Here's chapter 35 of Magic vs. MA.

See Previous chapters for disclaimer.

sorry for all the delays. work is going hard and bouncing around shifts have left me with little energy to be creative. things are starting to settle down, and I have 2 chaps to type up and post for this story, another chap for my Smallville/Stargate story, I had an inspiration for a story for Firely/Serenity with a little Xmen thrown in.

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Harry dove to the side, narrowly missing being slashed by a purple whip like spell identical to the one that had hit Hermione only a few minutes before. He was too busy dodging spells to really worry about his friends, but a small voice in his head was chiding him for letting his friends get hurt.

He rolled to his feet getting ready to fire a spell, but a barely heard sound caused him to fall to his back as a sword swung through the space formerly occupied by his neck. Seeing his attacker off balance from the attack, he slammed his fist into the knee, popping the knee cap and causing the warrior to fall to the ground on both knees. Once he judged it close enough, Harry swung his foot up, catching the winged man in the temple, knocking him out and possibly crushing the soft orbital bones.

Harry used the momentum of the kick to back roll and regain his feet. He bound teh man with Immobulus and silenced him to be safe, then looked around to see how the battle was going.

Seeing that it was pretty even for the two sides, he took a moment to rest and recuperate some energy, cursing the fates for choosing this day for the first open conflist of the new war.

'It started out so well!' he thought, his attention caught by a roar and a booming sound from teh far end of the village. He was glad to hear it, as it proved that Ranma was still in the fight. The sound following the roar was the explosion of a Dementor.

Once the attack had began, the Dementors moved in and despite a wall of Patroni from all of the HarHarTu members, they continued forward. In an attempt to distract them, Ranma had transformed and revealed his dragon form to the entire village and the students of Hogwarts. He took off towards the approaching Dementors and was soon followed by the monstrous form of Bull Taro. They attacked the beasts, but were swarmed and slowed. The Dementors tried to suck their souls from a distance, and Ranma had faltered and nearly fallen from the sky, but he seemed to shake off the effects and renewed his flight.

The first pass through the ranks of the feared creatures, his slashing claws caught one of them and tore through the fluttering cloak. They ripped through the material and must have punctured the beast's form, for there was a pyrotechnic explosive delay that made the World Cup look like a series of children's sparklers. That explosion repeatediself several times as Ranma's limbs lashed out. The explosions were strong enough to knock Ranma's form around in the air, and it was only the inherant strength and magic of his dragon form that kept him from falling from the sky.

To give the Dementors credit, they did not flee, but swarmed Ranma, ignoring Taro who had to retreat, unable to ignore the cold and the soul searing fear that the Dementors projected. Instead the winged, tentacled minotaur returned to ground and attacked a group of mountain trolls, then moved on to a pair of Giants as Ryoga and Hagrid charged the trolls. Between them, they'd be able to handle the 5 10 foot tall, green dusty skinned, foul smelling beasts while Taro tried to control the approach of the pair of 18 foot giants.

With neither side being fond of the Dementors, the battle soon renewed. It was incredibly vicious, as the Death Eaters and their allieas had not bee prepared to battle without the Dementors weakening their prey. And though greatly outnumbered, the defenders consisted of mostly the HarHarTu group and the other students. These were glad to finally have a chance to put their skills to the test, though they also knew how serious the situation was. They were supported by a half dozen Aurors stationed in the village, a few of the braver and more fight ready shopkeepers, and those professors who had chaperoned the horde of children to Hogsmead.

Harry had upon first realizing the situation, been placed in command by general concencise of the students. He split them into groups of various size, then assigned them to protect a certain location or locations depending on the side of the group. He chose one of the senior HHT members to lead each group of mixed students and villagers. Not surprisingly, these included the Weasley's, Hermione, Neville, Susan Bones and Cho Chang. Luna had changed to Tonks and joined the Aurors, not wanting to accidentally shift in the stress of battle. Each group had at least 3 people (Nevill's group of him and the Patil twins, all three of whom were among the most powerful in HHT and would protect the entrance to Knockturn to block of Death Eater escape or reinforcement) to 10(Cho's mostly Ravenclaw group who were assigned to Honeydukes and the largest group of not combatants).

Ginny and her group were palced at teh Hogshead bar. She had Dean, Seamus, Lavender, Hannah, and Justin with her. Hermione was sent to gather the children not with HHT and tohse not attending Hogwarts to keep them protected and calm. Fred and George split up, George gathering thoe people from each house that had been excelling in the martial arts classes, while Fred gathered the pranksters of each house. Fred's group went to protect Fortesque's, while George brought his broup towards the residential area. Ron and Susan split the rest of HHT into small sub groups and spread them out throughout the rest of the village while they would roam to assist who needed their help.

