AN: It didn't take me a year or… more… to get back! Yay! Still don't own anything, though.

Ranma-Papa, Shampoo-Mama

Chapter 24

"Go on ahead, Saotome. I'll handle these fools!" Mouse yelled, having run out of bombs with the first batch of "ninjas" and having quickly resorted to chains, blades, and duck potty's.

Ranma, back to back with the blind boy, delivered a round kick that scythed through three of the black clad foot soldiers. "Dude, there's like, fifty of these guys. I'm not leaving you alone here!"

"We don't have time for you to pretend nobility for my sake." Mouse retorted, his own chains pulling two men together with enough force to break bone. "The girls need you to come now, and whatever's waiting at the end of this gaudy hallway, we both know I'm not going to be able to help against it."

Ranma frowned. Hearing Mouse admit that, even though the Pigtailed Boy thought it was true, worried him. "Don't go getting crazy, man. We might both need to be there."

Mouse snorted, and threw down his last explosive, Both Teenaged martial artists jumping back, and the concussion blowing the ninja's away from them. "What ever happened to 'Ranma Saotome never loses!'. Don't make me have to respect you now, Ranma."

"Whatever."
"Go. I'll catch up with you when I can, or maybe I'll leave you to your fate and go find Ryoga. If you loose we'll at least be able to toast over your corpse."

"There's the psychopath I know and vaguely tolerate." Ranma muttered. "But seriously, you can't handle this many!"

"No. This few can't handle an Amazon. Now go!"

Ranma hesitated only a second, but finally he jumped up, into the high vaulted ceiling and onto the gilded, and somewhat war damaged, chandelier. He swung from it to the next in the hallway, far to high for the more mundane martial artists below him to reach.

One drew a knife, intending to throw it, only to receive a shuriken in his wrist for his troubles. Mouse, now holding all the black clad warriors attention, drew two curved broadswords from his sleeves. "You're fight is with me, Gentlemen."

As one, the men charged.

Ranma heard the crowd behind him surge, and paused, considering returning to the melee behind him. Looking back he couldn't see Mouse, and wasn't sure how long, or even if, the Chinese boy could hold out. Shaking himself, Ranma made himself continue forward.

The hesitation probably saved his life.

A green fireball slammed into the chandeliers both behind and in front of him, vaporizing them. Ranma dove out of his own light fixture perch, landing on the thick, bordello red carpet beneath him to find two younger people, a man and woman of maybe twenty, cursing in front of a huge gold door.

"Man, you guys suck something awful. How'd you do that, though. I didn't even feel the ki build up!" Ranma commented, conversationally. Inside he was seething, but one of the credo's of his style was to piss of his opponents till they made a mistake.

"Magic, you idiot! Like this!" The woman all but screamed, flinging out her hands, lightning bolts flinging from her fingertips like darts. Ranma, fast as he was, couldn't beat the speed of light and found himself thrown back ten feet by the electrical force.

"Very good Selena. That should deal with him…" The male commented.

"Geesh that hurt." Ranma observed, startling both sorcerers by getting up, smoke rising from his Chinese shirt. "But really, should you be flirting with her in the middle of a fight? I mean, she's kind of cute for a psycho, but still!"

"How…. How are you… Flirting? I'm not…"

"Ignore him, Hiroshi. Fireball!"

This time, Ranma was prepared, and timed his dodge for her wrist motion instead of her 'weapon'. The green balefire ripped down the hallway, incidentally engulfing a pair of the ninja's fighting Mouse in flames forty feet away. He surged forward, sweeping the girls feet before having to jump away to avoid an electrical assault from the male wizard. "And seriously, did you just try to look up her robes? Are you a pervert or something?"

"No I didn't! Fireball."

Ranma dodged easily, the ball thrown in an angry hurry. "And you're looking at her butt right now, while she's getting up. I really think you'd be better off paying attention to me instead of her, jackass!"

"Hiroshi!" The witch whipped around. "Are you really staring at my ass instead of…gurk…"

Ranma watched her fall, his finger still extended from pushing a sleep pressure point. "Hope that doesn't spoil things for you man, but seriously… I hate hitting girls."

"I'll destroy you! FIR..ow, ow, ow…"

Ranma, twisting the man's wrist and arm around, forcing him to his knee's by the simple, basic method of grabbing a thumb and twisting, shook his head. "You have a choice. I knock you out, leave you here, and whenever and whatever happens to blow the top of the building up maybe kills both of you. Trust me, that always seems to happen in these things."

