AN: Quite enjoying this whole writing schtick. Hope you're all enjoying reading what I'm doing!

Ryoga, Tristainian Academy of Magic, Halkeginia.

The day had faded into night, and Ryoga was sat outside looking up at the sky as it darkened. When Louise left he had decided to leave the scary girl to her own devices and stay outside in the sunlight. After all, the servants seemed quite happy to keep bringing him food and tea, and he wasn't going to argue with that. It also gave him some time to think about what had happened over the last day.

A spar, a kiss, another, much less satisfying, spar and a bond with short, angry, explosive-magic wielding girl. Ryoga shook his head to think of it. And she expected him to somehow help her with her magic, as if he knew anything more than how to badly read the instructions on magical artefacts. Still, he'd given it some thought, if just to pass the time between the servants bringing out another tray of food.

He could try to teach her martial arts, and teach her to control her ki that way. Then again, both he and Ranma had to train for years before they could do much more than bodily reinforcement, and they had started a lot younger. So that was out. They would have to find another way.

Ryoga continued to think it over as the moon and stars shone above his head, and he idly studied them, trying to place the familiar constellations onto the glimmering darkness stretching out above him. If he couldn't teach her martial arts then he'd have to somehow teach her magic, without knowing any himself, and that seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Maybe meditation will be good, Ryoga thought, his eyes tracking through the sky above him. Something felt wrong as he stared at the sky, a nagging sensation that something wasn't right as he stared at the moonrise on the horizon. His eyes slid up to the moon above him, and then back down to the moon on the horizon. Then up, then down. His eyebrows furrowed, and he picked up the glass he'd been drinking from, sniffing it cautiously. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Ryoga blinked up at the sky again. Two moons. This isn't going to end well, thought the lost boy, now more lost than he had ever been before. This isn't going to end well at all.

Quite a few more drinks later, and Ryoga was a lot happier about the presence of two moons in the sky. He'd decided he should probably go to bed when the servants stopped appearing, and was now stumbling around the castle trying to find a suitable place to sleep. He frowned up at the symbols carved onto the door he was stood in front of, wobbling slightly as the alcohol took it's toll out of his balance.

He decided that he couldn't face another set of corridors, having avoided every set of stairs he'd seen, and that whatever was behind this door would do. Ryoga tried the handle and felt some resistance before it gave way with a metallic snap, the door swinging open in front of him. The blackness beyond loomed before him, and he staggered into the room, caught his shin on something and fell into what felt like a bed of straw. This'll do, he thought as the drink finally dragged him into unconsciousness.

A combination of things drew Ryoga from his sleep. There was sunlight streaming through a window onto his face, a length of straw tickling his nose and an ominous growling noise coming from above him. Ryoga opened his eyes slowly, his body struggling against the after effects of the alcohol, and saw a fuzzy face surrounded by pink hair above him. This appeared to be the source of the growling noise, and Ryoga, even as hung over and sleepy as he was, knew what was coming.

"Stupid familiar!" The voice shrieked in an armour piercing pitch, and the words were quickly followed by an explosion, throwing Ryoga from his impromptu bed and into the wall. The events of last night staggered through a parade of recollection, and Ryoga attempted to pull himself into some form of readiness for what would surely be a bad day. After being woken like that it could hardly be anything else, thought Ryoga sadly.

"You were not there for me to give proper instruction last night, you did not wake me as a familiar should, you..." Ryoga tuned out the voice of his unwanted, and apparently very unhappy, master, rolling his head around to work the kinks out of his neck, and looked around idly as Louise's rant increased in both volume and pitch.

He found himself to be in the same room as where he had woken up the previous day. It was clearly Louise's room, and Ryoga considered that he was apparently several floors up with no memory of climbing stairs.

Ryoga let the thoughts go with a shrug as Louise wound down – he was getting used to never knowing where he was on any given day, there was no reason to worry about it now. The pink-haired girl had stopped ranting, and was now staring at him with an expectant look on his face. The ki-bond echoed the same feeling to him, and Ryoga shrugged once before gingerly trying a response.

"Sorry."

The girl looked as though she was going to start up again, but drew herself up with a deep breath.

