Making Waves

by Vimesenthusiast

After realizing how bored his life is and getting some good advice, Ranma accidentally eats the age reducing mushrooms, after which he is sent through a portal by Gosunkugi screwing up more than usual. Found by the ancient water dragon Typhon and with no way to return he moves on with his life in this strange new land of Earth Land changing quite a lot LOL. Pairings undecided.

4. Chapter 4

And here is the second of my Christmas presents to you all. Remember that if you want to see the rest of this story, please think of signing up on patty on. We are up to chapter 14 over there, and there are lots of other goodies to find if you wish to take a look.

This has been edited by Michael for small mistakes and given a brief perusal by JustloveReadin' and Hiryo for their Fairy Tail and Ranma knowledge.

---

Chapter 4: Traveling Companions

Wendy Marvel woke up slowly, blinking in confusion at the odd cloth thing several feet above where she lay, feeling another cloth wrapped thing wrapped around her. It took her several minutes to remember where she was and what both of those items were called. The cloth thing above her head was called a tent, and the thing she was in was a sleeping bag. It felt weird to her, not fluffy or anything at all like her mother's wings, but it was still nice.

At that thought, however, the memory of her current circumstances came back to the little girl. "Mama," she muttered, sniffling at that before smiling at the memory of meeting her new Onii-chan. It had been he who had introduced her to this tent, as well as the sleeping bag. Before that Wendy had a little house for the few personal possessions she'd had, but most of the time she had slept outside with her mother, curled up in Grandeeney's wings. They were big and soft, and when she slept on them it felt like sleeping in a giant cloud.

The tent, in contrast, was a simple affair of green cloth, with two sticks to either side keeping the cloth in the air and flaps for doors which could be buttoned up. It was a rather small fit for even one person Ranma's size, really, but he and she had fallen asleep curled up next to one another despite that. The sleeping bag, while providing some warmth and being softer than the ground, was no comparison to sleeping in Grandeeney's wings either. The cuddling, though, had made up for a lot.

Ranma wasn't there now, but she could still smell him and could see movement outside the tent. The combination was enough to reassure her that Ranma was still around, a thought that made Wendy smile wanly.

They had traveled the rest of the day together, moving through the forest as fast as Wendy could go, from one tree to the next. They had not gone back the way Ranma had come from, he explained; they were instead taking a straight line through the woods towards the nearest large town. "It's apparently not legally a city, but that's a technicality," Ranma had said yesterday, whatever that word meant. She had heard of cities and towns, but what technicality meant eluded her, and Ranma hadn't explained.

Crawling around along the ground with the sleeping bag still around her, Wendy poked her head out of the tent and found Ranma there as she had thought, exercising. He was also shirtless for some reason, though Wendy didn't care about that. She simply cared that he was there at all.

It had rained last night, judging by the glistening dew on the grass, and she could see puddles here and there. At the sight Wendy became grateful that they had been in the tent. The rain hadn't even woken her up.

Ranma turned, twisting this way and that, creating a figure eight with both of his escrima clubs at the same time to either side before kicking out with one leg. He then flipped himself via his pivot leg up into the air. Again his clubs flashed out in an intricate kata, which he had modified for the clubs from the Anything Goes School. It had worked very well, the random and chaotic nature of escrima merging well with the deceptively aggressive combat style of the Aerial School of Anything Goes, as many a slaver in Bosco could attest.

Finishing a second kata, Ranma flipped his clubs so that they were underneath his arms before transferring one stick to his other hand and turning to smile at Wendy. "Morning, Wendy. Are you hungry?" he asked cheerfully.

Wendy nodded, accompanied by the rumble of not just her own stomach, but Ranma's, which emitted a roar that sounded like it came from Grandeeney. She laughed while Ranma patted his stomach apologetically. "You'd best get used to that, Wendy. My stomach likes to call the shots way more than my brain," he said drolly, causing Wendy to laugh again.

Moving toward her, Ranma quickly began to pull some food out of his Requip space, setting it down in front of Wendy before sitting across from her at the small fire he had made for them late last night. "So, do you want to start training after breakfast, or do you want to travel for a bit and then stop and train at lunchtime?"

The two of them had talked about training yesterday. Ranma was unwilling to let Wendy keep going just as his dependent; he wanted her able to handle herself. And given her age, there was no way Wendy knew enough about Dragon Slayer magic for his state of mind. In fact, she only had one offensive spell, though she knew and had been trained in several healing and support spells.

She had cast one support spell rather hesitantly on Ranma the day before. Vernier had allowed the two of them to move along faster than even he normally would have been able to move through the trees. Because of that, they had possibly covered the same amount of space that Ranma alone would have been able to.

Not that I'm in any rush to get anywhere. The most important thing is for Wendy to get some training, which will make her tougher and keep her busy rather than worrying about her mother. And at the same time it'll get me used to having a little girl around, Ranma thought somewhat bemusedly, still unused to the idea of having anyone depending on him as much as Wendy would have to.

Ranma could take or leave kids normally, depending on whether they were brats and what they were actually doing together, but he had never really considered having kids of his own. This would be the first time he'd acted as a sensei, and on top of that he'd have to be looking after Wendy at the same time. Which, given her age, is going to be a chore, for certain.

Reaching forward with both hands, Wendy began munching on the food, an apple fritter that Ranma had picked up in a nearby town and a large bowl of nuts. The only drink available was water, Ranma having never seen the point of carrying anything else these days considering that water always tasted better than the finest orange juice or apple juice to him.

She made to speak, but Ranma laughed, flipping a little bit of dirt in her direction. "Don't speak with your mouth full. I might not know a lot of manners and care about them even less most the time, but that one, at least, I agree with."

Wendy nodded, remembering that her own mother had told her that a time or two. It was just, she was hungry, and the apple fritter was soooo good! She had never eaten anything like it before, and she wondered what other food stuffs were out there for her to try.

Eventually she finished enough of it and set it aside, staring across at Ranma who had brought out some kind of meat sandwich for himself, as well as another bowl of mixed dried fruit and nuts. "I'd like to work on bringing out my Sky Magic through my hands and feet like you said you can," Wendy said hesitantly. "That sounded really cool! Do you think I, do you think I could fly like that?" Maybe then I could search better for Mama.

"I think you certainly could, Wendy. Hmm… Seeing your Roar in action will give us a start for what to do in terms of magical training. However, physically, I'm going to ask you to walk as far as you can every day, okay? That builds up your physical strength," Ranma said after a moment's thought, chewing on a handful of raisins.

Wendy nodded. Ranma had convinced her that being stronger and tougher would help her search for her mama, but Wendy could only vaguely understand the why of it. But since her Onii-chan had asked her to do it, she would. Besides, it sounded like a lot of fun, especially if she could eventually learn to fly. "How are we going to search for mama?"

"Well, you're the one that said she was so huge," Ranma said with a smile. He desperately didn't want to tell Wendy that her mother might be gone for good or that she somehow was teleported away against her will. Best to ease into that after Wendy was fully over the emotional turmoil of her mother's disappearance in the first place. "So we'll go to different towns around where I found you and ask if anyone has seen a large, white furred dragon."

"It's not fur, it's feathers," Wendy replied primly, shaking a finger admonishingly at Ranma.

"You really think anyone would be able to the difference from a distance? But back to my initial question. I asked you when you wanted to train, not what, though that's good to know. Do you want to do it in the mornings, or in the afternoons?" Ranma asked again.

"Which is going to be a bigger meal?" Wendy asked promptly.

Ranma laughed. "I tend to eat a large linner, sort of a late lunch and dinner, before I end with a light dinner. I start my day like this, a medium-sized breakfast, but a very nutritious one, as you can see."

"New trash us?" Wendy asked, mangling the word and looking a little worried.

"I think I'm going to have a lot more to teach you then just magic and martial arts, then," Ranma sighed, having realized that before, but not liking it one bit. Still, some things, at least, are easier to teach than others. "Nutrition is a fancy word for what your body needs to keep running as good as it can."

Moving over to join Wendy on her side of the fire pit, he pointed at the items they had been eating. "Nuts and meat give you protein, that's like energy you can use for a long time. Water helps to rebuild what you sweat out. Or at least what most people sweat out."

Ranma hadn't actually sweated from exertion ever since he became a Water Dragon Slayer. The sole exception to that was when he was in Desierto, and that was because of the heat.

"Wheats and vegetables give you things called vitamins," Ranma went on hesitantly, never having had to explain this before and only vaguely remembering the explanation himself. "That's things that make your bones stronger, your skin tougher, and help your eyes grow to be as good as they can be, that kind of thing."

"Is there anything I can eat that would make me grow scales?" Wendy asked excitedly, her eyes twinkling.

"Well, if there is, I haven't found it yet. Sorry, Wendy," Ranma said with a laugh, pulling the girl into a one-armed hug.

She let loose a draconic sort of purr, leaning into his side for a moment and putting her tiny arms around his waist. Already Ranma was creating a rule book for big-brothering: Hugs were good; give them out often.

"Come on," he said, ruffling her hair and smiling as she smacked his hand away with a pout. "You haven't answered the question," he ended in a singsong tone, which caused Wendy to wrinkle her nose at him.

She then adopted a thinking pose, one finger tapping on her chin. "I think I'd like to train in the mornings, then. Heavy meals make me sleepy, and that way we can have nap time after lunch."

"Nap time…" Ranma said blankly.Yeah… Little kids need those, don't they? Well, I suppose I can train myself during that time. "Um, sure, that makes sense. Finish eating, and we can begin."

Wendy nodded and stuffed the last handful of nuts into her mouth, chewing enthusiastically before hopping to her feet. "What should we do?"

"Well, first I'm going to show you how to throw a punch, and then you're going to show me your Air Dragon's Roar."

"Sky Dragon," Wendy said with an adorable pout. "It's sky, not air."

"Wait, does that mean I'd be the Ocean Dragon Slayer rather than the Water Dragon Slayer?" Ranma asked quizzically.

Wendy adopted a second thinking pose. "I don't know. All I was told was that it's called Sky Dragon magic, not Air Dragon. Maybe because all dragons can fly, Mama needed to name it something else?"

"That makes about as much sense as any reason I could think of," Ranma said with a shrug. "All right, take the same stance as me, facing me for now. Then do as I do, okay? I'll correct you as we go."

For the next few hours Ranma put Wendy through her paces, showing her how to throw a punch and making her do it several hundred times just like his own father had, except without the so-called words of encouragement Genma had used. Then he began to teach her balance, pulling out a large tree branch from the forest and laying it down on the ground between two large rocks. The branch was about as wide as one of Wendy's feet, held up above the air about half her body's height by the rocks.

Wendy balanced on it, walking with one foot in front of the other until she eventually fell, only for Ranma to catch her. She did not have very good balance, Ranma was sad to note, but that was trainable, and she had decent dexterity. She was obviously used to falling and picking herself up, which was a good attitude to have.

On the other hand her concentration was very poor. Ranma had known this by the way she'd complained during the punching exercises, but had born through it, handing out a few treats in the form of the remnants of their morning's dried fruits every time she finished fifty punches without making a mistake. But in this exercise it came back with a vengeance.

So long as she kept her eyes on her feet Wendy was fine, but the moment she tried to concentrate on something else as well as walking, it got to be a problem. Then again, I suppose that could be normal for a girl her age. Dammit, I know nothing about kids! How am I supposed to do this?

Thinking about that, Ranma did, of course, know how he had been trained, and he could do the same with Wendy. Just don't shout at her or hit her and keep training her like this, and I think I'm on the right track on the training aspect. The whole watching out for her and teaching her anything else she needs to know… We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

"Okay, Wendy," he said, clapping his hands. "I think we're done with balance training for now. Let's move on to magic training."

Nodding, Wendy hopped off of the log. Splashing down into a pool of water she deliberately splashed it towards Ranma with a giggle.

Ranma groaned, but decided to let the water hit him. That had been the one breakthrough he'd made during his time at the lake in Iceberg: he could now redirect water around him even if he wasn't trying to inhale it. Ranma had tried to train that ability so that he could redirect water subconsciously, but that seemed to be impossible, unfortunately. But he could certainly stop random water attacks like this from hitting him if he saw them coming. He could even ward off the rain for a bit, though that took a lot of energy. Still, it's best that Wendy learn of my curse now rather than later.

For her part Wendy blinked in shock as her Onii-chan disappeared to be replaced by some unknown red-headed person the moment the water splashed him. She leaped away, crouching down on the ground and snarling, "Who are you!?" Not only had Ranma's body disappeared, Ranma's entire smell had changed except for the underlying smell of Dragon Slayer magic, so her confusion and fear was understandable.

She might've been trying to look menacing, but to Ranma she simply looked cute. "Aw, you're so cute!" the redhead shouted, hopping towards Wendy. Before she could think of trying to defend herself, Wendy was in the redhead's arms being clutched against the redhead's large chest, which Wendy understood was a sign that the redhead was a girl. Wendy could've told anyone that already, though, thanks to how the redhead smelled.

"I'm still Ranma," Ranma explained, while Wendy tried to pull herself out of the redhead's chest. She stilled at that, staring up at Ranma in shock. "It's a curse. I change whenever cold water hits me like that. But I can change back with hot water."

Wendy still looked a little suspicious, but Ranma set her down and moved over to the cooking equipment. Creating some water with her magic, she heated it up in her hand before dumping it over her head. Now back in his male body, Ranma smiled at Wendy. "See?"

"It's not something in the water, then?" Wendy asked hesitantly, staring at the puddle she had splashed in and quickly moving away.

"Nope, it's all me, unfortunately. No idea where it came from," Ranma sort of lied. "But there's no cure for it as far as I know. Maybe if you get as good as you possibly can with this healing magic of yours you could do something about it. But until then I've learned to live with it."

"So you're both Onii-chan and Onee-chan!" Wendy asked, smiling happily now that the mystery had been solved.

"Erk. Um, well, whatever I look like, I'm always the same up here," Ranma said, tapping his forehead. "So why don't you just keep on calling me Onii-chan whatever my body looks like."

"So confusing," Wendy muttered, thinking more about how Ranma's scent had changed than his words. But she still nodded.

After that they resumed training for another hour. Then Ranma packed up their supplies in his Requip space, and they hit the road, with Wendy walking along on the ground of the forest now with Ranma beside her. They didn't make nearly as good as a time as Ranma could have on his own, but Ranma had known that would be the case before they started out. This would allow Ranma to devote more time to training Wendy, which was his main goal at this point, while also of course continuing his own training.

As they walked, Ranma explained how Requip magic worked, which would be the first new magic Ranma would teach Wendy. He wondered idly if Wendy would have the same lack of affinity that he did for that brand of magic, which was to say none. But it would be really helpful for Wendy in both in the long and in the short term. There was also Guns Magic eventually, some construction magic, some sewing magic he'd learned to repair clothing, and other tiny magics of that nature that he would introduce her to.

"I've never thought about learning anything but mama's magic," Wendy confided, her eyes starting to twinkle at the idea. "Are we even able to? Isn't it against the rules or something?"

"I won't tell if you won't," Ranma said holding up a finger to his lips in a shushing motion, and Wendy giggled. Traveling with Ranma was really different then living with her mother, but it looked like it would be fun too.

Eventually, however, Wendy began to tire. Noticing this, Ranma lifted her up onto his back, racing on quickly as she hung on, too tired to do anything else. He stopped when he felt Wendy begin to drift off into sleep, making up the tent for her for an afternoon nap. "So much for taking a nap after you eat," he teased, causing Wendy to pout at him before going quickly back to sleep.

While Wendy slept, Ranma scouted around the area, always staying within sight of the tent, just in case, before taking some time to exercise himself, standing right beside the tent. He was attempting to mix in a one stick and one gun style, but using two different weapons at the same time was more difficult to incorporate into his style. It was a little irritating for Ranma given how quickly he had picked up the double stick and double gun style, but he knew he'd get there eventually.

Ranma estimated it was a little closer to evening then to midday when Wendy woke up again, her stomach grumbling demandingly. "Huh, I'd guess that's proof you're a growing girl: your stomach's growling as loud as my own lord and master," Ranma said grinning at her before he gestured out to the forest. "I'd like to see you use your Sky Dragon's Roar, and then we'll settle down for a heavy linner."

Wendy nodded hesitantly. This would be the first time she would show anyone but her mother her magic, and she was worried her big brother would make fun of her. "Um, how about you show me yours first, then I'll show you mine?"

"Sure. You just stay right there, though. Mine's a little destructive," Ranma replied, grateful that Wendy wasn't old enough to understand how badly what she'd just said could be taken.

As Wendy nodded, Ranma moved to face the same direction she was facing, a few feet in front of her. Then he brought up his hands to either side of his mouth, concentrating briefly and gathering a trickle of his magical energy into his mouth. He didn't want this to be a very powerful attack, after all. A second later he roared out, "Soryu no Hoko!"

Even though Ranma hadn't meant for it to be a powerful attack, it still shattered over a dozen trees in the direction of his roar, furrowing the ground as if a very narrow tsunami had come through the area. With a self-satisfied nod Ranma turned, reaching down to ruffle Wendy's hair again. "See what I mean?"

"Mine's not nearly that good!" Wendy said, staring at the destruction and pouting. "I can barely knock down one tree."

Actually, Wendy couldn't even do that. She didn't know this, but Grandeeney had knocked down the tree for her, surreptitiously sending out a bit of her own breath attack from behind Wendy at the same time Wendy had attacked, so that it seemed as if Wendy had managed it on her own.

Ranma shifted so that now he was standing behind Wendy, his hands on her tiny, thin shoulders. Wendy craned her neck upwards to look at him, and he smiled down at her. "Don't try to compare yourself to me, Wendy. Remember, I'm older than you are. That's not a fair comparison. I also don't have the support type magic that you do already. Only compare yourself to what you were like yesterday, so that you know you're getting better; that's the most important thing."

At that Wendy straightened her shoulders under his hands and nodded resolutely, turning back the way that Ranma's attack had gone. She sighted a little ways to the side of the trough his attack had made, then breathed in deeply, gathering the air around her as well as centering her magic power into her mouth before shouting out her attack. "Tenryu no Hoko!"

The attack was small, but somewhat sharply defined. Instead of smashing like a battering ram like Ranma's had, it kind of drilled into the tree it targeted, ripping out a large chunk of it. It wasn't enough to topple the tree, but that looked as if it was because Wendy's attack had been off-center.

"Very good, Wendy," Ranma said, moving back and clapping a few times. "We're going to work on your aim a little, but that is a tremendous starting point."

Wendy beamed. "Mama said the same thing!"

She then wilted a little as she had begun to when thinking about Grandeeney. But Ranma didn't let her stay sad, hefting her up onto one shoulder and hopping along the path of her attack. "I want to see how far it goes."

Now that she was feeling a little more energetic, Wendy didn't stay on his back. Instead she clambered up until she was actually perched on his head like a bird would. Ranma didn't care, her weight was practically nonexistent to him. He simply looked up at her quizzically. "Are you okay up there? Not going to fall off?"

Wendy shook her head. "High places are best places," she said, repeating the words she'd used when they climbed the trees yesterday to look for Grandeeney.

She stared longingly up at the trees, and Ranma chuckled as they found the edge of her attack before turning back. "Okay, in that case we'll start camping out up in the trees whenever we can. But if it's going to rain, we'll need to use the tent, okay? I hate changing from one form to another when I'm asleep: it always messes up my dreams."

"That sounds weird," Wendy said bluntly.

"It does, but so does changing from one gender to another in the first place," Ranma said, and they both laughed. Damn, it's gotten to the point where I can actually laugh and joke about my curse with someone else. That's a good thing, I guess, Ranma thought to himself as he began to pack up for their next leg of their journey.

They pushed on until it was dark out, and then Ranma set up camp once more. Now that he realized that Wendy's need for a nap was so extreme, he would only be training Wendy in the morning, at least at first. Hopefully once I get her endurance up, that'll change. I don't know, is it a mental thing that children need to sleep like that, or just a physical thing? Then again, I can also train her in magic at night, keep the physical stuff for the morning. Ughh… Teaching her how to fight is going to take soooo long.

A sudden thought occurred to him, and he looked over to where he had set Wendy down as he moved about the small camp, setting up a fire pit with several boulders. "Hey, Wendy, quick question: Can you read?"

"I was learning!" Wendy said with a nod and a happy smile. "I know how to spell my name, and the alphabet," she went on proudly. "Along with a few simple words like 'then,' 'and,' 'it,' and a few others."

Nodding, Ranma wondered how to continue her education in reading, which even he knew was a sort of necessary skill. But it can't take away from all the other training I'm going to be give her, no way!

The two of them traveled for a few months together through the forest, only going around five miles a day at first thanks to Wendy's age. But that gradually increased as Wendy began to build up endurance for walking and other exercises.

Ranma could've covered the same distance in a bare few days, but he was content even if training Wendy cut into his own training time. Traveling with Wendy was interesting, since it gave him someone to talk to, and actually having to explain how their magic worked and magic in general helped him to understand it.

Most of the reasons they got along well were down to Wendy's personality rather than Ranma's, though. Ranma knew himself too well to think he got along well with other people most of the time: he was egotistical, somewhat arrogant, and extremely wild in nature, while at the same time uncaring about anything but martial arts…and now magic, admittedly, becoming quickly bored with anything else other people thought important. Perhaps his continual use of rule number one (hugs) could be said to offset some of that, but certainly not all.

Wendy, however, had the kind of personality that could accept anyone, including Ranma. She was kind, energetic and fun-loving with a slightly serious bent, somewhat clingy, and an all-around good girl. Ranma wondered if when they ever put down roots she would become a girly girl, but with Ranma's influence she was slowly becoming a tomboy, and he was happy to see it.

This was not to say that there weren't some bad moments. Wendy, like most children her age, sometimes got into moods and didn't want to train or practice. During these moments Ranma learned rule two of the Anything Goes art of big-brothering: tickles can work to get someone out of the doldrums, but use with discretion.

The second time Ranma attempted this tactic Wendy had hit him right in the balls. She hadn't meant to hit him exactly there, but his waist was basically shoulder height for her. The sight of Ranma going down and moaning had broken her out of her funk, so it was a learning experience for both of them. Ranma learned that tickles were not the answer for when Wendy was in a funk about Grandeeney missing, and Wendy learned not to hit him there.

Wendy also learned about Ranma as they were traveling in general. He was kind and friendly both during training and after, but also very demanding, always pushing her to do a little more than she was comfortable with. At times he also had nightmares which woke her up, but snuggling seemed to help. And she also learned he was very much a morning person, waking up at dawn, forcing her to do the same soon after, which she didn't really like, but couldn't argue against.

Still, they eventually left the forest quite near the target 'not a city,' well within sight of it. Wendy stopped and stared. "What's that!?"

"That is the town/city whatever I was aiming for, Wendy," Ranma said, feeling a little proud of himself. "I feared we'd been turned around in the forest a few times, but it looks as if we were spot on."

"It's so big, and there are so many different buildings. I've only ever seen a few buildings before. Mama took me to a village once, but it was tiny."

"Understandable. Now listen, Wendy," Ranma said, getting down to one knee in front of the girl and gently reaching out to take her chin, turning her head to look into her eyes. "When we're in the city, we have to have a few ground rules, okay? Rule number one, don't go off by yourself." Wendy had done that a few times, mostly chasing butterflies or birds or climbing trees during their morning travel time, but also a few times when he was training and she woke up from her nap.

Once, Wendy had even been attacked by one of the local Vulcan equivalents: a slightly shorter yet far shaggier version of the hyena-like monkey animals. Ranma had dealt with it easily, grabbing it by its throat and hurling it through the forest like it was a shot put. But Wendy still nodded, understanding his point. "Will there be other monsters like that in the city?"

"Animals. Vulcans are animals, not monsters. They look monster-ish, but are not nearly strong enough for that label," Ranma said with a grin which caused Wendy to giggle as she remembered how Ranma had dealt with the Vulcan.

"But people can be just as dangerous as monsters, Wendy," Ranma went on seriously. "Especially to children sometimes. Which leads to rule number two, don't take anything without asking. And three, if anyone tries to get you away from me, don't let them."

Wendy nodded again then asked, "How are we going to search for information on mama?"

"First we'll head to the library, see if there's any books or anything about dragons. We'll also talk to innkeepers: those are people who own houses with a lot of different rooms they rent out to people from out of town. They're good sources of information."

"Rent?" Wendy asked, cocking her head to one side so that her long hair fell straight down from the side of her head.

"It's like trading something for something else. I give them money, which is little gold coins mostly, and they let us have the room for a time we agree on. They even have things called beds that I don't think you've experienced."

Wendy nodded. "I've heard the word, but I don't know what it means."

"Then it'll be a bit of a treat." With that in mind Ranma decided to find the best inn they could in the city, which turned out to be run by a retired mage from the guild that made its home in the city. The guild in question was called the Stone Ears for some reason. Ranma figured there was a story there, thought didn't care enough to figure it out.

As they had gotten to the city near midday, they were able to purchase their room and then head out to explore. Wendy was a bundle of energy, running from one side of the road to another staring at the stalls, shops, or any of the many other things in the city that she had never seen before, her eyes wide and inquisitive.

Ranma followed along behind her, generally getting a feel for the layout of the city and figuring out where the library was in relation to their inn. I should also pick up some more food. That apple tart that Wendy ate the day after we met was the only pastry I had in my Requip space, and we went through all of my nuts and berries and other things.

Ranma hadn't been able to stop along the way to forage for those, which irritated him somewhat. He hadn't seen a single nut other than acorns in the forest, and those did not make good eating. And while Ranma was fine with cooking out over the fire with the sheer number of spices he'd accumulated during his trip so far, Wendy wasn't all that interested, judging from the way her face twisted when Ranma had cooked a few times over the fireplace. So some pastas, a lot more bread, for certain, and veggies of all sorts.

