[FFML] [Ranma/Various] Avenging Act IV Prologue

[DB Sommer]

Avenging
Act IV
The Hate Monger and the Peacemaker
Prologue


Xxxxxxxxxxxx

“Buckle up your seatbelts, boys and girls. We’re in the final approach 
for the destination of the latest Challengers of the Fantastic/Fantastic 
Four get-together: the Blue Area of the Moon.”

After delivering his announcement, Ben Grimm looked over his shoulder at 
the assemblage of passengers. His teammates, Susan Storm and Reed 
Richards, were sitting together while Johnny Storm had the co-pilot’s 
chair. Makoto ‘Mr. Fantastic’ Mizuhara was sandwiched between 
Shayla-Shayla and Nanami Jinnai, aka the Human Torch and Invisible Girl. 
The rocky form of Fujiwara (come to think of it, Ben still didn’t know 
the man’s full name) better known as the Thing, was lamenting being 
sober. Thanks to a side-effect of traveling to El Hazard, Fujiwara only 
had his super-powered form when he was on the wagon, unlike his 
compatriots, Makoto and Nanami who could use their abilities of 
telemechanics and invisibility combined with force fields respectively, 
at will. Shayla-Shayla didn’t count since she actually came from El 
Hazard and started out with her superpowers.

Johnny was also looking back and let out an audible sigh that caught 
Ben’s attention. “Come on, kid. You had to know Reed and Mako would 
wanna come back and examine that ancient city we found that last time we 
teamed up and took care of the Red Ghost and his Super Apes up here.”

“It’s not that,” Johnny told him. “What makes Mizuhara so lucky that he 
has two hot girls after him while I have no one? Why can’t we have hot 
girls on the team?”

“Actually Suzie’s pretty hot,” Ben pointed out.

“Ewwww! That’s my sister you’re talking about. That just isn’t right.” 
Johnny grimaced.

“Which reminds me.” Ben turned to his leader. “Hey Reed, when we busted 
Krankyhoff—“

“It was Kragoff, Ben. Ivan Kragoff.”

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway in light of it being cosmic rays that changed 
him and his monkeys--”

“None of them were monkeys. They were a gorilla, an orangutan, and a 
chimpanzee.”

“Anyway,” Ben said in a tired voice. “Remember back right before we 
formed the team? You know, when you tried to talk the three of us into 
going up with you in that rocket of yours? Except I refused to fly it 
because it didn’t have enough shielding to protect us from cosmic rays? 
And Suzie called me a coward for it until I pointed out it might do 
stuff to her and maybe give any kids she might have three eyes or twelve 
toes? She sure changed her tune and got you to back off quick enough. Heh.”

“You were right, Ben,” Reed admitted. “Although the odds of encountering 
a cosmic storm were poor, and even then there’s no guarantee they would 
affect us in harmful ways.”

“I think having a super power would be neat,” Sue said. “I wouldn’t mind 
turning invisible.” She looked to Nanami.

“It works for me.” Nanami turned invisible, and back again.

“But being invisible hides your great beauty,” Johnny said, smiling at 
the girl.

Nanami scowled at the flirtation and clung to Makoto’s arm even tighter. 
Not to be one upped, Shayla-Shayla did the same.

Johnny sighed once again and turned to his team’s leader. “Hey Reed, why 
can’t we have some girls on the team?”

Reed said, “Actually I have been thinking of inviting Alyssa Moy to join 
us. Her expertise in a variety of fields would be beneficial to the team.”

“I don’t think so,” Sue said in a tone that dropped the temperature ten 
degrees. She then brightened up and her voice took on an almost dreamy 
cast. “I think Fay Flourite would be a much better choice. Not only does 
he have extensive knowledge of extra-dimensional travel, but also access 
to vast reservoirs of magic.”

“Four is the ideal number for our team,” Reed said in a tone that 
suggested the discussion was over.

Fujiwara got up from his seat and walked over to stand next to Ben.

“You’d better strap yourself in,” Ben warned. “Not that you can get 
injured in the crash, but if you get tossed around you’d crush the rest 
of us like a ton of bricks.”

“I only weigh 500 pounds,” Fujiwara said.

“Oh, well I don’t know who couldn’t take a quarter of a ton of bricks 
landing on them,” Ben said drolly.

“I little hit from a bottle could change all that,” Fujiwara suggested 
with more than a hint of desperation in his voice.

“Uh uh. You know the drill. No drinking until after the adventuring is 
done. You never know when strength and invulnerability might come in 
handy,” Ben reminded him.

“Oh come on, Just one sip. I won’t be depowered for more than half an 
hour. Forty-five minutes tops.”

