Disclaimer: I do not own Lunar SSSC or Ranma 1/2.
In your dreams, magical thoughts,
All things are real unless you dream they're not.
In your dream, love is the plot,
Carried on wings of hope.
Each of our souls intertwine when we do,
Instantly we see it, the time to grow and be it,
When everything is pinned on a hope.
Let rise the dreams of your heart,
That innocent you, careless and kind,
Free to roam the breeze in love,
Only when two brilliantly shine as one!
Dragonmaster
"Hey, the village is just up ahead!" Ramus shouts as the village comes into view. He then starts walking faster, finally keeping pace to the rest of the group. "I can't wait, just a few more minutes and I'll be rich beyond my dreams!"
"Jeez man, is that all you can think about? I mean, the only thing that gets you excited is money and food." Ranma comments as he walks along.
"Hey what is that supposed to me-" Ramus was interrupted by Caine and Nall flying around him, distracting his thoughts.
"Hey Alex, why do you look so down? I mean you went on an adventure like Dragonmaster Dyne. Isn't this what you wanted all along?" Luna asked, concerned about how quiet Alex was on their journey back.
"Yeah, I know Alex, What's wrong man?" Ranma asks Alex now noticing how quiet Alex was. "You even got a present from the O-So-Mighty-White-Dragon-Quark right?"
"Yeah I know Ranma, Luna. It was great, just... I just wish that it could have lasted longer. Just when everything was getting exciting..." Alex's voice trails off.
"Yeah I understand. I mean, everything was getting fun and then it all stopped. I mean, this would probably be the only adventure we will ever have on this boring place." Ranma says. Being his usual self and just talking without thinking of the fact that this would probably make Alex more depressed. Ranma sighs and then continues on to say, "Killing monsters, finding treasures, and meeting weird creatures. Sure brings back memories."
"Huh? What are you talking about Ranma? We knew you since you were a little kid." Nall says looking puzzled at Ranma. Everyone else was giving him the exact same look.
"Huh? Did I say it brings back old memories? I mean umm I umm meant to say that it reminds me of a story that I heard when I was a kid. Yeah that's it, it reminds me of a story." Then Ranma does the trademark put-your-hand-behind-your-head-and-laugh maneuver. A perfected move that fails to convince anyone except himself. Yeah that was smooth. Heh, that was one of my greatest lies yet.
Meanwhile a simultaneous thought ran through everyone else's mind. Who is he trying to fool? The correct answer being that he is trying to fool himself into thinking that he fooled everyone else.
"Anyway, I'm glad that it's over already. Those monsters were dangerous Alex! If Quark didn't heal us, then we might not have made it." Luna says, getting more distressed as she goes on.
"Hey Luna lighten up. Nothing happened and we all got out fine." Ranma says in defense of his adopted brother. "The fun was just starting. This was probably the only adventure that we would for the rest of our lives anyway."
"I gotta agree with Luna Alex, Ranma. I mean those monsters were pretty scary. Like that big hairy monkey monster, and the jello that tries to eat you instead and..." Ramus continues on to list off everything that terrified him, which turned out to be just about everything.
As they walk on, now silent, the village gates loom closer. Standing behind the gates was the statue of Althena. A miraculous statue imbued with the power to heal any wounds. Noticing that the village was only a short few steps ahead of them, Ramus in his excitement runs inside the village. "Hey you guys, c'mon let's go already. Time is money, and the faster we go, the faster we get our money."
"Hey Alex, I'm going to go see how your parents are doing. Do you want to come along? You really should see them, they might be worried." Luna says as she walks towards their house.
Seeing Ramus mouth the word later, Alex replies "I'll come see them later. I want to go with Ramus and see how much that diamond is worth. Ranma, are you going to go with us or Luna?"
"Ummm, I think that I'll go with you guys. I'll see ya later Luna." Saying this Ranma, Alex, and Ramus walked towards the only jewelry store that was built in their village. As they walked inside, Ramus seemed to get more and more excited.
Inside the shops were all kinds of rings, bracelets, and other ornaments that most girls and some guys feel the compulsion to wear. The prices ranged from a small pittance to huge sums of money. Sparkling and colorful, the racks up front draw the attentions of many girls who drags their boyfriends into emptying their pocket money for them.
Ramus saunters up to the counter and calls on the owner of the store. "Yo, mister I want to do some business with you." Ramus says. From the way he is standing and the how he said the sentence shows how much the imaginary riches that were made in his head got to.
