=========================================================== Dungeon Keeper Ranma
Chapter 10: Homecoming
By A-kun
===========================================================
The Gate Gem was an awesomely powerful artifact. It had moved
the lost continent of Atlantis to another dimension and was moving the
now-renamed continent of Harmonia back to Earth. The Gate Gem,
however, modified the tectonic plates so that there would be no
earthquakes or volcanoes erupting along or in the Pacific Rim for eight
hundred years.
The Atlantians who'd created it had wanted to make sure they
weren't on or around a fault line, after all. Because that was one of
the key reasons they'd left.
The continent appeared halfway between Hawaii and Japan. Yet,
despite this, the entire world took no notice, as Ranma had cast a
barrier against detection. The only people who might see the continent
had to view it with their own eyes.
Ranma had advised doing that as he knew the media and governments
of his world would otherwise storm the island. They had to prepare for
the homecoming before they 'appeared' to the world.
To be honest, Ranma wanted to take care of things back in Nerima
first. The last thing he wanted to do was wait around for
applications for diplomatic status to come via Japanese Post, then
having to deal with all of the other nuances of being a diplomat while
trying to see his friends and family in Nerima. He was certain that he
should go alone, though.
However, his ability to teleport refused to get him past the
beaches of Harmonia.
Ranma slapped his forehead as he realized that he hadn't mastered
the actual teleport spell, but rather the ability that his imps had.
That meant he had to create a Dungeon Heart in Japan, which wouldn't be
that big of a problem.
"Ah, good ole' Nerima..." Ranma sighed.
He walked around, wondering how long it'd been since he was last
in Nerima. It seemed like a lifetime ago. He noticed he was near the
Ucchan. He wondered if it was still open. He hadn't been in Nerima
for an entire year, so it wasn't too unlikely that some of his fiancees
had moved away.
Circling the corner, he saw it just as it had been when he'd
left. He entered.
Ukyou looked pretty much like she had a year ago. She turned to
see who it was and caught her greeting before she could speak it,
"Ranchan! You're back!"
"Ucchan!" Ranma replied as Ukyou leapt towards him and hugged
him. A quick glance told him that she'd just opened.
"How did you get back? Happousai said he'd banished you, but
Cologne was uncertain about what he had done. Apparently, the old man
boofed it pretty bad. Cologne thought that it might have thrown you
into a far country or even out into space!" Ukyou declared,
gesticulating wildly. (No, not MASTURBATING wildly, you perverts!)
"Actually, space and country aren't that far away from what
really happened. Sorry that I've been gone a whole year..." Ranma
started.
"A year? What are you talking about? It's only been two
weeks." Ukyou responded.
"Two... weeks?" Ranma asked.
Ukyou nodded and pointed to the calendar. A red circle
surrounded the fifth with the words "Happousai plan". Roughly two
weeks had been marked off.
"I guess time moves differently." Ranma commented.
"So, where did you go?" Ukyou inquired.
"It's a place called 'Harmonia', but it's actually Atlantis.
They took off for another dimension a really long time ago. It took me
an entire year to get back, because I had to con-" Ranma paused
slightly. He wasn't sure if he should tell anyone he went about
conquering entire nations, "-llecting these things called portal gems."
"Conllecting? That's not a word, sugar." Ukyou told him.
"Sorry, I got confused for a second." Ranma apologized.
"You're a terrible liar, hon." Ukyou informed him.
"Well, I'd rather not say what I had to do to get them or else
you'll think badly of me." Ranma told her.
"I don't think I'd ever think too badly of you, sugar." Ukyou
answered.
"Anyway, I met a lot of nice people," Ranma started, trying to
evade the fact that he met them after he'd conquered a land, "had some
fights," brutally murdered a few keepers, lords and their loyal guards
and banished numerous keepers, "and made some money while I was at it."
"Really? How much?" Ukyou asked.
"Well, this isn't a scratch." Ranma said, producing a bag of
golden coins and dropping it on the table. Ukyou looked at the coins,
which would have been easily worth between nine hundred thousand to two
million in yen.
"You made more than this?!" Ukyou asked, trying to pick her
metaphysical jaw off the ground.
Ranma nodded.
"How in the world..." Ukyou began, picking up a coin with a dragon emblem.
"It was after the fights." Ranma white-lied. It was the truth for the most part, the coins actually were from the fortresses that he'd conquered. His own gold had his mark on it, which was why he didn't bring that along, "I also became close to the king and his children."
"That's so amazing..." Ukyou said.
Ranma was ready for more praise. He liked it from everyone, but
especially those who knew him before he'd become a keeper. It startled
him when she began crying.
