Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 and X-men are not mine, but you already knew that.
Into the Terror
Chapter One
By Michael Fetter
It was a cool morning. The sun was busy pushing back a mist layering a valley of springs. Bamboo poles stood like antennas to the sky in the mirror water. This was one of the magical places of timeless beauty poets wrote about. It stirred feelings in ordinary people, bringing some to tears and others a great peace.
The two martial artists using the bamboo poles to stay above the water, however, were not ordinary people. They felt nothing for aesthetic pleasure of this place, rather a certain thrill to be fighting over a new training ground that was supposed to be so famous.
"No Mr. Customers! Should not fight over springs! Very dangerous! Very tragic!" A short, stubby Chinese guide in green fatigues scurried about the pools frantically waving his arms. He and his daughter had rushed down as they saw two men in white gis entering the area. One was an older man, deceptively agile for his corpulence, he moved upon the poles as easily as his son. The boy had a lean and muscular build, his dark hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. Where the man was gruff, the boy was cocky with a certain boyish smirk on his face.
The guide's young daughter, Plum, stopped beside her father, shaking her head. This had been the scene too many times before. They aren't listening, father. Customers never listen until it is too late.
The guide sighed and hung his head in resignation, the sounds of fighting continuing overhead as his warning went unheeded. I know, but I was just hoping this once.
His hands in the air, Ranma, the sixteen-year-old martial artist, held his body poised for the next exchange with his father. "Ready for your bath, old man?!"
"Don't get cocky, boy!" Genma retorted angrily as he leapt off his pole.
Ranma smirked as he watched his father open up his side to build up a strong punch. Too bad he was getting so slow in his old age. "An opening!"
Genma crashed beneath the waves a moment later after his son leveled a hard sidekick into his stomach. The kid was getting good, he thought proudly.
On dry land, the guide's shoulders slumped further. Oh well.
Don't worry, father. Maybe next time. Plum patted her father's hand. She did feel sorry, but at least this time they were watching a cute boy. Maybe he would fall in the water and get that white gi all wet and plastered to his skin.
"Looks like you're all wet, old man!" Ranma taunted from atop the bamboo poles. His father sat in the knee-high pool, grumbling until something occurred to him and he smiled at his son. Ranma started looking around the area to see what could be making his father so happy. Genma only got that smile when he was about to do something dirty. "What?"
Smiling, Genma pulled back his leg, still beneath the water. His son continued to stare dumbly above him. How much power did he need to knock down a bamboo pole? "Kyah!"
Ranma fell startled as the pole shook beneath his feet. "Stupid old ma-!"
The guide started heading back to the hut he shared with his daughter. Do you want to head back to the hut for some tea?
Plum stared at the spring the boy had fallen in. Any second now, she thought brightly. Sure, daddeeeeEEEEE!!!
Ranma jumped back above the surface, balling his hands at his father. Something felt different though. "You're gonna pay for that . . old . . . man . . . ." Ranma blinked at the two strange bumps on his chest he was certain they weren't there a second ago. The waist ties nearly snapped as he pulled the top of his gi open. This was the first pair of breasts he'd ever had. How to mark the occasion? "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!"
Plum stared at the screaming redheaded girl in amazement. She grabbed her father by the shirt and began to shake him roughly. Father, do you know what this means!
The guide was crying with a proud smile on his face, nodding his head vigorously. Now we can start listing this training area as a real cursed valley of springs!
I'm so happy! Plum jumped about, waving her father's hands. The two skipped off to their hut to find the phone.
The mist grew a corridor as two figures suddenly rushed out of the area. Or rather one rushed, the other chased. "Help meeeee!"
"Get back here, old man!" Ranma-chan shouted.
~
It was an Amazon village. Set like an ant farm within the grass. A log wall surrounded a dozen or more huts and protected near four thousand Amazon warriors and men. Ranma and Genma weren't far off as the crested the last mountain.
