|\v/| Primal Chaos
|=_=| [rn][xo:fus][bw] A Ranma 1/2 / Beast Wars crossover fusion
'\_/' Part 11: A Scent of Musk in the Air.
I own Ranma 1/2; well, at least the volumes published by Viz
Communications to date. Please buy the manga and encourage the
author, Takahasi Rumiko, to produce more.
Mainframe Entertainment produced the Beast Wars computer generated
image animation.
This work of fanfiction is basically a Ranma 1/2 alternate universe
with some elements drawn from Beast Wars. It is produced purely
for the entertainment of the author and like minded individuals on
the Internet.
---begin part 11---
Hikaru shook his head in an attempt to clear the ringing in his
ears then staggered forward. The explosion underfoot had left him
disorientated and confused, which was why he didn't notice the
river until he splashed into it. Then he tripped over a submerged
boulder and into the rapid current. The current then carried him
tumbling over the boulder-filled river-bed and towards the
waterfall.
Some mornings it really doesn't pay to get up at all.
---
"Oh no!" Kasumi exclaimed as she watched Ranma battle the
reformatted Mu Tzu. The enlarged, and enraged, master of hidden
weapons techniques seemed to have her fiance on the defensive.
"Ranma!" the cat gasped as she watched her fiance dodge some wicked
hardware.
'This could be bad!' Ke Lon thought darkly. If the boy had become
strong enough to defeat her future 'son-in-law', his bumbling
pursuit of Shan Pu could become more than a mere annoyance and
slapstick comedy.
Genma watched the battle with surprising calm. Soun and Tatewaki
searched the area for any sign of Akane. Tatewaki also enjoyed the
sight of Ranma receiving a resounding defeat, marred only by the
fact that he wasn't the one dishing it out.
"Oh ho ho hO!" Kodachi cheered, lost in her own private fantasies.
"Destroy the wicked knave for me, Sir Ranma, and you shall receive
a kiss from me as reward."
"He's not fighting for you, you know," the cat hissed in annoyance,
then returned to watching the fight in dread.
---
"I have you now, Saotome!" Mu Tzu roared as his barrel weapons
spat out sharp-edged blades on chains then drew them back again to
refire almost as fast as Ranma could dodge. He charged forward
with triumphant glee.
Backflips, cartwheels and sidesteps carried Ranma just out of Mu
Tzu's chain weapons' reach. With a flick of his wrists, Mu Tzu
switched to rapid-firing playing cards which shredded bark as Ranma
ran up a tree. Another flick of his wrists peppered the canopy
with poison-tipped pub-darts.
"Tell me something," Ranma asked as he dropped onto Mu Tzu's
shoulders, "how many weapons do you have in those things, anyway?"
Not quite stupid enough to fire his weapons at Ranma while he was
standing on his own shoulders, Mu Tzu swung his arms in an attempt
to dislodge his opponent, and discovered a disadvantage to being
musclebound. Ranma braced one of those massive heavily-armoured
weapon-holding arms and pushed down, at the same time locking his
feet about Mu Tzu's neck for added leverage. Ranma then repeatedly
introduced Mu Tzu's head and fist to each other.
"Beast Mode!" Mu Tzu roared furiously. His head pulled down into
his chest and Ranma hastily leapt away as the two halves which
formed the beast's head snapped into place. Mu Tzu's freed arm
folded into a leg; the weapon vanished into where ever it was
stored.
"Beast Mode!" Ranma echoed as he tumbled in the air then touched
down with all four legs running. The enraged rhino charged blindly
through the golden rocket's dust trail.
"You can't escape this time!" the rhino bellowed as its hooves shook
the earth behind its prey. "There is no cliff for me to run off
now!"
The cheetah suddenly made a sharp right turn and the rhino didn't;
though he tried to break his charge.
"Maybe not 'off'," the cheetah sighed as he screeched to a sitting
stop, placed a paw over his muzzle, then peered over it and winced,
"but 'into' is another matter. Charges like a bull; steers like a
cow."
---
"What is that?" Soun demanded while pointing to the dark shape
falling down the waterfall.
Eyes were torn off of the battle long enough to see Hikaru's dark
armor splash into the white water churning beneath the falls.
"Forsooth!" Tatewaki exclaimed. "It would seem to be Gosunguki!
Sister, if you would, fish him out of the river."
"Who?" the cat asked while Kodachi considered the matter.
"Oh, very well," Kodachi finally sighed as she deigned to rescue
the drowning Goth boy with a line of silk. A snap of her wrist
pulled Hikaru out of the water and hurled him into Tatewaki. "Oh!
