|\v/| Primal Chaos
|=_=| [rn][xo:fus][bw] A Ranma 1/2 / Beast Wars crossover fusion
:\_/: Part 4: If you go into the woods today...
---begin part 4---
Kuno Tatewaki sat in deep contemplation over his lo... temporary
setback in his attempt to free the Tendo girls from Saotome's
clutches. He brooded in the classic 'thinker' pose while staring
into the rotating blade held in his claw.
His meditation was interrupted when a rather large tarantula,
crawled across the ceiling of the sitting room, dropped down,
flipped over and unfolded into what could barely be called a Beast
Warrior, who landed face first through the coffee table.
"So, Gosunguki," Tatewaki observed as he lowered his shiny new toy,
"you have returned at last from your mission. Do you have the
photographs I requested?"
"Unfortunately, no, Kuno Sempai," Hikaru replied sourly. "The
Tendo home is empty. After searching the house from top to bottom
I finally found a sign of their where abouts." He did not mention
that the sign had been posted on the front gate. "It seems that
they are training in the mountains."
"Curse that fiend Saotome! How dare he seek to separate me from
my love? I see it now. He has spirited her away to a hidden love
nest where even now he is plotting to do unspeakable acts."
"With her entire family?" Hikaru asked wide eyed (though that
seemed to be his only expression).
"Maybe, not," Kuno reconsidered. "Yet how she must pine at being
separated from my noble presence. Come my loyal lackey. To the
mountains!"
---
Genma faced off against Soun. He stood poised for a moment, then
charged in and punched. Soun held his ground and manfully took the
blow.
Actually, with all the weight of his samurai style armor and
weapons, he couldn't move; at least not under his own power.
Genma's punch had moved him fairly well.
"Tendo, old friend," Genma sighed as the clash of steel died down,
"that armor isn't going to do you any good against the Musk."
"That's pathetic, Daddy," Nabiki observed between bites of her
apple, "really pitiful."
Soun just lay where he'd fallen and moaned. He didn't have much
choice.
---
Akane was furious. Once again she couldn't even touch her opponent
and felt his mocking know-it-all smirk like a SledgeHammer blow to
her pride. "Damn it Ranma. How can I learn if you won't take me
seriously?"
"How can I take you seriously if you can't even hit me?" Ranma
countered. "Do you think that the Musk will just stand still and
let you clobber them? You're pretty strong, but you need to pick
your speed up."
"I'd be fast enough if you'd just make me into a Beast Warrior,"
Akane growled. "Then I'd show you."
"Like Nabiki showed you?" Ranma responded while weaving through
her punches. "There ain't no shortcuts, Akane. Cybernetic
enhancement isn't a substitute for training."
"Stop making excuses, Ranma," Akane challenged. "You're just
afraid that I'd whip your butt as a Beast Warrior."
"Yeah, right. Just like Kuno did. I wish I could reformat you,
just to show you how wrong you are."
"Ah, Ranma," Genma sighed as he walked into the clearing. "Are
you ready for some serious training, Little Cat?"
"Anytime you're ready, Big Cat," Ranma grinned while jumping over
a leg sweep.
"What about me?" Akane growled. "We're supposed to be training
now!"
"You need ta spar some more with Nabiki," Ranma observed. "Come on
Big Cat. Beast Mode!"
"Ranma, come back here and let me ...!" Akane yelled as the two
cats vanished into the woods. She clenched her fists by her side
and stormed off. "Oh! He makes me so mad! .... Nabiki!"
---
"Ah, delicious."
Kasumi stirred the simmering pot, watched the bubbling pan and
chirped cheerfully to herself. It was good to be back out in the
woods. The family hadn't been on a camping trip for too long.
Now, if only she could get Ranma to take her on a nice romantic
walk.
Kasumi hummed merrily as she continued to tend to her simmering
plot and bubbling plan.
---
Cheetahs were sprinters of the grassy plains while tigers were
stalkers of the forests. In these mountains, Genma should have
held the advantage with the trees slowing Ranma down. However,
normal cheetah's did not use trees as springboards to bounce
around like crazed pinballs.
Of course, normal tigers did not use martial arts, either, so
the advantage was not entirely held by Ranma. Genma was able
to avoid some of the speed driven strikes and even land a few
blows of his own and his own leaping ability was nothing to
sneeze at. But on a Dan scale of one to ten, Genma scored an
fifteen while Ranma was holding place at twenty.
