A Dragon Called Ranma II or something like it!
Chapter V or similar!
The One Where Everything Goes Right For The Good Guys!

Ryoga stood outside the large gates of the city of Rubitybubity, or bubblydubbly, or whatever idiotic name it was given.
Honestly, was it so hard to give a city a name like Nerima? Simple, easy to remember, elegant in it's way.
And Ryoga didn't laugh when he tried to ask where Nerima was, as he had when trying to ask an innkeeper for a map to bubbilybibbly(?) resulting in someone shouting "Nobody talks that way 'bout my mama!" which in turn resulted in a tavern brawl that had cost one soldier the use of his left arm, and Ranma's dignity when hot water got involved, rendering a supposed King Ranmorgan of Dirt in a dress beating the snot out of five villagers.
King Ranmorgan might be a little annoyed if word of Ranma and Ryoga's exploits ever got to Dirt. But that was unlikely, because luckily, or perhaps if you looked at the big picture, unluckily, Betty the horse, sensing bloodshed, came to the rescue just in time, somehow getting loose from his steel chains, and breaking down a wall, charging into the tavern and slaughtering the drunken inhabitants in one incredibly violent scene not to be described in this story.
Betty had gone on to set free his fellow horses from the stable . . . only to begin hunting them down for food. Then he went on to the cows. Apparently the sheep smelled too bad to eat, but that didn't mean they were safe. By this point the Dirt troops had begun trying to help people escape the town, claiming not to know where the demon horse came from. It was not theirs, had nothing to do with them! Why no, one of them had not ridden in on it, that was madness, why they'd never seen it before in their lives! Nope. Innocent looks and disarming smiles all around.
The surviving villagers had run for the mountains, though the screaming and neighing heard shortly after the soldiers and the villagers parted ways suggested that most of them at least, hadn't gotten far.
The next morning Betty was found tied to a tree right outside of the camp as if nothing had happened the night before. One of the men from Drinian's squad was missing though, and if Ryoga didn't know any better he'd swear his horse was trying to look innocent.
Now, as he and the five soldiers in his commandall of whom kept a fair distance back, though Ryoga doubted if even a mile would matter if Betty went berserk againstood outside the walls of . . . uh . . . 'that city' they were trying to get to.
Ryoga looked at his magical amulet. The arrow was pointing away from him . . . so that meant he should go straight? Or did it mean he should go back?
What if he had it upside down?
Yes, in the end it turned out that even magic was no cure for a bad sense of direction.
"Ye cant be serious!" The gate guard said, shaking Ryoga away from worries about his amulet, "The six of ye come to Rubaer Nabitopia ter sign on as mercenaries for the empress, and ye ain't even got a letter of approval? No mercenary swine gets into the capital without a letter of approval from Marshal Kaneosuke!"
"We had that letter," Ryoga said, "My horse ate it." He gave Betty a pat on the neck, which caused the horse to growl.
Wait a minute! Could horses growl? He could have sworn this horse just growled!
Anyway the gate guard gave him a suspicious "I don't believe your lies" kind of look, and seemed about to say something when Betty lunged forward and tore the helmet off of the man's head, and chomped down, crushing it like a soda can.
The guard jumped back twenty feet or so, knocking over his superior, and began screaming.
"Get off me!" His superior snapped. "Curse it all, get off! Now go change your armor before you rust!"
The gate guard scampered away quickly, Ryoga had to pull hard on the reins to keep his evil horse from pursuing.
Gosh this horse was evil.
"You lot," the superior guard snapped, "go on through, but I warn ye, any injuries caused by that demon and we'll be carving it up fer stew!"
"If you can take Betty down mister, than you're a better man than I." Ryoga sighed.
"Ah, yer wife says so too." The guard scowled, and even though he wasn't married, Ryoga didn't bother to keep Betty from kicking the man in the armored chest. He'd survive after all.
Trotting through the streets was pleasant actually, the sights the smells, the sounds . . .
At least . . . that's how Ryoga thought it would be. As it happens in a city where horses are the number one means of transportation, and where only the rich consider daily showers to be necessary, the sights, sounds and especially smells are not great.
Ryoga remembered it being somewhat more . . . pleasant. But then he'd only seen the palace before.
"Where do we go?" One of the soldiers asked Ryoga, and the so-called Dragon Slayer just shrugged.
"Straight ahead!" He said, his amulet (shape of an arrow) was pointing straight ahead so that must be where he was meant to go. "Wasn't one of you supposed to have come here before?" Ryoga asked.
"Eh . . ." One of the Dirt Soldiers said nervously. "Well uh . . ."
"I was supposed to have someone in my command who'd been to this city before." Ryoga said stopping his horse and looking back at his soldiers, growing very concerned now. Not upset, he was used to being lost, but concerned because if he got there last Ranma would tease him for the rest of his life, which may or may not be a long time, depending on the success of this mission.
"The truth sir, is that we've all been here before." One soldier said.
"Oh good." Ryoga sighed, relieved.
"But not a single one of us knows the way to the prison tower."
"What?" Ryoga almost screamed.
"You see the female population of this city is close to six to one, and that's just the unmarried female population, I'm not even talking about the unsatisfied wives of the noblemen. So you see sir, just about every man from Scrubbitydub, to Muckitymuck has come here in search of . . . shall we say thirty minutes of love?"
"Oh no!" Ryoga sighed. Despair! Defeat! Death! Doom! Some other terrible thing that starts with 'D'!
How was he supposed to navigate to the tower in time trusting in a medallion that he didn't really trust and with a bunch of guides who's actual knowledge of the city's lay out didn't exceed the finest brothels and the homes of the most desperately unfaithful of noblewomen?
Hmm . . . maybe they could have one of the noble wives lead them, perhaps she could even get them into the tower?
No, no that would slow them down, they had to go now. He'd just have to trust the amulet.
Now if the arrow was pointing in a direction, he had to follow it, right? Of course, that made sense. So he followed the little arrow shaped amulet.

