ITS CHAPTER 7. took me long enough.
Alright, some might be annoyed and I'm sorry but my muse smacked me and Ryoga aint here yet, in fact at my current rate it will be another chapter yet before I reach stuff with Myara due to new circumstances and that means another chapter yet before Ryoga returns to Jusenkyo. Hope you like this chapter as I started and deleted it two times before getting it to what I hope is a good thing. I was originally going to simply continue this chapter until I got to where I wanted to be but I think that would have put this chapter at somewhere over twelve thousand words and I decided it would be best to break it up into two chapters instead. Don't think that means I have the second part of this written yet that will be, hopefully, next week. I've had to work on Sundays for the last few weeks so it slowed me down some, but that should be over now and I can get back to writing lots on Sundays.
Thanks for the reviews. Hope I get more, this few might be enough to deter a lesser writer. But I shall prevail! Besides I cant move on to the next story in the line if I don't finish this one.
Softness sliding against bare skin told her that she was in a bed instead of on the ground, or dead, which was were she was expecting to be; this led to her attempt to wake up completely. Slim fingers slid across her face and rubbed at her eyes trying to work the stinging out of them as sunlight poured across her face forcing her to wake completely. Ranma slowly shifted to a sitting position and sat staring at the wall for a moment trying to wait for her brain to stop moving like molasses in winter, she wasn't having much luck.
Tugging a sheet from the bed around her naked figure she pushed herself to her feet and shambled to the large dresser in corner that was sitting against the wall with a large mirror hanging over it. It wasn't until she saw herself that she realized that things must have changed for the better once she had blacked out, considering that she was still alive and apparently uninjured. Slim fingers slid through crimson hair and tugged several strands of ash grey hair forward for study, she couldn't figure out much about why she had some odd colored hair except that it seemed to be slowly returning to its normal red.
A quick examination of the room was enough to see that it wasn't hers as she had normally bunked in a room with twelve other people and this was a single bedroom with furniture to store clothes in. A search through the nearby drawers in the dresser found a stash of her clothes and she quickly tugged on some boxers, a pair of her baggy black silk pants and a sleeveless black silk shirt which she belted at the waist with a gold sash that matched the gold ties on the shirt. A little concentration phased in the tiger-skin boots that she wore to increase her speed and surprisingly she felt a little of her strength flow back with their appearance.
She couldn't help but groan at her still pale appearance and sickly looks though "I look like shit."
"Maybe, but then that is a price a person pays when they use up all their ki and then use their life-force to power an attack." Ranma spun to confront the old ghoul and almost fell over from her continued weakness earning a snort of amusement from Cologne "You should have known better than to use your life-force in an attack after what we have taught you and others." The elder watched the confusion on Ranma's face and nodded as if confirming some hidden deduction "I would be very annoyed with you boy, if I thought it was actually you who had done it."
Ranma was confused and showed it in her expression as she rested against the dresser but then decided to ask some questions of her own "Did we beat that thing? Why am I in this room? How long have I been here? And what are ya talking about saying I didn't, but did do something?" The expression on the elders face seemed to state she was trying to decide to clobber Ranma for so many questions or whether to answer them all, apparently she decided the latter.
"Follow me, we will talk on the way to the war room, there's a meeting there soon and I was going to check on you before we went that way." The old woman pogoed out of the room with Ranma letting a few small streams of ki enter her body to bolster her strength. "As for that thing, yes we beat it, it's a very old creation called a Gigas and it would have caused a much greater problem for our forces if you hadn't trashed it. You were in that room because we needed a place to keep you were we could look after you and hopefully aid you in recovery if need be." The elder pogoed to another level and watched as Ranma called upon the power of her boots to jump there instead of her, currently miniscule, ki reserves. "As for the time spent in that room, well that is the problem; you should know that using life-force isn't like using ki in that ki can be replenished with a short rest whereas life-force takes much, much longer to regenerate. You were in there unmoving for one month."
"A MONTH!" Ranma's shout echoed through the great hall and she almost screwed up her next jump due to her shock.