Nabiki rated herself as a nought point five. At best. Her cat
form was not in the running, and she was content to stay back and
watch from a not-too-nearby-branch. It wasn't quite as exciting
as watching Ranma spar in his cyborg mode, but there was a certain
thrill at seeing those big cats battle.
"Not bad, Little Cat," the tiger observed as he sprang away from
Ranma's latest spring-driven charge and falling into an untigerish
two legged stance. "You're not just leaping from tree to tree to
change direction, you're using them to increase your speed. Well,
that's enough of a warm up, don't you think?"
"Okay, Big Cat," the cheetah smirked. "Let's get serious."
Nabiki stared in shock as they began to _really_ move. "That was
only their warm up?"
Suddenly the world shook as the cheetah ricocheted off of the
trunk of her tree, followed a moment later by the tiger as it
tumbled through the trees. The cat lost her grip on the branch
and plummeted towards the ground.
Feline reflexes clashed with her panicked human reaction as the
hard ground surged up at her, but she was plucked out of the
air at the last moment and deposited relatively gently on softer
soil.
The tiger promptly tackled the distracted cheetah and the fur
flew. Nabiki decided to beat a hasty retreat to safer ground.
"Nabiki, get your tail over here!" Akane yelled at her as the
campsite came into view. "It's time for your training!"
The cat whimpered. She'd forgotten that there'd been something she
was avoiding.
---
The forest rang with the sound of a wooden spoon on a metal pan.
It was Kasumi' signal to call everyone back to the awaiting meal.
Nabiki was heartily glad as she and Akane made their way back. Any
thoughts that having an armoured form would protect her had been
drummed out of her by Akane's fists.
Oh, the armor did blunt the impact somewhat, but she felt every
blow. Also, having enhanced strength and speed didn't let her hit
her sister in turn, not when Akane seemed to anticipate her
strikes and move to block or dodge.
Nabiki just wasn't a fighter and couldn't see any point to further
training. If she couldn't beat her sister, what hope would she
have against the Musk? Her strengths lay in other areas.
But Ranma insisted that sparing together would be good for the
two of them, and somehow she found herself talked into it.
Unfortunately, Akane took her training seriously and seemed to take
her frustration and resentment out on Nabiki.
As compensation, he was paying attention to her. Their fathers had
decided, in a flash of something resembling a bright idea, that
having Ranma train them would help him grow closer to making a
decision. The downside was that he was paying attention to Akane
as well.
Suddenly the two girls came to a halt. The campsite was empty
..., no. On second glance, Soun and Kasumi could be found hanging
from a branch tied up like a pair of Egyptian mummies.
"What's going on?" Nabiki demanded in panic as something dropped
onto her shoulder and stabbed at her neck. Her vision began to
blur but the last thing she remembered was seeing Akane throw a
giant black spider off of herself. Then blackness claimed Nabiki.
---
"Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho!" the spider laughed as it unfolded into a
tall girl in black spider motif armor. "You avoided my bite, Tendo
Akane! You are as good as they say. No matter. I, Kuno Kodachi,
the Black Widow of Saint Bacchus, shall ..."
"You killed Nabiki!" Akane erupted as she tore the spider off of
Nabiki. "You B!7(c)#!"
"Stop that!" the tarantula protested in a terrified voice as Akane
started beating Kodachi over the head with him. "Oh," he muttered
deliriously, "she used me as a weapon!"
"You vicious harridan!" Kodachi spat oil as she knocked the spider
out of Akane's grasp. "You will pay for that!"
Akane leapt cautiously out of Kodachi's reach. Kodachi also leapt
back but swept her arm upwards and a silken cord flicked out into
the air from her wrist. With a vindictive grin on her face,
Kodachi proceeded to lash it towards Akane like a whip when a golden
form rocketed into the campsite and maximised between the girls.
"What's going on here?" Ranma demanded as he glanced about. He
stood in a classic fighting stance with one hand raised and holding
firmly onto the cord.
"You caught my line?" Kodachi observed in amazement and growing
admiration. "You must be Saotome Ranma. Oh hohohoho! My brother
did not say you would be so prime."
"They killed Nabiki," Akane wailed. "Again!"
"She's alive," Kodachi defended quickly, seeing Ranma's gaze
harden. "Merely paralysed like the others. I simply wanted to
keep them from interfering."
"Interfering with what?"
"Why, with our love affair, of course, Darling Ranma," Kodachi
declared wildly and threw herself into his arms.