They had left the guide and his daughter behind. The old Chinese man more interested in publicizing his hoax cursed grounds than showing them the way to the village. Ranma followed his father, still trapped in his cursed form. For the last day he was in the body of woman he did not know. Red hair, like fire, was pulled back into a pigtail and fell to the back of her shoulders. She was smaller than Ranma-kun, only five foot, but a healthy girl making the bust of her shirt pull tight.
Genma looked over concerned at his cursed son. Ranma was mad now, but he knew things were just bound to get worse. Well, that's why he was training his son to be a martial artist, to deal with things as they came up. Hopefully the same principle could be applied here. The boy was certainly gifted, everyone that saw him could see it.
"This is all your fault, stupid old man," Ranma grumbled, huffing beneath the weight of her travelling pack. She'd found herself faster as a girl, but she was weaker. Still far above average, Ranma-chan was probably two thirds as strong as Ranma-kun.
Genma sighed, he did feel bad about this curse of his son's. "I thought the cursed spring part was just a hoax. The guide even admitted to it when he asked if we can use our story as one of his tragic tales."
Scowling, Ranma stomped a little harder, shaking the ground. "And that's another thing! Half of that money is mine, pops!"
Genma coughed and tightened the grip over the pack on his back, laughing nervously. "Of course, but it would be better if I held onto it. You're too young and might spend it frivolously."
"Yeah, right. Like you should talk."
The trees opened up as the two continued down the trail from Jusenkyou. It was afternoon with the sun high overhead, a bright blue sky like the sea that had crossed to get to this land. A light appeared in the distance, a clearing opened up and the sun filtered through the canopy to strike the plants and flowers often hidden in the shadows. "That must be the Amazon village the guide was talking about." Genma noted the high walls and the open gates. It was an open tournament as the guide suspected it would be. It was here they hoped to find Ranma a cure.
Ranma picked up her pack a little higher on her back and jogged ahead of her father. "Let's hurry. If they got a cure, I want it fast!"
They were separated once they entered the village. Genma, of course, followed his nose and forgot about his son for the moment. It wasn't often that he would go against the grumbling of his stomach.
"Wonder who I should talk to?" Ranma tiptoed through the crowd of women. The women were built powerfully; tall and lean, each of them looked like their own versions of goddesses of the hunt. As she walked through the roar of voices, the noise began to drift away, all heads were turned not to the tournament arena, but somewhere beside it. Craning her neck, she saw over some of the shoulders to find a girl about her own age stalking towards her. The crowd began to part to let the purple-haired girl through.
Ranma looked around and found the Amazon warrior staring only at her. "What?"
The girl held up one of her bombori to Ranma's face and snapped something out in a heavily accented Japanese. "Fat man yours! Eat Xian Pu prize!"
Ranma blinked then looked over to where the girl was pointing. Her father was sitting at a table with half a pile of food missing. Half a dozen warriors stood around him, pointing swords and spears at his throat. "Stupid old man! Always thinkin with yer stomach!"
Laughing nervously, Genma made sure not to move too much in case he was accidentally stabbed. "I was hungry and it was just sitting here."
"You pay for eating Xian Pu prize!" The Amazon maiden demanded with her blunt weapons.
"Hey!" Ranma brushed the round maces aside. "Why me?! My pops is the one who ate it!"
An old woman, more like a prune on a stick, pogoed into the area. The other Amazons made sure to give her plenty of space. "This is an Amazon tribe, girl. Men are our inferiors."
"Who the heck are you callin a girl, old mummy! I'm a guy!" Ranma spat back, dropping her pack and balling her hands into tight fists.
The old woman snickered and pointed at Ranma's breasts. "Really?"
Blanching, Ranma shook her head in denial. "It was Jusenkyou. I came here to ask if you had a cure for me."
"Jusenkyou?" Ku Lon cackled while the rest remained silent, only a few understanding Japanese. "You mean that joke of a cursed valley the old fool and his daughter try to make money off of?" She began to sober as she noticed Ranma-chan was only glaring at her. "You're a very foolish girl if you think we would fall for that!"
