Golden Opportunity

by CRose

Ranma Gold Digger This is the final chapter of the story, at least for now, I have more planned, but that will for the sequal when I get around to it. I've tied up a few things, hinted at some others, and plan lots more in the future.

15. Chapter 14

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Golden Opportunity
Chapter 14
Cory D. Rose
(c) 2005
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Ranma was watching the sky as the lightning storm filled the sky high above him, covering the entire city. According to Sheila, the lightning was a manifestation of the weakening magical barrier that kept Seer's Hamlet out of phase with the rest of the world. He wasn't sure what all that meant, but he could almost feel the magical energy destabilizing as he stood there.

A part of him could tell that something was holding the barrier together but he wasn't sure what it was. He had other things to think about at the moment. Like the upcoming fight. Glancing around the area, he could see that all the red armored paladins seemed to be taking things in stride, though a few also appeared to think that they wouldn't survive the upcoming battle with the Dracolich or Rook himself.

He wanted to go over and yell at them for being such cowards. There was no way he was going to let some overgrown pile of walking bones get the better of him in a fight. So what if it was bigger than the other undead they were fighting throughout the city.

It was still as weak as all the others, all they needed to do was hit it with the right kind of attack and reduced to a pile of splinters. He recalled a couple of moves he'd read about in those books he borrowed a few months before and wondered if one of them would be effective enough to stop the thing.

For some reason he had his doubts if the move he was thinking about would work or not. He hadn't gotten a chance to figure out how it worked either, but it's not as if that had ever stopped him before. Shaking his head, he decided that since there were more lives than his at stake, using that move wouldn't work unless it was a last resort.

He glanced over at the monster as it lay there looking around at the army of paladins slowly taking up their positions, getting prepared to attack. Julia was off to the side directing the Commander's forces. The paladins were in three groups, those that were ready to fight, those that needed to rest and were backing up the first force, and the injured.

Very few of the paladin's survived the undead hell that was below and quite a few were scared out of their minds. Not that it would make them turn tail and run though, they knew better than that. They all knew that if they died the bodies would just rise up and attack them. That scared them more than dying themselves. It was cold blooded, but Ranma didn't really care. He would deal with them if it happened, otherwise it didn't really matter.

He turned to look at the Dracolich as it suddenly surged to its feet, wings spread, and moved out in front of the Palace. The first force of paladin's instantly came alert, waiting for the command to attack, their magical weapons at the ready.

"ALL PALADINS IN POSITION!" The Commander yelled, his voice echoing across the area, amplified by a spell built into his armor.

Ranma was impressed with how fast the men responded to the order in a professional way. Quickly and smoothly, with no wasted energy as they all moved into their final position within a few seconds. The second wave also moved into position, waiting for their own orders as Julia quickly moved through the ranks and gave each of them their mission.

Even as everyone was settling down into an attack position, a beam of red light shot out of the center of the Palace and rose into the sky until it hit the barrier high above them. Ranma gaped at the light and tried to figure out what might be causing it. He glanced at Sheila, but she seemed as baffled as he was at the moment.

He felt something in the air around them as the light seemed to spread through the barrier, then silence washed over them as the lightning storm just stopped. At the spot where the light hit the barrier, a large circle of lightning formed and the Tree shook below them. Everyone, already on guard with the Dracolich moving, suddenly froze and looked down.

"What's going on?" Sheila asked, a hint of panic in her voice. Ranma wondered what she was worried about.

"The Great Tree has never suffered from an earthquake in its existence, never." A nearby paladin said and stomped on the bark below his feet a few times, as if trying to make it shake again. He looked confused when nothing happened. "I don't like this."

Another shudder ran through the tree, dislodging leaves from the upper branches of the tree, sending them raining down on them for several minutes. This didn't stop the Dracolich from moving about in front of the palace, its eyes glowing with an eerie white color as it gazed at them.

This time as the shudder wound down, instead of stopping, it leveled out into a light shaking felt through the tree. The paladins were starting to get nervous as it continued and they all looked up at the red light rising into the sky. Even though Ranma couldn't see their faces, he could sense their uneasiness growing.

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Off to the side, Ashaton Chaos, in human form, was crouched down gripping the hilt of his sword as the jewels started to glow. No one really noticed, they were to busy gaping at the red beam of light rising into the sky and trying to keep their balance on the shaking ground.

He could feel something in the air. It was almost as if it was charged with a large amount of energy. Whatever it really was, the jewels in his sword were reacting to the evil presence in the air. He watched as the Commander raised a glowing blade into the air.

"Attack!" His voice echoed.

The first wave of paladins surged forward in groups of five, moving towards the Dracolich from several different directions at once. Dozens of fireballs launched at the beast's chest and head, setting off explosion after explosion. Ranma stood back and watched to see how the monster reacted to the barrage.

Large explosions of fire washed over the monster's body, sending fire flying in all directions, lighting up its bones and burning off more of the already dead skin. It roared and reared back, bring its long neck back around and slammed a large claw down, trying to stomp on a group of paladins.

"DIE HUMANS!" The Dracolich roared in an unspeakable voice. "Pathetic bags of rancid meat!"

An ethereal light started to form around the thing, as it prepared to fire off its breath weapon once more. The paladins ignored the danger, moving in as quickly as possible so they could fire off more attack spells into the legs and under belly. Hoping that one of them would shatter the Dracolich's defensive magic. A couple of paladin's gave their lives as they fired fire balls down the thing's throat and died as the attack was disrupted and it's tail pierced them.

After several seconds, they retreated and a second wave moved in. Ranma spotted a weak spot and shot forward. Behind him, Sheila yelled for him to wait, but he ignored her as he formed a powerful fireball. He ran for several yards, jumped into the air and rose above the battle as he thrust his hands forward.

"FIREBALL!"

The blast shot out and hit the Dracolich along its body, right below the wing joint. The explosion rocked the tree as everyone dove for cover or used a shield to protect themselves from the force of the fireball. The Dracolich roared and staggered back as the wing ripped from the body and crashed to the ground.

Paladins yelled as the wing fell and they redoubled their attacks, focusing on the monster's joints with their most post powerful spells while ignoring the growing number of dead. More explosions rocked the front of the palace, shaking the entire building and cracking walls. The Dracolich roared and fired its breath weapon onto a group of paladins.

"Keep fighting!" Julia yelled as the paladins fell. She pointed to a group off to the side, then at the bodies. The group, with black bands on their arms, ran onto the field as the dead started to twitch. Calling out a series of spells, the bodies rose into the air to be tossed right off the edge of the tree before they could be resurrected by Rook's spell.

From there they worked their way around the field of battle, levitating any dead they came across and tossing them right off the tree. Ranma fired off a couple more fireballs, though these weren't as effective at the first one. He could see an energy field around the Dracolich deflecting most of the damage, with very little getting through.

Wading into battle, Sheila and Tirga both started to fire off their weapon attacks. Larger than normal versions literally exploded away from the magical weapons and slammed into the side of the Dracolich. Tirga powered up and fired a second blast with his weapon. This was right as the thing fired off its breath weapon once more. The nearby paladin's scattered even as it opened its great maw.

Four paladins died as their assault received a point blank breath weapon attack; they didn't even have time to scream as the smoky substance washed over their bodies. Their bodies lifted into the air and sailed out over the edge even before they had a chance to fall to the ground. Their deaths only served to redouble everyone else's efforts.

Ranma skidded to a halt about fifty yards from the Dracolich, took up a Neko-ken stance, and crossed his arms as his hands started to glow. He focused his power for a second, remembering the training he'd gone though to control the technique. With a cat like yowl, he swiped at the monster and started to send dozens of cutting slashes at the Dracolich.

Even with the protective magic, its bones were ripped apart in seconds, as if a pair of giant hands was shredding it. It roared at the unexpected attack and damage to its body. The head and neck swung around and it opened its mouth. Instead of the death mist, the back of its throat flared with light and massive amount of fire hurled out.

Ranma cursed as he jumped using his training and sailed over twenty feet to the side. While in midair, he sent off several more attacks directed towards the thing's head and jaw, severing large chunks of dead meat and bone. Paladins moved in on the heels of the attack and started to chop the thing to bits with their enchanted swords.

Quickly severing one of its legs and removing several ribs while Julia called in another group of back up fighters to replace some of the fallen paladins.

Ranma landed and instantly flipped several feet backwards and to the side as the Dracolich's clawed arm slammed down into the wood of the Tree and sheered out a large chunk that sent a shudder through the bark.

He spotted movement around him and watched as Julia dropped down from the darkness above the thing and tried shoving her sword through its skull. Her blade bounced off the hardened bone with a shower of magic sparks and it tried to thrash her off. When that failed she jumped backwards and managed to detach a large section of the thing's left wing with another shower of magic sparks as the blade sliced through the bone.

She jumped off, landed nearby, and quickly made her way over to Ranma. "We have to hurry. For some reason its magic isn't working. My sword shouldn't have been able to do what it just did."

"Any idea what happened to it?"

"No, only a guess."

"What would that be?"

"Something is draining its magic."

"Rook." Ranma muttered and she nodded.

"I'm just not sure why he would be doing that after going to all this trouble to bring it and the others here."

"KEEP HITTING IT TILL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT BUT A PILE OF SHATTERED BONES!" The paladin commander yelled as his men instantly set to work. "WE'RE WINNING!"

The Paladin's cheered!

Ranma rushed forward and launched another Neko-ken attack, causing even more damage. This left it somewhat unbalanced, Sheila and Tirga each had time to fire off large-scale attacks. Freezing one of its remaining legs to the ground while Tirga's fire managed to burn away more of the chest area.

The Dracolich had other ideas as it lifted itself up on its hind legs and fired its breath weapon at the attack fighters. Most of the paladins dodged the torrent of deadly mist, but several more of them fell to the ground as it finished passing over them. Ranma, Julia, Sheila, and Tirga all attacked the Dracolich, taking even more of its body with them.

No one could really do anything to help a group of paladin's that were swept off the tree by the Dracolich's tail. They barely had time to scream as it happened. Another group of back up fighters moved into position and started to throw spells seconds later.

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Behind the lines, Thropan held back with Ashaton and a couple of paladins, slightly injured, were waiting for a chance to attack without getting in everyone's way. Thropan could tell that Ashaton's large weapon was a very powerful magical weapon and he was itching to reach out, take it, and spend about a month studying it. It was a hard urge to resist.