Ho ho ho! There you are, Dear Brother."
"Oh look!" Kasumi announced joyously and clapped her hands
together. "Ranma won!"
"That has got to hurt," Nabiki observed dryly as they all rushed
towards the scene. All, that is, except for the entangled Tatewaki
and Hikaru.
---
The rhino pulled himself out from under the rubble, staggered a
bit before maximising and stumbling to his knees. He muttered,
"Die Saotome!" then fell on his face.
"Man, you don't know when to quit," Ranma observed with some actual
admiration before dumping a boulder onto his opponent. He dusted
himself off and walked towards the approaching audience.
Behind him, Mu Tzu rose to his feet; hefting the boulder over his
head like a barbell. "Isth not over yesh, Saoto...!" he roared as
his body locked into position. The boulder slipped from his
fingers and bounced off of him as he slammed into the ground.
"What the ...?" Ranma exclaimed. 'He really doesn't know when to
quit.'
"He's passed out," Ke Lon explained. "It seems that you have won,
son in law."
"Oh, congratulations, Ranma," Kasumi cheered.
"And now," Kodachi announced as she melted against him, "for your
reward, my Darling Knight."
"What do you mm...?" Ranma demanded.
"That's quite enough of that," the cat insisted possessively as she
leaped up and pulled on Kodachi's braid with her teeth.
"You vile little beast!" Kodachi hissed as she turned on the cat.
"How dare you try to come between me and my Ranma Darling? It is
unforgivable!"
"Oh dear, Ranma, you're not hurt are you?" Kasumi demanded as she
fussed over the dazed martial artist while her feline sister was
chased by Kodachi with a mallet.
"Shan Pu!" Mu Tzu erupted with glee as he pounced and hugged the
girl. "How I've missed you. Say you will go out with me!"
"Let my sister go, you jerk!" the cat hissed as she jumped onto Mu
Tzu's broadened shoulders, swiped his cheek with a claw and slapped
the glasses over his eyes. "You're hurting her!"
"You're not Shan Pu," Mu Tzu exclaimed as he released the girl.
Kasumi slid to her knees and began to cough up blood.
---
Mu Tzu stared at his hands in shock. It had seemed so simple: Shan
Pu lo... lu... was forced to marry Saotome because he was a beast
warrior so if Mu Tzu became one too then she would be free to leap
into his arms and he would ... crush her to death!?
Tendo Soun saw red. His precious Kasumi lay on the forest floor
like a broken doll. His gentle daughter who wouldn't harm a soul,
so much like her mother, had been callously attacked while he stood
by uselessly.
Soun snapped. "You B@$7@4D!"
While the others stood by in shock, Soun erupted into motion. Long
unpractised skills suddenly came back to him and were unleashed
upon Mu Tzu's armoured form. A hurricane of jabs, kicks, punches
and chops rained upon the Chinese boy; driving him backwards and
denting his armor while Mu Tzu desperately tried to defend himself.
---
"Ranma!" the cat wailed as she nuzzled her sister's cheek. "Do
something!"
"There's nothing we can do, child," Ke Lon soothed the cat
compassionately. "I wish there was." Which was true enough;
obstacle to the Law or not, the polite girl had shared tea.
Ranma stood stock still as the need triggered whatever it was
inside him that had saved Nabiki the last time. He felt the
system come online and he responded to its imperative. The world
seemed to slow and he checked the area out and his instinctive
search found ... nothing.
The battle had sent small birds and animals fleeing or into hiding.
The river was too churned to find fish and there were even no
insects close enough for him to use. There was nothing; not even a
squirrel nor a mouse. He widened his search and found ...there...
a speck in the sky that his straining eyes made out to be a falcon
circling high above.
Streams of data seemed to flow into him from the bird but suddenly
stop. It felt somehow wrong; as though the bird was too far off,
or something, to get a sufficient reading. He turned his attention
desperately back to the surrounding mountainside. There had to be
something, somewhere ....
There; just the bones of a large animal, but it seemed that enough
data streamed from them for the process to begin. His chest unit
swung clear as he moved over Kasumi's bone-shattered body.
---
The cat felt like sicking up as she watched the wires thread
throughout Kasumi's body. All she remembered from her own
reformatting was the bright light. She didn't recall fine wires
spooling from inside Ranma, or the way they spread through the skin
and burrowed into the ground; seemingly to leach metal from the
soil and rock and use it to replace flesh and bone. Kasumi was
literally being rebuilt before their eyes.
