Secret Cow Level

"Where the hell are we now!" Ukyo cried as she stepped forward, promptly landing a foot into a pile of mud. She screamed in rage and turned around to find the source of her anguish.

"I swear," Ryoga said, holding up his hands in his defense, "they said there was a town just through this forest."

"All in favor of never letting Ryoga ask for directions again," Ranma said, catching up with them.

"AYE!" came the cry.

"Thanks a lot," Ryoga muttered. "I don't know what you're all so upset over anyway. Even if we reached the town, its not like we have any money to stay someplace… right Ranma?"

"Hey!" Ranma cried. "He made it sound like done deal. How was I suppose to know that all the stuff was really junk?"

Akane rolled her eyes. "All in favor of never letting Ranma gamble again?"

"AYE!"

Ranma grumbled but promptly fell silent as they reached a small clearing in the forest. "I think we should make camp here tonight," he said dropping to the ground.

"We need think too," Shampoo said, crossing her arms over her chest. "Everyone drop things that no need. We sell in next town."

The group began emptying their packs, dropping a wide variety of items on the ground. Swords, extra arrows and assortment of potions soon littered the area. Ukyo moved through it, looking for anything of value.

"What the hell is this?" she said, holding up something wooden.

"Oh wow!" Akane cried running over and grabbing the wooden leg. "This is from when Tristram was destroyed. We found Nabiki's costume and this was part of it."

"You're telling me that you've been lugging this thing around the entire time?" Ukyo asked. Akane shrugged.

"Let me see that," Mousse said, pushing his way though the group and taking the wooden leg in his hands.

"See be relative term," Shampoo said with a smile.

Mousse held it close to his eye and let out a happy gasp. "This is it! The legendary key!"

"The legendary what now?" Ranma said waltzing over and snatching it from him. "This is a rotted piece of wood."

"No, no," Mousse said rifling through the stuff on the ground. "It's got runes on the side that'll tell you the story. If we can combine it with the right things, it'll open a portal to an unbelievable land of wealth and prosperity."

"Wealth sounds good right about now," Ryoga said, putting a hand over his rumbling stomach.

Ukyo shot him a look. "Food again? We just ate three hours ago!" But he just shrugged.

"Got it," Mousse said depositing the Horadric box on the ground next to a book of town portals.

"Wait a minute!" Akane said, stepping on the book. "Look, I know you guys are all for the 'walk across the world' approach, but I don't think we should just throw away our last resort."

"We'll buy a new one, Akane," Ranma said pulling her away. "Now, let Mousse do his thing."

Mousse nodded and tossed the leg and the book into the box. The box glowed for a minute before the light faded away. Mousse's brow furrowed and he slowly reached forward and opened the box.

The air crackled behind him and a red portal opened in the sky. The assembled group examined the portal with apprehension. Mousse smiled and pointed at it, managing to distinguish it among the normal blurriness of the world.

Ranma took in a deep breath and dived through first. He landed on soft patch of grass, quickly drawing his sword and looking around. The portal shimmered behind him as the rest of the group stepped through, glancing around nervously.

"It's quiet," Ryoga said.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," Ukyo replied.

"Hmmm," Mousse said, squinting his eyes and looking around. "Not exactly what I expected but… it's nice. We could explore a bit and spend the night here, seems safe enough."

"Shampoo no see 'wealth' and 'prosperity' duck boy speak of. All see is rotting fences and cows," she finished pointing to the horizon.

"Ugh!" Akane cried, putting her hand up to her nose. "Do you smell that?"

Ukyo's face cringed. "It's a cross between cooked beef and fertilizer!"

"Sort of like Akane's cooking," Ranma said with a smile.

"BAKA!" she said walloping him on the head.

"Cows come here."

"What was that?" Akane said, turning to Shampoo.

"Cows. Come. Here." The Amazon iterated, pointing at the horizon.

Akane laughed. "Well, yeah this is their pasture. I'm sure they are just coming here to graze…"

"Walking on their hind legs," Ukyo said suddenly, watching the mass approach them.

"Holding something in their fore legs?" Ryoga added.

"Ah!" Mousse answered. "They must be coming this way to give us gold."

"No look like gold," Shampoo stated, shifting uneasily.

"Yeah, it looks like… well… axes actually," Ranma finished.

Mousse started to laugh. "Right, a bunch of cows are walking over hear holding axes. That's almost as ridiculous as that story about…" Mousse suddenly trailed off. Then his laughter stood and his face got a bit grim. He closed his eyes and started to think about the story and the runes and after a few seconds he slowly cracked his eyes open and looked around sheepishly.

"Well… you see…" he started. Then suddenly he started laughing, putting a hand behind his head. "It's a real funny story…"

"MOUSSE!" they all yelled at him.

"Theyrereallyhellbovineandtheyregonnakillus."

Shampoo walked up and grabbed him by the collar. "Say again real slowly."

"Ummm… remember how I told you about the land of wealth and prosperity?" he said, trying to smile.

"Moo. Moo. MOOOO. Moo moo."

"Yes??" Shampoo yelled, trying to over powering the increasing noise.

"MOOOOOO! Moo moo moo moo."

"Remember that fairy tale about the hell bovine and how they protected a land of wealth and prosperity."

Everyone looked at him and then quickly at the horde and then back at him.

"You son of a…" Ryoga started.

Ukyo caught his arm. "Run now. Kill later."