"And that isn't all child, about this attack you did yet didn't do…" Cologne looked to the stunned martial artist and knew this was going to be hard for someone who had trained their body to always be under their control.
5 MINUTES LATER
OUTSIDE ROOM OF BINDINGS
Ranma leaned against the wall staring at the doors to the room of bindings also referred to as a war room now that the fights in Jusenkyo had branched out so large. She could barely believe what the old ghoul had told her about this other her that showed herself every now and then to cause trouble. The young demoness probably wouldn't have believed Cologne if she hadn't described a girl that looked almost just like the one in her dream, though this one apparently had lighter colored hair, not as dark skin, shorter claws and no tail.
Finally deciding she had felt sorry for herself long enough she pushed the doors open and strode into the room to hear Saffron starting the meeting. The people in the room where a surprise to Ranma as she knew that Tarou and Herb didn't get along very well and had even had several of their fights broken up by Kiima. Not that Ranma got along very well with Tarou or the dragon prince as both were extremely arrogant to a level that even Ranma at her worst couldn't compete with.
"Alright now that we're all here we can get to work on this problem and have it solved before we move onto our other problems. What I mean is that we will finally be putting a stop to Myara and her forces before they secure areas that allow them unimpeded access to Phoenix Mountain." Saffron turned to point to Jusenkyo "As everyone here knows Myara is approaching the completion of her rejuvenation process and as such has pulled the majority of her forces back to Jusenkyo to try and bolster the power they grant to her shield."
Ranma almost let loose a curse as she thought of the amount of demons and spiders the phoenix forces would have to fight through just to get to that shield and breach it. "The problem is greater than many of you know, we know now that Myara has access to more of the Gigas than the one she sent here. Two of the ancient creatures were sent to assault the amazon village to try and secure the breach for Myara, those two were promptly destroyed as the demons have begun to field their larger members and force us, the musk, Myara, Elgass, and the Chinese army into retreat."
"Attacks on us have been light from the three threats mainly due to a standard of mutual hatred that all the dark forces have which is causing them to try and annihilate each other. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us they are keeping each other so busy they have only sent raiding parties against us for some time, but we can't expect that to hold out." Saffron pointed to a village several miles from the edge of the tribes land. "Elgass managed to catch the children of this village and slaughter the adults, there was at least a hundred children in that village alone and they have now been used to bolster her forces, and there has been evidence of other villages falling as well."
"Quite frankly people, we are going to lose if we simply stay in one place and keep waiting for the enemies to come to us." Kiima looked at everyone in the room hoping that they would all understand her message.
"This is why we have decided to eliminate Myara completely on the instant of her ascension to mortality from undeath, this will give us an almost uncontested route straight to the musk held lands and allow us to link our forces so we can move on Elgass and eliminate her next. The Chinese army, surprisingly, has been holding their own against the lesser demons but taking some heavy losses taking out the larger ones and we believe that the elimination of Elgass would give us a corridor to link with them as well allowing us to breach the demon beachhead and take the breach, which would give us access to the demon king himself." Saffron listened to the murmurs of disquiet among the people in the room and understood immediately what they were worried about "Yes I know we have taken heavy losses just battling the raiding forces but with the Musk and the army aiding us we would be strong enough to take the breach. The only other way would be to find an entrance to the astral plane the demon king lives on that bypasses the demon forces guarding the breach and I know of no such entrance."
"So how do we deal with Myara? She's an ancient from what I've read and has some way to influence the Jusenkyo curses that people have." Herb looked at the map with a frown and thought again of Medusa "Not to mention that she seems to have Medusa working alongside her."
"That is one of the problems, she is a red dragon and thus is immune to my flames, at least in the here and now, if this was an astral plane and my power was at its height then it would be a different matter but at my current power I would need help to be able to harm her." Saffron looked at the Kinjakan resting against the wall "To Breach Myara's shield and find out anything of importance about the demon king and Elgass we are sending a force to the Fallen Seer in her mountain temple."
