Magical Apocalypse Ch3 rev1
A Ranma½/Sailor Moon/Others crossover
By Ovis Musimon Ch1 first posted Q3 2004 This Chapter posted shortly after
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Ranma½ or the characters from Sailor Moon.
This is a fan fiction mostly for my own entertainment and hopefully for other fans out there. Hope you like it.
Chapter 3
Nabiki sat looking at her stocks and was beginning to wonder what was happening. All her calculations were turning all over the place and none of them were right. The only thing that would show this kind of numbers over the spread would be some kind of global disaster or even some kind of disease which slowly knocked out humanity. That shouldn't be possible at the moment. It should have been all over the news if something like that was going on.
She began to mail her contacts in the states with a few questions and looked through a few chat rooms that she was familiar. There were a worried undertone to them but no one knew exactly what was going on.
She turned of the computer with an angry grunt and picked up one of the books Ranma had showed her. She would go online a few hours later and see if she had got a few answers then, right now she had to see what she did wrong with that spell.
---
"You really think the fire bolt is the best to begin with?" Nabiki asked as she looked up from the book. The two of them were in a clearing that Ranma had deemed safe enough to train magic in.
"Why not? I had no problems with it and you manage all those low level ones perfectly now"
"But those just need visualization and a simple rune to get of. Here I need to collect the Mana plus thought construct and then the rune. To top it off I need to know about combustion of matter shouldn't I start with something easier?" Ranma gave her a look that told her that she had to be kidding.
"Nabiki this is a low level spell to you know. And if you can read the instructions it means that you can throw the spell. Everything you need to know about the spell and how to do it is done subconsciously. All you need to do is visualize the rune and the effect, your mind takes care of the rest"
"If you say so" she said and took a deep breath. She could feel the Mana that was in the air around her. It would have been easier to use the little pool that she had inside herself, but Ranma thought it better to train in how to use the Mana around them first.
Collecting the Mana she needed she called up the rune she would use for her spell and channeled the Mana into it.
"Fire bolt!" she cried and released the Mana in the rune and got a glorious show of pyrotechnics between her hands. "ITE!" she cried and plunged her hands in a bucket of water they had for just this kind of thing.
"You didn't visualize the end result Nabiki" Ranma said with a sigh, this was her twelfth try so he had no problems knowing what she did wrong.
"Yeah Yeah, give me a break will ya?" she said through gritted teeth.
"Nope, not until you learn how to do this right. How about something else then? Lightning bolt?"
"That's like electricity right? Better to be electrocuted than burned I guess"
"Just give it a try ok?" he sighed. Nabiki gave him a glare and began to draw in Mana again. This should be a little easier she thought, electricity was a little easier than fire. The thought construct came up without any effort and her chosen rune form flawlessly.
"Lightning Bolt!" she called out and a jagged streak of light shot out from her hands. Unfortunately her hands had been directed at Ranma who suddenly got a sever case of electrocution.
"Ops?" was all Nabiki managed to say between her giggle attack and Ranma´s glare.
---
Time flows on as it always will and now it seemed everybody had their schedule to go after. Ranma evaded the fiancée squad as much as he could. He just felt more and more frustrated with them as they just couldn't leave him alone. They seemed to feel that a week without them meant that they could get more time with him. He must have missed them, right? Not that they bothered to ask him about his opinion.
He was glomped by Shampoo from time to time, he wasn't sure what would happen if he didn't let her do that. Attempted to be drugged by Kodachi, she somehow managed to get him when he didn't looked. Yelled at by Akane, it was hard to not be. He lived in the same damn house after all. And longed for by Ukyuo, at least she wasn't dangerous. When she didn't helped Ranma get various object smashed in the head from Akane or brawling with the other fiancées. On the other hand, but she still did some mean okonomiyaki.
Kuno, Mousse, and Ryoga did what they could to get rid of their worst enemy to all human kind, or their definition of it at least. While Nabiki helped everyone get their poison one way or another and made money from all fronts.
Ranma and Nabiki tried to get as much time they could to get together and study magic. He had not been hard to convince to let her read with him. Somehow it seemed easier to learn when they compared notes with each other and when she was around the others were loath to disturb him. The rest of the house hold found it slightly disturbing how the two of them began to like the books with the strange writings in them. None of them could make anything out of them, which just made them more confused. And their talking about magic just didn't make sense. Sure Jusenkyo had their springs and there had been some strange happenings around the last two years. But magic? That was just plain silly.
Genma took it in his own paws... err his own hands to punch this new trait out of his son. It was not manly to read such strange books and it could be dangerous to get his son to smart after all.
Ranma had archived the same level in the arts as his father years ago, so that was obviously the wrong way to deal with this new horror. Not that it stopped him from trying.
When he could Ranma trained in all the new stuff he read about. He found a little time here to train acupuncture, it did wonder to the chi flows for him. And a little time there to train new Martial Arts moves he found interesting, you never knew when you would need a new move to surprise someone. Moxibustion and pressure points he worked on himself as much as he could. Mostly he used negative effects so he had to train and overcome the hurdle. This made him progress with leaps and bounds in training his body, as he used a Pressure point to weaken himself and then trained. The effect when the pressure point wore off was much greater. He told Nabiki of this of course, but she was a bit hesitant to try it at first. But after she had a few sessions with them she did allow Ranma to use a few on her. Even she could not deny their effectiveness as she felt how much she progressed when they were used.
---
"Ok Lightning and Ice you got down pat. Try the Fire bolt again, its not that hard you know" Nabiki gave him a glare.
"Easy for you to say" she let out a deep breath then took in a deep one and centered herself. "Fire bolt!" she cried out and promptly got her hands to begin burning. With a hiss from her lips she stuck them in the bucket at her feet.
"Why don't you try and use another way for your thought construct? The way you use now is obviously not good enough for you"
"Why not, this is obviously not working. How are you doing on that fire ball?" she asked as she swept her hands through the water.
"I think I should give it a try. I think I should try and control how much Mana I get into it at the same time"
"Not a good idea Ranma. Just try one thing at a time. You know how it is with experimenting with magic. It just blow up in you face"
"Yeah yeah, just because you don't get it right in one try" Ranma said with a grin.
"I just try to give fair warning" she huffed. Ranma just shock his head with a smile and centered himself before his first try with a new spell.
Centering himself was now almost second nature and a thought construct came into his mind without effort. He had practiced those parts enough times to not do a single step wrong. The rune came up and he feed it Mana through the thought construct he pushed his hands from his body in a useless maneuver and called out the spell.
"Fire Ball!" a tennis ball sizes ball of fire materializes itself between his hands and immediately fell to the ground where it exploded.
"Bravo!" Nabiki exclaimed between howls of laughter. Ranma blinked a few times to get the soot from his eyes and looked down on himself. He stood in a ring of soot and was entire covered with it.
"Damn" he muttered with a sigh and fell to his knees completely exhausted.
---
A week and a half after their last encounter, Nabiki knew she couldn't go much longer. She might handle a couple of days more, but she already felt her concentration falter. She had to get Ranma to get her a quick fix again. She had began to progress in her chi manipulation and had learned a beginner version of the technique that Ranma used. While it didn't get rid of the building feelings it did seem to slow them down a little.
It was in the middle of the night, so she knew that no one would be around. She quickly went to the guest room and looked in at Ranma and his Father, she wasn't afraid that she might wake up the Panda. It was a chore in itself, but the problem was to get Ranma to wake up. She didn't want to use her sister's favorite way and drench him with water and most other ways was not god enough. She sighed dejectedly and tried to shake him awake. To her astonishment he woke up as fast she laid a hand on him.
"Wha? Nabs? What is it? sumthin happen?" he asked slightly groggy and she just had to giggle at the sight of him slightly ruffled trying to find out what was wrong. Along with his now screaming senses, the Wa of the house had told him that someone was troubled while he slept. This was reason enough for him to wake up so easy this time, he just couldn't get a peaceful sleep.
"I need help again" she said as low she could and got a stare from him.
"Already? I hoped that it would work at least a couple of weeks"
"I can manage a couple more days before it becomes overpowering, but I already have my concentration affected" she looked down on the floor as she didn't want him to see what she really wanted in her eyes. Those feeling she had after he flushed her system were exquisite. Even if she was a little apprehensive that her body might get him to screw her again. "And I really don't want a repeat of what happened a couple of weeks ago"
"Err alright, if this is what you really want." he got a nod from her as he stood up. "Ok I'm coming to your room in five ok?" when he got another slightly puzzled nod he ran out of the room.
A couple of minutes later Onna-Ranma came into the window. When Nabiki saw her she raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
"Should have thought about this last time. Its not like we can have any "accidents" with both of us as girls ne?" the relief in Nabikis face was more than enough to tell Ranma that he for once had done the right thing.
"I still want to have this on tape." Nabiki said and turned on the camera she had on a tri pod beside the bed. Ranma eyed the camera with a wary eye before she sighed and knelt beside the bed. The last two encounters with Nabiki in bed had given him a taste for it. It was a feeling that was hard to describe in all its glory. While she wouldn't say no to do it again she didn't want it in a situation where neither of them had any control.
