Ranma and Snarf left for Horai Mountain just after breakfast using the cloaked shuttle. Officer Fielding was accompanying them to provide legal assistance for Ranma's actions. Blaze was technically off hours having taken the day off so this investigation would not have to be entered into the official records. This could cause some problems if someone was stubborn in questioning why she and Ranma were trying to retrieve the Pot of Liberation. However, that was seen as a remote possibility given how differential most Japanese were to police.
No one else was coming with the trio. Soun and Genma both had their regular jobs along with the after-school lessons to cover. Nabiki and Akane both had school to attend whereas Kasumi didn't see how her accompanying Ranma would help. Reaching out to the group's extended collections of friends and associates was a no go as no one could see how any of them could help. There was also the fact that the police really wanted this all done discreetly.
Snarf had the shuttle listen in to air traffic and its computer combined that information with its sensors to calculate a flight path that would not cause any problems. The flight itself was smooth surprising the passengers. Ranma looked out the shuttle's front windows in amazement. This was his first time flying outside of martial arts jumps. Blaze wanted to shake her head in disbelief that something like this shuttle could fly over such an important airspace without being noticed.
Ranma turned to Snarf and asked, "Could I learn to fly a shuttle?"
The little advisor replied, "I do not see why not in the future Lord Ranma. It would be advantageous if I also learned how to fully fly this shuttle myself. I still rely on the computer assist quite a lot. Especially for the kind of flying we are doing right now. That can be something we do this summer if we can spend some time on Thundera."
Snarf increased the throttle slightly once they were clear of the Tokyo metropolitan area. The trio stayed silent for the next 30 minutes as the shuttle approached Horai Mountain. When they reached the mountain, the shuttle was put in hover. This allowed Snarf to adjust the shuttle's sensors to scan for the Pot of Liberation. He quickly got a hit and then spent another five minutes refining the sensors to narrow down the pot's location. Once the sensors had pinned the location to a few square meters the shuttle started to move to the location.
There was one problem that became apparent when the shuttle approached the Pot of Liberation. "Oh snarf!" the little advisor muttered as he looked through the main window. "The pot is in an alcove behind that waterfall. I suppose the monk left it there after one of his meditation sessions using the waterfall. We'll have to land and find the path to the pot."
"Why?" Ranma spoke up surprising Snarf and Blaze. "Why should we land when I can jump through to the alcove? It shouldn't be a problem if I trigger my transformation beforehand and it would save some time."
Blaze spoke before Snarf had a chance to rebuff. "No way, kid. We asked for your help to deal with an issue quietly. I was not asked to have you risk your neck on a boneheaded and completely unnecessary stunt. Even if you got to the alcove safely and got the pot, which is rather unlikely as this isn't some martial arts manga, you would still have to get back with the pot. You would be crazy to jump through the waterfall again to try and get into the entrance of the shuttle. Most likely you would end up falling into the river and then we'd have to land anyway to get you."
Snarf added his opinion. "With all due respect Lord Ranma, landing the shuttle and walking up to get the pot would be wiser option. Shall I commence with the landing?"
Ranma nodded his head and said, "Your right officer. You heard the lady, put the shuttle down Snarf." Part of Ranma knew his suggestion was unnecessary and stupid. However, he hadn't had the chance to cut loose since his magic had started to awaken. The magic training had gotten to a point where his physical abilities were about par for what he had with his chi. But, being stuck in Nerima without any challengers and having to help his fellow students hand prevented him from really challenging himself. Was it wrong that he wanted to something physically challenging that most people would consider impossible?
Yes, Ranma knew that the answer was that what he wanted was wrong. His life was not his own anymore with the thousands of his subjects whose very world depended on him. It was a duty that fate had thrust upon him and he was desperately trying to prepare himself for his future position. At the same time, he was also a 16-year-old adrenaline junkie martial artist who had thrived on the chaos that had nearly driven him bonkers so many times in the past. Ranma couldn't simply flip a switch to turn off all those years of experience and expectations. A break every once and a while was good. However, it had been weeks since Akane had turned into a hanyo with nothing exciting happening since then.
Those thoughts of excitement were kept locked away in Ranma's head as Snarf opened the shuttle's doors. Ranma hopped down and hunted for a way up the waterfall. He scurried up the path once he found it. The transformation was triggered a little before he reached the waterfall. The expected alcove was easy to find and he quickly spotted a pot protected from the waterfall by a small rock in the alcove. He grabbed the pot and headed down the path back to shuttle.
