, who had momentarily jolted
out of their shock and began to prepare for a battle of their
own, were immediately distracted by the awesomely gruesome
sight of one of their enemies bludgeoning one of the Witches to
death.

Sailor Venus quietly wished that the Senshi's outfits didn't
prevent nausea. She was feeling rather sick right now, and
throwing up would distract her from... that... eww! Minako
grabbed Rei and Makoto and pulled them back. "I don't feel so
good. Could we beat on those things setting fires first?" The
other Senshi gave each other a few quick looks and decided that
this fight could wait. Makoto and Minako grabbed Usagi and
dragged her away before she could draw attention to them.
Obviously they had intruded upon a private quarrel. Yeah, that
was it...

The battered form of Mimette faded and vanished, having finally
exceeded the limits of the abuse it could take. Hotaru dropped
the stained chunk of rubble and looked after the fleeing Senshi.
"Hah, don't worry. Your turn in the ring will come soon
enough." The image of a panda appeared in her head. "I've got
to avenge the present before I deal with the past, is all." With
that, Hotaru walked through the burning rubble, the wolf she
had summoned walking jauntily by her side. She strolled down
the street, casually moving towards Nerima, twirling the Silence
Glaive like a baton.



The insane level of destruction, glow from the burning
buildings, and general miasma of oppressiveness rolling out of
Juuban clued the Wrecking Crew to the violence erupting
across town. Faint sounds of people screaming and sirens
blaring could be heard.

The deafening blast of a giant explosion woke even Genma up
and alerted him to the ongoing battle.

Cologne sighed and turned on NHK. Disasters attracted
reporters like a corpse attracts flies, and this was no different.
Ugly humanoid demons were tossing squad cars around, looting
stores, and setting fires. The police and fire departments were
trying to stop the invaders and the out of control inferno from
gutting Juuban. Occasionally footage of Senshi blasting the
creatures would arise. "All right, people, stop it."

Immediately the arguments, eating, drinking, and fighting that
had been going on between the group ceased. Cologne sighed.
It was so hard to keep them focused. Herb had left and fetched
the Kaisfuu in the two days respite they had enjoyed, which had
taken the tension level down. With the Dragon Prince of the
Musk just arrived off the bullet train, the group had taken to
fighting again. It seemed that the unstable mix of violent
personalities was an unsolvable mess.

"Hibachan, we go, find Ai - Shampoo mean Ranma and
banish?" her great-granddaughter asked from where she was
firmly wedged between Ryouga and Lime. Keeping her there
reduced the chances of the two strongmen getting in a fight.. as
well as keeping Mousse away.

"We don't even know if this is him, child." Cologne rasped.

"It is the duty of a martial artist to defeat monsters." Soun
pronounced pompously. Genma nodded, his face in his own
pose of righteousness.

"Fine. Go ahead, get yourselves killed." Privately Cologne still
wondered what they were really thinking. The thought
processes of known morons were so hard to fathom. Near as
she could tell, the two seemed to think Ranma was possessed.
Fine, let them have their delusions. Fortunately, they were
cowards. If she didn't go, neither would they. "I only have the
one scroll to banish a mazoku. I'm not going to waste it on
some punk demons." A phone rang.

Mousse quickly pulled a cellphone out of his sleeve. "Hello, this
is the- Oh. Hi, Kasumi." The room turned to look at Mousse
expectantly. "She's what? Back- Hey! you old mummy, that's
my Nokia!"

"I paid for it, Mr. Part. Time!" Cologne said, covering the
phone with her hand. She then talked to Kasumi herself. "Hello,
child. Who's back? Nabiki?" Nabiki had been kidnapped by
Ranma - for what purpose, ancestors alone knew. "How is
she?"

"She's perfectly healthy." Kasumi said. The faint sounds of
crashing could be heard through the phone. "She's just
redecorating a little."

Cologne sighed. Kasumi's oddly oblivious personality never
ceased to amaze her. "Child, your sister was taken away from
home by a demon. She vanished for several days, then returns
and starts remodeling her room. Did she even tell you what
happened, or did you just assume Ranma took her to the
movies?"

"Oh, no, she said Ranma left after leaving her in a desert and
just walked off." Cologne blinked. What could Ranma possibly
gain from that? Unless...

"Child, is she sunburned?"

"Oh my, Cologne-san, I would have remembered if my own
sister was sunburned." A second passed. "We're fresh out of
aloe."

"So she isn't sunburned?"

"No, of course not." Cologne nodded. Nabiki was easy to
manipulate - she had an inflated opinion of her own
deviousness. The little things tended to be her undoing, as in
this case. "So you're out of aloe? I'll be right over."

"Oh, thank you." Cologne hung up. Now what should she do?
The idea of a powered up Nabiki was mildly disturbing. Any
mazoku could rip their way through a horde of lesser fighters.
A decently powered one, like Ranma, could crush this band of
martial artists like a fly if they were motivated enough. She
shuddered as she remembered how Herb and his two stooges
were taken out. That quickly made up her mind. Nabiki was
going to be a pain, to be sure, but Ranma could make their lives
very interesting. "We're going to wait."



Outside the restaurant, Hotaru stopped. She paused, about to
knock, then thought better of it. She walked around to the back
of the restaurant and phased through the wall. She figured if she
could teleport and go Astral, phasing couldn't be too hard. She
emerged in a storage room. She made a little hole with the tip
of the Glaive in the wall, and looked in the room. The old fat
fool, the old thin fool, the Chinese bimbo, the violent bimbo,
and that girl Ranma considered a friend. Then the ryuuzoku -
her blood boiled just looking at him - and two friends with odd
features. Then the old woman.

She smiled.

She wondered if their health insurance was paid up.



The back wall of the dining room exploded out as a girl in a
leather outfit walked through it. Her footsteps set the carpet on
fire, setting a blazing trail behind her. She was holding a solid
iron staff with a wicked set of blades at the end. There was a
beatific smile on her face.

"Nice entrance." Cologne said, remaining outwardly calm.
Inside, she shuddered. She imagined kamikazes had that smile,
just before their deaths. "Who are you, and what are you doing
here?" If she wasn't another mazoku, Cologne would let Akane
cook for the Nekohanten. Three in one week, after one in three
thousand years...

"I'm Hotaru. As for what I'm doing here," Hotaru said, still
smiling serenely, "I think you're going to be Suprised."



The front of Cologne's restaurant exploded, sending the Nerima
Wrecking Crew flying across the street. Cologne got up and
coughed. This was not going to be good. This 'Hotaru' started
the fight by teleporting - Cologne figured that no one, not even
a mazoku, could move fast enough for her to miss seeing it -
and slamming the butt end of her glaive into Ryouga's chest.
Hard. That was why Ryouga was extricating himself from the
storefront behind Cologne instead of merely being blasted into
the street. The other fighters, Cologne included, had struck
quickly at the girl, she herself using a nine-pressure point attack
that would kill a person instantly. She had simply ignored those
hits and had kicked Mousse in the crotch hard enough that he
was lifted off the floor two feet. Apparently Herb was made out
of sterner stuff than most men, bcause while the other males
clutched their privates and winced in sympathy, Herb had
blasted her with some sort of multiple ki-blast attack. The
mazoku's counterattack was why they were currently in the
street: a solid black fireball.

Cologne mentally reviewed her options. Using her superior skill
in physical combat wasn't an option. She could fight rings
around this mazoku in hand to hand. The problem was, it was
completely useless in this case. The pressure points and precise,
deadly strikes to the vital regions were useless against a being
that had neither. Even if she had all the strength of her younger
days, she didn't think it would help. Special techniques might
work. On the other hand, given the magical senses she had
heard the mazoku possessed, the Splitting Cat's Hairs wouldn't
work. The Hiryuu Shoten Ha was out, because Ranma might
have informed this mazoku of it and she wasn't radiating any
cold ki - or any ki, for that matter - to use against her. Of more
esoteric techniques, few were likely to be of any use - and the
rest would be quite limited. Using the scroll seemed to be the
only option. They'd have to figure out a way to deal with
Ranma later.

