"People try to explain life and often fail. I think that it's incorrect to try and apply a meaning to life itself, but rather, we should apply a meaning to the events that occur _in_ life and history. One good example that I heard involved dynamite.
Some things are like dynamite, situations, good or bad, just waiting to explode; others are like the fuse, a means to making the situation ignite; some are like flames, waiting to light the fuse.
It makes sense in various forms of context.
Some people are like flames, sparking the situation that will cause the situation, like a bully who picks on a kid for no apparent reason or a friend of a scientist who makes a seemingly innocent comment. People can be like fuses when they help a situation to it's fruition, like others kids who tease the aforementioned kid or an instructor who gives a detailed explanation as to how something works. And people can be like dynamite when their fury explodes or when they discover something that could improve the world.
And like dynamite, situations can be stopped if someone intervenes soon enough, like a friend who helps stop the bully or a murderer who kills the scientist." - Dungeon Keeper Ranma Saotome

Since my original plan with having the Dungeon Keeper Ukyou show up did kind of spiral out of control (and I have to admit that two Hornys would be VERY confusing), I've decided to make a change. Shouldn't affect most of what's already planned.

Unfortunately for those who liked feedback to their reviews, I'm suspending that to finish this damn story.

She was a cocaine addict. That was all she could remember. The white powder had blurred the rest. Too much all at once. There'd been someone warning her about that, but as the words replayed in her mind, it was evident whoever had told her that wasn't seriously concerned about her state of health so long as she could pay.

Her entire body kept twitching, like an animal amidst its death- throes. Her eyes couldn't even stay focused.

Then, all at once, the artificial warmth and safety the white powder had given her faded, leaving her cold, afraid and with an ever- increasing feeling that she was truly worthless. The white powder... she didn't want it, but she needed it. Tears ran down her face, but she couldn't tell if it was because she was sad or because of some automatic response.

There was a knife. Her eyes flickered to it, then to her quaking body, then back to the knife. This was no way to live, trapped by a body that wanted something that was destroying it, doing horrible things to herself and others simply for a buzz that was gone in a hundredth of the time that she spent building up the money for the next rush.

Before she really realized it, the knife was in her hands and pointed at her heart. Might as well, there was no point in continuing this worthless existance, destroying her body and brain more and more, and dragging any friends or family she might have down into the same pit of misery and despair she felt.

The blade sank into flesh, spraying blood all over her face and chest, but neither the flesh nor the blood was hers. Her eyes didn't respond immediately, but eventually locked onto the owner of the hand, a brown-haired young man whose deep blue eyes actually caused her body to stop shaking.

He clenched his hand and yanked it and the knife away from her. He pulled the knife out of his hand, wincing as he did so, then laid a hand over the open wound. In a brilliant spark of light, his hand was healed.

"You've damaged your body and mind with your addiction, you've hurt yourself and everyone who cares about you with this worthless and endless endeavor. You want to kill yourself, because you think it will at least end the amount of pain and suffering you've caused. But there's another way. Come with me, and you will find the strength to pull yourself out of this nightmarish travesty you once called your life." he told her.

As he extended his hand to her, she could feel the power and conviction in his voice. He was strong, strong enough that he would try to pull her from this gutter. She grabbed his hand with both hands as if it were a life preserver, and he pulled her up so that she was standing.

In a flash of light, they were gone.

The steady tapping echoed throughout the room. Considering how large the room was and how small the noise was, it said a lot about how quiet the room was.

Slowly, the tempo increased. A few seconds later, it increased again, then again. Finally, it stopped.

The door opened immediately afterwards, and a knight entered. He approached the center of the room and knelt, "Milady, we have discovered where your target has gone."

"And?" came an impatient female voice.

"It would seem that your target suffered a fate similar to you, being sent to an alternate world." the knight explained.

"I see." was the reply.

Nanami Jinnai folded her fingers in front of her, ignoring the dagger she'd embedded into the right armrest of her stone throne, and thought.

