Dungeon Keeper Ranma

Chapter 18: Don't Fear The Reaper (Fear Its Keeper)

By A-kun

// indicated telepathy.

Ranma was a tad startled at the sudden attack, but not to the degree that he'd allow it to hit him. He darted to the side and leapt just out of the range of the wave of energy that the final keeper had unleashed.

The creature that was supposedly the final keeper was quick enough in its attacks that Ranma found himself worried as he bounded around the room, making sure that the attacks were aimed at places where they couldn't hit the others in the room.

Then, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye, a large number of...

Puppies.

Why in the nine hells were there PUPPIES in the enemy Keeper's room?

And why did the enemy Keeper look like he was ill at the sight of them?

Ranma noticed the unconscious members of the strike group disappeared along with the puppies, leaving Ranma, the enemy Keeper, Nathaniel and Xanus alone in the room.

"So... does this thing have a name or do we call it 'bad guy'?" Ranma inquired as he dodged another of the 'Judgement' beams that the strange light-based keeper fired off.

"How about we call it 'Dumbass'?" Nathaniel growled, dodging another blast. He was actually grateful for the mystery puppies that had pulled the others back. He could now concentrate on keeping his current body alive. After all, it was his genetic masterpiece thus far, and he didn't want to have to replace it.

"How about 'Assgoblin'?" Xanus commented as he managed to roll to his feet and leapt out of the path of another attack. His commandeered sword was still intact and useable, though Xanus wasn't sure it would survive an attack.

"HOW ABOUT 'DEATH', SINCE I'M GOING TO KILL YOU ALL!" the figure snarled, throwing several random blasts about the room, coming close to it's three opponents, but not close enough.

"Sweet mother McCree, I think this looney was an 'Emo'... probably explains all of the rats, skeletons and vampires." Xanus spoke up, noting that the angrier their enemy got, the less accurate it was.

"Probably cut itself and posted the pictures on MySpace." Nathaniel tossed in, grinning evilly.

"Well, one thing is for sure, he or she obviously loved glow-in-the-dark pancake makeup." Ranma joined in.

"Maybe there was a horrible accident at the pancake makeup factory and this is our world's equivalent of an Emo Joker." Nathaniel commented.

"I'd rather see Catwoman, Harlequin or Poison Ivy, myself." Xanus teased.

"Say, are you male or female? It's really hard to tell." Ranma noted, "And it would help us fantasize what you could have been."

Pushed to the brink of frustration and anger, the enemy Keeper unleashed a wave of flame that swallowed Nathaniel up, before it abruptly extended its arms to an unnatural length, catching Xanus and Ranma by surprise and slamming them into the same unrelenting wall.

Ranma and Xanus struggled to get loose, but even Ranma's teleportation abilities wouldn't work. Ranma even tried de-possessing the imp, but that wasn't working either.

"While I'm holding you, your spirits are trapped in those bodies, meaning when they die, YOU die and I can finally finish my plan to purify this disgusting world." the enemy Keeper sneered.

The enemy keeper opened its mouth and particles of light began to draw themselves into the strange figure's mouth.

That was when a large black dog leapt out of seemingly nowhere and bit the extended arm holding Ranma hard enough for its fangs to dig in. The enemy keeper howled, unleashing the gathered beam in its mouth prematurely and blasting the ceiling instead of its intended targets. It retracted its other arm and fired its Judgement attack, but Xanus leapt in the way, grunting in pain as the ray of light tore through his right shoulder, severing his right arm from his body. Xanus' body struck the dog, eliciting a yelp that was more out of surprise than pain, and the man and dog tumbled to the ground.

"Goddammit, Windsor... I said I'd handle this crap..." Xanus groaned out. The blast had burned like nothing else and his nerve endings were sending him far inflated information on exact extent of the damage. Unfortunately, shock was setting in quickly and Xanus fell limp.

Snarling, the black dog turned to the enemy keeper. The creature of light briefly balked at the intelligence and sheer hatred filling the dog's eyes, but extended its hand again to finish off the mutt.

The dog disappeared.

"What-" the unknown keeper began before a set of fangs buried itself firmly into its neck from behind. Its screams of pain were lessened to pained gurgles as the keeper struggled to dislodge the black dog, which was clawing into its back as the dog tightened its jaws around the light creature's throat.