“I’ve seen your sips. It’ll be time for our next joint meeting before 
you rock back up.” Ben wasn’t totally unsympathetic with the man. Being 
a pile of orange bricks couldn’t be all that fun, even super-powered. 
Ben did just fine using his natural abilities, and so did his teammates. 
They had taken down the Mole Man, Miracle Man, the Pluto Organization 
with it’s so called ‘Perfect Murder Plots’ for sale, and the team’s 
official arch-nemesis: Dr. Doom, as well as a host of others. The 
Challengers of the Fantastic were a household name across the globe 
thanks to the rogue’s gallery of foes that had defeated. Yep, no need 
for super powers in his book.

Fujiwara went back to his seat, the chair groaning under his weight as 
he buckled up again.

As the rocket flew over the Blue Area of the moon, the groups looked 
down on the ruins of a vast city that stretched for miles in all 
directions. It appeared as though it had been manufactured of some kind 
of crystal, though signs of ancient destruction were clear on every 
structure, some of them nothing more than crystalline rubble. It 
appeared no building had been untouched.

Both Reed and Makoto examined a number of scanners that fed them 
information on every level. A normal mind would never have been able to 
grasp the vast amounts of data that flowed past the screens, but neither 
man had what would be remotely referred to as a normal mind.

“Wait, Ben, hover here,” Reed said. He looked to Makoto. “What do you 
make of that?”

Makoto focused on the image. “The architecture is far different from the 
others, which vaguely resemble ancient Greece. I can’t say it conforms 
to any style I recognize.” He closed his eyes, stretching out his 
ability to tap into machines to the ground on the Moon. “I sense power 
sources there of a type I don’t recognize. Multiple ones.”

“It’s most likely an alien structure,” Reed said, satisfied his 
suspicions had been confirmed. “We’re landing here, Ben.”

“You got it.” Expert pilot that he was, it took Ben only a handful of 
minutes to set the Challengers’ rocket down on the nearest open area 
around the building his leader had indicated.

The teams deployed from the landing ramp, Fujiwara and Ben in the lead 
with both Makoto and Reed following close behind while the girls trailed 
closely behind their men. Johnny brought up the rear, staring at 
Shayla-Shayla and Nanami’s rears, to be specific.

“I don’t see a door,” Sue said.

“I could burn a way in,” Shayla-Shayla offered, her hand suddenly 
enveloped by flame.

“Please,” Nanami said, rolling her eyes. Shayla-Shayla looked like she 
wanted to burn her teammate on the spot, but Nanami ignored her, closing 
her eyes, brow creased in concentration. “I’m covering the entire side 
in an invisible field and pressing it gently inward. Ah ha! Found a 
place that isn’t solid.” She pointed to a spot on the wall that appeared 
like any other.

Reed walked up to it. “Some kind of advanced holographic image, I 
believe.” And walked right in, disappearing from the others’ sight.

“Reed Richards, you slow down before you walk into a trap,” Sue warned 
as she pursuing hot on his heels, the others following in turn.

As Johnny entered last he looked around. “Way bigger on the inside than 
the outside: definitely alien stuff.” He took in the vast panorama 
inside the structure. While the majority of the machinery was 
incomprehensible to him, he did recognize viewscreens spread nearly 
every few feet along the entire length of one of the walls. They went as 
far back as the eye could see.

“You could watch a lot of television in here,” Nanami said.

“I hardly think an advanced alien race would want to watch something as 
pointless and mundane as television,” Makoto said.

“Yeah, reality TV would convince them Earth is screwed up and they’d 
blow up the planet,” Ben said.

Makoto stopped in front of a machine with a blank viewscreen. He stared 
at it intently.

Reed stopped next to him. “Is your ability to control machinery telling 
you something?”

Makoto held his hand up to the device. Like Nanami earlier, he closed 
his eyes as he stretched his senses out again. “Yes, it is alien 
technology. Highly advanced. It would take me hours to decipher some of 
this. However I think I see how to turn this machine on.”

Ben said, “Maybe that ain’t such a great idea seeing as how whoever owns 
this place might not like us messing with it. For all we know it’s his 
equivalent of a DVR and we might be messing with the settings.”

“I wonder what alien porn would look like,” Johnny said.

“Johnny!” Sue said, scandalized at her younger brother’s behavior.

“This is the last recording that was accessed,” Mokoto said, not even 
noticing how he ended the argument that had been about to erupt.

The viewscreen flashed on, showing a verdant savannah and a number of 
what appeared to be proto-humans. Before them was a thousand foot giant 
with a bizarre armored exterior that covered every millimeter of its 
surface. Whether it was a living being inside armor or some kind of 
robot was impossible to determine.