"Very well. Follow me." The arctic tone of her voice could have chilled a desert, and she turned on her heel to walk out of the door. Ryoga followed her, trying not to wander off, as she led him down several flights of stairs, finally stopping outside a heavy wooden door.

"They don't normally allow familiars into lessons, but as you so kindly offered to help me with my magic yesterday I'm taking you in anyway." The short girl turned to him as she spoke, her tone measurably warmer than it had been. Ryoga remembered the conversation yesterday entirely differently, but he had learned something from watching Saotome stuff his foot in his mouth, and kept quiet. After all, while the explosions didn't exactly hurt, they weren't fun.

She eyed him carefully, before nodding and walking into the classroom. Ryoga dutifully trailed her in, evaluating the room and the people within it instinctively as he followed her to a set of benches at the rear of the room.

The teacher seemed to be new to all the students, starting by introducing himself as 'Marcus of the Gale', and immediately diving into a torrent of words, of which Ryoga comprehended most, but understood very little. He let his gaze drift around the semi-circular room, noting that most of the people sitting there seemed just as lost as him, adrift on a sea of polysyllabic words. A few people were still keeping up, Ryoga's new master among them.

This confused Ryoga slightly – from his experience while book learning wasn't necessary to being an incompetent user of magic, having it tended to mean you had the skills as well. Ryoga shifted on the bench, casting his gaze back over the room and ignoring the frantic note-taking happening on Louise's desk. The flow of words from the front showed no sign of slowing, and some of the students had given up even the pretence of listening.

The red-headed girl from yesterday was sat next to a short blue-haired girl reading a book, and seemed to be happily talking to the smaller girl, undaunted by the lack of any measurable response that Ryoga could see. The blonde fop from yesterday was lounging on a seat a few rows away, and seemed to have overcome the distress Ryoga had caused him as he was happily chatting up some new girl.

There was a sudden silence as the teacher's torrent of words finally came to a halt, with only the scratching of Louise's pen to dull the emptiness. The enthusiastic man stood expectantly at the front of the room, clearly waiting for a response to the end of his monologue.

He wasn't going to get one, Ryoga knew as he stared at the thin man as his expression started to become annoyed at the lack of response. Louise's pen finally came to a halt, and Ryoga glanced at her to see her looking round nervously at her classmates. Suddenly, the man gave a huff, and pointed at Louise, prompting her shoulders to tighten as the class followed the finger to stare at her.

"You were writing things down, were you not?" Marcus had apparently become tired of waiting for a response which was unlikely to come, and decided to seek out an answer. Louise nodded hesitantly, placing her pen back on her desk.

"Well, what is your answer? Which element is the most powerful?" The repetition of the question seemed to make the students relax, and the tension seemed to drain out of the room. There was a brief pause, as Louise marshalled her thoughts, however she was interrupted with a shout from one of the lower rows.

"Bah, it's not like the Zero would know anything about magic – it's not like explosions are an element!" The comment drew laughs from the hall, and the student carried on. "Besides, it's Earth, obviously!"

This was sufficient to start the entire room talking, each mage extolling the virtues of their own element to any who would listen, and loudly demeaning every other element to any who would listen. Ryoga sat there for a moment, noting the impotent rage on Louise's face and the same feeling tingling over their link. He'd have to get rid of the bond somehow, but right now his own anger was being tapped into, and Ryoga decided to let some of it out.

The teacher was shouting at the class, trying to settle the unforeseen argument down, when Ryoga stood, and briefly flexed his arms. Louise started turning to look at him, possibly even feeling a little of his intent through their link, when he lifted the long desk in front of them, and unceremoniously dropped it again.

He didn't lift it very far, a couple of inches at most, however the desk was large enough for ten people to sit at and made of thick, heavy wood. The crash it made when it landed was more than enough to silence the arguing adolescents, who all broke off to stare at the heavily built boy in shock.

"I think he was asking Louise, don't you?" Ryoga was somewhat pleased with the result of his action, with most of the class sitting down in stunned silence. The one boy who looked like me might argue was pulled down by Guiche, who whispered in his ear at length while waving his index finger.

Having made his point, Ryoga sat back down, noting that the link had stopped feeling angry. He nodded to Louise, and settled down to worry about his emotions being twisted quite so easily by the bond. The teacher seemed to be just as stunned as the students, though he dealt with it quicker, snapping out of it enough to gesture at the pink-haired girl to continue.