The process seemed inexorably slow and Ranma showed signs of
straining; as though whatever he was doing was taxing his system to
the limits. His hands seemed to be reaching and clawing as though
he were trying to pull at something that eluded his grasp.
Nabiki hadn't considered where the metal for her own body had come
from, and she still didn't want to think about it. Kasumi, at
least, was receiving fresh metal directly from ores within the
mountain. The cat just hoped the thing inside Ranma could extract
enough.
Then the glowing wires broke off and retracted into his chest which
snapped closed. Ranma dropped onto his knees and gasped for
breath. His body seemed to somehow collapse in on itself slightly
as the glow about him faded.
Kasumi's reformed body lay unmoving on the ground. Only the wisps
of her brown hair fluttered in the morning breeze. There was no
sign of a vital spark animating her reformed shell.
Then her eyes twitched open, her body convulsed and she transformed
with a startled cry of, "whiney!"
---
The Musk sped away in deep thought after witnessing at first hand
that the old legends were true. Somehow Saotome had received the
Musk' creation matrix; an artefact stored within the citadel and,
supposedly, endowed only into a worthy leader by the Musk'
ancestral spirits every few generations. How Saotome had tricked
those spirits into accepting him was not the problem; it was how Ha
Bu would react to the news.
If Ha Bu had reacted badly to failing to meet whatever criteria the
spirits applied, learning that a Pred had been found to be primal
material instead was bound to drive him over the edge.
Telling him would be such a delight; if he didn't kill the
messenger.
---
"Oh my!" Soun exclaimed as he watched his daughter grow accustomed
to her four long legs. "Kasumi, is that really you?"
She reared onto her hind legs as he approached and whinnied. Her
hooves boxed warningly and her wings fanned the air violently until
he backed away.
"What's wrong with my little girl?" Soun demanded. "Ranma, what
have done to her?"
"Nee!" Kasumi snorted as she leapt between them and pawed the
ground angrily. Her mind was clouded and confused, but no one
threatened her Ranma. She stood over him like a nervous mare
protecting her foal and stamped her hooves warningly when anyone
tried to approach.
"Easy, Kasumi," Ranma soothed as he stroked her muzzle. She
nuzzled him affectionately. Her golden wings folded onto her brown
back as she calmed down slightly.
"Nabiki was like this at first too, remember, Soun," Genma
comforted his old friend, "so was Ranma, though that .... Anyway,
I'm sure she'll snap out of it soon enough. She just has to get
over the shock. In the meantime, look at how close they're
getting."
"Hey!" Nabiki hissed at Genma, though his words had brought a smile
back to her father's face. What was she; yesterday's choice?
"Nothing like that happened to us," Kodachi reported smugly;
though she eyed the attention Ranma was showing Kasumi's beast form
jealously. Kodachi's beast mode was many things, even beautiful in
its own sinister way, but being pettable was just not one of its
qualities.
Nabiki was of mixed emotions. Relief that her sister would live
warred with resentment. She had felt that being a beast warrior
too had given her an advantage over her sisters in the fiancee
race. Now she wasn't unique. In fact, Kasumi had a definite edge
with her unique form. "Ranma, why does she have wings?"
"I ...," Ranma started to explain. "I dunno. Crossed wires, mixed
signals or somethin'. I'm just glad it worked at all."
Ke Lon was deep in thought over the possibilities. She'd seen how
Mu Tzu had improved after becoming a beast warrior and the ability
Ranma just displayed only made him more desirable as a groom for
Shan Pu. "Now that she's safe, where is Shan Pu?" Ke Lon wondered
then added as an after thought, "and that Tendo girl?"
Mu Tzu still lay cowering in terror from the reign of fury Soun had
unleashed upon him. "Wait," he registered the vital fact and
recovered somewhat. "Shan Pu is missing?"
Hikaru moaned on top of Tatewaki; both having been forgotten in the
excitement of Ranma's win and the subsequent near tragedy.
---
"I have no idea where Shan Pu is," Mu Tzu asserted, "but Gosunguki
was guarding Saotome's woman. If Shan Pu is harmed because of you
Sao...." Mu Tzu flinched guiltily as he turned to threaten Ranma
and noticed Kasumi's beast form nuzzling his enemy.
"You've done enough already," Nabiki told him coldly then turned to
ask, "now, what happened to my sister, Gosunguki?"
"She escaped," a battered Hikaru informed them and withered under
Tatewaki's gaze. "I tried to track her down, er, so she wouldn't
be hurt wandering in the forest alone, but she was headed for the
Musk' camp. I came back to get help."