She turned her thoughts to more pressing matters, namely whether she should visit her rivals or not. It was a courtesy she'd extended to Nemesis and to King Reginald, but the keepers here weren't the same as the crusty old farts she'd conquered in her world. But this Keeper Ranma seemed like the rarest sort: a genuinely good keeper. She wanted to learn how he'd done it, but she didn't know how he would react.

The decision was difficult to make without knowing all of the facts.

"You may go." Nanami told him, before calling, "Taki."

Without turning, Nanami knew her best scout was behind her. The knight looked faintly unnerved, but left nevertheless.

"I want you to investigate this Keeper Ranma's Harmonia. Tell me all you can." Nanami responded.

"understood." was the only word Taki uttered before vanishing.

Nabiki was hiding in a closet. Some might have snickered at the implications, but Nabiki didn't care. It was the only place she could be away from Cerl.

It seemed that Cerl had become increasingly more persistant about showing the full extent of her attraction to Nabiki, and had decided that the best way to show this attraction was the lay naked on Nabiki's bed with only strategically placed fruit preventing anyone from seeing her 'goodies'.

Of course, Nabiki had been dead-tired when she entered her room and wasn't really paying attention when she collapsed onto her bed.

What happened next would forever remain in Nabiki and Cerl's minds, though each would have a different version of the event. Suffice to say, Nabiki had taken to avoiding Cerl at all costs, and was actively wrestling with her own once-decided sexuality.

There are those who would rather have the embrace of another person, regardless of their gender, than deal with loneliness. Nabiki had never really considered herself a 'lesbian' or even 'bi-curious', but there was no denying physical responses. There was only argument over what those physical responses meant.

Hentai anime, the type she had borrowed and watched in secret, would argue that any sign of arousal meant attraction, but Nabiki had read enough psychology books to know that that wasn't true at all. The body often responded to stimuli automatically, regardless of the wishes of the brain.

Did the fact that she'd enjoyed some of it mean she should consider being bisexual or even a lesbian?

These were the matters Nabiki was wrestling with as she remained in the closet.

Ranma stared at the headline in complete befuddlement. He could understand that the events being reported were alarming, but he wasn't sure how it could possibly be happening.

Over thirty-five million poor, crippled or homeless people had vanished in the last two weeks. And quite a few hangouts for goths had suddenly closed as well. In fact, MOST of the hangouts for goths had closed with no sign of their patrons anywhere. Police departments around the United States were swamped with missing persons reports, but there weren't any visible clues as to where the people might have gone.

Of course, more alarming was the fact that this hadn't been figured out until just a few days ago. Apparently, the total number of the people missing wasn't apparent until law enforcement started investigating a common thread in the income of many of the people who were missing.

Ranma was certain that a keeper was behind it, but what was truly befuddling was that he couldn't sense where the keeper was. If he (or she) was making undead, they should have attacked already.

Actually, the differing patterns seemed to indicate that there were at least two different groups of people involved in the disappearances, which made it evident that there were two or more different keepers.

The only things Ranma had sensed, though, were Dungeon Hearts collapsing. Of the twenty Keepers who'd arrived on his homeworld, only a mere seven remained. And what worried Ranma was that the fact that he was only responsible for the destruction of four of those Dungeon Hearts. Which meant that nine other Keepers had fallen at someone else's hand.

It infuriated Ranma that the Gate Gem's protective barrier was actually more limited than the twenty Portal Gems that it was made up of and that didn't really make much sense. Theoretically, since each of the Portal Gems had only 1/20th of the power that the Gate Gem did, the Gate Gem's barrier should be twenty times more powerful, and worse, even if he broke it back up into the Portal Gems, they still wouldn't cover enough land to protect his entire world.

Hunting Keepers on Harmonia was easy, because there were only so many places they could hide, but hunting them across an entire world was going to be a royal pain in the ass.

At least he was able to solve the problems he'd had before.

Ryouga's eyes opened slowly. There was a strange pain in the back of his head, and it felt like something was running from his nose. Then he started to feel something nice tingling in that particular region that made every male look down.