Having Ryoga interrupt the shouting match on her behalf seemed to have given Louise some courage, however she still cleared her throat self-consciously before answering.

"Well... most of the elements have counters." She stopped and ran her tongue across her lips nervously before continuing with more confidence. "So, the only one without that is the void. But no-one has that element. So none of them are more powerful by themselves, it's what you do with them."

Ryoga shrugged mentally as he heard the explanation. After all, his breaking point training was earth, and had been cancelled out by Ranma's adaptation of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, which was fire. The teacher seemed to be happy with the response, grinning at the girl as she finished her response.

"Exactly!" He started to pace at the front of the room as he expanded on Louise's answer. "I am a wind mage, so logically I should be weak to earth spells, as they should not be susceptible to being blown away. However!" He flourished his arm as he spoke, and a stone paving slab glided gently from the floor onto the front bench.

Marcus waited till the block had settled onto the table, then gestured at it as he continued.

"If you will observe the block, you will see that it is a full foot in width. A gale, if you'll pardon the pun, could batter at it for years and not get anywhere. But if I do this..."

He trailed away, then chopped his hand in a diagonal sweep towards the block. A thin wave of silver slid out from his hand, moving almost too quickly for even Ryoga to catch it's movement. The block trembled as the thin line of light hit it, then lay still. The teacher took a step towards it, then nudged it with his index finger. The top half of the block slid away, landing on the stone floor with a sizeable slam.

"You see?"

The class seemed to be as stunned as they had been when Ryoga had dropped the desk, and the teacher smiled as he ran his gaze over the room. Ryoga himself was more than interested – he'd heard that Ranma had a similar technique, though he never used it in their spars. He'd claimed it was sealed for a reason, and Ryoga had to admit, if only in his head, that even his toughened constitution might have issues with an attack like that.

Letting the demonstration sink in, the teacher moved around to the front of his desk, and perched himself on it. He watched the students as they came out from their awestruck silence, and then spoke up again.

"Now then, who isn't already a wind mage, and would like to learn a wind spell? It won't be as effective as that one, mind you!"

Most of the class sat up at this as learning new spells, while difficult, was always good. Marcus swept the room with his gaze, before settling back on Louise, who was currently deciding whether or not to be angry with Ryoga for bringing her back to the spotlight.

"Ah, I think the person who gave the answer should get the first go. It was Louise, wasn't it?" Louise nodded, and got up, her face forming into a cast of determination. The air in the room had become thick with tension again, and a lot of the students were opening their mouths as if to complain, before looking nervously at Ryoga and shutting them again.

As Louise neared the desk one of the students, Ryoga noted absently that it was Kirche, finally found the nerve to speak up.

"Ah, professor... you might wish to choose someone else. She's known as the Zero for a reason, after all..."

The teacher waved aside the red-headed girls complaints, and beckoned Louise closer. Ryoga leaned forward, intent on watching what happened. After all, she said her magic didn't work, she could blow him up at will, and she had decided that he would fix this. Therefore in the interests of not being blown up at random intervals till they got rid of the link, Ryoga would pay attention.

His actions seemed to mark him as the odd one out, as every other student in the room was trying to get as far away from the front of the room as possible. One boy at the back had opened a window, and was in the process of smuggling himself out. Ryoga ignored them. After all, he'd been at the centre of one of Louise's detonations, he'd be fine.

As Ryoga looked back at the front of the room, he noted that Louise's expression was a lot more determined than he'd seen before. He settled in to watch, peering at the auras of both teacher and student, and saw Louise mirror the actions shown to her by Marcus perfectly.

"Well." Ryoga's voice was still a bit shaky, even after several hours, however the awe came through without any problem. "That was the biggest explosion I've seen since the whole business with Saffron. And he was a demi-god!"

Louise was sat on a bench next to the shell-shocked lost boy, her shoulders slumped as they stared at the hole in the side of the building. Ordinarily Ryoga's unfiltered words would have sparked rage in the small girl, however the damage she had inflicted was muting her feelings somewhat.

Classes had been cancelled for the day while builders and mages were brought in to assess if the destruction Louise had caused could affect the whole building. The water mages called to look at Marcus the Gale had delivered their report after three hours of emergency stabilisation, saying he was likely to survive, even if it was unlikely that he would ever use his left arm again.