Having analyzed her options in a mere second, Cologne rushed
forward. Beside her, Lime and that old fat fool Genma were
flying forwards as well, being the first to recover. "Kijin Raishu
Dan!" the elder Saotome yelled, snapping his arms back
suddenly, creating two slicing vacuum blades that flew towards
Hotaru.

'Interesting trick. I wonder what other moves he has hidden up
his sleeves?' she wondered. She hadn't expected such a
powerful move from the elder Saotome. Judging from the
hairline cut it gave the mazoku, it wasn't expecting it, either.
Then the cut healed - almost instantly. Cologne gulped. So it
was not only nigh invulnerable to attack, but regenerated?
"Ancestors save me." she sighed, as she dodged at the last
minute and flicked her staff into the ground under the mazoku.
"Bakusai Tenketsu!"



Hotaru was lifted off the ground and thrown bodily through the
air. Instead of just being carried by the explosion, however, she
flew with it, rising into the air and gaining the height advantage
over her non-flying adversaries. Below, she saw that guy with
the tiger stripes hit the old lady instead of her. He had already
commited himself to the attack without knowing what the
others would do. That meant they were obviously inexperienced
in fighting together. She stuck the Glaive into subspace,
wanting to beat a few people up without its use. She wanted to
take a few of these people apart by hand. A pair of blasts to the
back got her attention.

One of the fighters had also flown up. Interesting. Of course, it
was that halfbreed ryuuzoku Herb. She sneered. "You should
stay out of someone else's fight. You want to beat up Ranma,
beat up Ranma." She was planning on killing him for Ranma
anyhow, now that Ranma was missing, but she wanted to be
able to beat on the other fools in peace.

"I won't leave. Anytime there is a mazoku fighting, there I must
be to oppose them." he said, taking a stance.

"Do you have any idea of just how far outclassed you are?"
Hotaru asked. "No? Allow me to demonstrate the Saturn Star-
Fist school of martial arts," Hotaru said, decades of training in
the Silver Millenium being one of the wonderful things that had
been in her restored memories. Blurring, she shot forward
through the air, fist and body moving swiftly in a lightning-fast,
powerful punch. It was a move designed for maximum power
and speed. Herb jerked out of the way and landed another ki-
blast on her side. Hotaru's leg whipped out and slammed into
his ribs though, the follow up attack designed to hit if the first
strike missed. Herb was launched into a light pole.

Diving at full speed, Hotaru slammed into Herb and through the
lightpole. She grabbed onto his arm and shoulder and yanked,
popping it out of his socket with her monstrous strength. She
kicked him in the head as hard as she could, sending him into
dreamland, just before she was kicked through the front of a
noodle shop.



Nabiki looked at her newly 'redecorated' room. She had torn
apart all the exercise equipment she didn't need any more,
thrown it in a big pile in the center of the room, and melted it by
putting her hand on it and willing it to get very, very hot. The
resulting mess of metal and plastic, along with the lingering
smell in the air, would have to be cleaned up eventually, but
she, Nabiki, would no longer have to do those boring excercises
to keep her perfect body. Also, she dragged some stuff up from
the dojo - mostly left behind weapons from Mousse - and threw
her sword in the mix, figuring it wouldn't look too conspicuous
there. She left a book on appraising martial arts weapons next
to the stack as further camouflage. "Perfect." She then waled
downstairs. "Kasumi! I'm going out for a little while! I'll be
back for dinner!"

She ran out, in the general direction of Juuban. She'd follow
those girls around, and discover their secret identities. She
didn't have to worry about the fires, right?



Hotaru pulled herself out of the vat of noodles and glared at the
tiger-striped boy who had kicked her. The glare turned onto a
smile. Hotaru leapt forward and held out her hand. Five long
talons appeared where her hands had been, aimed at his face.
He dodged and threw up his hands, trying to swat her away, but
the mazoku simply melted through his strikes. Her hands passed
through his skin, somehow not tearing them - until she tore
them out.

Lime screamed in pain, with five terrible wounds in his face.
Hotaru brought her boot down, magically enhancing it so even
this human tank could feel it, and stomped repeatedly on his
chest. Her foot lashed out again, this time in a kick, and two
cracks could be heard, one from Lime's ribs, another from
Hotaru's foot passing the sound barrier. She picked up the
screaming Musk warrior and tossed him outside. There, the two
old fools were trying to sneak away, and Cologne was reading
from a scroll. A tense, magical power was building up, and the
remaining four fighters werein front of Cologne, guarding her.
"You think that will stop me? Your lives are mine to take or
spare. Ranma was a friend of mine. You didn't spare him, so
I'm not going to spare you." She simply teleported again, this
time behind Cologne. The bloody claws flashed out, reducing
Cologne's scroll to rubble. Cologne turned around, a look of
dread on her face. Hotaru walked forward, a look of maniac
glee on her face. "That's why people who use real magic
memorize their spells, old woman. They don't read them off of
scrolls that can be burned, torn, or stolen. Here, I'll show you
some real magic. She snapped her fingers, bringing in a few
more Brass Demons. "See? Fast, easy - effective. Have fun!"
Hotaru said, running off in the direction of Genma. 'She
stopped for a minute and turned back. "And, oh yeah, don't kill
them. They aren't ready for that yet." She then jumped up and
flew off, looking for old fat fools or rogue pandas.

Cologne turned to the others. "Get in the store. Lesser demons
I can handle." However, before they could move, a group of
figures burst out from a side street.

"Hold, demons!" a blonde girl in a funny hairdo announced.
"For destroying establishments of eating, places where youung
gilrs can go on dates with their friends, is a crime that can never
be forgiven!" Both Cologne and her allies and the demons
stared at her for a few seconds. Then the fight picked up again.



Nabiki jumped from rooftop to rooftop, giddy in her newfound
powers. She ran over to the Nekohanten, with listening devices
aplenty. Usually she was only able to get people to drop her
mikes in the eating area. Now she could put them on the second
floor windows. She was distracted by some noise off to the
side. "Hey! It's them!" The Sailor Senshi had apparently made a
detour to Nerima. Strange, they usually weren't outside of
Juuban. Then again, there were those demon things, and they
generally weren't found outside of Juuban, either. She noticed
Cologne and the others. So the demons were attacking some of
her customers. Well, well. That just wouldn't do. Nabiki
remembered the crazy outfit that Hotaru had. It was a variation
of the Senshi's outfits, and those seemed to block recognition
by other people. Nabiki concentrated for a second, willing her
clothes to change from her normal clothes into something a
little more durable and only slightly less decent. She was just
about to jump down when she remembered something else. "Oh
yeah, my sword." she said, smacking herself in the face.

Nabiki quickly teleported back with the sword, and took a few
practice swings. "Those idiots can make speeches and be forced
to dodge. A quick suprise attack is more my style." Nabiki
stepped back, then ran to the edge and jumped off.
"KIIIYAAAAAAAAAH!" she yelled, doing her best imitation
of a battle-cry.

All combat stopped at the yell/scream coming from the roof. A
girl in a leather fuku landed near Cologne, a broadsword
slashing the nearby demon in two. It exploded into harmless
black mist.The Senshi were the quickest to react to this newest
threat.

"Another one!" Mars yelled, pointing.

