"Captain Shane, what do you want us to do?" asked Sophia
The captain took out a pocket telescope and looked through it. That diamond pyramid had to have something incredibly priceless inside. If not then he and his crew could always smash the pyramid and haul away the pieces. And the crew they fought days ago was entering it.
He looked over at Sophia, "Get the crew ready. We'll be following them in and when they find what they're looking for, we'll attack and kill them."
"What about that freaky thing that attacked us last time"
"If that thing attacks us again, I'll kill it myself."
The martial artist entered the pyramid to find nothing but a large empty room.
"Anyone else feel kinda ripped off," said Ukyo
"We came all this way, and Ranma's not here," yelled Mousse
Everyone was staring at Akane.
Akane looked at them. An obvious idea came to mind.
"Why don't we try to focus our thoughts on Ranma like we did before" Akane told them.
After 5 minutes of doing so, Akane's ring started to glow and the floor of the room started to descend.
After awhile, the floor stopped and the group was no in a much larger room. At the far end was a large diamond column. Inside the column was a sight for sore eyes. It was Ranma. He was sound asleep, frozen inside the column.
"What we do now," asked Shampoo.
"Simple, try the ring again" said Konatsu.
However before they could do anything, they were greeted by Captain Shane and his crew descending from the first floor.
Captain Shane walked toward Ranma, "A man in a diamond column. There has to be somewhere we could get money for that." He was within three feet from Ranma when Akane jumped in front of him.
"Get any closer to him and I'll send you straight to your coffin. Got it! Ranma is my fiancée. Touch him and I'll kill you"
Captain Shane laughed, "Not if I kill you first". Then he drew his sword and the rest of his crew engaged Akane and her friends in battle once more.
"It's a shame I have to smash in that pretty face," said Laurie as she swung her hammer, aiming for Shampoo's head.
"Shampoo feel exactly the same way," yelled Shampoo who dodged the attack and threw one of her chui (those Chinese mace things that she carries) at Laurie. The weapon hit Laurie in the chest but Laurie's face did not show pain or concern from the attack. Laurie swung her hammer down forcing Shampoo to dodge. Fortunately for Shampoo, Laurie's hammer got stuck in floor. Shampoo took the opportunity to run towards Laurie, grab her fallen chui, and then slam both her weapons into Laurie's chest. Shampoo heard a cracking noise but before she could act on it, Laurie kicked her away. Shampoo recovered quick and just in time to dodge another swing from Laurie's hammer. Shampoo threw both her chui at Laurie. One hit her chest again and the other hit Laurie in the face. Suddenly, cracks started appearing on Laurie's face and a shattering noise was heard. Bits and pieces of stone started falling from Laurie's cloths and eventually her face started to fall off as well. Underneath it all, Laurie looked the same except now her skin seemed to have a more natural look to it.
"How could you break through my armor?" yelled Laurie.
Shampoo didn't bother to answer as she threw one punch into Laurie's face, instantly knocking her out.
Konatsu was in trouble. Michael was playing his flute and Konatsu had his hands covering his ears to block the sound. Konatsu knew he had to risk uncovering his ears so he could attack. An idea hit him. Konatsu ran in close to Michael and head butted him. This made Michael stumble and stop playing. Konatsu took the opportunity to throw several shurikens aimed at Michael's chest. Michael dodged them and before Konatsu was able to cover his ears again, he was caught under the flutes spell. The tune that was played forced Konatsu to lie flat on the ground. Michael stopped playing but Konatsu couldn't get up.
"That was a clever trick but it won't save you," gloated Michael. Michael started to play again and Konatsu was brought to his feet. Michael changed the tune and Konatsu felt all his bones start to bend to the breaking point.
Michael started to gloat once more, "After I kill you, maybe I'll bend the pretty girl with the spatula to my will next."
Konatsu felt a blinding rage build inside him. He fought the flute's spell and slowly, he started moving on his own. He reached into his pocket and threw one shuriken witched sliced Michaels flute in half. Konatsu felt himself regain full control of his body. He walked forward, grabbed Michael's throat, and lifted him off the ground. Konatsu held him up, crushing Michael's throat until he lost consciousness. Then Konatsu dropped him on ground. Michael was still alive but he would never insult Ukyo or speak again.
Lucian and Mousse went toe to toe. Mousse threw various knives and shuriken from his robes, which were blocked by Lucian's cards. Lucian couldn't tell but Mousse was slowly getting closer to him. As soon as Mousse was close enough, he threw several of his chains at Lucian. Lucian was wrapped up in the chains and they were constricting him. Lucian smirked, the chains froze, and he broke out of them.
"Nice try", he said as he reached forward and grabbed Mousse's robes. Mousse felt his robes freeze under the touch. He pulled away and his robes shattered leaving him without a shirt. Lucian threw several playing cards that became lodged deep in Mousse's arms and chest. Lucian drew a knife from his own robes.
Lucian smirked and said "Time to die". He charged forward to deal the killing blow when Mousse suddenly disappeared.
"Hawk's Talon" yelled Mousse from above. As he came down, the talons in on his shoes dug into Lucians shoulders and forced him to his knees. Mousse Jumped off from Lucian, which forced him to smash his head on the ground.
Even though Mouse was usually blind, he noticed that his victory earned him a smile from Shampoo.
Kodachi was able to hold her own against the twins. Every time one of them slashed at her with a dagger, Kodachi would block would block with one of her clubs. However, Lyn used one of her daggers to reflect some light into Kodachi's eyes, which gave Cessily the opportunity to steal her clubs.