Calling Wendy over to him from where she had been staring at a stall of lacrima lights, Ranma entered a camping store which catered to mages on the go, selling magically enhanced camping equipment. The grill, for example, had a small fire lacrima embedded into the bottom of the grill. The size of the grill in question reminded Ranma somewhat of the type that his friend Ukyo always carried around. There were other things too: a small steamer for rice, a series of ultra-light bowls and plates (not that the weight mattered to Ranma thanks to his Requip space), and even a small, if very heavy, fridge, which could keep stuff fresh, along with thermoses which could be set to cool or to heat, with two lacrimas powering the change.

"Should've figured that Seven would have a lot of this kind of thing. I might want to look around for better versions later," he confided to Wendy as they left that store, Ranma stuffing the stuff he'd bought into his Requip space one after another, balancing each item on a hand in turn as the Requip magical circle vanished them, one after another.

Wendy looked up at him quizzically, and Ranma explained. "Seven is the name of the country we're in. It's known for magical engineering, basically, like the things we just bought. Now, let's go get food, and then we'll end the night by buying some better sleeping bags."

Wendy blinked. "What's wrong with the ones we have?"

"The fact that they're so thin, Wendy," Ranma replied. "We might be going into winter soon, and then you'll need it. And maybe a larger and better tent too. After all, eventually you might get to the point where you'd like to sleep alone." Or have your own changing area, Ranma thought while Wendy nodded, though the idea of not snuggling at night seemed absurd to her.

Spotting a stall the two of them grabbed some food on the go, and Ranma bought Wendy her first drink of something other than water. Wendy stared at the orange liquid in the cup, then sipped hesitantly before beaming at Ranma and slurping the rest down before going to look for more. As Ranma bought her another cup of orange juice he made a mental note to add more drinks to their supplies from now on.

After they finished eating, Ranma began to ask around for a store that sold other magical camping gear, the first one having specialized solely in cooking equipment. He was soon pointed in the direction of a similar specialty store which sold magically enhanced tents, sleeping bags, and other things of that nature.

As they entered, Wendy stared around at all of the different types of sleeping bags and other things she had never seen, just as she had throughout their trip through the city. And it was a city. Ranma had asked the locals, and it turned out to be some kind of tax thing that kept it from being labeled as such on Seven's maps, a trick from the local baron which the king went along with.

"Helping to prepare for a family trip, are we?" said one of the workers nearby, a beaming, middle-aged fellow who nodded his head towards Wendy. "Are you and your sister just looking around while you wait for your parents or something?"

"Nope," Ranma said. "We're by ourselves." He held up a hand and said, "Requip: cash." The same bundle of money that he had used in the previous store appeared again, full of the money Queen Rose had given him before he left Bosco. He looked over at Wendy. "Don't go for just looks, Wendy!" he admonished as she picked up a sleeping bag that had a ladybug design on it. "Look for something that's comfortable and that is warm first, then find a design you like."

"Actually, if you're mages, I might have a product that you're interested in." The salesman broke off as Wendy came running up carrying two different sleeping bags. One of them was much larger than the other, but both of them would fit either one of the two Dragon Slayers. "Look, Onii-chan!" she said, hopping in place. "Look: they merge together."

"That was actually what I was going to suggest," the man replied with a grin at the little girl. "Those are two of our magical sleeping bags. You have to channel a little bit of your magical power into it, which Holder type mages can do easily. Then you touch the seam along one side, and it can merge into the other one. So long as they're touching, of course. They also have built in pillows."

"Of course," Ranma echoed, looking down at Wendy. "Open it up for me, Wendy. Let's see if they're warm enough."

"If you're worried about warmth, they are insulated and heat up quickly. But we also have a tent which you can set ice or fire lacrima into to warm the interior," the man said quickly. The sight of the bag of cash had grabbed his attention by the short and danglies, and he really wanted to make this sale.

Ranma held up a hand, forestalling the man's spiel, and gestured for Wendy to do as he asked. Wendy did so, and then pulled the large sleeping bag over her head and down her body. "It's nice and fluffy in here!" she said, her voice muffled by the bag.

Ranma pulled the sleeping bag off her and felt the inside of it. It looked like a regular sleeping bag, but the interior was much puffier than he was used to and actually felt like there was down or the equivalent in there. The underside was also built up somewhat, so that it would be comfortable on hard ground.

"That works," Ranma said. "We'll take two of them. Do you have any warranties on them? And after that I want to look at these tents you mentioned."

The two of them looked through the tents next. In this area there was much less variety than the sleeping bags, but the regular features were really nice. Ranma decided to buy a medium sized tent which could fit them both easily along with room for a place to eat, since they had been rained on several times. They had headed up into the trees during those times, setting up their tent over their heads, but it hadn't been fun.

Thinking about that, he asked if the store sold anything that could help a sleeping bag stay put up on a tree limb. The man raised an eyebrow at that, but still nodded. "We sell renewing tape, which should be able to do what you're suggesting."

"Renewing tape?" Ranma asked.

The man gestured for Ranma to follow and introduced him to what at first looked like a simple roll of duct tape. However the man quickly informed him that it had been treated in a Etherano infused substance which gave it a very tough, glue-like quality for several hours after magical energy was sent into it.

"You've developed reusable duct tape," Ranma murmured, his eyes wide. "How are you people not millionaires yet?!"

The man laughed, and the tour of the store continued. Wendy found a tiny ladybug night light that she fell in love with at first sight, the ladybug a thing of wood set around a fire lacrima which gave off both light and heat, and Ranma threw that in with the rest of their purchases. The total bill, especially after buying warranties on the enchantments, made Ranma wince, but he still paid it.

Quickly disappearing their purchases into his Requip space, Ranma ruffled Wendy's hair and guided her out the door. As they exited the store Wendy hopped onto his back before climbing up onto his head. The man they'd just left blinked at the sight of the little girl perched on the boy's head without seemingly any effort or irritation on his part before shrugging it off. "Mages. They don't have to be normal, I suppose."

With that done, Ranma took Wendy back to their room and put her to bed for the night. Despite her protests the girl was exhausted. There had been so much to see and do today it had utterly wiped her out despite the several months of training with Ranma.

The next day after a hearty breakfast of bagels and eggs along with fresh fruit and apple juice, Ranma took Wendy to a shop which catered to girls, noting it had the same logo as the Heart Kreuz armory back in Appledore. Ranma looked around, and then sighed and gestured to Wendy, who was looking around in interest. One of the saleswoman had already approached, and he smiled politely, if wanly, at her. "Hi, I need a full wardrobe for this little one: clothes that will hopefully grow with her for at least a few years for preference, outdoorsy kind of stuff. Also one good dress, I suppose, in an appropriate style for a girl her age. But for the most part, jeans and tough shirts or blouses, I guess," Ranma said, utterly at sea here. He'd dressed up his female form when he had to, but never learned about style or anything like that.

"Given your marching orders, were you?" the woman said with a small smile. Like every other person they'd dealt with so far she assumed they were two siblings set out on an errand by their parents.

"Nah, more generating them than anything," Ranma said with a smile, before gesturing toward Wendy. "So other than that, the clothing needs to be hard-wearing and hopefully not too out there in terms of color. She's all yours."

Wendy smiled somewhat timidly at the saleswoman, but she merely smiled back more warmly, holding out a hand. When Wendy shyly took it she led the young girl over to the first row of pants. "We'll start off easy, dear. What colors do you like?"

That stop took a while, as Ranma had known it would. He'd been lucky enough to get out of shopping most of the time with Akane and the others, but sometimes he hadn't been able to, which had prepared him for this. Whenever Wendy came out he would give her a critical once over, then nod or shake his head. His criteria was not based upon what the clothing actually looked like, of course: he was more concerned about how tough it was.

Eventually Wendy was fitted out with a full wardrobe including panties, shirts and shorts for when it was warm enough, a jacket, and clothing for both autumn, which was just around the corner, and winter too. It was all very sturdy and comfortable clothing, completed by hiking boots and enough socks for three weeks before they had to be washed.

"That's something else we'll need to pick up when we grab the rest of our supplies," Ranma said, lifting a finger in thought as the two finally left the shop, leaving a very happy saleswoman who had just made more on that one commission than she would have in a normal month. "Washing soap. I'll add that to the list of stuff we'll have to buy before we leave the city."

Wendy nodded, rubbing her eyes sleepily. "That makes sense. Mama would just breath on me from time to time and my clothing would clean itself. But I don't think I want to do that again," she confessed. "I didn't understand what was going on. I mean, what's so different between one color combination and the next?"

"You'll probably figured that out as you grow older, Wendy. When you do, try to explain it to me. Maybe that and having my own girl form will help me understand fashion as no man ever has before." Wendy looked up at him in confusion at that, but when Ranma laughed, she just took his hand, walking along beside him as they went back to the inn.

The next day Ranma allowed Wendy to sleep in, exercising by himself in their room for a while until she woke up, whereupon they traveled to the city's library. Like many such in Seven it was under the control of the local guild. To the two Dragon Slayers' astonishment the outer wall of the library was covered in different types of ears made of wood, different types of steel, glass, stone, and other things.

At the sight of it Wendy shivered a little, hiding behind Ranma. "That looks so weird."

"I agree completely, Wendy," Ranma said with a chuckle, pulling her into a side hug. When in doubt, refer to rule number one. "Still, we have to come here to learn if any of the local mages have heard about or seen your mom, and also to see if we can help you keep learning how to read."

They were greeted as they entered by an elderly man and woman who were both manning a desk to one side of the large door. They were both extremely tall: around eight feet or so. But they were also stooped with age, and they looked kindly enough. The woman smiled brightly. "Can we help you? The children's books are over there," she said helpfully pointing in the right direction.

Wendy looked up at Ranma, and he sighed. "All right. Let's go find you two books to read, then I'll start asking around. Given the exterior decorations, I assume the Guild Stone Ears are based here as well as it being the city's library?"

"There's a lot of us here at any given moment, aye, though at least a third are always out on jobs. Why, are you submitting a request?" the elderly gentleman asked, gesturing at the tunic he wore which had the symbol of a stone ear on it.

"No, just information. Let me get Wendy situated; I'll be back in a sec," Ranma replied.

It didn't take Wendy long to find two books with covers she liked the look of. One of them had a bear that looked like a care bear to Ranma on the cover, making him wonder again about parallel evolution or whatever the name was for finding similar things in different dimensions. The other had a very childish looking dragon on it and an equally chibi-fied looking human riding it. That one looked a little too advanced for Wendy, but Ranma let her pick it out anyway.

However as soon as Wendy opened to the front page of the first book, the one with the care bear on it, she ran into a problem. Her eyes wide, she looked up at Ranma. "I can't understand this! It's not the same language mama taught me."

Ranma winced. "I should've expected that." He looked over at the two guild members who were manning the front desk. "I don't suppose you have one of those Lingua Franca books here?"

"We do, but I would hesitate to advise you to use it on one so young. Mind magics like that can have an effect on a still growing mind. I'd wait until she's at least a teenager before attempting it," the woman replied promptly.

Blinking, Ranma frowned at that. "I used that kind of magic when I was around ten or eleven or so. Will I face problems?"

"If you haven't already, no," the man replied dryly. "Trust me, if you had, it would have been obvious within a few months, let alone a few years."

"That's good to know," Ranma muttered, shaking his head. "In that case, I suppose my first question should be what kind of books should I get to help me teach Wendy here how to read?" Damnit, another thing that'll take time away from training, Wendy's and my own.

"I'll get them," the old woman replied, moving out from behind the desk and moving towards children section. "You're very good big brother, wanting to teach your sister to read."

"Now onto my actual questions?" Ranma said as Wendy began to flip through the book to look at the pictures. "Has there been any sighting of an unusually large white or white furred flying creature nearby?"

As Ranma had known it would be, the answer to that was negative. But rather than letting Wendy spiral into sadness because of that, Ranma kept her spirits up by taking one of the books that the library offered which was actually a coloring book with a small enchantment embedded into it. You could follow along with the stories, coloring as you went, but once you turned the page the colors would disappear. Wendy found this endlessly fascinating, forcing Ranma to buy several dozen boxes of crayons for the future and the book itself from the Stone Ears Guildhall, which doubled as both a library and a book store.

The Stone Ears were also very good at information gathering. Deeply connected with all the nearby towns and guilds, large and small, they heard everything that happened in the south of Seven. They informed Ranma that no one had seen anything but the streak across the sky the day that Wendy had appeared in the forest. More and more Ranma realized that it must've been some kind of transportation spell, though what kind was beyond him. Outside of Laxus' lightning moves, he didn't know anything about teleportation spells.

They stayed another night in that town, buying food and other supplies of that nature, before leaving early the next day. Since Ranma still didn't have any destination in mind, he decided to go through with his plan to circle the forest and ask if anyone had seen anything, despite the Stone Ears having told him nobody had. That way they would wind up near where he had first heard about that bit of news and could then once more travel via the Straight Path.

OOOOOOO

"Mistress, two pirate ships off the starboard bow. They just came around that set of Sharks' Teeth!"

"What have I told you about calling me that, Captain?" Erza muttered, moving to look in that direction. Sure enough, there were two pirate ships out there. The Shark's Teeth were the aptly named bits of sheer rock sticking randomly out of the water here and there, a hazard to navigation throughout the straits. They made trade difficult at times and allowed pirates or even pirate groups to hide away easily from the few navy units Minstrel could post up here in the Joya Straits.

Erza understood that most of Minstrel's navy was centered on the South Seas, keeping the pirates from Sin and Enca under control, and since the country didn't do much trade with Bosco or Joya, they didn't bother trying to control the straits. And while Joya's military was decent, their navy was a joke.

The pirate vessels were shallow bottomed galleys, slicing through the water of the straits after the ship Erza was currently on, which they obviously had assumed was the minnow to their sharks. Tss… Well, I think it's time to make them remember a proverb of the oceans: there's always a bigger fish.

"Mistress, should we try to close or try to look like we're running away?" the captain of the vessel Erza was on asked. He looked like a freebooter himself, and there was no doubt in her mind that he had performed some piratical acts himself. But after she had beaten the stuffing out of his crew when they made a comment about her hair in port, they had put themselves at her service and served well enough since.

Now if they would only stop calling me mistress. It makes me feel weird, and Shishou's face whenever he hears them call me that makes me think I'm missing something. "Let them close on us, Captain. Those galleys would have the legs on us if they decided to cut and run. And stop calling me mistress!"

"Yes, Mistress!" the captain replied, scuttling off, leaving Erza to groan behind her.

The young girl groaned, then felt Laxus appear behind her. "You're having about as much luck getting them to stop calling you that as I have stopping you from calling me Shishou."

"That's different," Erza said, huffing and looking away.

"Sure it is," Laxus replied with a chuckle, before turning serious and staring out into the fog. The fog was always present here in the straits, a danger made far worse by the Shark's Teeth. Because of those two things, the pirates had gotten so close they were already within cannon range, though they were noticeably not firing any. "I'm going to have a look around. You keep fooling those two out there until I get back."

Erza opened her mouth to reply, but Laxus was already gone, disappearing with a flash. If Erza squinted, she could see him appear on the distant peak of a barely visible Shark's Tooth rock, then away through the fog in little blips of yellow.

Landing on a rock well out of sight of the ship he and Erza were using as their stalking horse at present, Laxus looked around, frowning. There were indeed several more pirate ships out here, eight of them, hiding behind the rocks and waiting for their opportunity to attack. This wasn't a normal pirate operation: no, this was an ambush for him and Erza specifically. The number of ships pointed to that, as did the flag five of those ships flew, a black wave on a background of red marked by dozens of white skulls.

So, the Black Tide. Where did they come from again? Joya or Stella, I think. All Holder type mages, though they shouldn't be underestimated for that. Racketeering, kidnapping, pirate activities, slavery, and mass murder. Not as bad as Roanoke was reputed to be in Bosco, but still very bad. Still, there's nothing more dangerous than an ambush turned on itself.

So thinking, Laxus turned up the volume of his headphones, listening to the music as he gathered his powers, a single huge flash of lightning heading up into the sky. "…Beatin' in my heart/the thunder of guns/it tore me apart…."

Then there was a cacophony of thunder and lightning flashing down to smash into every ship of the small fleet. "Rairyu no Gekido Raiun! (Lightning Dragon's Raging Crescendo)" Laxus howled, directing the lightning with his hands for a few seconds before he flashed forward, crashing into the front of the nearest Dark Guild ship smashing into it with all the power of a Minstrel galleon's broadside, the song Laxus was rapidly deciding was his theme song blaring in his ears. "You've been… thunderstruck!"

OOOOOOO

Wendy had fallen in love with her sleeping bag the first moment she had burrowed into it. That love had grown the first night out on the road. Wendy was a snuggler at night, and Ranma worked really, really well as a heater. Specifically, Wendy loved snuggling into Ranma in his female body. That body was much softer and smelled nicer than his male form, even if Ranma hadn't had a bath, though his male body was actually warmer for some reason. Nothing beat snuggling into Ranma's chest as the two of them were up high on a tree limb, watching the stars come out, at least not in Wendy's opinion.

Apart from her sleeping bag, everything else was great too. The tent that they had bought was large and came with a soft floor to go along with it, centered around the heating and cooling paired lacrima. That was a big deal, since Wendy knew they were heading north, and it was getting cooler too as the season shifted into winter.

And on top of that was her Onii-chan. Their training was fun and interesting, Ranma making it as fun as he could, though there was little he could do to make trying to learn how to punch things fun for Wendy. But Ranma was always there with a pat on the head, an encouraging word, or a smile. He also read to her at night sometimes if she had performed well, and the foods he made were so tasty!

It wasn't like having her mama around. Grandeeney was big, warm, and protective, so big that Wendy couldn't hug her properly—she had to hug her claws or beak. And conversations with her mother always revolved around Wendy herself, or their magic and the natural world around them. With Ranma it revolved around other humans, himself, martial arts, magic, traveling, and sometimes he'd make up stories for her above and beyond the ones in the books they'd bought. Her mother had tried to do that a few times, but they always floundered as she lost interest in the attempt. She still missed her mother dearly, but for now traveling with Ranma was a close second.

For his part, Ranma had found it relatively easy to slip into an older brother/elder student role with Wendy. He was not trying to be her parent. He was not trying to teach her life lessons or morals outside of showing her that hard work was necessary and eventually what right and wrong was if that ever came up, which it hadn't just yet. Indeed, this was the longest time Ranma had ever gone without someone or something trying to kill him, a minor miracle as far as he was concerned.

He wasn't teaching her math, only reading, combat, and travel. That and slowly teaching her how to cook seemed to be enough for now, and they got along well with one another, which Ranma would not have predicted.

Of course, Wendy still had moments where she was in a bad mood or just wasn't willing to go along with things. But Ranma dealt with that via Rules one and two, and even made up a number three of the Anything Goes school of big-brothering: letting the boy or girl mope while you act happy or even normal nearby sometimes works to get them out of their funk by simple comparison.

Eventually they finished a full circle around the forest where Wendy had first appeared, and, as Ranma had feared, there was no sign that her mother had ever been there. Indeed, very few people had even witnessed the streak of white light across the sky that Ranma now knew without a doubt had been some kind of transportation spell of some kind.

Knowing now that there was no trace of Grandeeney to find, Wendy had a few good long cries and moped for a few days, despite Ranma's best efforts to get her mind off of it. However she eventually got out of it on her own and realized that even if they couldn't track her mother down, traveling with Ranma was a lot of fun even without that goal.

The two of them eventually took up traveling along the Straight Path once more, heading north-northeast, somewhat. The Straight Path in Seven wound around like a loop, almost coming out of Bosco and heading up north before coming back down, almost paralleling the coast a hundred miles or so inland before entering Fiore.

The two of them traveled for another few weeks as autumn began to slowly segue into winter. Both of them were actually looking forward to it. Wendy wanted to see snow, something she had never seen before, while Ranma wanted to see how well their tent's heating lacrima worked.

One day, however, something happened that blew all such blasé thoughts out of Ranma's head. The two of them had stopped at a small inn, seemingly like every other inn Ranma had seen. That stayed true until the innkeeper who owned this particular inn flashed a small green gem at Ranma from a wristwatch he had, the universal sign for the Kingdom of Seven's espionage service.

Gesturing for Wendy to go over and get them some drinks from the bar, Ranma turned to the innkeeper, his eyes narrowed as he looked around to make sure they weren't being overheard. "What is it?" If this is another follow up to the business down in Bosco, I'm going to scream.

"The king himself has requested your presence in Seventy-Seven. He wants you there within the week, and to present yourself to him as you see fit." The man replied, his face oddly blank, his voice something like a drone.

Ranma blinked. "Seventy-Seven, what's that?"

"The name for the capital," the innkeeper said, looking at him quizzically. "How did you not know that?"

"I haven't run into that in any of the books I've read."

"I suppose that's understandable: it's only been the capital for forty years now," the other man replied dryly. "I think you need to read better books."

"I think you need to mind your own business," Ranma growled, shaking his head but not saying anything, having noticed the blank look had gone from the man's face for some reason.

This sounds like a new job. Damn. I wonder if I should start hiding my brooch from now on. If he had done that, of course, he wouldn't have met Wendy because he wouldn't have heard about the streak of white in the sky, but Ranma had just realized there was a distinct downside to this whole Ranger thing. While most of the time I'm left to my own devices, if I'm called like this I can't really argue the point.

"I don't suppose you know if there is a train or something heading to the capital?" he asked.

"Not from this town. But if you go to Redstone, another town nearby, it has a train station that will take you towards the Junction, and from there you can take a train to Seventy-Seven," the innkeeper replied, naming the centralmost city of Seven, which had perforce become the center of its booming train system. It had been a relatively unremarkable town before the trains had been first created, but it had grown since. No guild made its home there, and it was more a transport center than anything else, but it was still very important.

"Thanks," Ranma said, tipping the man heavily for that information. He didn't have to, of course: the man was both an innkeeper and on the king's payroll as an informer. But the information about the trains would be a major help.

This goodwill towards the man ended abruptly the next day when Wendy and Ranma boarded a train for the first time. Barely a minute into the travel, Ranma's stomach began to feel queasy, and he groaned, holding it in with difficulty.

"What the heck?" he muttered, then fell sideways as a bout of intense nausea hit him like one of Deliora's fists. That was the most horrible feeling he'd ever felt other than that first time he'd realized his female form was fully functional.

Wendy also looked a little queasy for a moment, but she shook it off after casting a spell on herself called Troia, which dealt with stomach ailments and also worked with motion sickness. I wondered why mama taught me that one. I wonder if she knew I'd run into something like this? "Onii-chan, do you want me to…"

Ranma couldn't even say anything, too busy making sure his lunch didn't make a break for freedom. He simply nodded slowly so as to not make his head fall off, and Wendy quickly cast the same spell on him. Then she squeaked as Ranma pulled her into a hug. "That was great! I told you your support spells were amazing!"

The young girl smiled happily, and Ranma let her go back to her seat as he wondered what the heck just happened. He really couldn't think of any reason why the two Dragon Slayers were affected so much by transportation. But it was obviously the case, since Wendy had to use the same spell on the second train.

Despite that, using the trains paid off. After only another two days of travel they had traversed practically the entire nation of Seven from one side to the other.

Exiting the train station, Ranma led the way to a nearby inn. "Come on, Wendy. We need to clean and dress to fit in for when we get to the castle. Shower, then a change of clothing."

After a shower, Ranma put on his best silk pants and shirt along with his cloak, his Ranger's brooch in his pocket for now. But it could be brought out and added to his cloak at need. This was about as dressed up as he was going to get for anyone, royal or not.

He also told Wendy to get into the nice dress that he had bought her in that first town/city they had stayed in after she finished her shower. But she had never actually worn a dress like this before and needed help, forcing Ranma to change into his female form. It might not have changed anything, really, but it made him feel less like a pervert when helping the little girl get changed.

"Why did you change, Onii-chan?" Wendy asked, looking up quizzically as Ranma pulled the dress down over her arms held high up over her head.

"Because you're changing, and no guy should be around you if you're changing." Ranma explained, shrugging his shoulders. "It's called protecting your modesty. It's one of those things you'll pick up as you grow up. If any guy tries to get you to change in front of him, punch him in the fork."

Wendy giggled at that, but nodded. She didn't really understand most of that, but she understood enough to know that any guy asking her to change in front of them was a bad guy and deserved to be smacked. It must be really bad, since after that one time I did that when I was angry, Nii-chan warned me he'd cut me off from chocolate if I attacked him there ever again.

That thought soon left her mind as Ranma pulled out a brush and began to work it through her hair. "This is really nice… You have to do this more often, Onii-chan."

"Not a chance," Ranma said cheerfully. "I don't want to spoil you, after all." With that he put the brush down, and before Wendy could turn to give him a pout the redhead tickled her sides, causing her to shriek and hop up off the bed where they both been sitting.

Ranma looked down at her, nodding her head. The boots Wendy wore came up high on her calf, slightly longer than the ones she wore every day. The dress was a skirt which came down to her knees, paired with a tight sash around the middle and a very good blouse matching the dress in color, which at the moment was a light blue, offsetting her hair.

"Good enough," Ranma said, still cheerful. She hopped to her feet and reached down to take Wendy's hand. "Let's go meet some royalty. But first, I want you to practice your surly, pouty face. You know, the one you have when you're in a bad mood and don't want to train."

Pouting, Wendy was about to say she didn't make a face like that, but Ranma's level gaze down at her caused Wendy to pout and look away. "Why?"

