Magic and Mushrooms ch3

It took Ryoga several days of mulling over his feelings (not wallowing in despair, as Ranma had called it) to figure out what he was going to do. He was going to confess his crimes to Akari, he owed her that much. She could punish him as she saw fit, it was no less than he deserved, no matter what Ranma said.

He would not tell Akane however (at least not right away), that responsibly laid with Ranma. Perhaps if Ranma took her to the alter without confessing he'd be forced to say something, but until then, he'd keep his mouth shut.

Speaking of Ranma, she'd started acting normal again. True to her word she was pretending nothing had happened. He had been worried at first, after the secret she had revealed that night. He wondered if she had really meant it when she said that she had feelings for him. Thankfully that appeared not to be the case. He didn't know if he could handle that.

Knowing what he was going to do was a load off his mind. His attitude had improved and he was almost behaving normally with Ranma, not entirely, but it was close. He was avoiding any situation where he might see her undressed and couldn't get too close to her. He'd considered asking her to turn back into a guy, that would make things so much easier, but that would be admitting defeat. That he couldn't cope with the situation when Ranma seemed to be taking it all just fine. No, he'd just put up with her for now.


Ranma was glad that Ryoga had lightened up in the last few days. She hoped this was a sign that they could be friends like before. She'd been avoiding being topless in his presence, and warning him before she changed so that he had time to leave the tent. She'd never considered how her nudity affected people before, but after that night, she couldn't not think about it.

Ryoga wouldn't let her get too close to him, which would have been helpful during their chi training. She'd never known that contact would allow her to feel someone else's chi flow before. She'd touched other martial artists before and had never seen their chi, there must have been a trick to it, but she didn't know what that was. Ryoga was much further along in his directional control, she really would have liked to have a closer look at what he was doing. She'd considered turning back into a guy, it might make him comfortable enough to let her check his technique. But she felt like that would be admitting defeat somehow.

She'd started this trip determined to better her girl side. She was sure that all the trekking, climbing and heavy carrying was doing her some good. It was the basic sort of training that she always did as a guy but neglected entirely as a girl. No, she would keep going as she was. It was a matter of pride really.


Their next destination was a cabin that Soun and Genma had built their youth. The cabin should, according to the two adults, still contain all their old winter gear. Which was good, because Ranma and Ryoga hadn't had room in their packs to bring anything beyond mittens and hats. There should be parkas, ski pants, snowshoes, cross country skis, ski poles, and an ice axe.

There was a chill in the air now that they were getting higher into the mountain. The trees were further apart and allowed more wind through.

"It should be just around that bend." Ranma pointed toward a rocky outcrop.

It would be nice to not sleep in a tent for a night or two. Just thinking about being indoors with a fire was making her feel warm... Until they rounded the bend.

There was no cabin.

"There's nothing here." Ryoga helpfully (not) pointed out.

Ranma's brow furrowed as she checked the map, she had been sure this was the place. She traced the trail with her finger, trying to see if they'd taken a wrong turn.

"Let me see that." The map suddenly disappeared from her hands.

"Hey! Give that back! You'd get us lost in under ten seconds." She snatched it back quickly.

He narrowed his eyes at her, but didn't retort. It was true, that didn't mean he liked being reminded though.

"Huh." Ranma said, looking the map again she was certain now that they'd taken a wrong turn.

"We're gonna have to backtrack a bit, I must have read it wrong. We should be further east." She said. I really thought this was the place...

The two teens headed back the way they came, neither seeing the sign post that read:

-To the owner of cabin-

-Do not build on public land-

-We have demolished the structure-

-Signed, park ranger-


After a few hours of backtracking, the weather suddenly changed, it warmed considerably. Ranma noted with some concern that the trees along the trail looked to be of a different variety than they had been earlier. Ranma decided that the heat was getting to her, she was considering switching out her shirt for one with short sleeves, when she heard a slight rustling in the bushes. She looked at Ryoga, he nodded, he'd heard it too.

Ryoga pulled out his umbrella, wild boars and bulls were something the wanderer was used to. He prepared himself for the charge that was sure to come. There! Something was moving swiftly through the underbrush, it jumped out looking hungry and fierce.

"Aaaaaaayyyeeeeeeaaaahhhhhh!"

He found himself unable to take any action against the beast, for the moment she saw it Ranma had leapt into his arms. She clung to his neck, digging her nails in so hard that Ryoga was sure she must have drawn blood.

He dodged to the side as the creature's teeth closed on the spot his leg had occupied a split second earlier. "Ranma, what the hell are you doing?"

"C-c-c-cat!" She buried her face in his tunic and trembled in fear.

He tried to swing his umbrella at the tiger, but he couldn't get enough momentum with Ranma in his arms. "Dammit, I can't fight it unless you get down." She shook her head adamantly, she wasn't getting down. Not no way, not no how.

