Disclaimer:
Nuvares: I disclaim anything you think I own in this fic, other than the idea... and my pen-name... and the story itself... but the characters I don't own.
Dark Master Schmidt: I, too, own nothing. Except for the plot, which I share with my buddy here.
"..." Chinese.
"(...)" Japanese.
'...' Thoughts.
The Wild Falcon
By
Dark Master Schmidt
& Nuvares
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Chapter 1: Lost Falcon
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"BWEEEEEEEEI!" The six-foot pig screeched as it landed in front of the unmoving boy who was staring at it in wonder as the water washed down its skin. The giant... pig had come out of the pool where his father had fallen into, its weight bending the bamboo pole but surprisingly not breaking it.
"(P-pop? POP?! What's going on? Where are you?)" The boy yelled around ignoring the pig; said pig was looking at the boy strangely as he wondered what was going on. Shaking his head, he yelled at the boy to quit being stupid and that he would teach him to ignore his father.
"BWEEEI! Bweeei bwei bweei! BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEI!" The giant pig flew through the air at the boy who deftly dodged the attack and rebounded off the pig's head and onto another pole. It was too bad for the boy that the bamboo was so strong, it flung the off-balanced pig back at the boy's pole knocking it out from under him and depositing him into a pool while the pig rolled onto dry land.
"(Oh, no, sirs! You fall in Spring of Drowned Sumo Pig!)" He pointed at the over-grown pig. "(Tragic story of Sumo pig drown here five-thousand year ago. And you, young sir, fall in Spring of Drowned Peregrine Falcon,)" he then turned to where the young man had fallen. "(Tragic story of peregrine falcon who fall in spring one-thousand three-hundred year ago.)" The guide walked off as the pig finally looked at itself and started after the guide with intent on beating the crap out of the portly man when he heard a loud screech behind him. Turning to see a sopping wet falcon dragging itself out of the pools, he grabbed the guide and helped him up to his face.
"BWEEEI BWEEEI BWEI BWEEI BWEI!" he squealed into the guides face while the guide gagged on the pig's horrible breath. "BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEI!" the pig squealed as talons dug into the skin on its back, tearing through muscle and fat as it took off from its perch to fly off into the mountains.
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"HIYAA!" Shampoo yelled as she finally caught Towel in the solar plexus with one of her bonbouri and sent the larger woman off the log they were balanced on. She was proud with herself, she was so proud of herself she was almost preening under the on looking of her fellow amazons and especially her great grandmother Cologne. Walking over to the large display of food that was her prize, along with the fact that she was the village champion. Looking at the table, she grabbed a cooked rabbit and held it aloft to show her victory and with that, a cheer arose among the amazons as they started forward for the ritual feast, celebrating the one who had won the annual tournament.
Ranma flew overhead, dipping a bit as his energy waned, he needed food and the exhilaration had turned into depression as he accepted his fate to be a bird the rest of his life. He was hungry and depressed, but he was still a Saotome, and so when he saw a girl holding up what looked like food, he dived at the chance, literally. Folding his wings back, he went from a majestically soaring bird of prey to a brick in under a second.
The exhilaration was back as his speed increased, pulling his wings in more, he went even faster. The ground shooting up to slap him in the face, but he wasn't paying any attention to the ground just to the food being held aloft to the cheers of the women. A few more feet, and it was his. Screeching a victory, he flared his wings and raked his talons into the meat as he flapped to gain altitude with his stolen prize. Something was yelled and the cheering stopped but he had his food. Lifting enough that no one could reach him, he started off over the enclosing mountaintops to eat and find a way home. Wherever "home" was.
The screech sounded, and it was already too late as everyone looked at the blur that stole the rabbit from Shampoo's hand, reaching quicker than their champion who had been shocked by the flash of feathers she has seen as the bird that was now flying away with her food. Her fellow amazons picked up their weapons and some with ranged weapons took shots at the bird, which either missed their mark or the bird somehow dodged until it was too high to reach with weapons and they watched as it flew over the mountains.