"Ucchan? What's wrong?" Ranma asked.
"I.... I don't deserve you......" Ukyou whimpered.
"Huh?! Where the heck did this come from?" Ranma inquired.
"You've come back so handsome, strong, confident... and now
you're rich. I... I..." Ukyou tried to explain.
Ranma realized what it was. He had feared, when everyone saw his
new powers, that he would be seen as some sort of god. His men had
grown to have the same mind set. Ranma didn't like being seen as some
sort of diety. He was still Ranma Saotome. He was just a lot more
now.
For Ukyou, though, it was the wealth. If she continued to pursue
Ranma, she was inwardly doubting if it was truly him or his money. To
prevent herself from being too tempted, she was willing to break up
with him.
Ranma hugged Ukyou, letting her sob against his chest.
"Ukyou, listen. You aren't shallow for desiring the money that I
have. In fact, that you were willing to give up on me because you
feared all that I had makes you a much better person." Ranma told her,
"Don't doubt that."
She looked up into his eyes and was about to protest, but he
silenced her with a kiss. She melted into it. She didn't even notice
or care that two tiny green men appeared near her door, took down the
store curtain and locked the door, before heading into the kitchen to
clean up and reinforce the walls as Ranma carried her upstairs.
Two hours later, Ranma found himself standing at the front of the
Tendo Dojo. He'd washed up pretty thoroughly and he was sure that if
he smelled like anything, it would be brimstone (he'd stopped to visit
a dungeon near lava to pick up some more coins).
He exhaled, then focused, before opening the gates. He walked to
the front door, and for the first time in a very very long time,
knocked on the door frame, before opening the door and called out,
"'scuse me."
In the living room, the entire Tendo family and the two remaining
members of the Saotome family heard the call. Everyone's eyes snapped
wide open as they tried to figure out who's voice it was and their eyes
widened further as they realized who said voice belonged to.
"It couldn't be..." Soun began.
"It is! Ranma!" Kasumi declared, standing up just as Ranma
entered their view.
Then, just as the two families were about to do a combined group
hug, the moment was spoiled by a bandaged old pervert splashing Ranma
with cold water.
"RANMA! I MISSED YOU!" Happousai cried, lunging for the new
bosom.
And he quite probably would have made it, had Ranma not sensed
his presense, used his ki to evaporate the water, then punted Happousai
for a two city field goal.
"The ONE THING I did NOT miss." Ranma commented, before turning
back to the surprised two families.
"Ranma... you didn't-" Genma began.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Neat trick I learned in Harmonia. You wouldn't
believe how many times something'll splash you there." Ranma responded,
waving the question aside.
"Harmonia?" Nabiki asked.
"It's a loooong story and I've been on my feet for a while."
Ranma replied, as he motioned everyone back to the table, "For one
thing, I've been gone a lot longer than you all think..."
Happousai, meanwhile, was not happy. That miserable ungrateful
little punk hadn't even let the aged master touch what was properly his
until he released Ranma from his school.
Yes, Ranma was going to pay dearly. As soon as Happousai
recovered and managed to get to Nerima district, Ranma was going to
pay. Happousai looked at his landing spot and with some quick
calculations, added in the fact that he'd have to dig himself free
first. Four, maybe five days, tops.
Lundar was enjoying a good book. It had been quite a while since
he'd been able to sit down and simply enjoy such trivial desires. Yes,
indeed. After almost a year of campaigning against King Reginald and
the other keepers, Lundar was finally getting back to his second love:
Reading.
The thing that he'd liked most was that he was finally getting
new books. Before Ranma had come, Lundar only had the same five
hundred thousand or so books and read most of them four or fives times.
Lundar's eyes widened as he felt something. No, LOTS of
somethings. He'd become tuned with the Primary Dungeon Heart that
Ranma used, so much so that he could feel when other Dungeon Hearts
moved.
But Ranma hadn't known about Keepers or Dungeon Hearts, so how-
Lundar's mental question came to a screeching halt as he recalled what
he'd told Ranma when they'd started out:
"But you are not of this world. I can sense that. Someone has
banished you here." Lundar murmurred.
"...On top of that, Keeper, if this Dungeon Heart is destroyed,
you shall be banished from this land into one at random..."
All the enemy keepers had somehow been banished _back_ to Ranma's
world! Even if it was against Ranma's prior wishes, Lundar had to
alert him of the threat plaguing his land. But, Ranma had warned that
his world had unusual dangers that Lundar and such would not be ready
for.
"Horny! We must go to Ranma immediately!" Lundar called,
entering the Reaper's personal room.
