Fall of a Martial Artist, Rise of a Demon Lord

Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½, Infernum or any related characters in any way, shape or form. This work contains themes that may offend – reader discretion is advised.

Author's Notes: It's been a long time since this was updated, and for that I apologize. We've been distracted by other things. For those also waiting for the update for Chasing the Rainbow, I assure you it should happen soon. We hope you continue to enjoy this work; we truly were surprised it's proven as popular as it has.

Chapter Six: Festival Day

30th Lament, 766AF (Festival of First Fall)

Ranma stretched luxuriantly, soaking in the precious heat. The rest of Hell, he had been assured, was quite hot indeed and in many places did match the human conception of "fire and brimstone", but Tempest was cold. Ice and snow falling from the sky on a regular basis. Winds bitter and sharp as knives of pure failure. Purest chill seeping from the very rocks themselves. But here, in the Burning Falls Estate (demons usually weren't that creative with names), the temperature was quite comfortably warm indeed. It was still somewhat chilly to the fireproof hellkin, but much better than elsewhere in the Circle, and to Ranma, it was like a permanent pleasant summer day.

Part of the matter was how the estate had been constructed - like most territories in Upper Hell, even for those of House Lictat, this was basically the Hellish equivalent of a "small country town"; a Baron's personal fortress and the domestic buildings that had sprung up around it for the Baron's servants and workers. The Burning Falls estate, however, had been constructed in a fashion that was typically Lictat. Established in the center of a decently sized pass through the mountains to Tears, though not one of the greater and more important routes, a combination of Lictat spider-herders and Lictat web-workers had used their arts to completely enclose the valley, spinning great walls of fire-proof and rock-hard silk to completely cover the gap between the mountains in all directions. Approaching the gates set at the bottom of the walls, on either side of the pass, was the only way through. Furthermore, those same laborers had spun a secondary roof, lower than the topmost one, and built the city in the space between it and the silken roof of the valley. In essence, all of the demons of Burning Falls lived in the "attic" of a giant fortress of demonic cobwebs.

This was not, as one might think, the source of the estate's name. It did contribute towards it, though. As part of the building process, great tunnels had been bored and blasted into the enclosing mountains, tunnels that had tapped into veins of magma and molten iron running through the mountains. At first, the sudden deluge at multiple points of burning liquid earth had stymied construction, the average demon not being quite that fireproof, but the insightful builders had pressed on with a very inventive solution. In an astounding display of the typical demonic sense of health & safety regulations and approach towards architectural hazards, the city had merely been built around the lava falls, incorporating them in all essence into the city's structure itself. This provided a constant supply of free heat and light, and if a few careless fools occasionally fell in, well, that was their concern.

Right now Ranma was staring at the bright red-orange glow of lava and white-hot liquid iron of the main falls, known as the Artery to the locals, as the position afforded him good views of several other landmarks. He admired the endless dancing of molten spray for few moments before twisting his head to allow a firework to whizzing past, exploding in a spray of green and gold sparks somewhere behind him.

The city was fully in a festive mood; not surprising considering that today was the Festival of First Fall, some day of celebration either about the first damned soul falling down here or a religious day about when the fallen angels that made Hell arrived, there wasn't much to prove or disprove either theory. Turning his head, Ranma regarded the largest mass of demonkind celebrating the day down in Skull Plaza, the main square of the city and instead of the usual markets, small dueling rings and whatever else it was packed with demons engaged in anything and everything down on the skull paving.

A slight turn took his view from the place that was the unofficial and occasional official meeting place for the citizens of the Burning Falls Estate to the home of the one who owned the entire estate; Baron Zenisky's 'modest' mansion overlooking the city. Modest was of course a relative term, Zenisky's mansion was a palatial residence and small fortress that hung securely over the estate like a giant spider and Ranma thought he could spot the Slaver noble watching his city from a balcony as it celebrated the day, the screams of souls punctuating music and the sounds of demonic laughter filled the air and echoed in the cavernous space.