"What!?" Akane exclaimed in fury as she watched the sl...girl rub
herself against Ranma's chassis. "Ranma, you slime!"
"What's going on here?" the white tiger asked as it bounded into
the clearing.
"I'm not sure," Akane growled, "but it looks like Ranma's old
girlfriend has come to take him back!"
"Hey, I ain't never seen this crazy chick before!" Ranma protested
as he tried to prise the clingy spider-girl from his torso.
"It looks like she's pretty familiar with you to me!" Akane
glowered and clenched her fists in fury.
"Oh hohohohoho! I shall return to consummate our love later, my
Darling Ranma!" Kodachi shrieked into the back of her hand as she
sprang away from him and leaped into the tree tops.
---
"I'm telling you, I never met her before," Ranma repeated while
they checked the envenomed Tendos.
"She certainly seemed to know you," Akane accused as she dragged
her father to the tent. "Wait ... she mentioned something ...."
She thought on the encounter some more.
"... about her brother sending her," Ranma mussed as he started to
cut Kasumi free of webbing.
"She said her name was Kuno Kodachi," Akane recalled suddenly.
"She's Kuno's sister?" Ranma gaped at Akane as he pulled the last
of the webbing away from Kasumi.
"Come to think of it," Akane mussed, "they do kind of look alike."
"Well, that would explain how she became a beurk!" Ranma exclaimed
as he looked back down at Kasumi. The webbing had stuck to her
clothes and he'd torn ... both ... away.
"Ranma, you pervert!" Akane exploded and grabbed a convenient
rock. "How dare you strip Kasumi!"
"It was an accident," Ranma protested while trying to hold his nose
and defend his head at the same time.
"How can you accidentally take a girl's clothes off?" Akane
demanded.
'You'd be surprised,' Ranma, for once wisely, did not comment
aloud.
"Ah, young love," Soun muttered deliriously and drifted back to
unconsciousness.
"Oh Ranma," Kasumi mumbled. "We shouldn't .... Not in the kitchen
.... Oh no, not with the ... Oh! Oh, yes .... Harder! Faster!"
Akane paused her pounding to stare at her sleep talking sister,
then she listened to her advice and resumed clobbering harder and
faster than ever. "You pervert! What have you been doing to my
sister!?"
"I ain't done nothing to her!" Ranma protested between thuds. "I
don't know what she's talking 'bout, ya crazy tomboy!"
'The sad thing,' Genma reflected from near by, 'is that he probably
doesn't. I've _got_ to have a _talk_ to my son soon.' He paused
to listen some more. Nabiki was starting to come to and muttering
to herself as well. A goofy grin crossed his face. 'Nope. Sounds
like I should just let nature take it's course.'
"Are all girls crazy?" Ranma asked the heavens as Akane chased him
out of the tent.
---
"Yes. MeOw! What was that for, ya crazy goddess?"
---
Tatewaki stood motionless in the clearing then stepped off of a
piece of rope, which promptly snaked away at great speed. Suddenly
several hours worth of setting up came at him in the form of over a
dozen sharpened logs swinging on the end of ropes. Tatewaki
maintained his pose until the last moment when he turned, drew his
sword arm back and was promptly hit in the face by a bouquet of
roses.
With his timing thrown off, Tatewaki was promptly pummelled by his
own training contraption.
"Brother Dearest, I have returned," Kodachi announced as she leaped
from the canopy and pirouetted.
"doh I dohdised...," Tatewaki mumbled as he picked himself out from
under the new log pile. Recovering his poise, somewhat, he
requested, "have you perchance located the lair of that fiend
Saotome, my twisted sister?"
"Indeed I have," Kodachi replied and went misty eyed at the thought
of 'her Darling Ranma'. A delightful romantic daydream began to
unfold; one involving herself, Ranma, satin sheets and a bull whip.
"And what, pray tell, became of Gosunguki?" Tatewaki demanded as
he looked around for the somewhat more reliable of the spiders.
"Who? Oh, yes. I, ah, left him to keep an eye on them," Kodachi
answered as she blinked back to tenuous reality. "In case they
should seek to flee in the night, yes?"
"Why should they ...?" Tatewaki wondered. "You did keep out of
sight, didn't you? You did stick to my plan, did you not, my
demented sibling?"
"Exactly as you instructed," Kodachi laughed nervously. "However,
they may have caught a glimpse of us. Ranma seems to be quite the
warrior, Brother Dearest."