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Lord Herb was practising as his instructors ordered him to do, his physical abilities already the best in the kingdom of the Musk even though only 17. He was the heir to the Musk and as such had to be the best there could ever be. But, being the best had its price, he was lonely for a companion; a friend who didn't care who his father was or what empire he was heir to, but for who he was as a person. Sure Mint and Lime were his 'friends,' but even they kept their distance and rarely did more than their bodyguard duties. Finishing his kata, he walked out onto the balcony of his room and stared over the lands, which his people controlled. Watching the natural beauty of the area and felt at peace, turning to go back in, he stopped as something caught his peripheral. There was a bird out there doing tricks, flying high to loop and dive and spin at the speeds that made the bird what seemed to him the fastest in the world and it seemed to be approaching the palace. Watching captivated as the bird performed its feats of agility, he was surprised then it landed on the balcony's rim, staring at him as he was at it.
"And who are you now?" asked the prince as he held up his hands in a sign of non-hostile intention and watched as the bird also moved its wings up in a similar manner.
Ranma simply stared at the young man before him. He didn't think he would find someone here. Normally, he'd notice such small matters, but after filling his small tummy up and the fact that he wasn't used to so much flying and trying out what people would call tricks, he was quite tired and thought he'd rest his tired wings a bit.
Trying something out, Herb carefully held his arm out and motioned for the bird to land on his appendage. As if the falcon knew what he wanted, it lifted off the railing and landed on his arm, and gripped tight with its claws to his arm, the nails digging in and drawing blood, but he made no sound. Enthralled in the bird, he carefully reached around and stroked its head a bit but stopped when it seemed annoyed and snaps at his hand. "Fine, then, wild bird, if you want it that way, then so you shall be. Huäng Yïng, the wild falcon." He started walking inside when the bird let go and flapped his wings to land back on the railing. Ranma wasn't that trusting yet.
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The next day Herb was doing forms in his room when he heard a screech and the sound of scraping, turning to the balcony, he saw Huäng Yïng perched there watching him in his kata. Finishing up the movements the bird watched him intently as if it knew the meanings of the motions.
"Now aren't you a smart one?" the bird just cocked its head as if trying to understand the boy. It did understand the amused tone in the young prince's voice and ruffled its feathers at the boy before taking off to do some flips and dived turning at precise turns and almost suicide drops moving as if in a kata of his own. Herb sat there enchanted by the display of speed and precision. Landing again the bird started to preen a bit at the stunned look it saw.
Showed him. Huäng Yïng thought as he finished, and sat back as Herb started another kata, this one full of speed over power, which seemed to be a unary objective of his previous training. Maybe there's hope for him yet.
"PRINCE HERB! Time for your training!" the boy stopped and turned to the door sighing a bit.
"I'll be back, Huäng Yïng, and then we can practice together." He bowed slightly and left the room. Huäng Yïng sat on the balcony for a second and flew off to find something to eat.
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Shampoo stood on the challenge log going through her own training when Huäng Yïng flew overhead. Her form showing more grace and precision than the robust forms of the Musk. Recognizing her as the girl who held the rabbit up for him, he dropped lower to watch. When he was only a few dozen feet over her head, he opened his mouth and screeched loudly at the girl. If he had lips they would be rolled back in a smile and he would be laughing his head off as he watched her start and fall off the giant log of theirs. In a flash, she was up and shouting at him while running. Dropping lower, he made a 180-degree bank and flew at her face. Startled by this move, she ducked the talons only to have him snatch his prize, one of her gold hair bands and flew down the main avenue of the village.
"GIVE THAT BACK, BIRD!" she yelled taking off again after him.
As if! Huäng Yïng was having the time of his life, dodging this way and that as he slowed down enough for Shampoo to take swipes at him. When she almost clipped him on one lucky swing, the mirth ended and he flaps a few times to gain a bit of altitude. Feeling some heat to his right, be banked into it and felt the thermal lift him up into the sky, carrying his golden prize with him.
'Hmm, maybe next time I'll try for the other one.' He continued to fly off towards the tree outside that kid's room in where he slept.