In its panic, it had utterly forgotten Nathaniel, who'd managed to emerge from the flames after healing himself, and Ranma, both of whom swept past it and smashed its dungeon heart.

The light faded to reveal a young man who had brown hair than Xanus, green eyes, a pale complexion, but no clothing.

"BLEAH! I didn't need to see that!" Ranma declared, raising a hand to block his view of the freaky keeper's manberries.

"Uh, he should be dead by now..." Nathaniel commented as Windsor's fangs had pretty much crushed his windpipe and probably torn open all of his main neck arteries, but the keeper kept struggling.

Ranma paused, considering that[Come to think of it... Lundar mentioned that there was another Dungeon Heart... maybe it's keeping him alive?

Sighing, Ranma turned to Nathaniel, "Looks like we've got another Dungeon Heart to destroy."

The two split up, heading through out the citadel. Ranma found himself looking at a massive graveyard when the citadel began to collapse.

//Ranma, I destroyed it! It was disguised as a really big lamp, kinda like the ones we got stuck in.// came the telepathic message from Nathaniel.

Ranma was a tad surprised that HE wasn't the one to finish the job, but at least the other two had proven their worth. They'd managed to save America from a surprise attack that would have had medieval tacticians drooling with envy, AND all of the Dungeon Hearts were now back to normal, and he didn't need to possess an imp to get around. It was a tad weird finding out that Xanus was actually the enforcer for a dog who'd become a keeper, but in all honesty, it was a lot more reasonable than some of the things he'd seen. Like that whole phoenix incident with Tatewaki.

Now there was just the question of who had sent those weird creatures to his and Nanami's islands.

Kronos Corporation was perhaps the most brilliant yet stupidly obvious lie ever. It was listed as an international research and development laboratory and did have a number of honest products and inventions to its name.

The problem was that any serious investigation would begin unraveling a huge slew of disappearances amongst the listed staff.

By themselves, a few disappearances could be written off. It wasn't impossible for people to get so stressed out that they simply walked away from their lives and started up fresh somewhere else. There's even a mental disorder called "Disassociative Fugue" that was created to describe that mental disorder. There was also the chance of a random kidnapping, amnesia, and a whole slew of other possible rational explanations.

However, when one looked at the disappearances as a whole, roughly 85 of all of Kronos' known employees (give or take 12 percent) worldwide had gone missing. Overnight.

That kinda of thing can't be explained away in a rational way, especially since two-thirds had disappeared abruptly and in vastly different settings, in the middle of dinner with their families, during a movie, after informing relatives that they were on their way over, etc.

A few employees taking off on the same night because of unseen pressure or stress was possible, especially if the incidents were a few weeks or even months apart.

Over a thousand employees all doing the exact same disappearance act on the same night was not.

Especially when the tally of missing employees was very close to the number of strange mutants who'd attacked the two islands of Harmonia.

Ranma wasn't sure how Nanami had done all this research, but it was obvious that she'd been having some suspicions and, with Ranma's help, managed to discover their final mutual enemy in a matter of hours, and had confirmed it within another hour.

The question was: What could possibly be left?

Were Ranma a more foolish keeper, he might have arrogantly thought that Kronos would have put forth their entire army. But these sickos had been secretly digging into society for a long time, so while they would have put forth a large portion of their forces, putting everything into a split attack against two unquantified opponents was simply suicide.

The fact that while casualities had been heavy on both sides, there'd been no fatalities on the side of the Keepers, simply added to that. The fact that Kronos' forces had been completely decimated solidified it.

The biggest problem was that, in order to finish off this pesky and foolish organization, they'd have to do it fast, hard and completely. Kronos seemed like those obnoxious criminal organizations where if even a little bit remained, it could come back.

Plus, a few things worried Ranma.

The first and foremost was that Kronos had seemed confident enough to send two massive forces to two different islands. It was possible that half of the force had wound up on Nanami's island by sheer mistake. If that was true, then Kronos might have been smarter than Ranma gave them credit for.

Secondly, the mutated creatures might have been the fodder, meant to simply wear down the defenders through sheer numbers. If that was true, then chances were high that what they'd killed were the equivalent of white belts in martial arts, and the remaining forces were likely stronger, faster, more powerful, definitely highly skilled, and worst of all, probably vastly more intelligent.

Thirdly was that this organization had managed to keep itself and its activities so well hidden up to this point. It was fully possible that they had sleeper agents all over the place, and not just in the cities where their buildings were located.