"Indeed he is somewhat skilled," Tatewaki admitted. "Yet he will
be no match for me once I have mastered my new abilities." He
raised his sword to the heavens and vowed, "Soon my training will
be complete, then I shall banish him!"
"He's training too, you know," Kodachi observed in a thoughtful
tone then laughed into the back of her hand. "Perhaps I should
watch his training. Just so you will not be caught by surprise, of
course."
"Nay. Even though you are my sister," Tatewaki proclaimed, "I
cannot allow your devious interference in this battle."
---
"Let me get this straight," Nabiki said coldly. "My fiancee saves
our hides from some nutso spider woman and you _beat him over the
head with a rock_!?"
"That pervert was ogling Kasumi's body," Akane explained. "He was
getting a real eyeful too!"
"Oh good!" Kasumi exclaimed softly then blushed with embarrassment
as two sets of eyes stared at her in astonishment. "Er, I mean, he
seems to be coming around."
"Spam, did you get the number of that Pred that hit me?" Ranma
asked groggily as he sat up.
"It was a violent tomboy," Nabiki explained.
"Nabiki, say that one more time and I ...! Oh." Akane paused and
started fidget. "That is ... I'm sorry Ranma. Heh, I guess I over
reacted ... a bit." Her fingers suddenly became very interesting
to her. She started to investigate how they could twist together.
"Sorry 'bout that."
"Er .... That's okay, Akane," Ranma said at a loss for words.
Nobody had ever apologised for hitting him before. Ever.
"Get up, Little Cat," Genma ordered, suddenly appearing out of
nowhere, grabbed Ranma by the front of his chest plate and hurled
him across the campsite and into a tree trunk. "This is no time
for lounging around!"
"That's going too far, Mr. Saotome!" Kasumi exploded into Genma's
face.
"Yeah," Nabiki agreed angrily beside her, "even for martial arts
training!"
Akane went straight for the rock treatment.
"Now, _that_ was deserved," Kasumi decided firmly, then hurried
over to _her_ fiancee. "Ranma Dear, are you alright?"
"'m just prime, 'sumi," he muttered as he peeled himself off of the
tree and flipped upright with a push of his hands.
---end part 4---
|=_=| [rn][xo:fus][bw] A Ranma 1/2 / Beast Wars crossover fusion
:\_/: Part 4: If you go into the woods today...
---begin part 4---
Kuno Tatewaki sat in deep contemplation over his lo... temporary
setback in his attempt to free the Tendo girls from Saotome's
clutches. He brooded in the classic 'thinker' pose while staring
into the rotating blade held in his claw.
His meditation was interrupted when a rather large tarantula,
crawled across the ceiling of the sitting room, dropped down,
flipped over and unfolded into what could barely be called a Beast
Warrior, who landed face first through the coffee table.
"So, Gosunguki," Tatewaki observed as he lowered his shiny new toy,
"you have returned at last from your mission. Do you have the
photographs I requested?"
"Unfortunately, no, Kuno Sempai," Hikaru replied sourly. "The
Tendo home is empty. After searching the house from top to bottom
I finally found a sign of their where abouts." He did not mention
that the sign had been posted on the front gate. "It seems that
they are training in the mountains."
"Curse that fiend Saotome! How dare he seek to separate me from
my love? I see it now. He has spirited her away to a hidden love
nest where even now he is plotting to do unspeakable acts."
"With her entire family?" Hikaru asked wide eyed (though that
seemed to be his only expression).
"Maybe, not," Kuno reconsidered. "Yet how she must pine at being
separated from my noble presence. Come my loyal lackey. To the
mountains!"
---
Genma faced off against Soun. He stood poised for a moment, then
charged in and punched. Soun held his ground and manfully took the
blow.
Actually, with all the weight of his samurai style armor and
weapons, he couldn't move; at least not under his own power.
Genma's punch had moved him fairly well.
"Tendo, old friend," Genma sighed as the clash of steel died down,
"that armor isn't going to do you any good against the Musk."
"That's pathetic, Daddy," Nabiki observed between bites of her
apple, "really pitiful."
Soun just lay where he'd fallen and moaned. He didn't have much
choice.
---
Akane was furious. Once again she couldn't even touch her opponent
and felt his mocking know-it-all smirk like a SledgeHammer blow to
her pride. "Damn it Ranma. How can I learn if you won't take me
seriously?"