"Yes, may I help you Ramus?" Chet, the owner of the store asks Ramus amused. After all, Ramus used to visit his shop when he was a little tyke, always pretending that all the jewels were his. Wondering what get-rich-quick scheme Ramus came up with now he decided to go along with the whole deal. "Did you want to buy something? For a sweetheart maybe?"
Unable to contain his excitement, he burst into a wide smile saying, "Naw Chet. Look, it's a dragon's diamond! Ranma, Alex, and I went down into the ice cave and got it." Almost adding as an afterthought, Ramus added "Oh yeah, Luna went also."
Chet couldn't believe his eyes. In front of him sat a diamond the size of a person's fist. But more unbelievable was the fact that Ramus actually managed to get it. Ramus, after all this time, and all the failed get rich quick scheme, was now the rich. The lazy and fat son of the mayor finally struck it rich. "Boy! Is this real?"
"Sure is Chet. Now let's talk business. How much are you willing to pay for this hunk of beauty? And don't try to cheat me. I have a rough outline of the cost. After all, I was taught by the best."
"Damn right boy. I should know, I taught you how to see the cost of a jewel. But I can't pay for this. My whole store isn't worth this much boy."
"What!? C'mon Chet." Ramus complained. In the background, Ramus hears Ranma break out into laughter. His anger rising, Ramus whirls around and says hotly "Just WHAT DO YOU THINK IS SO DAMN FUNNY?!?!"
"Hahahahehe. Sorry Ramus, it's just that you have one of the most expensive item, and you can't do anything about it because it costs too much." Ranma then walks away still chuckling over the whole matter.
"C'mon Chet, what am I going to do with it then? If no one buys it, then its just another chunk of stone." Ramus looks pleadingly at Chet, desperate seeing his dreams of becoming rich quickly vanishing.
"Welll, you only have just about one choice left. You could try to go to Meribia. Meribia is a big commercial city. A lot of people live there. But, there is a problem. The path to Meribia is thick with fogs, and there seems to be a lot more monsters than before. It's dangerous now to try and go across." Chet says gravely.
"Is that it? Well, compared to the dragon's cave, how bad can it be?" Ramus says cockily. The thought of obtaining huge sums of money obviously went to his head as Chet's wise warning just passes through one ear and out the other.
Ramus and the others walks out. Ranma, Alex, and Ramus walks outside. Alex has a worried expression on his face as he says, "Ramus are sure about this? Chet said that it is really foggy. And the monsters there are supposed to be powerful. That's why most only travel in groups of ten."
"Hey Alex, your starting to sound like Luna now. Come on, how hard can it be? Plus I'm going to be there so don't worry about it. Even chunko here can't slow me down, even though it is going to be harder. Plus, I thought you said that you didn't want the adventure to end yet. Here's your chance." Ranma says to Alex. Slowly, Alex's resolve changes as he hears these words.
"Yeah, you're right. It's just getting exiting." Alex says. "We should tell Luna about this. She doesn't like to be just taken out of these things you know. And plus, she would worry too much when she gets angry. Remember what happened long ago with the bathroom incident? She's scary."
"What!? Are you crazy Alex?. You know she won't let us go. She would just say 'Alex you can't go. What if you get hurt or worse?' You know she would say that!" Ramus yelps.
"Yeah, I'll have to agree with Ramus there Alex." Ranma says as he nods his head. "Luna will never let us go."
"Come on Alex. Quickly, let's go now so that she can't stop us. You can tell her that we went to Meribia after you come back. That way, we could go and not worry about her nagging us all the way. C'mon, lets go?"
Looking at both the expectant faces of Ranma and Ramus, Alex sighs in defeat and mutters, "Luna is sooo going to kill me after I come back."
"Alright, let's go!" Ramus shouts as he leads the way to the exit of the village. As they exit the village, Ramus says, "The only path to Meribia is through the forest east of here."
The trio walks on the path leading to the forest. However, as they near the forest the day seems to become darker, the natural sounds of nature disappear, and the cold breeze howls. The dark forest looms over them, the tall trees standing sentinels. A hiss seems to imply of a hidden danger lurking in the forest.
"Is it just me or does these woods look weird. I mean, why did it get cold all of a sudden?" Ranma said as he looks at the tall trees standing before him ominously.
"It is called the Weird Woods for a reason Ranma." Ramus says rather dryly. Ranma gives Ramus the 'Look' and ignores him afterwards. Ramus after hours of being teased on the journey to Quark's cave and back, took tremendous delight in getting back at Ranma, no matter how small or petty it was.
"Come on guys, let's go." Alex tells the two in order to break up the argument. As they enter the Weird Woods, one thing is instantly noticeable. The whole forest is filled with fogs so thick they couldn't see three feet in front of them. However, more unnerving than this is probably the fact that there are sounds of rustling leaves as creatures moves through them, the growls and shrieks coming from the unknown was not helping their nerves any either.