The remainder of the students had been far enough away from ground zero to escape harm, though most of them now refused to be in a room with Louise when she was holding her wand. The two of them had moved outside after the evening meal, Louise finding a bench where she could stare at the destruction she had wrought. Still, mused Ryoga, something good came out of this. He cleared his throat, then nudged Louise when she failed to look at him.

Her eyes shifted over to him, her face settled into a withdrawn mask.

"I think I might know what your problem is." Ryoga's words didn't spark the girl's face to unfreeze, so he continued. "When I was watching Marcus do the spell, I could sort of see his aura shift with what he was doing, but not clearly. When you did it, there was something else. It wasn't ki, but it felt... well, heavy."

Ryoga waited for a response, and the young girl just turned back to the hole in the wall, her face still emotionless.

"What's the point?"

Ryoga winced at the tone. If she had any control over her ki she'd be getting toward a perfect shi shi hokodan at this point.

"They're going to send me home. Can't even manage a basic wind spell, destroyed a classroom even trying to make one work. Mother's going to kill me."

They'd sat there for long enough now that the night had drawn in, the only light provided through the windows of the building, with some shining through the new hole in the wall Louise had created. Ryoga wasn't sure what to do at this point - depression powered his stronger attacks, so he'd never put any stock in finding ways to stop being upset.

"Ah... It'll be okay?" Ryoga tried, putting his hand gingerly on her shoulder. "I'm sure blowing things up isn't that uncommon..." His attempts at reassuring her seemed to reach a roadblock, as she snapped her head around to glare at him and he hastily withdrew his hand.

"Uncommon? Uncommon!?" Louise's voice had dropped into the terrifying register again, and Ryoga shifted away as the pressure he'd felt yesterday pushed back down on him. The pink-haired girl had her wand out again, her knuckles white around the handle as she glared at him. "Not one mention, in any of the books I've read, of anybody making things explode like I do. Not one mention."

Both of them were standing now, Ryoga backing away from Louise's angry advance. He was contemplating the outright theft of Ranma's idiotic "Final Technique" when her eyes flicked to something both above and behind him, and she paused with her face still locked in anger.

"And what the hell is that!?"

Ryoga spun, wondering if this was some new trick to catch him with an explosion, and his eyes widened as he looked up. And up. And then up some more. Finally he saw a human figure, perched at the shoulder of a six storey golem.

"Huh." Ryoga was hard pressed to form any more coherent thought, somewhat shaken by the being of rock and stone which would have dwarfed even Pantyhose Taro in his cursed form. Louise seemed less fazed by the sudden appearance of the ridiculously tall construct, and appeared at his side, shouting up toward the figure riding it.

"Who are you?!"

At this distance Ryoga would have been hard pressed to tell if it was a boy or a girl, even if he didn't normally have problems telling, however the voice which floated back down to them was clearly feminine.

"Oh, I didn't see you there. Having a lover's stroll, hmm?" There was an edge of laughter in the voice, and the golem paused to allow the rider to lean over to look at them.

Louise seemed to take the accusation badly, and drew herself up to respond. However, the rider didn't give her the opportunity, letting the golem carry on walking as she shouted down to the duo.

"Doesn't matter to me, but I have places to be, things to steal. You can tell your grandchildren you were lucky enough to speak to Fouquet of the Crumbling Dirt – Master Thief!"

Both Ryoga and Louise watched the golem move away, Ryoga still shocked at how quietly it was moving for something so impossibly large. As it closed on the main Academy tower, Louise snapped out of her daze and turned to Ryoga.

"She's trying to steal from the Academy, we have to stop her!"

Ryoga kept watching the golem as it walked away, then rolled his shoulders to loosen the joints. The Valkyrie golems that Guiche had summoned hadn't been a patch on this, he thought with a tinge of expectation. He nodded in response to Louise, his gaze still fixed on the golem, seeking out it's breaking points. Ryoga doubted it would be quite that easy, but it would make a nice intro to the fight.

Ryoga's face broke out into a grin, and he set off into a run toward the golem, which had paused outside the main building in preparation for Fouquet's next move. As he moved off he shouted back to Louise.

"Keep up, this is gonna be great!"