"How can I take you seriously if you can't even hit me?" Ranma
countered. "Do you think that the Musk will just stand still and
let you clobber them? You're pretty strong, but you need to pick
your speed up."
"I'd be fast enough if you'd just make me into a Beast Warrior,"
Akane growled. "Then I'd show you."
"Like Nabiki showed you?" Ranma responded while weaving through
her punches. "There ain't no shortcuts, Akane. Cybernetic
enhancement isn't a substitute for training."
"Stop making excuses, Ranma," Akane challenged. "You're just
afraid that I'd whip your butt as a Beast Warrior."
"Yeah, right. Just like Kuno did. I wish I could reformat you,
just to show you how wrong you are."
"Ah, Ranma," Genma sighed as he walked into the clearing. "Are
you ready for some serious training, Little Cat?"
"Anytime you're ready, Big Cat," Ranma grinned while jumping over
a leg sweep.
"What about me?" Akane growled. "We're supposed to be training
now!"
"You need ta spar some more with Nabiki," Ranma observed. "Come on
Big Cat. Beast Mode!"
"Ranma, come back here and let me ...!" Akane yelled as the two
cats vanished into the woods. She clenched her fists by her side
and stormed off. "Oh! He makes me so mad! .... Nabiki!"
---
"Ah, delicious."
Kasumi stirred the simmering pot, watched the bubbling pan and
chirped cheerfully to herself. It was good to be back out in the
woods. The family hadn't been on a camping trip for too long.
Now, if only she could get Ranma to take her on a nice romantic
walk.
Kasumi hummed merrily as she continued to tend to her simmering
plot and bubbling plan.
---
Cheetahs were sprinters of the grassy plains while tigers were
stalkers of the forests. In these mountains, Genma should have
held the advantage with the trees slowing Ranma down. However,
normal cheetah's did not use trees as springboards to bounce
around like crazed pinballs.
Of course, normal tigers did not use martial arts, either, so
the advantage was not entirely held by Ranma. Genma was able
to avoid some of the speed driven strikes and even land a few
blows of his own and his own leaping ability was nothing to
sneeze at. But on a Dan scale of one to ten, Genma scored an
fifteen while Ranma was holding place at twenty.
Nabiki rated herself as a nought point five. At best. Her cat
form was not in the running, and she was content to stay back and
watch from a not-too-nearby-branch. It wasn't quite as exciting
as watching Ranma spar in his cyborg mode, but there was a certain
thrill at seeing those big cats battle.
"Not bad, Little Cat," the tiger observed as he sprang away from
Ranma's latest spring-driven charge and falling into an untigerish
two legged stance. "You're not just leaping from tree to tree to
change direction, you're using them to increase your speed. Well,
that's enough of a warm up, don't you think?"
"Okay, Big Cat," the cheetah smirked. "Let's get serious."
Nabiki stared in shock as they began to _really_ move. "That was
only their warm up?"
Suddenly the world shook as the cheetah ricocheted off of the
trunk of her tree, followed a moment later by the tiger as it
tumbled through the trees. The cat lost her grip on the branch
and plummeted towards the ground.
Feline reflexes clashed with her panicked human reaction as the
hard ground surged up at her, but she was plucked out of the
air at the last moment and deposited relatively gently on softer
soil.
The tiger promptly tackled the distracted cheetah and the fur
flew. Nabiki decided to beat a hasty retreat to safer ground.
"Nabiki, get your tail over here!" Akane yelled at her as the
campsite came into view. "It's time for your training!"
The cat whimpered. She'd forgotten that there'd been something she
was avoiding.
---
The forest rang with the sound of a wooden spoon on a metal pan.
It was Kasumi' signal to call everyone back to the awaiting meal.
Nabiki was heartily glad as she and Akane made their way back. Any
thoughts that having an armoured form would protect her had been
drummed out of her by Akane's fists.
Oh, the armor did blunt the impact somewhat, but she felt every
blow. Also, having enhanced strength and speed didn't let her hit
her sister in turn, not when Akane seemed to anticipate her
strikes and move to block or dodge.
Nabiki just wasn't a fighter and couldn't see any point to further
training. If she couldn't beat her sister, what hope would she
have against the Musk? Her strengths lay in other areas.
But Ranma insisted that sparing together would be good for the
two of them, and somehow she found herself talked into it.
Unfortunately, Akane took her training seriously and seemed to take
her frustration and resentment out on Nabiki.