"We're going to sneak into the palace. I don't want people to know I'm a Ranger: that sort of defeats the point most of the time. So we're going to play 'trusted retainer and wayward princess' and fool the people who see us into thinking we belong there."

"Ooo…" Wendy said, then nodded and began to practice her face before a thought occurred. "Is there anything I need to know about meeting the king and queen? And…what are royalty anyway?" Wendy asked. "Mama said she was the Queen of the sky, but she never explained what a queen really was other than some kind of leader."

Wendy's favorite stories were about talking animals and mages going on adventures out in the wilds, sometimes with animal companions. She had read some books which mentioned noble families, but not what they actually were.

"That's basically it. But most nobles, and that includes kings and queens, are leaders because of blood rather than because of strength or anything else. I've admittedly met several that are actually worth the title, but that's not supposed to be the norm. As for anything you need to know: don't promise anything, and if you can keep quiet and not attract attention once we actually start talking to them, that's probably best."

Wendy nodded, as that suited her down to the ground. She'd much rather blend into the background if she could get away with it, still unused to being around so many people so often. Indeed, she was naturally rather shy.

The two of them walked through the streets of the capital until they reached the noble district. This was an area of the city which was separated by a small, very ornamental series of gates. Inside it was the castle, a slightly larger than normal mansion rather than any kind of real castle or former fortress.

There Ranma moved around the mansion until she found the servants' entrance, sneaking inside. Once inside, she grabbed a bellboy who was on his way out on some kind of errand. "Which way to the throne room? I have to return the little miss here to her parents."

The boy looked past the redhead at Wendy, who was indeed dressed like a country noble of some kind. The pout and dark look on her face told the boy the rest of the tale, and he gave Ranma a commiserating glance before telling her the directions to the throne room, which was three stories up and a ways to the front of the mansion from this entrance.

As the bellboy left and the two of them started to move through the castle, Wendy whispered, "Did I do good, Onii-Chan?"

"Yep. Now just keep that look on your face for a bit until we're away from the other servants," Ranma whispered, leading her by hand through the servants' quarters. They did get some looks, but the look on Wendy's face and the put upon look Ranma had on her own seemed to answer their questions, and no one bothered them.

"Are we really going to the throne room?" Wendy asked quizzically as they ascended to the third floor. So far this castle hadn't matched up with anything like she had imagined, and she was wondering if the throne room would be any better.

"Nah. I'll find the king's quarters and we'll hide in there for a bit. I have a little message I want to send to this particular king, and sneaking in so easily will do the trick."

The two of them did indeed find the royal chambers, and they were even unguarded. Seven was at peace at present, and even Pergrande wouldn't have had troops outside their king's quarters during peacetime. Ranma also understood that Seven relied more on the regular police and the guilds to police themselves, not even having a standing army save for a small, specially trained troop at the king's personal command.

Entering, they found the royal quarters were currently occupied. He was a young man—Ranma estimated he was barely in his twenties—with a crown on his head. Currently he was sitting at a desk in the corner, reading something. He looked up abruptly as they entered, his eyes narrowing, and he was about to say something before he recognized the brooch on Ranma's shoulder. "Ranger?" he said slowly. "We had not anticipated your arrival like this…."

"And who are you?" Ranma asked bluntly, closing the door behind her.

"King Meredrain Deucius," the man replied, nodding his head slightly in Ranma's direction.

"Well Willie," Ranma said, moving over to sit across from him. "I don't know if you realize this, but one of the main things about Rangers is that we don't normally need to be directed or called in like you did me. In fact, the more people who know about our identities the less effective we are in actually finding trouble. I can't say I'm a natural sneaker, but I'd still like to retain my anonymity."

"Yes, I apologize for that, but do not be concerned about your identity being shared with anyone, even in our Secret Service." The man flashed a large ring at him. The ring was so large, in fact, that it covered his entire finger, and it glowed with several tiny lacrima beyond the central green one. "These rings allow any information we give out to our agents to be erased from their minds. The moment that our agent informed you of our request, your appearance, name, and our request were all erased from his mind and the minds of every other agent. None will remember that they did anything, let alone what you looked like or that there was a Ranger in Seven at all."

"All right, that's a pretty slick enchantment," Ranma said. "How difficult would that kind of thing be? In fact, where can I find books on enchantments like that at all?"

"Nowhere," the man said bluntly, before allowing a brief smile to cross his face. "This is tied into the blood of the royal family and oaths I took years ago as the country's spymaster. Think of it as something akin to Queen Rose's activating that brooch you wear. Indeed, I wish I knew more about those brooches, but my older brother's death was so sudden he and I never had a chance to talk about the magics tied into his status as king. I haven't been able to find out anything about them, and the Rangers are only one example. Indeed, I only learned your identity because Queen Rose requested my aid in hunting down the agents aiding the slavers here in my nation.

"Still, I have to say that your entrance into the palace was masterful. Not all of our servants, after all, are equipped with these rings," the man finished, chuckling drolly. "I may have to have a stern talk with the chief of the castle guard, however."

Ranma nodded, greatly mollified by the conversation, though she was still irritated about having her chain being yanked like that in the first place. Wendy, meanwhile, was moving around the room, staring at different objects. In particular a golden lion statue was fascinating to her, and she was staring at it, looking at her reflection and watching as it changed due to the many different flips and crests in the gold.

The king's eyes darted to her then back to Ranma. "I've never heard of a Ranger going around with a child before. Are you sure that's the smartest idea?"

"I don't know yet, but I'm certainly not going to leave her. We're related, you might say, and there's no one else I'd trust to look after her," Ranma replied firmly. She's been left behind once. No way am I going to add to that unless I have to.

"Are you sure?" Meredrain asked. "After all, Rangers routinely go into danger."

"Wendy's actually a very powerful mage for her age. I'm not going to let her get hurt, but I'm not going to mollycoddle her either."

"Your decision, I suppose," the man replied. "As to why I'd called for you, we'll wait for my wife, Sasha, to get here for the main discussion," the man replied, tapping a communication lacrima inset in his desk and whispering into it.

Ranma shrugged her shoulders, once more making a note of how many different ways Seven had come up with to use lacrima and magic to create what technology and engineering would have in her old world. "So, how exactly did a young man like you become spymaster?"

The man laughed. "I was always poking my nose in where it didn't belong as a child, and after I found out about an uncle having an affair with a married woman of an allied family, my older brother decided to put my talents to use. I never anticipated becoming king myself, but he died without issue, unfortunately." When Ranma looked at him in surprise, the man waved it off. "There was nothing odd about that, regardless of what rumors among the nobles seem to think. Illnesses spring up all the time, even in royal families, and his heart was never the strongest."

A moment later Queen Sasha strode into the room, slamming the door behind her so hard that Wendy jumped while the queen glared at Ranma. "I am very glad that you are a Ranger and not an enemy," she said crisply. "Your ability to infiltrate my palace like this is disturbing in the extreme."

With that she marched over to her husband's side, where he captured her hand quickly. She was at least ten years older than the man, Ranma suspected, with a hard, though still beautiful, face and a slightly larger crown than the one that sat on his head. I'd guess she's the one that truly reigns here.

"I had a perfect disguise," Ranma said aloud, gesturing over to Wendy who looked down shyly. She had found a book with pictures in it and had sat down in a little chair by the windows where she had begun to flip through it before the queen arrived.

The woman's eyes slightly softened, then hardened as she looked back at Ranma. "Don't, my dear," Meredrain said easily. "I already asked her about traveling with a young child, and apparently they are siblings of a sort."

"And there is no other family that she can be sent to?" Sasha asked sharply. "And if not, we could take her in, could we not?"

"No," Ranma said simply, but with a sort of finality to it that made even Sasha recoil. "She is my responsibility, my charge, and my little sister. I'm not going to hand over that responsibility to anyone else. Besides, traveling with her is rather fun," he said, turning to wink in Wendy's direction, who had overheard all this and smiled back brightly before turning back to her book.

Sasha growled but nodded her head and got down to business. "We have need of your services, Ranger," she said without further preamble. "You see, a Dark Guild has moved in and are acting like pirates in our waters, and their activities are now having a serious impact on our trade with other countries. Seven, unfortunately, has no navy of its own to deal with them, and none of our mages can operate very well out on the ocean."

"I call bullshit," Ranma said, leaning back and crossing her legs. She was tempted to actually stick them up onto the desk to add to the insouciance of her body language, but decided against it. "There is no way that your own guilds couldn't handle that kind of thing."

"True," Meredrain said before Sasha could say anything in return. "The guild in question, however, is not labeled a Dark Guild, primarily because they are not from Seven at all. They are a legal guild out of Caelum. Their mages also include two S-class mages, a water mage and one Take Over mage of some kind."

"Seven doesn't have the best relationship with Caelum at present, and hasn't for some years. So we can't just complain about their activities and assume anything will get done. We need them apprehended by someone whose words the royal family of Caelum, at the least, will have to take seriously. Hence our request to you."

Ranma frowned at that, sifting through her mind for what she remembered about Caelum. She obviously hadn't been there yet, but she had read about it in various books, in particular since coming to Seven, which had so many more libraries then any of the other nations she'd been in. One of the books she read had been a history of the continent, though it had only gone back a hundred years to something called the Calamity. That was a major upheaval that occurred around that time here in Seven: a civil war of some kind with dozens of different sides coupled with a serf rebellion.

From that book she had heard about Caelum. It was a former pirate haven turned nation some eighty years ago. According to the book, the royal family there were badass water and wood mages to an individual. They had moved there from Fiore and had basically forced the rest of the nation to heel like a dog over a period of twenty years. There was no doubt more to that story than what the book had told him, but to learn more Ranma would probably have to travel to Caelum, which was a ways in the future, if ever.

"So you want me to either wipe them out or capture them. And you need someone like me who can act outside your borders and whose position, at least, will make my testimony believable," Ranma mused.

"Exactly."

"Do we have a starting point?" Ranma asked. This really did, unfortunately, sound like something she had to handle.

"We do. We know the waters that they routinely hide themselves in and the port that has taken the most damage from there depredations: the port city of Blue Cove. In fact, we have a train that can take you straight there from our capital," Sasha replied, using the royal 'we' unlike her husband.

Neither royal understood why both siblings blanched at that, then sighed in unison. "Greaat…" Ranma replied in a deadpan drone.

Shaking off her dread at the coming trip, Ranma went on. "Okay, I'll need a ship heading out there that they might possibly target, a crew willing to chance them and one competent enough to stay the heck out of my way once the battle's joined."

"Any smart merchant would stay out of the way once the battle's actually joined; finding a ship that will actually take you out in the first place might prove a little tougher," Sasha replied dryly. "But we will have one prepared for you by the time you get there."

Ranma nodded, stood up, and gave the two royals a jaunty wave with one hand that could never, even by the most charitable, be construed as a salute, while grabbing Wendy as she went by to return the book with her other hand. "Come on, Wendy. We're done here."

"So we're going to go to the ocean?" Wendy asked, following her brother, not out the door, but out onto the balcony of the room. The two royals followed them quizzically, but Wendy paid them no mind, looking up at her Onii-chan. She had overheard some of the conversation, though she hadn't understood all of it.

"Yep," Ranma said, kneeling down and letting the girl climb up onto her back. "It looks as if we will be." She nodded to the Royals, then leaped up to grab the rooftop above them, flipping herself upwards again to land on the roof before hurling herself out and away. She landed on the roof of a nearby building then hopped off of that and into the city.

As the two royals watched in something approaching chagrin, there was no outcry from their guards or anyone else, and Sasha shook her head again. "Remind me to fire our captain of the guard, dear. It seems as if their training is wholly inadequate."

"Humans tend not to look up like that, but I will unfortunately have to agree with you on that one," Meredrain replied dryly. "On the other hand, it at least makes me feel a little better that yonder ranger will be able to perform this task for us."

OOOOOOO

It took the train from Seventy-Seven half the day to cross the intervening distance between the capital and the unimaginatively named Blue Cove. Ranma groused about that, shaking his head, as he and Wendy exited the train station, both of them holding their stomachs gingerly. Troia had given out about five minutes ago, which had not been pleasant for either one of them.

Wendy had hesitantly told Ranma that she was worried that the spell would start to lose its ability to help if she kept on casting it on the two of them. Their Dragon Slayer nature was building up an immunity to the spell, despite the fact that it was coming from Wendy herself.

Ranma had agreed, and the two of them it toughed it out for the five minutes, but now he was looking for some kind of treat for the both of them before they headed down to the wharf. As he did so, a man with a pendant with a small inset green lacrima approached him, his eyes almost unseeing until he finished whispering into Ranma's ear, giving him the description of the ship whose owners had agreed to take him out into the ocean to search for their quarry. They didn't know he was a Ranger, only a powerful mage, which Ranma was happy about.

Because of this interruption it was Wendy who first spotted the small street vendor with the really nice smelling food. The stand was offering what looked like cinnamon buns, only they were created like spheres, and right in front of the customer too. Each sphere was magically created by the wizard doing it, then glazed by another wizard and handed out to the cheering crowd, one after another.

With Wendy hopping eagerly beside him, Ranma bought two of them. Since they were as big as Ranma's fist brought together, that was a decent meal for Wendy and a good sized snack for Ranma.

They walked through the port city, looking around while eating, before Ranma turned them down towards the docks. While Ranma began to look for the ship he was supposed to take out, Wendy stared in awe at the ocean. "It's so wide, Oni-Chan…" she whispered, transfixed by the sight. "Where does so much water come from?"

"It's the sea, Wendy. It's always been there in one form or another. But I wouldn't recommend you try to drink it; it's different from fresh water," Ranma replied, ruffling her hair.

"Why?" Wendy asked. "I mean, you drink water all the time. What's so different about the sea that changes it from freshwater?"

Ranma shrugged and gestured with a hand, which glowed with a ring of magical energy for a second. A small globe of water came up towards him, moving towards Wendy. She hesitantly stuck her tongue into the globe, then made a face. "It's all salty! What's the point of all that water if you can't drink it?"

"Well, I can with no trouble," Ranma replied laughing. "And the fish seem to like it anyway."

Wendy pouted, and Ranma laughed, pulling her into a little hug. Always remember rule one. "Now come on. I have to find the ship that's going to be taking us out."

That caused Wendy to both nod and shiver at the same time. She wasn't looking forward to actually fighting someone. She'd fought animals before, but not people, and there was a big difference between the two. But Ranma had assured her that she wouldn't be doing any of the fighting, just helping Ranma to get to the enemy ships. That she was willing to do, even if she didn't really like it.

Finding the ship Ranma had been told about was actually easy: it was the only ship in port which had bright, checkerboard patterned sails.

When he met Ranma and Wendy, the captain looked a little dubious, but he also looked like a tough, no-nonsense sailor, as did all of his crew. They weren't mages, but they looked like tough customers, and the ship was heavily armed too, with ten cannons to a side and every man armed with a rifle.

The man explained why he was willing to help Ranma out onto the ocean to look for the pirates as his crew made ready to get under way. "We'd be prime targets anyway. We're part of a merchant guild called Gleaming Glass. We're merchants who specialize in transferring lacrima and gems of all sorts. Our hold is full of prepared lacrima from Iceberg, headed for the port towns of Fiore, Caelum, and Minstrel. Taking our cargo would make any normal pirate's year, even after giving out payment to the crew."

Ranma nodded. "Well, don't worry about that. As long as I have a say about it they won't be taking your cargo, at the very least. And since I'm a water mage," Ranma says, underselling his abilities quite a lot, "I do have something to say about it. Now, where are my and Wendy's quarters?"

OOOOOOO

Lord James Superfry was cold, and angry to be so. He hated the cold; he hated the fact that he was out here in the North Sea where the icebergs never quite disappeared and even water mages needed to be on the lookout for the giant, ship destroying mountains. But necessity had forced them out here, and that was the real reason why he was pissed. He was a pirate lord, but he'd been forced out here because of the actions of two mages. Just two! "God dammit, if I ever actually run into them myself, I'll kill both of them!"

That thought was sheer bravado, and in his saner moments, which thankfully outnumbered the majority of his insane ones, James knew it. Nor was he alone in having been utterly terrified of what had been occurring lately in the Joya Straits. While James' pirate fleet was based in Caelum, they had dealings with a lot of the pirates in the Straits and down towards Minstrel, of course. Indeed, before a few months back, providing the pirates in those areas with added muscle had been the way James and his people had made most of their money, along with taking ships around Fiore's southern shores.

If Fiore sent mages or ships out, he would either wipe them out or retreat into the Straits. If Minstrel did, he'd either wipe them out or retreat to Caelum. The Straits and the area where they joined with the wider ocean were his play area.

However, the pirates here in the Straits had been decimated over the past few months by two mages. One of them was a young, redheaded girl, who had quickly earned the name of the Crimson Valkyrie for her personal style of always wearing armor and using various hand to hand weapons, swords for preference, apparently. The other was a tall, though still young, teenager with blond hair and a scar on his face. He had earned the moniker the Lightning King. Between the two of them they had wiped out more than three dozen pirate ships.

This included another Dark Guild, which was the real reason why James had pulled out his own ships from the Straits entirely. The Black Tide might not have had any water users worth the name, in his opinion, but they had a lot of flame and low key caster types. And they had all been either killed outright or apprehended in a series of sharp engagements, only the rumor of which had reached his ears.

Still, though, I hate the cold. At least the pickings appear to more than make up for the inconvenience. And I've only had to retreat to deep water a few times, James thought. "If only it wasn't so God damn cold!" he muttered aloud, pulling his fur cloak around him.

"You say something, Captain?" asked a large, burly man from nearby.

"No, I didn't. I muttered something. When I mutter something I don't need a reply. Dammit, Daoshen! We've been together for how many years and you still don't know that?!"

"If I didn't reply you'd probably read me the riot act anyway," Daoshen replied laconically. "Besides, our lookout just activated his Eagle's Eye magic."

At that James turned away from Daoshen, his irritation at his first mate disappearing quickly. He looked up at the main mast as his lookout activated his magic, a bright white and blue circle appearing from inside the crow's nest. A moment later the lookout grinned. "We have a merchant ship out there, Captain. Their sails show the mark of the merchant guild Gleaming Glass!"

"Hot damn!" James shouted back as the crew cheered the news. "Bernard, you just won yourself one hell of a bonus! Helmsman, take your directions from Bernard and let's get us some jewels, boys! That ship alone is carrying enough to see us through months of carousing in any port you care to name, and I mean to see us spend those months in the warm."

A second later, however, Bernard shouted again, this time in a very quizzical tone of voice. "Um, Cap'n, I got what looks like someone running towards us on the water somehow."

"What?" James asked, turning in that direction, but whatever it was wasn't quite visible just yet from the deck.

"Whoever it is, they're coming on fast!" Bernard said, just as a large wake of some kind did finally break over the horizon to James' eyes.

OOOOOOO

"Soryu no Owofuro! (Sky Dragon's Waving tail)" Wendy bellowed, shooting out air magic from her back and feet as she clung on to Ranma, zooming out across the water. She held back screaming in her brother's ear with difficulty, since she knew that, as a Dragon Slayer, his hearing was quite acute, and that actually might hurt him. "This is so much fun!" she said instead, squealing only once, and after having turned her head away from Ranma's.

"I know, right?!" Ranma replied, his own voice nearly lost in the wind of their passage. "Now remember, Wendy, we'll be doing some of what I call strafing runs past the pirate ships. Keep us going as fast as you can, but if you feel yourself tiring out, tell me. I'll be doing the fighting when we get close enough, and then when you start getting tired, I'll turn us around and drop you off back on the ship before coming back to finish it."

"Hai, Onii-chan!" Wendy said.

Despite her earlier thoughts on fighting, Wendy found a part of her actually did want to get involved in the fight, and Wendy wondered if that was the Dragon Slayer magic in her talking. After all, despite the fact that most of the magics her mother had taught her were support spells, Dragon Slayer magic was a violent kind of magic.

However, she set that aside, following her big brother's orders to the letter. With her new technique and with Vernier she kept them moving quickly over the water while he used his own magic powers to make them actually skid across the surface like a hydrofoil. Their wake spread out to either side, and Ranma stuck his hands out into it.

This triggered his change, since it splashed his lower body, but missing Wendy, thankfully, since Wendy didn't have the endurance when it came to the cold weather that Ranma did. Indeed, right now she was bundled up not only in her own winter gear, but with Ranma's jacket on top of that.

The two of them soon came within range of the first pirate ship. The pirates began to fire cannons at them, two of which looked magically enhanced. But their speed and their small size was such that they were an extremely hard target to actually hit. The cannons and magical bolts splashed down or steamed when they slammed into the water, and Ranma reacted swiftly, firing out a long-range attack. "Soryu no Kussaku Tsume! (Water Dragon's Drilling Claw)" she shouted, bringing her previously outstretched hands forward with a clap, aiming them at the vessel.

The bulk of water that Ranma had gathered from their wake flashed forward in a battering ram the size of her clenched fists, smashing into and through the ship from prow to stern, right at the water line. Immediately the ship began to take on water, listing badly. Her next attack came at the same ship, raking it down its sides again right above the waterline as they passed by its port side. This attack rent the wooden sides of the ship, shattering much of the side of the vessel, letting in more of the cold, northern ocean.

"That ship's out of it!" Ranma shouted once more to be heard over the wind of their passage. "You're doing great, Wendy! Keep it up!""

"Hai, Onii-chan!" Wendy barked back, watching his attacks closely. Some of the attacks Ranma had shown her from his/her own Dragon Slayer style had been able to carry over, and that one looked like one she might be able to do in the future.

The next attack was one Wendy had already seen, though Ranma had upped the attack's level to a degree that made her eyes widen. Passing between two pirate ships, both of them still trying desperately to shoot them, Ranma gestured again, grabbing again at the water from their wake. But this time instead of condensing it, she added more ocean water to them and two huge, massive dragon claws appeared in midair.

"Soryu no Saige! (Water Dragon's Crushing Fang)!" she roared, bringing them down onto the ship. There was a sound of shattering timber and screams as the attacks hammered home, crushing the ships like they were toys in the hands of a giant. When her attack ended, those ships were de-masted, and massive sections of their hulls facing the two Dragon Slayers were crushed and torn away by the water.

At that point Wendy began to feel a little tired and told Ranma so. "Okay, I'm turning us around. You did great, Wendy. Three out of four ships are gone now, thanks to you helping."

Wendy immediately began to cut power to her spinning tail magic as they turned. Ranma took up the slack, creating a torrent of water behind them from her legs shooting them forward even faster than Wendy had. Wendy didn't notice that fact, still happy that she had contributed to the battle.

They quickly sped back to their ship where Ranma pushed off of the water's surface like it was a solid object, landing easily on the deck. She handed Wendy down to the ground, patting her head. "Keep clear, Captain," she said, looking up at the man, who had come towards them immediately, his face full of awe at what they just witnessed.

"That last ship must be the one holding the S-class mages. This fight's not over yet. Keep clear," Ranma repeated, patting Wendy once more on the head. "If you need a favorable wind, just ask this little one for some help."

Wendy nodded resolutely, if shyly. "U, ye, yes. You can rely on me!"

The captain smiled at that and gestured Wendy over to join him at the wheel. As he did he caught the look in Ranma's eyes, glancing between Wendy and the captain, the message clear: if she gets hurt, so do you. Gulping, the captain of the ship simply nodded.

A second later Ranma leaped back over the side, landing easily on the water below and racing back towards the oncoming pirate ship.

The pirates hadn't given up, to Ranma's surprise. But then again, pirates aren't exactly noted for caring about their people. And if all the mages are on that ship, or at least the two S-class mages, maybe they think they can still win this.

That was indeed what James and his fellows were thinking. After all, the fewer pirates there were, the greater each of their individual shares of the loot would be. And James himself was a water mage who knew he could do some of the things Ranma was doing.

"Water magic against water magic," James said grimly, watching the girl racing above the water come towards his last ship. The other three were wrecks now, though most of their crews looked to still be alive, trying to either keep their ships from sinking or taking to the lifeboats. "Bernard, damn it, start earning your keep!"

"I'm having trouble getting a bead on her. She's traveling too fast and too wildly!" the lookout protested. He had pulled a large, complex looking magical gun from somewhere and set it on the edge of the crow's nest, his eyes flickering with his Eagle-Eye magic as he tried to get a bead on the attacker. Funny thing, could have sworn the bitch was a guy when she first arrived, with different hair too.

"Just shoot! Make her at least dodge more! God knows that our cannons aren't doing it!" James bellowed back.

Bernard scowled irritably, but did so. Activating his secondary magic, he fired a magic bullet towards the onrushing redhead.

Ranma saw the bolt coming and dodged, seeing no need or reason to tank it. She kept dodging as the man with the rifle kept trying, not bothering to try and fire back just yet. Several cannons and four magical cannon bolts slammed into the ocean, forcing Ranma to swerve off. Not that the steam coming up from the bolts' impacts into the water was dangerous itself, but the heat from that and the mix of that and the cold ocean would have possibly been enough to both activate and cancel out Ranma's curse at the same time. Ranma knew from his/her time at the Tendos' that that was an incredibly painful experience, and had no desire to ever go through it again.

This slowed her advance, keeping her at the range of the cannons, which allowed the pirates' water mage to get into the act. The man moved to the side of his ship, a dark purple and blue magic circle appearing around him as he gestured toward Ranma. "Water Serpent Strikes!"

The plumes of water erupting from his hand were noticeably a different color than Ranma's own Water Magic attacks, looking somewhat purple instead. But they were still powerful, so Ranma dodged them just like the bolts still coming from the cannons.

At the same time, however, the water mage gestured again, and another mage leaped over the side of the ship. He was large, far larger than the Water Mage, and wide in the shoulders. As Ranma watched his body changed, becoming that of some kind of shark. "Take Over, Shark Soul!" He roared, submerging into the ocean and racing towards Ranma.

