New in Town
-Chiba Hiro
(Disclaimer: A Ranma ½ and Urusei Yatsura crossover. I do not own anything of Rumiko Takahashi's and not for promotion or copy right.)
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Chapter 6: Poisoned
Both sides collided amongst each other, and Ranma and his small army fought through it all. A few of high school's jocks ganged up on Ukyo and Akane, but they prevailed easily.
"Man, this is so easy!" Ranma stated, and they ran right through the crowd. "None a' these guys even match up to me!" Ranma boasted as he knocked another guy out.
"Ah, quit bragging, Ranma! You and I both know that you can't do this alone!" Akane remarked.
"That's what you think, you girl stealing bastard!" Mousse shouted from in front of them.
Ranma pushed his way to the middle of the fighting. "Alright, Mousse! Dragging all these people here just so you can have your stupid revenge is just plain idiotic! What, have you gone out of your mind already? Gotten desperate, eh?" Ranma taunted him.
"You are in no position to make teasing remarks, Ranma. As of now, you're completely outnumbered. What do you think you can accomplish with your small army, huh?" Mousse stated with a smirk. "Ha, you can't do anything, huh? I have to admit that my scheme is working a little off from what I planned it to be, but this is better." Mousse bragged.
"If this is your idea of a joke, then I'm not laughing!" Ranma shouted. "Ganging up on me is one thing, but gathering everyone in the school and the town is where you crossed the line!"
"Admit it, Ranma! You'll be far weaker than that soon enough!" Mousse taunted.
"I'm not tired yet! Bring it on, duck boy! Fight me like a man, instead of hiding behind these people!" Ranma challenged, but Mousse shrugged.
"I'm the leader, Ranma. In battle, the leader always fights each other last, and until you break through my lines of offense and defense, you are sadly out of the league." Mousse said.
"What is that supposed to mean? I'm stronger than you, and now I got you! There's nowhere else to go! You're in my way now, and there's no one to stop me." Ranma said.
"That's what you think!" Mousse exclaimed. "You're better off facing my allies first!" Mousse snapped his finger, and a crowd of people in white gathered in front of him to face off against Ranma.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Ranma shouted in frustration, and rammed through the crowd. "Ha, that was too easy!" Ranma bragged, but doubled over in pain. "What the...hell! What just happened?" Ranma shouted in pain.
"Oh, so you finally succumbed to the effects of the poison I had inflicted on you! That makes it a sure win for us!" Mousse explained.
"When did that happen? I didn't even see you do anything!" Ranma shouted.
"Oh, I am the master of hidden weaponry and a master always supplies his disciples with the necessary equipment they need for battle. I invented a poison garment for everyone here that's wearing white! That means, everyone you touch with a white garment, you instantly get sprayed with its poison! Even the thing I'm wearing will make you even more poisoned!" Mousse explained.
"Hey, stupid, just about everyone in the town army is wearing white! If we're not all lucky, Shampoo or anyone else could be poisoned by it!" Ranma shouted.
"I realized that, but I saved the surprise for last. Everyone in the front lines is not wearing poisoned dipped garments, only the ones closest to me are the poisoned ones!" Mousse laughed maniacally. "As the poison continues to spread, your whole body will shudder, and you'll be dead by the end of the fight!"
"You're a dirty cheater!" Ranma accused and fell to his knee.
"When you make me mad, Saotome, this is the punishment you deserve! I meant what I said earlier. You've been nothing but a thorn at my side, and now that you're on your knees in front of me, I see now that my revenge has been fulfilled. In other words, I won without having to fight you myself. Have a nice eternity in HELL!" Mousse said and disappeared.
"Why that bastard!" Ranma cursed.
Ryuunosuke brushed past a few boys who that had ganged up on her, then ran to Ranma's aide. "Are you okay?" Ryuunosuke asked.
Ranma got up weakly, and gave Ryuunosuke a faint grin. "Yeah, I'm okay."
"We gotta finish this fight fast! Any minute now, the fight will be finished, and we're surely gonna lose."
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Ryoga and Kuno ran through the fighting crowds in search of Mousse. "Where is that bastard? I gotta pay him back after all the things he's done to me!" Ryoga declared.
"I will too!" Kuno added, and they managed to catch up to Mousse who was standing quietly, watching the battle rage on.
"Mousse, why aren't you getting in there?" Ryoga asked.
"It makes sense on why I'm not fighting. It's because I don't like to fight girls." Mousse said.
"Yeah that's true." Ryoga agreed.
"If you eliminate the biggest target in the opponent's army, then the entire thing will come crashing down. Right now, Ranma's having the toughest fight of his life." Mousse explained.
"What do you mean?" Ryoga asked.