As they walk in deeper into the woods, the fog condenses even more and visibility becomes almost nil. Alex and Ranma gets the heebie jeebies down their spines, however brush off any fears that they feel. Ramus on the other hand seems just about ready to wet his pants and shame himself in front of the 'guys'.
"Hey, Ramus." Ranma turns around and says.
"Yeah Ranma?"
"QUIT THE SHAKING SO MUCH! Your damn teethes are getting on my nerves. Damn pig boy, if you were going to be this scared, then why'd ya come here in the first place!" Shaking his head, Ranma walks on leaving a shocked pudgy boy in the background.
"I-I'm not s-scared!" Saying so, Ramus trys to put up a brave front. Walking slowly and carefully, they continue on. However, after only a few dozens of steps later, the thing that was bound to happen happened. Ramus' nerves snapped. Yelling in fright, letting out all his pent up fear, Ramus makes a 180-degree turn and runs back.
"Sigh. I thought so. Damn porky. I knew he would chicken out." Saying this to no one in particular, Ranma turns to Alex and says, "Guess we gotta go back. Ramus had the diamond, so it would be useless going on ahead."
Alex sighs and nods in resignation. Muttering to himself, "Damn, Luna's gonna kill me and I barely walked into the forest." Alex trudges on out of the forest and along the path. Ramus was nowhere to be found.
"You know? Ramus can be pretty fast when he wants to be." Ranma remarks as he walks towards their village. As they continue along the path that leads them back to Burg, they catch up to Ramus.
"Sorry I got sick in there guys." Ramus looks shamefaced as he stands before them, almost looking like a puppy that is about to get scolded, but actually looked more like a pig with a case of the stomach flu.
Ranma opens his mouth about to make a sarcastic remark when Alex gives him a sharp look. Ranma closes his mouth with an audible clack. "That's okay Ramus. We could try to go when it isn't so foggy. Nothing to feel bad about."
Ramus looks up in surprise. "But now you'll get in trouble from Luna. And it's all because of me."
"That's ok, Ramus." Saying this, all three walks into Burg.
They walk into the village in silence. Ramus turns to go to his house to turn in for the night. Ranma who lived with Alex goes on towards Alex's hose located on the northern most of the village. "Well, Alex. Think on the bright side. If ya went than you would have missed the summer festival. You know that you have to do a duet with Luna. Imagine how angry she would have been if you didn't show up for it."
Alex nodded his head in agreement, and actually felt some relief. He would have sorely been sad if he missed the Summer Festival. As he entered the house, he immediately notices one thing. The house was unusually cold.
"Aaaaaalllllleeeeeeexxxxxxxxx."
Alex turned around hearing his name spoken in a most dreadful manner. Behind him stood Luna. Glowing a bright red color she advanced upon Alex. Ranma who stood a little apart from Alex was able to get away unnoticed. Phew. That was close. Poor Alex. Oh well, when it comes down to women it's all men to themselves. Thinking this in his head, Ranma walked away into the kitchen for anything to eat. Taking the food to his room, Ranma lies down on his bed, munching on the snack. His head filled with thoughts from memories long thought buried, the last trail of thought in his mind before he fell asleep was, Damn, it seems so much like my old life now. So..so..[yawn] out...of..contr.....
***The next morning***
Ranma wakes up in the morning and stretches. He goes outside to do his morning katas. Usually after he is done, he goes and wakes up Alex for their morning practice. Once, he tried doing the same with Ramus, but later stopped because it wasn't worth the effort. Ranma did not even consider waking Luna early in the morning because of two reasons. 1 is that girls are weaker than males and would never be a martial artist, and 2, Luna was downright scary when she isn't able to have her beauty sleep.
He gets a surprise as he walks outside. There, packed and waiting for him are Alex, Luna, and Ramus. Feeling confused, Ranma goes up to them and asks, "Hey, what are you guys doing up so early?"
"Luna decided that she wanted to go to the Weird Woods and go on to Meribia." Alex says with a sigh. When Luna isn't looking, slips Ranma a pleading look, which Ranma answered back with a shrug.
Ramus however seemed unusually quiet, standing off on the side sullenly. When Ranma looks at Alex with a curious gaze, Alex shakes his head and mouths later. "Luna, you know that you'll probably miss the festival right?" Seeing Luna's confirming nod, Ranma adds, "But you two have been practicing it for months!"
