The Dark Lords of Nerima

"I got an idea."

A Youma named Beneda barely manages to escape the Sailor Senshi and is saved by Ryouga. This one act of kindness sets off a cascading avalanche of trouble as the Dark Kingdom, the Sailor Senshi and the crazy residents of Nerima all get involved. But don't worry, Ranma has a plan...

A Sailor Moon/Ranma ½ crossover by Claymade that manages to capture the flavor of both its sources and expertly combine them into a story that is alternately dramatic, action-packed and so very, very funny. Available here. Interlude is found here

Tropes used in The Dark Lords of Nerima include:

• Anyone Can Die: The interlude is full of demonstrations of this trope.
• Asshole Victim: Beneda, at first. Yes, the story is written from her point of view, and yes, the Senshi are shown to be trying to kill her... for trying to ambush them and using a child as a human shield. She later pulls a Heel Face Turn and joins the Nerima Wrecking Crew's side for real.
  • Kodachi, when she fights the Darkmistress.
• Badass Army: The army of Joketsuzoku warriors Colgone summons to Nerima upon learning that the Dark Kingdom is back.
  • Also, the one in the interlude, which includes pretty much all of Ranma's former allies and enemies, as well as multiple armies from warrior cultures in china. There are a few exceptions (Ryu Kumon could not be found), but it's pretty impressive.
    • Except the fathers, who run like cowards.
• Battle Royale With Cheese: In chapter three of The Dark Lords Strike Back, the death toll is enormous. Cologne and Meihui die keeping the portal open so the army can attack, Ryoga dies taking out the Youma equivalent of a machine-gun nest, Kuno sacrifices himself to save Akane and to kill an elite Youma, then Kodachi, Ukyo, Shampoo, and Akane are cut off from the main army and are overwhelmed. On the Youma side, the DD Girls and Queen Beryl as well as a huge number of youma. The Senshi all die, but recover. And, by the end of the chapter, so does everyone else. In short, much like the ending of Sailor Moon's first season, only with the addition of the Ranma cast. Of course, who knows how Usagi's wish for a normal life will impact the Ranma cast.
  • Chapter Four of The Dark Lords Strike Back, deals with the fallout of those who were in the battle, and their knowledge of the year that never happened, and more importantly, how the characters deal with their own retconned-by-magic deaths.
• Becoming the Mask: Textbook perfect examination with Beneda.
• Better the Devil You Know: The basis for alliance between the Dark Kingdom and the Sailor Senshi.
• Can't Spit It Out: When Beneda asked Ranma who the Darkmistress turned into with her Shapeshifter Guilt Trip ability, Akane, Ukyo and Shampoo instantly ask him the same thing. He claimed it was Genma that he saw, but what he really saw was Akane.
• Capulet Counterpart: Beneda obviously.
• Cheap Costume: The outfits Ranma, Ryouga, and eventually Shampoo, Ukyou and Akane wear are ridiculous.
• Clean Cut: What Mousse does to the Darkmistress.
• Closet Shuffle: An absolutely side-splittingly hilarious scene in chapter 15 that has to be read to be believed.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: What Ryouga and company use whenever Beneda has to move in public.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Ranma has both the Dark Kingdom and the Senshi genuinely believing both he and Ryouga are threats. It works. ...kinda.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Happosai vs. an army of female youma. Let that sink in: one of the, if not THE most perverted character in all of anime, attacking an army of cute monster girls. Who are, in many cases, quite voluptuous. Granted, it gets turned on him once the Generals show up, but the sheer havoc he unleashes amongst the youma is simply hilarious.
  • The only reason why they didn't want him in the army in the interlude is because he's simply too chaotic, and would be detrimental to the army, despite his massive power levels.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Ranma and Ryouga vs. Jadeite
• Dramatic Irony: The WHOLE story was built on this.
• Elite Mooks: A group of Youma known as Darkmistress's Demons. Fittingly nicknamed the DD Girls.
• Exact Words: The Amazons insist that all youma must be killed. Cologne turns Brenda into a human girl with water from the Spring of Drowned Girl and declares Beneda the youma dead. Espeically to the Sailor Senshi.
• Fake Weakness: Nabiki intentionally misleads the Sailor Senshi to believe that Ranma and Ryouga will be banished to another dimension if they destroy a magic bowl.
• Five Second Foreshadowing: "Hey, guys, what's a gas main?"
• Fuku Fic: Averted.
• Gambit Pileup: Boom.
• Gone Horribly Right: Beneda gets involved with Ryouga and Ranma, hoping that she can somehow trick them into fighting her enemies for her. They go from fighting fellow youma who scare the crap out of her to whaling the tar out of Jadeite, who she originally thought was someone you could only submit to, not resist. Then they go after his boss.
• Heel Face Turn: Beneda, who gradually begins to appreciate the strange humans who have helped her. Especially Ryouga.
• Here We Go Again: Almost, and even reflected on by the character in question.
  • For those of you wondering, it's Beneda running for her life from the Sailor Senshi.
    • "Everything that's happened... it all began with me running away from the Senshi. And now... at the end... I've come right back to where I started."
• Hope Spot: Mousse returns to discover that Cologne, Soap, and Happosai just defeated the entire youma army. Wait, what are the other three dark generals doing here?
• Jerkass: Gosunkugi. Never once did he think that the whole thing started because he told the Senshi about Beneda in first place. As long as he gets Akane's hand and Ranma is humiliated in the end, nothing else matters to him.
  • Kodachi as well. She steals the fake MacGuffin, thinking that it was something to make Ranma love her, causing his plan to be delayed.
• Karma Houdini: No one ever figures out that Gosunkugi was the one who kicked off the incident by luring the Senshi to Nerima. In fact, the only one who got close to figuring him out was Beneda herself.
• Large Ham: Kuno is in grand form in this fic, but extra-special mention has to go to "Dark Lord" Ranma.
• MacGuffin: Subverted; the "magical artifact" Ranma uses for his plan actually does squat, not that the Senshi and the Dark Kingdom know otherwise...
  • Turns out it does do something. Namely, boils liquids placed in it.
• Mordor: Nerima, at least according to Usagi.
• Never Mess with Granny: Cologne, obviously, but the other Joketsuzoku elders who come to Nerima are just as deadly.
• No Except Yes: From the narration, no less. The cafeteria battle is described as not a fight, just everyone involved trying not to get hurt while attacking their opponents as the opportunity presents itself.
• Oh Crap:
  • When Ranma and Ryouga see the incoming horde of Youma in chapter 18.
  • "Hey guys, what's a gas main?"
• Opponent Switch: Akane, Ukyou and Shampoo either stalemate or fight badly in their respective fights against Sailor Mars, Sailor Mercury and Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask together. Realizing this, they switch themselves up (Akane Vs. Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon, Ukyou Vs. Sailor Mars, and Shampoo Vs. Sailor Mercury) and proceed to (mostly) wipe them out.
• Poor Communication Kills: The Senshi think that the NWC are a group of pan-dimensional conquerors, and the NWC think the Senshi are the anti-youma equivalent of the KKK. This could all be avoided if both groups sat down for five minutes and talked things over with each other. Ranma's delight in pretending to actually be a Multiversal Conqueror isn't helping matters.
• Refuge in Audacity: Just wait until you see how Ranma plans to get them all out of this mess.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Ranma after Ryoga dies. It gets even worse when he finds the pile of his fiances' corpses.
• Tear Jerker: Chapter 16 where it looks like we are being given a heroic moon-kingdom origin for the Amazons involving a set of twins being sent Moses in the Bulrushes like to earth in a lifepod.

