Chapter Two: Thy Dungeon Man
Part One
"What are you?" Batman asked.
"I am a River Spirit."
"A spirit? You mean, like a ghost?" Hikaru asked.
"Not a ghost, Ms. Shidou," Haku said. "A spirit. An entity. I am the embodiment of the Kohaku River."
"Where are we?" Master Chief demanded, stepping forward.
"What are we doing here?" Ripley asked.
"Who brought us here?"
Haku held up his hands. "I am going to take you to someone who will answer your questions."
"You'd better," Samus muttered under her breath.
"Now," Haku said, and the shielding bubble around him fell away, "If you will come forward, I will unchain you. Your powers and abilities will be restored to you as soon as we leave the room, but you must not attack me."
"Give us one good reason, bub," Logan growled.
"Them," Haku said simply, pointing behind the group. "Or more particularly, him."
They turned. The entire crowd of ninjas stood there silently, and at their head was the youth with the magic cards. His violet eyes surveyed them coolly; his fingers were placed on the top of his deck, ready to draw.
"He is very powerful," Haku said. "It would be unwise, not to mention dangerous, to cross him. We do not wish to harm you. I will unchain you now, and then you must follow me."
They all looked at one another, at the ninjas, at Haku.
Then suddenly Hikaru broke away from the group and walked towards Haku, holding out her manacled hands. "Take them off, please."
Haku smiled softly and placed his hands on the energy cords. They glowed a brilliant white, and were gone.
Hikaru smiled happily and stretched her arms, standing on her tiptoes. "Thank you," she said, and bowed to him.
Haku returned with a deep bow himself. "Who is next?"
Hesitantly, they all lined up and as patiently as they could, waited for their manacles to be removed.
One of the last was Logan.
Before releasing him, Haku hesitated. "We bound you this way because we could not keep your claws from extending," he said. "The only way you could release them was to kill yourself, and we doubted you would go so far. I am sorry it was so uncomfortable," he added as he reached for Logan's bonds. "Do not hurt me," he said, pausing once more.
The mutant let out a gruff kind of sigh. "Kid, I ain't clawed nobody that didn't claw me first."
Haku nodded and placed his hands on the cords, first at the ones on Logan's elbows, then his wrists and neck.
Logan heaved a sigh of relief as he slowly stretched his arms. As he bent them back and forth, he looked from Haku to Necro, who was still bound. "Why'd you chain him up like that?"
Haku immediately went towards Necro, and turning his head slightly towards Logan, he answered, "Because Illia's limbs are elastic. We bound him this way so he would not be able to interfere—" Haku broke off as he reached the fighter, who was staring coldly down his large nose at him. "I apologize for the uncomfortable way in which way bound you."
Necro looked, quite obviously, like he very much wanted to hurt Haku. But none of the others had made a move to do anything like that, and Captain America's words were still fresh in his mind. He would make no more moves on his own.
And this Haku, even if he was a spirit, looked like a young boy. He wouldn't hurt him. Although I wouldn't mind laying into some of those ninjas. They're the ones who attacked me in the first place…and frightened Effie….
His mind snapped back to reality suddenly as Haku reached for his bonds. Although he did his best to remain calm, he stiffened visibly when Haku undid the manacles around his elbows, wrists and ankles.
As soon as he was free, Necro stretched backward, bending until his nose touched the floor behind him. He then proceeded to bend his arms and legs in bizarre and painful-looking ways while Haku undid the bonds of Ripley and Goliath.
While Haku had been releasing the others, Goku, Superman and Captain America had been filling David, Harry, Jonah Hex and Luke Skywalker in on what details they knew.
"Time travel n' such. Shoulda known." The cowboy said coolly.
"How do you know about time travel?" Superman asked in surprise.
"Experience. Ah've led an interesting life," Hex replied distantly, looking around at the strange group. His over-large right eye lingered on Goliath and Necro. "Never seen the likes of them, though…." His gaze drifted over to the silent group of ninjas and fell on the boy with the wild hair. "So yeh say he can do magic?"
"That's right."
"Ah'll be darned."
"Please follow me," Haku said loudly, and they all fell silent.
The door slid open behind him, and he walked out into the hall, pausing to look at them before he went on.
They cast wary glances at one another, but Goku and Trunks finally crossed through the doors that had imprisoned them. The others situated themselves so that David, Harry and Hikaru were surrounded by adults, and made their way into the hallway.
This immediate hallway, so familiar in appearance, turned out to be a long corridor. Behind them, it melded into darkness. In front of them, it carried on for a ways, then turned sharply to the right.
It was in this direction that Haku led them.