And finally, to have pulled all of their employees without any distinguishable communication and to have timed their attack so well indicated something that would likely prove nasty.

Still, Ranma wanted to strike back at Kronos as soon as possible, which meant that once all of the assorted minions had recovered, it was go time.

Arguments were a fact of life. Some arguments were simple differences of opinion. Some are trying to weigh facts against each other. Others were differences of percepions of reality.

For those struggling with that bit, it's one of those philosophical things: Everyone can look at a puppy, but depending on various things, not everyone is going to react the same to that puppy. Hence, everyone sees the same reality (the puppy), but not everyone has the same perception of it (their opinion of the puppy).

Some people might squeal and declare, "AAAAWWWWW! HOW ADORABLE!"

Some people might smile and say, "Heh... it's darn cute."

Some people might say, "Eh. You see one animal, you've seen them all."

Some people might think its not as cute as something else.

Some people might comment that it looks a lot like .

Some people might only think of all of the carpet stains it'll cause or how much it'll cost to raise.

Yes, the perceptions of the puppy is different from person to person, and some might have multiple reactions to it.

Hence, everyone's perception is different.

However, the argument that was resounding across the courtyard was definitely a little of all three.

"For the last time, I'm NOT remarrying you!" Nodoka snapped.

"But, Nodoka-ch-er, uh, Nodoka-san," Genma managed to correct in time, as Nodoka had kneed him in the balls the last few times he'd tried to call her 'Nodoka-chan', "We NEED to stick together! For Ranma's sake! Look at how crazy Tendo's kids turned out! One's a nearly useless homemaker, one's a cold-blooded mercenary who's probably already started turning tricks for money, and the last one is so homicidal that she'll likely have turned into a serial killer by age 18! And Soun himself turned into a blubbering ninny!"

At first, Nodoka didn't even respond. Genma thought he'd gotten through, but Nodoka would have responded. She would have pointed out that the now deceased Miss Tendo had passed away when the Tendo girls were much younger than Ranma currently was, and that Soun has likely suffered a massive shock that he hadn't gotten over with. But she saw a better alternative. Genma didn't realize this until an evil grin began spreading across Nodoka's face and she began walking backwards while looking at him.

No, not looking at HIM, looking at something behind him. And she wasn't walking backwards, she was getting a safe distance away.

Genma felt the combined glares before he even turned around to see the Tendo Family giving him death-glares. Kasumi was holding a fireball in her right hand, Nabiki had commandeered a crossbow, Akane had somehow gotten her hands on a set of the wicked retractable claws that those Mistresses wore, and Soun was cracking his knuckles and giving his oldest training buddy a look normally seen on Yakuza enforcers right before they tried to break Genma's kneecaps for running out on his debts.

"Useless homemaker?" Kasumi repeated, her fireball growing to three times its previous size.

"Turning tricks?" Nabiki seethed, glad that the crossbow's enchantments made sure that it's projectile would hit the mark: Genma's groin.

"Blubbering ninny?" Soun growled.

Akane didn't comment, but it was clear that she hadn't appreciated what had been said about her either.

A hand clasped Genma's shoulder and Genma turned to see that boy that Ranma usually beat up, Totally Wacky or Wacky Tobaccy or something like that.

"Sir, you've insulted my girlfriend." Tatewaki noted with such calm that Genma thought he might have been commenting on the sky.

Genma may have been a master martial artist, but Tatewaki's knee to his groin seemed to go about three times faster than he'd expected.

Worse, Tatewaki had recently taken up wearing metal armor, complete with spiked kneeguards.

Words, his senses, his martial arts training and his natural reflexes all failed Genma.

It was then that the Tendos began their attack...

As it turned out, Ranma had actually been surprised that his father hadn't wound up in his prisons so much earlier with his stupid behavior. As it was, the old fart had already begun attempts to pick the lock on the door to the prison and was failing utterly in every regard.

After all, that lock was and always had been simply a ruse.

Ranma had been accurate in his assumption that Kronos had not put forth their entire army.

Pathetically, though, the resistance they found when they blitzed each and every listed Kronos company location was so weak and limited that Ranma doubted he'd have needed to send even a tenth of what he did to each site.

Ranma was just grateful he managed to get the approval from the various governments to perform the blitzes, but all of them wanted to get rid of what seemed to be a massive terrorist cell quickly before they could do any harm to their citizens.