The crystal ball had various speeds, as it turned out. Cologne tended to keep it running at a speed that was roughly four times as fast as the world outside the crystal. In the half day since they'd started this Shampoo had smashed down the door to bring lunch, and demanded to know where Ranma wasAkane told her Ranma and Ryoga had gone on a training trip into the mountains, so Shampoo ran off to buy hiking equipmentKasumi had served a delicious dinner that only she, Akane and Cologne ate since Nabiki had gone off on a date with that freaky kid who talked to a puppet, and dad had gone off with uncle Saotome to get drunk.
But Ranma and Ryoga had learned sword fighting, been given horses, attended feasts in their honor, and so on. Akane was getting bored with it all, occasionally Cologne would mutter something about 'grave danger' but it was half heated, as if not even she still believed it.
For a long and boring trip from one castle to another, Cologne had tapped the crystal ball with her stick a few times and increased the speed to such that almost a week had passed for Ranma and Ryoga, but only a few minutes for Akane and Cologne. Akane suggested Cologne leave it this way until the event was over, so everything could be back to normal.
But suddenly Cologne stopped the whole thing and scratched her nose. "It would seem future-son-in-law and Ryoga have split up. Which of them would you like the crystal's magic to follow?"
Akane scoffed. She couldn't say Ranma, couldn't act as if she were concerned for him.
But she was.
Not that she wasn't concerned for Ryoga as well. Ranma simply seemed more important. "I don't care." She said simply.
"Are you sure?" Cologne asked.
"Well it's not like there's any danger Ranma can't handle, and Ryoga's greatest cause for fear is getting lost." Akane shrugged.
"Indeed. He's going in the opposite direction of where he should be going right now. I wonder if this confusion on his part will result in danger for future-son-in-law." Cologne said.
"What?" Akane licked her lips in frustration, "Okay, follow Ranma and we'll see."
"Very well." Cologne smirked.
Akane just rolled her eyes at the little old mummy.

Ranma, or rather Ranko since he was, for the moment, a she, was riding down the streets of Nabitopia, same as Ryoga. However unlike Ryoga, Ranko was head in the right direction.
The tower loomed ahead, large, imposing and impossible to miss for anyone other than Ryoga, and apparently his troops as well.
Ranma was the very image of a beautiful and unusually clean young woman atop a beautiful and unusually decorated white stallion, wrapped in a gray traveler's cloak, wearing a beautiful red dress to match the ribbons in Perci-whatever's mane.
Ranma began to wonder if perhaps the stares she was drawing from every guard and his brother would become a problem. With loose women roaming the streets in packs it seemed ridiculous that anyone should pay Ranma any special attention.
The troop moved closer and closer to the tower, before they ever got there however their horses would be taken away and held by the southern gate by dirt spies.
The objective was to rescue the royal family and the sons of those regent type people, then reach the southern gate where their horses and a wagon would be waiting for them.
Sounded so easy, and until now Ranma had no reason to believe it wouldn't be. Where, she had wondered, was the danger?
But now if her incredibly well built body was going to attract so much attention odds were they wouldn't make it half way to the south gate before some lustful Larry noticed the former king traveling with the cute sex kitten on the girly horse.
Meanwhile, at the east gate . . .