This time the experience proved to be... interesting for Ranma. While she had come to accept the curse she wasn't exactly happy about it. That it could feel such a range of pleasurable feelings did make it a little more enjoyable to have. It was tricky to get all the Ki flows after Nabikis feelings took over and not a little shocking what Nabiki did to her. But she managed to release the blocks after an hour and was almost squashed as Nabiki collapsed on top of her.
Ranma felt pretty good when she managed to get out of the bed and pulled the blankets over Nabiki. She hadn't expected those feelings and was quite shocked how good it actually felt. With a last look at the camera she took her clothes and took of out of the room.
---
Nabiki when she woke up had that warm glow in her stomach. She felt almost too lazy to get out of the bed and going to school. It took her quite a while before she remembered the camera which still stood and recorded beside the bed.
Half an hour later she was burning the tape with a huge blush. Ranma had been right when he said that it was she and not he that forced herself upon him. She couldn't believe that she would actually do something like that. Cursing the spell again, she tried to erase the pictures that the tape had burned into her fore head. She couldn't believe that the two groaning and twisting female bodies on the bed could stir the feelings that had just been purged a few hours ago.
With a groan she dressed in a Gi and ran out to the Dojo. She had to do some serious training to clear her head.
---
"The dead walks the streets?" Nabiki frowned as she read the mail a contact from Europe had sent her. It was the fourth such mail she had got and she was beginning to get worried about it. She knew that there was a type of magic in the books that were called Necromancy. It was and interesting branch if you were interested in spirits and talking to the dead. But there was a darker tone to it that could draw you down a wrong path. It was easy to call up a skeleton to be a servant or even a recently dead to make a lifelike servant of the dead.
She felt a shill go up her spine as a fifth such mail dropped into her inbox. Something strange was absolutely up and it would probably mean big problems as the stock market were fluctuating more and more wildly. She sent out more enquiries and then turned of the computer. With a sigh looked at her school books and picked one up. She would never have thought that she would willingly study as much as she did at moment.
---
"Moxibustion? You really want to try it?" Nabiki gave him a look that told him what she thought about it.
"Yes, you know the point as well as me and the counter to. No one will come here as it's your time to train. You know they run to the hill even at the thought about it from last time they tried to crash one of your lessons" Nabiki gave him a feral grin as she remembered her little revenge. Strange how people were averse towards voluntary work, even if she had done a killing on their salaries. "Ok then, it was this point and this one right?"
"Yea just use that tinder to push the points"
"Like this?"
"Yeah" he grunted as he felt her put the glowing wood to his skin.
"Ok now what?" Nabiki wondered as she put the tinder in the tinder cup.
"Would you be so kind and put that west on me?" he wondered and pointed at a weighted west.
"Sure" she were surprised when she lifted the west and felt it weight. It couldn't be more than ten kilos. Ranma grunted as she put it on him and fell to the ground with a thud when she slapped him on the back.
"Now what is this supposed to accomplish?" Nabiki wondered as she looked down on Ranma who was doing a good imitation of an upside down turtle.
"Help!" he called weakly and stuck his hand out in Nabiki direction.
"Now now, lets not be to hasty shall we? What fun could we have with a helpless Ranma?" she mused and looked down on him with hungry eyes. The frustrated look on Ranma´s face slowly turned into a scared look.
"No.. nothing like that Nabiki! We should be training now ok? So help me up please?" Nabiki giggled as she kneeled down beside him.
"Oh ok, but this have some interesting potential" she said with a grin and heaved him up.
---
It had been almost a week and a half since the last "treatment" and this time it was Ranma that was beginning to feel a bit panicked. He had felt that Nabiki had been antsy for a few days now and was beginning to loose her concentration. But she had not given any indications that she wanted to get another purge.
She had left before Ranma and Akane for school as always, but when they came to the school she had yet to show up. This was something that didn't set well with the rest of Ranmas senses. They were already being fried from being in overdrive the last months and this was one more wrong to them.
She didn't show up during the whole day which furthermore made Ranma on edge. When school was over and they managed to go home they found a Kasumi that was a little confused that Nabiki wasn't with them. Now was the time for panic.
Ranma felt that this couldn't be anything good that had happened to her and pulled out a technique he had recently read about. It was a more advanced form of aura reading that could track aura tracings. Now here the problems started. Ranma had not learned the complete technique yet and had problems fixing on the last of Nabikis traces. He picked up many faint ones all over the Tendo´s home, so he had even problems finding the newest one of them.
This was a little problem in the grand scheme of the day. The rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew didn't care that someone was missing. Especially as it was the Mercenary and besides, it was Akane that got kidnapped and not her sisters. So instead of helping him they all ganged up on Ranma to get him to do what they thought was more important.
After he had managed to get Ryoga lost, beaten Mousse into a pulp, sent Kuno into Akane who sent him into LEO and ditch the fiancées in a massive brawl. He was now free to follow one of the more promising traces of Nabikis aura.
As he ran along the way to Furinkan High, stopping now and then to get a new fix on the trace, he noticed that the trace took a slight detour. Instead of going the quickest way, this one took of into the slummier area of Nerima. He came to a closed antique shop, luckily the trace continued from the door but it didn't go towards the school. Ranma was already on the edge and he didn't get better as the trace became more and more erratic. It was going from one alley to the next almost as Nabiki had tried to keep in the shadows as she walked here.
He frowned when the trace suddenly took of along a street and went almost straight towards the office district of Nerima. A leap to a roof he was soon following it without trouble. He had to stop now and then to get a new fix, but now he was positive that it was the right one.
He stopped almost in shock when he stood outside an office complex and looked up its glassed front. It was another anonymous tower among the rest of district without even a company logo on it. Gritting his teeth in annoyance he walked into the building tracking the trace into it.
He was a little perplexed as he stood outside the double doors on the tenth floor. What would Nabiki do here? Had she done a deal too much with Yakuzas or were there another kind of deal going on that he just wasn't aware of?
The doors were of course locked when he tried to open them. Even more annoyed he kicked the door open and walked in. Inside was just another office landscape with cubicles lined up. With all the dust collected on various surfaces he deduced that the area was not used as frequently as he would have thought. Floor spaces anywhere in Tokyo were highly sought after and something standing empty as long as this had done was very rare.
The lights were of course turned of which didn't surprised him after he had seen the condition the area was in. Walking around he found a light creeping out from under an office door. As he followed Nabiki´s Aura trace towards the door he began to relax a little. Soon he would find Nabiki and probably the one who had taken her here.
The door were not locked which actually shocked him a little as he opened it. The ones in the room obviously thought that the outer door would be enough protection for them. Swinging the door open he boldly walked into the room and took in what he saw there.
The office were quite large and would give him ample of room to move around if need be. Nabiki sat tied in a chair to his left and seven men in suits stood looking over a large desk that were filled with books. Ranma didn't even need to see what kind of books they were to know that they were about magic. He cursed silently as he just knew that those things were going to give them trouble.
"Ranma" Nabiki blurted out and her eyes lit up when she saw the Nerima wrecking crews all time savior coming into the chamber.
"What's going on here?" he said angry to the men in the room.
"Those idiots think they are the next ruler of the earth." Nabiki said with venom in her voice.
"Why can't they ever be original?" Ranma wondered with a sigh. "So how come you are here? I would have thought you know how to get away from people by now?" Nabiki gave him a really ugly glare which she soon shifted to the men around the table. The men around the table looked at the teenagers with obvious amusement in their eyes.
"One of them managed to overhear when I asked about books with runes and glyph in an old antique shop. With his obviously superior deduction ability he managed to figure out that I looked for the same type of books he and his friends did. Now while we at least know how to get at the information in the books they can't seem to grasp anything at all. I don't know what they have planed but they said that they should get everything I knew out of me later"
"Now that I have heard her story what's yours?" the men looked at each other before one took a step forward.
"Well you are obviously Saotome Ranma who this young lady has ranted on about quite a bit. You sure that you really want her to learn magic? From our conversation we have had she obviously is little more than an airhead" Ranma gave Nabiki a worried look, the spell on her must be acting up more than usual. If she didn't just play the part that is.
"She's good enough for me" Ranma huffed not admitting to what she was one way or the other.
"Well you could have chosen better. As we have told the young lady more than once we are going to collect what little knowledge of the Art you have. We have better use for it than you after all" Ranma snorted at that and gave the men a glare.
"Really? Nabiki mentioned something about taking over the world? You really think about such a high goal?"
"With the knowledge in those tomes it will not be the hard. Plans are already set in motion and there are not much you can do at this time to stop them" Ranma sent a wondering look towards Nabiki who shrugged her shoulders before she looked towards the men.
"You mean you are behind all the stock fluctuations?" she asked incredulous. Ranma sent another wondering look before his ears began to twitch as he heard some of the men begun to chant.
"A small side effect. What's really going to happen will soon show and then people will be begging for our help"
"You think so? Whatever you are doing I warn you from playing around with magic. Whatever you do with it, it will haunt you if you use it for your own gain" Ranma warned as he had begun to find some references in the books to some really tragic tales.
"Oh don't worry your young little head about that. We know all about how to side step those little things. Anyway you won't be around to see what we are going to do" With a small hand gesture the other men finished their chants.
"Fire bolt!" Three voices cried out and launched the spells towards the two teens.