"Jupiter Thunder Crash!" Jupiter immediately said, follwing it
up. The lightning blasted out, stinging Nabiki's hand.

"Oww! Damn! What the hell was that for?" she yelled,
switching hands on the sword so she could shake her right hand
and get some feeling back in it. "I just killed that damn thing -
UFF!" One of the remaining three Brass Demons had swatted
her with a telephone pole, sending her throught the wall of the
much abused noodle shop.

"KIIIIYAAAH!" Ryouga yelled, having finally regained his
breath from having his ribs cracked by the first Dark Senshi. His
heavy umbrella screamed through the air at high speed, but was
stopped with a mighty CRACK as the demon blocked with its
phone pole. Grunting, Ryouga leaned forward and pushed
down, a slow ripping sound rising over the rest of the fight as
he broke the pole

Mousse had chucked maybe a hundred pounds of ironmongery
and a few hundred yards of rope and chain around one of the
demons shortly after Nabiki's unexpected entrance had frozen
everyone - except the one man who couldn't see it. Cologne
wasted no time in stamping eight characters on the demon with
the speed of the 'Chestnut Fist'. It too vanished into thin black
smoke.

The Senshi ganged up on the last one, driving it back with a
barrage of magic. Jupiter powered up to deliver her second
blow to the reeling demon when a hand tapped her on the
shoulder. "Huh?" she said, half turning instinctively.

Nabiki smiled and rammed her sword into Makoto's stomach.
"Payback's a bitch." She pulled it loose and teleported away
before the Senshi could blast her. She reappeared by Ryouga
and slammed the flat of her blade against his opponent's head.
It dropped to the ground, where Ryouga soon beat it to
unrecognizeable paste. Nabiki looked back to the scouts, noting
that they were ready to shoot at her again. She waved, then
vanished.

On a rooftop not to far away, Nabiki sighed. "So much for my
secret. Not that I expected it to last that long anyhow... but I
was hoping to be able to shift all the blame for my
transformation on Ranma. Now.. where's that Hotaru?" She
looked around, deciding to run in the direction of the greatest
carnage.



Hotaru herself, however, was not causing the destruction. She
was following two panicky fathers. One, really, but the two
were old friends and partners in cowardice. She enjoyed the fear
they radiated most intensely. In fact, she was making a game of
this. She simply walked behind them - never varying speed,
never attacking. Just walking calmly and silently. Oh, she had
muted all the sound around her, but that was just to set the
correct mood. And if they got too far away in their running, she
simply waited for them to stop, and then she'd teleport nearby
and pop out where they least expected.

It was far more fun than simply physically torturing them.

They were currently in a bathouse abandoned because of the
nearby fight against the demons. That didn't stop her from
being suprised by a looter, though. A most unusual, small,
shriveled looter swiping the underwear left by the fleeing
bathers. He turned and saw the approaching Senshi of Death
and, ignoring every possible danger sign, fixed his eyes on her
leather-bound bustline. "SWEETO!"

The deadly little smile vanished, to be replaced by shock. Her
hand shot out, but the little shriveled pervert deftly dodged it,
still nuzzling her breasts. Hotaru growled. The only person
she'd let try that was Ranma. The little smile returned, though,
as her skin changed textures. Before it was silky and soft. Now,
it was stickier than superglue. Her hand grabbed the pervert
now stuck to her. "Just FRY!" she growled through clenched
teeth. Intense surges of black power blasted Happousai off her
now sticky surface. She willed it back to its previous satin
smoothness, then she reached into subspace for her discarded
Silence Glaive. Picking up the little pervert by wedging his head
between the two blades, she shoveled his blackened body out a
window.

She grumbled and ripped the door off the storage closet the two
idiots were hiding in with her free hand. The damn little pervert
had used the last of her patience and taken the fun out of her
quest. She had really wanted to see if she could kill the fat
bastard from sheer stress, too.

She looked arouynd, noted that Tendo was under an upside
down garbage can and, while theoretically invisible, the magical
signature of a Jusenkyo curse was present in the middle of the
room. She grabbed the man under the can and held him five
inches off the floor with her left hand. "Leave. Now. Or die."
she said, not even looking at him. Her eyes were fixed on the
spot where Genma was. It started to move, realizing he wasn't
as undetectable as he thought, but the point of the Glaive
dipped, barring his escape. Still not looking at the shaking,
bawling man she held, she threw him out the door.

Hotaru's fingers snapped. The door slammed shut behind her,
and a magical field popped up, masking the wall in shadows and
preventing interference. "Now... you're mine." she said, now
holding the Glaive at Genma's throat.



Cologne quickly assembled the other fighters, many of whom
were still clutching their sides or limbs which had been
brutalized in the last round with the mazoku.

"Damn it!" Ryouga snarled. "That girl hit harder than Ranma
could!" He punched a wall, which promptly collapsed.

Cologne turned to him. "Shut up, you fool. What she has
demonstrated is only a small fraction of her master's true
power."

"Her master?" Ryouga said, lowering his fist.

"Her master." Cologne repeated. "Ranma Saotome." The others
gasped.

"She's Ranma's SERVANT?" Mousse wailed.

"But Ranma wasn't nearly that strong!" Herb protested.
Cologne waved them down.

"Maybe not, but that makes time of the essence. If Ranma is
getting stronger, we need to find and beat him as fast as
possible. Take care of him and these other mazoku will be far
weaker." she said, willing her voice to remain level and strong.
In truth, she was more frightened now than she was in the fight.
She had expected Ranma to be the one causing the destruction,
not some servant. And if his servant was so strong... how was
she going to fight him now? "Herb, come with me. We need to
talk."



Genma screamed. This had been going on for quite a while, but
it impressed Hotaru how he could continue even after she had
cut open several botles of Clorox. The fumes should cause any
normal human to hack out their lungs. She reviewed her
handiwork.

Several fingers had been removed - slowly - and his face was a
mess of shallow cuts. Disgusting lumps disfigured his body
where she had phased through his skin to cut through the
muscles and tendons below. She had been very careful not to
damage his skin too much. She had plans for a panda-skin rug,
after all. And she had done some nice work with a torn
extension cord, as well.

Pouring some of the Clorox up his nose was her personal stroke
of genius, she thought.

"It's too bad I don't have a nice pit of cats to keep you in for a
few days." Hotaru cooed. She figured he was too far gone to
hear her, but it wasn't like that was going to stop her from
gloating. She rolled him over and kicked him into the wall.
Several shelves collapsed, dumping more random chemicals
onto the floor and making the air even more toxic. A spare
water cooler tank smashed over Genma, turning him into an
ugly fat panda again. "Ah, so it ends now!" she said, a little
excited and a little sad. She had decided that she'd keep him
alive until something or someone else turned him into a panda.
A little game of hers.

The Glaive came down, and started its grisly work.



Hotaru walked back towards the Nekohanten. She had others
to exact revenge for, after all, as a tribute to her one true friend,
now stolen from her. She shifted the still bloody panda skin
bundled up on her shoulder.

Five sailor suited warriors of love and justice appeared, ready to
smite evil and make the world safe for teenage girls everywhere.

Hotaru waved at them. "Ladies, I don't really feel like fighting
you tonight. So, why don't you go home and I'll call of my
demons and we'll call it a night."

The Senshi stopped and stared at each other. An enemy was
negotiating with them? And not as blackmail, but an apparently
honest deal? Moon held up a hand. "Um... we need to think
about this. Time out!" she said, forming her arms into a T.

Hotaru blinked for a second, then sighed in resignation. She
leaned against the lightpole and tapped her foot against the
ground, waiting for them to reach the only realistic conclusion.
She looked at the huddling Senshi with extreme boredom. They
have maybe a brain and a half among five of them trying to
reach a decision only half a brain was needed to reach. Why was
it taking them three times to reach it, then?

