Well here's chapter 3, this one was easier to write than last chapter and I think I have a good idea of the direction I'm trying to move now that I've kicked off the magical jailbreak.
As always I own nothing of Ranma 1/2.
Cologne moved slowly through the halls and balconies of the mountain fortress of the phoenix trying to puzzle out what the amazons were going to do now that they had been pushed from their homes. The warriors dispatched to warn the other villages had returned with the rest of her people, ten thousand amazons now packed the mountain along with the phoenix and had barely begun to settle in before a few fights broke out between them and the phoenix. The old woman sighed as she noticed another bout of training starting in a different room and made a mental note to talk to Kiima about finding a room large enough to begin setting up a full time training center to try and advance the amazon and phoenix warriors as fast as possible.
Old eyes watched several children running and playing and she made a silent vow for the hundredth time to protect the remains of her people or die trying. The problem was that the warriors may have been powerful enough to take on the lesser mirrored creatures but the more powerful forces that were no doubt already climbing from the breach would be to strong to handle by anyone but the strongest of fighters. It was obvious that she and the others needed to try and advance the training of the warriors in every secret technique that they knew. A plan had already started to form where amazons and phoenix could begin training in the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken and the Bakusai Tenketsu as well as moving advanced students onwards to the more powerful arts like the Splitting Cat Hairs and Hiryu Shoten Ha.
The only plus they had through this was that the demon king himself had expended a massive amount of power to tear the breach in dimensions. Even at his full strength he would not be able to cross the breach unless his forces gained a large enough power source for him to draw from. But even so he was able to send his forces through and with them being mirrored forms he could create thousands of them to assault the mountain.
Walking into a room pointed out by a phoenix guardsman she found herself watching two outsider boys fighting in the center of the room. Their styles were the largest indication of which cursed individual they had been earlier and were obvious to someone as old as her though she had to admit that several of the styles they used were supposedly dead schools of the art. The pigtailed boy had been the demoness, obvious in his movements and speed and the larger boy had been the werewolf, also obvious through his use of superior strength and more direct attacks.
Walking forward the elder interrupted the two boys sparring and rapped her staff lightly on the floor gaining their attention "You two need some true training."
"What are ya talking about? We're already the best." The pigtailed boy spoke with the usual arrogance of youth and cologne couldn't help but smile before she vanished from the sight of the two boys. Seconds later Ranma found himself flat on his back next to Ryoga with the old woman looking down at him smirking "You're about two hundred years to young to challenge me boy. And you have a lot to learn about fighting." The old woman walked to the doorway "If you want to learn follow me." The two boys looked at each other then scrambled after the old woman.
"The true martial arts isn't wholly about skill, it's also about power." The old woman looked at the two boys who were now watching the burning pile of wood in the room off the main cafeteria in the mountain. "You have to know your limits in power and skill if you want to advance past them. As it is you two are very powerful compared to normal fighters and probably even compared to normal grandmasters of the art but you are mere children to people like myself and Lord Saffron."
"Watch." She poured chestnuts into the fire then waited a second before her arms became streaking blurs to the two boys and she held up her hands showing the chestnuts and no burns on her skin. "This is the weakest of the amazon special techniques known as the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken." Throwing another batch of chestnuts into the fire she gestured for Ranma to try. The pigtailed boy frowned at the fire then made a grab for the chestnuts only to get his hand burned, on his fourth try he let lose a growl of annoyance and looked up at the old woman "My cursed form could do this, why do I need to learn it?" Ranma's anger was partially aimed at himself for failing so quickly but he also wanted to know why he couldn't move on to more powerful techniques right away.
"Yes your cursed form could do it, and if you wanted to remain in cursed form constantly for the entire conflict I suppose it's your decision." The old woman turned and began to walk away.
"Wait! I didn't say I wasn't gonna learn it, I'll have it down in no time just you wait and see!" The pigtailed warrior went back to burning his hands. While Ryoga watched trying to puzzle out how the move was done, he turned to the old woman. "Those demons in the village, what were they?"
"Followers of the demon king." Anger flickered across the old woman's face for a second then vanished; their losses could have been much greater. "Long ago in a time when humans were young and demons walked the world there was a powerful member of the demon world that began to refer to himself as the king of all demons." Her words were punctuated by pained cries from Ranma who, though he kept trying to grab the chestnuts, was also listening. "This lesser demon gained magical artifacts and allies making him powerful enough to challenge several of the elder demons and destroy them absorbing their power into himself. He gained strength swiftly and began to attack the few human settlements of the world though he was successfully held out of Egypt by the forces of the gods." She sat pulling her staff onto her lap and watched Ranma examining his arms.
"As his power grew he searched for a place to set up his empire and chose the area we now know as Jusendo as his place of residence. Once entrenched there he began strikes against the gods themselves and drove several into hiding within china and its surrounding areas. But he didn't expect the fractious gods to ally into a fighting force and so was unprepared for the battle that came to him." The old woman tossed a chestnut to bounce of off Ranma's head and looked into the fire. "Three great gods, including Saffron the king of phoenix mountain, attacked the demon king and battled with him for a full month before he fell to their combined might. While the story was always told that the three gods had slain the demon king I was newly informed by Lord Saffron that that is not the case. Instead they sealed him away in a prison, a prison from which he has torn an opening."