"It's true! Pops knocked me into one of the springs and this is what happened!"
Ku Lon shrugged her shoulders, "Then you're a girl now."
"It's just a curse!" Ranma growled indignantly.
Growing tired of the whole situation, "Well, then. Since your father did eat the first prize and you are a girl now, you may fight my great granddaughter, Xian Pu. If you win then the prize will be yours."
Ranma narrowed her eyes, but nodded and followed the other girl into the fighting arena, a log suspended over the ground. "Your gonna pay for this, old man!" She shouted at her father and jumped up onto the log. Xian Pu was there, her bombori up and waiting. There was a vicious grin and dark intent in her eye. Ranma ground down her disdain and set herself up for a fight. "Let's go."
The Amazon sneered at her. "Xian Pu make quick work of silly girl."
"Dammit! I'm not a girl!" Ranma screamed.
Ku Lon dropped her hand, "Fight!"
The fight was shorter than others would have thought. Xian Pu's fastest time was a minute against her third opponent. Ranma beat her in a dozen seconds. She brushed back her red hair from her eyes and watched Xian Pu groan from the ground. A well-placed sidekick was all it had taken to put her there. Ranma smacked her hands free of the dust. "There. That oughta teach ya."
The other Amazons were silent, watching the drama unravel. Xian Pu stood up carefully. Ranma hadn't hurt her badly, only knocked her to the ground. With a grim look, Xian Pu walked over to Ranma and nudged her chin over and kissed her once on the cheek.
Blushing, Ranma stepped back with a hand scratching the back of her head. "Hey, look . . Really, I'm not a girl and even if I was I'm not inta that kinda thing."
Xian Pu blinked in confusion. "What stupid girl babble about now? Xian Pu give Kiss of Death."
The gates slammed shut, making Ranma jump slightly.
The old woman, balanced atop her cane, raised a hand to hold off the tide of Amazon warriors. "Make this quick Xian Pu."
Ranma stepped back further, watching the armed women carefully. "W-Wait a minute! Don't I get a head start or somethin?!"
Ku Lon snorted, "Why would we do that? It would just delay the inevitable."
Swallowing, Ranma looked for her father still being held at spear point. "P-Pops? Little help?"
Genma himself was sweating, a little girl with her sai pointing at something he'd rather keep. "G-Good l-luck, son."
"If I get out of this, pops, you're dead meat," Ranma called back. Tightening her jaw, she settled into a more aggressive fighting stance than what she had used against Xian Pu. "All right, who's first?"
"That would suggest we would be fighting you one-on-one, outsider," said Ku Lon.
The women began to advance on Ranma as one. "Oh, shit."
The women were obviously skilled in fighting as a unit. Ranma had hoped to throw them off by making them trip over each other. Every feint and dodge was quickly compensated for, gaps were closed, and the attack was relentless. Cuts were beginning to appear in Ranma's clothes and she was sure she wasn't going to win this unless she did something now.
As luck would have it, the thing she needed was given to her when one of the men got tired of her dodging.
"Die, outsider!" The man jumped into the air and released a volley of weapons from within his white robes. The women made room to make sure they were not hit by the attack.
"Ack!" Ranma rolled backwards quickly and the knives embedded themselves in the challenge log. Releasing her breath, Ranma glared at the warriors and jumped onto the log and opened up her arms. Hundreds of weapons shot out of nowhere from her hands. "Back at ya!"
There were startled gasps among the warriors as they were suddenly forced to dodge. Chains dragging out of his sleeves, Mu Tsu was a little too slow and was knocked unconscious by the pommel of a long sword.
Mouth agape, Xian Pu watched the fight from the sidelines beside Ku Lon. Great grandmother, the outsider was able to perform Mu Tsu's Hidden Weapon's Technique.
The elder narrowed her eyes and watched the redhead more closely. Something was going on during the fight that she didn't like. Somehow this girl has learned our secret Arts. She must be killed.