Moon and the other Senshi broke their huddle, and Sailor Moon
took a step forward. "We've decided to OOF!" she managed to
say, before Jupiter elbowed her in the ribs and leapt forward,
pointing over Hotaru's shoulder.

"It's the guy who saved me!" she said excitedly. Hotaru turned
absentmindedly before her eyes opened wider than a dinner
plate.

"RANMA!" she said, giving him a flying glomp that suprised all
of the Senshi. Ranma staggered before hugging her back.

"Yeah, I'm back." he said, smiling. "I see you've met Genma."
he said, eyeing the panda fur on her shoulder with a more
neutral eye.

"Damn it!" Makoto grumbled. "Why are all the real guys either
brainwashed by the bad guys or ARE the bad guys?"



Makoto was healed by Moon while Genma was being tortured.

Yes, yes, I'm back. But I don't plan on writing too much right
now.

Ranmazoku Chapter 9b - The Nightmare Of The Future
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I
own the rights to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of
these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done
only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz
and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon
belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno
who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a
blank) Appleseed is the property of Masamune Shirow.



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on
Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If
he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this.
Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask
when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events,
characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are
rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while
you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that
Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black
magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with
Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then
he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of
hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on
the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Then they went
to the Slayers world and met Lina and Co under false identities.
After that they duked it out with Sherra and Ranma vanished
after touching a magic sword. Hotaru smacked around the
Senshi and now Ranma's back. Read the previous chapters,
really, I'm not good at rehashing stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between
Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.



Ranma groaned and grabbed his head. The last thing he
remembered was summoning every last bit of willpower he had
to grab the sword the statue had. He looked around. The sword
was nowhere to be seen. He sighed.

Had all his planning come to this?

What or where was 'this', anyhow. Ranma looked around, this
time studying his surroundings instead of searching for his
blade. Inky black surrounded him, embraced him, lost him in its
infinite depths. He looked up, down, to the sides.

No differences.

Am I dead? he asked. But his voice was stilled in the black. He
tried again. Not a word issued into the darkness. It was like he
spoke, but it didn't matter. Hotaru! Can you hear me? Are you
here? he yelled, as loud as he could. Still silence. He tried to do
some kata, but all he could do was flail around and drift.
Nothing gave him any sense of up or down, back or front. No
surface under his feet to give him a solid stance, no air to rush
by him in his aerial forms. It was a void of nothingness so
complete that it was more than merely substantial.

Ranma drifted through the void. If he could do it all again, well,
he'd just steal the Sword of Light rather than be pitched into
this oblivion, but he'd still be after the prize of power. He had
too many enemies to bury, too many hurts to let life get the last
laugh. Newfound anger rose within him, stirring his willpower
and sheer confidence. Even this formless void cannot hold
Ranma Saotome! After all, Ranma Saotome always wins in the
end. Ranma grunted, exerting his will

Escape, escape!

Escape.

C'mon, damnit, escape!

Ranma slumped. He wouldn't get out that way. He yelled in
frustration, again with the words muted by the infinite darkness.
That's when he was struck by a large beach in the back.



Ranma raised his head up, shaking sand from his hair. He was
half embedded in the sand from the waist down, in a giant sand
crater. He dug himself out and climbed out of the pit. He was
quite impressed; he had made plenty of impact craters in Nerima
and this was a real winner, fifteen feet deep and thirty across.
He wondered how fast he must have been 'drifting' in the void.

The sky still held that formless darkness, which could be a
hundred feet away or a hundred miles and no one could ever
tell. It was still the void,with not a breath of air, as sand drifted
straight down, without the gentle drifting it normally had.
Ranma looked around the sandy beach, noting an area of
vegetation. He walked off across the sand, deciding that if there
was anything to see, it would be there.



There was a woman by a house next to a pond at the center of a
garden. She had golden hair that fell in cataracts past her
shoulders, but if you squinted and looked at it funny, it spun
dizzyingly in waves and whorls like a thousand brawling
tornadoes. She sat by the pond and stared at it, not moving, just
as the pond stared back, also not moving.

Despite there not being a speck of light in the sky, a wan light
illuminated the garden and the house, the woman and the pond.

Ranma stepped forward, suddenly cognizant of the fact that
whatever dread silence that permeated every part of the land -
including himself- had been revoked. An owl hooted
somewhere, and a strand of hair from the golden haired woman
moved lazily, as if caught by a stray breeze.

Next to Ranma, a leaf dropped like a lead brick, without
fluttering. There was still no air. Then how did he hear the owl?
He began to say hello, but something stopped him. It was this
uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. It said the woman was
dreadfully dangerous. It said she was completely harmless.

Ranma would have been fine with either feeling. It was having
both that disturbed him.

"Welcome. I've been expecting you." the woman said, still not
turning, still looking into the pond. Apart from that single stray
strand not a muscle moved.

"Er... I'm Ranma Metallium.. ah.. nice to meet... you.." Ranma
said, awkwardly, trying to remember the few bits of politeness
he had picked up in Nerima. Most of the politeness involved not
braining perverts and idiots, which wasn't of much help.. but
some useful things remained. He waited for a while, hoping
she'd say something else.

Silence reigned once again.

After a minute, Ranma coughed and asked. "Ah... how did you
know I was coming?" The woman shifted her head a little, then
turned around to face Ranma. Golden hair framed alabaster
skin. Deep golden eyes, froze Ranma to the core.

"I knew - because I brought you here. And I knew - simply
because I know everything." She turned back to the pond.

"You're L-sama!" Ranma said, the spell passing once those
unearthly eyes left him. The woman's lips curled slightly.

"Of course. And you are quite the ambitious young mazoku. I
haven't seen your kind in thousands of years. Everyone is so
satisfied with the status quo. Everyone is so satisfied with
order, even those sworn to undermine it. Witness Xellos.
Witness Gaav. Witness even Phibrizzo, who sought to destroy
everything rather than destabilize it. Laziness and the slow
numbing of time take away their edge, take away their fire. The
mazoku have lost their fear of the dragons. None fear the fire in
their breaths because they have no fire in their souls. And that is
what is truly important." L-sama paused, picking up a small
stone by the pond. She glanced back at Ranma. "Already you
have changed more in the month you have knwon your heritage
than the mazoku have collectively changed in a thousand years.
Witness the future of your world." She threw the pebble in,
ripples flying away impossibly fast, leaving a reflection of the
future in the pond, instead of a reflection of the formless void.

Ranma then realized where he was. He was in the very Sea of
Chaos itself. He was not just talking to L-sama, he was within
her mind itself. He shivered a little and looked in the pool,
which had not stopped reflecting the darkness above, but
merely put it in a form he could understand. That was why L-
sama studied her pond eternally. Slowly a vision fo Tokyo
Harbor took form.

Crystal towers rose above the harbor, bridges seemingly made
of smoke and glass crossed the harbor; it was impossibly dense
and built up. Enormous billboards dominated the view; neon
lights scintillated between the crystal skyscrapers. "Is this..
Crystal Tokyo?" Ranma asked, uncertain. "I thought the Senshi
wanted to rebuild their ancient kingdom."

L-sama smiled again. "That is indeed what they wished to do.
You have made that impossible. Consider what you have done.
Pluto is powerless, Saturn defected, Moon altered beyond
repair. Their three most powerful members neutralized- at least
as far as Crystal Tokyo goes. This, then, is Crystal Tokyo as
itshall be now: a city of clones, cyborgs, and bioroids, where,
bereft of magic, the Senshi make do with ingenuity and
technology.