"Surely the noble Musk would not harm an innocent maiden," Tatewaki
assured them.
"I wouldn't be so sure, Kuno Sempai," Hikaru corrected politely.
"When I took Mousse to them yesterday, I over heard them talking
about some plan they had of using 'the Tendo woman' against him."
"It's possible that these Musk have taken Shan Pu as well," Ke Lon
said with a frown. "Perhaps for a similar reason."
"Something isn't adding up here," Nabiki muttered as she rubbed her
head. It had been a confusing morning.
"We must rescue my Shan Pu at once!" Mu Tzu decreed to the heavens.
"Sit down," Ke Lon rapped him over the head with her staff. "You
are in no position to give orders, idiot."
"Actually, I agree with the idiot," Ranma declared. "After all,
they've been testing me by throwing these idiots at me, so its time
I see what these Musk are made of."
Tatewaki and Mu Tzu bristled but Hikaru merely nodded and Kodachi
was too busy trying to avoid Kasumi's teeth and still look dignified
to notice the insult.
"I wouldn't be so eager if I were you," Genma cautioned. "You
still don't remember much after we were reforged, do you? There
was one Musk who had a terrible power. We barely escaped from his
wrath. If he, or one like him, is here, we won't stand a chance
now that you have the neko-ken under control."
"So, son-in-law knows that technique," Ke Lon cackled. "I haven't
seen the neko-ken in over fifty years. With your beast form you
must be formidable, but I am surprised that you are able to use
your beast form at all."
Nabiki frowned. "That doesn't make sense, old woman."
"Training for the neko-ken is very rigorous," the elder Joketsu
informed her seriously. "You must wrap the student in fish sausage
then throw them into a pit of starving cats. After repeating the
process long enough the student eventually becomes a berserker at
the mere sight of a cat; fighting with the same savagery as the
beasts."
"Indeed, what rigorous training," Soun said with tears of
admiration. Why it reminded him of the tor-, er, training he'd
been put through. Those were the days.
"What kind of training is that!?" Nabiki exclaimed and eyed her
fiance warily. He certainly didn't seem to go crazy around her
but it was no wonder he didn't want to teach it to her. "Only a
total idiot would teach that technique!"
"To be a great martial artist you must make great sacrifices," Ke
Lon preached sagely. Genma and Soun nodded in agreement with her
wisdom.
"Unfortunately," Genma cried remorsefully, "becoming a beast
warrior has robbed Ranma of the power of the neko-ken. For some
reason, after he recovered, he was no longer afraid of cats. It is
such a tragedy! Without the neko-ken, Ranma is just not ready to
face that Musk Warrior. If he is here ...."
"... then they would not be holding back," Nabiki theorised
thoughtfully. "Tell us, Gosunguki, exactly what are we facing?
How many Musk, and what are their beast modes?"
"There are four, that I know of," Hikaru said eagerly. He was
pleased to be the centre of attention. "Two of them are like Miss
Kasumi; a mix of animal and bird. The small one becomes a wolf
with an eagle's wings, the large one becomes a tiger fused with a
hawk. Then there is the boy in red armor and the woman. She
didn't seem to be a beast warrior under her kimono, but Mousse
proved that it is possible to conceal the armor."
"The Musk were not reputed to have women beast warriors," Ke Lon
observed. "Though they often took strong women warriors to wife,
only their boy children were made into beast warriors. However,
that may have changed." It certainly would, if Ke Lon's plans bore
fruit.
"Go on," Ranma urged Hikaru.
"Er, that's all I know," Hikaru sighed.
"You only know the beast modes of two of the four," Nabiki
summarised, "one of whom may, or may not, actually be a beast
warrior, and there could be more of them. Oh, thanks, that helps
heaps."
"It's better than nothing," Ranma observed philosophically as he
stroked Kasumi's mane and scratched behind her ears.
Nabiki told herself that she was not jealous; repeatedly.
"In any event," Ke Lon advised, "those three or four are likely to
know how to use their beast forms much better than any of you.
They were reputed to study an art called the Shokai Ken, which
uses the movements of animals. As either warriors or beasts they
were said to be formidable."
---
"I knew I should have made that right turn at Okinawa," the rat
said as it erupted from the ground and looked over the map at the -
"Oh crap!" - women's baths.
Dodging buckets and soap, he knew that his luck was holding up as
well as ever. Things just couldn't get any worse.
"Charlotte!? You came back to widdle Azusa!"