Snarf was already waiting for Ranma with a sensor when he reached the shuttle. The little assistant activated the sensor and both waited for the machine to do its job. There was beep a few seconds later causing Snarf to look down and smile. "Oh Snarf, it's got an extremely similar magical reading to the Pail of Preservation and it even has the same alloy ratio. Without actually testing it I would say I'm as certain as I can be that this is the Pot of Liberation."
Ranma said, "In that case we should pack it up and head back home." Part of Ranma somehow felt cheated. How many times had he chased after a magical item and gotten into a big fight with someone? At least 4 different times that he could think of offhand and yet this time he had things as easy as going to the grocery store to buy some milk.
The trip back to the dojo took about 40 minutes thanks to some minor rerouting caused by some plane flights. Snarf got the shuttle to its customary spot above the koi pond and then opened the hatch. Blaze got out and then Ranma followed carrying the pot. Kasumi spotted them exiting the hidden shuttle and came out to greet them. With a smile she said, "Did everything go alright? You all are back very early."
Holding up the pot Ranma said, "We found it easily thanks to Snarf's help." He then turned to Blaze and said, "Here you go officer. One Pot of Liberation off the record as requested."
She accepted the artifact and replied, "Thank you for your assistant Ranma Saotome. While we cannot officially thank you for your efforts today, please note that we all are grateful at the station for your help in this matter."
Before anyone could say anything more, Snarf shot out of the shuttle like a pack of hyenas were after him. "Oh Snarf! There was just an explosion at the police station!"
Residents of Nerima, especially the Furinkan district, were used to seeing odd sights. So Ranma running in his thunderan form just behind Blaze down the streets did not really bother the residents. At most a couple of the busy bodies raised an eyebrow wondering what the saotome kid had gotten himself into now. Those closer to Furinkan's police station had bigger problems to worry about as the building had been turned into a blown-out mess.
Blaze quickly spotted her comrade Axel lying in the rubble with a nasty gash across his back bleeding profusely. Adam was being double-teamed by two teens with animal features who Ranma had never met before. Off to the side inside the wrecked station Ranma spotted a girl wearing the outfit of Cologne's mysterious visitor throwing a familiar goose and black pig out into the street.
Ranma rushed over and caught Mousse and Ryoga before they crashed into the floor. It was a good thing too as both cursed rivals had obviously broken limbs. He quickly rushed back to Blaze and set them down where they'd have some cover.
Blaze knew that these Musk fighters were tough. She and the other officers had taken them down quickly last time as they hadn't expected them to be good martial artists. Part of her wanted to curse the Chinese embassy for allowing Mint and Lime to escape. The duo had obviously chosen an opportune moment to spring their Prince Herb out causing this mess. Trying to take all three of them out in these conditions by herself would be stupid. She was going to hate this, but there wasn't a better option at this point and called out. "Saotome! I'm going to have to call you in to help with this mess."
Ranma turned and said "Understood." He mentally summoned the Gauntlet of Omens to his hands and then called out, "Gauntlet of Omens, give me strength beyond strength!" Part of Ranma thought that his standard senshi power activation phrase was a little cheesy like something out of an 80s American Saturday morning cartoon. At least his transformation was quick and didn't have him shout out something like "I have the power" when the transformation finished. That would have been stupid. It could have been worse considering that Ami's transformation phrase was "Mercury Planet Power, Make Up".
Once his silly but not as terrible as it could be phrase was said, Ranma was instantly in his senshi armor and racing towards the Musk. He quickly overtook Blaze and punched Mint sending the wolf teen away from Adam. Lime tried to hit Ranma in revenge and had his own punch deflected off of the Gauntlet of Omens. The tiger teen looked at Ranma in shock and blurted out, "Who are you? I don't recognize you from the village."
Ranma shot back, "I'm no Musk." The young thunderan didn't have a chance to say more as Adam took advantage of Lime's distraction hit the musk in the chin with his knee from a jump. Adam then let loose a furious storm of boxing style punches at Lime.
The officer was about to ask why Ranma had jumped into the fight when Herb spotted Ranma and saw red. She had been locked up and drugged by these filthy foreigners and now some traitor was coming out of the woodwork to fight her? Had Herb been in a clear state of mind she would have been easily able to see that a Thunderan was no Musk. But then, if she had been in a clear state of mind in the first place, she wouldn't have caused such a scene when the police brought her to her retainers that they had to lock her up in the first place.