"The Fallen Seer will know everything we need to breach the shield Myara has constructed around Jusenkyo; since a party is going to have to seek her out for a way to breach the Jusenkyo shield they can also ask if she will give information about the Gekkaja." Saffron turned to look at everyone in the room "This is a small ground force only as trying to fly to the Seer's mountain is merely asking for a messy death. A small force will make the trek so as not to attract undue attention to itself, I won't make this sound to easy it's most probably going to be an extremely hard venture to undertake so we are sending only the best."
SIX DAYS LATER
"Only the best they consider expendable." Ranma muttered as he leaned back to look into the fire while thinking back on the meeting. In the end it had been Ranma, Spice, Shampoo, and Mousse.
"Shampoo my love…" The rest of the sentence ended in mumblings and a futile reach in shampoo's general direction as the nearly blind martial artist rolled over in his sleep.
"Stupid Mousse…" Shampoo's answer to mousse's words was a bon bori absently lobbed in the direction of the other sleeper, the attack missed and both continued in their happy dreams.
Shadows created by the fire flickered off of the surrounding trees and the side of the cliff as Ranma kept a watch out for anything trying to sneak up on them in their trek to the fallen Seer's temple. According to the old ghoul the temple was two weeks journey from Phoenix Mountain, when the snows were off the mountain, the snows were heavy now which meant things would take longer. The group had been lucky so far in its hiding from demon patrols and once from a group of spiders, though keeping mousse from jumping into a fight had been difficult Ranma had finally gotten him to understand they needed to hide from the demons.
Jerking awake to a loud crashing noise Ranma realized he had done that one thing a guard should never do…fall asleep. The crashing was getting closer and Ranma could now hear the guttural rumblings of demon speech interspersed with a few, nearly mangled beyond recognition, human words.
"UP! ATTACK! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" Ranma followed this with a kick in Mousse's general direction just before the woods exploded with movement in their direction. Ranma intercepted the first demon just as it reached the camp and swept its legs out from underneath it toppling it to its back before leaping on its head coming down hard and snapping its neck. The martial artist found himself snagged by another that lifted him from the ground and glared at him with flaming eyes before trying to impale him with a horn. The cursed boy hit the ground as a bladed chain whipped out to wrap around the creatures neck then pull tight sawing the things head clean off allowing Ranma to escape.
Shampoo was a nearly whirlwind of motion in a knot of demons cutting them to ribbons with her swords and getting support every now and then from Mousse who was both helping everyone else and fighting his own demon group. The entrance of two red armored demons into the fray turned the tables for a moment before spice engaged both of them, her massive zanbatou cracking their armor and sending them staggering. Ranma leapt into the air and landed a kick to the back of the head of one demon that drove it face first into the rock at the edge of the cliff. The fight would have continued if a beam of yellow energy hadn't come flying out of the trees and impacted dead center on Spice's zanbatou.
The metal of the zanbatou glowed a dim red that moved towards white, protective runes began to fail as the metal slagged. Luckily the beam cut out before the sword gave out completely and a creature came out of the trees walking on four spider-like legs that propelled it forward swiftly.
"Happo Star Blast!"
The blast impacted a shield long before it would have actually hit the creature and it retaliated with a beam that Ranma barely managed to dodge, even so he felt the massive heat generated by it as it went past. 'Heat!' the creature was radiating it at a large level, Ranma began to run around the demon until he reached a point he believed he couldn't move any closer without hitting the shield.
"Hiryu Shoten Ha!"
The tornado that roared upwards plucked demons from the ground and hurled them skywards but the orange creature dug its legs into the rock and held steady, at least as long as the rock stayed attached to the ground. The tornado was still rushing upwards when Ranma rushed out from the base of it and towards the others shouting for them to grab their gear and get moving, hopefully they could begin to climb the mountain before their enemies got caught up.