---end part 11---
|=_=| [rn][xo:fus][bw] A Ranma 1/2 / Beast Wars crossover fusion
'\_/' Part 11: A Scent of Musk in the Air.
I own Ranma 1/2; well, at least the volumes published by Viz
Communications to date. Please buy the manga and encourage the
author, Takahasi Rumiko, to produce more.
Mainframe Entertainment produced the Beast Wars computer generated
image animation.
This work of fanfiction is basically a Ranma 1/2 alternate universe
with some elements drawn from Beast Wars. It is produced purely
for the entertainment of the author and like minded individuals on
the Internet.
---begin part 11---
Hikaru shook his head in an attempt to clear the ringing in his
ears then staggered forward. The explosion underfoot had left him
disorientated and confused, which was why he didn't notice the
river until he splashed into it. Then he tripped over a submerged
boulder and into the rapid current. The current then carried him
tumbling over the boulder-filled river-bed and towards the
waterfall.
Some mornings it really doesn't pay to get up at all.
---
"Oh no!" Kasumi exclaimed as she watched Ranma battle the
reformatted Mu Tzu. The enlarged, and enraged, master of hidden
weapons techniques seemed to have her fiance on the defensive.
"Ranma!" the cat gasped as she watched her fiance dodge some wicked
hardware.
'This could be bad!' Ke Lon thought darkly. If the boy had become
strong enough to defeat her future 'son-in-law', his bumbling
pursuit of Shan Pu could become more than a mere annoyance and
slapstick comedy.
Genma watched the battle with surprising calm. Soun and Tatewaki
searched the area for any sign of Akane. Tatewaki also enjoyed the
sight of Ranma receiving a resounding defeat, marred only by the
fact that he wasn't the one dishing it out.
"Oh ho ho hO!" Kodachi cheered, lost in her own private fantasies.
"Destroy the wicked knave for me, Sir Ranma, and you shall receive
a kiss from me as reward."
"He's not fighting for you, you know," the cat hissed in annoyance,
then returned to watching the fight in dread.
---
"I have you now, Saotome!" Mu Tzu roared as his barrel weapons
spat out sharp-edged blades on chains then drew them back again to
refire almost as fast as Ranma could dodge. He charged forward
with triumphant glee.
Backflips, cartwheels and sidesteps carried Ranma just out of Mu
Tzu's chain weapons' reach. With a flick of his wrists, Mu Tzu
switched to rapid-firing playing cards which shredded bark as Ranma
ran up a tree. Another flick of his wrists peppered the canopy
with poison-tipped pub-darts.
"Tell me something," Ranma asked as he dropped onto Mu Tzu's
shoulders, "how many weapons do you have in those things, anyway?"
Not quite stupid enough to fire his weapons at Ranma while he was
standing on his own shoulders, Mu Tzu swung his arms in an attempt
to dislodge his opponent, and discovered a disadvantage to being
musclebound. Ranma braced one of those massive heavily-armoured
weapon-holding arms and pushed down, at the same time locking his
feet about Mu Tzu's neck for added leverage. Ranma then repeatedly
introduced Mu Tzu's head and fist to each other.
"Beast Mode!" Mu Tzu roared furiously. His head pulled down into
his chest and Ranma hastily leapt away as the two halves which
formed the beast's head snapped into place. Mu Tzu's freed arm
folded into a leg; the weapon vanished into where ever it was
stored.
"Beast Mode!" Ranma echoed as he tumbled in the air then touched
down with all four legs running. The enraged rhino charged blindly
through the golden rocket's dust trail.
"You can't escape this time!" the rhino bellowed as its hooves shook
the earth behind its prey. "There is no cliff for me to run off
now!"
The cheetah suddenly made a sharp right turn and the rhino didn't;
though he tried to break his charge.
"Maybe not 'off'," the cheetah sighed as he screeched to a sitting
stop, placed a paw over his muzzle, then peered over it and winced,
"but 'into' is another matter. Charges like a bull; steers like a
cow."
---
"What is that?" Soun demanded while pointing to the dark shape
falling down the waterfall.
Eyes were torn off of the battle long enough to see Hikaru's dark
armor splash into the white water churning beneath the falls.
"Forsooth!" Tatewaki exclaimed. "It would seem to be Gosunguki!
Sister, if you would, fish him out of the river."
"Who?" the cat asked while Kodachi considered the matter.
"Oh, very well," Kodachi finally sighed as she deigned to rescue
the drowning Goth boy with a line of silk. A snap of her wrist
pulled Hikaru out of the water and hurled him into Tatewaki. "Oh!