Then they all moaned in disappointment as the detached leg and one of the wings suddenly turned into a mist, flowed over to the Dracolich, and reattached themselves. The blasted things looked as strong as ever. They could hear Ranma yelling out a curse from over fifty yards away. Multiple explosions echoed over the area as the paladins wadded in once more.

"Damn." Thropan muttered. "I thought we had it there, but these blasted things are neigh impossible to kill."

"My sword might have the power to take it down." Ashaton said.

Thropan gave him a look. "Conserve your power for now, we need to stop Rook as well and I think he will be a lot harder to stop than this thing."

"True." Ashaton said as he gazed up at the red beam of energy rising up into the sky. If anything, it was actually starting to get brighter and brighter the longer than fight went on.

"Let's get ready; it looks like our turn will be here in a few minutes." Thropan said as they saw the group next to them rush into the fight. The Dracolich's tail swung around and sent the group flying into the side of the palace, throwing them nearly forty yards.

Thropan and Ashaton winced as the paladins rained down on the courtyard in front of the palace. They watched as the men tried to get back to their feet, as they were protected by their armor, but most of them only got a few paces before falling down.

"You two ready to go?" The Commander said as he walked up.

"Yeah." Thropan said. "That tail needs to be taken care of though." Thropan said.

"Aye, it does, but just do your best. We nearly have the thing. The Armsmaster said that its power is really weak right now."

"Good." Ashaton said as he prepared to head into combat. "I'm ready."

They turned back to the fight just as Ranma saved two of the paladins from certain death. The rest managed to get back to safety before they were killed as well. Ranma carried to the two guys over to where the injured were being kept when he heard a sound, something he hadn't expected.

Lots and lots of running feet. Not twenty yards away fifty red armored paladins topped the stairs and instantly rushed into battle. Their gauntlets glowed as they all started to fire off attack after attack. The Commander saw them and instantly started to direct them in several different directions while they all started to decimate the Dracolich.

A bolt of lightning lanced from the main gate to the Palace and hit a paladin in the back. He screamed and fell to the ground. No one really noticed because they were busy with the Dracolich, but Ashaton saw that it was what appeared to be an old man wearing a red mage suit and carrying a staff.

"That must be one of the wizards killed when the Dracolich killed everyone in the palace. Rook must have sent him out here to kill us."

"We are making short work of the Dracolich."

"True, but it's still going to take several minutes before we finally take it down."

"I'll get he wizard then." Ashaton said as he broke into a run and in mid step changed into his werecheetah form. His speed skyrocketed as he vanished from sight even as his hand reached for his sword.

A set of steps ran up to a large set of double doors set into the wall around the Palace. Ashaton shot up these and took a swing at the undead wizard, his blade slammed into a barrier with a shower of sparks. Then the wizard knew he was there, held up his hand, and bolt of force hurled him off the steps and to the ground below.

"Idiot." The undead wizard muttered. A sneer on its face as it stood there looking down at Ashaton.

Crawling to his feet, Ashaton shook his head and picked up his sword. "You are so going down."

"You swords man are always so arrogant. You can't stand up to my magic!"

It pointed a finger at Ashaton's feet and the stone of the steps liquefied. Falling into the stuff caught him by surprise and he slipped and fell over, then it began to harden. Cursing his stupidity, Ashaton closed his eyes and suddenly shrank into his other form.

That of a wererat. It was half the size of his werecheetah form and a third of his human form. He still had is sword though, so he concentrated on that for a second as it began to glow. "Ruby Flare!"

The stone exploded away from him in all directions and he slowly crawled out of the hole and turning human again as he came to his feet. "That wasn't a nice thing to do."

The undead wizard had managed to kill several more paladins in the short time he was under the steps, so Ashaton wasn't very happy. He surged forward, transforming back into the werecheetah form with its superior strength and speed and swung at the wizard.

Just like before the shield was in place and easily deflected the blade and the wizard moved to throw a fireball, forming it between his hands. "Time to die, idiot."

Growling in frustration, Ashaton uses his speed to increase his attacks until he is nothing but a blur of action slamming his sword against the magical barrier. At the same time, he began slowly adding a bit of magical power to the attack by whispering 'chaos slash' under his breath. Every couple of seconds the shield flared into visibility as the magic attack slammed into it.

The wizard laughed and held the fireball out, ready to fire. "It's time to burn in your own juices, shape changer."

"Aghaa!" Ashaton yelled and grinned as his blade turned blue for a brief second and went through the field and through the wizard's stomach.

The wizard grunted in shock and looked down at the blade, a stupid look on its face, just as Ashaton yanked it upward and split the body in half, spun the sword and cut off an arm, and removed the head. He starred down at the body for a second before moving past the gate.

Several more undead were heading towards him, but they weren't wizards so after a short fight, he quickly chopped them to pieces and made his way to the door that led into the High palace. It stood ten feet high and appeared to be made form a dark lacquered wood. Golden decorations covered the door.

He was glad that the undead fighters he just dispatched had opened it for him, making entry into the building a lot easier than it could've been. Moving slowly he tried to watch for anything that might attack him as he entered and hoped that rook hadn't had time to set up anything truly nasty while he was inside.

For some reason Ashaton had a feeling that he was in for a very dangerous fight and opted to stay in his werecheetah form. The extra speed and strength would come in handy. The front entrance opened up into a wide hall with a pair of staircases circling up to the second floor. Off to the sides were several doors that obviously led to different wings of the Palace.

His senses as a werecheetah were amped up and he was able to sense that there was a large amount of magic being used inside the building. He wasn't a mage himself, but after using his sword and other weapons for so long, he was able to sense magic to a certain extent. Now it was time to see if he could stop this attack at its source.

Rook had to be stopped.

"Come out wherever you are you undead morons." He muttered.

He ascended the stairs slowly, keeping an eye out for any kind of surprise attack. So far things were a little to quiet. The whole building was as quiet as a tomb. In a way it really was a tomb because of all the undead running around inside. He ran into his attacker seconds after he reached the first landing as a grey-skinned man stepped out of the only doorway to meet him.

The thing looked him over and grinned a little. "Fresh meat, how nice."

Ashaton had to resist an urge to roll his eyes at the thing. Bringing his sword to bare, he let a bit of magic cover the blade, powering up an attack. "Bring it on."

The man was wearing leather clothing, had a long beard with several braids, and a nasty looking sword in one hand. The thing's sword rivaled his own weapon in sheer size. "Let's see how you fare against me."

The undead fighter didn't even give his name, just took a couple of large steps and started running at him, the blade held over his head to cleave him in half. Ashaton had to blink a couple of times before he rolled his eyes, this time he couldn't resist, and swung his sword.

"CHAOS SLASH!"

The undead fighter became one with the wall, the ceiling, the floor, the floor below, and some of the charred carpet as well. The mauled and twisted remains of the sword clattered to the floor below, scratching the hell out of the perfectly buffed tile.

Ashaton looked at the damage, at his sword, and back again with a smirk. "I always knew the blade was powerful, but nothing like that."

Something about the inside of the Palace seemed to be increasing his sword's ability quite a bit. He edged his way down the hall to peak his head around the doorway, only to see another hall. This one had no doors and let to another hall a little way down. He could see some kind of light flickering at the end of the hallway, but he wasn't sure what was causing it. A torch wouldn't make a bright red glow like that.

He edged his way into the short hallway, being careful not to step on anything that looked weird. The feeling in the air as he moved kept growing stronger with every step. By the time he reached the end of the hallway he could feel something pulsing. The force of the energy was strong enough to pound against him by the time he reached the end of the hall. In addition, it forced him to kneel down and lean against the wall.

The smell of blood was in the air and it was enough to make him sick to his stomach. Even the dead paladin's hadn't smelled like this as they died. He was almost afraid to peak around this corner for he knew what he would see. Gritting his teeth, and trying to breath through his mouth, he slowly looked around the corner.

This hallway curved just a little at the end and he was able to look around the corner to see an archway with two undead wizards standing guard. They were wearing nice robes and if not for the chalky skin and slightly messed up eyes, he wouldn't have known they were even dead.

Then he noticed two bodies pinned to the ceiling with dozens of holes in them. They had once been female, he could tell that from what they were wearing, but beyond that, he couldn't really say. For some reason they hadn't been turned like the wizards. His senses were also telling him that they were the source of the feted smell in the air.

Beyond the guards and through the archway Ashaton could see a large chamber with a set of doors smoldering on the floor just to the side of the archway. A third body was laid out on the fire and burning merrily. It was tied down and still moving as it burned, struggling to free itself.

Rook was sitting in one of few remaining chairs in the room reading a scroll and casting a couple of spells. Red energy seemed to be swirling around the room and shooting right through the stone ceiling. Everything else was either shattered or tossed against the walls. He would glance over every few seconds and make sure the poor soul's bonds hadn't given way yet.

There was nothing Ashaton could do to help the guy as he burned. He wanted to run down there, pull the guy off the fire, and help him at all costs. However, he was smart enough to realize that it would be impossible to get through two wizards and Rook to save the guy. Gritting his teeth, he put the burning man out of his mind.

Instead he turned his attention, considered the two wizards guarding the entrance, and knew he'd gotten lucky with first wizard and really didn't want to take on two at once. From the bodies hanging from the ceiling he could tell that they were far more deadly than the one outside.

The first one was a short little guy and reminded him of a Halfling, but he was covered in body tattoos, and if the guy had hair on his body it sure wasn't noticeable. Instead, he was wearing a pair of tight leather pants and held a large rune covered staff at his side. There was no obvious sign of death as far as he could tell.

The other one was human, rather old, with long white hair and a full beard. He wore a thick robe and a pair of glasses. Ashaton couldsee a large bloody gash in the man's chest where a sword or spear was shoved through. This caused Ashaton to recall what he could about the first wizard he fight a little while ago.

The first had been stupid and thought that taunting him would make him do something to let his guard down. He couldn't count on that kind of thing with all of them. He needed a plan, and quick.

Then he heard something and turned to see a cute little robot by his foot. "I saw you earlier. You're that thing that was hanging around with Ranma aren't you?" He asked quietly as he glanced at the little Peebo.

It appeared to nod and smile.

"Can you help with those wizards?"

"Use iron."

"Iron?"

"Filing. Iron filings. They are aura wizards and iron disrupts their magic." B whispered.

Ashaton frowned. "I don't have any."

B rolled his eyes and rolled off before Ashaton could say anymore. Then the bot started laughing. "Good luck, moron!"

Watching the little bot move off, Ashaton shrugged. It was a good idea but he just didn't carry that kind of stuff around with him. He'd seen it used down in the base palace earlier though.