As compensation, he was paying attention to her. Their fathers had
decided, in a flash of something resembling a bright idea, that
having Ranma train them would help him grow closer to making a
decision. The downside was that he was paying attention to Akane
as well.
Suddenly the two girls came to a halt. The campsite was empty
..., no. On second glance, Soun and Kasumi could be found hanging
from a branch tied up like a pair of Egyptian mummies.
"What's going on?" Nabiki demanded in panic as something dropped
onto her shoulder and stabbed at her neck. Her vision began to
blur but the last thing she remembered was seeing Akane throw a
giant black spider off of herself. Then blackness claimed Nabiki.
---
"Oh! Ho! Ho! Ho!" the spider laughed as it unfolded into a
tall girl in black spider motif armor. "You avoided my bite, Tendo
Akane! You are as good as they say. No matter. I, Kuno Kodachi,
the Black Widow of Saint Bacchus, shall ..."
"You killed Nabiki!" Akane erupted as she tore the spider off of
Nabiki. "You B!7(c)#!"
"Stop that!" the tarantula protested in a terrified voice as Akane
started beating Kodachi over the head with him. "Oh," he muttered
deliriously, "she used me as a weapon!"
"You vicious harridan!" Kodachi spat oil as she knocked the spider
out of Akane's grasp. "You will pay for that!"
Akane leapt cautiously out of Kodachi's reach. Kodachi also leapt
back but swept her arm upwards and a silken cord flicked out into
the air from her wrist. With a vindictive grin on her face,
Kodachi proceeded to lash it towards Akane like a whip when a golden
form rocketed into the campsite and maximised between the girls.
"What's going on here?" Ranma demanded as he glanced about. He
stood in a classic fighting stance with one hand raised and holding
firmly onto the cord.
"You caught my line?" Kodachi observed in amazement and growing
admiration. "You must be Saotome Ranma. Oh hohohoho! My brother
did not say you would be so prime."
"They killed Nabiki," Akane wailed. "Again!"
"She's alive," Kodachi defended quickly, seeing Ranma's gaze
harden. "Merely paralysed like the others. I simply wanted to
keep them from interfering."
"Interfering with what?"
"Why, with our love affair, of course, Darling Ranma," Kodachi
declared wildly and threw herself into his arms.
"What!?" Akane exclaimed in fury as she watched the sl...girl rub
herself against Ranma's chassis. "Ranma, you slime!"
"What's going on here?" the white tiger asked as it bounded into
the clearing.
"I'm not sure," Akane growled, "but it looks like Ranma's old
girlfriend has come to take him back!"
"Hey, I ain't never seen this crazy chick before!" Ranma protested
as he tried to prise the clingy spider-girl from his torso.
"It looks like she's pretty familiar with you to me!" Akane
glowered and clenched her fists in fury.
"Oh hohohohoho! I shall return to consummate our love later, my
Darling Ranma!" Kodachi shrieked into the back of her hand as she
sprang away from him and leaped into the tree tops.
---
"I'm telling you, I never met her before," Ranma repeated while
they checked the envenomed Tendos.
"She certainly seemed to know you," Akane accused as she dragged
her father to the tent. "Wait ... she mentioned something ...."
She thought on the encounter some more.
"... about her brother sending her," Ranma mussed as he started to
cut Kasumi free of webbing.
"She said her name was Kuno Kodachi," Akane recalled suddenly.
"She's Kuno's sister?" Ranma gaped at Akane as he pulled the last
of the webbing away from Kasumi.
"Come to think of it," Akane mussed, "they do kind of look alike."
"Well, that would explain how she became a beurk!" Ranma exclaimed
as he looked back down at Kasumi. The webbing had stuck to her
clothes and he'd torn ... both ... away.
"Ranma, you pervert!" Akane exploded and grabbed a convenient
rock. "How dare you strip Kasumi!"
"It was an accident," Ranma protested while trying to hold his nose
and defend his head at the same time.
"How can you accidentally take a girl's clothes off?" Akane
demanded.
'You'd be surprised,' Ranma, for once wisely, did not comment
aloud.
"Ah, young love," Soun muttered deliriously and drifted back to
unconsciousness.
"Oh Ranma," Kasumi mumbled. "We shouldn't .... Not in the kitchen
.... Oh no, not with the ... Oh! Oh, yes .... Harder! Faster!"
Akane paused her pounding to stare at her sleep talking sister,
then she listened to her advice and resumed clobbering harder and
faster than ever. "You pervert! What have you been doing to my
sister!?"