"I did not hear him call. And believe me, I would know." Horny
responded, before sipping on a fruity drink with one of those little umbrellas in it.
"Yes, but all the keepers we'd slain were banished HERE!" Lundar
explained, bearing witness to the infinitely rare scene of Horny doing
a spittake.
"WHAT?!" Horny asked, looking over at Lundar, before relaxing.
"And Ranma didn't bring any protection!" Lundar continued, still
panicked.
"You're right, he might knock up some of the female keepers.
Lundar, have you forgotten? Keepers do not exist on this world, thus,
even if they managed to build a dungeon, there is no way they could
have very much in the way of creatures because there are no portals."
Horny responded.
Lundar stared Horny square in the eye, "You know nothing of
Portals, do you? Unless an active portal gem is in the area to prevent
it, a keeper can MAKE his own portals and without the limitations of
fifteen creatures at a time! Not to mention, all the portal gems were
fused into the Gate Gem, which, while it does retain that power, is
still at the same scale! He could block the ones in his city, but
that's it!"
"But what about money? How would they pay their creatures?"
Horny asked.
"I've done some research on that too, but I learned about it a
bit too late for it be anything of trivia until now. When a Dungeon
Heart transports itself or creates a faxsimile, it changes less
valuable minerals, plants and most insects into gold or gemstone and
gathers them into a tight spot, which we know as gold or gem veins.
And even if there aren't enough of such things, they can still use the
Create Gold spell." Lundar explained.
"SHIT!" Horny cried as he realized Lundar was right.
With that, the two teleported away.
There were many people in Nerima that had _not_ missed Ranma
Saotome's presense. This group of people was almost entirely made up
of Ranma's rivals, but also included those who simply thought he was
the source of the problems that made Nerima noisy (i.e. the citizens of
Nerima). Most of them, however, simply figured Ranma had gone on a
training trip, and thus would be back.
Ranma's primary rivals in particular were very happy. They were
all very delusional, so they believed that Ranma had fled from them,
knowing their eventual victory was at hand. All of them had ignored
the fact that they'd aided Ranma in getting back at Happousai (someone
they all considered worse than Ranma) and the fact that Cologne
reminded them constantly (with the aid of daily beatings) that Ranma
had not fled, but rather had been sent to a random location.
Tatewaki Kuno was especially glad to see that the foul sorcerer
known as Ranma was gone. It meant that the pigtailed girl and Akane
Tendo were now his by default. It was a bit disconcerting that he had
not seen the pigtailed girl in some time, but she often vanished for
weeks at a time, no doubt to compose herself so that she would be able
to confess her feelings.
Then, Tatewaki saw her: The pigtailed girl.
Yes, there she was, dashing past him with a sack on her back, a
pickaxe in hand, dancing and hopping on the ground. She seemed a bit
shorter than before, but her features were unmistakable.
"AH, PIGTAILED GIRL! COME, LEAP INTO MY ARMS!" Tatewaki cried,
leaping at her.
She didn't react like he thought she would. Before he was even
halfway to her, she did a backflip and vanished in a burst of green
sparkles. Tatewaki blinked, then slammed facefirst into the asphault.
It did not take Tatewaki Kuno long to go through an insanely long
list of incorrect answers (the pigtailed girl loved him, the pigtailed
girl was under the enslavement of that foul sorcerer Ranma Saotome, the
pigtailed girl did not have the chance to confess her love to him) to
come to a surprisingly correct conclusion: Ranma Saotome was back.
Mousse was glad that his first and foremost rival for Shampoo was
at last punished for his inherently evil nature. Surely, without
Saotome around, Shampoo would confess her feelings for him.
"SHAMPOO! THE FATHER OF YOUR CHILDREN IS HERE!" Mousse cried,
jumping towards Shampoo. He had his glasses on, because he'd spent
four weeks recovering from hugging and kissing Cologne the last time
he'd tried this without his glasses. (One week to recover physically
and four to recover mentally.)
He predictably ran facefirst into a serving plate. Shampoo
snorted, "Ranma is back?"
"No, but I am!" Mousse responded, recovering from the injury.
"Then father of Shampoo's children not here." Shampoo responded,
smashing Mousse out of the open door with a well-placed spinning knee
to Mousse's face, with a grace found only from having done it over
three thousand times before.
Mousse groaned as he opened his eyes. It seemed that he'd been
hit rather hard this last time. He was seeing miniature Saotomes.
Mousse shook his head, but the delusional Ranmas didn't vanish.
They instead continued dancing in front of Mousse for about two
minutes, then vanished in a flash of green energy.