Ranma cursed under his breath and stood in front of Nabiki and called forth his chi to shield them both. The two first bolts of fire slammed into his chi and were harmlessly diverted but did sap the strength from his chi shield. The third managed to go through his aura and smash into his chest. He was flunged into Nabiki and the both of them landed in a heap of limbs and broken wood from the chair.
"Now that" Ranma said as he stood up on shaky legs and patted out a few flames on his clothes "were a good warm up. Do you have any other spells ready?" the men looked a little nervous among themselves before they began another chant. One man put his hand inside his jacket while another took a martial arts stance. Ranma shock his head and called forth his aura.
"You really are begging for it don't you?" he asked before he jumped at them. The man in a stance went down first, he even managed to dodge and block a few of Ranma´s attacks before Ranma heard the recall of a gun. Angry he stopped holding back and backhanded the man who flew back against a wall where glided down on the floor and didn't rise from.
Ranma rounded on the gun wielder and kick the gun from his hand. Ranma heard the crack of a broken wrist but gave it no mind as the man had fired a gun at him. The next kick landed on the mans chin which sent him flying in a spin. The chanting began a little frantic as Ranma turned towards the men who was left.
It didn't help them as Ranma were among them in a blink of an eye. There were a few crunches as he didn't hold back his punches and kicks. The men fell unconscious to the floor, some more injured then others. With a grunt he turned his back towards the men and walked over to Nabiki.
"You ok?" he asked as he freed her from the rope.
"Of course! You are here after all!" she said in a happy tone. Ranma gave her another worried look before he helped her to her feet.
"Thank you Ranma I knew that you would show up sooner or later" she said and flung her arms around him in a tight hug.
"They didn't do anything to ya did they?" He asked worried in her ear sending shivers down her spine.
"No, all they really did was putting me in that chair"
"Yeah, but how exactly did they manage to do that? I thought that you had learned something from me?" an embarrassed look flew over Nabikis face before she answered.
"He managed to knock me out with something. I don't know what and then they must have carried me here. I woke up in that damned chair and they began to ask me a lot of pretty dumb questions. We don't have geniuses to work with here. Anyway I'm not as strong as you and my concentration is shot to pieces."
"I thought you would tell me when it got to bad."
"You just want to get your hand on my body again." Nabiki said with a smirk which made Ranma sputter denials. "We can talk more about that when we get home. What do we do with the morons?"
"They are harmless for all I care. They might know who we are and where we live but they can't do anything to us. Not now that we know that they are around anyway. They will have problems getting around with those injuries anyway. Hopefully they will be in the hospital for a few weeks."
"Alright that may do, for now." she went over and began to pilfer their pockets.
"What area you doing?" Ranma wondered as he saw he go through their pockets.
"We still don't know who they are now do we?" She looked up and saw Ranma shake his head. "I don't think those bozos are the top of the chain so to speak. They must have someone to report to so I thought that maybe they had something on them that we could get some clues from"
"Ok, that might be a good idea" Ranma walked over to the books and began to brows through one of them.
"What about the books? We can't carry this many." Nabiki asked as she looked through a wallet.
"Well actually, I have a new technique that we could use for this" Ranma said and puffed out his chest in pride.
"Why am I not surprised. What have you come up with this time?" she wondered as she looked over the stacks of books. There had to be more than fifty of them.
"It's easy to do. You just fold Chi inside a container and you get something like a hundred times bigger space to put things in. Plus you're the only one who can open it."
"Really?" she asked in wonder, that was one technique she just had to learn. There was a lot of stuff she would like to have in a place where no one could find it.
"Sure just look." he picked up her school bag and put his hands over it. It glowed blue a couple of seconds before he began to put book after book into the space."
"Wont that make the bag weight be a problem when you put so much stuff into it?"
"No that's another perk. The Chi pocket is a kind of displacement or something. It weights almost nothing." he handed over the bag to her when everything in the room was packed into it. Nabikis eyes widen when she got the pack in her hands. She had expected it to weight quite a lot even if Ranma told her otherwise, what she got was not heavier than normal. She just had to look into it to really be sure that it was not a trick. She was even more surprised when she didn't see any other books than her schools in the bag.
"Hey where did you put them?" she wondered aloud.
"You concentration must be really bad Nabiki. I told you that I put them in a Chi pocket that only I could open."
"Oh, right. Come on lets go home. I have a problem you have to help me with." she said and dragged him towards the exit. As she did this she missed the concerned look Ranma gave her. He didn't like that she was beginning to behave like a ditz, even if it could have made good blackmail material against her. Damn now she was rubbing of on him to.
---
Nabiki got a little pissed when no one asked her were she had been but put that behind her as a good thing. Some really embarrassing questions could have come up if they had begun to pry into her whereabouts. She got a few strange looks in school the next day as she was more mellow than usually. Someone was even brave enough to ask if he could buy anything of her stuff as it seemed to be really good. The chewing out he got would be remembered a long time. There were few times that one question could get Nabiki that angry so fast.
Ranmas danger sense was still going amok. He had hoped that it would go away after he got Nabiki back but it seem to grow even worse for every passing day. He could not figure out what it could be that set it off but after a few days he tried to ignore it. It was a great opportunity to train without the warning his senses gave him, even if it was annoying as hell. The weekend after Nabikis kidnapping Ranma disappeared after school and was then seen first on Sunday night which earned him a meeting with a very angry fiancée squad and shouting fathers. A squad who was missing Ukyuo who's father had called her home on family business.
Ranma had, with some funds from Nabiki, traveled to the nearest districts were he had looked in the libraries and some shrines. When he came home he had collected another twenty three books. They had begun to recognize some of the markings that were on the covers of the books and a third of the new books looked to be high level ones. This put their total number of magical books to one hundred and eight. They were actually happy that there were almost forty books that they couldn't read anything from at all. While it meant that they had a lot to learn it also showed that there was a lot of powerful stuff they could get out of the books. Ranma had begun to get the hang of magic and could cast some spells, even Nabiki had one or two which she could use. But they had not found anything that could help with the spell on Nabiki.
---
"I think I finally found it!" Ranma said as he came out of his meditation.
"Really?" Nabiki wondered as she went through a beginner Kata to fine tune it.
"Yeah, it's damn hard to get into the right mind frame but I think I can get it soon enough" Nabiki couldn't help but laugh at that.
"Only you could say something like that" she said with a huge grin. "Have you ever heard Cologne or even Happosai say anything about pure KI?" when she saw him think about it and then shake his head her grin became even bigger. "They are as old as they are because they have absolute control of their chi, a state of balance of their emotional KI body and mind. They never reach the pure Ki as you are about to do. If I should believe you" she said with another grin.
"I know that about them. I just can't understand why they never reach the pure Ki, it's just another kind of mind frame"
"Is it?" Nabiki wondered and sat down in front of him.
"Of course, its emotionless chi. You don't need to be emotionless to reach it, you just have to control all your emotions so there interference with your state of mind is minimal"
"Hmmm, is that what those old books say? I would have thought that you would have to be totally emotionless to reach that state"
"No that's crazy! Being totally emotionless is like being dead! No you have to push down your emotions as much as you can then you is able to reach the Pure Ki. If I understand right you should be able to let your emotions surface again when you have enough control of it again. You just need to have enough control over them to not infect the Ki with them" Nabiki nodded and stood up again.
"Got enough to go through a chi enhanced lesson?"
"Yeah" he said and stood with a smile. The dojo was soon alit with a blue glow that centered around Ranma. He went had stood behind Nabiki and concentrated on his aura, soon both of them were enveloped in the blue glow.
"Right, start the last Kata and we pick up from there" Nabiki smiled as she begun the Kata as she felt Ranma´s presence in the aura around her. Soon they were gliding around the floor with more ease than Nabiki could show if she did the Kata on her own.
---
"Something's definitely up" Nabiki growled and read the scan on her computer. A whole front page from some American paper which described movement of the dead in the nearby woods of the community. It had been all over the tabloids for some time now but now even the bigger and more serious papers were beginning to pick it up. Whole herds of animals were killed in the night and families were disappearing in remote places.
Whatever were happening were bigger than anyone were willing to realize at the moment. There and even been some statements from officials that said that everything were just rumors that had been blown out of proportions.
After her kidnapping Nabiki had begun to feel more than a little nervous. Suddenly she wasn't safe from the sort of stuff that only happened her little sister and this time it could even be something bigger behind it all. Any kind of search on the men had turned up almost nothing. The little she had found was that they made frequently trips all over the globe. But that could just mean that they had lots of money and liked to travel.
Or it could mean that something big was happening already. They had knowledge about magic and somehow found out that she and Ranma were looking for books. If somehow someone really were collecting Magical power to take control of the planet it could be done. From what she had researched on the web there were very few who know anything about it. Extremely few.
She turned of the computer with a frown and picked up the tome she was reading from at the moment. On one hand it could be fun to watch what happened when the world suddenly were put against a conqueror with magical powers on the other hand it wouldn't be fun the fight a conqueror with magical powers. She knew that first hand from what she had read in the books.
She opened the tome with a shake of her head. She knew to little at the moment for any serious thought about it. She just had to wait and see what her latest inquires would get her.
---
A week after the kidnapping Ranma learned what had set of his senses so bad.
The dead were on the prowl.