"Guess I'll just have to take a chance." He thought to himself and gripped the hilt of his sword tighter. The blade began to glow as he built up a charge of magic.

Then he stepped around the corner. "RUBY SHINING WAVE!"

Everyone turned to look at him as the magical blast sailed down the hallway, ripped deep holes in the walls, and slammed into one of the wizards. It staggered back as the other one looked on. Ashaton slid to a stop as he realized that the undead wizards hadn't been destroyed.

Instead the one he'd hit was slowly coming back to his feet. The shorter one just stood there eyeing Ashaton for a second.

"You should not have come here." He said.

"Now we have to kill you." The one Ashaton hit said as he finished standing. His clothing was in tatters, but it didn't appear as if he was as damaged as he should have been.

Growling, Ashaton twirled his sword and prepared to attack once more. The human zombie held is hand outwards and with a flare of magic a wave of power flew down the little passage way. Ashaton brought his sword to bare and used it like shield as the magic slammed into him.

The blade managed to stop it the blast, but it still pushed him back a couple of feet as he strained against the force of the blast. After several seconds it died down and Ashaton let the magic dissipate around him. Growling, Ashaton swung his sword and sent a wave of magic towards the zombie.

"Crap!" He yelled just as it hit him and threw him backwards, right into the red glow in the room behind him. Where he promptly disintegrated as he passed through the field of energy.

Casting spells like that through his sword was hard work at times. Ashaton really didn't like to do it, but as the little zombie turned to look at him, again he could tell that this one would be a little harder. The small fighters were always the hardest.

"Bring it on shorty." Ashaton said and brought his sword to bare once more. "Let's see what you can do."

The short guy eyed for several seconds before reaching for the weapon on his back and bringing it around. "You will not pass."

Ashaton snarled and the ruby in the hilt of his sword flared brightly. "Time to end this once and for all."

The little zombie, no more than four foot high, just stood there as an aura of power swirled around him. It grew bigger and bigger as the seconds passed. His staff also started to glow with power as it absorbed the magic building up inside the hallway.

They reacted as one, bringing their weapons around and firing a blast of energy at each other. Ashaton could barely maintain his feet as he stood there holding back what felt like an ocean of power. His feet started to slide on the floor as they put everything they had into the beams.

Then the little one stopped, rolled to the side and threw a swarm of glowing daggers. Ashaton had to let his own energy disperse as he dodged the new attack. The blades embedded themselves right into the stone.

He changed in his werecheetah form in mid roll, bringing his sword around to bat several more daggers out of the air. "What is your name?"

"Kithra Bane." The zombie said. "You shall not get through."

"Yeah yeah." Ashaton muttered as he tried to find a way past the little jerk's defenses.

Suddenly runes all over the zombie's body flared to life and the staff came around to point at Ashaton. It flared a wall of fire exploded from the jewel at the top of the staff.

"CHAOS CONTROL!" Ashaton yelled as the wall of fire slammed into him. He was instantly glad that he was in werecheetah form as he yelled out in pain and fell to the ground, his entire body smoking.

Kithra edged down the small hallway and eyed the smoking body. Then it twitched and the large sword flew right through his chest, threw him back, and impaled him on the wall. The ruby lit up and seconds later Kithra's body turned to dust and crumbled to the floor.

Crawling to his feet, Ashaton gritted his teeth in pain as his regeneration repaired the damage to his body in a matter of seconds. Gasping for air, Ashaton lurched to his feet. He limped over to the sword and yanked it out of the wall. Using its power, he sped up the regeneration of his body and turned to look at the archway that led into the next room.

Ashaton's form shifted into his wererat form, doubling the speed that his body regenerated. He walked over to the archway and touched the energy barring his way. It sparked the instant he touched it and nearly removed the tip of his finger before he could pull his hand away.

He stood there and watched as it regenerated a little slowly and knew that just walking into the room was going to be a challenge. Frowning a little he glanced over at the burning bodies around the room and realized that each of them must have served some purpose.

Frowning a little he considered his options and brought his sword to bare, the blade gleaming as he collected the magical energy needed to pull this off. Rook had placed a ward around the room to keep unwanted people out, even the zombies, so that he could work in private.

Ashaton gritted his teeth, brought the blade down on the barrier with a grunt, and put his full strength into it. The glowing blade cleaved through the barrier with a burst of light. The archway exploded with the force of a small bomb. Ashaton, right in the center, cried out as he hurled down the hall and slammed into the wall.

The tiny pieces of his sword that survived embedded themselves in the wall around him. The hilt clattered to the floor, the jeweled handle charred and smoking. He groaned and tried to move, but he could barely sit up.

Loud clattering footsteps echoed in the hallway as Rook walked over to him and kneeled down. His pitch black armor gleamed as fires from the blast slowly burned everything in the hall.

"Who might you be? I was expecting Julia Diggers or that boy I fought earlier." Rook asked his voice almost pleasant as he grabbed Ashaton by the hair and lifted his head up.

Ashaton groaned in pain.

"Now, who are you? Those zombies shouldn't have gone down that easily."

"Ash-Ashaton Chaos."

Rook looked him over. "Never heard of you and I know most of the great fighters on Jade. There is now way you would escape my notice.

"Rook yanked his head to the side and slammed it into he wall. "Talk!"

Groaning, Ashaton could barely see.

"The blast seems to have addled you. To bad, but it makes my goal a lot easier to achieve." Rook said to himself as he stood up and reached inside his chest plate to remove a small shield.

Power filled the hallway as it came into view glowing brightly. "This should take care of you. The Shield of the Phoenix, the gate of worlds, I've always wanted to test its strength."

Ashaton looked up and saw Rook holding an object. Said object was something he'd been questing to find, nearly twenty years, and it was just a few feet away. "I can…get…home…" Ashaton muttered.

Brandishing the shield, a wave of power fired out of the bird shaped shield. Ashaton threw himself forward and avoided the blast. It hit the wall behind him and it just vanished from existence. Leaving a ten foot hole where the wall used to be.

"Not going…to be…that easy." Ashaton grunted as he came up and punched Rook.

Stumbling back, Rook shook his helm and turned his glowing eyes on the dead man in front of him. "You should have just given up and died. Now I'll make you pay for that."

Reaching behind his back, Ashaton pulled a dagger out of its hidden sheath and gasped for air. Even with the werecheetah healing his body felt like it was about to drop dead at any second. He reasoned that the blast, since it was fueled by magic means, had hurt him quite a bit and he wouldn't be regenerating the damage any time soon.

Rook put the shield away and reached for a sword at his side. "Let's see what you've got."

"More than you think." Ashaton snapped.

The sword whipped out of Rook's sheath and Ashaton was barely able to bring is dagger around to block the attack. The werecheetah stumbled back several steps as the force of the blow nearly threw him off his feet. Then twin beams of magic fired from Rook's eyes.

The magic hit Ashaton right in the chest with the force of a car accident. Once more he flew down the hall, but this time the wall wasn't there and Ashaton fell through the hole. Rook stalked over, glared down into the room on the other side of the wall, and noticed that Ashaton wasn't moving.

"What a bore."

Several seconds later with a burst of light Ashaton vanished, leaving nothing behind, nobody, not even any blood. Rook stared at the spot for several seconds before turning around and stalking back down the corridor. He moved past all the dead or burning bodies without a thought. He waved his hand at them and the fires went out instantly.

Rook didn't notice as the shield he'd just used vanished when he put it back inside his armor. Two more undead wizards stepped into the hallway as Rook passed by. They took up position against the wall as Rook entered the council room once more.

"Keep everyone out; I don't have time to reset the wards."

"Yes Lord Rook."

----------

The whole Tree seemed to lurch beneath the fighters as they finished their attack on the Dracolich. One last attack with everyone attacking at once managed to overwhelm the monster and reduce it to dust. What they left could be collected and sent to the lower palace for study later on.

The fight had gone a bit better than Julia thought it would. They only lost about seventy men during the fight, though another thirty were too injured to ever fight again. The rest of the paladins only sported small injuries that wouldn't hurt them as they continued to fight.

There was only one fight left. They had to take the High Palace back from Rook and stop him finally. The bastard would never again get a chance to do something like this. Too many lives had been taken for them to show even the smallest amount of mercy or compassion.

Out in front of the Palace, in the courtyard, the whole area looked as if massive sections of the tree were burning. Tired soldiers helped to carry the wounded back to the makeshift hospital areas while others tried to put out the fires. The smell of death hung heavy in the air as those with the black armband moved through the desolation and levitated bodies into the air and threw them off the tree.

The Commander had several men rushing around trying to contain the fires as they raged over the grounds. Even a few brave paladins were fighting a fire that started in the Palace itself. They used the large entrance to Goldwave's lair so that no one was noticed.

An eerie silence settled over the area, clean up and regrouping only took ten minutes after the Dracolich finally fell. Off to the side Ranma took a second to flip the top of is bracer open to check and see if B was still functional. He was a little worried about the annoying little Peebo.

The stats screen, as Brianna had explained it to him, showed that the little bot was still active and nearby. The bot hadn't been acting as it used to after the fighting started. It wasn't throwing around insults anymore and acted a bit more serious. Ranma wasn't too sure what to think of that.

"Commander!" A paladin yelled from nearby.

"What is it?"

"This wizard that attacked us earlier, it's Lord Garath."

Julia walked over and looked down at the gory mess. "Looks like he was turned like so many others."

"Possibly, but does this mean we will have fight the very council?"

"I believe so."

The Commander frowned. "Our oaths make…"

"Oaths?"

"The Paladin's swear a magical oath to the Council when they take up arms for the city." Tirga explained as he knelt down and examined the body of the fallen mage. "The paladin's obey the orders given to them by any council member during a time of war."

"You mean if one of those undead things steps out here and tells them to kill us, they will do it?!"

"No, they have some freedom of thought, but they will also lose their right to be a paladin for Seer's Hamlet." Tirga explained. "Their armor and magic will cease to work while they continue to act in the Hamlet's name."

"Theo never mentioned anything like this before." Julia said.

"It isn't well known." Thropan added. "Most of the Edge Guard that have been around for a while knows of it, but it's just something that isn't talked about. Even Dr. Diggers might have just never thought to tell you about it unless you asked directly."

The Commander nodded. "Exactly. I thought the council was completely dead or mindless zombies. If they are able to still think for themselves, and are going to be used against us, they will know of the Oath…"

"I don't see that we have any choice but to continue through with our plan." Julia told him.