"It doesn't matter." From the way she said those three words, Ranma knew that when a girl said something with the tone she used now, there would be no turning back. "Well guys, let's go!" Luna says with a chipper voice.
Forced to trudge along, the guys follow. As they once again reach the Weird Woods, they notice that even in the daytime, the forest is filled with fogs. Upon entering the woods, the visibility drops significantly.
Ramus, still frightened of the woods brightens tremendously. "Well it looks like we can't go. You can't see anything." He makes a 180-degree angle and is about to head back when Luna grabs his collar.
"Hey Ramus, grow a spine will ya? You're supposed to be a guy, suck it in like a man." Hearing this from a girl, Ramus had no choice but to stay. "Wait, let me try something." Luna then proceeds to sing a captivating song, and the mist magically began to dissipate.
Everyone looks surprised, including it seems Luna herself. "Hey Luna, alright! I new you had a magical voice. Alex says as a joke. To lighten their surprise.
"Hmph, I knew your voice was scary, but to make the mists runaway." Ranma says as a joke. Luna whirls around and uses the super-secret-ultra-duper-demon head attack. Her head swells to several times her head, glowing with a fiery blue aura, her eyes flashing the color of Hades. Ranma, with a sweat drop the size of his fist ran into the woods.
"Hey Luna, did you know that that would happen?" Alex asks Luna as she started to laugh hysterically with a wooden mallet from kami knows where. At his question, Luna stops and looks at Alex seriously with a bit of confusion in her eyes.
"No. I didn't know. It... there was just this feeling that if I sang then something would happen."
"All well, at least everything is fine now. Let's go!" Ramus now cheerful walks on into the forest. Alex and Luna looks at each other and laugh then runs to catch up to Ranma.
As they reach Ranma, they find Ranma engaged in a battle with a Gorgon. A Gorgon is a slug-like monster with a pale blue body, spotted with violets. The tail ends in a fin like shape like a fish, and has several stalks of eyes growing from its round body. Ranma jumps around the Gorgon like a hyper rabbit dodging all of its attack.
The monster frantically tries to attack Ranma by spitting a green gunk, retching it from its stomach. Luckily it is slow and Ranma has no problem avoiding the attacks. Finally, with a scream of katchu tenshin amaguriken, the monster explodes.
The group reaches Ranma as soon as the Gorgon is dead. "Ranma are you alright?" Alex asks worried. Ranma fought several monsters from the look of body parts.
"Yeah, nothing to it." Ranma answers back in his usual cocky style.
Luna notices that Ranma is hurt. One of the sleeves on his arm is burned of and the skin underneath is blistering with a red swelling. Green pus seems to leak from it. Ranma sees Luna looking at it and tries to hide his arm behind his back. "Ranma your hurt!" Luna says. The others see Ranma holding his arm behind his back and goes towards him.
"Nahhh. It's nothing." Ranma then tries to walk away when Luna grabs onto Ranma's shoulder, holding him back. Luna tries to take Ranma's injured arm to see how serious it is, but Ranma moves his arm around, preventing Luna from looking at it closely.
"Ranma, stop that. That wound looks dangerous. Alex, Ramus, grab onto Ranma's arm." Luna commands them as she takes out several leaves of herbs from her pouch. When she gets a closer look at it she gasps. The wound is even more serious than she first thought. The wounds seem to refuse to shut. "Ranma..." She says sadly. Seeing how sad Luna looks, Ranma felt ashamed.
"I knew you would get sad. That's why I din't want to show it to ya. I heal fast, you know that. Everything would have been okay a few minutes later." Ranma tells Luna as she administers the herds, grinding the leaves and wrapping it in a bandage. Alex looks at this short conversation and feels out of place and feels a hint of jealousy at the corner of his heart. However, this fact he hides even from himself.
After Ranma is all patched up, the group continues on into the woods. Avoiding being detected by the monsters. However, as the path broadens into a wide area, a large growlings from various corners are heard. They all rush towards the exit on the other side of the path when a goblin rushes from there.
"Damn it, we have to back off!" Ramus shouts. The group starts running back from where they came from.
"We have to separate!" Ranma shouts as they spot another goblin approaching them.
"Are you crazy! If we separate then they'll just pick us off one by one!" Ramus yells back as he runs.
"Were attracting too much attention! Break up. Alex, Ramus, go with Luna. I can protect myself, so don't worry." Ranma shouts. He then takes a sharp turn to a different path. The others surprised at this runs on into a path apart from Ranma.
"Ranma! NO!" Luna shouts. Luckily, they are forced to turn back as a more goblins rushes at them from that side. When they run back the way they came from, they realize that Ranma is there also, about to engage two groups of goblins.