A voice, booming but gentle began. “Five million years ago the 
Celestials arrived on Earth and engaged in their usual habit of 
experimenting on what they perceived as the beings with the most 
potential for evolutionary advancement.”

With a wave of the hand one of the giants encapsulated the proto-humans 
into two groups. Beams of some sort of unidentified energy coursed from 
its palms, one to each group. Immediately they began to change. One 
group became identical to the humans in the room.

“To this end the experimental subjects were divided into two groups. The 
Eternals were given a form of increased longevity and the ability to 
harness the power cosmic. Due to their longevity this also lent itself 
to genetic stagnation.”

The other group became divided into a number of wide ranging forms, the 
only similarity to one another being a basic bipedal humanoid.

“The other group, the Youma, was given an extremely flexible genetic 
code that provided them with adaptability to nearly any potential 
environment.”

The picture showed the Celestials, their genetic manipulation complete, 
go straight up into the skies, leaving the two groups of beings behind. 
The groups each went their separate ways. However the scenes began 
changing as Youma and Eternal clashed over and over again in violent 
battles.

“A rivalry developed between these two races for several millennia, with 
the Eternals winning the outcome on nearly every occasion. Eventually 
the Youma were defeated decisively and forced into seclusion under the 
oceans and earth, the Eternals determined never to let them see the 
light of day again.”

Once more time sped up, showing the planet changing, and proto-humans 
evolving into Neanderthals, and eventually modern humans.

“With the rise of another intelligent race from the planet, a rift 
occurred within the Eternals society. Their leader, Zuras, felt that the 
Eternals should remain aloof of the newborn human race, keeping their 
interactions minimal and allowing humanity to grow of its own accord. He 
was opposed by Serenity, who was determined to have the Eternals lead 
the humans personally, guiding them to forge a utopian society of peace 
and prosperity.”

Fujiwara whistled as the scene changed to show a pair of flying beings, 
one a large man with crimson hair and beard fighting a woman of 
surpassing beauty with a long mane of blonde hair flowing behind her. 
Each of them unleashed powerful beams of energy from both their hands 
and eyes at one another, devastating the landscape in a running battle.

“The two of them fought for the leadership in a battle that raged for 
weeks and left scars on the Earth that exist to this day. In the end, 
Serenity emerged the victor. In order to prevent civil war from breaking 
out, Zuras and his sympathizers left Earth and established a pair of 
colonies on the moons of Titania and Titan, which continue to flourish 
at the present time.”

Ben slapped his hand to his forehead. “Aw, man, now I know where we’re 
going on our next trip.”

The scenes changed again to the construction of the city which lay so 
close to this alien structure, though the great metropolis was in much 
better shape than its current ruined state. Sue and Nanami stared in awe 
at the city in all its glory, its beauty unlike any they had ever seen.

The voice continued. “Serenity decided to relocate the Eternals to the 
moon so that they could look down from above on those they wished to 
rule. They created a city they dubbed Crystal Olympia and formed a 
breathable atmosphere for any visiting humans, though none would be 
allowed to live in the city itself. Likewise Eternals were forbidden to 
live on Earth, for it was her judgment that in order to rule humanity 
effectively they would have to live apart from it.”

The scene changed to one above the Earth, showing a landmass in the 
middle of the Atlantic that wasn’t present on any globe.

“With the construction of Crystal Olympia completed, Serenity decided a 
template colony would be forged first before the full enlightenment of 
humanity would begin. Atlantis was chosen as the continent on which to 
begin their venture. With their vast powers and abilities far beyond 
their unexperimented upon kin, the Eternals were made leaders by the 
largely primitive humans there. Over the centuries an advanced 
civilization was formed on the continent, one that far outstripped the 
rest of humanity. It was the beginning of what Serenity dubbed the 
Silver Millennium.”

The scene changed again to one focusing on a woman and several men who 
were obviously Eternals. They were shown brutally commanding a host of 
Youma into carefully coordinated maneuvers.

“However, one of Serenity’s chief advisors, Beryl, betrayed her. Along 
with a handful of other powerful Eternals, who aligned themselves with 
Beryl for a variety of reasons, the traitors secretly organized and 
trained the Youma hidden deep under the earth into a vast army. Then, at 
the height of Serenity’s achievements, they struck simultaneously in 
Atlantis and on the Moon.”

The others watched in horror as images of millions of people being 
either burned or drowned was shown without compassion or remorse and the 
very surface of the earth changed from the forces at play as the 
landmass in the center of the Atlantic was ravished by explosions across 
its entirety.

“Beryl sabotaged the geothermal plants on the continent, causing them to 
all to explode, sinking the entire continent.”