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Herb looked out his window as Huäng Yïng returned to the tree he slept in, Herb had been watching it since he noticed the bird there at nights, but tonight, the falcon wasn't there and it was getting almost too dark to fly by. As he started to worry, he heard the screech and saw his friend land on the branch carrying something in his talon that shined in the candle light of his room.
'I wonder what that is?' He stepped out onto the balcony to see if he could get a better view but missed his chance when Huäng Yïng put the thing inside a small hollow in the tree's trunk. 'Perhaps I can find out tomorrow.' He turned and went to bed, waiting for the next day to come.
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'Damn sun!' Huäng Yïng mentally yelled as if it would matter, but it didn't. In the past few months, his falcon body would wake at first light when it was the best time for hunting; too bad he was never hungry in the morning. Herb almost always fed him and he found it a lot nicer than a mouse or a gopher.
'Time for Prince Boy to wake up.' With that, he dropped from the branch, spread his wings and soared towards the balcony of the young boy. 'Okay, Herb, wakey wakey!' Or at least that was his intended sentence. "SCREEEEEEEEEECH!!!" was the result.
"Uuuug... morning, Huäng Yïng," Herb groaned a bit more awake than the day before at the same time when the bird had done the same performance. There was a plus to it, even if he would have preferred it otherwise, his instructors were praising his initiative to wake early and train. Even if they didn't oversee his training regimine.
"Ready, Yïng?" he asked standing up and moved into an aggressive stance, at the birds affirming sound he moved to the large open area in his room and waited. With a screech, the bird launched itself at him, flying around him in a largely intricate pattern brushing him with feathers or a talon every so often. Herb's job was to dodge or block the improvised attacks, and even a light strike every so often. Herb loved the morning ritual the two had started, even his instructors commented on his speed increase and had started on his first ki training abilities.
"Screech!" and with that, the dance ended as Huäng Yïng landed lightly on his shoulder. Chirping a bit as he preened some feathers that had become loose out of his back.
"You're getting better at dodging my attacks," Herb commented and got a comment in return, even if he couldn't understand it or expected the bird to understand him. Little did he know that the mind behind the bird's guise was slowly but surely learning Mandarin from the prince, Musk and Amazons. One of which he visited daily to have some fun with.
"Screech" he sounded while making motions that he was going to leave.
"I'll see you later tonight, train again?" he smiled at the bird as it appeared to nod and then fly off out his balcony as the first instructor banged heavily on his door. "Coming, Gensing."
"How do you wake up so early every day when the lights in your room don't extinguish until late at night..."
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"SHAMPOO! I'll help protect your treasures from the demon bird that looks to insult you!" Mousse yelled at the top of his lungs. Racing towards the village champion as she ate some meat that was skewered on a stick like a shishkabob.
"Be quiet, you stupid buffoon!" she hissed at him, "I'm using this food to try and capture the little devil once and for all, and after we find where it's taken my things, I'll skin it and be rid of it!" She smirked confident in her plan when her hand felt oddly lighter and she heard the same screech that had almost haunted her for every day since the village tournament. "Stupid Mousse! You made me fail!" she yelled bashing him before running after the damned bird which was flying towards the gate.
"SCREEEEEEEECH!" he yelled, passing over the guards at close to 50 miles per hour holding today's prize in his talons as he heard the girl following him. He was having so much fun that he didn't notice that he'd come close to the place of springs. The ancient training ground that had made him what he was. Banking sharply, he started up the mountain side the girl following right on his tailfeathers. Flying into the trees, he perched on a high branch and started eating his prize lunch while the girl looked for him below. 'She's only going to find trees and undergrowth if she continues to look like that.' he mused as he finished up, 'I wonder if I can get it down her shirt?' he pondered looking at the stick he was now holding. 'Lets try!' he dropped from the branch and swooped over Shampoo dropping the stick silently so that it fell and dropped down the back of her shirt as she hunched over to try and preserve stealth. The scream of frustration reached across the entire valley as the girl frustratingly tried to remove the offending piece of wood that had gotten lodged in some fabric just under her shoulderblades. Huäng Yïng laughed in his head as he flew away listening to the frustrated sounds of the Amazon girl.