Herb flew at Ranma letting out a challenging roar with her cloak flowing in the wind. She fired a thin blast of chi shaped like a claw at Ranma. The thunderan surprised her when he blocked the attack with the Gauntlet of Omens. Herb's surprised did not prevent her from following up the chi attack with a round of punches and kicks.
Ranma deflected and blocked the attacks never giving an inch. The much larger and bulkier thunderan form had forced Ranma to shift his fighting style from his human form's style. It was impossible to effortless dodge enemy attacks as a thunderan for defense. The mana usage required for such speeds would be exhausting in a drawn-out serious fight even when he had access to his senshi powers.
Instead, the reincarnated lord took a page out of his father's panda form fighting style learning how to intercept and redirect enemy attacks. Ranma had also trained himself to better handle tanking enemy attacks. He wasn't at Ryoga's level of tanking unless he was using his senshi form's defensive boost yet. Ranma was planning on having his thunderan side undergo that Bakusai Tenketsu training once he figured out how to translate the technique from chi to mana. However, even in his regular thunderan form Ranma was able to take hits that would be concerning on his human form.
Herb quickly discovered that Ranma was not content to remain on the defensive. For every punch or kick she gave him he returned with one of his own. Ranma also hit far harder in his thunderan form compared to his human form without considering the boost his senshi form brought. It also became obvious to Ranma that Herb had not trained herself in the differences her female form had over her male form. That was a mistake Ranma had made at one point and he was glad to be on the opposite side for once.
A side glance allowed Ranma to see how Blaze and Adam were doing in their fights. Blaze was holding her own against Mint while Adam was clearly on the losing end of the fight against Lime. For a second Ranma thought about summoning the symbol of the Thundercats into the sky to recharge and heal his allies. Doing so would bring Adam back into top form and could probably bring Axel back into the fight as well. The problem was that he was in a brawl in the middle of downtown Nerima and summoning the symbol of the Thundercats was naturally very attention grabbing. The basic plan as Ranma saw it was to knock the Musk out, unlock Herb's curse, and drop the trio off appropriately drugged to the Chinese with as little fuss as possible. Launching a blimp sized glowing sign that let loose a roar anyone could hear for miles around did not work into that!
Herb decided that fighting inside the police station favored her opponent more than her. She flew down the hall with a snarl since Ranma was unintentionally blocking her from getting the Pail of Preservation. Then she crashed into the nearest window to get outside. Ranma quickly followed after Herb and jumped through the created hole. Herb saw Ranma land and snarled in rage. "How dare you continue to defy me! I am the descendent of dragons and kings!"
In his usual battle banter manner Ranma fired back, "And I'm the reincarnated lord of an entire world. Get over yourself princess and get back here!" Ranma extended his arm and had the claw tips of the Gauntlet of Omens fire. The claw tips flew toward Herb with their grabbling cables trailing behind them.
The Musk princess was able to dodge the attack by speeding away from Ranma to the right. Within a couple of seconds, she had her back to the Police station and was facing Ranma. She then powered up a chi attack and fired it at point blank range towards Ranma. The blast shoved Ranma through the wall of a nearby office building and exploded. The three-story building was blown to pieces shocking and terrifying those in nearby buildings.
It took Ranma a moment to get his bearings and then another short bit of time to dig his way out of the rubble. The first thing he saw as his head got uncovered shocked him to the core. Just a couple of feet away from him was a man impaled to death with a steel reinforcement beam. Nearby was a desk with several pictures showing the man with a wife and two small children.
Something within Ranma snapped when he saw the photos of those two children who had just lost their father. This man had just been going about his life being a salary man to look after his family and he got killed why? Because some jerk with an ego problem decided to throw down in the middle of the city without any regard for the consequences of his actions. Ranma stood up, walked over to the man, and gently closed the dead man's eyelids.
He looked at the photos and muttered, "I swear your father shall be avenged." Ranma grabbed the hilt of the Sword of Omens and drew his blade for its first action outside of training in 100,000 years. The Sword of Omens grew at Ranma's mental command to the length of a longsword. He then walked out of the building through the hole in the wall he and Herb had created.
