Chapter 4 The trap
"Girls" the bitch said, "We have a problem!"
"Oh really?" Ami answered, irony dripping from her words. She was sat in a comfy chair in the hospital 'family room.' Somewhere off to her left Michuru had been sleeping, having finally let exhaustion force her from her lover's side. From nowhere the third member of their little tragic trio. From the catch in the older (much older) woman's voice Ami had been immediately able to tell that she too was far from recovered. When Pluto took her first few steps, Ami had heard the effort that it had taken and part of her smiled.
"Ami please," Pluto entreatied. "I have something important to say."
"Please Setsuna" Michuru said, still hoarse from her continual weeping, "tell us."
"A girl needs our help," Setsuna said, already dreading the reply.
"Our help?" Ami laughed, "if she's that far up the creek then please lets go give her a paddle."
"Ami-" Setsuna started.
"I'll just hop on my white horse and we'll ride to the rescue,"
"Ami-"
"Now where did I put it? Can't see the bastard anywhere,"
"Ami-"
"Oh wait I know why I can't see it. It's because I'm fucking blind!" Ami shouted in what she hoped was the direction of the eldest senshi.
"Ami" Michuru corrected, "There's no need for that sort of language!"
"No?" she asked, "are we less screwed than I thought, no it still seems..." Ami trailed off muttering.
"She's been captured by a Demon who intends to use her to breed a new kind of Yoruma." Pluto explained quietly. "She needs our help!"
"Demon" Michuru gasped, "like the one that..."
"Yes," Pluto agreed quietly.
"Uh am I missing something here," Ami asked, "or didn't the last one we meet fuck us all up?"
"Ami-"
"And now you want the three of us to go and take one on?" Ami exclaimed incredulous, "Are you serious."
"Ami!" Pluto insisted, but was still slightly surprised that it worked. "If we don't help her who will?"
o
o
o
"There it is" Ranma growled pointing with his chin/maw, "that's the place I'm told she's at." He dragged his arms/wings in and came to a landing on the roof. Skuld immediately fell to her knees and began kissing the floor. Belldandy staggered off to one side, feeling more than a little queasy. Urd on the other hand was much more used to the dark touch and merely leant on Ranma for support.
"They're grateful really they are," she told him, only a little unsteady.
"What makes you think I care" Ranma rasped, his throat still raw. "You are here cuz nobody deserves Gorkadas. Don't think for one goddamn moment that I feel any better about being near you than your sister does about me."
"But the party" Urd asked, suddenly lost.
"I had my reasons," Ranma rasped, rotating and cracking his neck.
"That's it?" she demanded "You had your reasons?"
"Urd-dono" Ranma rasped, "zip it!" He moved over to the edge, overlooking the rest of the building. "Ladies, three floors below us an innocent little godling is getting gang raped by demons. But that's not the worst bit, the worst bit is that they are just warming her up for the main event. Now feel free to wallow in your righteousness a little longer, make a demonstration of how uncomfortable you just were, but remember what your pride is costing the girl."
"That isn't fair!" Urd protested.
"Newsflash, nothing in this life is" Ranma said, and then dropped off the building, coat flaring.
O
o
He dropped two floors and then grabbed hold of a shadow and swung in. The old window cascaded inwards around him, edgings and all. He didn't stop, instead tucking into a roll and flying clear across the room. He landed in a crouch, right hand cocked back.
"Here I come you fat bastard" he growled, then punched. There was a smash, the floor erupted into shards and Ranma dropped into a scene straight from hell.
The room was illuminated by thirteen burning barrels laid out in occult scheme. On a raised 'altar' the angel lay naked and spread-eagled, bloody from knee to navel. Around her flocked a pack of gibbering demons, naked and oozing. Lording over them all was Gorkadas, sat on a throne of bent metal, adorned with scraps of skin and flesh, some of it still bearing the female clothing it had in life. Firelight framed him, given off by twin barrels either side of his throne. He himself was an immensely obese creature, coloured in purples and blues. From his head protruded a single yellowed horn and covering his vile folds was a sheen of sweat that made him shine in the firelight. His fingers were short and his claws little more than hardened, blackened nails. His mouth was wide and drooling, concealing a live pink tongue and evil yellow teeth. Worst of all were his eyes, glowing yellow pits of lust and hatred.
Ranma landed neatly ontop of a long disused process machine, took the time to shrug off his coat and then leapt into the fray. As he jumped long claws of darkness seemed to coalesce, extending from his fingers like the claws of a wolverine.
Ranma's world became one of whirling death. He dodged and weaved, spreading violent, bloody death as he went. Each sweep of his arms claimed the mortal existence of at least one of the beasts, shredding their forms and spraying their vital fluids in wide pastel arcs. But they kept coming, piling at him with no regard at all for their fallen comrades, or even their own fates.
He was dimly aware of the arrival of the Norns, somewhere in the distance he could hear them attempting to freeze, stun and confuse their way through the throng. He tried hard not to wish them harm, even though he was coming to believe that was what it would take to wake the girls up. Then a new call came though the air.