A little uncertain, Xian Pu nodded. Yes, great grandmother.
Focusing on the fight a little more, Ranma was starting to smile as she picked more and more fighting techniques. This was the way she preferred to learn the Art. Ranma was nothing if not adaptable. It was why she was on this training trip with her father at all. Her parents had recognized her skill and potential at an early age and agreed to this voyage.
Xian Pu rushed through the thinning group of Amazons and shoved her bonbori forward in a sudden rush of speed. "Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!"
Ranma balked and took a few hits before picking up her guard. Hands beginning to blur, Ranma smirked and lashed out. "Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!" As the two bonbori went flying, Xian Pu was also launched backwards a dozen feet by a blow to the chest. Why were they fighting her though? All she did was beat the one girl in a fight. Petty, aren't they? "What is going on here?"
Xian Pu wiped the back of her hand over her bloody mouth and spat. "We kill you, outsider!"
The boy in the white robes returned. "Fist of the White Swan!"
Ranma jumped through a number of weapons and picked out two in particular. She crossed her bonbori before Mu Tsu could bring a training potty down on her head. She smirked at him over the weapons. "Cool."
Xian Pu dodged by the falling Mu Tsu and brought her bonbori down in a wide arc. "Shampoo kill!"
Ranma ducked and rolled the bonbori in her hands. "Let's see if this works." Running into the fight, Ranma began to fight Xian Pu at her own game and found herself pushing the Amazon back after a while. Xian Pu looked startled and Ranma smirked mockingly. "What's wrong? Thought you were gonna kill me?"
"Xian Pu!"
That came from behind her. Ranma tensed as a length of chain wrapped about her feet. "Wha?" With a jerk, Ranma was face down on the ground. "Oof!"
"Boy!" Genma had been concerned when the fight began, but a grin had been growing as he watched his cursed son adapt to the fighting techniques of the Amazons. He could probably just sit here and Ranma would take care of the rest of the village. Genma knew the boy was good, the best. Then the Amazon boy had tripped the redhead and Xian Pu was coming down on Ranma with her bonbori. Narrowing his eyes, Genma lashed out with a foot to remove the Amazons from around him and cut into the air with his arm. "Kijin Rashuu Dan!"
A vacuum blade cut through the air and severed the chains about Ranma's feet.
Ranma rolled quickly and kicked Xian Pu in the head while she was recovering from the miss. Wide-eyed, Ranma glanced over at where her father was now fighting and approaching her. "P-Pops?"
Genma picked his son up roughly and pushed her for the main gates. "Quickly, boy. We must get out of here!"
Coming back to her senses, Ranma nodded and took up the fight again and ran alongside of him towards the exit. "Right!"
"Not so fast." The old woman sped ahead of the two martial artists and cut them off at the gates. Ku Lon glared at the Ranma. "You've done well, girl, but now you face three thousand years of Chinese Amazon fighting techniques!"
Genma's face paled as he watched a large purple develop about the old woman. "S-She's like the M-Master!"
Ku Lon grinned and cupped her hands together. She didn't fight that often anymore; it was fun. Energy formed in her hands and she shoved it forward. "Ha!" She only saw the redhead for another second before her ki blast knocked the girl off of her feet and launched her through the air and a few buildings. "You're a hundred years too young to fight me, girl."
Genma swallowed as he looked towards his son had been shot. "R-Ranma?!"
The area was quiet and most of the Amazons assumed the outsider was dead. Ku Lon began to lower her arms when a blue glow poured through the rubble.
"Mouko Takabisha!"
"H-How?!" Ku Lon gasped. The girl was getting back up and brushing off some dust from her shoulder. Ku Lon narrowed her eyes, she was certain the young girl hadn't had an aura that powerful a moment ago. Moving into the next attack, Ku Lon's form began to multiply. "Splitting Cat Hairs!"