The view shifted, showing the inside of an enormous crystal
dome. The Senshi were assembled, and the arrangement was
telling. Standing at the sides of NeoQueen Serenity were Sailor
Mercury and the magic-lacking but obviously technologically
enhanced Pluto, looking down at the other Senshi, who were
seated not in front of a throne in a hall but around a conference
table in a meeting room.

"What the hell? They're cyborgs!" Ranma exclaimed, looking at
Mercury and Pluto.

"Indeed. Forced to lean ever more and more on their sole
member with brains, this is the path the Senshi will go down.
The Mercury Computer is directly wired to her nervous system
- needless to say, a formidable adversary. Pluto is likewise
enhanced, as you can see, though far less obviously - and far
less extensively. The others are genetically engineered clones of
the originals."

"Clones? What?"

"You killed the originals - or Saturn did, or one of your other
allies. Oh, it hardly matters who killed them. Die they will, since
they are the edge of the sword, and take all the damage. But
engineered to be tougher, to use more magic and faster - they'll
give you a run for your money." L-sama said, then wavved her
hand. The pond returned to blackness.

"Why did you show me this?" Ranma asked, still confused.

"Because I wanted to reward you for giving me something new
to look at, instead of 'same old, same old'." She waved again,
stopping him from replying. "I'm not making you one of the
Mazoku Lords. You get to do that on your own. No, I was
giving you a little foreknowledge of the future for your own
benefit. I know of your plans for the world, and I know of the
Senshi's plans for it - and I approve more of the former than the
latter. These Senshi are more heavy handed than they would
have been otherwise, but" she shrugged, "they do not control
the world, either. They just want to." The owl swooped down,
landing on her finger. " I dislike visitors, and you shoudl not
tarry overlong her besides. You have things to do in your
world. Kind bird, return him to his world."

"Wait!" Ranma exploded. "Where's my sword?"

L-sama pointed at his waist. He looked down and saw the blade
hanging by his side as if it were meant to be there. "It is where it
should be - with you. Now go!" The owl leapt off, turning into
a dark shadow and dragging him into the void, where it blended
in perfectly and the sensation of movement, of acceleration,
ceased.

Ranma slammed into the ground again. This time, the crater
was of a more normal size. He recognized he was in Juuban -
kane had whacked him this far plenty of times - although it was
burning and looters rushed out of a Sony store. Maybe another
quake had hit while he was gone? Ranma shrugged and idly
hacked a guy who struck out at him with a knife in two with his
impossibly sharp sword. Person and knife both seperated in two
and dropped noisily in the gutter.

The various looters gave Ranma a lot more room after that.

Ranma took about three seconds before recognizing Hotatu's
unique magical signature. Whistling happily, he ran off along
what remained of the rooftops of Juuban.



Ranma recognized the various Senshi in a huddle, and Hotaru
leaning against a lamppost. He walked up behind her.

"It's the guy that saved me!" Green Skirt yelled, taking his
attention off Hotaru for a second. That was long enough for
Hotaur to turn, recognize him, and crush his ribs - if he had any,
that is. The look of sheer disbelieving joy on her face was one
of the few bright moment in his dark life.

For the first time in his life, Ranma hugged a girl back.



Ranma grabbed Hotaru and dragged her out of the lamplight.
The Senshi were dispersing, apparently deciding that the
fighting was over for the night. Hotaru pulled loose from
Ranma and slammed his face into the pavement with the Silence
Glaive. "Where the hell have you been?" she yelled.

Ranma peeled himself off the street and glared at her. "Drifting
in the Sea of Chaos for a few hours and having a conversation
with the Lord of Nightmares herself. That's what."

"Oh."

"Oh is right. Anyhow, there's maybe twenty demons running
around. Send them back. We've got to go to Jusendo - I've got
the sword now." Ranma said, pointing to the blade hanging at
his belt. "I want to get there beofre anyone realizes I've left."

Hotaru shifted. "If you want to get there first, we should bring
more demons to keep them busy."

Ranma shook his head. "No. Speed is of the essence. You
remember Sherra. There have to be other mazoku who covet
the power. But L-sama wants - maybe needs - me to get that
position. I have to do it as fast as possible." Hotaru nodded.

"Should I get Nabiki to cover our backside?" she asked.

"Nah. It doesn't matter what the people here do, and I need her
to lay the groundwork of the next stage of my plan, anyhow."

"What's that?"

"I need to get my hooks in government and terrorist
organizations."

"What?" Hotaru asked, suprised.

"The Senshi will build a Crystal Tokyo. But I'm going to
precipitate it. I'm going to bring everything to a head well
before they can handle rebuilding things." Hotaru blinked. "I
need to bring disaster to prevent it. I need to bring disaster so I
can bring the true freedom of chaos to the world..." He trailed
off, looking westward. "But to do that, I need power. And to
get power, I need - Jusendo."

Hotaru grabbed him. "Then let's go. Teleport us to Jusenkyo."

"I haven't told Nabiki what she has to do yet!" Ranma
protested.

"So? Tell her after. It won't be long"

Ranma shuffled about, then nodded. "All right. Let's go." Two
forms vanished from the still burning ruins of Juuban.



Across town, in the Nekohanten in the heart of Nerima,
Cologne and Herb agreed. In between the two was the Nanban
mirror. It was cracked, and they had already discovered that for
some reason they could not travel through time. The two
looked at each other gravely.

"Then we are agreed. If we are to prevail, we cannot do it
alone."

"I am loathe to bring him into this. The price would be too
great." Herb said unhappily.

"We have no choice. Without Saffron, we cannot defeat
Ranma." Cologne insisted.

"Dealing with the Pheonix God is never easy."

"Try dealing with a powerful mazoku. Saffron is the lesser
threat by far."

Herb sat in silence for a while. "If Saffron isn't mature, he
probably won't be able to defeat Ranma either."

Cologne grinned nastily. "Even better then. We can finish off
Ranma and not worry about Saffron."

Herb frowned at that. It was perilously close to treachery... "Let
us do it. I see no other course. Hand me that onion." A single
tear fell on the mirror, and the two were whisked deep within
Pheoniz Mountain.



Ranma and Hotaru stood on a cliffside. Down below was a fog
laced with bright magics. "This is it..." Ranma said, gesturing to
the murk below, a few bamboo poles poking out. ".. the
accursed valley, Jusenkyo. Unfortunately, the magic here is too
restricted to draw. We need to go to the source." Both looked
down, seeing with senses beyond human. A trail of magic
flowed underground from the mountains, growing thinner and
stronger the further back one went. "Come on. And don't fall
in."

The two walked harmlessly among the pools, being strong
enough to resist the pull of the accursed waters. When they
emerged unscathed on the other side, the guide (Who was
currently about to dunk a rat in the Spring of Drowned Cow)
fainted in amazment - falling right into the spring. A strange
cow-flamingo-porcupine-alligator stuck its head out of the pond
and shook an appendage at the two travelers.

The two continued along, following the underground stream of
magic. They avoided the Amazon village and blasted a path
through the currently unoccupied Musk Citadel. Without
stopping to rest or sleep or eat the two crossed river, mountain,
forest, swamp. Finally, on the second day they found the source
of the waters.

Jusendo.

Two large taps, one a dragon, the other a pheonix, stood over a
giant basin. "Looks like a giant sink." Ranma snorted.

Hotaru jumped up to the Pheonix tap. "Which one does it have
to be?"

Ranma cupped his hands. "You know I always want hot
water!"

"Then you're in luck - you're in plenty of hot water now." a
new voice boomed. Ranma and Hotaru turned around, looking
for the source of the voice. A man with golden wings and hair,
flanked by a white haired winged woman one one side and
Cologne and Herb on the other. The two non-winged people
started chuckling. The winged chick - obviously one of the
Pheonix People - was holding a gold staff with a ring on the
top. Herb was holding a silver one with a crescent on the top.