The news channels began to tell horror stories from all over the world. Everywhere where someone had died or been buried the skeleton or corpse began to claw their way to the surface. Armies of dead were beginning to amass and what it could mean was scaring people out of their wits.
If someone had weapons you could shoot them in the head to slow them down, but they would just rise again when they had regenerated the damage after a couple of hours. Blunt weapons and bladed weapons were a little better, it took the undead longer to regenerate that sort of damage. Even if they weren't stopped cold like with a bullet. Fire wasn't affecting them much, it just seemed to burn up all that was flammable on them and left them like a living torch while it burned.
Country armies was sent out to try and keep this new menace in check, but as it was now people was told to keep together and arm themselves with what they could find. The dead could show up from anywhere and the soldiers could not be everywhere.
"Oh my" was the first reaction anyone had as they sat before the TV and saw the news. Kasumi got shocked stares from everyone else in the room.
"Yeah, Oh my is the least we could say." commented Nabiki dryly and put her head in her hands. She knew it all along but had just refused to see it, someone were using Necromancy to sow chaos. "I would say that this is kind of a worst case scenario myself. But we are in some luck anyway"
"How can you say that sis? They didn't even give us one option about how they can be defeated." retorted a slightly pale Akane.
"Well most of the bodies that aren't in a cemetery are hopefully decomposed by now. Those that are there are few as no one have enough money to burry a whole body here. Just think about all the big battles in China, Europe and Africa. If all of those came back to haunt their old homes there would be pretty big armies after our flesh don't you think? And somehow all authorities are working together with this, so there will be a lot of soldiers fighting them" Nabiki didn't sound as sure as she wanted to be.
"They ain´t after our flesh" muttered Ranma which earned him all the stares in the room.
"What? What else would a dead skeleton want of the living?" his father demanded to know.
"They are seeking out what they don't have of course. Our Ki, life energy, what else would they want to have? I guess that when they have sucked one dry or killed someone the newly dead will join in their ranks to begin their own search"
"Right, what would you know about this" said Akane, she was almost white by the horror the visions his description gave her.
"More than you obviously." Nabiki said and walked to the phone. Akane flexed her hands and looked over the room for someone to take her anger out on.
"Well we should be pretty safe here anyway" said Ranma as he changed channels to look for more news about the undead. He was somewhat surprised as almost any channel he got on had something to say about the undeads return, but there were not many who had anything noteworthy to say.
"What makes you say that?" asked a frowning Tendo patriarch.
"Nerima has a high number of Martial Artists, which means they know how to defend themselves. Two of the things that can kill those undead are Ki attacks and Magic."
"But we don't have any magicians here in Nerima and there are no one that is good enough to do Ki attacks." said Kasumi when she came back in from the kitchen with tea on a tray. Ranma glanced at Nabiki who shook her head slightly at him while she talked with someone on the phone.
"So anyone have any ideas about how to kill them then? Asked Ranma as he sipped on his tea.
"And how we can do it fast? There are already a few war zones around here" Nabiki said as she sat down and picked up a cup with a frown. She couldn't believe how this had happened just under her nose.
"Already? Damn the cemetery must be over runned by them" Ranma stood up and was almost to the door when Nabiki stopped him in his tracks.
"I'm coming with you" he whirled around to look at her.
"No ya aint. You stay out of the way this time" the others in the room gave them bewildered looks. This was something entirely new.
"Think about it as backup then" she said with a level gaze to him.
"Nabiki I don't think this is a good idea"
"Well to bad, I'm coming. Kasumi take father to the bank and empty all the accounts we have, then go and buy as much supplies you can that wont get old. The money in the banks will be worth nothing in a few weeks and the prices will rise like a rocket. Uncle Saotome you go and find Auntie and do the same and then get her here. Akane spread the word I just said, just keep on calling as many as you can. The shit has hit the fan and the world is about to fall in the bucket. Now lets go Ranma the worst fight is as you said at the cemetery" She curse to herself and thought that she should have done this a few week before. She already knew the world market was going down. She had seen all the signs, even if she refused to understand what they meant at the time.
The rest of the Tendo sat with their jaws in their laps as what Nabiki had just said filtered through to what some of them would call a brain.
"It's best that we start then. We would not want to get caught in a line at the bank" Kasumi got blank stares from the rest as she was the first of them to se the reason behind Nabikis words.
---
Ranma was roof hopping with Nabiki in his arms with a speed that he seldom used in Nerima.
"This is bad, really bad." Nabiki said after a few moments.
"Yea I just can't figure out how anyone could cast such a strong Necromancy spell."
"This has been going on for some time, but I guess that they could have some kind of artifact. Or a lot of people" Nabiki mused.
"Damn strong artifact or one hell of a lot people." Ranma continued her train of thought feeling shills going down his spine. This just spelled trouble with big letters.
"Both then, some sort of cult that didn't know what they did?" Nabiki wondered and leaned further into Ranmas arms.
"Or worse knew what they did, that could be more trouble later on." This time he felt Nabiki shiver.
"Yupp, I have not looked much into the pages about Necro yet, you know more about this than me"
"It aint pretty that much I can say" Ranma told her with a glum voice "If those undead go on a killing spree things will go even worse" She gave him a quizzical look "They become more powerful the more they kill, by sucking up the Ki from their kills. Half the Ki goes to the one which killed while the rest is spread out to the undead around it. If one of them would kill four men it would gain the strength of two. Think how that would escalade when they become more and more powerful." he felt Nabiki shiver again.
"Damn" cursed Nabiki "That group that kidnapped me must have worked with this. They said that they had been doing something with magic for some time now" she said when Ranma looked down on her.
"Yeah they did didn't they. Did you manage to get something on any of them?"
"No" she growled "They have managed to burry anything about them as good as anyone can. I guess we have a pretty powerful group to work against. And I don't just mean in magic"
"You do what you can Nabiki. Do you think we can notify any authority?"
"No, no one will believe us. No at once anyway, we can try in a few weeks or maybe months"
"Damn look at that." Ranma said almost under his breath.
In front of them was the cemetery. What they could see there were hundreds maybe thousands of undead clawing their way to freedom. More than they would have though in a country that had their kind of burial ceremonies. The ones that were free were already locked in a spread out fight with visitors or others that came to help the almost overwhelmed people in the cemetery.
"You got to be careful Ranma, your chi attacks are not as good as Ki would be here." Nabiki look into his eyes with concern.
"Don't worry I got what it takes, this is going to be taxing for both of us. We can't use either magic or chi in the wrong way here, it may cost us too much. I think I take back my complaints about you following me here." she gave him a beaming smile "Just look how many there are of them, I can't help all of the people at once. Seems like you have to do some dirty work for once." She slapped him lightly on his arm, it wouldn't do to harm herself before she went into a fight "You ready for a magical fight?"
"Well, I'm not sure. But now I must be so lets get this going." he gave her a little nod before he jumped down to the street and released her. He immediately jumped into the nearest fight screaming "Mouko Takabisha." sending skeletons sprawling in all directions.
"Collect the skeleton in a pile" he shouted to the people that he freed from the fight. They stood stunned before Nabiki ran to them and began giving them orders, pushing them to do what Ranma wanted.
Ranma jumped from fight to fight freeing up people and laying down skeletons. Behind him he heard the crackling before Nabiki shouted "Lightning Bolt!" telling him which attack would come. He knew that the people would be protected well if they would just be by her side and not panic and run. He could feel how some of the undead already had begun to wander away from the cemetery and spreading havoc into the area. They were like black holes in the Ki field around the cemetery and were easy to spot with his senses.
He saw a group of undead begin to head for the entrance and collected some of the Mana in the area. He could have used the pools that every human had in them, but he had to save it for emergency attacks. Collecting Mana from the environment took longer to power up a spell and it would be weaker, but it would not tire him out as fast as I he took Mana from his own pool. He released the Mana in the way he wanted it and shouted the name as a focus of the power and a warning to bystanders "Fire bolt!" echoed over the area as a new shout of "Lightning Bolt!" was heard from Nabiki. The bolts blasted skeletons to smoldering pieces that they knew wouldn't rise again. Ranma knew that his work had just begun as he continued to jump around sending chi blasts around to stun skeletons. He conserved his Mana as his Chi reserve was much bigger at the moment and he knew that magic would be required later on. With grim determination he powered up his battle aura to full and fell upon the undead as an avenging angel.
TBC
Authors Notes: There you have it a revision that I'm pretty happy about. Still need a lot of work but I'm managed to work everything I though I had missed it. Please R&R and complain about what I have missed this time around.
I got a few pointers on my use of chi and Ki terms and should maybe explain how I use them in this story. This is of course not the official way they are used and I don't actually know their true meanings. But this is how I'm using them in this particular story.
Ki is the life energy that organisms have and generates.
"Chi" is Ki based on emotions.
"Ki" is emotionless Ki also called "Pure Ki" most of the time. It's a state of mind that few have reach and even fewer have written about. Some call it the holy grail but as many call chi this they are confused in this to. More on this in further chapters.
This means that even the characters in story will of course confuse the two names with each other. Pure Ki is even less known than chi and even a battle aura in the world.
Hope this clear some things up.
Until next time and thanks for reading.