"Listen, in order to maintain air speed velocity a swallow needs to beat it's wings five billion times per second, right?" The gate guard said, leaning on his halberd, with his back to a closed gate.
"That doesn't sound very realistic . . ." Drinian of the desert sighed, fighting the urge to reach for a weapon.
"Answer the question!" The guard cried.
"No." Drinian said calmly. He just wanted the guard to open the gate. Was it so much to ask?
"A five ounce bird cannot carry a one pound coconut!" The guard ranted.
"I did not say anything about coconuts!" Drinian cried. "We're in a hurry if you please!"
"I mean it could be carried by a Dirt swallow . . ." The guard went on.
"Do you have a supervisor we could talk to?" Drinian sighed.
"No! Now the very idea that a Nabitopian swallow could carry a coconut is madness!"
"Madness would be to continue to deny me and my men passage through this gate when there is one of you and five of us!" Drinian warned.
"I mean the very idea that swallows could be used to carry coconuts is preposterous!" The guard continued on as if he hadn't heard Drinian, he seemed very amused by his own antics.
"Would you please just be quiet?" Drinian asked.
"I mean at least they gave you real horses, not some bloody coconuts!" The guard said, apparently this was his way of saying 'no'.
"Let's just cut down some trees and fashion a battering ram!" One of Drinian's soldiers said.
"Perhaps we should simply try another gate?" Drinian suggested to his men, feeling that the mission could become compromised should they continue to waste time with this fool.
"No, no," His second in command, Trinatsu said, if Ranma or Ryoga were here they would have noticed that Trinatsu bore a strong resemblance to Konatsu, Ukyo's waiter, Drinian however had no way of knowing this. "It's a matter of honor now, the principal of the thing, he's not letting us through, so we have to make him sorry. Let's burn the gate down!" Trinatsu said.
"Or we could try a different gate." Drinian offered again.
"Let's kill the guard, break down the gate, then go on a rampage through the city!" Trinatsu offered. "There's a ton of beautiful women in here!"
"We're not brigands!" Drinian cried.
"We can pretend to be, who will know?" One of the soldiers shrugged.
"Yes! Excellent plan! Or . . . we could try a different gate." Drinian said. "The nearest is five minutes away if we ride fast."
"Our time frame is too strict, any further delay and we might as well kill Sir Ryoga, and Madame Ranko ourselves." One of the commandos said.
"Yes! exactly! That's why I say we wait until night fall, then charge the gate with this large wooden ferret we shall construct out of river reeds" Trinatsu said.
"Again with the ferrets, Trinatsu! If our time limit is so tight why should we wait until night fall? Why are my orders dismissed as nonsense when what you suggest is utter nonsense? Am I not the leader of this strike team?" The team looked at each other as if to try and find one amongst them who's rank was higher than Drinian, causing him to wonder if he really should be in command. "I am!" He said, to stop the searching.
"Did you just say 'Sir Ryoga'?" The gate guard asked.
"Eh? No, he said 'Sorry Yoga'." Drinian said.
"Sounded like 'Sir Ryoga'." The guard said.
"Great! Now he knows too much, we have to kill him!" Trinatsu sighed.
"Quiet!" Drinian cried to Trinatsu, then to the guard he said, "What does it matter if he did?"
"Well Sir Kaneosuke's been offering a reward for any information on Sir Ryoga the Wolf's Fang. If you tell me what you know, I might just open the gate."
"Sir Ryoga was last seen in the village of Tubitytub, but was tragically killed by a rampaging ferret, can we go through now?" Trinatsu said.
"Nope."
"What? Why not?" Drinian demanded,
The guard shrugged. "I'm waiting for it to open same's you lot. I'm not the guard here, I was part of a caravan and I got left behind 'cause I had to take care of some business in the bushes. Thanks for the information though, might be worth a gold piece or two to that stuck up old popinjay, Kaneosuke . . . any of ye know what a 'popinjay' is?"
Drinian scowled, thoroughly fed up with it all. "All right, we'll burn down the gate!"
"Or we can go to the north gate, t'is no more than a five minute ride." A soldier said.
"Yeah, no need to be so violent all the time, Drin." Trinatsu scoffed. "We can just use a different gate, we're not animals."
Drinian frowned at them. He didn't normally react this way to their care-free, somewhat insubordinate attitudes, but somehow he had a terrible feeling about this day, and so far their luck had done nothing to shake it.
She would have his head for this, he knew! But it had to be done, and she would come to her senses, she'd see that this was the correct corse.
Or so Kaneosuke told himself as he prepared for the execution of the former royal family.
Nabiatrix had chosen the path of conquest, family would only prove to be a weakness as time went on, if she would not do away with them Kaneosuke would relieve her of all guilt and responsibility.
He would execute the former king, and the former princess himself.
He'd killed off the Dirt ambassadors without Nabiatrix protesting too heavily, he could do this too.
And even if she didn't come to her senses, his forces still made up the bulk of her reliable military, she wouldn't dare discipline him.

Kaneosuke examined himself in the mirror, he had to look good for the execution. A chain mail suit with a long red cloak over his shoulders, matching gloves and boots as red as blood, and a pair of evil looking flails at his waist.
His two score (forty) legionnaires ready to march behind him, ready to head for the prison tower.
Yes . . . he looked good. Pretty darn good. How could Nabiatrix resist this? Oh well, he'd get her out of his mind by focusing on the other most important thing in life: slaughtering the helpless and innocent.

To Be Continued . . .