"Let's have them stay out here and guard the grounds Julia." Thropan suggested. "That way we don't have to take the chance at all."

"We might need them Thropan." Tirga countered. "I think they should come with us."

"What if they lose all their magic? It is tied into the council and if they lose that they are going to be at a serious disadvantage."

Tirga shrugged. "I'd rather take the chance."

"They stay." Julia decided and turned to the Commander. "Please understand this places everyone at risk."

"Oh I understand, I just don't like it." He muttered and stalked off. "We have fought under similar conditions before we became paladins Julia, we can fight that way again. I'll go and tell the men that things might become worse if they aren't careful."

Julia sighed, nodded, and turned to the others. "I'll need your help with this."

"Of course." Sheila said. "It's still Rook, and he'll always be a moron."

"Don't dismiss him like that Shelia, he's dangerous and we need to stop him before things get even more out of hand. I'm actually glad that the paladin's are coming with us. Rook used to terrorize the countryside outside of Seer's Hamlet and has always been a danger. This is just the first time that he's ever been able to bring that terror to the Hamlet." Tirga said with a shrug, for once being serious.

"Remember I enhanced our weapons earlier so they can do five times the as before, but the risks are there, so be careful." Thropan told them. "Ranma, do you need a weapon, can get you one?"

"No thanks." Ranma told him. "I'll use a weapon only if I have to so it's no big deal."

Julia gave him a disappointed look, she'd never been able to get him to carry a weapon around with him. She was just glad that she was able to expand his knowledge of weapons before this fight ever started.

Ranma ignored her and shrugged as he turned and walked through into the Palace courtyard with the others scrambling to catch up. Several yards into the decimated courtyard Ranma stopped walking and looked around warily.

"Now what's wrong?" Tirga snapped as they all came to a stop.

"I just sensed a large burst of magic from inside the building. Something completely different from what I've been sensing up until now. It's almost like what a dimension door spell feels like, but on a whole different level of power."

"Then he's nearly ready." Tirga said.

"Hurry, we have to stop him." Julia said and ran for the open front door of the palace.

"Julia, how many undead wizards are we likely to run into?" Ranma asked. "I don't think anyone has ever said how many were in here when that Dracolich killed them."

"Anywhere from five to eight I think." Thropan said. "Onoli once said that there were always one or two council members and few guards. They had a meeting earlier this morning when this whole thing began so several of them had to be here to watch thing when the emergency started."

"Sounds reasonable." Julia said. "I'm just not looking forward to fighting that many of my old friends. It's going to be like fighting Theo's father all over again."

Sheila and Tirga both shuddered a little.

"Who?" Ranma asked them. He'd never heard anything about this and he'd been with the family for several months now.

"Theo's father was a powerful Auramage just like Theo, except while working to create his greatest spell he made a mistake and tried to cast it too soon. It overwhelmed and killed him with a burst of magic, reversing everything about him. Turning him evil is an understatement, instead of dying he went from living to undead and became a powerful Lich. He calls himself the Lich King, and has tried to kill most of us at one point. Once he even tried to possess Gina because she is a blood relative, so he could live again."

"Could he be behind all these undead running around?"

The others glanced at him as if they'd never considered the idea before.

"I don't know." Julia admitted. "It's possible, but his style is little different than this. He likes to manipulate people and control them."

"Rook is in full control of this attack." Thropan said. "He would never let the Lich King run things for him. I'd think Rook would try to use him if he was around to cause problems."

"Let's get upstairs, the Council's main room should be on the left hand side of the Palace. Just down that hallway that leads off the stairs over there." Julia told them.

Ranma and Sheila quickly made their way up the stairs and over to the second level. They inched their way over to the archway and glanced around the corner. The signs of a battle filled the hallway, burnt stone, cracked and broken walls, and even shattered furniture.

Taking a second to close his eyes, Ranma took a deep breath, started to tap into the Neko-ken, and felt his senses expand outward. Something he really shouldn't have done since he was trying to keep his constant headache under control.

Hissing in surprise, Ranma staggered back and grabbed his head as a burst of energy exploded from his body. Sheila was next to him even as he fell so she took a burst of energy to her chest that sent her crashing into the wall hard enough to crack the wood.

"Damn!" Tirga yelled as he launched himself up the steps and ran over to Sheila. "Sheila, are you all right?"

"Ran..ma…" She breathed just before she passed out completely.

Tirga turned and glared at Ranma even as Julia and Thropan ran up and began to check on all of them. "Who attacked them?" The werepanther asked.

"I don't know." Tirga snapped. "It happened too fast to see anything."

"Ranma was clutching his head." Julia said. "I think he had another one of those headaches he's been having for the last couple of hours."

"You mean he did this to Sheila?" Tirga hissed.

"Not intentionally. Ranma has a lot of power and he is usually in complete control of it, but these headaches keep sidelining him."

Suddenly Julia glanced up and saw that one of the Council wizards standing in the archway. Dal-vreen, the Plains Halfling, who was about four foot tall, covered in body tattoos, and wearing almost no clothing except a loin cloth. "Ah Julia, I was wondering who would try and get in here. The Master does not want to be disturbed."

Ranma whimpered as he struggled against another wave of pain. Glancing down at him, Dal-vreen pulled a six foot long staff covered in runes and tapped him with it a few times. "Interesting, two down already and I didn't even have to cast a spell. Excellent."

"Dal-vreen we have to stop Rook."

"You shall not pass." He stated simply. "My brother is down, I won't go as easily as he did."

"Tzu Tzu would not want you to do this." Thropan snapped.

"The Pygmy is no longer any concern of mine." Dal-vreen snapped and his staff started to glow. "Now it is time for you to go."

Growling, Tirga went from a kneeling position to a full on attack with Fire Claw in less than second. He roared as his clawed mace flew out and ripped the staff from Dal-vreen's hand. This was quickly followed by a series of blows that would have killed a normal person. The Halfling sailed off his feet and slammed into the wall.

"That was a mistake." Dal-vreen said as he slowly stood up with his eyes glowing like a pair of tiny suns. "I was willing to just let all of you walk out of here but now I've changed my mind."

The little wizard thrust his hand forward as if thrusting something, and Tirga screamed as Dal-vreen's staff took him in the ribs. He staggered back as the magic embedded in the staff flared. Regaining his balance, Tirga glared. "How, I ripped it out of your hands."

"Moron, it's not a real staff but a part of my very soul. It is a part of me and can never be taken away." Dal-vreen snapped, spun the staff, and hit Tirga right below the chin.

The weretiger lifted into the air and flew back several yards. He landed back near the group and groaned in pain. Dal-vreen stalked forward with a growing aura of power forming around his body. Pointing his staff at Tirga, Dal-vreen channeled the energy through the staff and fired.

"No!"

"ICE FANG! EARTH FLAIL!"

Just as the light faded, they heard a scream and the whole floor shook as that much magic was released in such a small space. As things calmed down they could see Tirga on the floor, Julia was kneeling in front of him while Thropan and Sheila were before her.

One the floor a few feet away Dal-vreen was a shattered mess on the floor. They relaxed and sheathed their weapons. Julia turned back to Ranma to see if he was still on the floor.

"Damn." Sheila muttered as she looked at her sword.

"Looks like Ice Fang channeled a bit too much magic." Thropan said as he examined it quickly. "You'll have to be careful, once it breaks the magic may turn on you in an instant. You may be out of the fight."

"No!" She snarled. "I'll take my chances."

"Sheila, I warned everybody that supercharging the attacks might cause this."

"I don't care. Not until I know Ranma is safe and we end this once and for all. Every little bit of help is needed."

"The pain seems to be lessoning a little." Julia said as she examined Ranma's head.

"He needs a few hours sleep to get past this." Thropan said as he picked up Tirga's body and slung it over his shoulder.

"We don't really have that much time to waste." Julia told him.

"I know, but it's still what he needs."

"I'll be fine." Ranma muttered. "I will survive this."

"Ranma you're pushing to hard.

He opened his pain filled eyes and glared at her. "What else am I supposed to do?"

"Rest."

"No." He snarled. "I'll finish this. I won't be beaten like that again, not by anybody, and not by a stupid headache. I won't allow it!"

"Ranma, it's not like that."

Slowly coming to his feet, Ranma shook himself a little and regained a bit of control. "I've been beaten by every scumbag I've come up against in one form or another in the last few months. I've had enough, Gar was the final straw in a series of losses that should never have happened."

"Ranma, everyone you've fought has loads more experience than you do, but you learned and adapted to each loss incredibly well…" She said, quietly.

"Not good enough, I've been trained to be the best fighter in the world and there are days everyone I come across seems to beat me in one way or another. I will not let a little pain defeat me." Ranma snarled.

"Ranma you are defeating yourself." Julia snapped right back. "

"Let him fight Julia. Something is eating at him and his headache isn't helping him to mask it very well." Tirga said. "Thropan put me down or I'll bite your tail."

The werepanther quickly dropped Tirga on the floor. "Sorry, didn't know how long you were going to be out. I was about to take you out to where the paladin's are treating the injured."

"I'm fine." Tirga said. "That thing just packed quite a punch."

"How many of those wizards will we have to deal with?" Sheila asked. "We need to get this over with, but if there are more wizards in our way…"

"I can sense who is about." Ranma told them. "Even though my &$# headache, and there is just one more dead wizard to deal with and then Rook is ours."

"You can sense them?" Sheila gasped. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"You can't? They really stand out." Ranma said and shrugged.

"Ranma." She growled.

"What?"

"Don't worry about it Sheila, that's the way Ranma is. He assumes things at times. Where's the next enemy Ranma?" Julia said as she pulled out her sword. "Let's take him down."

"Just around the corner a little ways."

"Ranma are you sure you're alright?" Sheila asked.

He nodded, slowly. "Yeah, I just can't figure out why I'm in pain or why my meditation doesn't seem to be working as well."

"I'm worried about you." She mumbled, blushing a little.

"I'm fine."

"I don't think you are."

Ranma really didn't know what to say and winced as another spike of pain nearly dropped him to his knees. He took a deep ragged breath as Shelia grabbed his hand.

"Come on Sheila, don't worry about it, I'm fine." Ranma told her and took his hand back. She looked disappointed.

They all turned and slowly moved down the hallway until they came to the curve, where not an hour before Ashaton had stood. They glanced at each other before Julia shrugged, knelt down to the floor and slowly looked around the corner. She pulled back and looked at the others.