Stretching slightly, Ranma turned his attention down to the city, wondering if there was any fun down there to be had for a human.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. With that, Ranma pushed himself off from the roof and let himself drop to the "ground". Given the typical demonic style, which saw skulls, bones, gruesome gargoyles, ominous statues and random body parts scattered around until the décor often went from "gothic" to "overdone", and the fact of how the city had been constructed, it was child's play for Ranma to catch, grab and bounce off of various foot- and hand-holds until he landed light as a feather on the street. Weaving without moving to allow a vaguely lupine Beast and a Deceiver that looked like a charred corpse walking to get past, he picked a direction at random and set off to see what he could find to distract himself. After all, he had no work until after the festival was over and he certainly wasn't about to go and watch the torturers displaying their skill at mutilating the souls gathered on the estate.

Whistling, Ranma turned slightly when he heard roars and the appreciative cheers of a crowd and turned down a street to investigate, before stopping short at the massive serpentine heads whipping above him, snarling and hissing as the crowd of demons cheered and jeered their appreciation of the sight as the demon showing off the beast shouted over the hissing roars and cheers.

"Yes good noble demons, feast your eyes on this magnificent beast, caught from the Sunless Sea itself, a strange creature responsible for the sinking of no less than fifty ships before it was finally caught, although the one who caught it had to spend twenty damned souls as bait. Poor things, you can still hear them screaming inside its stomach." As if to prove the demon's statement, Ranma caught the faint sounds of screaming occasionally escaping the maws of the beast, to the delight of the crowd.

Shaking his head, not in the mood to stare at an overgrown water lizard, Ranma drifted down another alleyway.

Two rights and a left later, ducking effortlessly past a thrown knife from a brawling pair of succubi, Ranma almost didn't notice the rat-like imp that snuck up on him and picked his pocket. Almost. Like a cat seizing a mouse he whirled to face the foolish demon, hand lashing out to seize his prey - but just a second too late as it took off running. "Come back here, you!" Ranma snarled, racing after the agile little demon. None of the passing by demons paid any attention, except the odd glance of curiosity, but Ranma didn't need them. He was quick on his feet and had much longer legs than an imp did - he'd catch the little bastard...

And that was when a figure swept down on a silken string and snatched the imp up right in front of him. Ranma skidded to a halt, cursing, but his profanities ran dry when he heard the imp's own cries of shock and fear.

As he watched, the demon responsible (an incubus with some very spider-like physical traits) swooped around in a semi circle, then flipped through the air to grab onto a strand at a greater height to create a higher semi-circle. The imp in his arms screamed in fear as, at the peak of his arc, he dropped it. As it tumbled through the air, too weak to have developed its wings, a new acrobat came swinging in - an ape-like Beast that grabbed it in its hand-like feet. Instead of relief, the imp shrieked again, droplets of black ichor raining down to spatter on Ranma's upturned face. A sinking in his heart, Ranma watched as several more acrobats joined the first two, most of them Malcubi or Deceivers. Gracefully they swung and leapt and darted and plunged across the heights, tossing and dropping the imp back and forth as they went. And each time it was passed to a new acrobat, the imp cried out as its flesh was rent and torn. The trickle of ichor become a downpour, faster and faster they went, the imp's screams fading away as the agony became too relentless for it to draw breath to howl its protests, scraps of meat and chunks of bone cascading down onto Ranma's head until, at last, his wallet fell with a soft schlurp into the gore at his feet.

With slow, practiced motions, Ranma closed his eyes and shook his head, scraping off the more persistent meat with his hand, and then reached down to pick it up. Giving it a waggle to get some of the worst of the ichor off, he looked the lead acrobat straight in the eye and spoke but a single word. "Thanks."

As Ranma headed down another street, he caught site of a group of demons gathered around in a small huddle, just as one of them spotted him in turn. The huddle conversed for a moment, and then the demon that spotted him waved him over with a shout, "Oi! Mortal! You interested in a roll of the dice?"

Shrugging, Ranma walked over.

"Sounds fun, what's the game?"

The demons relaxed slightly as the one who called him over explained.

"The game's Rat, Bug, Spider; you throw a number based on the number of legs, thats a four, six or eight to double your ante. If you throw a seven, ya win nothing but get another throw, ya roll anything else, you get nothing and someone else rolls until one of us wins."

As the demon explained the betting options and the payouts, Ranma nodded. Seemed simple in theory but complicated in practice; he could work with that. "So why'd you call me over anyway?"