Shrugging her shoulders, Ranma leaped to one side to dodge another serpent, then used her Water Magic to launch herself up into the air like a dolphin towards the ship. The Water Mage tried to stop him, lashing out with further serpent shaped attacks but Ranma dodged them all easily, landing on the ship seconds before the shark man launched himself out of the water after him. The large shark man landed right behind Ranma and lashed out, catching Ranma in the back of the head.

This launched Ranma forward towards the rest of the crew, who were also all mages of the Holder variety. They raised various magical weapons, but Ranma rolled with the blow, landing in among them and lashing out around her with punches and kicks so fast few of them could even follow them, let alone dodge.

"Damn it! Water Hydra!" James bellowed, lashing out with dozens of thinner, less powerful attacks. These were the equivalent of bullet shots or regular punches, where before his attack had been a cannon in terms of power. But Ranma dodged them just the same, the attacks hammering into the rest of the pirate crew instead.

At the same time Daoshen transformed once more. "Take Over, Kraken!" he roared, his body shifting and becoming slightly larger. His grey skin changed to a rubbery dark red, and six more arms pushed themselves out of himself to either side of his body. Each arm lashed forward as quickly as a kraken's tentacles towards their target.

"Oh, eww! I'm having flashbacks of those damn magazines Hiroshi liked now. Why tentacles, of all things!?" Ranma groused, punching out one of the mages around her as her hands glowed for a moment with a magical circle. "Requip: clubs!" At that command Ranma's clubs appeared in her hands, and she began to lash out, using one to keep the tentacles at bay and the other to add to her offense.

A second later another mage went down, letting Ranma out from among them towards the tentacle man.

"Oh no you don't!" shouted James, lashing out with a massive, condensed water magic attack, the only condensed attack James could do. "Water Spear!" A spear of water lashed down, curving up and over the main gaggle of pirates to smash into the attacker.

But Ranma simply stopped, grinning and opening her mouth. The attack struck, and while the momentum of it seemed to carry Ranma back a bit, it disappeared soon after, the attack drawn into Ranma's mouth. "Ugh. That was strangely disgusting, like you'd added raw onion or something to the water. Blech."

For a moment all of the mages-cum-pirates simply stared while Ranma's body began to thrum with added power. Taking in another person's attack like that added to the strength a Dragon Slayer got when simply eating his or her element, adding more Etherano to it. This was the first time Ranma had ever tried that with her own element, but Typhon had told her about the effect before locking her into the training cave.

Now Ranma sent her clubs back to Requip space and concentrated all her magic into one of her feet, which flared with bright blue magic as water appeared there. "Soryu no Stumpu!" she roared, bringing it down.

The stomp shattered the deck for yards in every direction, tossing mages left and right, though the main weight of the attack was directed further downwards. It crashed through the deck down through several more decks and out the bottom of the ship, shattering the keel.

While the pirates scrambled to regain their balance, the ocean began to come through the hole and the ship swiftly began to sink. "She's taking on water, boys!" came a shout from below.

"Grah!" Daoshen shouted, barreling forward. He had used his tentacles to retain his footing and now hoped to at least take the redhead by surprise.

Ranma, however, simply blocked his attacks, redirecting them easily. For all his added reach and the number of his arms, the pirate was no stronger than he had been as man. Against normal mages or people that was plenty strong enough. Against Ranma…

Letting one of the tentacles smack into her stomach, Ranma let out a long sigh. "Dude, I know little old garden gnomes who hit stronger than you." With that Ranma grabbed a tentacle that had been about to curl around her chest, heaving the man towards her. A fist lashed out, smashing into the man's temple and hurling him backwards and out like a light.

"Damn you!" James roared, racing forward while his crew fell back, his body covered with water now like a suit of armor. This included a spear of water in one hand, the waters of it ready to explode outward at his command.

"You people don't learn well, do ya?" Ranma said, letting the spear smash into her body. The water did no damage, and an instant later she concentrated, opening her mouth wide and breathing in deeply from the mouth, dragging the water from the spear and around James' body into her mouth.

Stunned, James made no move to dodge as a small feminine fist smashed him in the stomach, sending him flying. A second later his flying body was caught by the ankle, and he found himself used to bludgeon several of his crew like a flail. Mercifully he lost consciousness with the second impact.

Dropping the Water Mage's body to the rapidly sinking ship's deck, Ranma looked around at the others and then up into the crow's nest at the few crewmen who hadn't already tried to make a run for the lifeboats. "Anyone else, or do you lot want to show a bit of sense and surrender?"

As the pirates began to surrender en-mass, Ranma smiled. Well, I can cross proving martial artists are better than pirates off my bucket list. Ninjas vs Pirates, my finely toned ass!

OOOOOOO

"Hey, Gramps, we're back." Laxus said calmly, pushing open the doors to the Fairy Tail Guildhall easily and without fanfare as Erza followed him in, her head held high.

A bare millisecond later both Laxus and Erza were picked up by massive hands. "You bastards!" Makarov roared, tossing Erza to one side and bringing his grandson close to shout into his face. "You never learn, again walking in all calm like, and this time it's after you stole an S-class request! Do you think I wouldn't find out what rating it was just because you stole it before I labeled it!?"

"Shishou…" Erza groaned from where she had been tossed. "You didn't?"

"I did," Laxus said, smirking unrepentantly at his grandfather. "And I'm not sorry!"

"Oh, then you're prepared for the punishment, are you!?"

"Hai, Master Makarov. Please hit me!" Erza said, quickly moving to stand ramrod straight in front of him.

Makarov merely flicked her forehead with a thump, causing her head to jolt back slightly, well used to her odd way of wanting to be punished for her mistakes. He kept his real attention on Laxus, whose face paled, but he still stood there, defiant in Makarov's grip. "Bah! That's all for you, Erza. I know you were merely led astray. As for you, Laxus, your punishment will come when you're least expecting it. It will come when I have determined how to fit the punishment to your crime…"

At his words the giant hand grasping Laxus receded until it was tiny, hand patting him on the shoulder, and he leaned in, whispering so Erza could not hear. "Don't make a habit of this, boy. There's only so far I'm willing to bend the rules for you. Did you even think about what would happen to Erza if the two of you got into trouble? You've got no right to put her life into danger too!"

"There was no real danger, Gramps. We were just hunting down pirates. Erza alone would've been able to do that, if slower than we did. You can't keep mollycoddling us. How the hell are we supposed to get strong if we can't spread our wings!"

"There's a difference between showing your strength and using it appropriately," the old man said, thumping Laxus' shoulder with his small hand, which still retained a lot of the strength of the giant one.

As Makarov finished with his grandson, the two Dreyars and Erza became aware of a scuffle going on outside, which quickly entered the Guildhall. The source of the noise was the familiar form of Gray tussling with someone else, a new boy around the same age. He had a long scarf of white cloth made to look like scales, a vest, and loose pants. But his most standout feature was his pink hair.

Cocking his head, Laxus looked at him thoughtfully. "Who's the pink head?"

"Shishou, that's rude!" Erza said, shaking her head and moving over towards the two boys, who had stopped as they had seen Laxus and Erza. The new boy's eyes narrowed dangerously at the insult coming from Laxus, while Gray was watching Erza for a moment. He was happy to see her back, but there seems to be a sort of tenseness around her eyes, a more mature look to them than there had been before.

Erza in turn looked at the two of them and was about to hold out her hand towards the pink haired boy to introduce herself, when he roared, rushing past her, his fist cocked towards Laxus. "My hair isn't pink! It's salmon colored! I'll pound you just like I pounded Gray! Karyu no Kagizume!"

Hearing that attack Laxus started, something only his grandfather noticed, though he put it down to the fact that it'd been a Dragon Lightning lacrima that Laxus' father had embedded in him. The two were no longer close enough that Laxus told his grandfather anything, even his meeting another Dragon Slayer.

Laxus raised a hand, pushing it through the aura of fire around the boy's hand and grabbing his wrist, staring at his own hand thoughtfully. The attack hadn't even warmed his skin. "Disappointing," he muttered. Ah well, I suppose not all Dragon Slayers are created equal.

With that he pulled the boy up to eye level, batting away the boy's attempt to kick or punch him with ease. "You know what? They already have a name for salmon colored. Pink!"

With that he tossed the boy over his shoulder. The boy crashed into one of the nearby tables, the owners of which yelled at Laxus to be more careful, but he ignored them, pulling out his headphones and nodding to his grandfather. "I'll be up top."

"You still haven't earned that right, you know," Makarov replied almost absentmindedly.

"And we both know it's only a matter of time, old man. Just get ready for it." With that Laxus fitted his headphones over his ears, turned up the noise cancellation to high, and moved towards the stairwell leading up to the S-class area, a second floor section that stuck out over a portion of the first floor.

"I'm sorry about that," Erza said, having moved over to the pink haired boy, intent on helping him out of the wreckage of the table he'd smashed into. "My Shishou has a short way with people who attack him unless they make it worth his time to deal with them."

"He's so strong! I thought only Gramps and that Gildarts guy would be that strong," the boy gushed.

"Of course he's strong," Erza replied proudly. "He wouldn't be my Shishou otherwise."

The boy looked up at her, his expression lightning. "Great! Then if I beat you, I'll be on the road to beating him!"

Erza's eyes narrowed, and a fiendish aura appeared around her as she glared down at the boy. "OHOHO?"

The boy looked terrified for a moment. But he still launched himself towards her, fists flaring with fire again.

The next moments were a scene of violence that made many of the regular guild members cringe away from Erza. "Is it just me or has she become even more violent than she was before?" whispered one of them to his drinking buddy.

"I agree. It's got to be Laxus' influence."

"I heard that!" Erza bellowed, turning in that direction. "My Shishou's influence on me has nothing to do with my tendencies to be hard on any of you when you fail to follow the rules or act out in public! As Fairy Tail mages we need to act to a higher standard!"

"First I've heard of it!" said more than one voice, causing Erza to scowl even harder.

Her booming harangue was interrupted, however, as Gray moved over towards the new boy. "Serves you right, flame head! What made you think you could ever even challenge Erza, of all people! You couldn't even beat me!"

His answer was a pained groan as the boy tried to push himself to his feet, flames flickering around his mouth this time. But Erza paid him no mind, simply glaring at Gray. "Gray!"

Gray stiffened, a terrified look coming into his face as he turned towards her. "Y-yes, Erza-sama?"

"What've I told you about stripping in public!?"

Violence again abounded while Laxus leaned back, up high above them, looking down with a smirk on his face. He was very pleased with Erza's progress during their mission, as well as his own. He'd figured out several new attacks and had mastered the ability to take other people with him via his lightning teleportation. It was a massive drain on his Etherano reserves, but he could do it. He'd also mastered several more large-scale attacks.

I'm not quite up to the level Gildarts showed when he swooped in and saved us, but I'm getting closer. And from what happened in Bosco, Ranma is getting stronger too. I wonder if he'll ever come around here. If he does, I'm going to damn sure offer him a position in the guild. Shaking those thoughts off, Laxus turned to his grandfather, who was now sitting on the balcony beside him. "Seriously, when's the next S-class exam again, Gramps? It's time the S-class of Fairy Tail gets some new blood."

Makarov smiled at him and made to pat Laxus on the shoulder, but the hand suddenly changed into a giant's, slamming Laxus down onto the ground of the second floor. "Talking like that after breaking the rules; you've got some guts, brat!"

Later that day, Erza was walking through the town towards her favorite cake store when she spotted Gray coming up behind her. She turned to look at him, hands on her armored hips. "Is there something you wanted to ask, Gray?"

Gray nodded, looking a little sheepish, but also determined. "I wanted to ask you away from the rest of the guild. Don't know if any of the other kids would understand."

Erza sighed, but nodded, indicating that Gray could join her as they walked. Like her, Gray had had a hard life before coming to the guild. But unlike her, Gray had opened up about it to Master Makarov and Erza herself, which showed strength that Erza could only admire. She wanted to be up front about her past with people, but given the threat hanging over her old friends from Jellal, she could not chance it. Though more than once she had thought about confiding in Laxus about it and asking for his help. But the memory of the tower and the events that happened there were still too powerful for her to overcome.

Originally from Iceberg, Gray had trained with another ice mage named Ur. He had wanted to learn Ice Make magic in order to kill a great demon named Deliora. Erza didn't know everything about it; all she knew was that that demon had shown up again a bare year into Gray's training. Still looking distraught weeks after the attack, Gray had shakily told Master Makarov that the demon had been completely healed from the wounds it had taken in a fight with a wandering mage near Ice Town. But worse, it had attacked the city they were staying in along with two others of similar stature, if less strength.

According to Gray, Ur had fought them with the locals, Gray, and a few other mages. They had driven off both of the other demons and beaten Deliora somehow, but Ur herself had died in the doing, along with many of the others and nearly everyone in the city. It had been her final request that he join the guild, which brought him to Fairy Tail barely two months before Erza arrived. He had heard about Fairy Tail from Ur, who had met Makarov at one point and been impressed by him.

"What was it like?" Gray asked abruptly as they turned onto the street which had the cake shop on it.

"What was what like?" Erza asked, more to buy time than because she didn't know.

"What was it like…killing someone?" Gray asked in a low voice.

"It wasn't the first time I've been forced to," Erza replied tiredly, but not elaborating on that. "It was, it was hard. I, I nearly froze a few times. But Shishou was always there to help, and afterwards we actually talked about it. He basically told me it was good to feel bad about it, but that if it was necessary you needed to go about it as well as you could."

"How…"

"We didn't do that it that often," Erza said, shaking her head. "We normally just sunk their ships and took prisoners. But sometimes it was unavoidable, especially when we were fighting other mages as well as dodging cannon fire."

And I had seen real war before this, Erza thought. This was just adding to that… "And the cause was one I was more than willing to fight for." She said that last bit out loud.

Gray nodded. "Yeah, we got some rumors about what's going on in Bosco too. Did you hear what happened in the actual country?"

"Shishou told me, yes. Someone had come through and wiped out the slavers?" Gray nodded again, and Erza went on. "Laxus seems to know something about that, but he didn't want to share with me."

"That's weird," Gray said bluntly.

Erza shrugged. "It's his prerogative." She thought about their mission as well as the look that had sometimes been on Laxus' face, which made her remember the first time she'd seen that wide grin on his face, along with the moment directly before that and the handsome boy she met. Something about his appearance still bothered her, niggling at some memory she couldn't quite bring to mind.

It irritated her something fierce, but she sighed and set it aside to look over at Gray, pushing him lightly in the shoulder as the door to the cake shop opened and the owner himself came out, holding out a massive strawberry cake towards Erza with a grin for his favorite customer. "Enough about me and Shishou's trip. Tell me more about that pink haired boy. Natsu, was it? He's a rather rude fellow, but he seems likable enough. What seems to have sparked this rivalry between you two?"

When the two youngsters got back to the guild, they found Laxus standing by the door, lazily holding Natsu by the back of his head and tossing him up and down. "It's like a ball that keeps on trying to hit me," he deadpanned. "You need to learn some different tactics other than roar and charge, brat."

"Speaking of," he went on, tossing Natsu aside negligently and looking down at Erza. "I've got a bit of an announcement I need to tell you about."

"An announcement, Shishou?" Erza asked, stepping forward and bowing politely to him. She was always much more formal when around the rest of the guild than when the two of them were out on the trail, though Laxus had tried to make her stop.

"Yeah. We've got some more rug rats that arrived while you and I were gone." Laxus nodded over to a girl who looked a little older than Erza. Her face was framed by blonde hair, and she wore small spectacles and a sort of haughty expression. She also had begun to develop curves, which Erza tried not to be irritated at, and was wearing a green dress that hugged her hips and bust line as she stood next to Laxus, looking up at him with something approaching adoration.

"This is Evergreen," Laxus said, nodding to the older girl. "And over there is Freed." The indicated boy was a little taller than Evergreen, with green hair shaved short at the moment, wearing what looked like a butler's uniform for some reason. Erza was quick to spot the fact he had a short rapier at his side, a cheap looking blade for someone with such an elegant outfit.

"I've decided I'm going to be taking all of you under my wing for a bit to train you. The stronger you are, the better it is for Fairy Tail, after all. And I've done such a good job with Erza here I figure I can whip the rest of you in the shape," Laxus said, gesturing at Freed, Evergreen, Gray, and the groaning Natsu.

"Shishou…are you…feeling all right?" Erza asked hesitantly.

Beside her Gray was looking around desperately. "Doctor! Get a doctor here! Laxus is being nice!"

Natsu's moan seemed to dispute that, but a lot of the rest of the guild was also watching this scene in shock.

"What?" Laxus growled, reaching forward to roughly noogie Erza's head mercilessly. "You can't just believe that I'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart?"

"Nope," Gray said, holding up his arms in an X in front of him.

"Not at all," said the rest of the guild as one.

"I am sorry, Shishou, but it is somewhat out of character," Erza said, more respectful than the others, even as she pushed his hand away from her head irritably.

Natsu spoke up too, holding up a hand weakly. "I've known you barely a few hours, and even I can tell you're a bit of an ass."

Now, normally this would indeed be the case. Laxus would sooner cut off his fingers than try to babysit a bunch of brats who didn't have enough magical power to interest him. But his old man had handed down his punishment, and it was a terrible one: train four of the guild's youngsters besides Erza for two months, or spend that same amount of time taking missions dressed in drag.

When Laxus had guffawed and asked Makarov how he'd enforce that, his grandfather had smashed him with his Titan magic and then threatened to enchant the mission board to enchant Laxus should he try to take missions for the next few months. As Laxus had lain practically insensate on the floor, Makarov had then added salt to the wound: regardless of which punishment he took, Laxus would not be eligible for that year's S-class exams. He'd have to wait until next year.

So between publicly humiliating himself, being bored out of his gourd, or training some of the brats, the decision was easy. He'd had trouble thinking of who he wanted to train, but since Cana was out and Levy (she might not have had a lot of magic power, but her magic type was easily the best in terms of support in the guild) had turned his offer down earlier, he decided to go with the three newest punks and Gray on top of Erza.

That hadn't changed his base attitude, however, and at the moment Laxus grinned evilly, lightning appearing all around him in little arcs. "HOHO… It looks like someone's asking for an extra serving of my Lightning Torture Training!"

"Run!" Erza bellowed, twisting around and racing out of the door, Gray and Natsu hot on her heels. Even Natsu didn't want to tangle with the older boy when he had that manic, almost sadistic look on his face.

The other two newcomers were a little slower on the uptake and found themselves hurled out the doors towards the fleeing trio. Within a few steps of the stairs leading up to the guild's entrance their soaring bodies collided with the three runners, bearing all five to the ground.

"Now, now! Don't run; you'll just die, I mean, start training, tired. If that happened you wouldn't be able to perform up to my expectations. That would be such a shame," Laxus drawled, exiting the guild after them with a slow, measured step. The five kids clung to one another as he loomed over them, even Erza looking afraid and wondering what they were in for.

OOOOOOO

"Happy birthday, happy birthday, dear Wendy, happy birthday to you!" Ranma sang in her female form with a smile, finishing the song before nodding towards Wendy. She in turn blew out the candles, a wide, beaming grin on her face.

Wendy actually had no idea of when her birthday was, Grandeeney apparently not having been aware of that human custom, so they had simply decided to use the first day that they had met as her birthday. Her gift was a large shirt with a large six on it, which was apparently her age, according to a pediatrician here in Blue Cove Ranma had taken her to, his initial guess having been off.

The two of them had spent a year here in Blue Cove. This was far more time than Ranma had wanted to spend in one place, honestly, especially one that didn't have anything to offer him magic- or combat-wise. But he couldn't really argue the necessity. Wendy needed to learn to read, write, and have some knowledge of math. But Ranma's ability to teach any of that had not been the best.

To that end Ranma had hired a private tutor to come by every afternoon to teach her. The tutor, an elderly woman, had done a bang up job teaching Wendy to read the local language to a level several years above what Wendy's age would tell anyone.

Under her guidance the little girl had picked up reading a hell of a lot quicker than Ranma remembered he had back in his old world. That had sort of depressed him when he realized it, but he was also rather proud of her achievements.

During that time, of course, Ranma had kept himself busy both by following up on his arrest of the pirates and with his own training. Actually writing up a report to be sent to the King and Queen of Caelum had been tedious in the extreme: he had had to hunt down witnesses, interview a few of the low-ranked mages, and of course make certain that none of them escaped, which was hard until some anti-magic cuffs arrived from the capital.

It had also been discovered that several of the local officials, including the captain of the four small coastal cutters Blue Cove used as harbor officials, and the king's local agents had all been corrupt. All of them had been on the take to not report the depredations of the pirates, and it had only been a few merchants actually sending someone overland to complain that had told the king there was an actual problem. And since they were connected to his original mission, Ranma had been called in to aid the investigations, though again, he had taken cares not to out his Ranger status.

He had also stepped up his own training, what with the ocean right there and Wendy tied up in learning with the tutor. He could now project far heavier attacks, as well as more focused ones. Creating the large water and blood-based sword that had taken Deliora's arm off had nearly killed Ranma at the time. Indeed, it had been recovering from Etherano depletion just as much as his wounds that had kept him bedridden for so long.

Now he could create a water blade of similar size easily and even create several such at the same time with only a little larger drain on his power. Using other liquids was far harder, but Ranma could still do it to a certain extent.

He'd also mastered the single club with one gun style, though he decided it really wasn't his favorite because that style in essence was a compromise between a long-range style and a short-range one. Why bother with it at all when I can switch so easily from one to the other? he thought to himself as he watched Wendy blow out the candles.

That had been the third thing Ranma had done: he had taken his Requip ability to whole new level, working on both control and size. He could now Requip several different items at once, though he still didn't actually have a lot of weapons in his Requip space. He also had begun to use less power to do so, though that was much harder given his lack of affinity with the magic in the first place.

Still, now that Wendy's birthday was over with and her reading level was actually a little beyond her age group, it was time for them to get out on the road once more. Wendy was actually happy about that. She had tried several times throughout the year to make friends with the kids in the city, but she had ignored Ranma's advice about not talking about her mother. The result of the kids being dismissive or scornful about her claim of having been raised by a dragon was a few fights and a lot of tears. Every time after that had ended similarly.

Ranma had, of course, pranked the kids back something fierce. But Wendy, despite having liked living up on the highest floor of an apartment complex (actually in the attic, though it was indeed a regular apartment room), was more than willing to move on and get away from other people for a while.

The very next day the two Dragon Slayers left the city, heading south along a local road to pick up the Straight Path, which actually passed only a few day's travel for the two of them away from the city. They still couldn't move nearly as fast as Ranma could alone without using Vernier, but it was refreshing to be on the road again for both of them. And Wendy still made for a good companion, as she had even when they were stuck in the city.

Hearing her go, "Good morning, Onii-chan", felt really good. He had never thought he'd really take to this whole big brother thing, but it was actually quite fun.

"Okay, Wendy," he said as they finished up making up camp for that first night out from the city. "Let's meditate for the night, then you can practice your Sky Dragon Slayer skills while we eat."

"I still think that's rather rude, big brother, but all right," Wendy replied, trying to bank down her eagerness. This was one of Ranma's lessons: anything could be training, even eating.

As Ranma laid out the food in front of them, a series of barbecued chicken skewers with a side of a salad, Wendy concentrated on one of the skewers on her plate. Magical circles appeared on her arms as she held them in her waist. The air between her and her target vibrated, changing color slightly, and then the skewer began to lift off of her plate, slowing rising toward her mouth.

"Ah… nom, nom, nom!" Wendy munched down, tearing little bites out of the side of the skewer, which hovered in front of her face.

Ranma grinned proudly at that, giving her a thumbs up as he finished his own plate. "Well done, Wendy. Keep it up, and tomorrow we'll start merging that ability with your physical training in the morning."

The next day Ranma began to start training Wendy in the Aerial Style of Anything Goes. He'd trained her over the past year in how to anticipate punches by looking at her opponent's upper body, how to fall, and how to direct her Sky Dragon Slayer magic out of her feet, a build up from her Spinning Tail attack. Now he began to incorporate that into teaching Wendy how to use Aerial Style Anything Goes.

This practice consisted of Ranma ordering her to use her magic to hop around in the air, pushing directly off the ground with a blast of air magic like a cannon. Wendy hopped in the air a few hundred times over the next few days, the effort of keeping her body up in the air far harder than keeping an inanimate object in a similar position via air currents.

Eventually, however, she was able to do it, hopping in the air above Ranma's head. "I did it!" Then Wendy gave a whoop as she accidentally put too much magic in one of her feet, flinging her up and to the side.

Despite the sudden loss of control, Ranma caught her easily. "Good job! We'll work on that until you're comfortable bouncing around, and then we'll start incorporating actual fighting techniques into it."

Wendy nodded eagerly, but Ranma didn't notice the gleam in her eyes. For the next week they traveled from Blue Port down to where the local road intersected the Straight Path. This road wasn't used often these days, thanks to the railroad system taking over most travel in Seven. But for the two Dragon Slayers this was much more confortable, aided further by the nice weather, and the two siblings had a fun time as they traveled and trained, camping out in the trees as often as they could, Wendy's love of high places having never diminished.

However, there was an incident when they reached the Straight Path and stayed at an inn…

Ranma was asleep in one of the beds, having gotten a room with two beds despite Wendy's pout. After all, they couldn't always cuddle. However, he woke up to a bit of a creaking noise by the window to their room. Opening an eye he saw Wendy standing there, trying to open the window without making noise, an effort that had already failed. "What are you up to, Wendy?"