"What do you find so funny? I'm going to have you two well
done and these birdbrains rotisserie style." Ranma said,
annoyed. How the hell did these guys get here? And Saffron?
He didn't know if he were up to clobbering one of the Pheonix
Lords of this staff. If he wasn't a mazoku he wouldn't give
himself a prayer. Between his magic and his sword, though, he
felt he had a decent chance.

That was all he needed.

"You're as insulting as they said you were." Saffron said with a
sneer. "I won't let you sully the sacred waters of Jusendo with
your filthy mazoku hands." He flicked a fireball at Ranma.

Ranma drew his sword and batted it back, blowing up part of
the wall and dropping dirt on the four there. "Filthy? Take a
look in the mirror, chumps."

Saffron clapped and held out his hand. The bird lady tossed him
the staff. "So you aren't completely hopeless after all. Prepare
yourself!"

"How'd you knwo I was coming anyhow?" Rnama asked,
curious.

"We felt the stirrings of a mazoku a month ago." the bird lady
explained. "So we brought Saffron to Jusendo for his
transformation. Then these two," she continued, gesturing to
Cologne and Herb, "told us all about you. Naturally we grew
more concerned - but then you headed straight here."

Hotaru yawned , holding the Silence Glaive in the other hand.
"Enough talk. Kill him and get it over with, Ranma, I have
some Senshi to off."

Ranma grinned and put his sword in a guard position. Getting
the power wouldn't have felt right unless he felt he earned it.
And he was certainly going to earn it now.



It's short, but it's only a teaser. This is the part of 9B that
explains where Ranma's gone (remember, he's only been
missing, what, a few hours?)

Now I added the second part. Ranma is at Jusendo. Chapter 10
is at hand.. Ranma vs Saffron! Ranma's

Yes, yes, I'm back. But I don't plan on writing too much right
now.

Ranmazoku Chapter 10 - Wolf Vs. Pheonix
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I
own the rights to Ranma ½. Long live the rightful owners of
these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done
only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka.
Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz
and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon
belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno
who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a
blank) Appleseed is the property of Masamune Shirow.



Author's note - This story originated from an idea on
Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If
he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this.
Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask
when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events,
characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are
rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while
you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that
Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black
magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with
Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then
he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of
hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on
the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Then they went
to the Slayers world and met Lina and Co under false identities.
After that they duked it out with Sherra and Ranma vanished
after touching a magic sword. Hotaru smacked around the
Senshi and now Ranma's back. Read the previous chapters,
really, I'm not good at rehashing stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between
Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.



Ranma eyed Saffron warily. As of yet, no one there had made a
move. Hotaru was floating in midair, crouched over the Glaive,
which was currently aimed at the ledge Cologne and the others
were on. Ranma ran a finger along his blade - being extremely
careful to only touch the flat - and turned his focus inwards for
a second. Saffron's muscles tensing intruded only dimly on his
mind. Perhaps he ought to take the offensive. "Hotaru! Do it!"

What 'it' was didn't need to be vocalized. The Silence Glaive
spoke, blasting the rock above Saffron's allies and burying them
from the debris. Ranma didn't expect that to delay them
overlong, in fact, even as he began to teleport he saw the rock
rising and exploding from the Bakusai Tenketsu, but the other
bird-person's brief yelp of surprise had distracted Saffron.

Saffron dodged with blinding speed, but Ranma still scored a
clean slash along Saffron's cheek. The Pheonix God flew
backwards, putting distance between himself and Ranma.
Ranma laughed. "It shouldn't be that hard to cut you down to...
size?" He stopped laughing. Even as he watched, Saffron's cut
healed and vanished. 'On the other hand, this could be a bit
harder than I bargained for. Forgot about his healing!'

Saffron replied with a storm of small fireballs, correctly figuring
Ranma couldn't block all of them. However, Ranma simply
teleported out of the way. Saffron didn't duck this time, he just
fired a fireball over his shoulder.

Ranma slammed into the wall hard. "Damn fireballs!" He felt his
skin quickly healing - if not quite with the speed of a pheonix,
then close enough. He flew forward out of the crater in the wall
he had made. The two combatants stopped to readjust their
views of each other.

"Not bad." Ranma allowed.

"You're not too bad yourself." Saffron agreed. A nasty smile.
"It's almost a shame I'll have to kill you."

Ranma's smile transcended nasty. "That's my line." He
teleported away from a chi blast. "Heh, Herb, don't you know
to only pick the fights you can win?"

Saffron snorted. "You should follow your own advice."

Another predatory smile from Ranma. "I always believe there's
no fight I can't win." Herb fired another chi blast, which Ranma
this time redirected at Saffron with his sword. Ranma flew in
behind it, giving Saffron the choice of dodging blast or blade,
but not both.

Saffron simply snuffed out Herb's comparatively feeble blast
with a fireball the size of a Buick. Ranma spiked the fireball
down into Cologne with the flat of his sword and tackled
Saffron in midair. Shifting quickly, he transformed his free hand
into the claw that his monstrous form had so he could match
Saffron.

The two began a brutal midair wrestling match of claw and
blade. Without enough room to swing for a truly lethal blow,
though, the two merely cut each other up without doing real
harm.

At least by crowding Saffron Ranma prevented anyone from
taking potshots at him. He needed to think.



Down below, Hotaru was having the time of her life. The only
one who could seriously hurt her was currently wrestling with
Ranma a hundred feet above the ground. Herb, with his magic
staff, was only interested in watching Ranma and Saffron and
waiting for an opportunity. She herself was backpedaling, using
her staff and enhanced mazoku strength to stymie all of the bird
woman's - Kiima, her name was - and Cologne's assaults.

Cologne's staff darted in, fired at her leg. She noted Cologne
wasn't wasting her time with pressure points and vitals this
time. She figured the old monkey had finally figured out she
didn't have any. It still made her only a small nuisance
though,trying to cripple her. She was pushing six feet in her
current form, and was wielding even the heavy iron Silence
Glaive one handed. Her other hand alternately blasted the two
with magical lightning and dark fire, or just slapped them
around.

Kiima's sword rushed in at the same time as Cologne's next
staff strike. Stepping forwards into the blade, Hotaru let it ram
right through her. She slipped her other hand on the Glaive and
swung the wrong end like a baseball bat, whacking Cologne and
sending the light old woman tumbling. Then she slapped her
hand on the blade, holding it fast, and wiping the victorious grin
off of Kiima's face. "What are you smiling about?" Hotaru
asked.

Kiima screamed as Hotaru pumped a few thousand volts of
magical electricity into the blade. She dropped back, twitching.

"Herb! Stop goofing off and help us!" Cologne said. Hotaru
raised her Glaive above her, asi if to finish off Kiima. Herb
turned away from Ranma and Saffron's midair brawl in order to
see Hotaru about to slash down on the helpless Kiima.

"NO!" he yelled. "Hito Ryu Zan Ha!" Multiple blades of ki
energy flew towards Hotaru.

Hotaru turned around. "Suckers." She teleported away, leaving
Herb's attack to smash up Kiima even worse than she already
was. She reappeared behind Herb and simply tried to hack him
in half with the Glaive.

Herb raised his staff, the Gekkaja, and blocked Hotaru's
overhead strike, the sheer force of the mazoku driving him to
his knees for a second. "Ugh!" he grunted, standing back up.
Hotaru increased the pressure on him again, but their little
strength contest was aborted by Cologne's arrival. Her staff
strike was easily dodged, but she simply started backpedaling
again.

She was back to where she had started - but with one less
attacker. She felt time was on her side. After all they were only
human. Or mostly human, at any rate.