Ho ho ho! There you are, Dear Brother."
"Oh look!" Kasumi announced joyously and clapped her hands
together. "Ranma won!"
"That has got to hurt," Nabiki observed dryly as they all rushed
towards the scene. All, that is, except for the entangled Tatewaki
and Hikaru.
---
The rhino pulled himself out from under the rubble, staggered a
bit before maximising and stumbling to his knees. He muttered,
"Die Saotome!" then fell on his face.
"Man, you don't know when to quit," Ranma observed with some actual
admiration before dumping a boulder onto his opponent. He dusted
himself off and walked towards the approaching audience.
Behind him, Mu Tzu rose to his feet; hefting the boulder over his
head like a barbell. "Isth not over yesh, Saoto...!" he roared as
his body locked into position. The boulder slipped from his
fingers and bounced off of him as he slammed into the ground.
"What the ...?" Ranma exclaimed. 'He really doesn't know when to
quit.'
"He's passed out," Ke Lon explained. "It seems that you have won,
son in law."
"Oh, congratulations, Ranma," Kasumi cheered.
"And now," Kodachi announced as she melted against him, "for your
reward, my Darling Knight."
"What do you mm...?" Ranma demanded.
"That's quite enough of that," the cat insisted possessively as she
leaped up and pulled on Kodachi's braid with her teeth.
"You vile little beast!" Kodachi hissed as she turned on the cat.
"How dare you try to come between me and my Ranma Darling? It is
unforgivable!"
"Oh dear, Ranma, you're not hurt are you?" Kasumi demanded as she
fussed over the dazed martial artist while her feline sister was
chased by Kodachi with a mallet.
"Shan Pu!" Mu Tzu erupted with glee as he pounced and hugged the
girl. "How I've missed you. Say you will go out with me!"
"Let my sister go, you jerk!" the cat hissed as she jumped onto Mu
Tzu's broadened shoulders, swiped his cheek with a claw and slapped
the glasses over his eyes. "You're hurting her!"
"You're not Shan Pu," Mu Tzu exclaimed as he released the girl.
Kasumi slid to her knees and began to cough up blood.
---
Mu Tzu stared at his hands in shock. It had seemed so simple: Shan
Pu lo... lu... was forced to marry Saotome because he was a beast
warrior so if Mu Tzu became one too then she would be free to leap
into his arms and he would ... crush her to death!?
Tendo Soun saw red. His precious Kasumi lay on the forest floor
like a broken doll. His gentle daughter who wouldn't harm a soul,
so much like her mother, had been callously attacked while he stood
by uselessly.
Soun snapped. "You B@$7@4D!"
While the others stood by in shock, Soun erupted into motion. Long
unpractised skills suddenly came back to him and were unleashed
upon Mu Tzu's armoured form. A hurricane of jabs, kicks, punches
and chops rained upon the Chinese boy; driving him backwards and
denting his armor while Mu Tzu desperately tried to defend himself.
---
"Ranma!" the cat wailed as she nuzzled her sister's cheek. "Do
something!"
"There's nothing we can do, child," Ke Lon soothed the cat
compassionately. "I wish there was." Which was true enough;
obstacle to the Law or not, the polite girl had shared tea.
Ranma stood stock still as the need triggered whatever it was
inside him that had saved Nabiki the last time. He felt the
system come online and he responded to its imperative. The world
seemed to slow and he checked the area out and his instinctive
search found ... nothing.
The battle had sent small birds and animals fleeing or into hiding.
The river was too churned to find fish and there were even no
insects close enough for him to use. There was nothing; not even a
squirrel nor a mouse. He widened his search and found ...there...
a speck in the sky that his straining eyes made out to be a falcon
circling high above.
Streams of data seemed to flow into him from the bird but suddenly
stop. It felt somehow wrong; as though the bird was too far off,
or something, to get a sufficient reading. He turned his attention
desperately back to the surrounding mountainside. There had to be
something, somewhere ....
There; just the bones of a large animal, but it seemed that enough
data streamed from them for the process to begin. His chest unit
swung clear as he moved over Kasumi's bone-shattered body.
---
The cat felt like sicking up as she watched the wires thread
throughout Kasumi's body. All she remembered from her own
reformatting was the bright light. She didn't recall fine wires
spooling from inside Ranma, or the way they spread through the skin
and burrowed into the ground; seemingly to leach metal from the
soil and rock and use it to replace flesh and bone. Kasumi was
literally being rebuilt before their eyes.