"Onii-chan!?" Wendy shouted, clutching at her chest, as Ranma's sudden question had scared her. "I…um…I'm not doing anything," she said, in the most obvious example of lying that Ranma had ever seen. "Seriously, Wendy, what're you up to? And don't try to lie again, Wendy. You're not very good at it."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Wendy asked, cocking her head to one side.

"Most of the time, yeah, but sometimes it's necessary. I'll tell you when, though," Ranma said.

"Okay," Wendy said with a nod before looking away, pouting. "I'm heading up to the roof. I wanted to use my powers to get up there. After all, we're on the first floor here. I don't like that. High places are best places," she repeated her oft used line.

Ranma thought about it, then winked at her. "You know, the one thing that tent of ours is supposed to do that we've never been able to test is its ability to be set up on an incline. What say we go test that?"

Wendy grinned and hugged him around the middle before Ranma opened the window and they both crawled out. Wendy hopped into the air and then up towards the roof, nearly falling or sending herself sideways several times, but she still was eventually able to ascend to the roof of the five story inn, and even landed lightly.

Not able to use Wendy's Sky Dragon Slayer magic (they'd tried to teach one another their different magics a time or two, and the efforts had failed badly, as badly as Wendy's attempt to use Requip), Ranma simply relied on his physical abilities. Closing the window after them, he leaped up, catching the edge of the roof and flipping himself up further to land lightly on his toes, smirking at Wendy in the night. "Now, help me get the tent set up," he whispered conspiratorially, causing Wendy to have to muffle her giggles.

They were shouted at the next morning, of course, but Ranma thought it was worth it.

But from there they continued their journey, barely covering ten miles a day, putting nearly all of their time into training and learning, and frankly, just having fun. One morning in particular showed this.

The two Dragon Slayers had stopped by a stream that crossed the path, a large stone bridge arching across. To one side of the trail an area of grassland had been cleared and paved with wood chips, a camping site for travelers. The two of them set up camp for the day even though it was barely lunchtime by the time they reached it. They slept outside that night rather than use the tent, it being too nice a night to hide from the stars above, and Ranma actually slept in the next day since Wendy had said she'd wanted to try her hand at preparing breakfast.

But instead of waking up to the smells of breakfast, Ranma woke up to a splash of water from Wendy. She stood over the small stream, her hands and feet glowing white with her magic as she laughed aloud. "Sky Dragon's Wave attack!" she shouted. "Time to get up, Onii-chan!"

Ranma pushed herself to her feet, wringing out her wet hair behind her with one hand and pulling at her shirt with the other, laughing quietly. "Trying to fight a Water Dragon Slayer with water; you've got guts, at least, Wendy. Guts, but no sense! Have at thee!"

After that the two of them began perhaps the most overpowered splash fight that had ever been seen in all of Ishgar. Ranma found the shocked looks of the passersby to be rather hilarious. Wendy, soaked to the bone but still grinning, launched herself forward, forgoing the use of water to body slam Ranma backwards.

Ranma let her smash into him, actually flopping onto her back. Wendy quickly scuttled up to perch on the redhead's chest, letting out a cute little roar of victory as she pumped her arms in the air. That this also protected the drenched Ranma, whose clothing was now sticking to her practically-back-to-Nerima-standards body, was a bonus.

Yes, all in all, for the two Dragon Slayers, life was going just about perfect. Elsewhere, however, life wasn't going so well for another child…

OOOOOOO

"W, What's wrong with my mom?" asked a young, blonde-haired girl to a woman dressed like a maid. That worthy frowned, but sighed and knelt down in front of the girl, her own face sorrowful.

OOOOOOO

"You have got to be kidding me!" Ranma groused, staring at the communication image of the king of Seven that had just come out of his brooch. The brooch had begun to heat up a few minutes ago and Ranma had quickly sought out a place without any witnesses around to see what was happening. Rose had used the brooch to contact Ranma a few times when he stayed in her palace to look through her library, so he knew what was going on, but not who was contacting him until the image formed at his touch to the leaf.

"Okay, I get that you've figured out how to use the communication enchantments between the king and my brooch. Great. But what do you mean you want me to turn back? We've damned well just reached the border with Fiore, and you want to send me to Joya?!"

Ranma hadn't been there, admittedly, the Straight Path not going through that nation. Apparently Joya had been a part of Stella in the distant past, until the two countries broke apart peaceably when the king had sired twins several generations back. A peaceful split like that was so unusual that Ranma had made a note of it. Both countries, however, retained the same writing style and the same economy, being very much the metal masters of the peninsula. Stella specialized in iron, steel, and silver, Joya: coal, diamonds, and bronze.

But the most important thing right now was that getting there from where Ranma and Wendy were would be way too much like retracing his steps for Ranma's liking. Further, this was the second time this particular king had jerked his chain. He didn't want him to get into the habit of just jerking Ranma's Ranger chain every time he wished. Ranma all too easily remembered how the anti-piracy mission had spiraled into an anti-corruption mission in Blue Cove. Solve your own damn problems, dammit!

"Actually, this isn't about me asking you to investigate something that had begun in my country and spread to Joya, as you seem to think. Nor is it even anything myself and my counterpart King Glondrul want you to do. No, this is something that we desperately need a Ranger for. There has been a demon sighting in Joya," the king of Seven replied grimly. He seemed to have aged five years in the year and a half since Ranma had seen him in person, and now had the gravitas he had lacked before, which didn't make his words any more palatable. "Three of them, according to some disjointed reports."

Ranma growled, crossing his arms and looking back at the king's projected image grimly. "Tell me," he said, or rather, ordered.

"The reports are sketchy at best about two of them, so I would discount them entirely as they apparently look like people, and there have been no reports of actual attacks. At least, none which have reached Glondrul's ears. They might not be demons at all. It is more likely they are mages whose powers have effected their appearance."

"Okay I get that, but why isn't Glondrul getting in touch with me himself?" Ranma interjected. "Is there some kind of distance limitation on this communication enchantment?"

"Yes, and he is also hip deep in trying to put together a military response to this event too," Meredrain replied dryly. "We aren't going to put all our hopes on just your shoulders, after all, Ranma."

"Heh, good to know. Will I be working with the military on this then?" Ranma asked.

"No. The demon we are worried about is seemingly able to fly, or at least leap hundreds of leagues at a bound. The military simply can't keep up, and the Mage Guilds in Joya either refuse to ask for help or have already attempted to fight it and have lost men and women. Glondrul's head of magical development, his equivalent of his guild spokesman, says the best thing the nation can do is prepare each city for as quick an evacuation as can be done. This is impossible, of course, given Joya's mountainous geography. There's a lot of background political infighting going on in Joya too, but you don't need to know the details."

Seven didn't have the same kind of organization as Iceberg or Pergrande. They had a mage council like Fiore, but it was more devoted to organizing ongoing magical research than policing the guilds, and rarely if ever were involved in actually assigning missions. The king had a single guild spokesman who was the mage's voice and ears in his cabinet, but that was a separate posting from the mage council.

"Understood. What's known about this demon? Is it Deliora?" Ranma asked, eagerness showing clearly in his tone. This time I'm not going to win on a technicality, demon. I'm going to just kick your fucking ass!

Meredrain shook his head. "Not according to a few scattered reports from the survivors of its rampage. This demon is red and seems to have stone skin. I understand that Deliora was mostly gray and blue colored and made of flesh rather than actual stone?"

"You wouldn't have been able to tell the difference from his skin's toughness," Ranma replied with a shrug. "All right, this is something I'm your best bet to solve, unless you can get a wizard saint, anyway. Though I'll have to drop Wendy off somewhere nearby as I do it."

He looked out the window of their room to where Wendy was playing with some of the local kids. A town had grown at the border crossing between Fiore and Seven, which had always been friendly neighbors, apparently. The kids were playing hopscotch, of all things, which had weirded Ranma out of first. After all, there should be a limit to how many things are alike from one universe to the next. The game, he could understand that being the same; they had similar muskets and other things. But the name carrying over too? That was just weird.

"All right, I'll turn back, and we won't even go at the same lazy snail pace we've been moving. I estimate that with Wendy helping me I can cover as much distance in a day as I could by myself in four or five if we push. Do I have to get in contact with the king of Joya when I cross over from Stella?"

"No. In point of fact, he doesn't even want to know what you look like, let alone your abilities, beyond your ability to take on this demon. As I said, politics. The mages, Glondrul, and his nobles are going through a bit of a rocky period, and the inclusion of a powerful foreign mage on top of this demon issue could tip the whole thing into outright conflict," the king replied. "Just save as many of his citizens as you can; that's all we ask."

Ranma nodded, and without a further word cut the connection. The king might've thought that rude, but Ranma didn't particularly care right now. He stuck his head back out the window, shouting down to the kids. "Hey, Wendy! I'm going to start packing us up. I've got another job I need to do, and we need to leave here as soon as possible."

The now six and a half-year-old girl pouted up at her big brother, but Ranma shook his head. "None of that, now! Its part and parcel of being what I am."

Wendy still continued to pout, but she didn't comment on Ranma's Ranger status openly. Ranma had drilled into the girl that it was a secret, and she traveled with Ranma willingly, even casting her lightening spell on the two of them as Ranma raced onward, carrying her on his back rather than his head, as was her favored position.

But Ranma could still feel her pouting into the back of his head as she clung to him like a limpet. "All right!" he shouted after several minutes of racing on. "What will it do to get me out of the doghouse?"

"Put on a light play?" Wendy said, suddenly all smiles behind him.

Ranma realized he had just been played, but shook his head and decided not to make an issue of it. There were worse things, after all, than putting on a light show with the powers he had copied/stolen from the caravaners in Desierto. "All right, I'll put on a play when we stop for sleep. Just don't ask me to try and create any musical accompaniment. You know that I've never been able to get them to sound anything like they should."

"Yep," Wendy agreed, then added as an afterthought, "but your voice is okay."

"Ya didn't have to agree with me so fast, and what do you mean by just 'okay'?" Ranma asked, mock angrily, making to drop Wendy, causing the girl to squeal and hold onto him all the tighter.

OOOOOOO

Laxus was once more enjoying his second favorite pastime, or perhaps third favorite if he counted listening to music: watching the comings and goings of the guild all around him. As he did, little bits and pieces caught his attention from the total chaos.

In one corner Cana and Evergreen were arguing something with Freed and Levy, who seemed to be winning the argument, if Freed's smug grin was any indication. The two girls across from him looked ready to smash his face in, which said something, since Cana wasn't one to resort to violence easily. Should I tell Freed to tamp his ego down…? Nah. That'd give Gramps too much of an opening. And being angry looks kind of hot on Evergreen anyway.

In another corner several of the older mages were arguing the merits of the latest Sorcerer's Weekly pinup by Karen Lillica. A few of those doing the arguing were mages Laxus knew to be married. I suppose she's sexy enough, but she's what, twenty-five or so? And honestly, it isn't as if there aren't attractive girls in the guild. Evergreen's sexy as all hell, and Cana and Erza are gonna be stunners in a few years. Actually, come to think of, it I'm glad the old men haven't noticed that. It would be freaking wrong if they had.

But one portion of that tableau caught Laxus' more than the others, thanks to what his limited magical senses were telling him. Three newcomers to the guild were speaking quietly to his grandfather. All three of them looked enough alike that it was obvious they were siblings. They had the same silver hair and the same general appearance, though it was far more obvious in the two girls' faces then between the two girls and their brother.

The girl in the lead was the oldest one, though she was a little shorter than the boy. She was dressed like a punk rocker of some kind and seemed aggressive as she talked to his grandfather, leaning over his short frame with a scowl on her face. Laxus could feel the power coming from her and was pleased. The Guild is attracting stronger members, excellent! But still…why another girl?

Okay, so it's not like the guys aren't strong, Laxus mused to himself as he leaned back, putting his feet up on the table as he drank a beer which he'd swiped for one of the older members. Freed's turning out very nicely with his rapier skills and those runes of his, even if he's a little clingy. And that new guy he brought in a few days ago, the one with the doll magic, he's got some potential too. But as for Natsu and Gray, they're strong. They're probably stronger than Freed or the new guy, but they can't fucking stay on task!

Natsu was the picture of dysfunction in Laxus' view. He never wanted to train like Laxus and Erza did, though he was willing to do calisthenics exercises, push-ups, and sit-ups, that kind of thing. But when it came to learning actual forms and fighting styles, he ignored their instruction or just ran off. He simply threw himself at anyone he felt was stronger than him, apparently wanting to learn through fighting.

It was working…sort of. But it was a lot slower than he could've been learning if he could just take some instruction.

The black-haired boy from Iceberg had issues too, beyond stripping every second he wasn't concentrating on not doing so. He had a major attitude problem towards Laxus for some reason, couldn't stop stripping, didn't see the point of trying to learn actual martial styles, and like Natsu, refused to even try to learn any new magic.

Erza in contrast had learned Guns Magic and a few other supplementary magical abilities to go along with her astonishing affinity with Requip and Weapons Control. At this point Laxus was actually wondering if he should petition his old man to start teaching her some of the Fairy Tail Guild special spells. Laxus actually hadn't learned any of them yet, but he knew of their existence and figured Erza had both the magical power and the will to pull them off, just like Laxus did. 'Course, the old man hasn't taught me any of them yet either. That should come first, heh.

Coming back to the here and now, Laxus saw Erza moving through the Guild and smiled at his little protégé. Laxus had never attempted to change her attitude or get her to open up or anything, but at least when it came to fighting she was his protégé.

Activating his lightning powers, Laxus disappeared from where he had been sitting to reappear at the bar, sliding into a seat smoothly and leaning back to watch the action from closer up. Something told him this was going to be good.

Natsu saw him from nearby and shouted, "Laxus! Fight me!" Without further warning he charged his hands, flaring up with his fire magic.

But Laxus shot a little lightning bolt towards his feet, causing Natsu to hop up and down for a moment in pain. "Not right now," he said simply, turning back to watch the show.

By this time Erza had reached the newcomers and was holding out her hand to them, one after another. The two Laxus wasn't interested in were apparently named Elfman and Lisanna. They shook Erza's hand timidly, but willingly.

The third newcomer, who was named Mirajane according to her sister, looked down at her hand and smacked it away, sneering at her before turning to look at Makarov. "Who's the armored fatso?" she asked the swiftly paling guild master. "And why's she acting as if she's some kind of tour guide or class rep?"

"What did you call me?" Erza bellowed, a sword appearing in her hand with only a scant flicker of Requip power. She'd been working on using less magic for her Requip spells, which had resulted in lessening the splash she made when she called upon any of her Requipped items.

"I thought I was clear Ginger or does that hair dye of yours get in the way of your hearing?" Mirajane shouted back.

Laxus winced. Even he couldn't get away with calling Erza a ginger.

As such her reaction was rather predictable: Erza bellowed a challenge, gesturing out towards the door. "If you want to fight, let's go outside! "

In response Mirajane hit Erza hard in the armored chest sending her skidding backwards. "Nah," she said, grinning evilly. "Let's just fight right here. It's raining out, after all."

Erza righted herself quickly, coming back in at her enemy. "Cheap shot! But I suppose I shouldn't expect much from a whore like you!"

"What was that!?"

"You heard me," Erza said deliberately, using the same words that the newcomer had a moment ago. "Any girl who dresses like you has to be a harlot, or, I'm sorry, are you just a slut!"

Laxus laughed, sticking his hands behind his head and leaning back as he watched the two duking it out, with Natsu, Gray, and the other kids all staring on in shock. Nearby, his grandfather began to cry at the amount of damage they were doing to his guildhall but Laxus continued to laugh. Ahh, good times.

OOOOOOO

As Ranma had predicted, it took him and Wendy barely a week to travel through Seven, Iceberg, and Stella to Joya's border. Their trip was aided by the number of trains that ran between Seven and the westernmost portion of Iceberg. That portion of Iceberg was not part of the escarpment that made up the majority of the country, though it was still north enough that it was always cold. And, thanks to influxes of Seven's technology and investments from elsewhere, it was actually the richest, most developed portion of the snow-blighted country.

Though of course taking those trains was a bit of hardship for the two Dragon Slayers, even with Wendy's spells helping them. Any trip on a train was a hardship, given the fact that her spell would only last a bare few hours. But using the trains allowed them to cut through Seven and Iceberg in two days. Going through Stella and Iceberg after they left the trains behind took them longer, of course, but Wendy's Vernier spell helped there too.

Entering Joya, Ranma was surprised that there didn't seem to be any kind of panic going on: no sign of mass migration or anything. He wondered at first if that was because the king and everyone else who knew about the rampaging demon had decided to keep a lid on it in order to stop a panic.

However, as they traveled deeper into Joya he realized the real reason, a fact Wendy gave voice to as they ascended yet further into the mountains, the air brisk around them due to both the height and the fact that it was morning now. "It's so mountainy! I wonder if there are any dragons here?"

"It's an idea, Wendy. This is certainly the kind of terrain where you'd imagine a dragon could make its home. After I'm done my job, we'll hit up a few of the local libraries, and I'll ask some questions from the local innkeepers too," Ranma replied, pausing as he made sure of his footing for a moment before continuing their ascent.

Wendy nodded once to that, breathing in the air happily. It tasted different this high up, a little thicker, like a chowder rather than a soup, or something like that, she thought. Wendy always had trouble trying to think of ways of describing how it tasted to other people, even Ranma. When Ranma drank water he got flavors; when Wendy ate air she got impressions and sensations.

Joya was a land of barely interconnected valleys and very, very high mountains, which reminded him somewhat of the mountains in Pergrande, only far rockier and steeper in a lot of places below the snow line. It's almost like the Himalayas, Ranma thought, but with less snow, thanks to a few of the mountains apparently being semi dormant volcanoes. That thought came to his mind now, as he stared out into the distance, where he could see steam rising off of an air vent in the distance.

From where she was clinging to his back, Wendy sniffed the air and twitched in that direction, leaning her body that way. "Can we go see what that is?"

"Maybe later, Wendy," Ranma said, pointing ahead and down into the next valley. "Look, we're almost to the next town."

Wendy did indeed look, and well below their current position on the trail was indeed a town. The trail they were on zigzagged down the mountainside for some distance, disappearing from view in several different areas before finally touching down in the valley below. "I don't think you can say we're close," she said, then giggled. "Unless you're going to…"

"Yep, better make sure you've got a tight hold back there," Ranma said, backing away slightly.

As she tightened her grip, Wendy felt her back touch the side of the mountain behind her, which was quite close here. The trail they'd been following was one no cart could ever travel rather than any kind of real road. The two of them had been traveling the regular road, which between Stella and the first few valleys of Joya was actually quite good, but that road had ended a few valleys ago, where Ranma had called the King of Seven and been told to keep going southeast.

A second after Wendy remembered that, Ranma raced forward towards the edge of the trail then threw himself off with a whoop.

"Yee-haw!" Wendy and Ranma both caroled in joy as they flew through the air, falling quickly down, down, down the mountain. About halfway down Wendy thrust out her arms. Against the air pressure of their descent that should've been impossible for a girl her age and build, but Wendy was the Sky Dragon Slayer. That meant she was both stronger than she appeared, even without Ranma's training, and that air pressure like this was nothing to her.

"Soryu no Nobashita Tsubasa! (Sky Dragon's Flaring Wings)" she shouted. From her outstretched hands, magical circles appeared and grew into the appearance of semi-solid wings of condensed air, which worked almost like a balloon, slowing their descent. She couldn't keep it up for long; she wasn't that strong, and calling on her power to this degree was a major drain on her magical resources. But with Ranma's mastery of the Aerial Style of Anything Goes, she didn't have to.

Ranma easily controlled their descent through the air, flipping himself a few times to burn off more of their acceleration. Then an instant later they hit the tree line. Ranma swiftly lashed out with his hands, grabbing branches and using them to flip around more, slowing his descent while Wendy clung to his back with both arms and legs once more.

Soon they were through the branches, and Ranma flipped them a final time before landing like a gymnast coming off the high bars, his arms stretched wide to either side. "Tada!"

"EEEEEE!" Wendy laughed behind him, throwing her arms up with him and whooping. "That was so much fun!"

"Weall now, I've never seen someone in that much of a rush to try our food," said one of the locals, a farmer by the looks of him, in a drawling sort of voice. He had been staring at them through the trees in shocked horror moments before, but then in dawning amusement as he saw them slow down. "What guild you two from? Feel sorry for your oldsters, I does."

"We're looking to join a guild, actually," Ranma lied, with Wendy nodding agreement. Ranma had coached her on that before, and with her being so shy towards strangers she had no wish to join a guild anyway. "But what do you mean, 'to try your food?'"

"Weall, it's the Autumn Festival, ya see," the man replied, gesturing for them to look up into the trees.

Only then did the two Dragon Slayer siblings notice that the trees were heavily laden with a kind of fruit they'd never seen before. They looked like apples, but their skin was a bright neon orange color.

"What are those?" Wendy asked, eagerly reaching for one.

Ranma, however, reached up quickly and took her hand. "This man probably owns them, Wendy. You can't just take one."

"How can you own trees?" Wendy grumbled, but subsided. Some aspects of human society still eluded her. She leaned against Ranma's back, propping her chin on his shoulder as they both looked at the farmer for an explanation.

The man smiled, then took one of the fruits himself and tossed it towards Ranma, who ducked forward to let Wendy catch it. She fumbled the catch, but eventually snagged the fruit out of the air, chomping into it hungrily.

"Wes call them there oraples. They's can be sliced and diced like apples, but they's taste like oranges. They're a specialty of our valley; wea even trade 'em to the other valleys around. And because of that and the fact that wea produce quite a bit a wheat too, we have a festival every year 'round this time. This year's 'specially big, 'cause the mayor's son's getting married ta one of the local lasses. People from all over the country come ta taste our food at this time a year."

While Wendy made appreciative noises and chomped down on the oraple, Ranma simply nodded and asked for directions to the nearest inn. Once they arrived, the innkeeper told them it was packed full, but that didn't matter to Ranma and Wendy, since they had their tent.

Ranma set it up in a small, out-of-the-way area of the town's fairgrounds after paying the innkeeper a small fee. Once the tent was set up, Ranma knelt down next to Wendy. It was time to do the thing he'd been dreading since being told about the rampaging demon: leave Wendy behind while he hunted it down. But finding this fair was too good a distraction for him to pass it by.

"All right, Wendy," he said softly. "This is the part where I have to leave you, okay?" Wendy looked both rebellious and teary at that, but Ranma rubbed her head softly. "I'll be back soon, but you know I never planned to let you come near a demon, okay?"

Ranma had told Wendy of his run-in with Deliora and that his mission here was to take on a demon of similar size, trying to convince her she couldn't come along. She wasn't happy about that and had thrown her equivalent of a temper tantrum twice, which was basically weeping and clinging to him without any of the recriminations or violence that accompanied normal temper tantrums. This didn't make it any easier to deal with for the first time big brother.

He had wound up promising to buy Wendy several books she'd been looking at recently in the towns they passed through. Which, given how he'd spent most of the money he'd had entering Seven years ago on their camping equipment and paying for Wendy's reading tutor, was going to hurt. Then again, after this mission I suppose I could demand the kings pay me for these little trips. Fair is fair, after all.

This might not have worked now that it had come to the point where he'd actually leave, but Ranma's plea that she stay behind was helped by the fact that Wendy, despite his training and general attitude slowly starting to rub off on her, didn't actually like fighting. She liked training, primarily because it helped her to use her magic powers better in order to fly like they had just done earlier and to heal better too. That and it was something to do with her Onii-chan. She really wasn't that combative an individual, though she had proved on occasion that when called upon, she could take care of herself these days.

"I understand, Onii-chan," she said, kicking the ground and looking away.

"How about this, Wendy," Ranma said with an internal sigh, looking around the fair that was slowly taking shape. "How about you find the five most fun-looking things for us to do here, and the ten best things for us to eat," he said motioning to his mouth and making chomping noises, "while I go off and do my Ranger thing. And if there is a dress or something like that here that takes your fancy, make a note of it, and I'll buy it when I get back."

Ranma wasn't actually worried about letting Wendy on her own. She might still be a very young girl, but with Ranma's training she had become quite a bit tougher than any normal person would ever assume. And they had trained her magical abilities up to a point where she could take on even normal mages, let alone ordinary people. Her physical durability to damage was still very low, since Ranma was loath to try and train her in any kind of toughness technique, but her speed was decent, easily above that of most normal people.

"Mmm!" Wendy replied, smiling a little at the idea and pulling out a little notebook she had bought. "How long do you think you'll be gone?"

The notebook was a very cutesy one, with an animal like a polar bear on the front being ridden by a super-deformed chibi person. Ranma understood that it was a series of books that were just a little bit above Wendy's current reading level, but she had become enamored of them because of the accompanying pictures. Strangely enough she hadn't ever asked Ranma to read one of the books to her, wanting to go back and read them when she could. This was something Ranma was quite happy about, since they looked incredibly girly.

"No idea," Ranma said with a shrug. "I paid for us to stay here for a week, but I can't promise to be back in that time. I hope I will be, and I'll shoot for only a few days, but it depends on how long it takes me to find this demon I'm hunting."

As if the gods were hearing him, his brooch began to glow just then, the dull light indicating that one of the kings was getting in touch with him.

The two siblings looked at one another, and Ranma hung his head. Wendy reached up, patting his head with a giggle. "Silly Onii-chan, tempting fate like that," she said, parroting a phrase she'd heard Ranma say more than a few times as he described his life in Nerima as if it had happened to someone else. She was also happy this would probably mean her big brother wouldn't be gone for very long.

Sighing, the two of them entered the tent, and Ranma activated his brooch. "Meredrain?"