He dodged again as the cat pounced. "Ugh." If you can't fight, flee, he decided. Holding Ranma tight, he turned and fled. The feline was fast though, outrunning it would not be easy. He took to the trees instead, leaping from branch to branch. The cat kept pace with him, waiting for him to make a mistake and fall. She didn't have to wait long.

One of the branches just wasn't solid enough to hold the weight of Ryoga, Ranma and their two packs, it cracked and deposited them both on the forest floor. The tiger leapt in for the kill while Ryoga struggled to get Ranma off of him.

-Bang-

The startled tigress changed trajectory mid leap and ran off in the opposite direction after hearing the gunshot.

"Are you ok?" Asked a man as he slung a rifle over his shoulder. He was speaking English in an accent unfamiliar to Ryoga. This didn't phase him in the slightest, he was used to meeting people that didn't speak Japanese.

"Yes, ok." He replied. "Thank you."

"You two must have gotten too close to her den. She's usually not so aggressive, but she gave birth recently. It's made her defensive." The man explained. "I'll show you out of her territory."

Ryoga didn't understand half of what the guy said, But it was enough. "Ranma, get off. This guy wants us to follow him." She refused to budge, she was still reeling from the effects of her cat induced panic attack. He rolled his eyes and carried her as he followed the foreigner.

"So how long have you been visiting India?" The man asked as they walked along.

"Excuse me?" Ryoga was sure he must have heard that wrong.

"India, how long have you been here?" The man tried again.

"Ranma, I think we have a problem." It was no good, she was still near catatonic.


"Did ya find the cabin?" Ranma asked when she woke up somewhere warm and saw Ryoga sitting next to her.

"No, this is the ranger's station." He responded.

"What? Why are we here? What about finding the cabin?" She sat up and looked around. She had been sleeping on a sofa in a cozy sitting room.

"We're not going to find it. We aren't on the mountain anymore." He braced himself, she wasn't going to take this well. "We're in India"

Her eyes grew wide, then narrowed. "What did you do?"

"Nothing! When the tiger attacked us, we were already here!" He insisted. This wasn't my fault!

"Ryoga, you are the only person I know that can cross continents accidentally, and without swimming. You must have done something." Of course it's his fault!

"I was following you. You had the map." Enough said.

"The map..." She thought back, "you touched it!"

"So?" It's not like I damaged it...

"You contaminated it!" She decided, "With your bad sense of direction!"

"That's impossible." I think...

Ranma saw her pack sitting next to the couch and pulled out the map. "I knew something seemed strange, I had been so sure we weren't off course. This isn't the same map."

"Let me see." Once again the map was ripped from her grasp.

"It looks the same to me." She's crazy, just trying to shove the blame onto someone else.

"Stop touching it!" She snatched it back and inspected every inch of it. It looked the same, and yet... no, that's silly, he can't really screw up a map by touching it. Even if it is Ryoga. "So, what do we do now?"

"We could call your dad and tell him, but then we'll be admitting that we failed. I say we walk." Ryoga said with a surprising amount of confidence.

"Walk? To Japan? Are you an idiot?" She nearly shouted at him.

"We walked here. This isn't even my first time on another continent and I got home alright before." He shrugged, being unbelievably lost was the story of his life.

"How do we even know which way ta go?" She asked, barely able to believe she was going to go along with him.

"Let's follow the map."

"This is a map of Japan, stupid!"

He just shrugged.

Ryoga got up to find the ranger, to let him know they'd be leaving. Ryoga stopped at the door to the next room, presumably the ranger's office. Inside the ranger was talking to someone.

"-could be poachers."

"Keep them here until you arrive."

"-arrest them-"

He turned back to Ranma, "We have to go, I think the police are coming to see if we were hunting tigers."

The two quickly grabbed their packs and ran off into the woods.


The ranger came back into the sitting room to find it empty. "Where could they have gone?"

"Oh well." He shrugged, he had bigger problems to deal with. He walked into a back room that contained two men in a cell and waited for the police to collect the potential poachers he'd found in the park with hunting gear. Keeping tigers safe, not teenagers, was his job.


This is ridiculous! Ranma thought as she pulled out the map. Oddly, she was able to find a location on it that matched the geography nearby. Weird. The location of their next camp site was still marked though, so however nutty she thought Ryoga's idea was, she lead the way.

Regardless of the map having been for a mountain in Japan, it led them to a clearing near a river that seemed identical to the one on the map. As they sat near the fire cooking fish that she'd caught in the river, she wondered if this was some elaborate joke being played on her by her father. Genma was a strange man, she wouldn't put it past him to play a trick on her, she just couldn't think of a reason why he would. She dismissed the idea, her father was both too stupid and too lazy to come up with something like this just for a gag.