Ovis Musimon 2004
A Ranma½/Sailor Moon/Others crossover
By Ovis Musimon Ch1 first posted Q3 2004 This Chapter posted shortly after
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters from Ranma½ or the characters from Sailor Moon.
This is a fan fiction mostly for my own entertainment and hopefully for other fans out there. Hope you like it.
Chapter 3
Nabiki sat looking at her stocks and was beginning to wonder what was happening. All her calculations were turning all over the place and none of them were right. The only thing that would show this kind of numbers over the spread would be some kind of global disaster or even some kind of disease which slowly knocked out humanity. That shouldn't be possible at the moment. It should have been all over the news if something like that was going on.
She began to mail her contacts in the states with a few questions and looked through a few chat rooms that she was familiar. There were a worried undertone to them but no one knew exactly what was going on.
She turned of the computer with an angry grunt and picked up one of the books Ranma had showed her. She would go online a few hours later and see if she had got a few answers then, right now she had to see what she did wrong with that spell.
---
"You really think the fire bolt is the best to begin with?" Nabiki asked as she looked up from the book. The two of them were in a clearing that Ranma had deemed safe enough to train magic in.
"Why not? I had no problems with it and you manage all those low level ones perfectly now"
"But those just need visualization and a simple rune to get of. Here I need to collect the Mana plus thought construct and then the rune. To top it off I need to know about combustion of matter shouldn't I start with something easier?" Ranma gave her a look that told her that she had to be kidding.
"Nabiki this is a low level spell to you know. And if you can read the instructions it means that you can throw the spell. Everything you need to know about the spell and how to do it is done subconsciously. All you need to do is visualize the rune and the effect, your mind takes care of the rest"
"If you say so" she said and took a deep breath. She could feel the Mana that was in the air around her. It would have been easier to use the little pool that she had inside herself, but Ranma thought it better to train in how to use the Mana around them first.
Collecting the Mana she needed she called up the rune she would use for her spell and channeled the Mana into it.
"Fire bolt!" she cried and released the Mana in the rune and got a glorious show of pyrotechnics between her hands. "ITE!" she cried and plunged her hands in a bucket of water they had for just this kind of thing.
"You didn't visualize the end result Nabiki" Ranma said with a sigh, this was her twelfth try so he had no problems knowing what she did wrong.
"Yeah Yeah, give me a break will ya?" she said through gritted teeth.
"Nope, not until you learn how to do this right. How about something else then? Lightning bolt?"
"That's like electricity right? Better to be electrocuted than burned I guess"
"Just give it a try ok?" he sighed. Nabiki gave him a glare and began to draw in Mana again. This should be a little easier she thought, electricity was a little easier than fire. The thought construct came up without any effort and her chosen rune form flawlessly.
"Lightning Bolt!" she called out and a jagged streak of light shot out from her hands. Unfortunately her hands had been directed at Ranma who suddenly got a sever case of electrocution.
"Ops?" was all Nabiki managed to say between her giggle attack and Ranma´s glare.
---
Time flows on as it always will and now it seemed everybody had their schedule to go after. Ranma evaded the fiancée squad as much as he could. He just felt more and more frustrated with them as they just couldn't leave him alone. They seemed to feel that a week without them meant that they could get more time with him. He must have missed them, right? Not that they bothered to ask him about his opinion.
He was glomped by Shampoo from time to time, he wasn't sure what would happen if he didn't let her do that. Attempted to be drugged by Kodachi, she somehow managed to get him when he didn't looked. Yelled at by Akane, it was hard to not be. He lived in the same damn house after all. And longed for by Ukyuo, at least she wasn't dangerous. When she didn't helped Ranma get various object smashed in the head from Akane or brawling with the other fiancées. On the other hand, but she still did some mean okonomiyaki.
Kuno, Mousse, and Ryoga did what they could to get rid of their worst enemy to all human kind, or their definition of it at least. While Nabiki helped everyone get their poison one way or another and made money from all fronts.
Ranma and Nabiki tried to get as much time they could to get together and study magic. He had not been hard to convince to let her read with him. Somehow it seemed easier to learn when they compared notes with each other and when she was around the others were loath to disturb him. The rest of the house hold found it slightly disturbing how the two of them began to like the books with the strange writings in them. None of them could make anything out of them, which just made them more confused. And their talking about magic just didn't make sense. Sure Jusenkyo had their springs and there had been some strange happenings around the last two years. But magic? That was just plain silly.
Genma took it in his own paws... err his own hands to punch this new trait out of his son. It was not manly to read such strange books and it could be dangerous to get his son to smart after all.
Ranma had archived the same level in the arts as his father years ago, so that was obviously the wrong way to deal with this new horror. Not that it stopped him from trying.
When he could Ranma trained in all the new stuff he read about. He found a little time here to train acupuncture, it did wonder to the chi flows for him. And a little time there to train new Martial Arts moves he found interesting, you never knew when you would need a new move to surprise someone. Moxibustion and pressure points he worked on himself as much as he could. Mostly he used negative effects so he had to train and overcome the hurdle. This made him progress with leaps and bounds in training his body, as he used a Pressure point to weaken himself and then trained. The effect when the pressure point wore off was much greater. He told Nabiki of this of course, but she was a bit hesitant to try it at first. But after she had a few sessions with them she did allow Ranma to use a few on her. Even she could not deny their effectiveness as she felt how much she progressed when they were used.
---
"Ok Lightning and Ice you got down pat. Try the Fire bolt again, its not that hard you know" Nabiki gave him a glare.
"Easy for you to say" she let out a deep breath then took in a deep one and centered herself. "Fire bolt!" she cried out and promptly got her hands to begin burning. With a hiss from her lips she stuck them in the bucket at her feet.
"Why don't you try and use another way for your thought construct? The way you use now is obviously not good enough for you"
"Why not, this is obviously not working. How are you doing on that fire ball?" she asked as she swept her hands through the water.
"I think I should give it a try. I think I should try and control how much Mana I get into it at the same time"
"Not a good idea Ranma. Just try one thing at a time. You know how it is with experimenting with magic. It just blow up in you face"
"Yeah yeah, just because you don't get it right in one try" Ranma said with a grin.
"I just try to give fair warning" she huffed. Ranma just shock his head with a smile and centered himself before his first try with a new spell.
Centering himself was now almost second nature and a thought construct came into his mind without effort. He had practiced those parts enough times to not do a single step wrong. The rune came up and he feed it Mana through the thought construct he pushed his hands from his body in a useless maneuver and called out the spell.
"Fire Ball!" a tennis ball sizes ball of fire materializes itself between his hands and immediately fell to the ground where it exploded.
"Bravo!" Nabiki exclaimed between howls of laughter. Ranma blinked a few times to get the soot from his eyes and looked down on himself. He stood in a ring of soot and was entire covered with it.
"Damn" he muttered with a sigh and fell to his knees completely exhausted.
---
A week and a half after their last encounter, Nabiki knew she couldn't go much longer. She might handle a couple of days more, but she already felt her concentration falter. She had to get Ranma to get her a quick fix again. She had began to progress in her chi manipulation and had learned a beginner version of the technique that Ranma used. While it didn't get rid of the building feelings it did seem to slow them down a little.
It was in the middle of the night, so she knew that no one would be around. She quickly went to the guest room and looked in at Ranma and his Father, she wasn't afraid that she might wake up the Panda. It was a chore in itself, but the problem was to get Ranma to wake up. She didn't want to use her sister's favorite way and drench him with water and most other ways was not god enough. She sighed dejectedly and tried to shake him awake. To her astonishment he woke up as fast she laid a hand on him.
"Wha? Nabs? What is it? sumthin happen?" he asked slightly groggy and she just had to giggle at the sight of him slightly ruffled trying to find out what was wrong. Along with his now screaming senses, the Wa of the house had told him that someone was troubled while he slept. This was reason enough for him to wake up so easy this time, he just couldn't get a peaceful sleep.
"I need help again" she said as low she could and got a stare from him.
"Already? I hoped that it would work at least a couple of weeks"
"I can manage a couple more days before it becomes overpowering, but I already have my concentration affected" she looked down on the floor as she didn't want him to see what she really wanted in her eyes. Those feeling she had after he flushed her system were exquisite. Even if she was a little apprehensive that her body might get him to screw her again. "And I really don't want a repeat of what happened a couple of weeks ago"
"Err alright, if this is what you really want." he got a nod from her as he stood up. "Ok I'm coming to your room in five ok?" when he got another slightly puzzled nod he ran out of the room.
A couple of minutes later Onna-Ranma came into the window. When Nabiki saw her she raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
"Should have thought about this last time. Its not like we can have any "accidents" with both of us as girls ne?" the relief in Nabikis face was more than enough to tell Ranma that he for once had done the right thing.
"I still want to have this on tape." Nabiki said and turned on the camera she had on a tri pod beside the bed. Ranma eyed the camera with a wary eye before she sighed and knelt beside the bed. The last two encounters with Nabiki in bed had given him a taste for it. It was a feeling that was hard to describe in all its glory. While she wouldn't say no to do it again she didn't want it in a situation where neither of them had any control.