"This is not King Deucius," said a deeper, older voice on the other end, it's tone close to panicky, but not quite. "This is the king of Joya, Glondrul the Magnificent. I realized I had told Deucius I didn't want to contact you directly, but I am afraid I have no choice. The demon is attacking one of my towns even as I speak to you. The guild there is attempting to drive him off, but their guild master did not sound at all positive about their chances. Where are you now?"

For a moment Ranma balked, not having gotten the name of the town they were in. Wendy, however, supplied "We're in the town that has those yummy oraples."

"How the…." the man on the other hand stammered. "You're, you're near to the center of Joya already!?"

"We travel fast," Ranma said calmly. "Now tell me, where is the demon from here?"

"Barely two valleys over from your current position, straight southwest. If you've traveled that far that fast, you could be within three hours distance, maybe? The going gets a little easier after the next mountain you have to traverse. And don't worry: the guild, the Mountain Spears, will keep his attention on them for that long, one way or another. "

"Understood," Ranma said, then flicked off the connection, tapping the brooch twice on the green inset portion before looking down at Wendy and holding out his arms. "Hug?"

Wendy scrambled into his arms and hugged his neck tightly, pushing her face against the crux of his neck and shoulder. "Stay safe, Onii-chan," she said, her voice wavering as she fought back tears.

Ranma hugged her far more gently, smirking down at her. "I'll try, little sister. But if I come back hurt, you'll be here to help me, right?"

She nodded, still nuzzling into his shoulder, before reluctantly backing away, and holding up her hands in front of him. Magic circles appeared around them again, and she cast Vernier on him. Ranma stood up, leaned down quickly to kiss her on the forehead, and then exited the tent, breaking out into a flat sprint towards the southwest.

With Wendy's spell powering him and now on his own, Ranma raced through the valley up the side of the mountain as fast as he could go. He leaped from rock to crag, scrambling up like a monkey in places, eyes quickly shifting here and there to search for the easiest route through, and always keeping in mind the direction he was going.

It took Ranma a little longer than he had hoped, but he was soon up and over the mountain, coming down on the other side. This one seemed to have been a dormant volcano in the distant past, the rock on this side being a mix of pumice and obsidian. That would've slowed down any normal traveler, who would've feared getting cut or losing his footing on such uneven terrain.

But Ranma didn't slow down, barreling forward heedlessly, trusting in his balance to keep his feet. There were a few close calls, but he kept on going. As he did, Ranma heard the roar of a beast in the distance like thunder beyond the mountain. Looking around quickly, he figured out the direction from that sound and then kept going, racing on as quickly as possible. In this manner Ranma traveled the equivalent of a normal man's twelve day's travel in barely an hour and a half rather than the three the king had hoped for.

Eventually Ranma broke through an overgrown crevasse between one mountain and the next to stare down into the valley below from an angle far lower than the one he and Wendy had stood on to look down at the town he'd left her in. Below he could see the thing making the noise, as it let out another roar fit to shake stone apart.

From where he stood, Ranma could tell that this demon, while built along the same lines as Deliora, was a little shorter: only twelve stories tall rather than fifteen. It also had red skin that did look very rocky, as he had been told, with deep violet claws and two massive fangs sticking up from its lower jaw, rather than the horns that Deliora had. It also didn't seem to have any hair to speak of, but from where he stood Ranma saw dozens of stone spikes sticking out from his back and arms. It did have the same birdlike legs as Deliora, which told Ranma that balance would be an issue.

As Ranma pushed his way through the scrub, he saw that this demon also seemed to be a little more vicious than Deliora. Deliora had simply crushed anything in its way, but hadn't seemed to care about searching out individual humans among the wreckage. This one was standing there in the center of the destroyed town, tearing buildings apart to get at the people in them.

This might have had something to do with the fact that the locals were fighting him far better than the mages in Iceberg had. Several glowing runes surrounded him here and there, evidence that the mages had known he was coming and had lain traps, which seemed to be slowing the demon down somehow. There are also very few people around, and Ranma could see a string of refugees on the other side of the town from his current position.

But that wasn't going to save them. The mages here didn't have powerful enough magic to fight this demon, and as Ranma watched while still racing forward, one of them was snatched up out of the rubble of a building. He tried to lash out with what looked like Staff Magic of some kind, a bolt of lightning coming out of his weapon.

The spell smacked into the demon's face, but it was like the flick of a fly to the demon. A second later Ranma saw the demon raise the mage to his mouth and chomp down, biting off the mage's head and upper body as if the mage was a candy bar. All around him other mages attempted to attack the demon, but the demon ignored them in favor of finishing his grisly meal.

By the time he did, however, Ranma was close enough to make certain that it didn't go back for seconds. From his feet grew magical circles, and a geyser of water launched Ranma into the air as he gathered magic into a massive fist, just like he had to start the battle against Deliora. "Soryu no Kyojin Panchi! (Water Dragon's Titan Punch)"

The fist of water slammed into the demon's side, throwing the demon sideways, but it righted itself quickly, turning in the attacker's direction. It roared a challenge, its voice thundering out so loudly that it actually hurt Ranma's sensitive ears like physical blows, but Ranma had already disappeared under the Umi-Sen-Ken.

As it smashed its way out of the town to look for him, Ranma waited nearby, and when it came out, he launched another attack at the demon's back, an even larger fist hammering into the back of the demon's head, hurling it forward, head over tail. The demon righted itself with a roar, twisting around on all fours, surprisingly quickly. Its mouth began to glow, and it launched several beam attacks, pulses in comparison to the constant beam of Deliora's version.

But this demon could also aim those attacks. One of them flashed out for where Ranma was in midair, visible once more, having not canceled his water fist just yet. The other was aimed toward the fleeing townspeople.

Ranma instantly knew that he could conjure a Water Shield, the same kind of defense he'd used to re-direct Deliora's attack. But he could only conjure it in sufficient strength to completely shield one of the two targets, given the distance between his current position and the line of fleeing townsfolk. With that in mind, Ranma shot out one arm towards the refugees, shouting, "Soryu no Shahei Kyutai! (Water Dragon's Shielding Globe)"

Instantly a shield of water dozens of yards thick appeared between the attack and the refugees. The condensed water, almost as solid as ice under the strength of Ranma's will, took the attack. As the refugees shouted in confusion and fear, the beam of superheated gas, or whatever it was, dissipated the shield entirely, but was also absorbed by it at the same time, saving them.

This left Ranma to use his Titan Fist to protect himself, which he did. The Titan Fist had size, speed, and force behind its punches, but it wasn't nearly as solid or dense as the shield. As a defense, it failed, the beam streaking through it, dissipating the fist and slamming into Ranma with enough force to hurl him back over the town.

Hissing in pain, Ranma pushed himself to his feet, his clothing shredded here and there, and his skin blistered, but his healing ability was already kicking in. Ranma knew the wounds would be healed within seconds, so he ignored them.

The demon roared triumphantly, leaping across the town to land on Ranma, bringing its feet down on his position.

"Soryu no Senkai Yoroi! (Water Dragon's Whirling Armor)" Ranma roared in response, coating himself with the same kind of armor he had used against Deliora.

The foot came down with predictable results, shredding itself against the rapidly swirling armor. The demon roared again but this time in agony rather than its habitual rage, stumbling back as half of its birdlike foot disappeared.

But Ranma didn't let up, lashing out immediately with "Soryu no Setsudane Tsume! (Water Dragon's Cutting Claw)"

This time Ranma was able to send that attack forward hard enough to cut into the demon's other foot, right below the birdlike knee, slicing into it deeply, though its bones blunted the attack just like Deliora's had. Still not strong enough, curse it. Going to have to put more magical power into my attacks from now on!

Barely able to stand now, the Demon lashed out with its fists, noticeably faster than Deliora. But Ranma still dodged them, leaping up onto the side of one and racing along it towards the demon head, then hopping to its other arm and doing the same.

But then the red demon did something Deliora hadn't been able to. "RGROAO!" with that roar numerous tiny magical circles appeared, each around one of the spikes protruding out of its arms and back. Then they all launched themselves into the air before coming down, homing in on Ranma like little heat-seeking rockets.

Ranma dodged desperately, throwing himself off the demon's arm, trying to disappear in midair with the Umi-Sen-Ken. But the spike things simply peppered the air around his forward position indiscriminately. It's like trying to catch the invisible man with a shotgun, Ranma thought, as one of them slammed into his shoulder and another into his thigh as he tried to twist out of the way.

This broke the Umi-Sen-Ken, and Ranma landed, sprinting forward and still trying to dodge as he gathered his magical power. He took several more hard knocks from the spikes, but was able to at least dodge the demon's follow on punches for a time. All the while the demon's legs trembled, one foot practically useless, the other leg giving out slowly until it collapsed.

When he heard that, Ranma twisted, rolling across the ground and dodging the last few spikes before launching another attack the demon's way. "Soryu no Kussaku Tsume!" From his outstretched hand a drilling blast of magic infused water flared out, slamming into the demon's hastily raised arm, coring through it.

But the demon had also hurled itself out of the beam's path, seemingly having developed a sense of self-preservation far faster than Deliora. And before Ranma could dodge, one of its fists lashed out just above the ground, not hitting Ranma, but grabbing him. Lifting Ranma into the air, it shakily rose to its knees. The red demon roared in triumph, squeezing Ranma slowly and raising him toward its mouth.

All around them, the surviving mages once more attempted to rejoin the battle. Small blasts of fire, Guns Magic and flashes of varicolored lights of other kinds of spells shot out from all around the demon. But their participation was literally nothing; even attacking the already existing wounds wasn't doing anything.

Seeing stars as the pressure on his body increased with every passing millisecond, Ranma grunted, pushing his hands out to either side along with his legs, mentally trying to force more of his ki into his arms and legs to reinforce them. "Not this time!" Pushing out with a roar, Ranma broke the demon's grip on him.

Before the demon could recover, Ranma had once more gathered water around one of his hands, lashing out. But this time, instead of lashing out with a punch, he too went for a grip, grabbing the demon's arm, the construct of water now having solidified to the kind of denseness only ever found in the deepest parts of the ocean. Ranma then clenched his hand, crushing the demon's arm. Again, its bones seemed to resist his assault, but its flesh did not, slowly giving under the grip.

The demon roared and began to charge up another beam attack, forcing Ranma to end his spell. But the demon's beam attack didn't need nearly as much time to charge as Deliora's. The first beam still found him, hurling Ranma backwards. The demon then poured it on, its movements becoming somewhat desperate. Ranma had, after all, already crippled it. Both its legs were useless, and one of its arms was now hanging limp at its side from the upper arm down.

Between one pulse of power and the next, Ranma threw up his hands, his skin steaming and sizzling from the first hit. But he was able to concentrate enough through the pain to throw up another shield of water, the same type that he had used to protect the townsfolk before.

For a moment the two magical powers were in equilibrium. Steam rose from all around Ranma as if an air vent had formed there, hot enough to roast any normal human, as the demon's ultimate attack met Ranma's defense in depth. Soon Ranma's position was entirely obscured, but the demon kept on, firing out pulses of energy so fast it looked as if he was firing a single beam like Deliora.

Eventually, however, its attacks ceased. The demon closed its mouth, flickers of blood and steam coming out of the corners of its mouth, showing it had actually hurt itself using its breath based attack so rapidly. It stared at the position of its tormentor, ignoring all of its wounds for now.

"You're not the only one who can use a breath attack!" Ranma shouted. The mist dissipated as Ranma appeared, his skin red and steaming from the heat and that first devastating hit, but his body was already slowly healing. Before the demon could do anything, Ranma siphoned a large amount of his remaining magical power into his mouth and launched his most powerful attack. "Soryu No Hoko!"

The spinning, tsunami-speed water attack slammed into the demon. Unstoppable force met indomitable object, but the demon's natural durability wasn't up to stopping this attack. The attack tore a huge gaping hole through the demon's upper chest and neck in a welter of shredded tissue, bone, and blood.

Gurgling its last, the demon fell sideways, slamming into the ground with enough force to make the entire region shudder, its eyes already dimming. Ranma walked up to it, grimacing as he felt the wounds he'd sustained. But his healing ability was already kicking in, and frankly, this demon hadn't been in any way a match for Deliora. Or maybe I've just gotten that much tougher.

He stared into the demon's eyes, watching the light in them began to fade, and then roared like a dragon, trumpeting his victory to the sky. "RAOAOOAOAR!"

For a moment all was still as if the call had terrified the whole world into stopping. Then some of the mages from the town began to move toward Ranma and the demon, their faces showing both trepidation and fear. But those were not directed at the demon alone any longer.

As they did, Ranma moved around the demon's head, staring at it. I wonder if I could fit the head into my ki space as a trophy? Nah, it'd take up too much space, I suppose. Besides, trophies are supposed to be seen, and I don't have any place to put it, so why bother bringing it along? At that point his thoughts were interrupted by a voice behind him.

"Your aid and arrival was timely, stranger," said the mage from nearby, hopping up onto the demon and moving along its dead carcass towards Ranma, who was standing by the gaping wound he'd caused, staring at the wound that had killed the beast.

Ranma nodded in his direction. "I heard the roaring going on and decided to investigate," he lied, remembering the injunction from the king about how he didn't want anyone to know he had called in a foreign mage for aid.

Trying to change the subject, Ranma looked around them. "Will you need help with the rebuilding?" Ranma could even go get Wendy. With her healing magic she'd be a major help.

"I think not," the man said, shaking his head and staring distrustfully at Ranma. "Where did you say you are from?"

"I didn't," Ranma said. "Are you really going to look a gift horse in the mouth?"

"Often gift horses come with hidden prices," said another mage, joining the conversation. Others were joining them too, all of them looking at Ranma distrustfully. "You dealt with that demon awfully easily," said one of them. "How do we know that you didn't send it in the first place?"

Ranma didn't know where this distrust was coming from and, frankly, didn't care. It wasn't his job to figure out what was going on here between the mages, the king, and whatever other power brokers Joya had. No, he done his job. And if these assholes didn't want his help, he wasn't going to offer again. "Well, fuck you too, jackasses," he said, giving them all the finger and turning away. "If you're so certain you can handle the rebuilding yourself, I'll leave you to it."

With that he raced off, heading back the way he'd come. Before any of the mages could do more than shout at him to halt, their suspicions seemingly confirmed by his simply leaving like that, Ranma sped up. An instant later he disappeared before their very eyes under the Umi-Sen-Ken, heading back to Wendy.

OOOOOOO

Wendy looked up from where she had been walking around, staring over the mountains towards where the roaring had been occurring, ears pricking. While it sounded like distant thunder, barely heard this far away, her Sky Dragon Slayer assisted senses still picked it up. I wonder if that is Onii-chan?"

So interested was she in the noises she was hearing in the distance that she wasn't looking where she was going, and she bumped into someone, landing on her rear with a squeak. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" she said, looking up at the woman she'd run into, the woman having just come out of a restaurant Wendy had been walking past.

The demoness Seliah looked down at the little human girl, her lips sneering somewhat, while her lover, Kyoka, moved around her to look down at the girl too. The other woman's face was impassive, but a certain sadistic gleam came into her eyes as she contemplated the little, blue haired girl.

Beyond the fact that they were all demons of the books of Zeref, the demons of Tartaros didn't have much in common with one another except for their mission to kill their master, which he had implanted within them, and a belief that humans were worthless, boring, and should be exterminated. However, there were some differences. Most prevalent to the reason the two demonesses were standing in front of Wendy was that the two of them and a few of their other fellows believed that food was the one area where humans proved to be worth more alive than dead.

Humans could cook far better than any demon; this was a simple fact. Despite the fact that they had been alive for hundreds of years, no demon of Tartaros had ever been able to come up with new recipes, or even cook anything beyond very simple things. Acting Guild Master Mard Geer supposed that there had been some kind of mistake built into the way their minds worked during their creation, but what that could have been, even he couldn't figure out. It had gotten to the point that, in the past fifty years since Mard Gear had brought them all together, that the consensus among the demons of Tartaros was that when it came time to wipe the humans out, instead they would cull every human who couldn't cook and then force the remainder to serve them.

That was why these two were here: they were sampling the local food delicacies. As an aside, they were also staying in the area to make certain that their guild master's latest little project was serviceable. Not that they really cared one way or another about that; it had just been an excuse to get away from the others and to sample some human food, which every demon who had taste buds took every opportunity to do.

And now this rude little girl had run into them, despite Seliah having used her curse to make certain no one noticed their presence. Doing so was a more subtle use of her power than she routinely used, but it had worked very well. She only canceled it when they ordered food at the restaurants they ate in, and even then the people serving them didn't realize they were doing it, or notice anything special about the two demons in question.

The two demonesses exchanged a glance, and Seliah was about to gesture, casting her curse over the girl before ordering her to go and boil her own head or something similar. Kyoka would have come up with something far more sadistic, but Seliah just wanted to punish the girl for running into her like that.

But the girl's next words stopped her. "Ooooh, your horns are so pretty, miss!" Wendy said excitedly, getting to her feet and staring up at the woman. "Do you know if I could grow some like that?"

"…I am afraid that chapter will never be part of your story," Seliah said, her hands stilling as she felt an unfamiliar feeling, appreciation of what a human said of her. Kyoka too was smiling, looking down at the little girl in confusion. Seliah must've missed this girl, or she could be a new arrival to the town, because she is seeing us as we are rather than our disguise. Still, at least she is doing so in a manner that proves she acknowledges the superiority of the demonic race. And she is giving off a very interesting magical aura, one I have not seen before.

And it was the first time any human had ever complimented their looks, or at least their horns. Most of the time human men noticed other features. Though when they did, of course, the two demons killed them in as brutal a manner as possible the moment they were ready to leave the area.

Wendy pouted little, but then nodded. "Again, I'm sorry I ran into you, miss, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the festival," she repeated, bowing from the waist before turning away and moving on to the next food stall.

Behind her Seliah raised one hand to subconsciously touch her horns. Perhaps not all humans are fools after all. Then suddenly both her and Kyoka's attention were diverted as they felt Frandral's death. The two of them exchanged a glance, then quickly leaped into the air, Seliah once more using her curse to make certain that none of the locals were looking up as their wings appeared.

They flew in the direction Frandral had been rampaging in, arriving just in time to see a human mage of considerable magical strength leaving the scene. "He has the same magic aura around him as the little girl," Kyoka mused. "Interesting. I wonder what kind of mages they are."

"That one is certainly very powerful, at least, to kill a demon like that. Simple Extermination-book demons like that are weak in comparison to demons like us from more complex books, but still, it's no mean feat kill them like that," Seliah replied.

"Agreed. We'll have to report this," Kyoka said.

"We shouldn't move against them?" Seliah asked. Then she blinked as the human mage they had been looking at disappeared even to her senses, exchanging a shocked glance with Kyoka. "Yes, we'll definitely have to report this."

Kyoka pouted under her ever-present helmet. "Yes, but after the festival. Besides, if the two mages are related, we can observe them for a few days if they stay there."

"True," Seliah said with a nod, though both of them understood what they were really saying. Neither had really seen the point of Master Geer's recent experiments in creating more Extermination type demons. After all, they were only good for wiping out normal humans. They wouldn't help against more powerful mages, and while killing humans was always to be lauded, it was taking resources and time away from other projects.

This would also give both demons more opportunity to sample the local food, something both of them were quite happy about. Whatever their strength, the two human mages were in no way a threat to the two of them, after all.

OOOOOOO

"I'm back, Wendy," said Ranma, coming up behind Wendy as she stood at a stall, the lights of the festival lighting the town up around them much better than the setting sun could. She turned and beamed, quickly turning and actually scrambling up his legs into his arms, giving him as big a hug as she could manage before pulling back and staring at him, looking him up and down. "You're not hurt?"

"Nothing my natural healing couldn't deal with on the way back. The job's done, and now we can enjoy the food festival with nothing getting in our way. Hmm… What are those?" Ranma asked, sniffing the air and moving towards another stall. He didn't really want her to question him about what the job had entailed. Wendy would try and force them to head back and help despite the locals, and frankly Ranma just didn't want to deal with that headache.

Over the next few hours the two of them ran around like twin kids in a candy store, sampling every food they could, buying lots of the local produce to store in Ranma's ki space, and simply having a great time. Ranma felt a time or two that they were being watched, but every time he looked to see who was watching them, something would divert his attention, or the feeling would go away. Eventually he decided it was just curious locals looking at the two young strangers and put it out of his mind..

He never knew how close he was to two demons of the Dark Guild Tartaros and they never realized they were watching two Dragon Slayers, quickly losing interest in the two humans. The two of them were simply looking like normal humans, running around and sampling the food, which the two demons wanted to concentrate their own attention on. Eventually Kyoka and Seliah went back to what they had been doing earlier, ignoring the two mages with the odd auras.

That evening the two Dragon Slayers laid out in their tent, with Wendy once more curled up on Ranma's chest like a little furry demon, unwilling to sleep in a separate sleeping bag tonight. She had not liked the fact that Ranma had left her behind at all, and had been extra clingy since he had gotten back, despite the fact that he hadn't been gone for more than half a day.

The two of them had pretty much finished all there was to do in the fair that evening. There weren't a lot of actual events: it was mostly a food fair, and the two Dragon Slayers' appetites had allowed them to sample pretty much everything on display, which would've taken a normal person at least a week to do. Thanks to her physical training, Wendy nearly consumed as much food as Ranma had at the same age whenever he could, which, thanks to Genma, hadn't been often.

Now with a lot of the local oraples in his ki space (which was larger than the portable fridge at keeping vegetables), they could leave any time they wanted, and did, traveling north to the nearest royally owned mining town the next morning. There Ranma contacted the king, told him what occurred, and demanded some money in recompense.

The king of Joya was a skinflint and argued the point. After all, Rangers were actually not supposed to be funded like that on a per job basis, only receiving a stipend and then repayment of any monies spent during a specific job.

But Ranma angrily stated he'd ask the other kings to intercede on his behalf and that he only wanted a few thousand in local currency. The king ungraciously acceded to his 'request,' and Ranma bought Wendy the books she wanted, but not a new dress. The local fashions were either too adult for Ranma to want to see Wendy in, or like clothing Wendy already owned.

To save some money, and because the inns in this city didn't look all that good in the first place, Ranma and Wendy moved on for a few hours until it started to rain. Ranma quickly set up their tent, and both of them entered as rain drenched the world around them. The two of them were soon snug in their tent, with Ranma having made a hot, spiced cider from a few regular apples from her ki space and a lot of cinnamon.

Ranma didn't bother to change back, since she knew Wendy would snuggle in with her again and that the younger girl preferred to snuggle his female body. And this way I should be able to get my period out of the way in a few days, if my time keeping's accurate, anyway. Better to sprint the last week of the distance under controlled conditions than to let it come on me suddenly the next time I change forms.

Wendy loved the drink and kept on sipping at it despite the fact that it was quite hot. As she did, Ranma pulled out a series of maps. He had made a point of buying a map for each country he'd been in, though Joya's map wasn't really all that accurate. It didn't show any of the trails, only the mountains valleys and the few main roads that connected them all.

"So, we are here," The redhead said, looking over at Wendy and placing a small blue piece of glass on the map. Wendy had picked it up at some point because she thought it was pretty.

"We could go back the way we came," Ranma went on, tracing the route with her finger. "Leave Joya the same way we came in, head up through Stella into Iceberg again, then take the trains back into Seven, trying to head back to where we were when we had to turn around." She shared a disgruntled look with Wendy, both of them scrunching up their noses in irritation at the idea of taking that many trains once more.

"Or we could go somewhere else." Ranma traced a route from where they were through the rest of Joya to one of the few large stars on Joya's map. It marked a port city on the inland Sea. "From there we could head towards Bellum or up the river towards Pergrande. What do you think? Do you want to see Pergrande, Bellum, and Iceberg, or retrace our steps before we make for Fiore?"

"No more trains for a long while," Wendy replied firmly. "I used Troia on us too often during our trip to Joya, Onii-chan. Our bodies definitely developed an immunity to it. Any more and it might stop working at all! I don't think we should be on any kind of train or even a boat for a long while, at least a few months."

"Okay, so that's out. But we could travel that way on foot," Ranma replied.

"But we're going to stay here for a while and look for stuff about my mom, right?" Wendy asked.

"Yeah, I imagine we will. But remember, we can't go around using magic here, Wendy. The local mages and the king are arguing about something, and I don't want them to think we're on either side of that argument. So we'll have to practice just martial arts and physical endurance things." Wendy didn't understand that but she still nodded, looking a little pouty at the idea, but willing to go along with her Onii-chan's orders.

"Well, if we're not going to stay here anyway, then I would go the other way," Wendy said. "I've not seen Bellum, and the way you described the woods, they sounded fun. And isn't Pergrande the home for the Heart Kreuz fashion line?"

"I didn't realize you were into fashion already, Wendy," said Ranma, slapping her hands to her forehead with a dramatic moan. "Soon enough you'll be noticing boys and forgetting about me."

"Ew! Don't be gross!" Wendy said, reaching over to some to pick up a pillow and hurling it at her Onii-chan. "Never!"

Ranma laughed, grabbing a pillow out of the air before bopping it lightly on Wendy's head. "In that case, we have a plan."

Besides, with my Ranger status, I can probably get access to more libraries in both Pergrande and Bellum than I did before, Ranma thought. I can't imagine Vicotronious would turn me away, given that he was one of the kings that put me up for this crap anyway.

OOOOOOO

"You were correct not to do anything I suppose. The death of Frandral is little concern. Simply another experiment, certainly of far less import than giving any hint that Tartaros is becoming more active. The next one I create will be stronger. I am learning more and more with every experiment how to duplicate our Master's original magics. Eventually we will be able to create other demons on our own level. And soon after that, we will have enough power to carry out both our missions, both Master Zeref's and our own self-chosen one. Indeed," Master Gear said, almost smiling now, "this mage you mention could turn out to be a good barometer of our progress."