And no one seemed to disagree. They took off running, tearing up grass as they made their way through the green pastures. It was about five minutes later before Ranma finally slid to a stop.

"What the hell are we doing?" he yelled. "We've faced demons before! We've faced the three brothers of evil! We've saved the world!!! WHY ARE WE RUNNING AWAY?"

Everyone paused and looked at him.

"Ranma's right!" Akane said, pulling out her wand.

"Yeah, we'll kick their asses," Ukyo replied, flexing her hands.

"Bring it on," Ryoga added, pulling out his axe.

"Ah… I really don't think this is a smart idea," Mousse chirped in.

"Mousse no worry," Shampoo said turning to face him. "Just stay still and…"

There was a long pause. Everyone turned to see why Shampoo had trailed off and fell silent as well. Mousse looked at them with surprise and then looked down at his clothes. "What?" he asked. "Is there something on my…"

"Mousse…" Ukyo started. "In that fairy tale… was there, oh say, a king of the Hell Bovine."

Mousse blinked. "Why yes there was."

"Did he cast lightning spells?" Akane asked.

"Yes he…" Mousse paused and slowly turned around. His vision wasn't the best but lightning was easy to pick out. "Oh… my," he said, using the phrase Kasumi had patented.

"Run," Ranma said, making a decision for the group. "Run now."

But it was impossible to get away. From all around they were surrounded by Hell Bovine and the portal was a small red dot in the distance. The warriors frowned and crouched down, preparing to fight when suddenly everything stopped.

The world paused for a few minutes. Neither Hell Bovine nor humans moved or breathed. And then suddenly…

Ranma launched forward with speed he didn't know was possible. He hacked several Hell Bovines to pieces before things resumed their normal speed.

"What the hell is going on?" Ryoga asked, fighting his way through a pack of them.

"How the hell should I know?" Ranma asked. "MOUSSE!"

"Eh… maybe the laws of nature don't work on this…"

He stopped short, as did the rest of the world. Once again things were frozen in time. But unlike before, things didn't resume at a quickened pace. In fact, when Ranma found himself able to move again, he realized that all his hacking wasn't effecting the Hell Bovines.

Ranma stopped and looked around. Everyone else was still frozen. He walked up slowly to Akane reaching out to touch her face when suddenly everything went black…

* * *

CONNECTION LOST

* * *

Welcome to LoDJapan
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NoradTBC : Baal run, join Baal12!!
AmazonsRULE : What happen?
OkonoQueen : Stupid lag… connections went down
BreakPtTraveler : Just as well, we were about to get killed.
1|\/|G0D : ANYONE WANT TO TRADE??
MalletGirl : I don't know… a hydra or two should have sliced them down
AnythingGoesMaster : Hydra sucks!
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1|\/|G0D : ME : KING'S SWORD OF HASTE. ANYONE WANT TO TRADE??
OkonoQueen: Not again
OkonoQueen: Can't you two not fight for five seconds?
MysterySwan : Maybe we should stop for tonight.
1|\/|G0D : ME : KING'S SWORD OF HASTE. ANYONE WANT TO TRADE??
AnythingGoesMaster : No way! I want to get through the next level!
MalletGirl : It's the same as before, only in Nightmare things are harder.
1|\/|G0D : ME : KING'S SWORD OF HASTE. ANYONE WANT TO TRADE??
AnythingGoesMaster : But I wanna to get to level 99!!
MalletGirl : It's just a game, you know!
1|\/|G0D : ME : KING'S SWORD OF HASTE. ANYONE WANT TO TRADE??
MysterySwan : I think we've played this for long enough.
AmazonsRULE : Tired of playing? Dumb duck boy get lost for half game!
MysterySwan : But you left me in the Flayer forest!
1|\/|G0D : ME : KING'S SWORD OF HASTE. ANYONE WANT TO TRADE??
BreakPtTraveler : That was so funny.
MysterySwan : This from the guy that had follow OQ the entire game like a lost little pig.
BreakPtTraveler : THAT'S IT! Set up a game. We're having a duel!
1|\/|G0D : ME : KING'S SWORD OF HASTE. ANYONE WANT TO TRADE??
SpatulaGirl: NO! No dueling, no fighting and NO WE DON'T WANT TO TRADE!
SpatualGirl : I'm going back to my restaurant, anyone who wants dinner can come too.
BreakPtTraveler : I'm there!
AnythingGoesMaster : Me too!
MalletGirl : Men! All they everything about is FOOD! Sigh… see you guys there
AmazonsRule : Sound good. See there soon.
MysterySwan : Wait for me Shampoo!!
AmazonsRule : Stupid duck boy.

* * *

Ranma pulled the card out of the machine and stood up stretching his legs. Looking around he caught sight of the others gathering their stuff and heading to the counter to check out. Nice little place, this new Internet café.

He looked over and rolled his eyes as he saw his father and Mr. Tendo still playing Shoji on the computers. Amazingly, despite being separated by several machines, they were still trying to cheat each other.

"Ranma!" Akane called, waving from the counter. He waved back and started to collect his things when he noticed something stuck under the keyboard. Pulling it out, he examined the little shard with surprise. It looked like metal or maybe a seashell but he couldn't place it.

"YO! Hurry up!" Ryoga yelled.

Pocketing the shard, Ranma ran up to the rest of his friends. They left laughing and trudged down the stairs, through the door and back out into the real world.