Ryoga, Tristainian Academy of Magic, Halkeginia
The golem's strides were long, and even with Ryoga running towards it at a decent pace it reached the Academy tower long before he reached it. Louise had fallen behind, unable to keep up with Ryoga, but he thought it might be better that way – after all, the breaking point technique had a tendency to throw shards of rock and stone everywhere when used.
The woman standing on top of the golem had spread her arms, and looked to be making gestures with both hands towards the wall of the tower. The night was still quiet, with no-one except Ryoga and Louise seeming to notice the huge golem standing in the middle of the Academy. Ryoga would have thought more about this, however he finally reached the golem, and flung himself up to it's leg, finger seeking out a breaking point on it's rocky hide.
"Bakusai Tenketsu!" Ryoga's shout caused a pause in Fouquet's casting, causing her to look down to the side of the golem as he struck. Ryoga's finger connected cleanly with his target, and he could feel the golem start to shatter as the rest of his body impacted on it's leg. He tensed against the surface, ready to let the exploding stone throw him back to the ground, only to be left hanging to the side of the unexploded golem as the spike of ki he'd forced into the stone faded away as the breaking point seemed to shift.
Ryoga hung there for a moment more, staring at the stone leg, before being knocked from his perch by a hand the size of a car. The unexpected impact curled Ryoga through the air, hurtling towards the wall of one of the buildings surrounding the tower. He had a moment to think about the failure of his technique before plowing straight into, and through, the outer wall and two inner walls before skidding along a floor and over a balcony.
Dropping two storeys wouldn't normally inconvenience the lost boy too much, but the impacts of the hand and walls temporarily stunned him, even with his hardened constitution and he simply allowed himself to lie on the ground for a moment.
He lay there in a daze, the noise of crumbling stone a light backdrop to the silence of the empty building. Suddenly, a voice rang out through the holes he'd carved into the building.
"Stop you thief!" Louise's voice rang out into the courtyard, distracting Fouquet from her renewed chanting.
"Run along, little girl." Fouquets voice rang down with a superior tone. "Your boyfriend's little earth technique was clever, if far too slow to affect my masterpiece. Anything you can pull out will fail just as badly!"
Louise won't take that well, thought Ryoga muzzily, his wits slowly coming back to him as he rolled over in preparation for getting up. True to his short experience with the girl, the reminder of her failures didn't go well.
"I am not a failure!" Louise's voice reverberated with anger again, and Ryoga's ki sense flared again with the heaviness she'd caused the evening before. Ryoga shook his head, attempting to clear the disorientation as he staggered upright. He glanced around, his head still spinning slightly, and groaned in panic. He didn't even slightly recognise this place, and he had no idea how to get out, let along back to Louise and the ridiculously large golem.
Fouquet was responding to Louise, but Ryoga tuned it out in favour of trying to decide how to get out. He pulled a wooden door open, finding it led to a broom closet, then span back around and tried another, to similar effect. How many brooms does one place need? Ryoga's thoughts were starting to lock into panic, and he heard Louise's voice raising in a chant for a spell.
Ryoga ran down a corridor leading away from his impromptu landing spot, hoping he would find some way of getting back to the fight, tearing the nearest door off it's hinges when it's lock resisted his pull, and found himself in a classroom. Ryoga growled in frustration and started to turn back around when the heavy feeling doubled and he heard Louise's voice raised in a final shout.
"FIREBALL!"
The explosion which followed was earsplitting, and Ryoga paused, trying to hear what the reaction to it from where he stood.
"Thanks for that." Fouquet's voice rang out again, and Ryoga snarled. Apparently Louise wasn't that good a shot.
"But I doubt letting you get a second shot will end that well. So I think I'd best be rid of you, little girl."
The intent in the words filled Ryoga with dread, and he looked around frantically, trying to find the path to Louise before Fouquet carried through with whatever her threat was. He looked desperately with his ki sense, trying to find the root of the heavy power that Louise wielded without success. Then, even as he began to panic again, he spotted the ki-bond stretching from him to Louise.