Ranma's grin fell away when the old woman came after her again. The copies circled her and the other Amazon warriors had backed off a good distance. Something was going to happed if Ranma didn't do something. Ranma lashed out and missed, getting a punch in return. "She . . She's so fast!" she narrowed her eyes at the woman and focused. "Got to take her one-on-one." It took a moment, pulling her aura in, Ranma screamed, "Splitting Cat Hairs!"
"Impossible!" Ku Lon sputtered, but maintained her control and continued to lower the temperature of her ki.
Ranma grinned from within the circle as each of her copies pooled energy into their hands and aimed at a Ku Lon each. "Mouko Takabisha!"
"Now you are done for, girl!" Ku Lon exclaimed as she ended the technique and shot out an upper cut that didn't get anywhere close to connecting. "Hiryu Shouten Ha!"
Wind picked up quickly and hid Ranma caught up in the middle of it. Ku Lon smirked and stepped back to watch the tornado she had created. In a few moments it would end and the girl would drop, drained of her energy. Afterwards they could question her to find out how she had learned their techniques. She must have had a teacher to have become this good.
Inside of the tornado, Ranma was trying to gain control of her situation as she was tossed about by the wind. She could feel her energy being stolen to fuel the wind, but couldn't think of how to stop it. Closing her eyes, Ranma reached out with her senses, the wind picking up slightly, and found her answer. "Hot ki. The tornado is filled with my hot ki!" Concentrating again, Ranma recalled how the old woman had lowered the temperature of her own ki. "Then . . Then I gotta think like ice." Moving in the spiral from within the tornado, Ranma reared back her hand, covered in dark blue ki. "Hiryu . . ."
Limping, Xian Pu made her way over to Ku Lon and looked up at the tornado. She was very good, great grandmother.
Eyebrows creasing, Ku Lon nodded. Yes, child. She was somehow adapting to everything we threw at her at a great rate.
Will she die from this? Xian Pu might have been trying to kill the redhead, but she could respect a mighty warrior when she saw one.
I don't know.
The warriors began to mutter as the winds refused to die down. It was lasting longer than usual.
"Shouten!"
Ku Lon gasped when she heard it. It was the outsider! She can't be! How could an outsider be this strong? What could she be planning? Did she know this technique as well now? Ku Lon worried that the Amazons may have bitten off more than they could chew with this outsider girl. Then her eyes opened wide as she realized what was happening and began moving back. From within the tornado?!
"HA!!"
In a tremendous gust of wind, the tornado was blown outwards and scattered everything not secured into the ground. Several Amazons were knocked clear of the village even.
When the winds died, Ku Lon removed her arm from in front of her eyes and looked at the destruction. Amazing.
"I feel so weak." Ranma groaned and looked up at the sky. She was lying on her back in the middle of a huge wind swept crater. The tornado had done its job because Ranma didn't feel strong enough to crack a joke. She could see the old woman coming her away and struggled back to her feet.
Stopping several meters from the outsider, Ku Lon spoke carefully. "What is your name . . boy?"
"Ranma, Ranma Saotome." She wobbled on her feet, but refused to fall.
"I am Matriarch Ku Lon." Ku Lon bowed and then looked up at the redhead with a grin. "Welcome to our tribe."
~
"Wolverine!" A young girl chirped brightly as she rushed down the hallway. Westchester, New York was the home of the first mutant academy headed by Charles Xavier. Most of the students were runaways, like Rogue, but here they were safe from persecution of normal humans. Rogue was lucky to be there after being run out of her own home a year ago.
"Rogue," the man said as the girl caught up with him. He was taller than the girl by half a foot and his hair spiked upwards at the sides. He always had the appearance of a brawler and a dangerous glint in his eyes. Logan, also known as Wolverine, eyed the strand of white hair mixed within the patch of brown on Rogue's head. "What are you doing here?"
Suddenly nervous, the girl twisted her gloved hands in front of her. "I hadn't seenya in a while so I thought I'd come down to find ya."
Logan nodded and continued down the hallway towards the war room. "I'm on my way to see the professor right now."