"I see one guard, one of the dead council members. Beyond that is the archway that leads into the council chambers. The room is full of red light from several spells that seem to be flowing through the ceiling, the rooms above, and out the top of the Palace and into the upper atmosphere.

"Let's just hit the guard all at once and move on to Rook." Ranma suggested.

"Sounds good to me." Tirga agreed.

The others nodded.

"Why only one guard though, doesn't that see a bit stupid?" Sheila asked.

"I'm not sure." Julia said after thinking for a second. "This is usually how Rook does things, by using people as cannon fodder and taking care of things himself."

"But he even told us a little while ago that all this is planned out." Ranma said.

"I know and that has me worried."

"Then ignore the guard and just blast the hell out of the whole hallway, the room and the both of them at once."

They all turned to look at him for coming up with such a simple, yet more effective plan.

"What?"

"Works for me." Tirga said and patted Ranma on the back, causing him to stumble forward, out into the hall as he tripped over Julia's feet. He fell over as the guard jumped to attention and started to instantly form a spell.

"Tirga!" Sheila yelled.

"Ah, &$#." Ranma snarled as he finished coming to his feet. A large amount of power formed around him an instant later. He threw his hand forward and yelled the first spell that came to mind. Just not the one he really wanted.

"Dispel Magic!"

"Korvous!" The undead wizard yelled.

"No!" Sheila yelled and jumped for Ranma, transforming in mid leap into her human form. Even as she tackled him, the two spells hit each other in the middle of the hallway and went off.

With a bit of thought Ranma would have cast a fireball spell, but he didn't know why he cast that one instead. The wizard's Korvous spell, a rather evil spell that set a person's blood on fire, flared brightly and vanished as it lit up the whole hallway.

Everything was quiet for a second just as Tirga and Thropan ran around the corner, weapons drawn and instantly sent two large blasts of magic flying down the hallway. Julia moved over to where Ranma and Sheila were laid out on the floor.

"Don't worry mum, I got the toast…" Sheila muttered.

Ranma sweatdropped.

"Ranma, you get into the most interesting messes." Julia said just as Tirga and Thropan's blasts detonated at the end of the hall, completely obliterating the undead wizard. Her hair blew about her for a second as the compressed air blew by them.

Sheila jerked awake and found herself, still human, laying on top of Ranma. She blushed.

"This isn't the time for this, kids." Julia said as she stood back up and looked down the hallway as Rook stepped into sight inside the Council room. As always he was wearing his armor and Ranma had to wonder where he'd gotten the replacement cape. He still looked like a Darth Vader otaku though. "Ranma, get up."

Ranma and Sheila slowly climbed to their feet, suppressing a groan of pain as they moved around. "You didn't have to tackle me like that."

"Sorry." Sheila muttered.

Nearby, just out of sight and watching from behind a fallen bit of stone, B snickered. Inside the little Peebo certain programs were activating that even B wasn't aware existed. Hard wired programs that Brianna installed for emergencies where it was possible that someone might be killed. Being Ranma's protector, though reluctantly, B's observation of Ranma had changed since being released earlier.

The little bot's body started to change slightly as it slowly blended in with the walls around it. Seconds later it faded from sight and started to move forward and observe the upcoming fight. Its eyes recorded a digital copy of everything and a gun popped out of its back. Brianna's secret weapon was ready to go.

As Ranma shook his head and noticed that Rook was just standing there as if he was bored. For some reason Ranma felt like smirking, the armored moron didn't know what was going to happen in the next few minutes. Even Julia, Gar, and Thropan didn't look like they were worried about him even though they were tense.

"Rook." Ranma said, finally getting his first good look at the monster that set all this in motion.

"Well is it that time again?" Rook said mildly.

"Rook, you need to stop this madness. You've ruined countless lives today it's time for it to stop." Julia told him as she held her sword forward. She had to give him a chance to back down even if she knew he would never take it.

Thropan and Tirga took up positions on either side of her with their weapons at the ready. They all watched as a small thing, somewhat humanoid, walked over to stand in front of Rook and looked them over as if they weren't worth his time.

Ranma looked down at the thing in confusion, he wasn't sure what to think of the little thing. He could tell that the little thing was very dangerous though and it made him nervous.

"It's an Imp." Thropan gasped. The hint of disgust in Thropan's voice was all Ranma needed to know that the thing wasn't going to be fun to fight.

"How do we stop it?"

"Imps come in various levels, regular ones are about as dangerous as skeletons and easier to kill. On the other hand Imps are creatures that gain power from those that create them, so the older it is, the stronger it becomes. This one is quite old. You can tell by the size of its horns."

Just looking at the thing gave Ranma a queasy stomach. It appeared to have gray skin similar to an elephant, wrinkled beyond compare. A pair of large bulbous eyes that waggled drunkenly about on short stalks that sprouted from the thing's head.

A pair of pitch-black horns curved around the back of its head, twisted, and came back around to that two points brushed along its shoulders. The thing wasn't even wearing any clothing except for a tiny loincloth and a belt with a knife set into the arch of its hunched back.

"I expected so much more resistance than this Julia. I'm rather disappointed even after taking out that first fighter you sent in here. He at least got in a couple of good hits, but he's gone now. Just as the rest of you will be."

"We won't go down easily Rook, just stop this mess and let things get back to normal. Seer's Hamlet can't take much more."

"That's exactly what I wanted!" Rook yelled, raised a glowing hand, and the whole Palace started to shudder beneath their feet.

The group stayed right where they were and managed to stay on their feet as everything shook itself apart. Paintings fell off the walls, some of the staircases fell and sent echoes throughout the whole building. Back down on the lower floor, in Goldwave's lair, piles of gold collapsed onto several paladins.

The Imp just smirked at them as the constant red energy that filled the room increased as the shaking dwindled down. Outside, more leaves started to fall off the branches and the beam rising into the sky increased in power. Lightning fell from the dome and slammed into the ground around the High Palace.

Large chunks of wood were carved from the tree by the lightning, ripping tons of branches from the Tree. They rained down on the city below, crushing several houses. Survivors of the undead army fled from the falling debris. Paladins still roaming the streets below did what they could to lesson the damage, but they had no warning that something like this might happen.

After several seconds Rook lowered his hand. "That is just a sample of what I can do now that I've taken control. All of you are wasting your time, back down and I might kill you quickly."

Ranma barely managed to stay on his feet as a wave of agony ripped through his body. He felt like someone had just carved several large holes from his head with an axe. Sheila tried to comfort him, but he growled and shook her off. Shaking his head, Ranma's eyes started to glow.

"The last twenty four hours have been a living nightmare. Undead monsters, endless fights, and everything else that has happened. I thought I'd never get tired of fighting, but this is too much even for me. Rook, you are a going to die." Ranma growled as he started to draw magic into his body as an incredible rate.

"What are you doing?" Rook asked as he felt all the magic around them starting to quickly dwindle down to a trickle.

An aura of magic formed around Ranma, flowing around him like a blanket of light, his eyes glowing brightly as they stared at Rook. "This fight ends today even if I have to rip you apart one piece at a time."

Julia and the others quickly baked off as their clothing started smolder under the effects of the aura. Ranma was wearing a transformed mage suit and it swiftly morphed back into its skintight version. He barely noticed as a ball of blue fire formed in hands.

Even Sheila was amazed at the amount of magic swirling around Ranma as he focused his power. "Woah…"

"Imp, kill them all." Rook ordered.

"I'd be happy to." The little monster said as it raised its hand and snapped its fingers.

Fires throughout the room flared to the ceiling and quickly formed into fire elementals. Rook laughed as he saw the three members of the Edge Guard pale at the sight. "I sacrificed the souls of the remaining council members to complete my plan. Right now they aren't needed anymore so the imp here is going to use them instead."

"Fire Elementals." Tirga growled. His weapon would be completely useless against the things.

"I can take them out." Sheila said as the thing started to form into a group of five humanoid shaped flames.

"Good." Ranma said. "That leaves the armored jerk for me."

"Ranma we need to work together…" Julia said.

The pigtailed boy ignored her as he absorbed the ball of blue fire into his body and started to stalk towards Rook. At the same time the elementals, hovering off the ground, floated towards them with inhuman screams. Rook backed into the council room as the elementals left and watched Ranma curiously. He wasn't sure what Ranma had in mind.

"You don't actually think you can beat me do you?"

An elemental suddenly went for Ranma, but it exploded into a wave of fire five feet from Ranma as it touched Ranma's aura. The aura seemed to grow just tiny bit larger as well. Rook watched the elemental struggled to reform itself as Ranma turned to glare at it, then back at Rook. "Enough of this."

Glareing, Rook realized as he was about to attack that the level of ambient magic that he'd collected inside the room was diminishing quickly. He could feel it swirling around Ranma like a hurricane. The energy battered at Rook's armor as they stared at each other. That meant that casting his deadlier spells wasn't going to work while Ranma was using all the magic in the room.

Ranma threw his hand forward, his aura flaring into the visible spectrum. "Wind."

"Idiot!" Rook yelled, surprised by the use of such a simple spell, and quickly formed a basic shield. "I expected better of a magic user as strong as you."

Smirking, Ranma felt the air around them rippling as it suddenly surged around him. Two of the elementals screamed as they were extinguished under the force of the wind. Rook was picked up like a rag doll and tossed across the room. Just as he was about the hit the wall he vanished in a burst of light.

Ranma started to turn his head and look for Rook when he felt a punch to the middle of his back. He staggered forward and turned to see Rook standing there, an evil glint in his eyes.

"You don't understand do you?"

"You'll pay for that." Ranma snapped as his aura flared again. This time he threw a punch, even though he was several feet from Rook, and sent a sphere of blue light at the black armored monster.

Rook batted it out of the air and into a nearby wall with a flick of his hand. "Gotta to better than that moron."

Ranma glared at him, his mind running through hundreds of different ways to attack. Behind Rook he could see the others fighting the fire elementals as hard as they could. Sheila was holding them off, but he could sense that her sword was too damaged to last much longer.

She was in danger.

His aura flared and Ranma vanished. Half an instant later Rook staggered back as Ranma attacked him physically, raining blow after blow down on his chest and head, denting the hell out of the armor. The pummeling ended with a spinning back kick sent the armored knight into the wall headfirst just as Rook vanished in a burst of light.

Ranma twisted and dropped purely on instinct as the light appeared behind him and Rook appeared, sword in hand, swinging it around with expert skill. "You piece of filth! You will pay for that!"