"I mean, I have encountered Ranma, and I involuntarily defeated him without touching him myself." Mousse said.
"You defeated him without using your hands? Are you, perhaps, a Puppet master?" Kuno blabbered.
"No, I am a weapons' master, and now he's probably suffering from the effects of the poison." Mousse said.
"You poisoned him? How did you do that?" Ryoga asked.
"I had my men come up to him, and everyone in there with my white garments and the outsides are completely covered in poison! Now, every time you come into contact with the white garments, the poison instantly rubs off on you! He should have acquired enough poison to start fainting right about now." Mousse explained.
"That's playing dirty, Mousse!" Ryoga accused. "I thought we were gonna get even on him with our bare hands, and not some underhanded poison tactic!"
"What's wrong? I thought we all agreed that Ranma was supposed to die, and besides, I did it for you! Now we can all just sit back and watch his final hours in misery and pain!" Mousse exclaimed.
"This is insane! I wanted to laugh in his face, and see him, for once, on his knees, begging for mercy with a defeated look on his face...but this is not honorable! I would never succumb to poisoning him without a fight!" Kuno added.
"Well, what's done is done. Right now, there's nothing he can do about the effects." Mousse said.
"How long does he have? And what are the effects?" Ryoga asked.
"The poison is meant to spread throughout the body at an alarming amount of kinetic energy. In other words, every time he moves for a punch or kick, his strength, speed, agility, and stamina are weakened until the poison reaches his vital organs, and then...he dies." Mousse explained.
The expressions on Ryoga and Kuno's faces darkened as they realized that Mousse's full intention was to actually kill Ranma for his own selfish desires.
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Meanwhile, Ranma and Ryuunosuke continued to fight the oncoming army of the town and the school. Ryuunosuke was in top physical state, but Ranma was in worse shape, his breathing grew heavier every time he moved and it made it harder to keep up with Ryuunosuke.
*I'm slowing down! But, why am I weakening even more? If this keeps up, then I'm as good as dead meat.* Ranma thought, and struggled even more to keep up with Ryuunosuke.
"So, you wanna get out alive, huh?" a new voice broke through his thoughts and a small, old man in a ninja outfit appeared in front of Ranma. "Well, you gotta be punished for good this time!" he shouted, and his aura flared up like flames. "Prepare yourself!"
Ranma glared weakly at the little man. "Get outta my way! I've got no time to mess around with you!" Ranma shouted, but the man would not let him escape.
"You're not escaping that easily!" he shouted, and threw a firecracker at Ranma and it exploded in his face.
A mini crater appeared underneath him, and Ranma lay unconscious.
"Ha! I win this time, Ranma! Now...eh...are you even listening, punk?" he shouted, and went down to where Ranma was, and poked him. The battle ceased fire, and a crowd gathered around the crater.
"No way, this is..." he started, and Akane, Shampoo, Cologne Ukyo, and Ryuunosuke went to his side.
"Master Happosai, what happened? Why isn't Ranma moving?" Akane demanded.
Shampoo, Akane, and Ukyo ganged up on Happosai, and sent him flying into the sky. "You evil, old man!" they shouted as he flew up.
Cologne knelt beside Ranma and tried to get his pulse. "His pulse is fading fast, and it is as if he's been poisoned!" Cologne stated, and everyone threw shocked stares at Cologne.
"Whoever did this is definitely a poison master, and a good one at that!" Cologne shouted. "Quickly! We must find the culprit!" Cologne shouted, and the sound of a squabble was heard, then Mousse flew into the crater.
Ryoga jumped down into the crater, and held Mousse up by the collar. "I believe he was the culprit behind all this. It was his plan." Ryoga said and lowered Mousse to the ground.
"Mousse, you are the one who cracked this elaborate scheme?" Cologne asked, and Mousse got up to face her.
"I'm sorry, but it was me who came up with this plan." Mousse said.
"What else did you do, aside from starting an Anti-Ranma war?" Cologne asked.
Mousse reluctantly admitted his fault. "I'm sorry, please forgive me! It was me who poisoned him! I made this plan, and I was the mastermind behind everything that has happened!"
"Explain to us how this came about. A scheme of this level had to come from a master tactician, and I find it hard to believe that you are smart enough to file a war against him." Cologne said.
"I'm sorry, but they all agreed to this plan, and it is true that I thought of this plan! I thought long ad hard of a way to defeat Ranma Saotome once and for all, and now I had a plan that would take him down for good. I thought about it, and rounded up Ryoga and Kuno to see if they would agree to my plan. We had a meeting the other day about how to defeat Ranma. I brought up the plan, and they agreed to it."
"But we had no idea how far the extent of your plan would go as. I admit that Mousse had a great plan, and it was mostly our decision to defeat him." Ryoga added sadly.