"I ain't done nothing to her!" Ranma protested between thuds. "I
don't know what she's talking 'bout, ya crazy tomboy!"
'The sad thing,' Genma reflected from near by, 'is that he probably
doesn't. I've _got_ to have a _talk_ to my son soon.' He paused
to listen some more. Nabiki was starting to come to and muttering
to herself as well. A goofy grin crossed his face. 'Nope. Sounds
like I should just let nature take it's course.'
"Are all girls crazy?" Ranma asked the heavens as Akane chased him
out of the tent.
---
"Yes. MeOw! What was that for, ya crazy goddess?"
---
Tatewaki stood motionless in the clearing then stepped off of a
piece of rope, which promptly snaked away at great speed. Suddenly
several hours worth of setting up came at him in the form of over a
dozen sharpened logs swinging on the end of ropes. Tatewaki
maintained his pose until the last moment when he turned, drew his
sword arm back and was promptly hit in the face by a bouquet of
roses.
With his timing thrown off, Tatewaki was promptly pummelled by his
own training contraption.
"Brother Dearest, I have returned," Kodachi announced as she leaped
from the canopy and pirouetted.
"doh I dohdised...," Tatewaki mumbled as he picked himself out from
under the new log pile. Recovering his poise, somewhat, he
requested, "have you perchance located the lair of that fiend
Saotome, my twisted sister?"
"Indeed I have," Kodachi replied and went misty eyed at the thought
of 'her Darling Ranma'. A delightful romantic daydream began to
unfold; one involving herself, Ranma, satin sheets and a bull whip.
"And what, pray tell, became of Gosunguki?" Tatewaki demanded as
he looked around for the somewhat more reliable of the spiders.
"Who? Oh, yes. I, ah, left him to keep an eye on them," Kodachi
answered as she blinked back to tenuous reality. "In case they
should seek to flee in the night, yes?"
"Why should they ...?" Tatewaki wondered. "You did keep out of
sight, didn't you? You did stick to my plan, did you not, my
demented sibling?"
"Exactly as you instructed," Kodachi laughed nervously. "However,
they may have caught a glimpse of us. Ranma seems to be quite the
warrior, Brother Dearest."
"Indeed he is somewhat skilled," Tatewaki admitted. "Yet he will
be no match for me once I have mastered my new abilities." He
raised his sword to the heavens and vowed, "Soon my training will
be complete, then I shall banish him!"
"He's training too, you know," Kodachi observed in a thoughtful
tone then laughed into the back of her hand. "Perhaps I should
watch his training. Just so you will not be caught by surprise, of
course."
"Nay. Even though you are my sister," Tatewaki proclaimed, "I
cannot allow your devious interference in this battle."
---
"Let me get this straight," Nabiki said coldly. "My fiancee saves
our hides from some nutso spider woman and you _beat him over the
head with a rock_!?"
"That pervert was ogling Kasumi's body," Akane explained. "He was
getting a real eyeful too!"
"Oh good!" Kasumi exclaimed softly then blushed with embarrassment
as two sets of eyes stared at her in astonishment. "Er, I mean, he
seems to be coming around."
"Spam, did you get the number of that Pred that hit me?" Ranma
asked groggily as he sat up.
"It was a violent tomboy," Nabiki explained.
"Nabiki, say that one more time and I ...! Oh." Akane paused and
started fidget. "That is ... I'm sorry Ranma. Heh, I guess I over
reacted ... a bit." Her fingers suddenly became very interesting
to her. She started to investigate how they could twist together.
"Sorry 'bout that."
"Er .... That's okay, Akane," Ranma said at a loss for words.
Nobody had ever apologised for hitting him before. Ever.
"Get up, Little Cat," Genma ordered, suddenly appearing out of
nowhere, grabbed Ranma by the front of his chest plate and hurled
him across the campsite and into a tree trunk. "This is no time
for lounging around!"
"That's going too far, Mr. Saotome!" Kasumi exploded into Genma's
face.
"Yeah," Nabiki agreed angrily beside her, "even for martial arts
training!"
Akane went straight for the rock treatment.
"Now, _that_ was deserved," Kasumi decided firmly, then hurried
over to _her_ fiancee. "Ranma Dear, are you alright?"
"'m just prime, 'sumi," he muttered as he peeled himself off of the
tree and flipped upright with a push of his hands.
---end part 4---