The process seemed inexorably slow and Ranma showed signs of
straining; as though whatever he was doing was taxing his system to
the limits. His hands seemed to be reaching and clawing as though
he were trying to pull at something that eluded his grasp.
Nabiki hadn't considered where the metal for her own body had come
from, and she still didn't want to think about it. Kasumi, at
least, was receiving fresh metal directly from ores within the
mountain. The cat just hoped the thing inside Ranma could extract
enough.
Then the glowing wires broke off and retracted into his chest which
snapped closed. Ranma dropped onto his knees and gasped for
breath. His body seemed to somehow collapse in on itself slightly
as the glow about him faded.
Kasumi's reformed body lay unmoving on the ground. Only the wisps
of her brown hair fluttered in the morning breeze. There was no
sign of a vital spark animating her reformed shell.
Then her eyes twitched open, her body convulsed and she transformed
with a startled cry of, "whiney!"
---
The Musk sped away in deep thought after witnessing at first hand
that the old legends were true. Somehow Saotome had received the
Musk' creation matrix; an artefact stored within the citadel and,
supposedly, endowed only into a worthy leader by the Musk'
ancestral spirits every few generations. How Saotome had tricked
those spirits into accepting him was not the problem; it was how Ha
Bu would react to the news.
If Ha Bu had reacted badly to failing to meet whatever criteria the
spirits applied, learning that a Pred had been found to be primal
material instead was bound to drive him over the edge.
Telling him would be such a delight; if he didn't kill the
messenger.
---
"Oh my!" Soun exclaimed as he watched his daughter grow accustomed
to her four long legs. "Kasumi, is that really you?"
She reared onto her hind legs as he approached and whinnied. Her
hooves boxed warningly and her wings fanned the air violently until
he backed away.
"What's wrong with my little girl?" Soun demanded. "Ranma, what
have done to her?"
"Nee!" Kasumi snorted as she leapt between them and pawed the
ground angrily. Her mind was clouded and confused, but no one
threatened her Ranma. She stood over him like a nervous mare
protecting her foal and stamped her hooves warningly when anyone
tried to approach.
"Easy, Kasumi," Ranma soothed as he stroked her muzzle. She
nuzzled him affectionately. Her golden wings folded onto her brown
back as she calmed down slightly.
"Nabiki was like this at first too, remember, Soun," Genma
comforted his old friend, "so was Ranma, though that .... Anyway,
I'm sure she'll snap out of it soon enough. She just has to get
over the shock. In the meantime, look at how close they're
getting."
"Hey!" Nabiki hissed at Genma, though his words had brought a smile
back to her father's face. What was she; yesterday's choice?
"Nothing like that happened to us," Kodachi reported smugly;
though she eyed the attention Ranma was showing Kasumi's beast form
jealously. Kodachi's beast mode was many things, even beautiful in
its own sinister way, but being pettable was just not one of its
qualities.
Nabiki was of mixed emotions. Relief that her sister would live
warred with resentment. She had felt that being a beast warrior
too had given her an advantage over her sisters in the fiancee
race. Now she wasn't unique. In fact, Kasumi had a definite edge
with her unique form. "Ranma, why does she have wings?"
"I ...," Ranma started to explain. "I dunno. Crossed wires, mixed
signals or somethin'. I'm just glad it worked at all."
Ke Lon was deep in thought over the possibilities. She'd seen how
Mu Tzu had improved after becoming a beast warrior and the ability
Ranma just displayed only made him more desirable as a groom for
Shan Pu. "Now that she's safe, where is Shan Pu?" Ke Lon wondered
then added as an after thought, "and that Tendo girl?"
Mu Tzu still lay cowering in terror from the reign of fury Soun had
unleashed upon him. "Wait," he registered the vital fact and
recovered somewhat. "Shan Pu is missing?"
Hikaru moaned on top of Tatewaki; both having been forgotten in the
excitement of Ranma's win and the subsequent near tragedy.
---
"I have no idea where Shan Pu is," Mu Tzu asserted, "but Gosunguki
was guarding Saotome's woman. If Shan Pu is harmed because of you
Sao...." Mu Tzu flinched guiltily as he turned to threaten Ranma
and noticed Kasumi's beast form nuzzling his enemy.
"You've done enough already," Nabiki told him coldly then turned to
ask, "now, what happened to my sister, Gosunguki?"
"She escaped," a battered Hikaru informed them and withered under
Tatewaki's gaze. "I tried to track her down, er, so she wouldn't
be hurt wandering in the forest alone, but she was headed for the
Musk' camp. I came back to get help."