Re-elections were coming up, after all, and it wouldn't look good to go pissing off Harmonia, especially after the U.S. had just had its ass saved for the first time in its national history.

It was after they'd cleared out and fully assessed each building that they began finding lots and lots of nasty little secrets about Kronos Corporation. Like how there were ten basement levels, but only two were officially listed.

And in each of those "extra" basements were laboratories with equipment that Ranma recognized as similar to Nathaniel's 'creature maker' tubes.

Only the subjects had been Kronos' own employees and occassionally kidnapped and brainwashed victims.

According to the data they'd found, an entire village had already undergone genetic manipulation.

The curious thing was that when Ranma visited the place, it was well in his command, and even more confusing, all of the civilians were loyal to him.

When Ranma asked the other keepers about the oddity, Nathaniel responded telepathically//It's possible that sleeper agents, like the kind seen in spy movies and the like, have their pre-set orders negated by the magic of becoming loyal to you, because those pre-set orders would require them to break that loyal, which as you've stated, can't be done unless an enemy uses a spell to temporarily turn them against you, or you somehow anger them or break their trust.//

//Any luck with those records?// Ranma asked Nanami.

//My wizards report that there's a large area that was purchased by Kronos Corporation for the purposes of creating a company resort, but supposedly, it's gone undeveloped for a while. And apparently, the local government, which is responsible for inspecting the development, was receiving large cash donations from-//

//Kronos Corporation.// Ranma noted//So where is this 'nonexistant resort'.//

//Mount Minakami.// Nanami answered.

//Right, it's probably their final stronghold. Gather everyone you can: we'll need them to wipe these schmucks off the face of the planet.//

//I don't know that it's their FINAL stronghold, since there are a number of small islands in the pacific that have been purchased by their executives, but chances are Mt. Minakami is where a majority of their remaining forces are. I'll bag the islands while you boys take out the stronghold.// Nanami replied.

"Okay, everyone," Ranma began as he gazed at what they'd determined was likely the main extrance, "On three, we blitz the hell out of these bastards, got it? One...twoooo..."

"We surrender!"

"DAMMIT!" Ranma cursed as he saw a number of Kronos soldiers exiting with their hands up.

This was TOTALLY ruining the feel of what should have been a climatic last battle.

Sadly, from what Nanami soon reported, the executives had all committed suicide, blowing up their entire islands. From what Nanami's chief enforcer, Ifurita, had reported, all lifeforms on the island had been snuffed out in the explosion.

And Mt. Minakami was quickly turning into a routine cleanup operation, like when he'd taken out some of those drug cartels.

"It's not fair..." Ranma sniffed.

"Well, you could always conquer another planet..." Ukyou spoke up.

Maidel jabbed her in the stomach and hissed, "But then we'll have less nookie time with Ranma!"

"Oh, right," Ukyou answered, before turning to Ranma, "Forget I said anything."

Ranma sighed. There was no possible way to get an invigorating fight out of the meek surrender.

It was eventually learned by the majority of the Dark Gods that three of their number had been responsible for the troubles their favored keeper had suffered.

Actually, the trio had apologized and begged for forgiveness when they'd seen the figurative writing on the wall.

The trio were each given a lengthy spanking, a swat on the hand and told "BAD DARK GOD!" before being let back into the group.

After all, the other Dark Gods didn't want the trio to resent Ranma more and try to stir up another crapstorm when a similiar or more promising possibility presented itself.

"And that's how your daddy conquered the world."

"Maidel, stop telling the kids lies. I didn't conquer the world. I just..." Ranma began to tell off his first wife.

"Completely and totally stopped all crime, pollution, famine, and pestilience?" Ukyou asked, with an arched eyebrow.

"And managed to give the space program the concentrated boost they needed to actually get the theoretical Jacob's Ladder project off the ground?" Nabiki inquired.

"Honestly, darling, you've done a nice job of it." Kodachi spoke up.

With all four of his wives gazing at him, Ranma could only sigh. His five kids weren't helping, their puppy-like eyes weakening him even further.

"Fine! I conquered the world." Ranma said, not happy with how they were making it seem like he was a bad guy.

"So how did you all bag daddy?" Tenma, Ranma's oldest son began.

"Well, we each bagged him separately. But there WAS quite an adventure involved in taking out your grandpa so we could get married in peace..." Ukyou spoke up.