"Wait, are you saying that this mountain is ruled by a Kami?" Ranma asked forgetting about his burns for the moment and feeling a bit of shock. "Then why the heck didn't he come down and help when the village was attacked?" The boy had barely jumped to his feet before cologne cracked him on the head with her staff. "He had to stop other evils from escaping boy! He doesn't have the raw power needed to stop the demons on the mortal plain. Get back to training."
Cologne walked away from the room with at least knowledge of where she wanted to put the training room. 'That boy is too fast at learning things' the old woman's thoughts stayed on the pigtailed fighter that had managed, unconsciously while watching her and listening to the story, to grab a chestnut without getting burned. Even so he had only grabbed one and he would have to grab all of them before he would be able to advance.
Ranma had continued for a moment before letting Ryoga begin to try and had been sitting there for two hours before he suddenly had a thought. 'Where's pops?'
Binding Room
Saffron watched as one of the two flickering stones faded out and had to put more power into several others to make sure that the releases didn't start a cascade across all of china. He watched as the second flickering stone from earlier started to flicker more wildly and shuddered slightly "So it begins."
JUSENKYO
The guide shook his head as he watched the demons moving on the outskirts of Jusenkyo's wards against evil and was glad that his daughter Plum and his wife had gone to visit relatives in Hong Kong. The overweight man sat in front of the hut he used while by the springs and began to puff on his pipe when he felt a wind begin to slither its way across the springs. The pipe lowered as the springs pulsed with a soft golden glow then sent wisps of energy floating free and flowing across the ground and other springs heading for a cleft in the farthest cliff face from the hut.
The guide was panting for breath by the time he had finished his sprint through the springs to the cleft and merely watched for a moment as golden energy flowed around his ankles and feet and swept down the rock floor disappearing out of sight around a bend. The guide's sense of foreboding was getting worse and worse as he walked down the cleft through twists and turns until he reached the end and it opened up into a massive circular area of cliffs that looked down upon a large rock basin full of dark water. The golden glow was flowing over the water forming massive chains of golden light that snapped taught and stilled the churning waters.
Seconds later the chains strained then shattered and a figure burst free of the water with a shrieking thunderous roar that shattered rock nearby. A massive bone paw slammed down tearing through rock like a sword paper as the beast pulled itself free. The giant bone wings swept wide shattering more rock and the head swept forward turning to the side to fix the terrified guide with a single eye socket in which a dark red glow sprang to life. The head was massive with a single tooth being large than the guide himself the long snout was filled with many such teeth and two large horns swept forward from the back of the skull along the sides of the head to more than halfway up the length of the snout.
The terrified guide stumbled back a step only to trip and fall as something grabbed his ankle and tugged. A look down showed it to be a human skeleton dressed in rusted armor bearing a rearing lion on the breastplate. A quick kick and the guide was free to get to his feet and see the hundreds if not thousands of human skeletons pulling themselves free of the rock and standing before moving towards the cleft in the rock and the guide. The portly man turned and bolted hearing the thunderous crash of rock shattering behind him as he went.
Behind the guide the massive figure brought another set of massive claws down that shattered a small sign decayed with age reading 'May she rest forevermore, here lies the darkest of all the sky beasts Myara the Queen of Dragons.' With another thundering roar the undead dragon leapt skywards with a mighty push of her wings she cleared the cliffs and slammed down in the springs watching as the human rushed across and away from her she began the process of rejuvenation.
The guide had barely made it to his hut when he heard the loud crash and looked back to see streams of red energy leaving the springs to flow up into the clawed feet of the massive bone dragon. Before the guides horrified gaze tendons and veins began to slowly creep their way up the dragon's paws and he realized that the beast was going to use the spring's magic to revitalize herself back to her full power.
The guide knew he needed to get news of this to the phoenix king and the amazons, the only problem being that the dragon was close to the only easy exit to Jusenkyo and the guide needed to get out quick. He made a break for it dashing up the path and heading out only to hear a roar and turn to see the dragons massive skull filling his vision as she struck. The portly man flinched back knowing this was the end, his only thought was that his family was currently safe.
With a loud boom of shattering rock the dragons head was slammed into the ground and an eight foot tall minotaur jumped off of its head landing near the guide and grabbing a large boulder to throw at the creatures head. The boulder ricocheted off of the dragon's head and it pulled its skull free of the ground to glare at the beast that dared attack it, its sight pierced the curse to see the young human within and the dragon's eyes began to glow a darker red. The minotaur roared in pain as red energy flowed around it causing its form to twist and warp almost like the curse was shifting to something else before the dragon was distracted again.
A beam of white ki energy slammed into bones cracking them and sending pulses of energy flowing across the ribcage of the massive being. Even though she was bone the dragon queen could still feel some pain and let loose a roar before swinging around to view this new menace.