The pressure from the blood rocketing out of his nose caused Ryouga's head to rocket back, striking the metal wheel he was laying on, denting it and knocking him out.

Kimberly sighed. How was she supposed to enjoy teasing the poor boy if he fainted everytime she began to massage him erotically? He also fainted when he caught sight of her in the standard mistress outfit. He fainted a lot, actually.

At least even if Ryouga's brain wasn't working, something else was. Kimberly decided that Ryouga didn't need to be awake after all.

Meanwhile, Kodachi was learning the subtle differences between using a whip and using a ribbon. A whip was shorter, heavier and didn't float as much as a ribbon, but it also got a much more pleasant cry out of her victim when used properly.

Akane didn't appreciate being the victim, but seeing as the mistresses had no intention of letting her go until they'd all gotten a turn, her opinion really didn't matter all that much.

Kodachi, on the other hand, was quivering with delight that she was able to satisfy her curiosities. There were more... curiosities that wanted to satisfy, like teaching that redheaded trollop a lesson, but Akane... Akane would do for the moment...

Larry was a greasy forty year-old, balding white man and he was worried. He hadn't seen ANY of his customers in a VERY long time. He didn't mind when one or two of the crackheads up and died, since there were more where they came from. The problem was, with that stupid Keeper Ranma around to take down the really big criminal organizations, the normal police had enough time to hunt down drug dealers, like himself, thieves and slumlords.

That meant his normal smalltime cargo, which had once been overlooked by police seeking the bigger fish who produced it, was becoming hotter the longer he had it.

His last customer, Melonie, was the most important person in Larry's life. Not because he liked her, but because she was willing to snort up his supply. He didn't like having to sell the stuff for half price, as it made him feel like he was working in his parents' grocery store when it was having a "Buy One Get One Free" sale, but he had to in order to get rid of it. His suppliers wanted him to increase sales, but he couldn't sell if there were no buyers.

Which was bad news for him, since his suppliers were beginning to feel a major drop in sales, what with all those poor and homeless people, their secondary targets, up and vanishing. He HAD to find Melonie to get rid of what he had, so he could look his boss in the eye and say that he'd sold his stash.

That was why Larry had barged into Melonie's room. He was looking for her, hoping against hope that she was still alive so he could pawn off the rest of his product.

"Larry."

Larry spun, startled, to see Melonie standing in the doorway.

"Melonie, baby, you scared me!" Larry said, sighing with relief, "Listen, if you still want to buy, my boss says I can hock it at half price again."

Melonie smiled, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. It was about then that Larry began to notice that Melonie wasn't doing her usual coke-jitters, nor did she have her stained white t-shirt and soiled grey sweatpants on. Instead, she was wearing a rather nice long- sleeved white dress with a low neckline with a green mantle. Her long blonde hair wasn't limp and matted from sweat; but wavy and bouncy, as if she had recently had a perm; and she didn't stink of sweat, shit and urine, but rather, of sweet lavender perfume. Her green eyes were solidly focused on him, not even flickering around like a confused fly like they usually did.

Larry was beginning to think Melonie was exceptionally hot, especially for a cokehead. If she didn't have the money, he was seriously considering trading the rest of her debt for sex.

Consider hell, he'd decided on that matter. Those sweet melons of hers were definitely more attractive than they had been when he'd seen her last.

"You know, at one point in my life, I would have been excited at that possibility, I might have even yelled 'whoopie' or something. But, I'm afraid that those days are over." Melonie told him, taking a step forward.

As she stepped forward, Larry instinctively took a step back. Something was seriously wrong. Even for the best rehab program, Melonie had snorted up enough cocaine to make an elephant fall on it's ass. There was no way she could have gone clean so fast.

But she was moving without shaking or even twitching. Her eyes never wavered and her stance wasn't that of a plea-bargaining addict, but rather that of a woman with a purpose.