"Then I'll just tag along," Rogue smiled and followed along. She wasn't allowed into the lower parts of the mansion, but Logan wouldn't stop her. She liked to think it was because he cared for her deeply.
Logan opened the steel door and found four other mutants that made up a fighting team known as the X-men. They were all watching an image of a machine on the main screen. "What is this?"
"Ah, Logan." Xavier nodded to him from his wheelchair. "This is the Sentinel program." Technical readouts begin to fill up the screen, going over some of the machine's capabilities. It resembled something like a tin soldier. "The U.S. government and a few other nations have decided to begin mutant registration and restriction laws." Xavier sighed and shook his head. "Our campaign has failed."
Logan frowned. "What are we going to do?"
"Whatever we have to," another man answered. Cyclops was a serious person and tended to follow the rules. Logan had a small rivalry with the kid, but put it aside for serious matters.
"It's time to change things with the X-men," Xavier conceded as her switched off the screen with distaste. He rolled towards the table in the room and placed his hands down on it.
Logan crossed his arms. "What do you mean? A war?"
Xavier nodded reluctantly. "The FOH and the Sentinel program have already declared war. We must answer it."
Wincing, Jean Gray looked about the room. "There are only four of us, Professor. Four against thousands."
Before Xavier could respond, Logan dropped his arms and growled. "You want us to start recruiting others." He glanced over at Rogue at his side and then away quickly.
Rogue missed the look, but was already smiling. "I'll help."
Xavier smiled gently. Help would be appreciated, but he loathed to put children in a fight such as this. It would end up a civil war if things continued the way they were. "You're not ready yet, Rogue. Not until you've gained more control over your powers. That will go for the rest of the children here."
Aurora, Storm, grimaced and stared at her feet. "We may not have time for them to train."
Clenching his jaw, Cyclops glared at the blank screen. "Then we'll have to make time."
~
Sighing, Kasumi glanced about the table to watch the reaction of her sisters to their father's news. Shaking her head, she looked away. "You really shouldn't have father."
Akane's face had moved from red to purple as her anger continued to climb. "There's no way I'm going to be engaged to a boy!"
Edging away from her little sister a bit, Nabiki tried to look for some good in this situation. "So what's he like?"
Soun glanced at the postcard in his hands. A panda eating bamboo stared back at him. "Well, he and his father have just recently returned from a training trip in China."
Nabiki grinned. Travel meant money usually. "Oh! China!"
Akane snorted and looked away. "Big deal. Doesn't mean he's a good martial artist."
Nabiki brushed that aside. She didn't particularly care how good he was. There were more important things to find in a potential fiance. "So what's he like? Is he cute?"
Puffing up his chest, Soun drew a completely blank. "I don't know," he responded lamely.
The three girls stared at their father neutrally.
"You don't know?" Nabiki drummed her fingers on the table.
Soun shrugged. "I've never met him."
"Oh, father," Kasumi sighed and shook her head again.
Noise from the front door cut off whatever Akane was going to say. It wasn't likely to be helpful anyway. Since the fights started at school, the youngest daughter had been disturbingly single-minded. Nabiki thought she had a lot more in common with those perverted boys than Akane was ready to accept.
"That must be them now!" Nabiki jumped to her feet and rushed for the front door followed by her father.
Standing outside and a little wet, was an older man in a dingy gi with large glasses resting on his nose. A bandanna failed to cover his growing bald spot. Beside him was a younger man, closer to Nabiki's age, with a pigtail and dressed in Chinese clothes.
"Saotome?" Soun asked with hope in his eyes.
Genma grinned and took the man into bear hug. "Tendou! It's been a long time!"
Soun laughed heartily and smacked the man on the back. "Indeed, I thought you would be finished with your journey months ago, my friend!"
Genma had to shrug. They were there now after all. "Yes, well, we had an unexpected stop over in China that couldn't be passed up."
"Yeah, you could say that," snorted the young boy.
Soun smiled at him. "And you must be Ranma!"