Mousse went through an short list of incorrect answers (Shampoo
loved him, Shampoo was under the influence of Ranma's evil
machinations, weird-looking Ranmas were dancing, weird-looking Ranmas
vanished in a style reminiscent of Star Trek) and came to an
unsurprisingly wrong conclusion, "AAAAAAH! ALIENS THAT LOOK LIKE
RANMA ARE INVADING NERIMA! AAAAAAAAAH-URKLE-*"
Cologne sighed. Apparently, not having Ranma to blame his
problems on was driving Mousse insane.
Ryoga was a mixture of exceptionally happy and a bit frustrated.
On the one hand, Akane was now free and once he worked up the courage
to face her (and found her house), he'd win her heart for sure.
On the other hand, Ranma was an okay guy sometimes and was one of
the few people Ryoga knew enough about to talk with casually. Ranma
kept his skills sharp and gave him the determination to continue
training.
Ryoga was finding himself missing his oft-time friend/rival.
Ranma could infuriate him, but he was also one of the few people who
would actually help him find his way, rather than just point in the
wrong direction (in Ryoga's mind, it didn't matter if it was the right
direction or not if he didn't get there) and probably laugh at him
behind his back.
Ryoga was lost in an alleyway behind Doctor Tofu's clinic when he
spotted something small and green. It had bulged eyes, looked vaguely
humanoid and had something long in it's hand. It turned to him, then
started giggling.
Ryoga did the sensible thing.
Ran off screaming.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! ANAL PROBING ALIENS!!"
He only stopped when he was sure that there were no more aliens
around. He'd heard all about aliens and their tendency to do anal
probing on people (even if he didn't know what it was, it didn't sound
like it was likely very comfortable).
He looked around for the alien or anything similar. He sighed in
relief. No anal probing aliens in the vacant lot, just Ranma.
Ranma?
"Saotome! How dare you trick us like that! We thought you were
thrown across time and space and here you've just been in this vacant
lot!" Ryoga growled, kicking Ranma in the head.
Ranma yelped and turned around.
Then Ryoga noticed Ranma was short and green.
He ran off screaming again.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!! ANAL PROBING ALIENS HAVE CLONED
RANMA SAOTOME!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Ryoga shrieked.
Nabiki had heard some tall stories before, but the slapdash story
Ranma had half-lied through was pushing it, even for Nabiki's limit,
"Oh, come off it, Saotome, there's no way you could have gone to
another dimension-"
Horny and Lundar appeared, "Keeper! We have grave news!"
"A MONSTER!" Soun yelped at the sight of Horny, before
whimpering, "Don't eat my little girls!"
"I don't eat humans." Horny explained, mentally adding,
"anymore".
Ranma sighed and slapped his forehead, "Great timing there,
Lundar. And didn't I tell you to stay back in Harmonia?"
"Yes, but as I said, we have grave news! Your rival keepers have
found their way here, they can create gold, and they can construct
their own portals!" Lundar explained, giving Ranma the cliff notes on
the situation.
"Ah, man! Just my luck! Guess we'll have to hunt them all
down." Ranma sighed, hopping to his feet.
"Wait, keeper? Rivals? Hunt down?! Ranma, what have you been
up to?!" Akane angrily demanded, using her usual formula (everything
was Ranma's fault) to get an impossibly correct answer (for Akane
Tendo): Ranma was hiding something.
"Look, I ain't got time for this. Let's just say that if I don't
hunt down these guys, it's likely things ain't gonna be too peaceful
anywhere." Ranma responded, preparing to teleport away with Lundar and
Horny, creating a teleportation circle.
Ranma was as surprised as everyone else when Nodoka surged
forward and grabbed Ranma's arm just as the teleportation spell
activated, halfstepping into the teleportation circle as she did. She
had been meaning to add some words to the action, but something
happened that cut her off.
"No, wait, IT'S DANGE-" Lundar began.
Back at the Tendo Dojo, everyone stared at the spot where Ranma,
Nodoka, Lundar and Horny had been.
"Um, it looked like something bad just happened." Nabiki noted,
looking at the burn mark on the ground, where Nodoka had been.
"NODOKA!" Genma yelled.
There's a little known fact about teleportation spells. For the
most part, teleportation spells are simply supposed to move Object A or
Person A to Location B.
Personal teleportation spells worked very cleanly, transporting
the person and every non-living thing they were carrying or holding to
the desire location.
Teleportation circles are another story. They operated by taking
everything _within_ the circle to the desire location. It could be
very messy should someone halfstep into the circle just as it
activated, which was why everyone in Harmonia knew not to interupt
teleportation circles.