The Nerima Wrecking Crew as they were known in Japan, split into their own groups. After Ranma changed to dragon form and went after the Dementors. Taro of course tried to follow, but he couldn't handle the press of that many Dementors in one place. So instead he went to join Ryoage against the mountain trolls that appeared. He wasn't there long, as almost immediately from the other side of the village, a pair of giants began bashing their way through the village. He was the only one aside from Ranma who could match the strength of those monsters, so he went after the pair. Ryoga wasn't alone long as Hagrid joined him against the trolls, the half giant beind a match for the beasts.

Tofu brought Kasumi to the group of Aurors and professors, who had surrendered command to Tonks. He then started to flow through the village ready to help where he could.

Akane was joined by Khu Lon, Mu Tsu and Harry himself, and they had taken the central position in the town square. They arranged themselves at the points of the compass, forming a loose circle. Each would have their own sections of the village that they could see and defend with long range attacks while also dealing with the more physical attacks of the Dark Pheonix group.

At the moment, Harry was facing a number of Death Eaters with only a handful of warriors. Akane was facing a group of angry Amazon's and Musk soldiers. Mu Tsu was glaring up with uneering ease at a flock of Pheonix soldiers who were accompanied by a number of full pheonix. Khu Lon was faced by the only well balanced group of attackers.

Behind him, Harry heard Akane sigh and comment. "Oh. There's only 20 of them. Barely a workout."

The young wizard was surprised by the statement and startled by the response from his other allies.

"Don't worry, Saotome-domo. I'm sure it will not be as easy as it seems. I know most of the Amazon's you face and many would have been challenges for your spouse prior to his Ascension. They are far superior than those few you have faced before, and were as good as Xian Pu before we left the village. And while we have had our adventures, Xian has not been under the same training levels as these warriors. They would have surpassed her by now. And you know how easily you handled her, the one time she tried to force the issue of your relation with Lord Ranma."

Something occured to Harry as the two groups slowly warmed up by casting low level, easily blocked spells and attacks towards each other. "Hey, Mu Tsu, where is Xian?" He took another look and noticed something else. "And most of Slytherin isn't here either." He had a bad feeling about that. The only upper years he could see were the identically named but spelled differently Zabini twins. He felt bad for the pair, who's parents had named Blaise and Blaize. He didn't know either well, but he had heard that Blaise the boy was a pouf, and Blaize the girl was often called 'The Ice Queen' for the almost total emotional control she displayed. He could also see Daphne Greengrass and a handful of others he couldn't name. Those who were missing were not surprisingly those who's parents were either Death Eaters or known supporters of Voldemort.

"She did not come to the village today." Khu Lon replied, glaring at their enemies. "She has fallen behind in her studies and chose to remain and attempt to improve her meager skills. She has been too interested in bedding anything male and most females that get within her grasp. She has neglected both her martial and magical training. I believe that she's succeded in bedding almost half of Slytherin already. At first I thought her goal to be to try and force Ranma to some kind of jealous fit. But lately, I have noticed oddities of behaviour I cannot understand."

Before anyone could say any more about any missing students, a familiar voice resonated through the streets.

"People of Hogsmead and Students of Hogwarts. Lay down your wantds and swear service to Lord Voldemort and be spared. Our Lord wishes only to protect us all from the blood traitors and the impure filthy mudbloods whose existance is an insult to the true masters of magic. No one need be harmed, save those the great Lord has decreed as enemies to Magic.

Those are the members of the Order of the, the staff of Hogwarts, the Aurors and Hitwaizards. Individuals such as Albus Dumbledore, Alastor Moody, Icarus Caldwell, the blood traitors Andromeda and Nymphadora Black, Sirius Black, the werewolf Remus Lupin, the discraceful Weasley family, the mudblood Hermione Granger and the rest of the group known as Harry's HardLuck Tutoring. All have been convicted of crimes against the Magical World and sentenced to death." The voice paused for a moment before continuing.

"Oh my, I seemed to have forgotten someone. Also ordered to surrender and accept his death is Harry James Potter, son of blood traitor James Potter and his mudblood bitch Lily Evans."

Harry felt his rage boil over and even before the speaker finished, he was casting a reducto to it's owner. Said owner dodged the attack before sending one of his own towards the youth. Harry's attack hit a death eater in the chest, crushing his ribs and sending him flying backwards, obviously dead or dying as the shards of his ribs had diced his lungs and heart. The commanding Death Eaters attack slammed into Harry and sent him flying backas well. The main difference being that Harry was hit with the mid level spell Expeliarmus, while the DE was hit with the explosive Reducto curse.