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He was in a good mood when he swooped into Herb's class, landing on a tree bordering the plateau they were training on. He watched as Herb stood in front of a pile of round stones no larger than a marble. Looking on in wonder, he waited for something to happen.
"Qian pu nù!!!" Herb yelled and his hands blurred as the teacher watched the progress. In under 5 seconds, the large pile of at least a couple hundred stones were gone, relocated to the edge of the plateau looking as if thrown by the prince.
'Holy crap... Wonder if I can learn that? he thought trying to think up a way to do it in falcon form. Then stopped thinking as the instructor started talking.
"Not good enough!" the instructor roared. "You need to half that time or else you're useless. Only 538 stones a second, disgraceful! There are Amazon girls that are faster than that, and are you worse than an Amazon?" he admonished the boy.
"NO!" Herb replied walking over to the pile. "NO AMAZON CAN BEAT THE MUSK!" he yelled starting the technique again this time moving the stones back to the original pile and position. This time he did the entire pile in about 4 seconds. Still not good enough for the instructor. And so Herb did it again, and again till he was almost dropping unconscious from ki exhaustion when he finally had it in less than 2 seconds.
"HHRUMPH! that better have improved by the next time you have me or you're never going to leave my class." And then walked off leaving the boy to rest there beside the pile that he had earlier sought to dismantle.
"Screech!" Huäng Yïng said as he floated down to the boy landing on his shoulder. "Screech!" he looked at Herb oddly before smacking him upside the head with a wing. "Screech!"
Herb smiled at the gesture. "You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were human." Which gave Herb an odd thought of the cursed springs, but dismissed it, he didn't want to turn his friend into his wife.
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Genma grumbled as he sipped his soup. He was tired and his body hurt all over, especially his back; searching for that son of his was a pain in the neck. Just where could he have run off to? Or flown off to, to be exact? Despite having the ability to fly, he couldn't have gone too far, or could he? And he probably didn't even know that the curse is reversible, which meant he was stuck as a bird for now. This would make finding the boy much harder; he couldn't just go hunting for countless falcons and splash hot water on them, that would take ages, unless falcons weren't too common around these parts, which seemed unlikely.
Shortly before discovering his over-grown cursed form was reversible, he had accidentally crushed his and Ranma's backpacks. Without any supplies, he wouldn't be able to stay in China much longer. Of course, stealing some would be easy for him, which would be his next mission after finding Ranma. Fortunately, the guide had been kind enough to let him stay at his house. Genma then stared at the guide for a moment. He was sitting-cross legged in front of him on the floor and sipping his own hot soup. He wouldn't know of some good locations to search for his son, would he? He'd been searching all by himself up until now, the guide surely would be of good use.
"(Say,)" Genma started. "(Do you know of a good place to look for my son?)"
"(Hmm...)" The guide faced Genma for a moment as he wondered. "(You not ask in Amazon village yet, yes?)"
"(Amazon village?)"
"(Yes, Amazon village is warrior tribe with 3000 year of history. They no far from here, they might know something of young sir, yes?)"
"(Yes, they might be helpful. Better than nothing, I guess.)"
"(Good. I show you way first thing tomorrow morning.)"
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"I'll get him today," Shampoo schemed, as she looked over the mountains waiting for her nemesis to show up. The other amazons that seen her shook their heads, an amazon being beaten by a dumb bird, multiple times even was just disgraceful even if a few were starting to wonder if it was an ordinary falcon. A few hours passed and Shampoo sat on the roof bored out of her mind waiting for her enemy to appear. "HURRY UP, YOU STUPID BIRD!" she screamed in frustration. Meanwhile Huäng Yïng sat in a tree on one of the mountains laughing in his head as he watched the girl sit there screaming at nothing.
'Nah, maybe not today, it's getting dark.' Albeit he'd been there since noon and it was a riot every hour as the girl became more and more flustered. 'Guess its time to get back, maybe it's time to give up on her, my little stash has every trinket she owns.' He then flew off back towards the Musk palace to see what his friend was doing.