This time the experience proved to be... interesting for Ranma. While she had come to accept the curse she wasn't exactly happy about it. That it could feel such a range of pleasurable feelings did make it a little more enjoyable to have. It was tricky to get all the Ki flows after Nabikis feelings took over and not a little shocking what Nabiki did to her. But she managed to release the blocks after an hour and was almost squashed as Nabiki collapsed on top of her.
Ranma felt pretty good when she managed to get out of the bed and pulled the blankets over Nabiki. She hadn't expected those feelings and was quite shocked how good it actually felt. With a last look at the camera she took her clothes and took of out of the room.
---
Nabiki when she woke up had that warm glow in her stomach. She felt almost too lazy to get out of the bed and going to school. It took her quite a while before she remembered the camera which still stood and recorded beside the bed.
Half an hour later she was burning the tape with a huge blush. Ranma had been right when he said that it was she and not he that forced herself upon him. She couldn't believe that she would actually do something like that. Cursing the spell again, she tried to erase the pictures that the tape had burned into her fore head. She couldn't believe that the two groaning and twisting female bodies on the bed could stir the feelings that had just been purged a few hours ago.
With a groan she dressed in a Gi and ran out to the Dojo. She had to do some serious training to clear her head.
---
"The dead walks the streets?" Nabiki frowned as she read the mail a contact from Europe had sent her. It was the fourth such mail she had got and she was beginning to get worried about it. She knew that there was a type of magic in the books that were called Necromancy. It was and interesting branch if you were interested in spirits and talking to the dead. But there was a darker tone to it that could draw you down a wrong path. It was easy to call up a skeleton to be a servant or even a recently dead to make a lifelike servant of the dead.
She felt a shill go up her spine as a fifth such mail dropped into her inbox. Something strange was absolutely up and it would probably mean big problems as the stock market were fluctuating more and more wildly. She sent out more enquiries and then turned of the computer. With a sigh looked at her school books and picked one up. She would never have thought that she would willingly study as much as she did at moment.
---
"Moxibustion? You really want to try it?" Nabiki gave him a look that told him what she thought about it.
"Yes, you know the point as well as me and the counter to. No one will come here as it's your time to train. You know they run to the hill even at the thought about it from last time they tried to crash one of your lessons" Nabiki gave him a feral grin as she remembered her little revenge. Strange how people were averse towards voluntary work, even if she had done a killing on their salaries. "Ok then, it was this point and this one right?"
"Yea just use that tinder to push the points"
"Like this?"
"Yeah" he grunted as he felt her put the glowing wood to his skin.
"Ok now what?" Nabiki wondered as she put the tinder in the tinder cup.
"Would you be so kind and put that west on me?" he wondered and pointed at a weighted west.
"Sure" she were surprised when she lifted the west and felt it weight. It couldn't be more than ten kilos. Ranma grunted as she put it on him and fell to the ground with a thud when she slapped him on the back.
"Now what is this supposed to accomplish?" Nabiki wondered as she looked down on Ranma who was doing a good imitation of an upside down turtle.
"Help!" he called weakly and stuck his hand out in Nabiki direction.
"Now now, lets not be to hasty shall we? What fun could we have with a helpless Ranma?" she mused and looked down on him with hungry eyes. The frustrated look on Ranma´s face slowly turned into a scared look.
"No.. nothing like that Nabiki! We should be training now ok? So help me up please?" Nabiki giggled as she kneeled down beside him.
"Oh ok, but this have some interesting potential" she said with a grin and heaved him up.
---
It had been almost a week and a half since the last "treatment" and this time it was Ranma that was beginning to feel a bit panicked. He had felt that Nabiki had been antsy for a few days now and was beginning to loose her concentration. But she had not given any indications that she wanted to get another purge.
She had left before Ranma and Akane for school as always, but when they came to the school she had yet to show up. This was something that didn't set well with the rest of Ranmas senses. They were already being fried from being in overdrive the last months and this was one more wrong to them.
She didn't show up during the whole day which furthermore made Ranma on edge. When school was over and they managed to go home they found a Kasumi that was a little confused that Nabiki wasn't with them. Now was the time for panic.
Ranma felt that this couldn't be anything good that had happened to her and pulled out a technique he had recently read about. It was a more advanced form of aura reading that could track aura tracings. Now here the problems started. Ranma had not learned the complete technique yet and had problems fixing on the last of Nabikis traces. He picked up many faint ones all over the Tendo´s home, so he had even problems finding the newest one of them.
This was a little problem in the grand scheme of the day. The rest of the Nerima Wrecking Crew didn't care that someone was missing. Especially as it was the Mercenary and besides, it was Akane that got kidnapped and not her sisters. So instead of helping him they all ganged up on Ranma to get him to do what they thought was more important.
After he had managed to get Ryoga lost, beaten Mousse into a pulp, sent Kuno into Akane who sent him into LEO and ditch the fiancées in a massive brawl. He was now free to follow one of the more promising traces of Nabikis aura.
As he ran along the way to Furinkan High, stopping now and then to get a new fix on the trace, he noticed that the trace took a slight detour. Instead of going the quickest way, this one took of into the slummier area of Nerima. He came to a closed antique shop, luckily the trace continued from the door but it didn't go towards the school. Ranma was already on the edge and he didn't get better as the trace became more and more erratic. It was going from one alley to the next almost as Nabiki had tried to keep in the shadows as she walked here.
He frowned when the trace suddenly took of along a street and went almost straight towards the office district of Nerima. A leap to a roof he was soon following it without trouble. He had to stop now and then to get a new fix, but now he was positive that it was the right one.
He stopped almost in shock when he stood outside an office complex and looked up its glassed front. It was another anonymous tower among the rest of district without even a company logo on it. Gritting his teeth in annoyance he walked into the building tracking the trace into it.
He was a little perplexed as he stood outside the double doors on the tenth floor. What would Nabiki do here? Had she done a deal too much with Yakuzas or were there another kind of deal going on that he just wasn't aware of?
The doors were of course locked when he tried to open them. Even more annoyed he kicked the door open and walked in. Inside was just another office landscape with cubicles lined up. With all the dust collected on various surfaces he deduced that the area was not used as frequently as he would have thought. Floor spaces anywhere in Tokyo were highly sought after and something standing empty as long as this had done was very rare.
The lights were of course turned of which didn't surprised him after he had seen the condition the area was in. Walking around he found a light creeping out from under an office door. As he followed Nabiki´s Aura trace towards the door he began to relax a little. Soon he would find Nabiki and probably the one who had taken her here.
The door were not locked which actually shocked him a little as he opened it. The ones in the room obviously thought that the outer door would be enough protection for them. Swinging the door open he boldly walked into the room and took in what he saw there.
The office were quite large and would give him ample of room to move around if need be. Nabiki sat tied in a chair to his left and seven men in suits stood looking over a large desk that were filled with books. Ranma didn't even need to see what kind of books they were to know that they were about magic. He cursed silently as he just knew that those things were going to give them trouble.
"Ranma" Nabiki blurted out and her eyes lit up when she saw the Nerima wrecking crews all time savior coming into the chamber.
"What's going on here?" he said angry to the men in the room.
"Those idiots think they are the next ruler of the earth." Nabiki said with venom in her voice.
"Why can't they ever be original?" Ranma wondered with a sigh. "So how come you are here? I would have thought you know how to get away from people by now?" Nabiki gave him a really ugly glare which she soon shifted to the men around the table. The men around the table looked at the teenagers with obvious amusement in their eyes.
"One of them managed to overhear when I asked about books with runes and glyph in an old antique shop. With his obviously superior deduction ability he managed to figure out that I looked for the same type of books he and his friends did. Now while we at least know how to get at the information in the books they can't seem to grasp anything at all. I don't know what they have planed but they said that they should get everything I knew out of me later"
"Now that I have heard her story what's yours?" the men looked at each other before one took a step forward.
"Well you are obviously Saotome Ranma who this young lady has ranted on about quite a bit. You sure that you really want her to learn magic? From our conversation we have had she obviously is little more than an airhead" Ranma gave Nabiki a worried look, the spell on her must be acting up more than usual. If she didn't just play the part that is.
"She's good enough for me" Ranma huffed not admitting to what she was one way or the other.
"Well you could have chosen better. As we have told the young lady more than once we are going to collect what little knowledge of the Art you have. We have better use for it than you after all" Ranma snorted at that and gave the men a glare.
"Really? Nabiki mentioned something about taking over the world? You really think about such a high goal?"
"With the knowledge in those tomes it will not be the hard. Plans are already set in motion and there are not much you can do at this time to stop them" Ranma sent a wondering look towards Nabiki who shrugged her shoulders before she looked towards the men.
"You mean you are behind all the stock fluctuations?" she asked incredulous. Ranma sent another wondering look before his ears began to twitch as he heard some of the men begun to chant.
"A small side effect. What's really going to happen will soon show and then people will be begging for our help"
"You think so? Whatever you are doing I warn you from playing around with magic. Whatever you do with it, it will haunt you if you use it for your own gain" Ranma warned as he had begun to find some references in the books to some really tragic tales.
"Oh don't worry your young little head about that. We know all about how to side step those little things. Anyway you won't be around to see what we are going to do" With a small hand gesture the other men finished their chants.
"Fire bolt!" Three voices cried out and launched the spells towards the two teens.