Master Chief glanced behind him as they walked, and after seeing him do so, the Marine did the same.
Led by the wild-haired youth, the ninjas were following them. With one glance, the Marine had memorized how many there were, where they were situated and figured which ones would be the biggest threats. In case something happened, he would be prepared. So would the Chief.
Nothing occurred during that long trek down the hallway, but at last they reached the turn in the hall and the entire atmosphere of the place changed.
Rather than the white, sterile surroundings they were so used to, the walls were painted a bright gold and were hung with rich red tapestries. Strange, red-flowered plants hung in mid air above them; their long tendrils hung so low as to brush against the tops of the marines' heads. Floating, glowing baubles floated lazily near the ceiling, though a few, as if curious, descended to drift around their visitors.
As they continued down this corridor, the tapestries became less and less, to be replaced by odd, framed pictures…or were they windows? This they wondered, for many of them moved, and a strong breeze was coming through one of them.
One depicted a rolling green terrain, filled with flowers, tall leafy plants and further in the distance, plots of land that looked like gardens. Further in the distance, they would see what appeared to be farm land, and nestled in the hills, little dwellings with round doors.
Another opened onto a city, where a tall clock tower dominated the scene. Horse-drawn carriages made their way down cobblestone streets lined with gas lit lamps, and men in top hats and women in frilled dressed milled the sidewalks.
Yet another showed the interior of some kind of facility. It was dark inside, though lamps flickered from time to time, briefly illuminating the metallic floors, railings and stairwells of the room. The floor was tiled, and one of these tiles was red and raised slightly higher than the others. Suddenly something appeared on this tile, a green glowing pentagram within a circle. Green flames shot from it, and out of these flames a bulbous red floating ball came.
The ball swiveled around to face out of the window, and they saw that it was not a ball in the least. It had one gigantic green eye in the center of its body, with horns all around its frame. It opened a massive, tooth-lined mouth, uttered a strange, guttural cackle and charged towards them.
Hikaru shrieked, Superman flew in front of her to act as a shield, and someone yelled.
But the yell came from within the window, where a well-built man in heavy green armor jumped into view, wielding a buzzing chainsaw.
Hikaru, Superman and a few of the others heaved a sigh of relief.
"I'm sorry it frightened you," Haku said. "But they cannot see you as you can see them. Please, come along."
Master Chief was curious to see the outcome of this battle, but ignored this impulse and continued on.
At the end of this bright and curious hallway, there was a set of heavy double doors with rungs for handles. On either side of these stood the tall, strangely-armored men that had accompanied the young man with the magic cards on his first appearance. The stood very straight, but their heads were bowed, almost as if they were sleeping.
But at their approach, their heads rose, and the group was able to get a better look at each of them. Although both were identical in face, armor and height, one was dressed in purple armor and had hair of the same color, while the other was dressed in red armor and had silvery-blond hair.
At a signal from the youth, they each took a rung and with a creak worthy of a haunted house, the doors opened.
From here, they were herded into a dark room. Torches sprung to life as they walked past, and the light progressively revealed the room to them. Twenty chairs, arranged in a semi-circle were slowly shown. At their head, set apart, was another, ornate chair.
It was on this chair that a small man, balding on top but with long white hair around and dressed in a red and gold robe, sat.
"Greetings," he said, hopping down from the chair and spread his small hands. "I am the Dungeon Master."
A/N
Goku, Trunks (c) Akira Toriyama's Dragonball Z
Carin (c) Silvre (Karyn N. Anderson)
Batman, Superman and Jonah Hex (c) DC Comics
John Connor (c) The Terminator movie series
Ripley (c) 20th Century Fox's "Alien" movies
The Marine and The Master Chief (c) Bungie
Steve Rogers (Captain America) and Logan (Wolverine) (c) Marvel Comics
Samus Aran (c) Nintendo's Metroid
Necro and Alex (c) CAPCOM's Street Fighter
Goliath (c) Disney's Gargoyles
Hikaru (c) CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth
Harry Potter (c) J.K. Rowling
David Carter (c) Dreamworks' "Invasion America"
Luke Skywalker (c) LucasFilm's "Star Wars"
Raiden, Scorpion, Subzero, Johnny Cage, Smoke and all ninjas (c) Midway's "Mortal Kombat"
Kohaku/Haku (c) Miyazaki's "Spirited Away"
Pharaoh Atem, Dark Magicians and all related characters (c) Kasuki Takahashi
The Dungeon Master (c) TSR and Marvel Productions
Hobbiton (c) J.R.R. Tolkien
Doomguy and Cacodemon (c) ID's DOOM
Thy Dungeon Man (c) Videlectrix ()