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Herb was climbing a tree, not just any tree but Huäng Yïng's tree, the one where he stored the things he brought back from wherever he went. Reaching to the branch, he looked towards the trunk to find a small hollow brimming with oddly shaped objects.
"Now what would this be?" he wondered out loud reaching in to remove a small tubular thing, it had a bit of heft to it for such a small item and as he brought it out of the hole the shimmer of gold was revealed in the small torch he had with him. "So the bird likes shiny objects. I wonder where this comes from?" The only people he's heard to wear such intricate items are the amazons... He wouldn't, would he?" Herb put the object back and decided to perform an investigation, was Huäng Yïng a spy or a pet.
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Huäng Yïng left out his balcony and he continued to train for about ten seconds before he followed the bird out his balcony window. Flip jump twist flip flip jump dodge the people, jump flip jump jump dash jump stop.
'Where did he go?' Herb thought when he heard the screech from in front of him and watched Huäng Yïng tear down and grab a field mouse. 'Is he hungry? I thought he ate enough...' Herb continued to follow the bird as it didn't eat the catch but carried it with it towards the amazon village. 'What is he doing?'
Jump dash flip flip dash jump jump flip jump dash. He suddenly came to a stop as the ground fell out before him, down the cliff he saw the village of the women, but Huäng Yïng was nowhere to be seen. Slowly making his way down the mountain, careful to no be seen so as not be attacked, he saw a girl standing on a giant log that was suspended on both sides by poles stuck out of the ground and he froze. Like most all of the Musk he had never seen a girl before and he slipped and landed roughly groaning a bit before sitting up and looking at the village again. He could still see the thing that held him amazed. There was a girl, the other half of the species and she was standing there practicing the amazon wushu. She was beautiful to him as she did what her village trained her to do, and Herb found he couldn't move. Someone could have poked him right there and he would have fallen over but never have taken his eyes off of that being in front of him. After a few minutes, he was able to pull himself together and remember his true objective for coming here, where was Huäng Yïng?
As if on cue, the bird dropped below the cloud line moving at well over 100 mph, a speed that made the peregrine falcon known as the fastest bird on the earth, dropping fast it screeched hard causing the girl to turn around with an evil smile as she produced a net from nowhere and tried to snare the bird. The momentum of Huäng Yïng sent both tumbling to the ground but not before he had skillfully dropped the mouse he was carrying down the front of her shirt. The performance could only be described as comical as he watched the girl shriek and dance as she tried to get the offending rodent out of her shirt as it ran around scared out of its life.
The rest of the villagers took the opportunity to turn the girl into the laughing stock of the community.
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"Shampoo... there is something odd about that bird." Cologne spoke with her great-granddaughter at the end of the day. "It seems too smart, precise in how it does things. Almost human."
"What do you think great-grandmother?" Shampoo was almost worried that it had to do with the bird-people. "Is it the Phoenix?"
"It may be that the Phoenix and the God-King Saffron speak to the bird and tell it what they want it to do, but I'm worried that the intelligence that the bird itself is displaying is more than that it should have. There is only one thing that could cause that. Jusenkyo." As the old woman finished her statement a loud shout was heard from outside.
"(WHERE ON EARTH AM I NOW!!!)" a yell that only few amazons would understand as it was in Japanese. But Cologne understood it.
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To be continued...
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Authors' notes:
Nuvares: Huäng is wild and Yïng is falcon; for those who know any form of the Chinese language this might be wrong to you I just used an online translator at Quan qu pu means like thousand strike fist or something like that. once again i don't speak chinese.
Anyway send C&C to and i'll make sure to reply like i always do. flames will get a nice e-mail bomb back courtecy of the canadian electronic postal service.
Dark Master Schmidt: Now ain't this fun?! Let's see what happens to Ranma's life now!! Insert pathetic attempt at an evil laugh here
Oh yeah, your comments mean a lot to us. If not for them, we would not improve; and with improvement, we would make you, the reader, find this story even more enjoyable.