Nodoka Saotome was not from Harmonia, however, thus she didn't
know about that particular rule. The half of her that was not in
the circle had been disintegrated.
Nodoka had some things going for her, despite this major blunder.
The person she was holding onto was Ranma Saotome, the person who
happened to be casting the spell. Ranma Saotome was connected to the
most powerful Dungeon Heart in existence and had been teleporting to
said Dungeon Heart.
A little known fact about the Dungeon Heart was that it could be
used to revive, restore and regenerate fallen creatures who were allied
to it's Keeper. Nodoka was VERY loyal to her son, thus the Dungeon
Heart accepted her as it would one of Ranma's minions.
Since Ranma had teleported so that he would appear over his
Dungeon Heart, the effect was just as instantaneous as Nodoka's loss of
half of her body.
However, due to the fact that the tremendous shock alone of both
processes (losing half of one's body and then regenerating it in the
span of three seconds) could have lead to Nodoka's demise, the Dungeon
Heart had to do a more complete regeneration in order to make certain
that Nodoka didn't die from the restoration.
Nodoka Saotome blinked and looked down at herself as she and
Ranma appeared over his Primary Dungeon Heart. Ranma, Lundar and Horny
had been expecting to see half of a middle-age woman, but instead saw a
full TEENAGE woman.
"M-m-m-m-MOM?!" Ranma blurted out, shocked at the sight of an
eighteen year old woman who looked like sort of like his mother, but
more like a slightly older sister to his female form.
"Wh-wh-what just happened?" the renewed Nodoka asked.
"Ordinarily, you would've been cut in half, but it would seem
that luck was on your side. Ranma's Dungeon Heart restored you to
life, but it would seem that it went further..." Lundar commented.
"Further?" Nodoka inquired of the mentor, still very shaken by
the experience. She'd FELT half of her body disappear and then regrow,
then it had tingled all over.
"Having half of your body destroyed and then regenerated so
quickly would have killed just about anyone over twenty, so the Dungeon
Heart continued the regeneration until you were young enough to
withstand the shock." Lundar responded.
"But, it's never done anything like that before!" Ranma
protested.
"Hmmm, it may have responded to your desire to keep your mother
alive. In any case, Keeper, she's had her youth restored. She's no
older than eighteen." Lundar answered, before adding in, "And half-
naked, I might add."
Ranma quickly summoned a robe and wrapped it around his mother.
The last thing he wanted to do was ogle his own mother, even if she was
young enough to be his sister.
"Ranma, I think I'm going to have a nice lay down." Nodoka
announced, before fainting dead away.
Ranma caught her before she could touch the floor. He turned to
Horny, "Take her to the Keeper bedroom. She needs to sleep."
Horny nodded numbly, still shocked himself that the Dungeon Heart
could restore someone so fast, let alone give them their youth back.
"This is turning out to be a rather big headache. We should
probably contact Reginald. We'll need to keep the world away from
these incidents for a while." Ranma commented.
Lundar nodded in agreement.
Keeper Morgana was infuriated. Not only had this evil gnome-imp-
thing come bursting into HER Dungeon, but he'd fondled every female in
her Dungeon. And the flurry of spells she and her Mistresses were
tossing at him, which should have been attracted to him in the first
place, were missing!
"Heya, sweet cheeks!" Happousai said cheerfully, as he glomped
Morgana's ass again.
"DIE YOU DEMON!" Morgana roared.
=======================================================================
Explanations
Q. Why do that to Nodoka?
A. I've always felt that what Genma did to Nodoka (leaving her
all alone at home for ten years) was something that needed to be
corrected. Thus, I restored her to her youth! Let's see if Genma can
convince her to remain married to him when she's full of teenage
hormones once again!
Q. What's up with the 'alien Ranmas'?
A. The imps Ranma creates fresh still resemble normal Imps, but a
lot of his older imps have already begun (or finished) transforming
into miniature versions of Ranma (about half his height). The last
thing to change is their skin tone, so some of them are still green-
skinned. The ones that are confused for normal Ranmas are the ones
who've already finished their transformation.
Next time, on Dungeon Keeper Ranma!
Keeper Morgana and her dungeon of Mistresses continue to hunt for
Happousai!
Nerima is in a panic at the numerous sightings of miniature Ranma
Saotomes (and pigtailed girls), aliens, and alien Ranma Saotomes (and
pigtailed girls)!
Nodoka recovers from her shock!
The U.N. meets King Reginald and Keeper Ranma!
And the War of the Keepers begins!
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