A young man of seventeen stood with two others flanking him his silver, blue hair rippling in the breeze still flowing through Jusenkyo he wore scaled armor and bore the dragon insignia marking the royal members of the musk dynasty. "This land belongs to the musk you will leave immediately or suffer my wrath." The cocky arrogant voice had barely finished echoing across the springs before the dragon swiped at the young men causing the three to scatter. The dragon focused on the musk prince due to the fact that she could sense the boy was cursed but also because he bore the blood of a dragon which made him much more dangerous than his compatriots. The dragon's jaws parted and black energy swirled into being forming a ball of darkness in the dragon's mouth before being fired out in a beam of dark energy right at the dragon prince.
"DRAGON STRIKE!"
Herb raised a hand firing his own blast back and straining to overcome the dragons power. The black energy began to push his own beam back and he brought his other had up to use his full power causing the white energy thrown by the prince to double in size and start to push the black energy back. The power struggle lasted for a few moments longer before the white energy punched through and blasted through the back of the dragons head bursting free and streaking upwards into the sky.
Another loud boom echoed through Jusenkyo as the dragons head then her body slammed to the ground followed by a soft thud of herb impacting the guides rain barrel and subsequently turning female. "Lord Herb!" Mint and Lime dashed to their prince and knelt next to her "We must return to my father and inform him of these events swiftly." Herb managed to get that much out before she blacked out. Picking up Herb Lime jumped away followed by Mint.
"Must leave this place for phoenix mountain honored customer." The guide said to the minotaur while watching the downed dragon carefully.
Neither of the retreating groups noticed the red glow that sprang up in the eye sockets of the fallen skull or the way the bleached bone began to meld together again. Both forces did however hear the thunderous roar of triumph that echoed through the valley and mountains as the dragon once again reared over Jusenkyo.
Deep in the forest a large boulder marked with the image of a large spider gained a web of cracks across its surface.
Descriptions
Something about the demons I had forgotten to write last chapter
Mirrored form demons: a mirrored form demon is created through the use of a cursed mirror and a full fledged demon. It's a simple process 1. Take a demon, 2. Place demon in front of cursed mirror, 3. Have demon step aside and watch as army begins to march. Actually its slightly more difficult than that as each demon takes one hour to fully emerge from the mirror, for weaker demons, more powerful demons can take anywhere from one day to two months depending on class. The mirror would find it impossible to mirror the demon king or other very powerful demons but it can mirror middle to lower class demons.
Myara, queen of dragons: Hers is a long tale that I really don't want to try and put into story form, she is the unholy pairing of a god and demon dragon who were forced to copulate by the use of powerful magic being used by even more powerful deities. No one had any idea that Myara would be so strong at birth. She wasn't born in an egg as normal dragons are but tore her way from her mother and swiftly slew her father as well, raising to full growth in only a years time she was as powerful as many elder gods and rose dragon kind to a height of power never seen before or after and was only defeated by the combined might of over three hundred gods working together.
Her defeat didn't mean her death though and she slumbered for millions of years, sleeping through the time of the dinosaurs, and awakening to a world ruled by humans. Weakened significantly by the battle with the gods she was no stronger than a normal dragon her size would be and began to wreak destruction across the globe until she came across the lands of a powerful king and his sword. King Arthur began a crusade against the dragon queen that lasted twenty years and spanned a large portion of the globe before he ran her down in china and the combined armies of Arthur and several warlords, numbering in the thousands of men, attacked and defeated the queen. Fearing her rebirth the men chopped apart her body and carried the pieces to the largest lake near ancient grounds pounded by meteors. The dead of the army were magically sealed into the rock to forever watch over the dragons resting place.
It was the blood from the dragons hacked up body that infused the 1000 springs of Jusenkyo with their cursed qualities and due to this she can sense and cause pain to the cursed members of Jusenkyo while in their cursed form. It also appears she is able to alter the curses of those people as well. As she revitalizes herself to full life she will be once again alive but her strength will still only be that of a very powerful dragon meaning that she can match the lesser gods in strength but is measurably weaker than even the demon king.
Shadow dragon blast: a blast of dark magical energy thrown from Myara's mouth as a powerful beam attack. Myara's weakest energy attack, and the only one she is capable of using while still an undead entity.
Dragon strike: Attack learned by Herb, dragon prince of the musk, in his last month of training, it is his most powerful ability and can, at its most powerful, take the top off a mountain. (Irony that Herb's current most powerful attack barely matches a true dragon's weakest attack.)
Note: yes Herb is currently cursed but due to this conflict isn't going to be able to search for the kettle, not to mention I think I might use his curse to advance the story at some point. Herb is also slightly different in that I have him learning attacks that he didn't learn in the manga. He is training to ascend to the throne after his father dies.
2nd note: I follow the 'Tarou is somewhat honorable' belief and believe that if he saw someone being attacked, especially by a dragon the size a castle that he would aid in the fight. He's also not stupid and realized immediately that continuing to attack would be futile especially after the dragon took a ki blast without much harm.