The thin link of ki lanced off through a wall, and Ryoga immediately followed it, smashing through the wall it led into and careening into the courtyard to see the golem standing above Louise's kneeling form. It began to raise it's foot, and Ryoga realised that he couldn't get there in time to stop it.
Thoughts flashed through his head in moments. He'd got lost here, tied to a girl he'd never met, been blown up, and now was about to watch someone die. Ryoga found his hands cupping instinctively, and he drew his emotions into his ki, projecting them into a green ball held in his hands.
The figure of the golem paused at the apex of it's stomp, and Ryoga pushed the ball forward, aiming for the leg as it began to move. He noted the runes glowing like a lamp on his left hand, hoping they would help rather than hurt the technique.
"Shi shi hokodan!" The ball of ki took most of the emotion with it, and even as it left Ryoga started to run forward toward Louise. The ball struck the golem and detonated, knocking the plummeting leg aside and forcing it to miss the recovering girl on the floor. Fouquet shouted in anger, and the golem started to raise the leg for a second attempt.
Ryoga wasn't inclined to give it the opportunity, and dashed up to Louise, grabbing her from the floor into his arms and jumping away as fast as he could. The golem's foot came down with another crash, missing the speeding martial artist cleanly as he fled into the shadow of a building. Ryoga paused and looked back, happy to see that Fouquet had decided against the chase. With his breaking point failing he'd have to think up something on the fly, and that would make protecting Louise much trickier.
The Academy hadn't been idle either, as the explosion Louise had caused could have woken the dead. There were students and teachers alike rushing out of their sleeping buildings and pulling on clothes as they did. Fouquet clearly decided that the odds were starting to go against her, and the golem crunched over to a hole carved into the tower. She dropped into the hole for a moment, and then jumped back out, clutching a long package as she scaled back to the shoulder of her golem.
The golem itself wasn't still either, throwing itself into a run away from the damaged Academy as soon as it's creator was back aboard. A dragon plummeted from the sky in front of Ryoga's astonished eyes, the rider clearly casting a spell as ice bloomed on the golems shoulder. Still, it seemed to have as much effect as Ryoga's first technique and the golem extended a massive arm to swat the flying lizard from the sky. The dragon dodged gracefully, and conceded the pursuit as the golem extended into a full run, disappearing into the distance even as Ryoga watched.
A shuffling in his arms reminded him that he was still holding Louise, and he let her down gently. They stood watching the hole in the top of the Academy tower, and Ryoga turned to her with a smirk creeping onto his lips.
"That hole was you wasn't it?" The lost boy said as she turned a gaze that wavered between anger and worry onto him. "We need to work on your aim."
They'd retired back to Louise's room after being told they would need to talk to the headmaster in the morning. Ryoga had been somewhat reluctant to enter upon being told it was Louise's room, but did as he was told when her wand appeared in her hand again. He'd been pointed to a straw bed in the corner and considered arguing, but given it up as a bad job when Louise simply collapsed onto her bed, unconscious even before she hit the sheets.
The martial artist stared at her unmoving form long enough to deduce that she was still alive, then gently pushed her into the middle of the bed. That done, he settled onto the straw and began to consider what just happened. He wasn't as adept as Ranma for countering techniques, but he'd been a martial artist for long enough to be able to think his way round a problem.
Too slow. The thief had called the Breaking Point technique slow, and he'd felt the lines of ki shift within the construct after he'd struck with his attack. Ryoga grimaced, as he wasn't sure how to modify the technique to make it work faster, or even if that was possible. He moved on for now, aware that simply sitting and thinking wouldn't get him anywhere.
Ryoga's thoughts drifted to the other thing he'd learnt from today. The bond he shared with Louise could act as a kind of compass, giving him a reference point. It was a way out of the direction curse his family had laboured under, a way to finally not lose his way at any given moment.