A loud thud distracted them momentarily, as a huge mass fell
from the sky.



The enormous winged wolflike thing that was the monstrous
form of Ranma Saotome hunched over the slightly squashed
Saffron. He stood on his rear legs, holding his sword in one
talonlike claw. "Heh. Let's see how you can survive in a
wrestling match with me now." Ranma growled, his voice
unnatural and grating now. The sheer bulk of Ranma put him
near Pantyhose's bulk, and a meaty hand formed a huge fist that
slammed down into Saffron with the speed of the Amaguriken.
The basin they were fighting in cracked, as Saffron was
slammed through the ground with inhuman strength.

Ranma's fist reared back again, and Cologne and Herb thought
this monster was going to finish off Saffron. How could
anything survive another such blow? But a huge fireball shot up
and blasted Ranma's head.

Blinded, Ranma's fist sailed wide of the mark, blasting another
hole in the floor. Ranma shielded his eyes with his arm,
narrowly missing slicing Saffron in half with the blade it was
holding as he whipped it up over his scorched eyes. He howled
in pain.

Saffron jumped forward with the Kinjakan, hoping to turn the
tables even further, but Ranma's fist sailed out again and aught
Saffron clearly in the chest.

Saffron grunted and opened his eyes to see the enormous bulk
of Ranma's snarling form diving towards him, that deadly little
blade - for tiny it was compared to the size of Ranma's
monstrous body - whistling in a large arc, ready to tear him in
two. He jumped forwards, accelerating his leap with golden
wings, Kinjakan blazing fire and reeled back for a mighty blow.
He came in too fast for Ranma's outstretched arms to readjust;
Ranma had committed himself fully to the attack. Saffron
grinned as Ranma's eyes widened.

Ranma's jaws shot forward, honed by years of snatching stray
bits of food from midair.

Saffron was crushed between Ranma's jaws. He flexed his hand
inside Ranma's jaw, intending to roast him from the inside out
and see if he could shrug THAT off, but Ranma didn't give him
the chance. Ranma flung Saffron against the wall and unloaded
another earth-shaking punch into the Pheonix God.



Hotaru returned her gaze to Colgone and Herb. "Looks like
your birdbrain friend isn't going to last much longer. You two
should leave. I'll let you live - but how long could you hold out
against the two of us?"

Cologne and Herb stopped for a second, before Herb thrust the
Gekkajan at her. Hotaru easily parried with the Glaive.

"What, you want to die? No problem, we aim to please."
Hotaru's fist snapped forward and caught Herb under the chin.
Cologne held open a small paper fan. "What's that, a toy?"
Flames burst from the fan, blackinging Hotaru's face.

She wiped off the soot. "Why, you!" she screamed, cutting
loose with an aura of power that nearly brought the two to their
knees through sheer force of the dread and hatred that it
contained. Hotaru didn't waste time, abandoning her
defensiveness in favor of trying to crush these little gnats.

Cologne and Herb hastily scrambled back out of the way of
Hotaru's swipes with the Glaive. Its business end was now
topped with a shimmering field of force and tore up the ground
just by passing near it. Direct hits broke open rocks, which then
melted and exploded.

Dodging crazily, Cologne backed up, spiralling inward. It
wasn't a very neat spiral, but with the kind of power Hotaru
was putting out, it didn't need to be. Apart from avoiding
getting killed by the angry mazoku, the sheer force of Hotaru's
aura kept disrupting her Soul Of Ice. It guttered again as she
tripped over a rock. The Glaive screamed in, Hotaru's rage
coming through the tip and emitting so much force it disrupted
space itself. Cologne panicked for a second, before realizing.
Ice. Her hand closed on Herb's staff.

"HIRYUU SHOTEN HAAA!" the old Matriarch of the
Amazons called out, as an enormous tornado snapped Hotaru
into the air.

"ARRRGgghhh!!" Hotaru's voice screamed, fading as it shot
up into the heights of the chamber.



Ranma looked away from where he was pounding Saffron to
see Hotaru vanish into the tornado. "NO!" he yelled,
punctuating his cry with a thin bolt of energy that struck the
Gekkajan straight on, sending Cologne into the wall. She was
held up for a moment by the sheer momentum fo the attack,
then fell, slumped, unconscious.

Saffron realized this was his chance to reverse the one handed
beating he had been getting from Ranma. Reaching back he
snapped off his wings and threw them as hard as he could. The
golden wings of the Pheonix flew out, crescent blades of death.
The left wing missed, but the right wing struck Ranma squarely
in the shoulder. The monstrous limb fell off and dissolved into
the primal black magic that was the true form of all mazoku.
Ranma bellowed. In his shock from losing the limb, he
transformed back into his human form.

Ranma looked at his shoulder. Saffron stepped forward, a
fireball in his hand. "Come now, you're going to lose now.
Even you can't grow that back fast enough."

Ranma looked at Saffron, looked over to where Cologne was
lying, and turned back to Saffron. "I won't need it now." he
replied, smiling.



Hotaru slammed into the ceiling, having been taken completely
by surprise by that last attack. She snarled. Already her injuries
were healing; but that attack had been a stroke of genius, using
her own innate dark power against her. She felt a little sick; it
had scrambled her a bit on the Astral, even.

Fortunately for her, Cologne was concentrating on Ranma's
battle with Saffron. Her eyes fairly glowed when Ranma's arms
was cut off. The Glaive shot up; the words "Silence Glaive
Surprise" almost came to her lips. But then Ranma's own
words reached her.

Just what did he have in mind?



Saffron smirked at the one-armed mazoku in front of him. Did
he really think he could defeat the mighty Pheonix God with
such a handicap? Saffron blurred forward, the Kinjakan
snapping through the air.

Ranma calmly moved aside, the staff flaring to incandescence as
it neared Ranma, scorching the earth as it hit. Saffron swung
again, to be met this time by the impossibly strong mazoku.
Ranma's blade caught the staff on its flat, and only a swift step
to the side prevented Ranma from slicing him with that sword.

Ranma concentrated for a second, and the sword pulsed with a
dark force all of its own. "Fear the power of my sword. With
every taste of power it grows stronger." Saffron snarled and
redoubled his assault. The blazing Kinjakan burned with
Saffron's power, as Saffron sought to overwhel the injured
mazoku. Ranma's own sword fairly hummed as Ranma poured
more and more of his strength into the blade. It now hummed
with a chainsaw buzz, and every time their weapons clashed
great gouts over energy erupted, blasting everything around
them. The walls began to blacken as the two fighters glowed
with a power scarcely imaginable to mortal martial artists.



Cologne and Herb were awestruck. The two could not move
before the spectacle of power in front of them. Even when the
power being put out forced them back, sliding them back across
the floor like so much loose garbage, the two did not avert their
eyes, did not utter a word. It was a clash of titans that they
could never hope to match in power.

Cologne hoped ferverently that the two killed each other.

The two were so mesmerized by the power struggle between
Ranma and Saffron that they failed to hear the sound of an agry
mazoku dropping from the ceiling onto her feet, nor did they
see the aura coming off the pissed Dark Senshi behind them.
Hotaru stalked up behind them, Glaive raised in both hands
above her head.

"DIE!" Hotaru shrieked, the Glaive snapping over Cologne's
head. As Herb's head whipped around at the sound, her leg
lashed out, punting him skyward. Even as Hotaru lifted Cologne
off the ground, strangling her with the pole of the Glaive, Herb
reversed his direction of flight and returned, sped by a fresh
increase in the power coming off of Saffron and Ranma.

"Ryu Sei Hisho!" Herb said, firing his special double ki blast.
Hotaru simply gritted her teeth and stomped on the annoying
Ryuuzoku.