"Deep submerge!" cried a voice, filled with hate and pain. Distantly Ranma heard the scream of demons as the pure water power broke their bodies. Still he had no time to investigate, instead his vicious dance of death continued, unrelenting.
Another voice called some other challenge, and more demons died, but the flow continued.
Then everything changed.
"Time stop!" screamed a voice. Little did any of the others know just what it had cost the woman using the power to invoke it. Not only was she throwing away millennia of tradition but betraying oaths she had made to people she could never seek redemption from. It was a cold admission of failure and the pain in her voice as she pronounced it could have sunk ships.
However it had a dramatic effect. All of a sudden everything seemed to stop, from the arcing sprays of demon blood to the painful gasps of the angel imprisoned on the altar. Evem the light itself seemed to pool, leaving everything rendered only in shades of grey. All was still all was silent.
Then a laugh cut through the still air, a vicious evil belly laugh that spoke of mockery and mirth.
"For a moment I thought you would not come, star slut!" Gorkadas proclaimed. "I was starting to worry that I had taken all these precautions for nothing!" Again the beast laughed, slowly standing from his grisly throne.
"My master will be so happy. And you have delivered me some other treats as well, so very kind of you!" he leered.
"Dead scream!" Pluto pronounced, hurling a ball of death at the beast that mocked.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" it laughed, not even bothering to shield itself. "You don't get it do you?" he mocked, "Your powers are useless against me! As long as I possess the Charm of Ages no power of time may touch me! Unfortunately for you the same cannot be said for my powers and you or your friends!" Again he broke off into that hideous laugh.
Pluto was sacred, the tears of shame burnt hot trails down her face. All for nothing! All of it, her final effort, the break with her honour, all of it was for nothing. All she had done was deliver the last of the senshi to the demons that sought them.
"And as fore the girl," the beast mocked, clenching his fist and shattering a glass figure "now she's dead too. She proved surprisingly frail. It was... disappointing. Her soul was trapped in the husk but now even that is gone!" And again the beast laughed.
Then everything changed. As the beast strode through its minions, pushing their bodies aside from nowhere came a flash of darkness. In the grey world of timelessness a burning bubble of darkness expanded, surrounding the revealed form of a young man. Gorkadas turned to look and an expression of pure fear crossed his features. Wings of darkness expanded from the dark man's back, claws from his hands and slowly he raised his face. His eyes were flames of shadow.
"What you thought the petty tricks of mortals would stop me?" the figure said in a voice that seemed to echo around the room. "Gorkidas, really, the power of one such as I is not so easily contained!"
Gorkidas swore in the way only demons could, the very air was reviled by the words he drooled. "This is nothing to do with you!" he burbled. "You have no business here!"
"Gorkadas," Ranma continued, "for our history alone I would kill thee. But you also seem to have made the mistake of hurting an innocent maid. That sort of thing annoys me."
"Take her" Gorkadas offered, "You can even have the senshi sluts but-"
"But what filth?" Ranma said, moving slowly forward, "let you live? I. Think. Not."
Suddenly the dark avenger was airborne, shadowed limbs trailing. Gorkidas raised his meaty limbs in defence but it was cear from the outset that he was no match for his opponent. Piece by piece, cut by cut Ranma carved the beast into bloody chunks.
At the end the beast lay knelt at his tormentors feet, blind in one eye, bleeding from enough cuts to kill a herd of elephants and sobbing like a spurned child.
"Please" it begged, "Please!"
"No" Ranma replied simply and punched his clawed fist up through the beast's face and out of the back. It's life essence finally severed it fell to the floor, a puddle of oozing ichor.
"Oh my!" exclaimed Pluto, gagging slightly at the scene.
O
o
When the spell ended not a single one of the host remained standing, all were slowly dissolving into mush, the bodies of the mortals they had inhabited destroyed by their encounter with the power of hell.
Seven figures wwere left standing in a room that stank of death, gore and corruption. One was being violently ill, the others slowly ambled towards the centre of the room.
"Who are you?" Pluto demanded, still leading Mercury with her off hand.
"Saotome Ranma" the dark man offered. "And you are the Sailor Senshi?"
"Hai" agreed Pluto.
"You came to help the girl?" he asked.
"Hai" Pluto agreed. He nodded as if it confirmed something he already knew.
"Ranma-" Urd began.
"Do Not Talk To Me!" he replied, his back still turned to them.
"But-"
"But What!" he demanded, "Over there is the slowly cooling body of a girl any of you could have saved, had you been faster. Had you used your powers instead of holding back. Well there is your reward!" he said pointing to the body.
"Ranma!" exclaimed a hurt Urd, knowing that Bell would already be feeling bad.
"No!" he said, "No more, you chose your path, and I will have no more to do with it!" Then he turned to the senshi. "You, on the other hand, have earnt my respect today. You I will help. Come we will talk more." With that he offered out his hand and Pluto found herself looking into the deepest darkest eyes she had ever known. Before she could resist she, mercury and Neptune were swept up and away. Off into the nighted sky, carried on the wings of an ancient power.