Ryoga slumped even as he thought about it. The only thing he would need to do would be not break the bond, stay linked to a girl he'd never met and be trapped forever on a world that wasn't earth. With no Akari, no Akane... even no Ranma. Ryoga felt his familiar depression come back, and he shook his head slowly. Something to consider in the morning, he decided, and lay down to sleep.
The next morning brought more than a few stares to the odd pair as they sat eating in the main food hall of the Academy. Given that everyone had seen the giant golem, and people had heard that Louise had been summoned to see the headmaster, the rumour mill was working at full pace. Stories from Louise having summoned the golem to Louise cowardly letting the thief in and everything in between had run the student body.
Ryoga was taking the staring fairly well, throwing dirty glares at some of the students muttering the more insulting rumours. Louise was not taking it quite so well, ducking her head when she heard even the more praiseworthy rumours. The muttering ended when one of the teachers strode up to the pair, inviting Louise to follow her to the headmasters office.
As she stood she gestured for Ryoga to follow and he fell in at her shoulder, casting his gaze around the hall as he walked. He noted another teacher leading a blue-haired girl in the same direction as Louise, wondering why she looked familiar.
As they moved through the courtyard, Ryoga's memory was swiftly jogged by the sight of a dragon joining their group. He glanced from the girl to the giant reptile, and decided she must have been the dragon rider who had attacked the golem as they left. This set his paranoia off regarding the meeting they were being led to, as the rider hadn't spoken to the thief, only attacked her.
Ryoga kept his suspicions to himself as they walked into the headmaster's office, waiting behind Louise as they waited to be told why they were there. Ryoga used the time to look around the office, though most of his view was blocked by teachers. They wore similar clothes to Marcus the Gale, long robes in four deep colours, while the headmaster wore a robe of dark grey.
The room itself was quite well furnished, showing – in Ryoga's estimation – wealth without opulence. He'd found himself lost in more than a few places, and this seemed to be in the upper bracket for taste. The teachers seemed to be the same, most of them clearly showing signs of an easy life, though one or two seemed to keep in shape.
The room grew silent as a few last stragglers moved to fill gaps in the room, and once it had the headmaster spoke.
"We have determined which object the thief Fouquet stole. She has made off with the Staff of Destruction, a powerful and unique artefact."
The teachers burst into whispers at this, and the headmasters mouth twisted into a frown as they ceased to pay attention to him. Ryoga saw his hand move, his fingers clicking together, but was honestly surprised when they sounded like a gun going off by his ear. The sound shocked the group into silence, and the headmaster smiled when they returned his attention to him again.
"Now, as the thief stole this one item only it is clear she wishes to use it. Therefore, she shall stay near to the Academy, as there are no instructions outside of these buildings." The headmasters words seemed to worry the teachers, though they refrained from bursting into conversation as they had before.
The headmaster continued, resting his elbows on his desk and peering at the group over steepled fingers.
"Now, as the princess will be arriving in a few short weeks to oversee the Evaluation Ceremony, we will need to apprehend Fouquet before she attacks again. After all, the sheer damage she has caused to the buildings will take all of our efforts to repair as it is!"
Ryoga shuffled guiltily at this, dropping his gaze to the floor. He knew that the vast majority of the damage had been caused by either him or Louise, and had no wish for this to be outed in front of the authority of the school.
Staring down brought him to a confusing sight, however, as he saw a mouse scampering across the floor, pausing at the feet of several different people. As the mouse moved closer he noticed that it was stopping under the women, and seemed to be staring upwards each time. It took three more stops for him to realise the reason, at which point Ryoga decided it was clearly a fellow Jusenkyo sufferer, and a perverted one at that.
Having decided this, he noticed that it was getting dangerously close to Louise, and Ryoga realised he should put a stop to this. The mouse scuttled past his feet on it's quest, and then paused suddenly as it felt Ryoga's foot resting on top of it. The mouse sat there for a moment, then turned it's unrestrained head upwards to look at Ryoga, who shook his head at it. The mouse paused a moment longer, then made an oddly human nod, and Ryoga released it.