Ranma cursed under his breath and stood in front of Nabiki and called forth his chi to shield them both. The two first bolts of fire slammed into his chi and were harmlessly diverted but did sap the strength from his chi shield. The third managed to go through his aura and smash into his chest. He was flunged into Nabiki and the both of them landed in a heap of limbs and broken wood from the chair.
"Now that" Ranma said as he stood up on shaky legs and patted out a few flames on his clothes "were a good warm up. Do you have any other spells ready?" the men looked a little nervous among themselves before they began another chant. One man put his hand inside his jacket while another took a martial arts stance. Ranma shock his head and called forth his aura.
"You really are begging for it don't you?" he asked before he jumped at them. The man in a stance went down first, he even managed to dodge and block a few of Ranma´s attacks before Ranma heard the recall of a gun. Angry he stopped holding back and backhanded the man who flew back against a wall where glided down on the floor and didn't rise from.
Ranma rounded on the gun wielder and kick the gun from his hand. Ranma heard the crack of a broken wrist but gave it no mind as the man had fired a gun at him. The next kick landed on the mans chin which sent him flying in a spin. The chanting began a little frantic as Ranma turned towards the men who was left.
It didn't help them as Ranma were among them in a blink of an eye. There were a few crunches as he didn't hold back his punches and kicks. The men fell unconscious to the floor, some more injured then others. With a grunt he turned his back towards the men and walked over to Nabiki.
"You ok?" he asked as he freed her from the rope.
"Of course! You are here after all!" she said in a happy tone. Ranma gave her another worried look before he helped her to her feet.
"Thank you Ranma I knew that you would show up sooner or later" she said and flung her arms around him in a tight hug.
"They didn't do anything to ya did they?" He asked worried in her ear sending shivers down her spine.
"No, all they really did was putting me in that chair"
"Yeah, but how exactly did they manage to do that? I thought that you had learned something from me?" an embarrassed look flew over Nabikis face before she answered.
"He managed to knock me out with something. I don't know what and then they must have carried me here. I woke up in that damned chair and they began to ask me a lot of pretty dumb questions. We don't have geniuses to work with here. Anyway I'm not as strong as you and my concentration is shot to pieces."
"I thought you would tell me when it got to bad."
"You just want to get your hand on my body again." Nabiki said with a smirk which made Ranma sputter denials. "We can talk more about that when we get home. What do we do with the morons?"
"They are harmless for all I care. They might know who we are and where we live but they can't do anything to us. Not now that we know that they are around anyway. They will have problems getting around with those injuries anyway. Hopefully they will be in the hospital for a few weeks."
"Alright that may do, for now." she went over and began to pilfer their pockets.
"What area you doing?" Ranma wondered as he saw he go through their pockets.
"We still don't know who they are now do we?" She looked up and saw Ranma shake his head. "I don't think those bozos are the top of the chain so to speak. They must have someone to report to so I thought that maybe they had something on them that we could get some clues from"
"Ok, that might be a good idea" Ranma walked over to the books and began to brows through one of them.
"What about the books? We can't carry this many." Nabiki asked as she looked through a wallet.
"Well actually, I have a new technique that we could use for this" Ranma said and puffed out his chest in pride.
"Why am I not surprised. What have you come up with this time?" she wondered as she looked over the stacks of books. There had to be more than fifty of them.
"It's easy to do. You just fold Chi inside a container and you get something like a hundred times bigger space to put things in. Plus you're the only one who can open it."
"Really?" she asked in wonder, that was one technique she just had to learn. There was a lot of stuff she would like to have in a place where no one could find it.
"Sure just look." he picked up her school bag and put his hands over it. It glowed blue a couple of seconds before he began to put book after book into the space."
"Wont that make the bag weight be a problem when you put so much stuff into it?"
"No that's another perk. The Chi pocket is a kind of displacement or something. It weights almost nothing." he handed over the bag to her when everything in the room was packed into it. Nabikis eyes widen when she got the pack in her hands. She had expected it to weight quite a lot even if Ranma told her otherwise, what she got was not heavier than normal. She just had to look into it to really be sure that it was not a trick. She was even more surprised when she didn't see any other books than her schools in the bag.
"Hey where did you put them?" she wondered aloud.
"You concentration must be really bad Nabiki. I told you that I put them in a Chi pocket that only I could open."
"Oh, right. Come on lets go home. I have a problem you have to help me with." she said and dragged him towards the exit. As she did this she missed the concerned look Ranma gave her. He didn't like that she was beginning to behave like a ditz, even if it could have made good blackmail material against her. Damn now she was rubbing of on him to.
---
Nabiki got a little pissed when no one asked her were she had been but put that behind her as a good thing. Some really embarrassing questions could have come up if they had begun to pry into her whereabouts. She got a few strange looks in school the next day as she was more mellow than usually. Someone was even brave enough to ask if he could buy anything of her stuff as it seemed to be really good. The chewing out he got would be remembered a long time. There were few times that one question could get Nabiki that angry so fast.
Ranmas danger sense was still going amok. He had hoped that it would go away after he got Nabiki back but it seem to grow even worse for every passing day. He could not figure out what it could be that set it off but after a few days he tried to ignore it. It was a great opportunity to train without the warning his senses gave him, even if it was annoying as hell. The weekend after Nabikis kidnapping Ranma disappeared after school and was then seen first on Sunday night which earned him a meeting with a very angry fiancée squad and shouting fathers. A squad who was missing Ukyuo who's father had called her home on family business.
Ranma had, with some funds from Nabiki, traveled to the nearest districts were he had looked in the libraries and some shrines. When he came home he had collected another twenty three books. They had begun to recognize some of the markings that were on the covers of the books and a third of the new books looked to be high level ones. This put their total number of magical books to one hundred and eight. They were actually happy that there were almost forty books that they couldn't read anything from at all. While it meant that they had a lot to learn it also showed that there was a lot of powerful stuff they could get out of the books. Ranma had begun to get the hang of magic and could cast some spells, even Nabiki had one or two which she could use. But they had not found anything that could help with the spell on Nabiki.
---
"I think I finally found it!" Ranma said as he came out of his meditation.
"Really?" Nabiki wondered as she went through a beginner Kata to fine tune it.
"Yeah, it's damn hard to get into the right mind frame but I think I can get it soon enough" Nabiki couldn't help but laugh at that.
"Only you could say something like that" she said with a huge grin. "Have you ever heard Cologne or even Happosai say anything about pure KI?" when she saw him think about it and then shake his head her grin became even bigger. "They are as old as they are because they have absolute control of their chi, a state of balance of their emotional KI body and mind. They never reach the pure Ki as you are about to do. If I should believe you" she said with another grin.
"I know that about them. I just can't understand why they never reach the pure Ki, it's just another kind of mind frame"
"Is it?" Nabiki wondered and sat down in front of him.
"Of course, its emotionless chi. You don't need to be emotionless to reach it, you just have to control all your emotions so there interference with your state of mind is minimal"
"Hmmm, is that what those old books say? I would have thought that you would have to be totally emotionless to reach that state"
"No that's crazy! Being totally emotionless is like being dead! No you have to push down your emotions as much as you can then you is able to reach the Pure Ki. If I understand right you should be able to let your emotions surface again when you have enough control of it again. You just need to have enough control over them to not infect the Ki with them" Nabiki nodded and stood up again.
"Got enough to go through a chi enhanced lesson?"
"Yeah" he said and stood with a smile. The dojo was soon alit with a blue glow that centered around Ranma. He went had stood behind Nabiki and concentrated on his aura, soon both of them were enveloped in the blue glow.
"Right, start the last Kata and we pick up from there" Nabiki smiled as she begun the Kata as she felt Ranma´s presence in the aura around her. Soon they were gliding around the floor with more ease than Nabiki could show if she did the Kata on her own.
---
"Something's definitely up" Nabiki growled and read the scan on her computer. A whole front page from some American paper which described movement of the dead in the nearby woods of the community. It had been all over the tabloids for some time now but now even the bigger and more serious papers were beginning to pick it up. Whole herds of animals were killed in the night and families were disappearing in remote places.
Whatever were happening were bigger than anyone were willing to realize at the moment. There and even been some statements from officials that said that everything were just rumors that had been blown out of proportions.
After her kidnapping Nabiki had begun to feel more than a little nervous. Suddenly she wasn't safe from the sort of stuff that only happened her little sister and this time it could even be something bigger behind it all. Any kind of search on the men had turned up almost nothing. The little she had found was that they made frequently trips all over the globe. But that could just mean that they had lots of money and liked to travel.
Or it could mean that something big was happening already. They had knowledge about magic and somehow found out that she and Ranma were looking for books. If somehow someone really were collecting Magical power to take control of the planet it could be done. From what she had researched on the web there were very few who know anything about it. Extremely few.
She turned of the computer with a frown and picked up the tome she was reading from at the moment. On one hand it could be fun to watch what happened when the world suddenly were put against a conqueror with magical powers on the other hand it wouldn't be fun the fight a conqueror with magical powers. She knew that first hand from what she had read in the books.
She opened the tome with a shake of her head. She knew to little at the moment for any serious thought about it. She just had to wait and see what her latest inquires would get her.
---
A week after the kidnapping Ranma learned what had set of his senses so bad.
The dead were on the prowl.