Smirking, Ranma rolled to his feet and counter attacked. He slapped the blade in mid arch and palm punched the armor right in the chest. It connected with a flare of blue light. Rook staggered back several steps, his chest plate was shattered completely.

The armored Knight stared down at the damage. "You weren't able to do this in our last fight."

"I wasn't fighting all out then." Ranma said as they started to circle.

"You are a fool. There is no way you can beat me no matter how much damage you do to my armor."

"I will take you apart one chunk at a time if I have to." Ranma said.

Rook's sword spun around in his hand a couple of times as they moved. He brought it around and made a wild strike. "RAKER!"

A wave of energy sailed at Ranma. His eyes widened and jumped straight up and attached himself to the ceiling as the energy slammed into the wall and sliced through it with ease. Then the whole wall groaned and collapsed. On the other side was the staircase that led to the front door.

Rook cursed and he flicked his other hand and another sword appeared. His armor flared with energy and Ranma noticed that the floor of the room was covered in a glowing red pentagram. At each tip of the star was a burning bonfire and they were fighting in the center of it all.

Dropping, Ranma spun around and thrust his hands forward. "Flame!"

A wave of fire fired from his hands as his body absorbed magic from all around them and channeled it into the spell. A wall of fire slammed into Rook, who crossed his swords in front of him.

"Ahaa!"

Ranma landed and snapped his arms around, making the fire rise up into the air, curve around, and envelop Rook completely. Then he gritted his teeth and poured even more power into the attack, turning the flames into white fire. After several seconds Ranma had to stop and gasp for air and growled under his breath. He could still sense Rook inside the raging fire.

He walked from the flames as if the slightly melted stone under his feet meant nothing. "Not bad, but it was still a pathetic attempt. I'm the most powerful being on this planet boy. Don't you understand that? Every time anyone in Seer's Hamlet dies they turn undead and I get their life force."

Ranma ignored him and started to pull in more magic.

"I'M A GOD NOW!" Rook yelled and held his blades high. "I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT!"

Ranma decked him hard enough to throw him off his feet. "Shut the hell up and fight!"

----------

The imp yelled orders as the fire elementals swarmed down the hallway, a wave of heat flowing before them that set several of the nearby tapestries on fire. Julia, Gar, Thropan, Tirga, and Sheila scrambled to get out of the way. Of all the opponents they would have to fight none of them had expected to take on an elemental.

"This is the kind of thing we need Theo for!" Julia yelled.

"He's not here, deal with it!" Sheila yelled, slightly irritated as the whole situation. She could see Ranma and Rook fighting each other just down the hall, throwing around magic strong enough to kill anybody that got close. She brought her sword around and sent a sheet of icy energy at one of the nearest fire elementals.

It screeched as the ice seemed to form around its flaming body. The other elementals didn't even seem to realize that one of them was attacked. Instead they all slowed down and started to radiate more and more heat as they drew closer.

Thropan brought his weapons around and fired it into the floor, ripping a hole in the stone and sending one of the elementals into the halls below them. "We need a plan!"

"We need Onoli!" Thropan yelled. "He's got the swords that will work on these things!"

"Onoli isn't here, it's just us, so get a move on." Julia snapped. Her sword spiraled around her in a dance of death as she moved through the elementals. Sheila stayed as close to everyone as she could and used her weapon to radiate cold.

It was affecting the elementals, but not enough to keep them more than a few yards away. Tirga's teeth were chattering as he brought his whip to bare, unsure how to attack the things.

"My sword is melting!" Julia yelled as she backed away from a couple of the elementals.

"So is the floor." Yelled a voice at her feet.

She looked down to see a Peebo. It grinned at her.

"Hello grandma." B said. "Brianna asked me to help protect Ranma and all his friends. If you and the others will give me a good place to attack I can take these things out."

'Grandma?' Julia thought to herself. She was really going to have to sit down and talk to Brianna about some of these robots one day. Bad enough they tended to blow up everything in sight. "We're too confined in here for you to blow up."

"I'm not going to. I have a special weapon I can fire, but I can only do it once." B explained, more polite to its grandma.

"What is it."

"I'm not allowed to say, but if we pull this off right I can take these things out as well as the big meany down the hall there."

"B!" Sheila yelled as she spotted him at Julia's feet.

"Everyone, start to back down the hall. B is going to fire a weapon at the elementals and Rook." Julia said. She waved at Ranma and made several hand signals that he acknowledged with a wave as he flipped over Rook. "Move, Move, Move!"

The edge guard did as they were told, although Tirga felt like he was useless in this fight. Thropan watched in fascination as the back of the little robot opened up and a miniature disk of some kind rose out, sparking with energy.

Ranma heard his computerized bracer beeping at him, but since he was currently fighting off Rook's magically enhanced attacks he didn't have a chance to check and see what it was. He ducked and weaved his way through Rook's attack and tried to maneuver him into position.

"I'm the baddest Peebo you will ever see!" B yelled as a betatech phantom ring formed in front of his little body, spinning almost faster than the eye could see.

Thropan paled, an amazing thing to do since he is covered in black fur, and ran forward past Julia and slammed his chucks into the floor and made all the blocks rise up and form a wall.

"Thropan?!" She yelled.

"Why didn't you tell me that little monster could form SHADOW RINGS?!"

Julia looked confused for a second before she paled, turned on her heel and ran. "Run for your lives!"

B's amplified laughing suddenly filled the hall as the ring started to expand, forming more rings in the center. The fire elementals were starting to recover from Sheila's weapon and surged forward, their arms reaching out to grab the only thing there.

Listening to B's laughter, which reminded Ranma of Brianna way more than he liked, he risked a glance down the hall to see a growing mass of spinning shadow like disks forming around his little friend. Just as he fired.

"DUCK MORON!" B yelled as he fired.

"OH S#!#$#!" Ranma yelled, closed his eyes, and vanished just as Rook began to realize that something was wrong.

"Coward!" Rook yelled as billions of miniature shadow rings fired down the hall. They ripped the fire elementals to shreds in milliseconds and set of a massive explosion of magic as they died.

The imp vanished in a puff of smoke even as its lower body was removed from its top half. Its screams could be heard even after it was gone. And Rook could only stare in shock as a wall of death made its way down the hallway and expanded out ward, spreading throughout the east side of the Palace.

From the outside Julia and the others were just racing down the stairs and out the front door, as over half of the High Palace seemed to just silently detonate. Rings of shadow swirled outward chewing up large portions of the Palace in a matter of seconds. These were quickly followed by massive fireballs that consumed several more sections of the building.

What wasn't vaporized was sent high in to the air and started to rain down on them seconds after the destruction was over. Everyone did what they could to cover themselves. Within seconds a massive fire was raging through what was left of the Palace.

"RANMA!" Sheila screamed as she realized that he was still inside the building.

Tirga gaped at the sight before him, for once shocked at the level of destruction that had taken place. "How can something so small cause all that?"

"Shadow Rings." Thropan said, his eyes filled with awe and fear. "I never expected to see such a thing in my life. I've read about the weapon, but even then it was only a legend. How could anybody resurrect such a dangerous thing?"

Julia winced and decided that mentioning Brianna wouldn't be such a good idea right now.

"What are Shadow Rings?"

"They are what the Shadows used to execute entire towns." Thropan explained. "Entire cities were whipped form the face of the planet with just one of those things."

Tirga growled. "Did that guy make it out of there?"

"I'm not sure." Julia said as she looked around.

"We have to find Ranma!" Sheila yelled as tears started to form in her eyes.

Thropan and Tirga looked at each other. "Sheila…"

"I'm fine."

They whirled around to see Ranma sitting on the ground. Sheila tackled him and burst into tears. He froze up for a second before hugging her. "I managed to teleport out of there right before the wave hit me."

Julia looked quite relieved to see him as well. "I didn't know you could teleport."

"Never tried before, just knew a little bit about it from what Dr. Diggers told me." Ranma explained.

"But that should have been impossible…the city is still under siege. All portals, teleporting, and anything else are blocked until the council resets the magic that keeps Seer's Hamlet hidden." Thropan said.

"They must be down then. Otherwise it would never have worked." Ranma said. He could vaguely recall punching through some kind of magic barrier as if it was a wet paper bag. However, beyond that he was just happy to be safe. He sighed.

"What's wrong Ranma?"

"I lost another fight." He snapped.

"I couldn't even stop the moron before B fired that stupid weapon of his."

"Cut that out, Rook has never been this dangerous before. I don't think anyone could have taken him out in a one on one fight." Julia snapped.

Ranma glared at her. "I'm tired of losing every time I fight someone. I took everything I had to beat Garfield when we fought, and Daishi nearly killed me in our fight after Jusenkyo."

"Ranma all of these fighters have been training in ways you can't imagine." Julia started.

"Don't give me that, I've been through hell for my training. Nearly ten years of no holds bared fighting, walking all over the world, and for what? To get my ass kicked by every nobody that comes along?" Ranma snapped as he stood and helped Sheila to her feet.

"Ranma…" Julia said, realizing that Ranma had some problems to work out.

"We'll talk later, Master." Ranma said as he headed for the stairs by himself. "I need to be alone for awhile."

"What's wrong with him?" Sheila asked.

"Ever since I started training him Ranma has been in several fights against people he's never encountered before. Strong fighters that have beaten him. In the end he has come back and beat them in a rematch, like he did with Daishi and Hanza."

"I don't understand." Sheila said with a little frown, although it was obvious that Thropan and Tirga understood.

"His pride is wounded." Thropan said.

"It's a little more than that." Julia corrected him. "Ranma's father can be best described as scum. The man is has no concept of parental caring, he spent nearly a decade teaching Ranma how to fight by abusing the boy and never once showing him any signs of love. It affected Ranma quite a bit"

"On top of that, Ranma has more potential as a fighter than anyone I've ever seen. He can absorb and learn techniques in an instant if he has to. Like him teleporting. Theo never even taught him that and wouldn't have for at least another year or so."

"His father taught Ranma to be the best fighter ever and that losing was worse than death. Ranma would rather face death than lose another fight."

Sheila gasped. "I hadn't realized it went that deep."

"Ranma is a fighter Sheila, like a lot of men, it's his whole life." Tirga said, patting her on the shoulder.

"Ranma can't understand just how strong he is. Everyone that has defeated him has either been enhanced with magic like Hanza was or like Daishi, a very talented fighter." Julia explained.

"Do you think he will do something stupid?"

Julia thought about it for a second and shrugged. "This is Ranma, he has a tendency to be unpredictable."