FOUR DAYS LATER
Snow crunched as Ranma's tiger skin boots came down into thick drifts as she continued to push her way through the howling blizzard that was keeping her from seeing two feet in front of her. The group had kept itself together with an unbladed chain of Mousse's tied to each of their waists and it was a tug on that chain from behind that drew Ranma's attention to Spice who had collapsed against the rock face they were detouring around. Ranma tugged the chain calling Mousse and Shampoo back while she readjusted her fur covered clothing that they had been issued by the quartermaster of phoenix guard.
"What's the problem!" Her shout was barely heard over the howling wind.
"I just…need some time…to rest!" Spice leaned heavily against stone and Ranma turned to tell Shampoo and Mousse the news when she noticed a slight glimmer to her left.
Fingers brushed snow away from stone and revealed a long crack that dim light was shining out of. The demoness put her hands on the stone and pushed causing it to shift on its center as if it had large pins allowing it to swing inward with a grating rumble that caused Spice to jump back in surprise and collapse into a snow drift. The stone had been pushed far enough to reveal a lighted passageway that had been hidden behind it, the group didn't waist a second and Ranma pushed the massive stone back into place after they had entered.
The hallway was dimly lit by amber stones set in the wall at intervals that were glowing softly and lighting what looked to have been an ancient mined out tunnel. The group looked around slowly and cautiously hoping that whatever might be in the place was less dangerous than the demons that had been only one step behind them ever since the base of the mountain. "Well, I think ya have the time ya need to rest." Ranma sat down to try and get some rest herself after their almost two day solid trek through snow central.
2 HOURS LATER
The group had managed to rest for an hour before beginning to move again, they had been trudging through the tunnel for an hour and hadn't found anything until they made a last turn and found themselves at the entrance to a massive cavern that looked to have been built by giants.
Twisting and turning throughout the massive cavern were ruby colored crystal pathways of giant size that led to huge doors and past massive gears and braziers still burning with flame. The stone of the cavern looked to have been carved by a master stone cutter as it was covered with images of titanic battles and large feasts.
"A fire giant stronghold." The whispered awe in Shampoo's voice told Ranma all she needed to know, which was that this might be a dangerous place. Ranma strode to the edge of the sinuous crystal bridge and stepped out turning to look back only to see that the hole she had come out of was tiny and set in what looked to be the base of a step which led to a platform with to giant doors set into it. She blinked in confusion and looked at the tunnel they had entered in then at the step that led back the way they had come.
"That's not possible. There wasn't any stone above us outside and that would be the only way for this to be above the tunnel." The martial artist looked to Shampoo when she giggled "This is a fire giant stronghold, it doesn't exist on the same plain of existence as the normal world, it must have been breached by some enchantment long ago."
Ranma was about to comment on how nice and warm it was in the place until she looked down and found herself staring down at a bubbling flow of lava far below the bridges. The red hot liquid rock formed a lake in some areas and rushed over stone and metal to flow through the bottom of the room. The cursed boy shivered slightly thinking about what that stuff could do to any one of them and looked back to see that the others had joined her and Shampoo out on the bridge.
After packing the winter clothes away into their packs the four headed across the bridge to the far side of the cavern at a steady run. The massive doors were open and in fact it looked like the center of the door had been hacked open with an axe or other large sharp object. The four had a high jump to the level the door was at and then another steady run down a long red stone hallway that had darker red splashes stained into the crystal layering the floor, it wasn't until they reached the room at the end of the hallway that they realized what the darker red was.
The room was obviously made for the giants that would normally have walked these hallways but it was now filled with destroyed furniture and several, very impressive skeletons that lay slumped around the room. Ranma had to admit that the giants had definitely been big, if what she saw here was an average sized fire giant then the Gigas would barely have reached the giants knee. It was also the obvious answer to why they were forced to run everywhere if they wanted to get anywhere quickly.
Things didn't get better as they followed a path of destruction through the massive fortress finding nothing but dead giants at every turn. The armor the giants wore was a simple, and practical, slate grey plate metal that Ranma's claws couldn't even put a scratch on, her ki blasts couldn't even put a scorch mark on the metal, Shampoo stated that was only natural given that it was capable of being dunked in molten rock with no ill affects. If Shampoo was right then Ranma wanted to side with Spice's question of what the hell was capable of shredding the armor and killing the titans that wore it.