Ranma decided to leave. That story always brought up bad memories for him. Mostly because, after the beating he'd received from Tatewaki and the Tendos, Genma Saotome had snapped, and turned into a replica of Happousai. He'd even managed to become as slippery and difficult to defeat as old coot had been. However, he'd been obsessed with trying to force Ranma and Akane to marry, something that would have really pissed off a lot of people. Tatewaki and Akane especially, considering that they'd been married for three months when Genma first tried to nab Akane, calling her abduction "Step 1".

Besides, it kept reminding him how his mom, Kasumi, and his minion Cerl had wound up in a three-way relationship. Kinky, but disturbing at the same time. Like most children, Ranma didn't want to think of either of his parents having sex.

At all.

Still, he supposed it could have been worse.

He could have been king.

And while Reginald's heir, Daniel, liked to say, "it's good to be the king."

For Ranma, it was much better to being a keeper.

The End.

This ending was much grander than it would have turned out (with Horny simply showing up and finishing off the last evil Dungeon Keeper in Chapter 17), but that one fell short.

Still, it was much better than some of the outcomes I'd had for this story.

And frankly, THAT was the real bitch. You see, once the last keeper was gone and the army gone, Kronos' remaining army fell into three categories, the cheap filler, the sleeper agents and the insanely powerful. The cheap filler could be handled readily. The sleeper agents would be quickly noticed and being scattered, could be defeated with ease, and with Ranma's ability to heal anyone loyal to him, the only real people they could do any lasting harm against would be those not loyal to a keeper. The insanely powerful were the real threats, but there were only so many, and with their independent natures, they simply would not have had the capacity to mess with the keepers on their lonesome.

As to their final fate, I'm going to leave that up to circumspect. Considering the unknown powers, faking their deaths could be possible, but they would need to reintegrate with society, and that would likely mean joining a keeper, which means any thoughts of betrayl will be instantly noticed.

Though, I have to admit, while writing this ending, I came to appreciate why J.K. Rowling originally wanted to end the "Harry Potter" series with Book 3. As the latter books have proven, one way or another, the books simply cannot meet all of the hopes and expectations. In a way, it probably would have been better for the original Harry Potter series to have been broken up into segments, like Lord of the Rings was. We had the Hobbit (i.e. the first three Harry Potter books) which focused on mostly on the travels of Bilbo Baggins, and then we had the Lord of the Rings (what the last four books should have been), intertwining stories that culminate in the total defeat of evil, followed quickly by the rather quick and fairly decisive ending.

Likewise, I could have broken up Dungeon Keeper Ranma in such a manner, but honestly, I'm not that good... yet. With each completed (or uncompleted) story, I find myself struggling with a fundamental truth:

I do both comedy and drama fairly well, but I like comedy more, hence things often sway between the two (more often lingering in comedy).

Pompous and pretentious bullcrap aside, here are the last few omakes I'll create for this series (though I may pick up DK Ukyou or DK Anime in the future and toss more in there).

Omake Feature:
People You Would Never Want To Get A Dungeon Heart
or
Dungeon Keeper Of The Rings?

Gandalf was staring at the monstrous luck that Frodo Baggins had.

Not only had the little hobbit stumbled across a major artifact just as old and powerful as Sauron's One True Ring, but he'd also gotten a few extras.

Even better, the little hobbit's new lair couldn't be penetrated by the Nazgul or any other nasty creatures that may seek him harm for his possession.

There had been several things that could have ended his life anyway, including a number of vicious creatures who had invaded some lost dwarven tunnels, which included a mighty Balrog; and an army that Saruman, Gandalf's old friend had turned to evil (though Gandalf had his suspicions earlier), had been building an army of half-breed human-orcs.

Of course, none of them could match Horniculus. The Horned Reaper had taken great delight in decimating the numerous and vicious enemies and crushing all in his way.

Furthermore, in the span of a single month, the hobbit had his minions mine a path to Mount Doom, where the hobbit had tossed Sauron's Ring in... well, more of set up a bank-shot off several rock formations that landed approximately where the hobbit had desired it to go.

In many ways, the defeat of Sauron had been rather anticlimatic, though Horny had a blast teaching the Nazgul that "invincible to man" didn't apply to demons.

And so, he, Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins were sipping fruity little drinks with Horny, discussing the highlights of the "clean up" as Frodo put it.

End.