The scene shifted to the crystalline city once again. A bright flash in 
the center of Crystal Olympia heralded the arrival of the before 
mentioned Youma who came poring out of the portal that had been formed, 
Beryl and her generals at the forefront. Immediately they attacked the 
denizens of the city, who quickly fell before their onslaught.

“As the shattered remnants of Atlantis slowly submerged beneath the 
ocean forever, Beryl and her generals teleported the entire Youma army 
into the heart of Crystal Olympia and attacked. While the Eternals tried 
to mount a resistance, the Youma army was too powerful and struck too 
quickly. As the casualties mounted, it quickly became evident Crystal 
Olympia would fall.”

Again the scene shifted, this time to the interior of a great palace, 
Serenity at the center of a handful of Eternals that numbered less than 
a hundred, all of them looking injured and exhausted. Serenity held up 
her hands, a whirling vortex of coruscating energy forming above her. 
The Eternals flew into the vortex one by one, their forms changing into 
pure energy. Serenity was the last to fly into it, meeting the same 
fate. Seconds later a huge yellow thing that closely resembled a brain 
emerged from the top of the vortex.

“Serenity summoned the remaining Eternals, and together they transformed 
their bodies into one collective consciousness called the Uni-Mind.”

A wave of energy shot out in all directions from the brain, flowing 
unimpeded by any physical structure. As the wave touched the Youma, they 
disappeared. When the wave touched Beryl and her fellow generals, they 
too met the same fate. As the last ripples of energy crossed the surface 
of the moon, heading toward Earth, the brain and vortex dissipated, 
until nothing living was left in the city.

“Understanding that they would be defeated, the Eternals used the last 
of their remaining power to banish Beryl, her generals, and all of the 
Youma on both the Moon and Earth into the Negative Zone where they 
remain to this day. The effort to banish their enemies used up all the 
power of the Uni-Mind, destroying the remaining Eternals on Earth and 
the Moon, leaving only humanity as inheritors of the planet. End of entry.”

The screen went blank.

“Well, that was… informative,” Johnny said.

Reed and Makoto already had their heads together.

“Inspection of the ruins would lead a lot of credibility to the tale,” 
Makoto said.

Reed was just as eager. “And I’m pretty sure, thanks to that imagery, I 
could triangulate where Atlantis might be. This could be incredible. Two 
races in Earth’s prehistory that committed genocide on one another, or 
at least in one case and banishment for the other. And this ‘Negative 
Zone’ idea is fascinating. I wouldn’t mind delving into that.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Great, we come here to check out a few ruins, now 
we have to deal with aliens, Atlantis, and other-dimensional zones. The 
fun never stops when you’re a member of the Challengers of the Fantastic.”

Susan looked just as despondent. “I’m never going to be able to pry him 
out of the lab once he sinks his teeth into this. It’ll take months. At 
least.”

Shayla-Shayla and Nanami looked just as dejectedly at Makoto.

A flash of light heralded the appearance of a mysterious being that 
materialized before the octet. He appeared largely human, though he was 
twenty feet high and bald with a somewhat disportionately large cranium. 
He wore a simple garment similar to a toga with blue embroidery and a 
blue cloak.

In a voice identical to the one on the screen, he said, “Intruders, you 
have trespassed in the home of the Watcher. While I am forbidden to 
interfere in matters, neither can I allow strangers into my home.”

The octet suddenly found themselves in the middle of the city they had 
come to investigate.

“Whoa!” Fujiwara said. “Now that was impressive.”

“Fascinating,” Reed had his hand to his chin in thought. “He instantly 
teleported a large degree of matter across an impressive distance. His 
abilities are astonishing. He may very well be one of the most powerful 
beings we’ve come across, to say nothing about his access to all of that 
amazing technology. He really need to speak with him again.” Reed 
started to walk in the direction of the Watcher’s home when Sue blocked 
his way.

“Oh no you don’t, Reed Richards. You are going to respect that man’s 
wishes and leave him alone.”

“But Sue,” Reed started to complain.

“I won’t hear of it. Just because he has something you want doesn’t mean 
he has to give it to you, and he made his intentions perfectly clear. 
And another thing—.“

As the sounds of a speech started, Johnny and Ben quietly escorted the 
Fantastic Four away. Ben said, “Suzie’s going to give Reed a reality 
check and dress him down a bit. It ain’t going to be pretty so why don’t 
we check out some of these ruins? It is why we came here in the first 
place.”

Hearing the lecture begin, the others nodded their heads and walked away.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

[End Prologue]

[Writer’s notes] Now for those worried about me overpopulating the fic 
with heroes, have no fear. I have no intention of using either of these 
groups in the near future. On the other hand, the information they 
learned will be very key for what is about to begin.