He landed painfully on his back and rolled several times. Only instinct allowed him to keep hold of his wand. He lay there winded from the dual impacts of spell and ground. He was again saved by instinct as he rolled to get to his feet, the space where his head had lain was hit by a nasty looking yellowish spell. He immediately raised his wand and cast the strongest shield he knew. "Draconus Tempores" Better known as the Time of the Dragon, it created a shield around the caster that was as strong as Dragon Scale and just as resistant to magical attack.

It was struck immediately by several spells he recognized including both the Cruciatus and the Killing Curse. He returned fire with a combo of Reducto-Bombardo-Infligratte. This scattered his attackers though 3 stayed in a loose triangle formation.

"What, no greeting today?" Harry yelled, allowing a few spells to hit the shield, knowing that it would block most spells but could only last a few short moments.

So he rose to his feet and cast a few more spells, hitting a few more of the white masked attackers. The two bronze masked and the silvery masked figures were able to block his attacks, as Harry found cover behind a low stone wall. "So where's your master Lucius? I would have thought he'd be here since the rest of you lot are so incompetent?"

A flash of familiar green passed over his head and hit a stone column which exploded in a fairly impressive display of raw power.

"You are as foolishly arrogant as always, Potter. Just like your damned father and whorish mother. They thought they could defy the will of the Dark Lord and paid dealy for their arrogance. I do not understand how he could honor them by granting them death by His Own Hand. Or why He feels that you are the one who might be his equal. You are nothing!" Lucius ranted, continuing to throw spells.

Harry allowed a smirk as he felt his Draconus shield collapse. He replaced it with a Protego and Defenso while tring to think of what to do next. He risked a glance over the wall, and was pleased to see that despite what Lucius was saying, he and his surviving allies were behind cover as well. But something behind them drew his attention and his smirk grew into a wild grin.

"Swish and Flick." he whispered to himself as he stood and cast a spell that narrowly missed the head of the figure to Malfot's right.

"Terrible aim, Potter." The figure snarled. "And a pathetic spell for battle." he retaliated with the same flame spell Draco tried against Ranma a few months before at the welcome feast.

Harry waited for the flames to pass, knowing his attacker would not want to drain himself by sustaining the fire. When the flames died out, Harry rose to his feet and seeing that the Wingardium had struck his true target, allowed the next part of his plan to unfold.

"Accio Troll!" he shouted, the summoning charm grabbing the floating form of the large creature and drawing him speedily back towards it's source. Unfortunately for them, the Death Eaters were between the massive form and it's summoner, and were bowled over by the body. It continued forward until it slammed to a halt as it impacted the two bronze masked Death Eaters and crushed them up against their own barrier. This shock awake the troll, who had been thoroughly beaten by Ryoga. That person was easly toying with the other four trolls, he and Hagrid making a game of knocking them around.

Unlike his companions, Lucius had reacted immediately at hearing Harry scream. He launched himself aside with a well placed Expeliarmus into the ground at his feet. The force sent him whizzing to the side and he landed gracefully on his feet. He watched as his fellows were crushed by the troll and sighed. The Dark Lord would not be pleased to lose those two. They were some of his most loyal and vicious of His servants. As he continued to scan Hogsmeade, he idly wondered how his sister in law would react to the news that her husband and his brother had died by Potter's hands.

"Well done, Potter. You just killed Rudolphus and Rodolpho Lestrange. Bellatrix is goign to do things to you that even I shudder to consider. While I don't know if she was even fond of her husband, they were married and Bella's always been rather . . . eccentric when it comes to the sanctity of marriage."

"Well at least that psycho bitch has something normal in that twisted hell she calls a mind." Harry wasn't trying to goad Lucius any more, only stall him. He knew that by now Dumbledore and the Order would have heard of the attack and be on their way.

Lucius ignored the boy and took stock of the battle. He grimaced as he saw that most of his fellow Death Eaters had already been defeated and that their allies were the only ones still fighting and defeating the defenders. The students, aided by the Aurors and Professors as well as the Hogmeade population were able to hold off the Death Eaters, but their allies were a new experience for most and though some of the students were able to hold off their attackers, the allies were far more experienced and vicious fighters. Only the group of foreigners who had invaded Hogwarts could match their prowess. Even the giants were being defeated by the winged beast and now that the dragon had finally chased off the last of the Dementors, it was turning to return and focus on the lesser threats of the weakened forces. Lucius doubted that even with the combined forces of all the Death Eaters that had come to this attack they could stop the dragon.