The brief time it took for Ranma to dig himself out of the rubble had seen a decisive shift in the fight between the police and the Musk. Herb had double teamed Adam with Lime and Ranma got to watch as Herb caused the officer to collapse with a vicious double fisted strike to the base of the neck that caused an audible crack. Adam would be lucky if it was just the shoulder bone that was broken from that blow. Herb and Lime then turned their attention to Blaze and her fight with Mint unaware of Ranma's presence. The battle lust and rage they were radiating in their auras made their intentions crystal clear. Even those who were somehow unable to sense the utterly massive auras would have gotten a clue as Herb raise her foot to stomp on Adam's head.
Training that Ranma had wished would never be needed for this purpose kicked in. He silently raised the Sword of Omens and rushed at Herb. Before the princess or her retainers could spot Ranma he brought his blade in a clean cut from where Herb's neck and her shoulders met. The Sword of Omens bit into the princess a full blade-with cutting through flesh and bone like a hot knife through butter. Ranma continued to use the musk's surprise against them by twisting the Sword of Omens so that the blade tip was pointed at Lime and shouting "Ho!"
As per the ancient command, the blade of the Sword of Omens was wreathed in blue electrical looking magical energy. Less than a second later a blast of magical energy shot from the Sword of Omens like a lightning bolt towards Lime. The attack killed Lime in an instant leaving a charred and unrecognizable corpse. Herb also caught part of the energy attack, but all it did was further mangle her corpse.
Mint stared at the scene in horror and cried out in anguish. "No! My lord, Lime how could such a thing happen?" He had forgotten about his fight with Blaze, but Blaze did not forget. She quickly wrapped her arm around Mint's throat and got him into a submission hold. Mint tried to get free, but by the time he realized his situation he was already too weak to break free.
Once the surviving musk was unconscious, the lone standing police officer quickly had him locked in reinforced cuffs. Blaze then got out a sedative needle that police in districts like Furinkan were issued and drugged Mint to keep him under. She quickly checked on Axel and Adam to see that they were alive and stable. Then she turned to look at Ranma and found him barely a yard or two away from dead Musks. Ranma was out of his senshi form on his knees and in the process of throwing up.
Mayor Miyagi and Soun entered one of the police stations that was in one of the outer districts of Nerima. Both men had tired looks on their faces although Soun's face was etched in more worry. A secretary of the station spotted the two and stood up to bow to the mayor. "Sir, it is an honor to have you here. However, now would not be the best time for a surprise inspection of the station. Most of our personnel are overseeing cleanup of the bombing incident this morning."
"I am well aware of that sir," Mayor Miyagi said in a firm tone. "I am here to speak to the witness that was detained by the other responding police officers."
The secretary looked confused. "Witness sir?"
Mayor Miyagi continued. "Yes witness. I have a report from one of the officers assigned to the attacked station that the individual you have in custody jumped in to defend the downed officers and fought against the perpetrators of this attack. By the way, has the witness been given some hot water?"
"No sir."
The mayor's frown increased by a fraction. He then continued. "Did the witness request hot water?"
The secretary shook his head. "No sir. In fact, the witness seems to be in a state of shock. We haven't been able to get him to say anything. At least he responses when we ask him to move. Our officers really don't want to try and restrain him given his physique."
Mayor Miyagi firmly said, "Get me a cup of hot water and then lead us to the witness." The secretary got the water as directed and then led the two men to the holding cell that the witness had been stashed in. They came to the cell and saw Ranma in his thunderan form sitting on the cot in the cell with a thousand-yard stare on his face. Ranma did not turn to face the trio as they entered and just kept blankly looking at the wall. Mayor Miyagi waited a moment to see if Ranma would react and then handed the cup of hot water to Soun. Then the mayor had the secretary unlock the cell.
Soun entered the cell and threw the hot water onto Ranma triggering his transformation and shocking the secretary. Ranma shook his now human head and looked around, "What the? Mr. Tendo? Why am I? Where am I? Just what happened?" Then his face started to freeze as he remembered the battle. "Oh no, what have I done?"
In a firm, almost fatherly tone, the mayor spoke. "What you did young Ranma Saotome is fight to defend the citizens of Nerima and to help protect a police officer." The mayor turned to shocked secretary who had already been on the edge given Ranma's previous looks and said, "This bureaucratic mix-up has gone on long enough. This cell is a place for criminals who are out to harm society. It is not a place for young teens who have been fighting to protect people from the underbelly of society. Lead all of us to the lounge and then leave us to help out this unfortunate young man. I believe there is some corrections that need to be made to the initial paperwork on the disaster today."