"OR, you pick your girlfriend up, run down those fire stairs… and where the hell do they come out anyway, damn it… and maybe buy her dinner to apologizing because you TOTALLY tried to look up her robes. Perv."

The wizard considered things. He could try throwing a spell with his other hand, but somehow he knew he'd never get it off. "I'll take her."

"Your word. Now."

"I promise!"

"I think you mean that. Now get out of here…" Ranma let go of his hand and walked towards the door, seeming to ignore him. The man began forming a fireball in his hand. "But if you even think of throwing that fireball at my back, I'll break every bone in your body, dumb ass."

The wizard picked up the girl, and ran for the door.

"Damn… My enemies are improving." He commented, before turning his full attention on the golden, barred door.

Mouse was in trouble, and part of him considered calling for help. Ranma was close enough, he could feel him… but his pride refused.

In all of the wrecking crew he'd improved the least since coming to Nerima. The Chinese boy had begun to doubt he'd even match Akane Tendo in a fight now, and this shamed him, or did, until he admitted his concerns to Cologne.

"Mouse… Do you really think you've not improved?" She'd chided him. "You've grown by leaps and bounds as a martial artist. That's the only reason I let you stay."

"The way you haven't grown, and have disappointed me, is you haven't grown as a person. Shampoo gets along with the girls when Ranma isn't around now, Ryoga and Ranma go through the motions of hating each other, but the recent reduction in construction crew staffing tells us all how much they've calmed. Tofu's getting over his "Kasumi-its". Only you've not managed to make a single real friend among them. I'd had hopes for you and Ryoga but… frankly… he's more honorable than you."

"So I'm a failure."

"Not yet." Cologne had said. "Not unless you choose to be one."

So he'd stayed in china, with his family and some old friends and realized… they'd grown past him too. His Sister had a daughter now, with good vision to add insult to injury. While everyone commented on how he hadn't changed. And he hadn't.

He found himself working out, and perversely drawing a lot of female attention, trying to think about it, Trying to understand what Cologne had meant about not yet, since everything ELSE sure made him feel like a failure.

It wasn't till he'd dodged his seventh bombori, confused as to why everyone seemed to be losing their weapons suddenly, when his Father walked up to him. "Girls, I need to talk to my son. Go away."

Moose, not wearing his glasses as usual, was confused by the seven or eight "Awww's" that chimed out at that moment, but didn't worry about it. "What do you need, father."

"Oh, just wanted to know if you wanted to talk." He'd said. "You look thoughtful."

"Something the elder… Cologne said to me." Mouse had replied, before telling him about the conversation. "I just don't get what she means!"

"She means you haven't chosen who you're going to be, yet. You're taking a little longer to mature than other kids you hang out with, but you're getting there. I'd say you're there now, frankly."

Mouse blinked. "WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST SAY THAT!"

"She's a woman."

Mouse (And he discovered later eight amazon girls listening in) face faulted straight into the soil. "What! It's true. They complicate things. Now man up, go back to Japan, and get over Shampoo. Before you get killed by a beach ball colored Mace, anyhow. You really can't survive being in the village, distracted like this."

"Oh, and ninja's are attacking you."

"Wait, he didn't say that." Mouse muttered, before the burn of a shallow cut, across his left arm, brought him back to the present.

"Oh. Right… I'm fighting ninja's!"

One of the black clad soldiers sweat dropped. "Did you really forget about that?"

"Yeah, sorry, I'm used to fighting better than you guys."

With a shrug, Mouse pulled his REAL last bomb out of his robes… or wherever he kept it. Even He wasn't sure. The five foot sphere, with digital timer, caused the floor to cave slightly with it's weight.

"What… Where the hell did you keep that thing!"

"Who care's! It's only got ten second….. Did that blind kid just get back on the elevator?"

"Oh god! RUN FOR THE FIRE ESCAPE!"

Ranma grumbled as heat and wind flapped at his back from the explosion. "Seriously. How does he hide that damn thing?" He muttered. "Oh well. I hate doing this…"

"YAMA SEN KEN!"

The door exploded inwards, leaving the path open to the final battle.

AN: I felt a rescue justifies the Locked Techniques. Also… I don't know why Mouse needed introspection but, let's be frank… NABIKI could take out Bush League ninja's. (Kasumi would smile them into submission and calling their mothers.)

On a related note, I'm thinking about going back and re-editing all my stories, maybe adding content to the chapters (not changing the stories, just polishing them). People complain about my grammar and I really think I should fix it. What do you all think?