----------

About an hour later Ranma was sitting on the edge of the staircase looking out over the shattered city below him. In the pitch-black night he could see the thousands of fires raging in the city below. A part of him wanted to go down there and help everyone out as he'd been trained to do.

Another part of him just didn't care. Over the last few months he had come to realize that he couldn't do everything by himself. This latest fight really had him worried. He hadn't had a chance to fully engage Rook because of the close quarters of the council room, and then B had sacrificed himself to fire off that weapon of his.

Yet another fight that ended with no obvious winner. He was supposed to be the best. His old man told him had told him that ever day of his life. It's what all the sacrifices were for after all. Ten years of practicing martial arts twenty-four hours a day, never taking a break, always practicing or learning something. And he still couldn't call himself the best.

He didn't want to think about what else his old man would have put him through over the last few months. Julia had managed to teach him more in the last few months than he'd learned in the last two years. New moves, better control, and a whole hell of a lot better than he ever was. After all that he was still ending up on the losing end of a fight.

Ranma sighed and stared at his hand as best he could. Sometime during the last fight he had injured a couple of his fingers. It would take him days to heal all his injuries he sustained fighting Rook. He reached deep inside himself and let his Ki loose just a little.

His hand flared with energy, quickly forming his Ki claws. Of everything he'd learned this had to be the most potent and dangerous technique he had in his arsenal and he was beginning to think that it might just his greatest weakness as well.

A crutch technique. A martial artist wasn't supposed to depend on any one move. Anything could be used to fight with, one just had to use it to their advantage without being dependent on it. Like the way a swordsman was useless without their sword.

The same applied to his magic he realized. By learning everything from Dr. Diggers and Julia he wasn't following the tenets of his school anymore. He was depending on the things Julia had taught him for nearly everything. Sure he still used the core moves of his school, but he couldn't recall the last time he used an Anything Goes secret move.

He let the claws vanish and continued to stare at his hand for a minute as he brooded. For the next several minutes he just sat there slowly reviewing his memories of the last few months. His fight with Ryan, the Amazon's strange customs, and the fight with Daishi.

All of it pointed to the fact that he needed to fix is life. It didn't help that he needed to get to Nali's clinic. Rook and Dracolich had really screwed him over. He could ignore the pain for now, but it would have to be taken care of shortly. From the feel of it he even had a couple of cracked ribs.

"Ranma!"

He looked up to see Sheila running over to him looking concerned. "Yo."

She stopped and smiled at him. "You look like crap."

"Oh ha ha, I feel like it too."

"Can you make it down the stairs without help?"

"Yeah." He said and climbed to his feet and saw that the others were following along behind Sheila.

"You feeling better Ranma?" Julia asked.

He nodded.

Sometime later they all reached the bottom of the staircase and saw that the surviving paladins were back in control. Several of the scantily clad girls from Leep's school were standing guard near the entrance to the palace. They waved at Julia as they left the building.

"Everything under control?" Julia asked.

"Yes Ma'am, Master Leep is still at the library with several of the advanced students making sure things are running smoothly."

"I'll be sure to stop by."

They nodded as they headed into town. Ranma could smell the smoke from several nearby fires in the air. "Who's taking care of the fires?"

"Now that the undead army is dealt with the people are slowly taking their town back. It's going to take months to recover from this, perhaps even a year or two."

Sheila sighed and nodded. "The Edge Guard are going to be quite busy for a while."

"Yeah and with two of us down things are going to be harder." Tirga said. "Gar better get back on his feet soon."

Thropan just sighed and looked around. "I think we need to make sure that the regular criminals aren't running around as well."

"We have to sleep you know." Sheila snapped. "I'm about ready to drop. This has been the never ending day."

"Our duty comes before sleep." Thropan commented.

Sheila sighed.

"Besides, the compound burned down to the ground. We don't have anywhere to sleep at the moment." Thropan said and shrugged his shoulders. "You also have to get the sword of yours fixed."

"It's still usable."

"It's about to fall apart!"

"It just needs some polishing." She snapped, holding her beloved sword and ignoring all the little cracks in the blade.

"I told you that you had to be careful with it when using that higher level of magic."

She sniffed and turned away, walking a little faster. Julia just shook her head as they turned down a street and headed for Nali's clinic. She watched out of the corner of her eye as Ranma let out a little sigh of relief and started limping a little.

A group of bandaged men suddenly stumbled out of Nali's clinic as they approached. Pushed out the front door by Nali herself as she made room for the people that were truly injured and had to stay. She spotted them coming and shook here head.

"Julia, you aren't hurt are you?"

"A little, but nothing to bad. Ranma here on the other hand needs some potions to get him back to normal."

The old healer eyed Ranma for a second and nodded. "I can give you a few minutes, but I have others that are much more wounded that he is."

Julia nodded. "I understand. Ranma wouldn't want to stay anyway."

"Just get rid of the pain and I'll be fine in a couple of days." Ranma said and shrugged, winced, and started to pretend he didn't feel any pain.

Nali laughed as he walked into the clinic. "Stay here!"

Seconds later she came back out and handed two potions to Ranma. "Drink both of those and give the bottles back."

Ranma eyed them for a second before downing both of them in quick order. By the time the second potion was empty he was feeling a lot less pain. "Thanksh." He slurred.

"What did you do?!" Sheila yelled as she suddenly had to support Ranma to keep him from falling down.

"Dwarven ale." Nali said and grinned. "Along with a mild pain reliever. Combined they can put anyone to sleep for at several hours at least. Now get out of here, I'm busy."

The healer stalked back into her clinic and slammed the door shut. Sheila suddenly shifted into her human form and lifted Ranma to her shoulder. She looked a bit miffed as she glared at the door. "I should make her pay for that."

"Well Ranma did need to get some sleep and I think the rest of us do to. A few hours at least. Let's find a park or something and grab a few hours sleep." Julia said.

----------

A few hours later Ranma woke up to a sensation that caused him to freeze up for several seconds. He looked down at his chest to see two things, the first was that he was still wearing his skintight mage suit that left nothing to the imagination. The second was that Sheila was using his chest as a pillow as she snuggled up next to him.

She was in her werejaguar form once more and had somehow managed to sleep with him without waking him up. Glancing to the side he saw that Tirga and Thropan were also sleeping in the grass nearby along with about a dozen other people. All of them looked like they were here for various reasons.

Standing nearby, the sun gleaming off his red armor, was a paladin. Sighing, Ranma sat up and gently lay Sheila on the ground before he stood up. Glancing at the sun he figured it was early morning, just after sun up. Yawning, Ranma did a few stretches.

His head was a little fuzzy, but he was alert enough to see that three quarters of the city was in ruins. As he was about to turn back to the others and see if they were alright, Ranma spotted a couple of people heading in their direction. A few seconds later the paladin spotted them as well and saluted as they arrived at the park.

"Gar, Onoli." Ranma said as they looked in his direction.

The two of them were covered in bandages, had an arm in a sling, and were wearing some loose clothing. Gar walked over to Ranma. "Good morning Ranma."

"Morning."

"I'm too injured to fight right, maybe we can do it later." Gar said with a little smile.

"Quite alright, I'm in a bit of pain myself." Ranma said.

"I'm glad to see you survived out little war." Onoli said and looked over at the rest of his team sleeping in the grass.

"You to Onoli, we never got a chance to meet the first time." Ranma said and shook the guy's hand.

Gar looked a little embarrassed as he stood there. "I have…have to apologize for my actions Ranma. I can't believe that I fell for such a spell."

"Forgiven." Ranma said, deciding that he didn't want to get these people mad at him. He was too tired to fight at the moment anyway.

"Thropan! Tirga! Sheila!" Onoli said in a commanding tone of voice. "Time to get up!"

The three Edge Guard members, Julia, and several other people jumped to their feet looking around for a fight. Smiling a little the werelion walked over to them and looked to see how injured they were. "Tirga, as always you make it through the fight without a scratch."

The weretiger smirked a little. "Of course, I'm a prime piece of meat that no woman can resist!"

Sheila snorted as she walked over to Ranma and ignored Tirga as he watched her. "So Ranma are you feeling better today?"

"Much better, but I'm still a little sore and my arm is killing me." Ranma said and examined his left arm.

"We can have Nali take a closer look at it this morning if you want." She said as she took a closer look at his arm.

"Naw, I'll make a sling for it here in a little while if it continues to hurt like this."

"Yeah that might be a good idea. Nali has been quite busy lately and a bit of a grouch."

"Gar!" Sheila yelled as she ran over to Gar and gave him a hug. "I didn't think you would be up for a while yet."

"I'm on light duty for now." He explained. "I'm not even supposed to be walking around, but Nali doesn't know what happened to the compound so she kicked us out."

"You should've told her."

"Naw, we can use some of the rooms at the base palace for a few weeks until the compound is rebuilt."

"I hate that place." Sheila muttered and made a face.

Gar laughed. "We started out there and all our rooms are still there so it won't cause any problems."

"Anybody know what happened to Raphiel?" Onoli asked suddenly and everyone got real quiet.

"Was he hurt?" The werelion asked, frowning a little.

"The one that could answer that was taken out by Rook a few hours ago." Julia said. "I only heard a little, but it seems that Hanza attacked the compound with several Undead Knights while you were at the High Palace. Ashaton Chaos was in the area and went to help Raphiel out and the two of them took quite a beating. In the end Raphiel was killed, but instead of dying his body disintegrated and all it left behind was that weird puzzle piece."

Onoli sighed and appeared for a few seconds to be quite a bit older than he really was. "This has been a very bad battle for the whole city. I don't think there is a family in the city that hasn't lost someone to that horde."

"Dr. Diggers has Raphiel's piece Onoli. He called it a Soul Fragment but I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that." Thropan said. "Ashaton told me about it before he went off and got killed by Rook."

"We need to honor him in some way. I've been hearing his name all over the city this morning. Some were even saying he was a werecheetah."

"I never saw anything like that, but he had some strong magical items with him." Thropan said, thinking back to their talk.

"He's human as far as I can tell." Sheila said. "Remember he was the one that saved my life from those Undead Knights."

"Is his body still up top?"

Thropan and Tirga shrugged. "No one ever found his body."

"I'll have one of the surviving mages look into it." Onoli said. "Oh, The Giant Clan will also be here in a few hours to help us finish clearing out the city Julia. I thought you would like to know that your mother is on her way."

The red headed fighter frowned a little at the news. "Thank you, I'll be looking forward to her arrival."

Onoli nodded. "Let's head over to the lower palace and see if they have managed to get things settled down a bit."