The mouse promptly moved back the way it came, skirting around the edges of the room, and Ryoga allowed himself to pay attention to what the headmaster was saying again. Unfortunately he came in at the end of a sentence, and the headmaster had clearly asked a question. Ryoga imagined it hadn't been aimed at him anyway, but the sense of determination echoing over the bond caused him to worry a little.
"I and my familiar will capture this thief, headmaster." Louise's voice seemed very loud to Ryoga, who felt a mixture of anticipation and worry. A second round with the giant golem would be a good fight, but he still wasn't sure what technique he could use to affect it. Maybe he'd have to start branching out again.
The room seemed to relax with the pronouncement, reinforcing Ryoga's evaluation of most of the teachers having an easy life. There were some flurries of movement as people turned their heads to stare at Louise, the main one coming from the short, odlly blue-haired, girl standing next to Louise. She raised her wand, and when the headmaster looked at her she said clearly,
"Flying." The word seemed to be all the headmaster needed to understand her meaning, and he nodded with a look of comprehension.
"Ah yes, Miss Tabitha's familiar will be most useful in searching for the golem, along with her having already attained the rank of Chevalier. However, I feel it best that a member of staff go along as well, in order to ensure the safety of our students." The headmaster's instruction raised the tension in the room again, none of the teachers wishing to go on the hunt for a six storey golem.
Suddenly the silence was broken with a stamp, and a lady who had been stood next to to the headmasters desk spoke up.
"I shall go with them. I have some skill in tracking, so I should be able to help find the thief." The woman appeared to have stamped to emphasise her point, however Ryoga had still been keeping his gaze on the floor, and noticed a shell-shocked mouse scurrying away from her shoes. The martial artist grinned at the destabilised mouse as it fled, and almost missed the woman's introduction.
"Indeed, this seems to be a good mix. Students, this is my secretary, Miss Longueville. The three of you should have no trouble capturing this wayward thief!" The headmaster seemed to consider the issue settled at this point, and gestured for the group in his office to leave.
As they did, Ryoga thought again as to what he could do to take out the golem. Too slow, the thief had said. Well, he'd think of something. Maybe if Louise could correct her aim, he mused.
Ranma, Pandemonium Fortress. Hell.
Ranma was feeling a little off balance as he walked into the armoury beside Meldea, but what he saw inside settled him back into his comfort zone. A woman dressed in leather armour, reinforced with metal in strategic locations, was dancing around a one-armed man swinging a battleaxe with wild abandon. Ranma saw Meldea shake her head out of the corner of his eye before settling in to watch the pair as they sparred.
The man was all power but he moved with experience, his swings seeming less and less manic as Ranma watched. There was a pattern, but it was missing parts, strikes that should have been followed up were left alone. Every time this happened the woman slid into the man's guard and dealt him a harsh strike to his unguarded side, drawing Ranma's eyes over to her.
Her actions were both easier and harder for Ranma to follow, easier as they were similar to the Art that Ranma practiced, and harder as he was forced to stamp down on the instinctive worry a trained female martial artist caused in him. After all, back in Nerima the usual reason for a new martial artist was either to challenge him or marry him, depending on the gender of the newcomer. Still, Ranma thought, the old panda can't possibly have been to Hell.
The spar was winding down as the newcomers to the armoury watched, and as the combatants stepped away from each other a third man stepped from the shadows near a wall to give an interested look at the man stood beside Meldea.
The one-armed man was the first to speak, his voice a deep rumble which fit his rough exterior perfectly.
"Finally given in and pulled in a mortal to satisfy your... needs, Meldea?"
The armoured woman replied with a blank stare, and the man let a smirk cross his features as he returned her gaze silently. The pause was filled by the woman who had been fighting, who cocked her head at Ranma as she spoke quietly.
"Karn's attempt to rile the Paladin aside, the question does bear answering. Who are you, boy?"
Ranma glanced at Meldea before he answered, wondering if she would take over, however he found her still meeting Karn's gaze levelly and paying no attention to him. With the only person he knew distracted, he answered as best he could.