"Anyway, we came up with a plan to gather up everyone in the school and the town that absolutely hated Ranma. I took care of the townspeople, and Kuno took care of the school." Mousse continued.
Kuno, at this point, also joined in the conversation. "It was also my task to get the headmaster to agree, and I told him of this scheme that an acquaintance of mine came up with, and surely enough, he joined our team. In less than an hour, the entire school was rounded up and in no time at all, we assembled our army."
"We took almost no time at all on gathering our men. Ryoga and I got everyone from the town together, and we devised a tactical plan. The night before that, I thought about a lot that Ranma was capable of doing, so I decided to add something more deadly to the scheme. I made special outfits for some of our men, and I made a poison entirely from scratch. I gathered all the books from the libraries about how to make a deadly poison, and I got all the necessary ingredients to make it. I made three full pots of poison, and I sampled it on a cockroach. The result was great. I spread the poison all over the outsides of the garments, and then I passed it out to everyone willing to take it as the main defense."
"I had everyone with the poisoned garments be the second-to-last line of defense, and I knew Ranma would get through easily, and then I toughened him up a bit. When he was in splitting distance between my men and himself, I sent them to attack him, and he won of course, but he didn't take into account that he would be affected severely by it. As a result, the poisoned garments had rubbed off on him, and he took in the poison."
"I had no idea what happened afterwards, and I assume that he acquired more of the poison, and now this happened." Mousse finished, and grinned to himself. "I must say, this plan amazed even me, and in the end, I defeated Ranma without having to touch him! It was the greatest plan I ever cracked up, and now I can claim my prize, right?" Mousse declared and turned to face Shampoo, but tears filled her eyes.
"Mousse, this is a felony beyond all compare. You're just lucky the poison hasn't killed him yet. We need a cure. If you don't come up with a cure for this poison, then I will have no choice but to imprison you for life." Cologne said, and Mousse's face darkened with fear.
"But, I didn't know that." Mousse said.
"This plan was great for an amateur, but you failed to realize that once you commit the crime of second degree murder, you will be imprisoned for life." Cologne said.
Mousse lowered his eyes for a moment, but a grin came to his face. "So what. It's not my fault that he humiliated and permanently scarred our reputation for life. He deserves to die!" Mousse shouted and turned his back on them.
"Mousse, how can you be so heartless?" Ryoga implied. "I wanted to defeat Ranma as badly as you wanted, but this is too much."
"Oh, so now you wanna go to 'his' side? You're a traitor, Ryoga!" Mousse accused, but Ryoga stood his ground.
"Please, Mousse, find a cure for him. I know you don't like Ranma, but this is...this is just bad!" Akane pleaded, and tears welled in her eyes.
"No amount of pleas will open this dark heart up again. He's done more bad than good to me. Why should I help him now?" Mousse challenged, and started to walk away.
"You get back here! You have to cure him, if not, then you'll have to answer to my fists!" Ryuunosuke declared and jumped in front of Mousse.
"You're wasting your breath. I have no soul whatsoever, and no amount of threats or pain will ever get me to change my mind. What's done is done." Mousse said, and walked to the side of Ryuunosuke. "Go ahead, kill me for all my worth, at least now you'll be even."
"Mousse!" Shampoo cried out, and Mousse stopped in his tracks. "Please cure Ranma, or I hate you forever!"
Mousse side glanced at Shampoo. *Shampoo, all I ever wanted was to get you away from swine like Ranma, and I thought that his death would prove that you're no longer attached to him. But, now that I see tears in those eyes, Shampoo's happiness means a lot more to me than my selfish desires.* he thought sadly.
"If I do, what will you do to me?" Mousse asked, and everyone's faces held shock in it.
"Do you really think we're that kind of people? We're too young for that, and as long as he's okay, I'm willing to forgive you. So, can you cure him?" Akane said.
"Fine, but if I can't find a cure in time, then feel free to do anything you want to me." Mousse said with a defeated expression. "If I can't win here in life, then maybe my death will be more of a prize than love, or life."
Mousse turned around, and faced the darkening sky. "How long does he have?" Akane asked.
"He has a few hours left, and depending on the amount of poison he's acquired, under no circumstances is he to move."
"Why?" Akane asked.
"The poison was designed to increase faster by the amount of kinetic energy within Ranma. Even if he doesn't move, the poison will last for another three hours at the most. If he does move, the poison in him will spread even further, faster. I don't know how long it will take, but I need all of you guys to help me on this one." Mousse said finally.
"Okay." came the reply, and they immediately set to work.
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A/N: Here's another chapter for you, and please don't forget to rate, review, and comment on it. Let me know what to fix so that it can be more enjoyable for you guys, as long as it doesn't involve inappropriate things.