They finally got their answer to that question when they walked into a room almost as large as the first cavern but this one had a solid floor and the remains of a massive throne on the far side of the room. Skeletons lay everywhere, their torn armor showing shredded bone, this room was different than the others in that its floor was also littered with the remains of thousands of mantis's and other demons as well as the remains of twenty Gigas in mangled golden armor that lay against one wall.
The shattered room with its broken stone tables and chairs and destroyed throne was a testament to the fighting that had gone on in the room but it was the scene on the far side of the room that drew the fours attention. It was a simple two figures but it was the size of those figures that caught the attention. One was a fire giant, a fire giant that was twice as large as the largest they had seen putting him in at well over 200 feet tall, and wielding a massive sword that's blade was as tall as the normal giants. Said sword was impaled through the head of what looked to be a humongous mantis, that outsized its opponent by at least an extra fifty feet and bore a black carapace instead of a green one.
Ranma shivered slightly as she felt a small tingle rush down her spine and cursed as she had only felt that when something was seriously wrong. A quick look around as Spice hopped up the massive fire lord's skeleton and then rushed along the massive blade to look at the head of the demon told Ranma what she was feeling. Everything in the room was decayed away, from the fire giants and the fire lord to the mantis's which were little more than husks laying on the ground; even the Gigas bones where yellowed and cracked with age. A simple look told her everything she needed to know, the black carapace mantis wasn't decayed at all even though it's head was pinned to a wall by the fire lords sword.
Spice reached for the nearest part of the mantis's head.
The tingle turned to a light burning.
A massive red eye snapped open and focused on Spice and a shrieking roar echoed through the fortress as the mantis reached up and tore the blade from its head letting it drop to the floor with a thunderous clanging that set Ranma clutching at her ears and screaming in pain.
"This is not good." Somehow, in the middle of the worst situation any of them had found themselves in Mousse had managed the understatement of the year with a perfectly calm voice.
(hehe I think I managed a cliffhanger for once)
Descriptions:
Fallen Seer: Truthfully, little is known of the seer except that she enjoys her solitude and that all flying forces approaching her mountain are met with a swift, and painful, death. The legends about the seer are numerous and confusing as they contradict each other in places. One legend states that the seer is a representation of the universe itself and that she can never die as she is a part of the universe, thus she knows all the secrets the universe does. Another legend states that she is the mother of all the first pantheon of gods and goddesses and that they banished her after she allowed the mortals free will. Another legend states that she is the child of a being simply known as Marrow, the legends about that being are even more numerous than the seer's and one known would give ample reason why the seer lives alone.
The truth is a hard thing to come by when the seer herself refuses to tell anyone the truth of her birth or what her name is. The seer knows all, sees all, and will give this information to all, but the price of her information is considered very high, the price is, simply, that one know the absoluteTRUTH. What the seer see's cannot be changed no matter what precautions are taken, no matter what risks are taken, when the seer gives a prediction it is absolute. Many have stated another legend that states that the future of someone is free and mobile until one sees the seer and then what she sees becomes what will happen.
The seer is simply the seer and all who travel to see her understand that they do so at their own risk and are willing to chance it on the chance that they can get the information they seek. Legend is what everyone has to go on and there are two more legends associated with the seer, two legends that have been remembered long after many others had fallen away to dust.
The first legend is of a man who managed to slip out of the absolute future the seer had seen for him. A young hunter once wandered into the seer's dilapidated temple believing it was abandoned and desiring to hide from a storm he settled in for a wait. It didn't take long for him to find out that he was not alone and even less time to find out who it was that he shared company with. The young man was afraid and told the woman that he wanted nothing of hers and sought no future knowledge or foretelling of fate, the woman had simply laughed and told him that he would only receive such if he truly wanted it.