The demons glanced at one another before a large hulk spoke up. "One of the others cheated, so we ate him. We're one guy short and you just happened to come along. You in, or are you out human?"

Ranma smiled pleasantly, "Lets have those dice."

Ranma didn't know how it went downhill from there, he pretty much had a handle on the game and was winning fairly often, often enough that a couple of the demons, who had been fairly edgy since he started playing, suddenly declared he was cheating and tried to jump him, if Ranma's feet hadn't been in the way.

"Right, so is someone going to explain why you all thought I was cheating?" The demon he was holding by the neck spluttered slightly before he managed to get some air in his lungs.

"Fate pools, mortals can do something that lets them manipulate fate itself, lets them cheat at any sort of gambling and anything that relies on chance or probability. Don't ask me how they do it, they just do!"

Ranma sighed, "Well, thanks for informing me that I can do something like that down here." With that he unceremoniously smashed his fist into the demon's face and walked off leaving the group lying unconscious in the alleyway.

Narrowly dodging being coated in something glutinous and absolutely foul-smelling by a cackling fiend, Ranma didn't notice there was somebody on the same path as him until they collided headfirst. "Hey, watch it!" He snapped, then found his voice vanishing as he realized who he was looking at. A perfect double of himself! Ranma blinked incredulously, idly rubbing the spot where their skulls had banged together. And every action he did, the doppelganger did too, a perfect mirror image of Ranma, even as he pushed himself off of the ground one handed. Ranma took a step to the right, hoping to get past the thing, and it stepped to the right as well. Two steps left, one step forward, one step back, everything he did, the other Ranma did as well. It even managed to mimic the vein pulsing in irritation in his forehead. It didn't, however, seem to notice the minor changes in body language as Ranma shifted himself into a versatile combat stance, and when Ranma lashed out, his punch caught it square in the head, crimson-specked spittle erupting into the air before it crashed unconscious onto the ground. As Ranma watched, it fizzled like a bad TV reception and then faded away to reveal an androgynous, skinned looking demon.

Ranma spat on the ground and moved on, deliberately stepping on its ribcage as he went. Damn mimic-mimes...

As Ranma headed through the twisting streets, his ears picked up an eerie, siren-like tune coming from a side-street and after following the tune, he found a group of bone flautists, the demonic minstrels following a druggist as she distributed her wares, demons and a few mortals twisting and twirling all over the small park seemingly in time to the music as the druggist came up to him.

"Astinic? Lotus Dust? I have some fine vintage Fermented Agony here as well. Come and indulge and enjoy the music, just the thing to help you relax from all this excitement. Come, come, have some Deathdust, free of charge of course." She pressed a small packet into Ranma's hands and walked off, the flautists now starting a more excited tempo that was obviously having an effect on the drugged up reveler's own experiences, some of the mortals apparently starting to have bad trips, or really good ones he couldn't tell with all the screaming they were doing.

Studying the packet in his hand, Ranma slipped it into his pocket and vanished down another street. He wasn't going to indulge, but you never knew when something like this might be useful.

Mere minutes after leaving behind the impromptu drug house, Ranma found himself at a small "private" feast. It looked like the residents of a particular block of hellholes had all crawled out of their pits and joined together in an oddly communal fashion to celebrate. No less than three troughs of plasm, and a variety of bottles of the same, lay there for the taking, a table was heaped with roast spawn and strangeling plants to supplement the vital iliaster, and three souls were being brutally rent and mangled by crowing demons. On the steps to one house, three demons of indeterminate sex and breed lay tangled in lust, while a dozen others cavorted wildly alone or in small groups throughout the main streets. Ranma cautiously wended his way through the crowd of laughing, playing demons, dodging several playful sets of claws, many in mock irritation, one or two in a fashion that strangely reminded him of his more amorous fiancees. Headed to the table, he grabbed a whole haunch from something that looked like a sheep with the feet of a cockerel and the head of a monkey, ready to run if the demons objected but too hungry to pass it by. None of them seemed to notice, and so he eagerly set to gnawing on the tough, gamy flesh. Maybe he'd been down here too long, but it wasn't so bad, really.

"Make way! Make way you scum! Coming through!" Bellowed an imperious voice.