"Were surrounded!" Nall shouts to Caine as the group meets up with Ranma. They press into each other's back so that they won't be blindsided.
"Well, we got nothing to do but fight!" Ranma screams then hurls himself at the nearest goblin. The others rushes into the fight. The fighting was furious, and many wounds were dealt to the group. However, they managed to destroy the first wave of creatures.
"Damn, how many more are there!" Caine shouts as he flys around, confusing the goblins. Just when the goblins look ready to attack again, laughter can be heard. They turn around and look to see see who it is.
"HAHAHAHAHA You boys look as if you're in need of a help!" A stranger wearing a red beret with a large brown mustache says. He has the figure of a lumberjack, however the way he holds himself shows him to be an experienced fighter.
"Hey old man, this is our fight. Stay out from it." Ranma calls out cockily.
"Ranma, we could use his help right about now!" Ramus shouts to the crazy boy who seems to want to die fighting the goblins.
"Ranma, now is NOT the time to be picky!" Nall and Caine shouts.
"Ranma, stop being so rude. He's only trying to help." Luna tells him.
"..." Alex stays silent. For in his heart, he wishes to fight these goblins also, showing Luna that he could take care of himself. He so desperately wanted to impress her. But he also knew and understood the danger of continuing the fight.
"Well the boy has some guts! HAHAHA" The stranger says as he laughs heartily.
The goblins, temporarily stopped from surprise of the appearance of the mysterious laughing stranger realize that the man isn't a danger at the moment. They then leap to attack the group, seeing that they were already weakened. The fight this time lasts longer, the group receives even more damage, and breathing harder than before. Alex, Luna, and Ramus somehow managed to reach the stranger as they fought. When the fighting was over, they then realized that Ranma was the only one left in the group.
"So boy, you have some skills. But you seem to have gotten into a little pickle. Do ya want me to help ya out of it? Hahahaha" Shouts the man to Ranma.
"The names Ranma, not boy. And you could keep your help to yourself!" Ranma shouts back.
"Ranma! Are you crazy! You can't fight them all by yourself!" The group shouts to him.
"Just watch me!" Saying so the fighting started.
Luna turns to the stranger and pleads, "Please you have to help him! Please! He could die fighting them."
Hearing this, the stranger looks at her with pity in his eyes. "Girl, this Ranma of yours has the fighting spirit. He won't accept help from me. Rather, he would see it as an insult. Ranma is addicted, somehow he found the joy of your blood pumping as he faces the dangers. I've seen men like him. They wouldn't give up and accept help even if their life depended on it." Saying so, the mysterious stranger looks on.
Luna shocked at what she heard can only watch as Ranma began his desperate battle. However, now that she looked carefully, she could see the fire burning in his eyes. Always there, a slow hot ember, now flares out wildly. She can see the joy that he feels as he jumps, dodges, and hits the goblins. Even the pain that he feels seem to make him more energetic, instead of hindering him.
Damn, got to finish off this fight quickly. Hope I can still manage to pull it off Ranma then begins to start a spiral. The goblins. already enraged with battle lust and their inability to take down one human follows eagerly after him. Halfway through, Ranma starts losing his energy. The multitude of wounds finally catched up to him. He completes his spiral just as he falters. RANMA SAOTOME NEVER LOSES! Thinking this he throws his arm into the air, seeming to create an uppercut.
Luna and the rest looks on in despair as Ranma is slowly, but surely being worn down. Then, as the goblins follow, they seem to close in on him. The moments seems to go in slow motion as they see every step he takes, every drop of blood and sweat he drips, and they see his falter, the legs give out. Ranma slowly falls backwards, and this moment seems captured in time. The goblins seeing their chance leap into the air to kill the pesky human. To them, Ranma seemed to throw out his arm in one last feeble attempt at warding off their attacks. And misses. Luna throws her hand in front of her face covering her eyes and screams. They all watch in shock as Ranma screams one last time with his fight with the goblins.
"HIRYU SHOTEN HA!!!"
***END OF CHAPTER 3***
Author's notes: Hello to those who actually wanted to read my stories. Sorry for not writing anything. I stopped writing for a while. Damn school and studying for the SAT and SAT II's can be a bitch. I'll try to write more often. Also, there where some of you who wanted me to make the chapters before better, I'll get to that when I have the time. The only reason his even came out this early is because of the mails I've got. Thank you to those people.
Also, as most will notice after reading this chapter, I'm not too good at writing fight scenes, so if any of you can help me out by writing me hints, helps, or actually want to help write a fight scene with me, then please contact me. E-mail is Maverickmage@hotmail.com.