----------

Earth Realm: Japan, Nerima Ward

There were only a few clouds in the sky as they passed in front of the full moon as shown down on crowded streets below. Street lights lighting up the sidewalks for the occasional pedestrian.

If there existed a stranger place on all of Japan, it would have a hard time comparing in to this place. The only one that even came close was the Tomobiki ward, which neighbored Nerima just a few miles to the south. There existed no place more filled with weirdness and chaos than these two places.

Weirdness from one seemed to cross over into the other on a daily basis at times. The residents of both had learned, long ago, to cope and adjusted to the chaos that permeated both wards. Most families just lived with it as a normal part of their lives and were a lot healthier for it.

On this particular night there would be a sight so strange, so odd, that the residents of Nerima would be talking about it for years to come. A sight like this wasn't seen very often and even then it was quickly forgotten, but not this.

Witnesses to this event would be few and far between, but those that do witness it would be struck dumb by the sheer weirdness of it. Even the Oni Princess of Tomobiki wouldn't top the scales with her normal form of wackiness this night. How can simple alien and her friends compare to the chaos that walked the streets of Nerima?

No, this night would belong to a shadow down there among the houses that bordered Nerima and Tomobiki as it alighted from one shadowed alcove to another with the skill of a master thief, never making a sound. At first its form is hard to describe because it's too fast to make out, but after a second of study one will be able to tell that it is a simple man. A rather roguish looking man wearing a dirty white gi, a pair of glasses, and no shoes whatsoever.

His gi is about two sizes to big and gives him the impression that he is fat and out of shape, but this is nowhere near the truth. This man's belt, a sign of his martial arts rank, is completely black, black with grime and sweat achieved through hard training. Years of effort and practice were needed to make a belt look like this.

The dirt of the world from a lifetime of martial arts study and training. His skill can be seen in the way he sticks to the shadows and walks down the street when there isn't any place to hide. He blends in perfectly as he stalks his prey this night.

He is a large man by most standards as well, and as he passes near a street light there is a gleam as light reflects off his glasses. Just enough to reveal an aged face and a baldhead covered in a white scarf tied on with long strings that hang down his back where he carries a large backpack rests.

This shadow, this man, ducks into the shadowed lee of a wall as he spots what he is looking for down the street this late night and smirks, revealing gleaming white teeth. He steps behind a set of trashcans and scans everything around him to make sure he has every little detail covered so that there are no surprises.

He is a master at what he does.

Checking the straps on his pack he takes a second to make sure that they are secured tightly, for if he lost his pack he would be in for a world of hurt that would not do. He has plans to set up, plans that would be followed no matter what if he was to survive this night. No, taking a second to make sure everything was in working order wasn't even a problem.

A life time of training allowed him to move so quietly that he could move though the most dangerous places in Japan without being caught, but he had to have the right motivation to do so. That motivation, just down the street, was waiting or his arrival. They just didn't know it.

Oh yes, he understood that completely and wished he could pay his respects to the Dread Master once more just to 'thank' him properly. He sniffed the air and focused his eyes on his goal, now less than twenty feet away. Surprisingly, even this late at night there were a few men around his goal, talking amongst themselves and laughing quietly.

He hoped they would leave soon or there might be a few problems to deal with that he didn't' want to deal with. Witnesses. Then he suddenly had an idea and his 'inner self' agreed with him as it gurgled in need. It had been days since he last had a chance like this and he wasn't about to just give it up, the hunger was upon him once more and his eyes gleamed as they took in the glory that was a portable food cart and it's customers waiting for their food.

Reaching out to test the weight of a trashcan he decided to use plan 4, one that he developed just for this type of situation. It had one drawback and that was that he had to wait for his chance, but that was rarely all that long with one of these carts.

Grinning evilly Genma Saotome, the old man, the old fart, Sensei, and even hey you, counted down the seconds. His stomach growling a little louder as he waited and watched as the guy working the cart started to set out several bowls of ramen for his customers on a serving tray.

He was moving before he completely formed a thought to do so, a metal trash can raised above his head as he launched almost twenty feet into the air in a graceful arch that only a master of martial arts could achieve with years of training.

His eyes gleamed as he descended right on target, the wind whipping at the loose portions of his oversized gi, and threw the trash can out to crash into the wall beside the cart. It made incredibly loud banging sound that startled everyone into looking in the direction of the can, he landed right in front of the cart, grabbed the tray with an added bonus of a few drinks and cookies.

Then he launched into the air, bounced off the top of the cart, onto a nearby roof, and ran for all he was worth. As a master thief he didn't spill a drop of his newly acquired traveling supplies as he ran and bounced along faster than any teenager in existence. To drop any of it would have been unprofessional and inexcusable.

Within in minutes he was miles form the cart. He landed in an over grown back yard of someone's house. Looking around was enough to see that he had nothing to worry about, so he sat down and snarfed down one of the four bowls of ramen and one of the drinks as he rested. Minutes later he had eaten everything and patted his stomach, now that he was full for a few hours he could focus on his real problems and not his over active stomach.

Reaching into his gi he pulled out the letter that he had found pinned to his face a few months before telling him about his son's kidnapping. He had searched all over that mountain for days trying to find the ungrateful bastard and come up empty handed and tried to get to America where the note had said to come and get him, but delay after delay had cropped up since then and eventually he was forced give up for a little while.

First he tried to get there by boat, been caught as a stowaway, and tossed overboard. The Captain had been nice enough to tell him which way land was and had told him to swim home. After eating a few raw sharks along the way, he sold the teeth for a few yen.

He even tried to fly there in the baggage compartment of a large plane, but when they landed in America he had been found passed out from the lack of air and after a visit to the doctor instantly deported back to Japan before he even woke up.

So close and yet so far away, but he would find the boy and make him do what he was raised to do. Secure his retirement and give him lots of grandkids to train in the art.

Now he was still a couple months from the time when Ranma would be done with this supposed training and wondering if he should try again or wait until the time came or make another attempt to get him back.

He sniffed the air and salivated as he smelled a well prepared curry dinner in the making. Now where was it coming from…time for the Anything Goes Secret Attack: Sniff and Destroy Technique.

Grinning he vanished into the nearest shadow.

----------

The End...Of the Jade Saga

End Notes – Thank god the Jade saga is over and done with. I haven't had a bout of writers block this bad since I was working on Strange Days and that took me a year and half to finish off. Now that things are a bit calmer I can explain some things.

I must say I'm sorry for making this stupid section of the story as long as it has been and all the useless parts I added. At the time they all just seemed to fit in just perfectly and added a good laugh here and there.

Let's do a bit of a run down here to cover everything in case I was too vague in the story. The first thing that must be explained is that the last three chapters were a condensed version of what I was originally planning to do. As things went along I started to add more and more to the story until it just got out of control.

Because I condensed things so much I was able to pull this story back together before it flew apart completely. I can even recall a couple of scenes I should seriously modify but I doubt anyone will spot them though. Now let's talk about the characters and offer some explanations:

Can you say Ashaton Chaos? Yep, his bit part exploded into something even I didn't expect and I ended up getting emails asking me to kill the character off. That was a bit harsh but it told me a lot of what people thought of the guy. Believe it or not I toned him down to a manageable level for this story, his original form is a walking god of unstoppable power. I tried to humanize him to balance the story and that led to his larger than expected scenes. In this final chapter Rook didn't kill the guy, instead he banished Ashaton from Jade. Ashaton isn't my character to kill so I couldn't do it.

The edge guard are quite a group. They are like the special forces of the Jade Realm. I took quite a few liberties with them in this story, hope the fans of GD aren't too angry with me, although no one ever bothers to email, and tell me anyway. Which sucks either way. :(

I took Onoli out of this fight because he access to a major league powerful undead killer weapon. In the comic he took out a small army of the things by activating its power. One of his swords if I remember right. I couldn't have this happen, so Onoli had to take a dive.

Literally.

Gar, of all the Edge Guard, is actually the one we know the most about. He's a regular character in the comic these days and will soon be making a monthly appearance as he goes for his Master's title, a pilgrimage that will take over two to three years to complete. Gar is a 'super' class martial artist, which means that he can pull of things that lesser fighters would call impossible. As such, at this point in the story, Gar is at Ranma's level while human and beyond that when transformed. The two of them made for a good fight, which was why Gar was a temporary bad guy in this story.

Thropan, The werepanther, and all around cool guy that has a bigger following than even Tirga can pull off at any one time. As the magic user he designed their weapons and pushed the limits of legal magic with his studies of technology. He is also the rock that holds the Edge Guard together, if they lost him they would quickly fall apart.

Tirga, what can't we say about the horn dog? If it's female and cute, he's right there to take advantage of them in an instant. In the comic Tirga would like to get with Sheila, and she does like him, but his womanizing makes it impossible for her to trust him. Tirga is still sowing his oats as they say, but he will lose the girl that does like him if he doesn't get his head out of his ass. On the other hand he does have a noble heart, it's just hard to find under all those perverted thoughts.

Sheila has the most advantage in this story. I made her a little more emotional than she is in the comic, but not by much. Mostly for the romantic angle with Ranma. Ranma just has that effect on woman doesn't he?

Heh.

Ranma, this chapter actually ties together several of the story's loose ends. Many people have complained to me about how Ranma keeps losing fights or barely winning. At first this was unintentional and I was just going for good fight scenes, but after a while I kind of incorporated it into the story. With this chapter Ranma is starting to lose his over confident way of living. His ego has been bruised and he isn't taking it very well.

He experienced a life lesson with this final fight and it will bring him back down to earth a bit. A change he desperately needs after all that has happened to him since he arrived on Jade for his Date with Sheila. Expect some major changes as we head into ch 15.

Julia and Theo, they weren't used all that much in the saga, more like secondary and background characters. I had Julia tag along with Ranma so that she could be there to see him in a real fight and judge his skill and reactions. She is very worried about him at the moment because she knows how much it hurts Ranma to lose at anything. He never takes it very well.

Rook's defeat, must mention this. I didn't make it obvious some of you are probably asking yourselves why Ranma didn't blast Rook with a massive dispel magic blast as he did to Hanza. Ranma was angry at Rook for causing his whole mess and wanted to beat him in a fair fight, but in the end he did resort to small dispel magic bursts every time he punched the guy. This forced Rook to respond on a more physical level, hence the swords and his old teleporting behind the enemies back trick. Because I condensed things so much this wasn't really covered in the fight scene.

The Jade saga is OVER! No more Jade! NO more Edge Guard, I'm FREE!

CRose