Ranma turned and watched as a swaggering Artificer drove a hulking abomination of chitin and dripping slime and pig iron through the streets, crushing any too slow to move underfoot as it went. Easily the size of Captain Tchort, the thing was hunchbacked and headless, two great insect-like eyes of glass filled with softly

luminescent slime the only thing that approximated a face. Arms thick as oil drums with steel claws like those of a giant sloth scraped knuckles first along the ground like an ape as it shuffled mindlessly onwards.

"What is that?" Ranma murmured to himself.

"S' a biomechanical, one of them alchemic clockwork-flesh golems that the Veiled House makes." Grumbled a raggedy winged Fiend swaying softly nearby, clearly drunk or drugged into a stupor. "No s'cuse for real soldiers..." It murmured, then collapsed backwards onto the table, snoring.

Ranma watched it vanish, unthinkingly grabbing a goblet close to hand and taking a swig in his thirst. He froze as the taste hit him; thin, oily, nauseating. A hint of blood and tears, a faint echo of screams in his mind. He'd just taken a mouthful of iliaster! For a long moment, Ranma contemplated spitting; it was the right thing to do. But, then he realised how thirsty he was, and it would be a waste to do that, wouldn't it? Finally, he swallowed.

It felt... strangely quenching. Invigorating, even. Ranma no longer felt so thirsty - if anything, he felt more alive. A tingle ran up and down his spine, like a shiver of pleasure. Energy seemed to crackle under his skin, his eyes sharper, his hearing keener, his touch more sensitive. He felt /good/... Unaware of the grin on his face, he picked a street out of the square at random and headed towards it.

"Well, well, looks like someone's enjoying the party eh boys?" A chorus of chuckles caught Ranma's attention and he turned slightly to see a group of demons, mostly Imps and Beasts along with a pair of Deceivers, wander out of a shadowy side-alley, "I think you're the generous type, so perhaps you could be persuaded to pay a toll, for wandering on our turf you see, just pay up and maybe we won't yank you out all that meat instead."

"Dat is, if Lytch don't decide to play with ya first." One of the other demons chuckled as a huge shadow moved into the light.

It was like someone had taken a small mountain of blood-colored clay, or enough meat to comfortably fill an elephant's frame, and molded it into an overly muscular mockery of a human. The bald, flat, helmet-like head sat atop a thick neck that was nearly impossible to tell apart from the massive shoulders, both parts of its body thick with corded ropes of sinew and muscle. The demon, quite obviously a Hulk, fixed Ranma with a leering grin; eyes burning with typical demonic malice stared back from sunken sockets under ridged plates that were a clear insult to the concept of eyebrows. It stepped forward with deliberate slowness and obscene delicacy, each motion setting every muscle to rippling, making the demon appear to be made out of gelatin.

"Heh, yeah, I'm thinking that might be fun."

Ranma grinned, all teeth and no humor. "Yeah, this is gonna be fun..." He replied, cracking his knuckles. This wouldn't be the first would-be mugger he'd brutalized, even before coming to Hell, and punching someone in the face was practically the demonic national sport. Rolling his shoulders so that they popped, cracking his neck, he took a loose stance. "Any time you're ready, cupcake." He taunted the demon.

Lytch snarled, "Gonna use your thigh bones as toothpicks mortal", and charged. A fist the size of a bowling ball swung around in a devastating haymaker, while a callous backhand from the other sent demons flying out of his way… those that hadn't already dodged the charge in the first place.

Strong, this demon clearly was. Ranma certainly intended to think twice before allowing him to land a blow. Of course, first he'd have to /land/ a blow; his speed was nothing to write home about. Languidly, Ranma grabbed the fist in both hands and used it like a lever to flip through the air, landing neatly on the back of the massive wrist. "Too slow."

Then, before the Hulk could realize just how agile and quick his human opponent was, he launched himself from the wrist in a powerful jumping kick that caught his foe squarely in the cheek, thrusting the demon back two, three steps and clearly pushing him backwards even as Ranma hit the ground hands-first and triple-somersaulted to a safe distance.

Lytch growled like rusty metal scraping against more of the same. "Got some speed to you, and I think I almost felt that." With that he charged with another snarl, intent on catching the little mouse in front of him.