Kyoka and Seliah nodded, bowing their heads submissively to their guild master.

"Yet at the same time, this mage's description sounds strangely familiar. I'll have to think about that," Master Geer mused, then stood up, gesturing for the two women to leave him as he moved towards his own rooms, frowning in thought as he started to search his memories for why that description sounded so familiar.

OOOOOOO

"Congratulations, my boy," Makarov said, clapping his grandson on the shoulder. "You are now the youngest S-class in the history of Ishgar!"

"About damn time, Gramps," Laxus growled, shifting slightly and pushing Makarov away with one hand. "You know I was S-class level last year."

"Perhaps in terms of magical power, yes, Laxus, you were," Makarov said, grabbing his shoulder and turning Laxus to face him. "But not mentally. Your attitude still leaves much to be desired, but you are quite a bit more mindful towards your fellow guild members than you were, and you're not as arrogant either. Despite the words you just spoke, making me think twice about that bit," he finished dryly.

Rolling his eyes, Laxus muttered, "Whatever," before turning to continue down the hallway towards the dining room. Opening the door to it, the sound of thunderous applause and shouts of congratulations started immediately.

Laxus paused, looking around and seeing the entire guild clapping for him. Even those people who he didn't like and who didn't like him in turn were clapping, which was gratifying, Laxus had to admit.

He tried not to look in of the direction of Freed, whose look of adulation had started to become a little disturbing to Laxus, frankly. Bixlow's wild fist pumps were at least energetic. The less said about Gray, who was standing with the rest of the kids, cheering while standing on a table half naked, the better. The blushing look on Evergreen's face was much more flattering.

As he looked at the younger teen, Laxus mentally went through his checklist of the day to make sure that everything was right for what the two of them were hopefully going to do later that evening. It was, and he smiled to them all, waving his hands once in the air before moving towards the bar.

But Laxus hadn't even gone halfway toward the bar before Natsu was in his face, pushing through the crowd. "Congratulations, Laxus! Now, fight me! If I beat you, I'll prove I'm an S-class mage too!"

Ducking under the boy and then head-butting him hard in the stomach as his smaller body passed over his crouching form, Laxus hurled Natsu away with a flick of neck. "Not a chance, kid. You haven't even beaten Mira or Erza, and you want to take me on?"

"Hey!" Mira shouted from nearby. "What's that supposed to mean, you freaking sparkler?"

"It means you still haven't beaten me either, Mira," Laxus drawled, moving through the crowd and nodding to people as he replied, eliciting cheers and laughter. "You haven't even beaten Erza yet conclusively."

"That, that's only because you were training her for so long! If you hadn't, I'd be wiping the floor with her every time," Mira shot back.

"Keep telling yourself that, tramp!" Erza shouted, before turning to Laxus and holding out a mug to him as he reached the bar.

She held out a mug, and Laxus took it, saluting her with it before draining it in one long gulp.

"Congratulations, Shishou," Erza said, smiling at him. "Your S-class status is well-earned."

"Stop that," Laxus ordered. "You know I haven't been able to teach you anything about using weapons for a few months now. In fact, you are better than I am with a sword or spear, or practically any other weapons these days. You might not be up to my level in terms of raw magical power or physical, but that's something only training and time can do anything about. I have nothing more I can really teach you."

Erza looked a little startled at that, then thoughtful, before she nodded, looking a little bewildered. "That, I suppose that's true."

"Besides," Laxus said, moving on quickly, "I'd rather have you us as a sparring partner than a student anyway. Sparring with one another full on will teach us both more than we can learn just training together. Trust me, I learned more sparring with a near equal in Pergrande for a few weeks than I did for years before that."

Erza's face lit up at that, but before she could reply or question that statement, Mira had crossed the distance between them and slammed a fist into the back of her head, hurling her forward into Laxus. "That's what you get for calling me a tramp!"

Laxus stayed put, taking Erza's small, if armored, frame to his chest easily, but then Natsu joined in, shouting, "That's a great idea! Sneak attack!" and attacking Laxus from behind. Turning quickly, Laxus swatted Natsu away as Erza growled and turned to deal with Mira.

All in all, despite the fact it was supposed to be a party for his ascension to S-class, it was just another day at Fairy Tail.

Later on, while he, Evergreen, Freed, and a few others were helping Makarov clean up for the evening, Laxus looked over at his grandfather. "You know, Mira and Erza's rivalry is sort of getting out of hand, old man. You might want to do something about that. It's not like Gray and Natsu's: they don't cause nearly as much collateral damage as the two little gals."

"I could order you to take them both under your wing again," Makarov replied irritably, his tone indicating that he had known this for a while and didn't like Laxus bringing it up now unless he had a solution.

"No. I've taught Erza all I can. She has to build on that herself. I'm fine with sparring with them both at the same time, though, which could at least force them to respect one another. Hell, maybe you should send them out on a mission or something together. They'll either bury the hatchet or bury one another."

"They'd bury one another," Makarov, Evergreen, and the others nearby replied dryly.

Laxus shrugged. It was just a thought, after all. "You're the Guild Master, it's your job to figure something out there. Or do you just like watching them wreck your guild every day? Are you a masochist?"

As Makarov scoffed at that that, everyone else laughed. And Laxus turned away, looking down at Evergreen. He didn't have to look down very far, the girl having gone through a growth phase that brought the top of her head up to his chin, letting her tower over the other kids. "So," he said, trying to stay casual, "I'm a little hungry. Do you want to go eat something?"

Evergreen blinked at that, looking up at him in surprise. Freed and Bixlow were about to cut in and say that they would go, but Makarov and Levy, who was also helping nearby, covered their mouths quickly, staring with wide eyes at Laxus.

"Are you asking me out on a date?" Evergreen asked after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, I think I am," Laxus said, scratching at the back of his head. "That is, if you want to."

Evergreen blushed behind her glasses, but nodded. "Of course I do."

OOOOOOO

For the next few months Ranma and Wendy made their way through Joya towards its ports on the inland ocean. They had found that Joya didn't have very many libraries, and the libraries that it did have which were open to the public had no mention of dragons except for some old tales about the kingdom where humans and dragons lived together in harmony, which Ranma had run into before. They were still interesting to Ranma, and Wendy ordered him to read them aloud to her, but they didn't really find anything new. And having sneaked into a few guild libraries while Wendy was sleeping, Ranma hadn't found anything in them either.

Soon they had arrived at Joya's one major port. But instead of taking a boat, knowing that both of them would suffer from motion sickness, Ranma again lifted Wendy onto his back, and the two of them headed out onto Bellum Lake like that, with Wendy powering them along and Ranma using his powers to stay afloat. It was good practice for the little girl, helping to build up her magical muscles, so to speak.

Halfway across the lake, they were spotted by some of the Bellum Navy. The small frigate, looking something like a trireme but with fewer oars and cannons, came in close and looked at them. From the side of the ship a man pulled out a speaking tube and shouted into it. "Where are you bound for, mages?"

Ranma shouted back, "We haven't decided yet; Pergrande or Bellum."

"You realize you'll still have to pay a wharf tax if you put ashore in Bellum?"

"Thank you, you just made my decision for me!" Ranma shouted back, causing Wendy to giggle.

The man with the speakerphone laughed, waved his hand once, and then turned to his crew, ordering them to put on more sail and turn away, while Ranma and Wendy continued their journey. Thankfully for Wendy, they covered the entire lake in two days, with Wendy resting on Ranma's back in intervals and Ranma keeping them moving. They rested as soon as they came ashore at the entrance to the river heading up inland toward Pergrande. There was a small port town there. It was just like Bellum, built on the trade of transshipping goods and people up the river into Pergrande.

Despite that, it too was owned by merchant families like those which ruled in Bellum. This town wasn't allowed to grow very large, lest it attempt to compete with Bellum the city itself. And there was a naval force on rotation: a series of small cutters patrolling near the land around it and a frigate on maneuvers nearby. Ranma idly wondered if pirate activity was so large an issue on the inland sea that they had to have that big of a military presence, but set that mystery aside, figuring that the town seemed prosperous, and so it wasn't anything he needed to look into.

He did end up having to pay a toll to come ashore since they were still in Bellum, making Ranma think ruefully about the frigate officer's amusement at his expense. But he felt it was worth it to get a good night's sleep before heading up the river.

This time Wendy occasionally hopped off of Ranma's back to practice hopping in midair around him. This caused a lot of shock and surprise in the riverboat goers who saw the two mages moving along the river, sometimes dodging around the riverboats, which reminded Ranma of things he had seen in images of river cruise ships. They exclaimed and waved at the little girl hopping in midair in particular, her obvious young age drawing even more attention than Ranma skating along the river's surface. Ranma, now in his female form, just in case she got splashed and couldn't divert it in time, did get some attention, but she ignored it.

Whenever this occurred, Wendy quickly retreated to Ranma, hiding her face in the redhead's back. Wendy's shyness around other people had yet to go away, though she had slowly begun to open up towards kids her own age despite her attempt to make friends in Blue Cove having failed so spectacularly. Ranma was happy to see this and hoped to bring the girl further out of her shell as she grew up.

Soon enough they reached Appledore. Coming up from the wharves sticking out into the river, Ranma reflected that the city looked somewhat more bustling now, with several new buildings going up and a lot more people around the streets than she remembered from before. I suppose that should be expected now that the country's now at peace, Ranma thought, smiling at the idea as she heated up some water, pouring it over her head to change back to his male body. "Now, where should we go first? To get you your armor, or to get you a dress?"

Wendy, who had clambered down from his back as soon as they had touched ashore, shrugged, taking his hand. "Whichever you like, I suppose, Onii-chan. A dress would be nice, but armor sounds more useful," she said sadly. She didn't like the idea. She wanted a new dress, but Ranma had offered the armor, and she wasn't going to turn it down, despite the fact that she didn't really like fighting. She knew her Onii-chan was worried about her ability to take hits and agreed with him too.

"Okay. We'll just travel around and see which store we come to first, then," Ranma said.

Wendy nodded happily at that idea, and the two siblings moved through the city, Wendy taking in the sights, while Ranma looked for the specific stores he was interested in. He also made a note that a few soldiers had passed by with guns that looked quite a bit more modern than they had the last time. These were not muzzleloaders at all, but side-loaders like the ones his friend William had designed. Good! I like seeing my friends get ahead in the world, and those guns… Well, I really would not like to be in the orcs' position if they come up against guns like that.

His ruminations on that score were interrupted by a voice shouting his name. "Ranma, is that you?"

Turning in the direction of the voice, Ranma saw Lisa, one of the courtesans from Melona's. She was dressed in a far more normal, everyday dress than Ranma had last seen her in, which was a relief. Ranma really did not want to show Wendy that kind of dress any time soon, if ever.

"Hey Lisa, I'm back. For a while, at least," he said simply, waving his hand once to his acquaintance.

He tried to hold out a hand for Lisa to shake, but she marched up to him and hugged Ranma tightly before moving backwards. "You've grown," she said appreciatively, her eyes raking Ranma up and down. "You might still be a little young, but I wonder if I could talk Melona into giving you a bit of a one-time only offer…" she said teasingly. "Or am I too late to break you in?" she asked, looking down at Wendy. "No, she's far too old for you to have had a bit of an accident, I suppose."

"Gah, NO!" Ranma groaned.

He then paled as Wendy asked, "What are you talking about?"

Seeing a chance to turn the teasing around, Ranma smiled, ruffling Wendy's hair. "Well, Wendy, that's something you'll have to learn about when you're a bit older. In fact, we'll probably come back here so that my friend can give you that talk personally."

"Oh, no," Lisa said, backing away rapidly and waving her hands. "That particular torture, I mean, rite of passage, is yours as her…what, big brother? Long-lost cousin?"

"Onii-chan," Wendy replied firmly, grabbing one of Ranma's hands with both of hers and almost glaring at the older girl.

"Don't worry, dearie, I'm not about to steal him from you," Lisa replied. "Ranma here's not the type to settle down with, if you haven't learned that already. How long have you actually stayed in one place since you met him?"

"A year to learn how to read," Wendy replied, smiling up at her brother. "And I like traveling."

"Well good for you. Me, you couldn't pay me to leave Appledore. On the other hand," she said, leaning down conspiratorially toward Wendy, though she still spoke loud enough for Ranma to hear. "I do have some stories that are sure to embarrass Ranma. You want to hear them?"

As Wendy began to giggle Ranma pushed Lisa away with one hand and Wendy behind him with the other. "All right, that's enough of that! Changing the subject, did Laxus and my trap for Gildarts work? And did you get any pictures?"

"We did, and yes, we got pictures," Lisa said with a laugh. "Laxus was too busy rampaging around and promising to kill you and Laxus to even notice. If business is slow and we need a pick-me-up, we all look at them and laugh."

"I don't suppose I could get you to sell me those?" Ranma asked slowly. "I imagine Laxus would like a look at them. And I'd like a copy too."

OOOOOOO

Far away in Fiore Gildarts had just returned from a brief mission of routing a Dark Guild from its lair after the council had finally declared them illegal. The moment he entered, Natsu attacked him, as he did every time. Gildarts supposed it was the brat's idea of bonding, and given the fact that Makarov had said Natsu was raised by a dragon, that made a lot of sense.

He'd been tossing Natsu around as the young boy tried to attack him, until he felt a shiver, like someone had just walked over his grave. It had been so intense that he actually dropped Natsu, turning out to look into the distance for a moment, past the currently open walls of the Guildhall. Gildarts had smashed through them accidentally upon his arrival.

Something's just occurred that's going to mess with my mojo, Gildarts thought, scowling. And why do I think I should preemptively break Laxus in half like I almost did when I came back from Pergrande?

He'd paid Laxus back with a beating for his prank, of course. The beating he'd dealt out to the Lightning Dragon Slayer was now the stuff of Guild legend. But Gildarts had to stay away from the guild for a long while after that prank to let his hair grow back before he could do so.

Gildarts was so disconcerted by the feeling that Natsu actually got in a hit on his shin. "Gah, damn it, you little brat!" he bellowed playfully, pretending to be hurt, though of course, he wasn't. Gildarts reached down, grabbing Natsu up and hurling him towards Mira and Erza, who were currently fighting nearby. "Play with someone your own size for a change!"

This, needless to say, did not go over well, and all three of them attacked him, soon joined in by several other kids. With that he put the thought of whatever had caused the shiver out of his mind, and he concentrated on simply enjoying his time back in the guild.

OOOOOOO

After Lisa promised to get him copies of the pictures if he stopped in tomorrow morning, Ranma began asking around for his friend William and eventually found him. He was now the foreman of a large gun factory rather than a small William shop. He still had a small William shop set to one side of the large factory, where he worked on commissioned metalwork of all sorts. This included jewelry now, since his wife Lathia had gone into the business with him.

Looking up as the door to his shop opened, he was surprised to find Ranma standing there, a grin on his face. "Hey! Long time no see!"

"Hey yourself!" the man said, giving Ranma a bear hug before shouting back over his shoulder. "Look what the cat dragged in, dear."

"Hail to our savior," his wife said, moving forward and shaking his hand. "Your idea of moving to Pergrande was the greatest idea of all time. The two of us are now the king's Royal Blacksmiths, and he put us in charge of a project to upgrade the army's entire armaments. We're practically nobility now!"

"I don't have as much time as I'd like for my personal projects, but that'll change in time," William said philosophically, shaking his head with a smile. Then he looked beyond Ranma to Wendy. "And who's this? Did someone have a little mistake at some point?"

"Who'd let him spawn?" Laitha said with a laugh, going down to one knee in front of Wendy and holding out a hand to the little girl. "How did you meet up with this reprobate, dearie?" she asked, smacking Ranma on the leg with her free hand.

That tale took a while, and the two smiths made commiserating noises as they heard that Wendy was searching for her mother. Neither of them had heard about a white streak in the sky, of course, let alone any White Dragon, but as Laitha talked to Wendy about where the local shops were, Ranma was pulled aside by William. "You're not thinking of taking that little girl into the continent, are you?"

"No," Ranma said, amused by how well Will understood Ranma's wanderlust. 'Course, traveling is only half the fun, the other half is to learn new techniques or skills and get stronger as a martial artist. Or warrior, I suppose I could say around here. "We're not here to head on to the east."

"Phew!" Will said, wiping his forehead dramatically. "I thought what little sense you had had left you."

"Nah, though I still don't have any common sense. I'm far too special for that," Ranma said with a roll of his eyes. "But even I know that would be a bad idea."

The two men exchanged a laugh, and then Will asked Ranma why they were in Pergrande if not for that. "Surely you didn't come all this way just to see me."

"Nah, though I'm glad to know you're doing well. We're here to access the royal library and to get Wendy some armor from Heart Kreuz. Unless, of course, you'd do the work and give out one of those lifetime free size upgrades they do," Ranma asked quizzically.

"Hmm… No, sorry, but I've never actually gone into making armor. I'm more weapons of all sorts, as you know. But I'll ask my wife to go with you when you go to Heart Kreuz. I doubt they'd try anything, because you're a returning customer, but if they try to sell you shoddy material, she'll spot it."

"Heh, so would I, since I intend to test any armor they fit Wendy for. If it can't take a half powered punch from me, it's useless. I'll even warn them of that before we finalize the deal," Ranma joked.

The two blacksmiths, of course, agreed to put Ranma and Wendy up for the time they stayed in Appledore, though how long that would be, they didn't know. They owed Ranma enough that they didn't even question that.

However, it turned out that they didn't have to put them up for long. The Royal Library was in the Royal Castle, and the moment Ranma entered the next day in search of books, having let Wendy go with the two Williams in order to find some armor, he was quickly informed that the king wished to speak to him.

"Let me guess, Vicotronious," Ranma said, crossing his arms and staring at the king across a small conference table. "You have a job for me."

"The King's Conclave has a task for you," Vicotronious said grimly. "I'm just the one chosen to speak to you since you walked through my front door. Why are you back in Pergrande anyway? I'd heard about your arrival yesterday, but until this news came in I wasn't going to cause a fuss about it."

"I want to buy armor for Wendy, the little girl traveling with me. You've heard of her from Meredrain, I bet. And I wanted to check out your Royal Library."

"About dragons? I'll have my librarian search through our books for you. There are only a few that mention them, I think, and all of those that do concentrate on the war between dragons and an ancient kingdom where dragons and humans coexisted. You might find them interesting after you return from this mission."

"And what is that mission going to be?" Ranma asked, a sinking feeling coming into his stomach. If all of the kings felt a Ranger was needed for this mission, it was going to be both dangerous and complex. Nothing like a simple demon hunt, at least.

"There is a rebellion occurring in Minstrel, an anti-government rebellion, one that might well spiral out into a full on serf uprising," Vicotronious said without any preamble.

"If you're going to asked me to intercede on the nobles' behalf, you can forget it, and I'll shove this leaf brooch of mine up your ass if you try to insist," Ranma growled. "I've been in Minstrel. I didn't see anything, but I heard a lot about serfs and what can happen to them if their master takes it into his mind to be sadistic or simply wants to grind them down."

For the last forty years or more Minstrel had been run by a board of counts who oversaw taxation, the care of the road, foreign policy, and other such. The last king had been utterly ineffective, his powers being slowly taken by the counts until he was a nonentity, and his lineage was allowed to die out. The country was rich with a powerful navy, a weak army, and barely hidden corruption.

The nobles could abuse, use, kill, or rape their serfs with impunity, even in many of the cities, save those with strong merchant or magic guild presences in them. And magic wasn't prevalent enough for mages to make any difference. Indeed, many mages came from the noble houses.

"What makes you think I'd care about that?" Vicotronious replied equally bluntly even as his guards growled angrily at Ranma lèse majesté. "Minstrel is not my favorite nation, Ranma. There is indeed too much abuse of the serf class. In fact, I'd provide the serfs with guns if I could get them into the country without being found out, which is, alas, impossible, as you well know. No, what we need to find out is whether or not this rebellion is an honest one, or is being fueled by agents from the Alvarez Empire."

Ranma nodded, thinking about what he knew about the Empire, which wasn't a lot. The Eastern continent was separated from Ishgar by a wide ocean, one on the other side from Typhon's cave. The Alvarez Empire was the only nation Ranma knew about on the continent, and it was supposedly ruled totally by mages. The Empire had tried to invade Ishgar several times, long ago, though why no one knew.

"On top of that we need to figure out what will happen in Minstrel after this rebellion, regardless of what sparked it. Does the rebellion have a chance at succeeding? If the rebellion succeeds, will it be able to stabilize the government once more? If they can't, if the alternative is between backing the assembly or total anarchy after this struggle peters out, then I'm afraid you'll probably have to back to the existing government."

"Why me?" Ranma asked. "None of my special abilities except perhaps my ability to sneak around will be of any use in this kind of operation. You're asking me to find things out about people: about how they will lead their nation, about whether they'll be fair or not. I'm not qualified to make those calls."

"The rebellion has just begun, and your combat ability will stand you in good stead until it ends. Don't worry so much about what comes after. By that time we'll have a another Ranger ready to take over, a man named Randolph who specializes in matters of law and jurisprudence. The reasons we're sending you in rather than him right away are twofold. One, the rumor is that the leader of the rebellion is a mage of some sort of decent strength: a Holder type by all accounts, but a very good one. And two, if the Empire is involved, their agent or agents will be mages too."

"You realize it'll take me a while to get there. Even I can't run through Desierto quickly," Ranma asked, knowing he had no choice here. He had taken the brooch, given his word, and he had to keep it now.

"I realize that," the King of Pergrande said, looking suddenly for older. "But you're the best option we have here."

"Throw in outfitting Wendy with some Heart Kreuz armor, and I'll do it," Ranma said with a sigh. "We'll leave the city as soon as it's done."

OOOOOOO

At the same time Ranma and Wendy were about to take the road once more into danger, the Fairy Tail Guild was welcoming a surprising newcomer: a cat that had somehow hatched from an egg. Natsu and Lisanna in particular were happy. The two of them had been the ones to try and look after the egg after Natsu had found it in the woods after beating up his first Vulcan.

"Now I've seen every…" Laxus paused as he thought about what he was about to say before shaking his head. "Nope, not going to go there."

"Oy, you two lovebirds, what're you going to call him?" Mirajane asked, grinning as she teased her little sister and the boy she knew Lisanna fancied. Watching them play house had been irritating to her, given that Natsu was in the Team Erza camp, but it had also been diabetes level cute. Elfman's feelings on the matter were much more complex, judging by the frown on his normally placid face, but Mira knew she could keep him in line if need be.

"I'll call him Happy, because he's made us happy!" Natsu said, grinning with one arm around Lisanna's shoulders as they both looked at the small flying kitten.

OOOOOOO

It had taken a long time for the two Dragon Slayers to even get to Minstrel, and then even longer to get to the front lines. Indeed, the war was practically over by the time they did. But Ranma and Wendy had finally found the headquarters of the Minstrel Rebellion seven months after leaving Pergrande. Or rather, the headquarters of what Ranma considered the legitimate revolution. There were, in fact, two different revolts occurring in Minstrel, though Ranma supposed he could excuse Vic for not knowing that since he had Desierto and Bellum between his borders and Minstrel.

One uprising had pretty much collapsed in on itself, according to what both rumor and Minstrel's few newspapers said. It had been begun by a few southern-most lords trying to break off, as apparently the nation called Midi had centuries ago. That rebellion, which had oddly been centered just south of where Ranma had come ashore, had come apart due to the action of one of Minstrel's admirals. He had landed his troops, commandeered several river barges, and moved up inland into the heartland of the rebellion before anyone could stop him.

There he had basically sacked the lords' houses while they were gone with their levy armies, which had promptly fallen into infighting. The admiral had moved in with his troops, armed sailors with swords and other weapons that they barely knew how to use and gave the battered levy army a choice of fighting or surrendering their commanders. The serfs, being no fools and having long been abused, surrendered the nobles.

That admiral was being hailed as a hero, and lots of the nobles backing the assembly had anticipated he would be given command of leading a new conscript army into the field to help crush the rebellion happening further north. But the latest newspaper reported that the admiral had instead done perhaps the smartest thing he could: he had returned to his fleet and simply gone back to his job of keeping the Southern seas free of pirates.

It had been a clear sign to everyone that he didn't care who won, so long as Minstrel remained whole. It sent that message because, by that point, the 'real' Minstrel army, though calling the Silk Guard that was really an insult to armies like that of Pergrande, had been crushed.

That rebellion had, like Vic said, been primarily a serf uprising, but it had been helped along by sympathetic nobles and even led by one: San Jiao Shin, the noble general. The rebellion had begun on and around the small isthmus that stuck out from Minstrel proper, gaining supporters quickly as they overthrew corrupt or simply sadistic local lords, while the counts consolidated the Silken Guard into an army.

That army marched into the rebel lands, and it seemed as if they would crush the rebellion, but instead they had been trapped against the walls of Rubengard. That was a small walled city in the west which sat in the middle of the land which connected to the small isthmus where the rebellion had begun. Their supplies cut off and encircled in turn, the army hadn't been able to hold out more than two weeks before surrendering. By the time Wendy and Ranma had arrived in the country, San Jiao Shin was leading his victorious army back into Minstrel proper, now far better armed and armored from the loot of the Silken Guard.

Since then the counts had tried ineffectually to raise another conscript force. They sent out small units to try and slow down San Jiao Shin's advance, while concentrating on trying to come up with enough men to just plow him under through sheer weight of numbers. Their recruitment, however, was not going well.

Lots of mini rebellions had sprung up here and there. Serfs who had been beaten down for generations were now trying to rise up, and Ranma knew atrocities were being committed by both sides out there. Even the merchant class was getting into it, with every city now a battlefield.