Ranma, Pandemonium Fortress, Hell.

"How curious..."

The old man was really starting to annoy Ranma now. He'd been spouting similar words ever since he'd seen the young martial artist, and seemed happy to go on long winding tangents about the situation at the slightest provocation. All Ranma really wanted was to get back to Nerima. He was even starting to miss Akane's cooking.

The other figure had kept quiet, but he still ranked as something entirely weird in Ranma's books. Then again, if Ranma thought about it he would have decided that this Tyrael was something weird in anyone's books. For starters, he had wings. And not wings of flesh or feathers, these were wings of ethereal light, emanating out from the figure's shoulder blades and stretching out a long way from Tyrael's body.

He was wearing golden armour, engraved with symbols, and heavy metal shoulder plates that flared upwards in imitation of his wings. His face was obscured, held in deep shadow by the white hood which covered his head. His aura was odd as well. Ranma's was mostly confidence, however other emotions spilled in as and when he felt them. It was part of being human, after all, but this Tyrael seemed to have only a single thing running throughout his being. Ranma couldn't define it, but it seemed to be right, or more precisely, telling right from wrong.

And then there was the last thing. Even with everything else, this was what took Ranma's breath away. Tyrael was floating. Not flying, like a bird, or even like Herb of the Musk, but truly floating, hanging motionless in the air.

Beside him, the old man was simply that – an old man. He wore a dark robe, and carried an old wooden staff, which he leant on for support. He was bald, though his beard was long and white, and his face was wrinkled with age. He called himself Deckard Cain, and the woman Ranma had come in with had shown great respect for him. He seemed to have no great power of his own to Ranma's eyes, but the martial artist had learnt that power could be, and had been, beaten by skill and knowledge. He was living proof of it, after all – Saffron had wielded power greater than anything the Saotome heir could command, and Ranma had still won the fight.

"So, what are we gonna do?" Ranma had become impatient with the meaningless comments being thrown his way, and decided to speak up.

"You say you did not willingly arrive here, mortal?" Tyrael's voice echoed with itself, his deep tones ringing into the world.

"No, I didn't. I'd blame Ryoga, but I doubt he's actually been to Hell." Ranma's response was terse. Though he didn't like to show it, him and Ryoga had been getting along recently. If the pig-boy was stuck somewhere in Hell he might be in real trouble.

Cain stroked his beard as he considered the dark-haired boy's response.

"Perhaps with Diablo's return to Hell, the barriers between worlds are weakening? Could that be the case, Tyrael?"

"No. The worldstone yet stands at Mount Arreat – I would have felt it's fall. I believe this may not be the work of the Lords of Hell. Still, they are entwined in this, for I cannot help while Diablo still walks Hell."

Ranma shook his head in resignation. Things were never simple, he reflected. There was always something that had to be done before anyone could help him.

The woman he had come in with stepped forward, gaining the attention of both Cain and Tyrael as she did.

"Then our goals align." She turned to Ranma with a grim smile. "I and my companions seek to kill Diablo, and end the Lord of Terror's reign over Hell. If you were capable of surviving the Plains of Despair, unarmed and unarmoured, then we would welcome you alongside us, brother." She reached her arm out to him, awaiting his response.

Ranma considered his options for a moment, then decided to roll with it. After all, if they fought these things they might have some tricks he could use, and it wasn't as if sitting here was going to get him home any faster. He reached out his hand, and clasped it around her forearm as the woman did the same to him.

"Then it is decided. Ranma Saotome, you shall join with our champions to battle Diablo, the Lord of Terror." With this said, Tyrael returned to silence, his armoured form barely moving. Deckard Cain turned to the pair, and nodded at Ranma.

"You should get some weapons, and armour. The fiends of Hell do not treat flesh well. I will examine the Horadric archives, and see if I may find anything that will assist Tyrael in sending you home again." Cain turned away, and moved towards a section of the fortress, leaning heavily on his staff as he walked.

The dark-haired martial artist turned to the only person left as she sized him up, then furrowed his brow.

"I don't think you've actually told me your name yet?"

"My name is Meldea. Well met, brother." She gestured towards the front of the keep, and they started walking. "There are three others that fight alongside me. They will be in the armoury, so we can outfit you at the same time as we introduce you."