"Larry, it didn't take long to figure out that you were the one who got me addicted. I was having a moment of weakness, a desperate moment. You know, you could have been the one to help me get back on my feet, but instead, you just saw some dumb rich broad who was all weepy, and you knew you had a customer." Melonie said, taking more steps forward, which prompted Larry to continue to retreat at the same pace.

Larry got angry, "You took 'em! I never taught you how to snort!"

"Who is to blame when someone is tricked out of their money, their health and their independence? The person who was tricked? Or the person who did the tricking?" Melonie asked, her face now had a malevolent look as she drew a knife from behind her back. It wasn't a kitchen knife, but rather a long dagger.

Larry patted himself instinctively for his gun, then cursed himself. He'd left it in the car, because this building had a metal detector installed a few months ago by the manager, who was trying to keep guns out of the apartments.

"Melonie, please, I'm begging 'ya, just lemme go! I promise I won't sell any more dope, please!" Larry pleaded.

"Another lie, just like all the others you've given people. 'This will make you feel better', 'You won't have any problems if you just take this', 'I'm doing this as a favor'." Melonie snarled, as Larry's back hit the wall.

Larry cringed, knowing the blade was certain to plunge into him at any moment. When that moment passed, and he was puncture free, he waited another, then another. Finally, he got the courage up to look up. Melonie was walking away. She stopped at the door and glared at him, "Now you know how it feels to be a pathetic loser, Larry."

"You ain't gonna kill me?" Larry asked, feeling a bit relieved.

"No, you aren't worth it. Not to me." Melonie said before she exited.

Larry wiped his forehead. Then paused as he noticed there were other people now in the doorway. Ex-crackheads, heroin addicts, and many other multi-drug users who he'd "helped" along the way were now entering the room, each of them now apparently as clean as Melonie, and all of whom had murder in their eyes.

Larry knew that, unlike Melonie, none of these individuals had any qualms about following through with their non-verbal threats upon his life...

"I don't get it, Maidel... am I trying too hard?" Cerl asked the mistress.

"MMmm, I can't really say. People react differently. Some like being pursued, but hate being caught. Others hate being pursued and love being caught." Maidel answered, sipping her beer.

Cerl frowned. She was hoping that for someone as open with their feelings as the mistresses, they'd help provide invaluable advice for Cerl. After all, she had no real guideline for any relationships, outside of what the Mistresses did to get lovers. And trying to follow those guidelines had Nabiki hiding from her.

All of her life, she'd been cautious around people because of her hideous true form, but now she no longer had to worry about that. She was now and forever beautiful.

Sadly, her guarded heart, while quite useful on the battlefield, left her very deficient in social skills. She knew how to buddy up to a fellow warrior, but that was to ease her loneliness.

This was to find a permanent companion to live her life with, a person to share intimate thoughts with, and a person to greet in bed every night.

Outside of the healer Melissa and mistress Maidel (who'd converted Cerl in the first place), Nabiki had been the only person Cerl had felt comfortable being around. With everyone else, she'd kept her guard up. Even Ranma, whom most Harmonia saw as a member of their own families, was kept distant in Cerl's heart.

She wanted Nabiki to be the one, but did she want that too much? Was she trying too hard, and alienating Nabiki, instead of bringing her closer?

"Only solution would be to honestly talk with her. S'far as you've told me, you've been mostly jumping towards the 'Committed Relationship' wagon when you should be walking towards it." Maidel explained, "Relationships all go at different paces."

With that advice in mind, Cerl stood up. It _was_ time to talk to Nabiki honestly.

The people in Sing Song had been lucky that after Lord Darius had fallen, Ranma had stepped in to make their lives better. The once mud roads were now smooth cobblestone, the well had a number of modern pumps around it, the chimneys had flues to keep the wind out, and the houses actually had windows now, instead of gaping holes that let anything in. The doors fit the frames they were in, so they conserved heat better in the winter and the cool better during the summer.