The next day when she felt the weather change she paid greater attention to her surroundings. She noted this time that the trees were of a different variety than they had been just minutes before, yet somehow the shift had happened in just such a way that if she hadn't been looking for it, she wouldn't have noticed. "Where do ya think we are?"

"Dunno, what makes you think we even left yet?" He asked, nothing looked any different to him.

"The temperature changed, it's cloudy now, it was sunny. The trees are different too, they had leaves before, now they have needles."

"I guess they do. I hadn't noticed." He said as he looked around.

"Is this how it always feels when you travel? Are ya always somewhere else suddenly as if by magic?" She asked.

"I didn't know that it happened until now, I just thought I was lost. Maybe." He thought it over, "Ah. There was this one time I found myself on a yacht and I had no idea how i got there." He smiled at the memory, wondering how he didn't see the strangeness of it at the time.

Ranma laughed, that was pretty funny.


Camping in these woods was rather peaceful. There was lots of small game, fresh water everywhere, and nothing had even attacked them yet. The worst thing to happen so far had been a stare down between the two youths and a large raccoon over food that they'd left out.

Of course trouble would find them, it was only a matter of time.

It came one day as they were filling their canteens by a lake. A humongous grizzly bear stepped out of the trees with her two young cubs in tow.

The humans stared at the bear.

The bear stared at the humans.

Suddenly she growled fiercely and lunged for the pair, each dodged in a different direction. She sniffed the air for a moment before deciding to attack Ryoga, who was now a wet, scared pig. He had landed in the lake when he'd jumped aside.

Curse my luck! He thought, it came out as, "Squee!"

Ranma's eyes were wide as the bear charged at her companion. Is that a battle aura? There was a halo of energy surrounding the bear, it was burning and angry. Ryoga dodged and ducked and weaved. This was no ordinary bear. It was fast, too fast. What the heck are they feeding the bears around here?

Ranma jumped into the air and delivered a swift kick to the bears neck. She had used just enough force, or so she thought, to render the bear unconscious. The bear however only seemed angered, it turned at lightning speed and clawed at the threat. Ranma tried to dodge but she was a split second too late. The bear's claws ripped through her arm. She could feel the burning chi flow through her body from the wound. It felt like her blood was boiling. She screamed in pain, not even noticing when Ryoga knocked the bear out from behind by throwing his heavy umbrella at its head. He'd apparently had his thermos close at hand, er, foot

He helped her to the water to clean her injury. The cool water brought her immediate relief from the burning chi. The gashes were deep and bleeding profusely. He rummaged through his pack until he found a roll of bandages and began patching her up. "We should try to find a town, this could get infected without treatment."

She nodded and pulled out the map. It did appear that there could be a village not too far off. Ranma lead the way.


"What on earth happened to her?" A shocked woman exclaimed. It was English again, but a different accent.

They had found a small village and Ryoga had approached the first person he saw, an older woman hanging clothes it to dry.

Ryoga couldn't remember the English word for attack, so he made a claw motion with his hand and said, "Bear."

"Oh dear!" The woman ushered the pair into a rusty old pick up truck and drove a few minutes to a small clinic.

The doctor seemed friendly, but Ranma couldn't understand him well. She cursed her lack of attention in school. She needed stitches to close the wounds, which hurt, but not nearly as bad as whatever disinfectant he'd poured on her arm.


"They're just silly old legends of course." The receptionist was talking to Ryoga as Ranma left the doctors office.

"How are you feeling?" He asked.

"I'll live." She replied.

Ryoga got up to go. "Hey wait." Ranma said, "Do we gotta pay them?"

He shook his head, "I took care if it."

Her eyes narrowed, "I can take care of things like that myself." I'm not some girl that needs his charity.

"It didn't cost much, don't worry about it." He tried again to leave.

"I'll pay you back." She insisted.

"Fine, whatever. Let's just go." He did leave the clinic this time, Ranma followed. She was the one that wanted to be friends, now I can't even help her out? He sighed.

"So, what were ya talkin' about with the girl in there?" Ranma asked as they walked down the street.

"Oh, there's a legend here that a monster lives in that lake. Kinda like the Loch Ness, but it's called Ogopogo. She thought we were tourists here to see it. We're in Canada by the way." He explained.

"Huh, a few years ago I would have said a lake monster was a crazy idea, but that trip to Ryugenzawa really changed my mind." She hoped she wouldn't be fighting any multi-headed creatures today. They headed away from the lake, just in case.


In a deep underwater cave, a sea serpent slept, coiled around itself. A bioluminescent glow filled the cave, emanating from the creatures scales. The creature had no idea that it was having a magical effect upon the lake in which it dwelt. Locals often spoke of animals that seemed much too clever or much too strong, but no one really believed. It was just a silly legend to attract tourists after all.