Like a greased eel, Ranma slipped along the ground between and under the Hulk's legs, using the momentum and the position to launch a boulder-breaking straight-armed punch squarely into the flesh between the demon's legs. Normally he wouldn't use crotch-shots, but there were no rules in Hell... besides, he found himself wondering, did it even count as a crotch-shot when his opponent literally had no balls?

Either way it worked as Lytch made a pained groan and slumped slightly before turning with a roar. "You'll pay for that human!" A fist came up in an uppercut within seconds of the roar.

Ranma nimbly stepped back and out of range at the last second, then threw his own haymaker aimed squarely at the demon's eye. "Talk is cheap."

Lytch tumbled back, before scrabbling to his feet, nursing a black eye and charging again. No words this time, just a wordless, murderous roar.

"Okay, this is getting annoying, so why don't you. Just. Stay. DOWN!" Ranma snarled, throwing a punch with all his strength squarely into the demon's exposed throat. He would never have used such an attack against a human opponent, but against a demon of this breed, and tough even for that? It would certainly knock them out cold, even if it wouldn't kill him.

He was proved right as the punch caused the Hulk to smash into a wall and slump to the ground clutching his throat, coughing roughly and spluttering curses and expletives, many of them bordering on magical from the way a nearby puddle suddenly transformed into boiling phlegm.

Ranma felt a grudging respect for this demon. Even Ryoga couldn't have taken a blow like that with so little effect. Still, best to put an end to this now; he did not want to let this demon get up again. Not bothering to call out the training he had taken and made his own, he surged forward and became a tidal wave of punches and kicks, blows too fast for even demon eyes to follow hammering on the softest spots of the demon's anatomy that he could detect, hundreds of blows turning into thousands, the air thick with the meaty smack of fist on flesh before Lytch finally collapsed with an anguished groan and lay still. Lungs heaving from the strain, Ranma wiped the sweat from his brow with one clenched fist and menaced the still-watching muggers.

"Who wants some next?" He snarled.

There was silence for a few minutes, before a head landed between the group and prompted some stares. Ranma quirked an eyebrow before suddenly the demons paled, "Shit, it's a game of Head Toss! Leg it!"

Ranma didn't even have time to ask when he heard the roar of an approaching mob and felt his jaw drop at the sight of the incoming horde approaching from nearly every street. Grabbing the stunned Hulk, Ranma considered his options and, quick as a flash, dragged the demon with him down a tight alleyway. Oblivious in equal measures to both their presence and their disappearance, the whooping, shrieking, jeering, cheering crowd grabbed the head and the game resumed again, the streets shuddering with the stampede of demonic feet.

Poking his head out of the alleyway, Ranma watched as street cleared up, leaving nothing but dust in the wake of the game and its players.

Head Toss, Ranma would later discover, was a particularly brutal form of game popular in Hell. An unlucky victim, normally a damned soul of course, was torn into lots of different pieces and scattered over a certain area. Players would then fight to collect the most body parts, with the name coming because the head was the worth the most points. Whoever lived through the contest with the most points, won. As Ranma shook his head, just glad to be alive, he heard a grunt from behind him and turned with a disbelieving expression to see that, yes, Lytch was indeed sitting back up again. What the fuck was this thing made out of? Happosai would have been out cold longer after the beating Ranma had just dished out!

"Hrrmm, you've got a mean punch, I'll give you that mortal. So, any reason why you saved me from the Head Toss?"

Ranma glanced back. "I ain't a charity service, you owe me. Got that?"

As the demon nodded in agreement, confirming a Covenant between the two, Ranma walked back out into the street. A few moments, he hopped back up the rooftops and began racing to find some sort of shelter; he had enough fun today.

He was back at the spot where the whole adventure had started and about to take a nap when an Imp landed next to him, adorned in the livery that marked it as one of Baron Zenisky's personal servants. "Ranma Saotome, the Baron summons you to the mansion for an important matter."

Ranma nodded and got to his feet. "All right, I'm on my way." Taking a brief moment to stretch his legs again, Ranma started hopping and leaping across the rooftops towards the mansion of Baron Zenisky.

"Looks like my vacation's over. Back to work."

We hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into Ranma's "everyday life" in the Infernum. As always, suggestions for characters for Ranma to interact with and plot seeds are most welcome; we have our path charted, but it's those interesting little stops along the way that make the story really work.