"Surely the noble Musk would not harm an innocent maiden," Tatewaki
assured them.
"I wouldn't be so sure, Kuno Sempai," Hikaru corrected politely.
"When I took Mousse to them yesterday, I over heard them talking
about some plan they had of using 'the Tendo woman' against him."
"It's possible that these Musk have taken Shan Pu as well," Ke Lon
said with a frown. "Perhaps for a similar reason."
"Something isn't adding up here," Nabiki muttered as she rubbed her
head. It had been a confusing morning.
"We must rescue my Shan Pu at once!" Mu Tzu decreed to the heavens.
"Sit down," Ke Lon rapped him over the head with her staff. "You
are in no position to give orders, idiot."
"Actually, I agree with the idiot," Ranma declared. "After all,
they've been testing me by throwing these idiots at me, so its time
I see what these Musk are made of."
Tatewaki and Mu Tzu bristled but Hikaru merely nodded and Kodachi
was too busy trying to avoid Kasumi's teeth and still look dignified
to notice the insult.
"I wouldn't be so eager if I were you," Genma cautioned. "You
still don't remember much after we were reforged, do you? There
was one Musk who had a terrible power. We barely escaped from his
wrath. If he, or one like him, is here, we won't stand a chance
now that you have the neko-ken under control."
"So, son-in-law knows that technique," Ke Lon cackled. "I haven't
seen the neko-ken in over fifty years. With your beast form you
must be formidable, but I am surprised that you are able to use
your beast form at all."
Nabiki frowned. "That doesn't make sense, old woman."
"Training for the neko-ken is very rigorous," the elder Joketsu
informed her seriously. "You must wrap the student in fish sausage
then throw them into a pit of starving cats. After repeating the
process long enough the student eventually becomes a berserker at
the mere sight of a cat; fighting with the same savagery as the
beasts."
"Indeed, what rigorous training," Soun said with tears of
admiration. Why it reminded him of the tor-, er, training he'd
been put through. Those were the days.
"What kind of training is that!?" Nabiki exclaimed and eyed her
fiance warily. He certainly didn't seem to go crazy around her
but it was no wonder he didn't want to teach it to her. "Only a
total idiot would teach that technique!"
"To be a great martial artist you must make great sacrifices," Ke
Lon preached sagely. Genma and Soun nodded in agreement with her
wisdom.
"Unfortunately," Genma cried remorsefully, "becoming a beast
warrior has robbed Ranma of the power of the neko-ken. For some
reason, after he recovered, he was no longer afraid of cats. It is
such a tragedy! Without the neko-ken, Ranma is just not ready to
face that Musk Warrior. If he is here ...."
"... then they would not be holding back," Nabiki theorised
thoughtfully. "Tell us, Gosunguki, exactly what are we facing?
How many Musk, and what are their beast modes?"
"There are four, that I know of," Hikaru said eagerly. He was
pleased to be the centre of attention. "Two of them are like Miss
Kasumi; a mix of animal and bird. The small one becomes a wolf
with an eagle's wings, the large one becomes a tiger fused with a
hawk. Then there is the boy in red armor and the woman. She
didn't seem to be a beast warrior under her kimono, but Mousse
proved that it is possible to conceal the armor."
"The Musk were not reputed to have women beast warriors," Ke Lon
observed. "Though they often took strong women warriors to wife,
only their boy children were made into beast warriors. However,
that may have changed." It certainly would, if Ke Lon's plans bore
fruit.
"Go on," Ranma urged Hikaru.
"Er, that's all I know," Hikaru sighed.
"You only know the beast modes of two of the four," Nabiki
summarised, "one of whom may, or may not, actually be a beast
warrior, and there could be more of them. Oh, thanks, that helps
heaps."
"It's better than nothing," Ranma observed philosophically as he
stroked Kasumi's mane and scratched behind her ears.
Nabiki told herself that she was not jealous; repeatedly.
"In any event," Ke Lon advised, "those three or four are likely to
know how to use their beast forms much better than any of you.
They were reputed to study an art called the Shokai Ken, which
uses the movements of animals. As either warriors or beasts they
were said to be formidable."
---
"I knew I should have made that right turn at Okinawa," the rat
said as it erupted from the ground and looked over the map at the -
"Oh crap!" - women's baths.
Dodging buckets and soap, he knew that his luck was holding up as
well as ever. Things just couldn't get any worse.
"Charlotte!? You came back to widdle Azusa!"
---end part 11---