"Er. Hi..." His response trailed off a little when the second man came to stand behind the woman, trailing what appeared to be a being made entirely of flame. He tore his gaze away from the firey creature, moving it back to the expectant eyes of his questioner and continued gamely.
"I'm Ranma Saotome, I got... well, lost. And turns out that Tyrael guy can only send me home when this Diablo you lot are chasing is gone. I ain't gonna just stand around being saved, so I'm gonna help you guys."
Both the woman and the man looked far too amused at the first part of his explanation for Ranma's liking, and his face twisted into a grimace when the man leaned forward with a grin on his face.
"You got lost, and ended up on the Plains of Despair? That takes a special kind of skill, indeed." His voice held a dark malice, and he started to chuckle until the woman elbowed him sharply, her strike finding it's way to an unarmoured spot on the man's abdomen and causing him to wince.
"Ignore Malik, he's been finding everything amusing since Karn lost his arm." The woman had been examining him while Ranma had been glaring at the laughing man, and she nodded slightly as she continued, "Tyrael must think you can help us then? What sort of fighting do you take to?"
Ranma nodded back at her, flexing his hands as he answered her question with a hint of pride.
"Hand to hand, martial arts."
Her eyes lit up a little with his answer, and Ranma's worry slid back into his mind, letting him guess what her next words would be.
"Really? Good, Karn's been terrible at sparring ever since he lost the arm. He can kill demons with the best of them, but all his skill was in fighting with two weapons. The name's Ashka - fancy a spar?" She had started to move towards the centre of the room even as she asked the question, and Ranma followed her lead.
"Sure, you looked pretty good when you were dodging the big guy's strikes." Ranma settled into his normal stance opposite her, noting how she was set up and trying to predict the hits based on what he'd seen of her before.
Even with him watching her closely Ranma still almost missed the attack, dodging her first strike at his head and parrying her follow-up blows with open handed slaps to throw her aim off. Ranma's mind was flitting through possibilities even as he retaliated, sweeping his leg round at floor level to throw off her next set of attacks.
She hopped nimbly over the kick, and Ranma could feel the ki flowing to her hands in preparation for her next attacks. Moving quickly he shifted round to her side, hammering in three strikes to her shoulder and bicep as the ki lit her hands up with a light glow for her rebuttal.
Her strikes had turned to rounded, swinging blows, designed to stop him parrying as he had earlier, and Ranma was forced to disengage, taking a hit to dodge the rest of the combination. The ki in the hand that struck him discharged, filtering into his aura, and Ranma backed up a little to try and sense what it was doing.
As he disengaged, he noted a smirk on Ashka's face, and then a shifting of her ki. She flickered out of sight for a moment, her ki replacing itself at his side, and he was forced to dodge a lightning fast kick with a inelegant lunge out of it's range. Ranma span back around, his eyes alight – the idea of a technique that allowed him to teleport sprouting ideas as fast as his mind could take them.
She was hardly idle, however, and she was back inside Ranma's comfort zone in an instant, swinging fists laden with the same ki as before. Ranma dodged and parried them, steering clear of the concentration of ki in the fists and forcing her strikes wider. With a yell he capitalised on one of the openings her wider swings caused, forcing his ki down his right arm and into his modified Amaguriken attack, striking with fifty punches in the blink of an eye.
The sheer force transferred by the hits knocked the woman back, though Ranma noted that she seemed otherwise unfazed by the strike.
"Nice shots." Ashka relaxed as she spoke, settling out of her stance. Ranma followed suit, noting that Meldea and Karn seemed to have ended their impromptu staring match, and Malik appeared to have lost interest in the fight.
"You should be able to fight alongside us, though you might need something with a bit more range, too." She looked Ranma over again, then gestured towards the armour-covered wall. "Lets get you something to stop your insides becoming your outsides, then I think we should be going. Can't let Diablo stew in his lair for too long, after all!"