The secretary nodded his head trying not to go running in shock over what he had scene. He wasn't a native to Nerima and actually lived in a neighboring ward. Until today he had thought that those tall tales about the ward were just urban legends. The secretary dumbly led everyone with Soun helping to hold Ranma steady as the boy walked."
Once they were in the lounge, the secretary left to correct the paperwork and to find what little sanity remained in the world. Mayor Miyagi sat down in a chair opposite of the couch Ranma and Soun were sitting on. He then gave an apologetic bow to Ranma before speaking. "I am truly sorry for what has happened today Ranma Saotome. Things have not gone well for you today and it has all been at the city's behalf for which I cannot apologize enough or make amends for the situation you have been forced into."
"Even now, I cannot do things properly by having your father here to help you through this time. We need him to keep an eye on the musk prisoner so there are no more escape attempts. I hope that having Mr. Tendo here will suffice until you make it home given his close connection to your family?"
Ranma's body was trembling as he nodded his head. Soun reached out, grabbed the teen's hand in his, and gave it a firm reassuring squeeze. Ranma's thoughts were a jumble and he had trouble focusing to find his words. He then started to stutter saying, "Home? I'm going to the dojo? Why not the cell? I, after I, oh god."
Mayor Miyagi spoke. "Ranma, I need you to look at me and listen to what I am about to say. You are not going back into a cell. You have not done something wrong. Your actions with regards to those two musks was regrettable, undesirable, and unfortunately necessary. 5 people were killed because of Herb's chi attack and almost a dozen citizens are in the hospital with serious injuries. We also have a recording from a camera in the police station that clearly shows that Herb was about to kill Officer Hunter before you stopped her. The stomp she was preparing would have split his head like a melon. Your actions stopped his wife, daughter, and younger brother from having to mourn his passing."
A flash of red-hot anger burned in Ranma's chest at these words and he practically growled out. "So what? Because Herb and that other dude were bad guys what I did is okay?"
"Not okay young man, what you did was not and will never be simply okay as you put it." Mayor Miyagi shuttered as long buried memories from his young resurfaced. He then continued. "Killing a fellow human being is never a good act, but sometimes it is not an evil act depending on the circumstances. In time the burden of your actions will be easier to bare. Hopefully the burden never entirely goes away. If it does then that is time for you to worry."
The mayor turned to Soun and said, "I would love to stay here and help young Saotome out with his situation. However, there is a mountain of paperwork I need to fill out and file so that everything fit for a tabloid in this incident can get misfiled. Hopefully, you can find someone to help him through this time. Learning how to cope will be a difficult challenge for young Ranma Saotome. It's hard enough for soldiers who are older and have been trained to prepare for such situations."
Soun nodded his head and then proceeded to lead Ranma out of the police station. They emerged into the light of the early evening sky with a long walk back to the dojo ahead of them. Many people would have taken a cab given the distance. However, Soun hoped that the walk and seeing normal activities would help Ranma process what had happened. It would also give Soun some time to think about what he could do to help the young man out.
The situation with the Musk was not something that Soun had experience and was something he was personally grateful for having no experience in. He had killed several nasty creatures in some of his darker misadventures. However, he and Genma had never been put in a position where they had to kill another thinking person. This was supposed to have been a simple fetch mission for Ranma. At the worse Soun figured Ranma would have had to deal with getting the pot from a monkey or maybe have Officer Fielding talk down someone was angry at the duo for poking around their land.
Part of Soun wanted to curse Ranma for running to help when he heard about the explosion at the police station. He was a teen and something like that was for the adults to handle. If only Ranma had given the pot away and stayed home he wouldn't be in this situation. That was completely unfair to Ranma so Soun made sure to keep such thoughts firmly locked away. Ranma was a helpful young man who would naturally offer help when needed. Things just spiraled out of control until drastic action had to be taken.
Who could help Ranma deal with the deaths he caused and could in turn deal with the craziness that came with the Saotomes? Having the help need help themselves wouldn't do Ranma any favors. The problem for Soun was that none of his contacts that could handle the craziness had any experience in dealing with these matters. The martial art masters of Nerima made it a point to never let things get that far out of control or serious in their fights.
These thoughts went round and round in Soun's head until the duo passed by Furinkan High. Then the thought hit him. There was someone he knew that could handle the craziness and speak to Ranma about this matter. Soun made up his mind to make a call when they got back home.