As the time passed and the storm refused to let up the man got more and more restless and finally the woman asked him why he was in such a hurry to leave. By the look within her eyes he knew that she already knew the answer so he told her of his village and the attack a group of evil men where going to launch upon it. The woman told him he need merely leave and travel to his home and save it if he truly wanted to do such. Unable to stand it anymore the man grabbed his gear and prepared to leave only to have the woman turn her back to him and speak softly 'your end shall come on the spear of great evil that will destroy your most precious treasure.'
The man spoke no word as he rushed from the temple and down the mountain through the blinding snow and across the forests to his village, his most precious treasure. There the fight had already progressed and he entered the fray in the hopes of saving his home, the enemy soon learned to fear the powerful hunter and the wail of fear they sent out drew their most powerful fighter. The battle was fierce and both sides watched intently to see who would be victorious, though the hunter was powerful the spear wielder was stronger and with a mighty heave he knocked the young mans sword aside and struck at the hunters chest. In that instant the hunter remembered what the woman had said and with a mighty shout that echoed to the mountains he cried 'I did not ask anything of yours!' With a thunderous crack the spear shattered upon his bare chest and the spear point flipped back impaling the eye of the enemy warrior. With a great cry of terror the enemy fled and the village was spared, it is the only tale of one cheating the seer of her prediction that has endured to this day.
The second legend is simple; the seer foresaw the end of all things. It was an ancient legend stating that the king of all demons would rise from the ashes of his old defeat and strike down those opposing him and rise to dominance over the world. No one at the time knew who the king of demons was and many have prayed that this too is a prediction that can be overcome much as the hunter cheated the seer of her other prediction.
The king shall rise and the three will fall
The wolf, the dragon, and the phoenix shall die by his hands
The lost one shall never leave the mountain alive
For this is absolute and can not be changed
The king shall hold dominion of the world
And nothing shall stand in his way
This foretelling was stated by the seer in the rare occasion that she entered a city, within small sects around the world there are still those who remember and pray that this foretelling can be beaten somehow and the world saved from the king of demons. Considering her track record the sects don't hold out much hope of her being wrong twice.
Black Mantis: The ruler of the mantis demon clan is somewhat mysterious, due mainly to his disappearance thousands of years ago, he bows in will to no one, not even the demon king though many have stated this is foolish as the demon king outclasses him in power. In a bid to possibly defeat the demon king when he would eventually return the black mantis assaulted several fire giant strongholds in search of the gods-forge in hopes of creating an entire army of mantis demons wearing the golden armor of the gods. He eventually made the tactical error of assaulting a fortress watched over by a minor fire lord and his forces fell to the might of the giants though he managed to take them out as well. Due to the mantis's ability to survive seemingly lethal wounds and the black mantis's ability to survive significantly more lethal wounds than his tiny kindred, tiny to him anyway, he managed to survive having his head impaled to the wall of the throne room. Why he awakened when Spice approached is as yet unknown.
Fire giants: Massive creatures ranging in height from 120 feet to 300 feet the giants are a force to be reckoned with even when weakened by magical attacks which is what the black mantis used; even so the giants took out millions of the black mantis's forces before falling to the magical forces arrayed against them. Though the fire giants considered the fire lord of the stronghold to be large he isn't the largest fire giant, that esteemed position belongs to the fire giant king who is considered unnaturally tall and comes in at 500 feet tall, he is the only fire giant to pass three hundred feet and is also the giant who holds the key to the gods-forge.
The fire giants are immune to lava and other hot environments, oft times their red skin and sharp teeth got them misidentified by mortals as Rogous giants who attend fire pits within the demon realms, this was considered a massive insult to fire giants who are the children of the gods and not related at all to the bastard children of the fire titans. The fire giants are one of the last remaining groups who existed during the first gods war and survived through the second, third, fourth, and fifth and final gods wars. During the fifth gods war they took their place as demi-gods who were feared by even some of the more powerful gods. The fire giant king is rumored to be an actual god by the name of Lenmure who was stated to have forced the gods who later became the Norse gods into hiding and told them that their plan of ragnarok would not be tolerated and not allowed.