" Even today, back in China, in their most sacred shrine, lay the two small skeletons that had been found there as well."

• • The last three scenes of the third chapter of the interlude.
  • The death of Kuno. Sure, he's mildly insane, and deluded beyond measure, but... damn.
• Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: The Darkmistress uses this against Ryouga, Ranma, Kodachi and Mousse, appearing as Akane, Akane, Kodachi's mother, and Shampoo, respectively. Ranma and Mousse were warned of her power ahead of time, however, and Mousse takes off his glasses in order to counteract this tactic.
• Tempting Fate: Ryouga believes that he and Ranma should tell the Senshi the whole truth, fearing what they might do if they're found out with the situation being twice as bad than it once was. Ranma responds, "What're the odds of that happening?" And considering his bad luck with women...
• The Worf Effect: Happosai is easily the by far most powerful fighter in the Ranmaverse. The main characters Ranma and Ryoga are literally shown as insects to him. Think casually mountainrange-destroying kung-fu Godzilla, with more skill in a single finger than a hundred Bruce Lees put together... He was just taken down hard. Ouch.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: The Interlude counts as this, full stop. The Senshi have no idea that they were only able to succeed in taking out the Dark Kingdom because they had so much help behind the scenes. They spent the entire story thinking that they were the humanity's only hope, never knowing that the people of Earth had amassed an ARMY to fight back and ease their burden. They don't know that the reason they were able to just march up to the enemy base unmolested was because the Dark Kingdom was fighting off said invading army. They don't know that the reason Beryl didn't just swarm them with mooks was because they were all either tied up or killed by the army, before Ranma killed off the majority of them. They don't know that the reason they weren't faced with more Elite Mooks than the DD Girls was because Beryl needed them to fend off all the Grandmasters that were stomping her forces flat. That the reason Beryl didn't kill Sailor Moon by herself was because she'd been mortally wounded earlier by Herb and Soap. Or that the reason that Sailor Moon was able to free Endymion from his brainwashing was because all the previously mentioned events forced her to wake him up before he was completely under her spell. And the Senshi have no idea at all about the sacrifices that were made for their sakes.