It had made for really tense travel since they had entered Minstrel, and Ranma had kept the two of them moving at a brisk pace while having Wendy cast Vernier at least twice a day. They didn't stop to train, and Ranma only slept in short three hour intervals, even at night. More than once he wondered if he was doing the right thing in taking Wendy with him, but leaving her behind would have hurt Wendy whatever the reason, especially since this job looked to be a long one.

And it isn't as if she's never seen combat. We've had bandits try and attack us a time or two, and we've been attacked by Vulcan packs too many times to count. If I can shield her from everything else going on, any actual combat we see should be fine, especially given that armor she's wearing…

Wendy's armor was subtle, but of very good quality: chain mail hidden in a normal vest. The chain mail didn't even jangle, and was made of a very durable, tough steel. Ranma thought it looked like what he imagined mithril would, but it was grossly expensive. If not for Vicotronious paying for it, the special vest would have been well out of Ranma's price range.

Besides, it frankly looks as if everything's over bar the shouting…and the looting…and…the divvying up of land, and the… Right, who am I kidding? I just hope this isn't going to be as bad as the Bolshevik Rebellion in Russia. Still, all Vic wants me to do is make sure that whoever wins will stabilize things and isn't being influenced by the Empire. That, at least, I can do. Seeing that the government that replaces the council is one that actually works and isn't a monster will be someone else's job.

Suddenly both Dragon Slayers stiffened, staring to their right as the scent of people reached them. Reached them from a direction where there were no people visible to the eye, and further accompanied by a hot, coppery scent Ranma had become all too familiar with since coming to this odd world. Blood. Someone's spilled blood, and recently too.

Nudging his head against Wendy's three times in quick succession, he indicated she should remain quiet. While she replied with a nod, Ranma was already moving in that direction, wondering what was going on. We haven't seen any dissension in the ranks or prisoners, and the medical tents are well away from our current position. Ranma had wanted to keep Wendy away from those, knowing the girl would break cover in order to volunteer her help. Ranma was fine with that after their mission was completed, but not before.

They followed the scent for a few seconds, then stopped as the scent became stronger, indicating that they were nearly on top of whatever was causing the smell. Still hiding up in the tree, Ranma leaned back, whispering so quietly even Wendy strained to hear from an inch away. "Wendy, ready an air attack on my mark."

Nodding, Wendy narrowed her eyes, staring at the spot where the people and blood smell was coming from. She concentrated her magic into her mouth, waiting to start the spell on Ranma's say so. That wasn't long in coming, but despite being ready Wendy almost jumped away when Ranma leaped down, feet first, shouting, "Now!"

"Tenryu no HOKO!" Wendy yelled, sending down a blast of barely condensed air which flew past Ranma to land in the area right below where he was jumping. It slammed into four people, sending them every which way. Their magic, some kind of chameleon like spell, failed as the air attack hit. All four of them wore a matte black, skintight uniform and were carrying darkened daggers. Two of them were already tinged red with fresh blood.

Before they could regain their senses from the sudden assault, Ranma's hands flashed out, a single punch sending them each into la-la land, while at the same time guards shouted from nearby and began to race in the direction of the disturbance. Waving Wendy down to join him, Ranma smirked at the guards, nudging the nearest assassin with his foot. "In the words of a famous alien from my world, take me to your leader."

One of the guards thrust a pike into Ranma's face, but Ranma grabbed the billhook and held it still, growling. "Perhaps I should rephrase: take me to your leader, or join these assassins on the ground. I really don't care either way." As he finished speaking ,Ranma twisted his hold on the steel billhook, shattering it.

One of the guards, his rank marked by a painted on stripe of white on his serf's smock, looked at Ranma and Wendy, then down at the assassins. "Yah, this be ways above my paygrade. Best be doing what he says. Some kinda mage, I'd reckon."

"Ya'd be reckoning right," Ranma drawled.

Moments later Wendy and Ranma stood in a tent slightly larger than the others in the camp. It was a simple utilitarian affair, save for a for a folding table and the map it showed, which was easily the best Ranma had seen for Minstrel, and a silk cot set to one side of the entrance.

In front of them and next to the map stood a tall man in his mid-forties or so, whose appearance immediately reminded Ranma of one of the heroes of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He had a long, meticulously cared for beard down to his chest and wore traditional Chinese silk garb done in green and a hat. By his side lay a guan do. His eyes were brown and piercing, and he stood like a man used to respect.

He stared hard at Ranma and Wendy in turn, frowning. "My guards said you wanted to speak to me, and I have accepted that request. I am San Jiao Shin. Yet I have to admit that while I realize mages can come in all shapes and sizes, I am not used to thinking of such young people as dangerous. You, I could make an allowance for, young man, but your companion?"

"She's more the support type, really. I'm the one who does most of the fighting if I can help it, though that's not what we are here for, not unless we have to," Ranma replied.

"Indeed? And what are you here for then? Other than saving my life, perhaps, from the Chameleon quartet? "

"That sounds like a band!" Wendy giggled. "Like those barber shop groups we saw in Joya, Onii-chan."

"Yeah, but I doubt they'd play any tune ya'd want to hear, Wendy," Ranma replied, laying a hand on Wendy's head to indicate that she should let him do the talking. Admittedly, this kind of silent communication was hit or miss, but he hoped it would work this time.

"Indeed," the man replied dryly. "Well, regardless, you at least have earned the opportunity to have your say."

Ranma tapped the brooch he wore on his cloak or shirt at all times these days, watching San Jiao Shin for any hint of recognition. When he saw none, he sighed. "You can call me an agent of the King's Conclave, specifically Vicotronious of Pergrande at the moment. Vicotronious and the others are worried about whether or not this rebellion was being funded or led by agents from the Alvarez Empire. They were also worried about what would happen to Minstrel if you won. A turnover of the government to some other form is fine; a total serf uprising that leaves millions dead isn't, and you've already gone quite a ways down that road."

At the phrase, 'agent of the king's conclave,' San Jiao Shin's eyes widened before narrowing in thought. "I see. And your conclusions thus far?"

"If the Empire's involved at all, I can't see it: your army isn't nearly as well equipped as it would be if they were funneling in cash. As for actual agents, I've not heard any stories or seen any evidence of mages suddenly appearing out of nowhere to offer you their aid." Ranma's lips quirked wryly. "Well, except for maybe me an' Wendy in a roundabout sort of way."

An instant later he became more serious. "The second concern is much more difficult to answer. Your army's fought a decently clean war, but your hands aren't entirely clean ,and you're not doing nearly as much as you could be to curb the serfs' excesses when they rise against their former lords. But since I doubt anyone could stop that now that the serfs know you're going to win this war, I'm more concerned about whether you'll embrace the idea of totally wiping out the noble class and anyone who backs them, or if you will just remove the counts and put something workable in their place.

"Ha-ha, you speak very plainly. Very plainly indeed, while you stand in the camp of someone who you seem to be threatening, if politely. Is this bravado or confidence?" San Jiao Shin mused, moving around the map to take a seat on a small camp chair.

"Confidence," Ranma replied bluntly. "If I wanted to capture you, your troops would barely slow me down."

"…" San Jiao Shin stared hard at Ranma, then nodded. "If you are what I think you are, then I am prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, at least. As for King Vicotronious' fears, I can understand his concerns. I share them. Sometimes these days it feels more as if I am riding a tiger than leading a movement. I cannot promise anything, but I have ordered that there will be no reprisals without trials. Until I take the capital and the counts are removed, that is the best I can give you."

Ranma frowned, staring at the man. "And you're certain you'll win?"

"The counts might have more men still, but they don't have the leaders to match me in the field, and my men are veterans fighting for their rights. Theirs are conscripted serfs fighting for fear of the lash. You tell me," San Jiao Shin said, smiling like a Buddha.

"Heh, point made," Ranma replied with a smile. "Still, I…"

They were interrupted just then by a commotion outside. Screams began to be heard, and shouts from all around the tent. Ranma bolted out of the tent with San Jiao Shin and Wendy following on his heels, Wendy beating the older man out only because he paused to grab up his guan do.

Outside they found a scene of chaos, while above them in the nighttime sky a person on a rocket pack like that Ranma remembered Fukoro using flew. He dropped these odd bubbles around the camp, and when they burst they either exploded or deposited cloaked mages in the camp.

These mages were all armed with spears whose tips were on fire, and they seemed to be able to used them as spears or as flame throwers. The men of the camp, regardless of their training or experience, were no match for these mages who had come upon them so suddenly, save for a few of their own mages, who tried to rally the soldiers.

"Requip, pistols! Wendy, Sky Dragon Roar on those bubbles still in the air!" Ranma shouted, his hands flashing with circles of magical energy as he reached into his Requip space. "Rapid Fire!" With that Ranma began to belt out magic bullets as fast as he could, target the spear-wielding mages. Some of them flew backwards, their heads gone as Ranma forgot to tamp down his magical power enough to just knock them out. Others flew backwards already unconscious before they hit the ground.

"Hai, Onii-chan! Tenryu no Hoko!" Wendy shouted, aiming the attack up into the air at the bubbles still falling to the ground. She began to run around, sending up further air attacks, disturbing the landing of the next wave of attackers. She was frightened out of her wits by the sudden attack, but with her brother there she wanted to make him proud of her.

Realizing that his dive bombing technique wasn't working, the man using the jet pack landed. He was a very tall man, taller than even Gildarts, maybe, with the features of a goat, complete with curved horns and short white fur. He had on a tight black vest cut short to bare his midriff and equally tight black pants, which presumably had a hole in the back for his goat tail. Even in the dark of night he also wore sunglasses for some reason. "I wanted to do this the easy way, but I suppose that easy or hard, a job is a job," he said ruminatively, staring hard at Ranma and Wendy, then at San Jiao Shin. "And I suppose I can always make a place for new subordinates."

"Heh, funny joke, goat man," Ranma said then rushed forward, his guns blazing.

"I am not goat man, I am Caprico of Grimoire Heart!" the goat man replied, racing forward in turn and spreading his arms out wide to either side, dodging Ranma's bullets as he ran. "Mass Recall!" with that spell hundreds of people suddenly appeared all around him from a stream of bubbles, spreading out and engaging the soldiers around them.

"San, organize your men against his. I've got the main guy. Wendy, help him!" Ranma ordered just as Caprico was on him, launching a punch forward faster than anyone Ranma had seen since sparring with Laxus years ago, far faster than the mages Ranma had fought in Seven or Bosco. The martial artist barely had the time to dodge, let alone change out his weapons to his escrima clubs. He was able to return his guns, at least, so the goat-man's next punch was caught, and Ranma's own punch rocketed up into his chin, hurling him up and backwards half a step.

Caprico staggered back, one hand rising to his chin as another sent some kind of violet spell at the ground. It didn't seem to do anything, but Ranma remained wary. "That was impressive. What is your name, mage?"

"Ranma. And I thought we were fighting!" Ranma roared, leaping forward. Caprico tried to kick him, but Ranma tapped one hand down onto the goat's leg, flipping up over the man, bringing his own foot around in a kick. Caprico barely got a hand in between the side of his head and said foot, but the blow still sent him reeling sideways. When Caprico tried to reply Ranma again used the momentum of the blow to remain in the air, and his next blow took Caprico high in the head, shattering his glasses and sending him reeling once more.

"You are good, very good! But you are a fool if you think you can face a member of Grimoire Heart," Caprico said as he replied with another series of kicks, going faster and faster, trying hard to match Ranma's speed and mobility with his own. But to his chagrin, Ranma was able to match him entirely, and, as always, the aerial style of Anything Goes mostly negated kicks to a large extent.

"Yeah, yeah. You're a big baddie, and I'm a young unknown; ain't you ever read children's stories? Yah should know how this goes already," Ranma teased before launching into a full on Anything Goes Make 'em Mad, Make 'em Stupid™ assault. "So those horns, I bet they're overcompensating for something. And those clothes, they're very trendy dude…for a bordello! Ya look like ya want someone ta chase that goat tail of yours."

"Wh, how dare you, you little bastard! I'm going to rip out your heart!" Caprico shouted in reply, redoubling his efforts to tag Ranma. But Ranma was in his element now, fighting an opponent not nearly tough enough to ignore his hits and not fast enough to keep up with him. Caprico had speed and strength, but not enough of either, and he had no style to speak of, telegraphing his moves to Ranma to a large degree now that he was suitably enraged.

Capricorn grimaced as another blow landed in his chest, and he felt something break there. Dammit, I can't lose this! Not to a single boy mage who I've never heard of before. I'll never ascend to be one of the main leaders of Grimoire Heart if I lose here. But I never imagined I'd run into someone who could face me down in hand-to-hand so easily.

And it's as if my Human Subordination Magic is doing nothing to him. That had been the purple spell Caprico had cast upon his landing on the ground.

This actually wasn't the case. Ranma could tell his body was moving slower than it should, and for some reason his magic wasn't responding like it should. But his normal physical abilities were so far beyond even someone like Caprico that it only served to somewhat level the playing field. The same could be said for his magical reserves.

However, that was only true about Ranma, Wendy, and to a lesser extent the rebel general Caprico was here to neutralize. Caprico's Human Subordination magic was an unseen aura around him once he cast it, and this now began to turn the overall battle his way. The eyes of troopers fighting his pawns suddenly went glassy-eyed, and they turned and began to strike down their fellows or attack the nearest of the mages, who thanks to their magic were better able to defend themselves against the subtle subordination spell.

What few mages there were in the rebel camp beside San Jiao Shin himself were soon out of the fight, dead or unconscious, with only the general and the two Dragon Slayers still on their feet, surrounded by enemies. Ranma found himself attacked from all sides, with Caprico flashing in and out of range to land telling hits every time while Ranma tried to deal with the troopers with kid gloves. He looked up however as he heard Wendy cry out in pain.

Wendy had been fighting nearly back to back with San Jiao Shin, trusting in her Onii-chan's orders and his fighting ability to see them through. She had taken out several of the mages using spears, treating them like bandits or wild animals, both of which she had fought alongside Ranma by this point. She only occasionally used her magic, conserving it, since she felt oddly tired.

A blow from the end of a pike caught her in her armored side, knocking her off balance and allowing for another strike to get in to the side of her head. Thanks to her Dragon Slayer toughness the mage's fiery spear acted more like a blunt object, and it couldn't really burn her, but it did sting, and the heat was painful too.

At this point in her life, had she not met Ranma, Wendy Marvel would not have been involved in a fight like this. If she ever had become involved in one and been hit like that, she would have cried and kept crying, unable to deal with it. She was, after all, a just pushing seven-year-old girl.

But this Wendy had met Ranma. This Wendy had gone on several adventures with him already by this point, and had even been hit before, though admittedly not with a magic fire spear. And this Wendy had begun to partake of Ranma's personality too. So even as she cried out in pain, this Wendy took it and, rather than collapse, began to get angry.

"Tenryu no Saige! (Sky Dragon's Crushing Fang)!" she roared, lashing out with both hands in every direction, hurling out small but super-condensed blasts of air in every direction. She sent over a dozen people hurling in every direction, launching herself forward into the mass of them, knocking both Holder mages and ensorcelled rebel troops flying. "I don't like to fight, but that doesn't mean I'm weak!" she shouted.

"Thata'girl, Wendy!" Ranma said with a laugh, leaping into the air. Caprico tried to get him with a high kick, only to be flummoxed once more by Ranma's ability to redirect the momentum of an attack in order to push himself higher into the air. In this case, He flipped further upwards as he shouted, "Get San out of here, Wendy! Let me handle this! Requip: clubs!"

A second later Ranma dodged in midair several long tongues of flame from the surrounding mages, then oofed as Caprico leaped towards him just above two such, his knee catching Ranma in the chest. A second later Caprico's doubled fists slammed into Ranma's back, sending him hurling to the ground with a crash.

"There!" Caprico said with a laugh, landing nearby. "You see, this is the way it is, boy. You chAGKK!"

"Do all evil mages talk too much?" Ranma groused, having just slammed an Escrima club into Caprico's stomach. He felt a few ribs go under the blow, and it also caused Caprico to stumble back. A second later Ranma hurled the clubs into the air, his hands flashing out either direction as bright blue water appeared around them.

"Soryu no Kaiten Tsunami! (Water Dragon's Spinning Tsunami)" Ranma shouted, flicking his arms around as he spun, the massive claws of water slamming out in every direction and knocking the majority of the mages and troopers aside.

Nearby, Wendy had moved back to San Jiao Shin and, without warning, she grabbed the back of his shirt. "Hang on, mister. Sky Dragon's Boosted Steps!" she shouted, pushing a lot of her remaining magical energy into a blast of air which she directed out of her feet.

San Jiao Shin let out a most unmanly shriek as he found himself rocketing through the air with little Wendy acting as both propulsion and pilot. The flight didn't last, the man's weight throwing Wendy off course, but Wendy had known it would and compensated beforehand by just adding more energy to the initial blast of magic. They cleared the intervening distanced between the central camp and went about halfway towards the next nearest before coming back to earth. San came back to himself as he saw the top of the trees coming at them at speed, and whipped his guan do forward. "Slicing Spear!"

The attack cut them a way through the forest and they landed, the man trying to land on his feet and failing, while Wendy didn't even try, letting go of his back and rolling forward along the ground for a bit. "Owie…" she groaned, then looked up as shouts from the nearby camp told her they had been noticed.

She wondered why the sound of the fight hadn't spread this far, but San answered the question before she could ask it aloud. "There must have been a spell or something holding in the sound. Or perhaps someone among my commanders has turned traitor. I will get to the bottom of this, never fear. For now, I suspect we need to simply wait for your brother to finish with that mage. I saw what happened to my people. I can't in good conscience send more men into whatever field that villain is generating which allows him to take them over."

Again there was a moment where a Wendy who had not been influenced by Ranma would have simply nodded, unwilling to endanger herself and feeling rather shocky. But this Wendy, despite feeling rather shocky and being in pain and tired, just took a deep breath, filling her body with the Etherano of the air nearby.

Once she felt somewhat recharged, the stuck her tongue out at the bearded man. "Nyeeeh, you don't tell me what to do!" With that she turned and launched herself skyward once more, leaving behind a gaping rebel general and several dozen gawking former serfs turned rebels who had hurried through the woods to the site of the crash.

Back at the main fight, Caprico had found himself almost bereft of aid against the juggernaut he had found waiting for him on what should have been a relatively simple assignment. He attempted to address this by falling back, ordering his few remaining mages in to stall Ranma as he brought his hands forward once more. "Knights of Midi!"

Five knights in full plate armor wielding a variety of nasty weapons appeared all around Ranma, charging forward. Their weapons all glowed with lacrima, and their armor gleamed. They also moved as fast as San Jiao Shin had been doing despite being in full plate. Two of them got in blows to Ranma's back and out-thrust arm, but one of their fellow paid for this, his own shoulder plate crumpling under a blow from one of Ranma's clubs. Another, the one who had hit Ranma in the back, flew backwards from a mule kick.

Even so, the draining aspect of Caprico's Human Subordination Magic was beginning to drag on Ranma. More blows got through as Caprico rejoined the close-in combat. Another hard knee found Ranma's gut, and it was his time to feel something give.

But Ranma rode the impetus of that blow, dodging around a strike from a broadsword, his body almost seeming to flicker around it like a willow branch. The next instant his foot lashed into the armored helmet of the broadsword user, and then Ranma somehow used that to springboard forward, bringing one club around to lash at Caprico while using the other to block a blow from a warhammer.

The blow hammered into the side of Caprico's head, shattering his horn and further shattering his glasses. Stunned, Caprico once more retreated, seeing another of his knights faltering. God damn it, what is with this brat!?

"Hunter of Belparaso, Samagui!" he shouted, magic gathering in his fingers as he made a gesture in the air for a moment, then pointing forward towards Ranma.

From another burst of magic appeared a primitive looking huntsman, wearing clothing that looked somewhat like the clothing that hunters in Iceberg wore. On his back he wielded a short stabbing spear and in his hand he held a notched bow, which he quickly raised, the arrow pointing toward Ranma. As Ranma was dealing with the last two knights and a group of troopers who had somehow dragged themselves to their feet, the Hunter had a free shot, pulling back on his bow and letting fly with an arrow in an instant. The arrow shimmered in midair with some kind of magical force, adding to its deadliness.

Ranma, however, simply turned and held up an arm to protect his face. The arrow shattered on his forearm, leaving a large and nasty looking bruise, but that was all. "That hurt," he said dryly, before bringing one club up into one of the knight's guts. A second later he ducked under a blow from the last, a kick taking the knight's legs out from under him and another sending him flying into several troopers, bearing them to the earth. "You're going to run out of pawns soon enough, asshole. Then your face is going to join your horn in broken land."

But Capricorn had finally got enough distance for him to feel safe to cast a longer spell, and he did so. Dark purple and black magical energies gathered in his hands and he thrust them forward. "You're strong; it will be excellent to have that strength at my command! Huma Raise!" he shouted.

Magical energy from his outstretched hands coalesced into a pitch black cloud laced with dark purple which raced forward to envelop Ranma. Some of it quickly touched Ranma's shadow, and he froze in place and stared as the smoke moved towards him.

"You might have allowed that general to escape, but you will do just as well as he would for a servant! No, better!" Caprico shouted in triumph.

Gritting his teeth, Ranma gathered his magical aura around him, shining with as much magic as he could, but it didn't work. This left him hoping that his magic could serve to protect him from the oncoming cloud. He couldn't even move enough to cast a spell.

Whether this would have worked would remain unanswered, because their battle was interrupted by a shout, this time from above them. "Tenryu no Yokugeki! (Sky Dragon's Wing Attack)" From above the two combatants Wendy sent a massive gust of Sky Magic down at the Huma Raise spell. It hit the dark spell, dissipating it utterly. It even freed Ranma's shadow.

"What!?" Capricorn bellowed. "How!? How did you…how do you have that much magic left, girl!"

Before the astonished Caprico could try to cast another spell, Ranma raised a fist and shouted "Soryu no Kussaku Tsume!" letting loose a lot of his remaining magic in one attack.

The attack hit Caprico dead center before he could dodge and drilled through his body without stopping, slamming through a few tents and several dozen trees on the other side.

He gasped, staring down at his body for a moment. To Ranma's surprise there was no blood or viscera, only a neat, gaping hole right through the goat-man's body. It was as if Caprico's body was a projection almost. Or maybe it was made of something artificial, not the normal blood and guts most people were.

As Ranma and Wendy watched, a dark cloud, closely resembling the spell he'd tried to cast on Ranma without the purple strands, began to flow out of the goat-man's body. Soon enough it coalesced into the form of a human.

This person was short, with extremely fuzzy hair down his back that was kept out of his face by a headband which had cross designs on the sides and a blue trim. He had long, thin scars on either side of his mouth, dark bags under his eyes, and a long white robe with long sleeves.

The image of the man slowly started to solidify, and he laughed loudly. "You fool, you only released me from my mortal shell! Now I will be able to take you over entirely just like I… Wait…" the spirit said staring down at himself as pieces of his form seemed to disintegrate. "What, what's happening to me!?" The spirit turned to his former body, which was also slowly beginning to disintegrate. "Capricorn! Save me!"

The goat man, which Ranma supposed this other spirit had been inhabiting, stared down at the man, ignoring the fact that he too was becoming incorporeal. "After all you have done, after what you have used my body to do, the oaths you have forced me to break, you expect mercy?! You used a forbidden magic. What did you think would happen if it was ever dispelled? Be gone, Zoldeo, and never darken this world or the next ever again!"

Dropping to one knee, Ranma stared from the two slowly disappearing beings up to Wendy, who alighted on the ground nearby. She then swiftly threw herself into his arms, hugging him tightly around shoulders. "You're all right, Onii-chan!"

"I am, thanks to you, Wendy," Ranma said, standing and pulling her up with him into a hug, holding her against his chest as he continued to stare at the bodies dissipating. "Don't suppose you have any idea was going on here, do you?"

Wendy shook her head, burying her head into his neck again and hugging him tightly, trembling from the aftershocks of the battle now that it was over and her adrenaline was leaving her. Ranma gently patted her head while holding her with the other arm as he stared at the two disappearing people.

One, the man called Zoldeo, slowly dissipated with a scream of utter despair.

The other one, who Zoldeo had called Capricorn, simply stood there stoically, actually saluting Ranma. "A most excellent fight, good sir. And I hate to trouble you further, but I don't suppose you could mail my key to the Heartphilia estate in Fiore? I have a promise to keep…"

From the air which his body had inhabited, a large golden key appeared as Capricorn finished disappearing. Still holding Wendy, Ranma moved over and picked it up gently, holding it up at staring at it in the light of the nearest campfires. "Okay… Well, that just happened…" Then he smiled. "Hmmm… I might not know where this Heartphilia estate is, but I at least know someone who's got access to a lot of other mages in Fiore."

End Chapter

---

Please note that this Caprico was a Zoldeo with barely two years of being a villain under his belt. He has joined Grimoire Heart by this time, but he isn't one of their biggest baddies yet, and his actual experience is next to nothing. And also his specialty, close quarters combat and mass produced grunts, does not stack well against Ranma's own specialties.

And there was no Carla. I looked it up and found that the Exceed had sent their kids through the Anima in order to save them from their island crashing due to lack of magic, not to control the Dragon Slayers as Carla and the general populace thought. Therefore, yes, Carla and the others would have been sent through as per normal, but there would be no reason to aim Carla toward Wendy specifically, and no way to do so either. Will I introduce her? Eventually, maybe, but we will see precisely how. Heh. I have also decided how to deal with the whole Lisanna question. The way I will do so is one I believe will be unique in this fandom, lololol.

Oh, and FYI, Ranma is now sixteen once more.