With Cologne vainly trying to resist her innate mazoku strength
and Herb firmly under her boot, Hotaru laughed. "Worms! I'd
have let you go, but for that last attack I'm going to have to
eliminate you." Cologne's struggles grew a little more feeble,
and her eyes were beginning to swim with blackness from the
intense pressure. Hotaru wasn't just cutting off the air, she was
cutting off the blood as well.

Cologne tried to think of a martial arts technique - any
technique - that could help her in such a situation. Her ki was
low and she wasn't in a good condition to use it anyhow.
Nothing else would faze the mazoku - unless...

She gritted her teeth. She'd hate to feel indebted to Mr. Part
Time, but there was no need for him to hear of this anyhow.
Her hand slipped into her sleeve. She felt her hands slip into the
pockets her ki made, and found what she was looking for. A
few packets of hot sauce she kept in weaponspace, along with
spare forks, knives and the like. She reached up and popped
them in Hotaru's face.

"AIIIIEEE!" Hotaru shrieked, covering her eyes and dropping
Cologne. Her other hand shot out and cracked across the back
of Cologne's head. The Amazon Matriarch flew off, impacting
against the wall with a loud THUD. Herb escaped from under
Hotaru's foot. Angry, blind, and now beyond all restraint,
Hotaru started swinging wildly, blasting everything nearby.

Cologne watched as Ranma and Saffron continued their battle,
the ground below them now glowing slag, but the fight
continued above ground. Cologne noticed the two Jusendo taps
melting. At least it would be a while before the Pheonix People
could bring Saffron to maturity again.

She watched as Ranma seemed to spiral backwards, as if he
were going to perform the Hiryuu Shoten Ha. But his aura was
enormous, almost as huge and energetic as Saffron's. So that
couldn't be it?

Or was he just on the defensive, playing the waiting game?

What was Ranma up to?



Ranma continued to give ground, looping inward. The Bras
Blade was untouched, pristine, and shrouded in black magic,
whil the Kajakan was more battered, the power of the magically
sharp blade damaging even it, but it too glowed with the fire of
Saffron's magic. Ranma backed up and reached the center,
tripping.

The Kajakan leapt forward, seeking his heart.

Ranma stabbed forth with the Bras Blade, smiling, as he poured
every ounce of his black power into the tip. He called out the
name of his impromptu attack, that used the danger of mixing
black and white magic - "MARYUU SHOTEN HAAA!"

The Demon Dragon Ascending Wave. Mixing magic of black
and white was dangeroud, but this was a directed danger. An
explosion of immense power ripped skywards, tearing apart the
ground and sucking the waters of Jusendo upwards. Meanwhile,
Saffron was blown backwards, borne away on a storm of
darkness.

Ranma began to absorb the ancient power of Death Fog, which
had lain dormant in Jusendo these many years.



Cologne's eyes widened in horror. The dark tornado seemed to
explode outwards, expanding and consuming the chamber. It
expanding walls slowly spiralled towards her. Heedless of her
injuries, she sprang to her feet. "Herb! Get Kiima and escape!"
Her voice was barely carrying over the infernal roar of Ranma's
attack, but Herb ran out from behind his rock, her finger
pointing at Kiima telling him all he needed to know.

Besides, only a dunce would have failed to realize that the wall
of swirling darkness advancing upon them was a bad thing.

Hotaru opened her eye without hot sauce in it and eyed the wall
of darkness warily. Sure, this was obviously Ranma's, but she
had the feeling that it would take out anything, regardless of
affiliation. Seeing the others fleeing, Hotaru decided to teleport
outside.



Outside, everything had been blasted away. The roaring tornado
of black magic screamed skywards, and gale force winds ripped
over the land. Of Saffron and Ranma, nothing could be seen.

Suddenly, as abruptly as it had exploded across the landscape, it
vanished.

Ranma hovered over a blackened, smooth glass crater. His arm
was fully healed, and he flexed his regrown hand. Ranma
sheathed his sword. "Power," he said simply. Ranma shifted
into his female form, then returned to male.

Ranma looked at Herb. Herb suddenly shifted to his female
form. Ranma smiled. "The power of Jusenkyo is mine. The
power of Jusendo is mine." Ranma pointed his finger at a
nearby mountaintop, which promptly exploded into ruins. He
cut loose with good old fashioned maniacal laughter, which
echoed across the reshaped landscape.

Herb-chan and Cologne shivered and quickly slunk away.
Kiima, however, started looking for Saffron's egg. He was
obviously dead, or he would have flown down to challenge
Ranma. She shifted painfully. Obviously her wing had been
broken in the fight, and it would take a while to heal. Her left
arm hung limply as well, and her eye on that side was swollen
shut as well. She had to get Saffron and get him to safety. Then
she'd have to make the journey to Tokyo. They needed stronger
allies against this monster.

Ranma stopped his laughter and saw Hotaru. He teleported next
to her in a flash. "Hey, Hotaru!" he said, smiling broadly. "Pack
your bags. We have a trip to make!"

Hotaru smiled back. "You're going to lay claim to one of the
two open positions as Mazoku Lord?" Her smile widened into a
grin.

"Of course."

"Then.. shall we go?"

Two mazoku vanished from Earth, making a brief stop in
Tokyo to give Nabiki some instructions.



Afterwards, Cologne and Herb had gathered the collected Musk
and Amazons. Cologne rapped her new staff on the challenge
log to get their attention. "Listen, my people!" she gravely said.
"There is a new force for evil in the world. Despite our proud
and storied past, we cannot prevail alone. Beyond that, the dark
power of Jusendo is awakened. We cannot stay here overlong.
We must abandon the lands of our foremothers and go to
Tokyo, there to meet with others who can help." Cologne
paused and looked over the assembled crowd. "The force we
fight we cannot possibly confront and beat alone. I know your
hearts tell you this cannot be, but it is true. We two, and Saffron
besides, were not enough to win. We would be like wheat
before the reaper."

Herb took over. "There are those who possess a power
different than that of the mazoku, but strong in its own way.
We need to go to Japan and get their help. That is the only way.
Neither we nor they can kill the mazoku alone. But combined,
we stand a chance."

A voice cried out from the crowd. "Just a chance?"

"Better than no chance!" another replied. The crowd erupted
into a thousand arguments. Cologne and Herb tried to get them
under control, but it was not until hundreds and thousands of
shadows swept over them that they were silenced. "Look! It's
the people of Pheonix Mountain!" the second voice cried out.

"If even the proud people of Pheonix Mountain seek allies, you
MUST see that flight is our only option!" Cologne yelled.

It took a few hours, but the Amazons were on the move. The
day after, the Musk began an eastward trek as well.



Nabiki laughed, as she looked over her assembled army. Ranma
had taken one of her pens and enchanted it, giving her the
power to command the minds of animals cursed by Jusenkyo.
Between that, the Chiuusuton, the waters of Jusenkyo, and a
nearby anthill, she had quite the credible force built up. She
took each thousand soldiers under the command of one of those
Brass Demons Ranma had shown her to summon. Soon she
would have enough troops to send a force to storm one of the
nearby Red Army bases and seize weapons. Most of them
would be slaughtered, but then again, she thought, looking at
the army of tigers, yeti-riding-bull-holding-crane-and-eels,
wolves, Asuras, and other assorted nasties. Once she had
uniforms and weapons she could equip a force that would
attract less undue notice.

From small time loan shark and blackmailer to potential
conqueror. Yes, her sights had been set much higher by her deal
with Ranma...



And that concludes the first part of Ranmazoku. I'll also post
what part of the SPECIAL was completed, as well as a chunk
of chapter 11 and a sidestory to Ranmazoku.