Ranma bowed. "That's me."
Soun grabbed the young man up in another hug and dragged him into the house. "It's so good to finally meet you, boy!"
"Oh, he's handsome," Nabiki grinned over her father's shoulder. Ranma wasn't looking to bad at all. Her father might have done something right this time.
From the hallway, Kasumi called out sweetly. "Father, are you going to keep your friends outside?"
"I wish," Akane muttered as she glared at the strangers in her house.
Soun laughed and waved his guests inside. "Of course! Come in, come in! Make yourselves comfortable!" He sat down with them at the table. "Kasumi, could you bring in some tea?"
"Certainly, father."
Turning to his old friend, Soun grinned. "So, tell me about your trip, Saotome."
"It was good, Tendou. The boy has become the best practicioner of the Anything Goes Style." Genma smiled broadly and looked at his boy proudly. Ranma was sitting stoically, the temperature about him slightly cooler than the rest of the room.
Snorting, the youngest daughter glared at Ranma. "Ha! Like some stupid boy could beat me!"
Ranma narrowed his eyes. "You wanna try me, girl?"
"What did you call me?!"
Nabiki smirked and picked up her tea when Kasumi brought it in for them. She cast an amused glance at her sister. "What's wrong, Akane? You are a girl, aren't you?"
"Shut up, Nabiki," Akane growled. Standing up, Akane straightened her gi and looked down on the boy. "Fine, let's go to the dojo."
Ranma followed without a word. The other two sisters shrugged and decided to go along as well.
Noticing the rather violent flow of the girl's aura, Genma looked back to his friend. "Uh, is this a good idea, Tendou?"
Tears running down his cheeks, Soun shrugged and left for the dojo. "I guess it is a good thing for them to become acquainted."
Once inside, Akane took up a stance at one side of the dojo, facing her opponent. She'd pound him into the dirt and kick him out of the house before he caused any more trouble. Akane got enough of boys at school and didn't need any of the perverts hanging around the house. Standing there for a minute, Akane became angrier as the boy refused to pick up a fighting stance. "Well?!"
Hands in his pockets, Ranma smirked. "Ready whenever you are."
"Fight!" Akane snapped and rushed forward.
Following her movements, Ranma easily leaned out of the way of each of Akane's attacks. She couldn't have touched him when he was ten. Her anger was making her sloppy. Ranma had even fought a blind man that had better aim. There was also the fact she left holes in her defense so wide Ranma could fit a bonbori through it.
"Dammit! Stand still so I can hit you!" Akane screamed. She was growing tired and Ranma hadn't even taken his hands out of his pockets yet. He was toying with her. Well, she'd show him to underestimate her.
Ranma stepped out of the way of a front kick aimed at his groin. "Yeah, right. Not if you move that slowly."
"Why you-!" Akane's face looked ready to pop. She took a step back and got ready for a new attack. "This time for real!"
Ranma flipped over the punch and kicked the girls head through the dojo wall. He used to take it easy on women until Ku Lon forced him to fight at the level of the other fighter at least so he wouldn't insult them. Ranma could understand that. If someone didn't fight back he'd feel insulted too.
"Akane!" Soun bellowed, aghast, and ran for the hole in the wall.
"You could've just tapped her in the back of the head, Ranma," Genma admonished.
Ranma didn't look at the violent girl and left the dojo. "She needed to learn her place."
"Oh my." Kasumi looked at her sister hanging by her head stuck in the wall. "Ranma is very good, isn't he?"
Nabiki grinned. "He should make me billions!"
". . ."
End Chapter One
* * *
This had been sitting around in my idea file. I finally decided to clean it up a little and put it out. Seems to have a good start so I'll probably keep going with it soon.
This isn't going to be one of those things where everyone is a mutant all of a sudden. I don't like stock themes like that. This is also using the X-men movie and not the comic book.
Send C&C to [email protected]
Or visit my website at www.geocities.com/jehtek
Ja ne.