Knowing that his Lord would not be pleased but also knowing He would be be even less pleased should his followers be captured or defeated by Dumbledore, he cast the Dark Mark into the sky, then pressed his wand to his own Mark. At once, all the Death Eaters still standing and the ranking members of the defeated were ported away. Only the dead and maimed were left behind. The giants and trolls were left with the other allies, but the warriors vanished thanks to the Pheonixes sent along with them. They also left a mark, one of a burning Pheonix grasping a male figure and burning it to ash.

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Akane was almost enjoying herself. This was the first real battle she'd been involved with since Ranma had deemed her training complete. And aside from some fights with Ukyo, Kodachi and Shampoo about Ranma, it was the first fight outside of sparring since she began her real training under Ranma's instruction.

She was more then holding her own, easily beating back a variety of Amazon, Musk and Pheonix warriors. Just a year ago, she couldn't even block or land a blow against the weakest of her attackers. She'd been angr, fearful and arrogant to a dangerous degree. Being a little arrogant, or angry or afraid was only human. At times, every one has those feelings. Lesser, more acceptable levels of arrogance was called confidence and to be successful in any field you needed to be confident that you would and could succeed.

But if taken too far and to the point that you just assume that you would succeed without effort becomes arrogance and that is where people get in trouble. It was a fine line to balance, and Akane knew that sometimes it was almost impossible to distinguish in some people. Ranma was a fine example of the delicate balance. At times he had allowed his confidence to become arrogance. For the most part, while others called his behaviour arrogance, he was simply demonstrating a high level of self-confidence. He would boast at being the best, and he was mostly able to prove it by defeating all his rivals and challengers no matter what they challenged him to. So to his enemies he was arrogant to claim to be the best and to state that 'Ranma Saotome don't lose', he proved his confidence by beating them repeatedly at their own specialties.

And if someone occassionaly got the better of him, usualy due to some really unusual form of combat, he would refuse to accept it and train until he was able to decicively defeat the challenger. And once he deafeated an opponent, that person had never been able to beat him again, no matter what new tricks they learned because Ranma had added their skill to his own, and would also raise his training to always remain ahead of others. It was a trait that Akane was slowly beginning to adopt for herself.

She used the shaft of a summoned hammer to block a sword strike, while launce a red ki sphere at an attacker coming from her blind side. She was full of energy, her body producing and burning through immense amounts of adrenaline. She could feel her muscles being fed by the hormones as she fought not for pride or fame, but to protect those hwo could not protect themselves. She knew that if she fell, if she was defeated, others would pay for her failure-most likely with their lives.

For the first time Akane slipped into the mental state that exclude all else but the moment. She was no longer concius of her movements, only that the threats continued. Her body moved faster then thought, blocking strikes and retaliating with her own.

She moved across her are, rendering her opponents unconcious and moving to the next with ease. Along the way, she hardly noticed the slight glow that surrounded her as she continued to dodge kicks, punches, and weapon strikes that came at her. Her enemies were among the best fighters in teh world, and all blooded in battle. They had a common history of 3000 years of combat, mostly against each other. Every one of them was a walking arsenal where every inch of their bodies was a lethal weapon.

Yet Akane knew she would win. For she had something none of them did or ever would possess. She was loved by Ranma Saotome, and he had personally trained her. Her father had started her on the Path, and Ranma- with some help from Khu Lon and Happosai- had brought her the rest of the way. Three of the most powerful and skilled fighters in the world had trained her to reach their level. She still had a long way to go, but she was now much closer to their level then she had been, and was far beyond all but the few others who might be in the top 20 in the world. Comparatively, she was now to the Amazon's what Ranma had been to her when they met. When her own arrogance had almost cost her the love of her life, not to mention her own life itself.

Unlike her beloved husband, she didn't toy with her attckers, She didn't want rivals or sparring partners. She didn't want them to attack again in order to brag about it. She wanted them to know that she was serious. That she could and would protect herslef and her family. That anyone who attacked her would be hurt. That they meant nothing to her and she didn't care how they felt. If they tried to hurt her or worse, she'd raise the bar and hurt them far beyond anything they could imagine. The arrogant, spoiled Akane of Pre-Ranma existence was gone. In her place stood a weapon crafted by powers beyond those of the so called rational mind.

She was a Warrior of Budo, and she embraced the Way. With Ranma at her side, she could accomplish almost anything. They had plans for the future, and no one would stop them from accomplishing those plans. Not even the demi-god or Dark Lord.

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AUTHOR"S NOTES

so here's chap 36. hope you enjoyed the battle. I still have another chap written out that I need to type, and more ideas are flooding in now that things at work are kind of settling down. I always get the most productive between April and July. Goes back to highschool. when others were working on end of year projects, I'd spend my time writting.

In other news, I just celibrated my 1 year anniversary at work.