The news channels began to tell horror stories from all over the world. Everywhere where someone had died or been buried the skeleton or corpse began to claw their way to the surface. Armies of dead were beginning to amass and what it could mean was scaring people out of their wits.
If someone had weapons you could shoot them in the head to slow them down, but they would just rise again when they had regenerated the damage after a couple of hours. Blunt weapons and bladed weapons were a little better, it took the undead longer to regenerate that sort of damage. Even if they weren't stopped cold like with a bullet. Fire wasn't affecting them much, it just seemed to burn up all that was flammable on them and left them like a living torch while it burned.
Country armies was sent out to try and keep this new menace in check, but as it was now people was told to keep together and arm themselves with what they could find. The dead could show up from anywhere and the soldiers could not be everywhere.
"Oh my" was the first reaction anyone had as they sat before the TV and saw the news. Kasumi got shocked stares from everyone else in the room.
"Yeah, Oh my is the least we could say." commented Nabiki dryly and put her head in her hands. She knew it all along but had just refused to see it, someone were using Necromancy to sow chaos. "I would say that this is kind of a worst case scenario myself. But we are in some luck anyway"
"How can you say that sis? They didn't even give us one option about how they can be defeated." retorted a slightly pale Akane.
"Well most of the bodies that aren't in a cemetery are hopefully decomposed by now. Those that are there are few as no one have enough money to burry a whole body here. Just think about all the big battles in China, Europe and Africa. If all of those came back to haunt their old homes there would be pretty big armies after our flesh don't you think? And somehow all authorities are working together with this, so there will be a lot of soldiers fighting them" Nabiki didn't sound as sure as she wanted to be.
"They ain´t after our flesh" muttered Ranma which earned him all the stares in the room.
"What? What else would a dead skeleton want of the living?" his father demanded to know.
"They are seeking out what they don't have of course. Our Ki, life energy, what else would they want to have? I guess that when they have sucked one dry or killed someone the newly dead will join in their ranks to begin their own search"
"Right, what would you know about this" said Akane, she was almost white by the horror the visions his description gave her.
"More than you obviously." Nabiki said and walked to the phone. Akane flexed her hands and looked over the room for someone to take her anger out on.
"Well we should be pretty safe here anyway" said Ranma as he changed channels to look for more news about the undead. He was somewhat surprised as almost any channel he got on had something to say about the undeads return, but there were not many who had anything noteworthy to say.
"What makes you say that?" asked a frowning Tendo patriarch.
"Nerima has a high number of Martial Artists, which means they know how to defend themselves. Two of the things that can kill those undead are Ki attacks and Magic."
"But we don't have any magicians here in Nerima and there are no one that is good enough to do Ki attacks." said Kasumi when she came back in from the kitchen with tea on a tray. Ranma glanced at Nabiki who shook her head slightly at him while she talked with someone on the phone.
"So anyone have any ideas about how to kill them then? Asked Ranma as he sipped on his tea.
"And how we can do it fast? There are already a few war zones around here" Nabiki said as she sat down and picked up a cup with a frown. She couldn't believe how this had happened just under her nose.
"Already? Damn the cemetery must be over runned by them" Ranma stood up and was almost to the door when Nabiki stopped him in his tracks.
"I'm coming with you" he whirled around to look at her.
"No ya aint. You stay out of the way this time" the others in the room gave them bewildered looks. This was something entirely new.
"Think about it as backup then" she said with a level gaze to him.
"Nabiki I don't think this is a good idea"
"Well to bad, I'm coming. Kasumi take father to the bank and empty all the accounts we have, then go and buy as much supplies you can that wont get old. The money in the banks will be worth nothing in a few weeks and the prices will rise like a rocket. Uncle Saotome you go and find Auntie and do the same and then get her here. Akane spread the word I just said, just keep on calling as many as you can. The shit has hit the fan and the world is about to fall in the bucket. Now lets go Ranma the worst fight is as you said at the cemetery" She curse to herself and thought that she should have done this a few week before. She already knew the world market was going down. She had seen all the signs, even if she refused to understand what they meant at the time.
The rest of the Tendo sat with their jaws in their laps as what Nabiki had just said filtered through to what some of them would call a brain.
"It's best that we start then. We would not want to get caught in a line at the bank" Kasumi got blank stares from the rest as she was the first of them to se the reason behind Nabikis words.
---
Ranma was roof hopping with Nabiki in his arms with a speed that he seldom used in Nerima.
"This is bad, really bad." Nabiki said after a few moments.
"Yea I just can't figure out how anyone could cast such a strong Necromancy spell."
"This has been going on for some time, but I guess that they could have some kind of artifact. Or a lot of people" Nabiki mused.
"Damn strong artifact or one hell of a lot people." Ranma continued her train of thought feeling shills going down his spine. This just spelled trouble with big letters.
"Both then, some sort of cult that didn't know what they did?" Nabiki wondered and leaned further into Ranmas arms.
"Or worse knew what they did, that could be more trouble later on." This time he felt Nabiki shiver.
"Yupp, I have not looked much into the pages about Necro yet, you know more about this than me"
"It aint pretty that much I can say" Ranma told her with a glum voice "If those undead go on a killing spree things will go even worse" She gave him a quizzical look "They become more powerful the more they kill, by sucking up the Ki from their kills. Half the Ki goes to the one which killed while the rest is spread out to the undead around it. If one of them would kill four men it would gain the strength of two. Think how that would escalade when they become more and more powerful." he felt Nabiki shiver again.
"Damn" cursed Nabiki "That group that kidnapped me must have worked with this. They said that they had been doing something with magic for some time now" she said when Ranma looked down on her.
"Yeah they did didn't they. Did you manage to get something on any of them?"
"No" she growled "They have managed to burry anything about them as good as anyone can. I guess we have a pretty powerful group to work against. And I don't just mean in magic"
"You do what you can Nabiki. Do you think we can notify any authority?"
"No, no one will believe us. No at once anyway, we can try in a few weeks or maybe months"
"Damn look at that." Ranma said almost under his breath.
In front of them was the cemetery. What they could see there were hundreds maybe thousands of undead clawing their way to freedom. More than they would have though in a country that had their kind of burial ceremonies. The ones that were free were already locked in a spread out fight with visitors or others that came to help the almost overwhelmed people in the cemetery.
"You got to be careful Ranma, your chi attacks are not as good as Ki would be here." Nabiki look into his eyes with concern.
"Don't worry I got what it takes, this is going to be taxing for both of us. We can't use either magic or chi in the wrong way here, it may cost us too much. I think I take back my complaints about you following me here." she gave him a beaming smile "Just look how many there are of them, I can't help all of the people at once. Seems like you have to do some dirty work for once." She slapped him lightly on his arm, it wouldn't do to harm herself before she went into a fight "You ready for a magical fight?"
"Well, I'm not sure. But now I must be so lets get this going." he gave her a little nod before he jumped down to the street and released her. He immediately jumped into the nearest fight screaming "Mouko Takabisha." sending skeletons sprawling in all directions.
"Collect the skeleton in a pile" he shouted to the people that he freed from the fight. They stood stunned before Nabiki ran to them and began giving them orders, pushing them to do what Ranma wanted.
Ranma jumped from fight to fight freeing up people and laying down skeletons. Behind him he heard the crackling before Nabiki shouted "Lightning Bolt!" telling him which attack would come. He knew that the people would be protected well if they would just be by her side and not panic and run. He could feel how some of the undead already had begun to wander away from the cemetery and spreading havoc into the area. They were like black holes in the Ki field around the cemetery and were easy to spot with his senses.
He saw a group of undead begin to head for the entrance and collected some of the Mana in the area. He could have used the pools that every human had in them, but he had to save it for emergency attacks. Collecting Mana from the environment took longer to power up a spell and it would be weaker, but it would not tire him out as fast as I he took Mana from his own pool. He released the Mana in the way he wanted it and shouted the name as a focus of the power and a warning to bystanders "Fire bolt!" echoed over the area as a new shout of "Lightning Bolt!" was heard from Nabiki. The bolts blasted skeletons to smoldering pieces that they knew wouldn't rise again. Ranma knew that his work had just begun as he continued to jump around sending chi blasts around to stun skeletons. He conserved his Mana as his Chi reserve was much bigger at the moment and he knew that magic would be required later on. With grim determination he powered up his battle aura to full and fell upon the undead as an avenging angel.
TBC
Authors Notes: There you have it a revision that I'm pretty happy about. Still need a lot of work but I'm managed to work everything I though I had missed it. Please R&R and complain about what I have missed this time around.
I got a few pointers on my use of chi and Ki terms and should maybe explain how I use them in this story. This is of course not the official way they are used and I don't actually know their true meanings. But this is how I'm using them in this particular story.
Ki is the life energy that organisms have and generates.
"Chi" is Ki based on emotions.
"Ki" is emotionless Ki also called "Pure Ki" most of the time. It's a state of mind that few have reach and even fewer have written about. Some call it the holy grail but as many call chi this they are confused in this to. More on this in further chapters.
This means that even the characters in story will of course confuse the two names with each other. Pure Ki is even less known than chi and even a battle aura in the world.
Hope this clear some things up.
Until next time and thanks for reading.
Ovis Musimon 2004