Cessily held the clubs in her hands while taunting "What are you gunna do without your weapons?"
Kodachi clapped her hands. Then sleeping gas spurted from the clubs, which put Cessily to sleep. Kodachi took out her ribbon and squared off against Lyn. Since Lyn was alone now, she was easy prey to Kodachi. Kodachi wrapped her ribbon around Lyn's wrist and pulled. This caused Lyn to drop her daggers. Kodachi then wrapped the ribbon around Lyn's waist and then started swinging Lyn around like a toy. Kodachi slammed Lyn into Cessily who was just getting up and then the two slammed into the wall. The victory over the twins sparked Kodachi's trademark laugh.
Ryoga knew that close combat with Marik would lead to more burns and having to deal with that scythe of his and his bandannas would get burned to ash if he tried to stay back. Ryoga decided to take his chances and got in close. He threw a punch that knocked the bandanna covering Marik's face off. Underneath the bandanna, Ryoga could see that Marik's face was badly burned.
Ryoga laughed, "Now I see why you hide face. If I looked like that, I'd wear a mask too".
"I'll kill you," yelled Marik. He threw his scythe directly at Ryoga. Ryoga dodged and the scythe was implanted in the ground with Ryoga standing right above it.
"You missed" Ryoga yelled.
"Did I now" Marik yelled back.
Suddenly, four pillars of fire spiraled out from the ground under Ryoga. Ryoga was so distracted by the attack that he didn't see Marik come up behind him. Marik grabbed Ryoga in his arms and held him tight. Ryoga could feel the air around him become hot and his skin felt like it was on fire. Using what little strength he had left, Ryoga broke free from Marik's grasp. He backed away and thought of as many depressing things as he could. He thought of losing the fight, losing a fight to Kuno, Akane finding out his secret and shunning him, and worst of all, never being able to tell Akari that he loved her.
Ryoga raised his arms yelling, "SHIN SHISHI HOKODAN"
He fired the perfect lion's roar blast that sent Marik flying though the pyramid and into the ocean.
Sophia's whip hit Ukyo in the side and shocked her. Sophia's whip came back again but Ukyo deflected it with one of her throwing spatulas. Ukyo got in close, almost hitting Sophia with her giant Spatula. However, Sophia was able to grab Ukyo's wrist and and shock her again. Sophia proceeded to kick Ukyo away and then used her whip to to shock Ukyo once more. Sophia watched Ukyo spasm on the ground as her muscles started to contract.
Sophia kicked Ukyo in the stomach while saying, "I'm tired of playing around." Her hands sparked, "Good bye".
Sophia lashed out her with her whip. Ukyo raised her giant spatula to block it even with her muscles not directly obeying her will. The whip coiled around the spatula.
"That won't save you," laughed Sophia.
Sophia was channeling as much electricity through the whip as she could but it didn't seem to be hurting Ukyo at all. Ukyo soon recovered and yanked Sophia's whip away from her.
"How were you able to do that," yelled Sophia.
"If you must know sugar, the handle on my spatula is made of rubber," said Ukyo. Ukyo ran up and performed a spinning back kick into Sophia's chest. Before Sophia had a chance to recover, she was greeted with the view of Ukyo's spatula in her face.
It was now down to Akane and Shane. Akane and Shane easily dodged each other's attacks and neither of them seemed to be getting tired. After awhile, Akane saw an opening when Shane swung his sword low. Akane jumped over his attack and was able to deliver a roundhouse kick to Shane's head. As Shane fell to the ground, he slashed out with his sword and clipped the side of Akane's leg. Akane ignored it. Shane recovered and started slashing wildly at Akane. Shane couldn't tell that Akane was slowly drawing him into a spiral.
"HIRYU SHOTEN HA" yelled Akane as she uppercutted Shane. Then an intense whirlwind swept both of them up off the ground. While inside the whirlwind, Akane could see that Shane was still intent on killing her. Shane flew toward her and kicked. The attack sent Akane flying into the column containing Ranma. The whirlwind was generating enough wind to hold her in place. Akane looked up and saw Shane coming toward her with is sword held high. Akane couldn't move and she knew that if Shane's attack hit, she would die.
A tear escaped from Akane's eye as she screamed, "RAAAANNNNMMMMAAAAA".
Suddenly, the column shattered into billions of shards and the glow from her ring faded. The winds flung Akane, Ranma, Shane, and the shards around the room. Akane held the still unconscious Ranma in her arms until the wind settled. She looked up and saw Shane pinned to the wall by several diamond shards. He was dead.
Suddenly, the pyramid started to rumble.
"The pyramid is starting to come down," shouted Konatsu.
The Nerima martial artist escaped the pyramid through the hole that Ryoga made during his fight. Each of them reluctantly carried one of the pirates. They made it out just as the pyramid came down.
They laid the pirates down on the ground and took off on Kodachi's ship.
An hour later, the pirates woke up. Sophia looked around. Captain Shane was gone and so was the other crew. Then something brushed up against her hand. It was the captains' hat. She smiled at it and put it on.
She looked at her crew and ordered, "Cessily and Lyn, fish Marik out of the sea. The rest of you, grab as many pieces of the the pyramid that will fit on our ship".
The crew looked at her and after the information sunk in, they yelled "Yes Captain Sophia".
End of Chapter 9
Sorry it took longer than usual to get this chapter up. I've been busy lately. There will probably be one more chapter in this series. You'll finally get to see Ranma and Akane reunited and something will happen that will have a big affect on both of them. Also, we'll find out where Happosai was the whole time.