When they saw two women appear; the first woman had pale skin and was wearing black robe with grey trim and a etherial cloak carrying a strange staff; the second woman with short auburn hair wearing a set of thigh-high boots whose straps connected to her black cape, a g-string bottom and shoulder-length black gloves; they thought someone might be attacking. But Lundar, Ranma's trusted aide, appeared next to them, so they all called out pleasant grettings and waved. Obviously, Lundar was giving guests a tour of the island.

"I think, Keeper, that this is definitely not the same Harmonia we knew." "Lundar" answered.

Keeper Nanami Jinnai nodded, "Of course not."

Nanami stroked the long scar on her right cheek. It always gave her a strange burning-itchy feeling whenever she had a negative disposition, but it tickled when her mood was positive. It'd been like that since that battle with Benjamin and Pureheart, when Benjamin had torn into a body Nanami had possessed, but three of the cuts had somehow transferred to Nanami's real body.

Nanami was just glad the Dungeon Heart healed her, especially since she was fond of keeping her intestines inside her body.

Now, all she had to do was find out how different this Keeper Ranma was.

In Chapter 16: Keeper Nanami Comes A'Knocking
Cerl and Nabiki talk! EXCITING EMOTIONAL DIALOGUE! w00t!
Akane and Tatewaki meet again!
More on the other keepers!
And the Separatist Dark God Trio select their champion!

"BEEE ALL THAT YOU CAN BEEEE, IN DUNGEON KEEPER RANMA'S ARMY!"
- Sung to the old Army recruitment tune

*BZARK*

"This is the weirdest place yet, Sasshi." Arumi commented as they looked around.

"I wonder how this place could possibly be the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade." Sasshi joined in.

"Ah, hell!" Horny rumbled, staring at the two dimensionally displaced humans, "This is getting ridiculous!"

"Hey, look, it's Kouhei-san." Arumi said.

Horny reeled in horror. How did these two brats know his True Name?!

"And, look, it's Masa-Ji." Sasshi commented, pointing at Lundar.

"I'll bet Eutus is King Reginald and Ochi-san is-" Arumi began.

"I AM JUST A MISTRESS!" Ochi-san cried, tears rolling down her cheek as she ran away in her tight black leather outfit.

"...." came the response from the two pre-teens.

Later, after a lengthy campaign, Kouhei "Horny" Horniculus broke the two stone guardians, revealing them to be mini-ogres.

"You beat us, puyi! So, now, we'll send you home, puyi!" the first said, drawing the magical circle.

As the two recited the chant to teleport, the second ogre spoke up, "Uh-oh, I think we forgot the sacrifice again."

Sasshi and Arumi uttered one word as they heard that, "SHIT!"

Thus, why this became the 'lost episode'. F*cking FCC.

* - Note: Kouhei-san is a common character, generally the first one Sasshi and Arumi meet, thus why Horny became 'Kouhei-san'. My given name for him is 'Horniculus', while Bullfrog's given name for him was 'Horny'. Neither I nor Bullfrog are going to change his 'real' name. Also, Lundar was never named by Bullfrog and I'm not going to start calling him 'Masa-ji Lundar' or anything.

Sorry if I insulted your intelligence, but I need to keep others from asking.

Horny was sick and tired of the stupid omakes that were completely absurd when it came to bringing random anime characters to become the new Dungeon Keeper.

"But, Syliaaaaaaah!" Priss Asagiri whined for the first time since Sylia Stingray had known her, "I don't _wannaaaaaaa_!

"You fell onto this Dungeon Heart, Priss. You're going to have to deal with it." Sylia answered.

"Besides," Linna Yamazaki spoke up, "think of it this way: We can actually make a dent against Genom. And Horny's already proven himself immune to our entire arsenal, plus the arsenal of the 55-C Boomers, and several military-grade Boomers."

"Yeah, besides... Horny's dreamy..." Nene added, her eyes were unfocused as a heavy blush covered her face.

The Knight Sabers stopped and stared at their computer specialist.

"Now I know why she's never had a boyfriend." Sylia muttered under her breath.

Got something to add to this feature? Want to write a mini- story of how horrible these ideas might be?