CHAPTER 2

In Ranma's mind the smoke meant civilization and that was a sore bit better than the massive forested area she had initially found herself in following Ryoga's little foray into the unknown. The forest was, to her, massive and she had stumbled across a few dirt paths but had decided to bypass them for a number of reasons. First and foremost Ranma had come across too many signs that this area was not the safest place to be. After only a few days of wandering around her waterfall she had come across two different sites of heavy combat. Heavy, in her definition, meant the inclusion of what looked to be tanks if the track marks and massive shell casings were any indication. Oddly enough she had yet to happen across an actual tank husk but there had been plenty of bodies. The strangest thing about the battle areas and roads was the lingering sensation of heavy, old Ki. This was most pronounced when she discovered what looked to be a large metal acorn-shaped container with what looked to be a murkier version of the crystals attached to her new jewellery.

Ragnaid.

'Medical Ragnaid' was what the faded label proclaimed to be in the canister along with helpful instructions to hold it near a wound and turn the small knob at the base. This label also gave her a rather frightful insight into this world as it was labeled to have been produced in 1934. Since that time she had taken to storing curious objects in her personal stuff-space and currently had a stash of six or seven of these 'Ragnaid' containers and had buried the dead with the weapons she found them with while keeping weapons that seemed to have no owners.

Pushing the idea that she had jumped to the past to the back of her mind Ranma approached what looked to be a hunting cabin nestled in the trees off one of the smaller animal trails. The smoke she had seen earlier was dead ahead but much further away than she had first anticipated and seemed to be petering off from a fire much larger than she had initially thought, hence the discrepancy in distance. As she approached the cabin Ranma noticed a small grave out near a small cordoned off area that must have once been a garden. That told of possible habitation but the state of the front area and dusty windows said otherwise. Ever cautious in a new environment, Ranma crept up to the slightly open door. After a quick sweep with her Ki she knew the cabin to be empty save a few rodents. Entering quietly she immediately noticed the faded blood stains on the floor, ragged sheets and some, seemingly expended Ragnaid. Wounded, maybe dead for the patient but what had happened to the caretakers?

Two hours later and the cabin was looking much more liveable and, had anyone who known her, Ranma was being uncharacteristically domestic…with a twist. Keeping with the Anything-Goes-Martial-Arts school of EVERYTHING IS TRAINING, Ranma had been using a combination of an extremely controlled hiryu hyo toppa to blast the house free of dirt, dust, cobwebs and in an unfortunate slip of control near the start, the bed.

With the house cleaning taken care of Ranma flash heated some water from her canteens and headed up to the roof for some much needed male time. Filtering a small amount of Ki into a small aura around himself Ranma dried the small amount of water off and pulled a notepad and pencil from stuff-space. After trying to figure out if that one star was in fact a planet about half an hour later Ranma gave up on thinking of the sky and concentrated on his current situation. With the hunting cabin locating a town seemed irrelevant for the time being as it offered protection and a stable base-camp. Food didn't seem to be a problem as the cabin had a small garden and there was no shortage of wildlife in the area suggesting the combat was older than she first assumed. The only worrisome aspects of this whole situation were the constant battlefields that seemed to litter the area but a few people with guns were not particularly high on Ranma's threat list. He would have to look into those strange Ki readings he kept sensing and the older looking weapons and armor of these soldiers. His plans decided for the immediate future, Ranma dropped off the roof and set up his sleeping roll in the patch of floor where the bed used to be and promptly falling asleep.

Jeriik had had a decent career to date. So far he had managed to track down twelve of the Empire's most elusive criminals and most wanted thus earning him the right to solo tracking. On any normal day this amounted to sticking your face much too close to danger by one's self but Jeriik had two sons in this war as well and wanted the best for them. The best, in this case, was money for customized armour and weapons to increase their survivability. Today he had witnessed something he prayed was an illusion but the fiery haired Valkyrur's demonstration had left a powerful impression. Once he had seen the mighty Selvaria swat a tank round from the air as a child would a ball, but he had never seen someone so calmly command nature itself. This blue-eyed Valkyrur was a mystery and worse she had been spotted on Gallian soil. Bringing a prize such as this to Maximilian may allow him to pull his sons off the front-line. With these thoughts hastening his steps, Jeriik kept up a gruelling pace; it would take near two weeks to pull his unit through all this forest as he had no reservations about a foe such as this. Already his Darcsen collection unit had grabbed near a dozen 'workers' for the mining camp at Fouzen but a Valkyrur was something else entirely. No expense would be spared.

Ranma sat perplexed with one palm on her knee and her chin in the other as she examined the items of interest she had collected over the past week or so. 'She' because the smaller, more dexterous fingers where better suited to the job at hand: weapon deconstruction. The constant excursions had yielded much in the way of small arms and finally the remains of an armored unit resembling a tank that was equal parts cute and menacing. The seemingly primitive design seemed to have an engine that was nothing like anything Ranma had ever seen before and had him perplexed. The biggest mystery was the fact that the engine seemed to be filled with something resembling Ki. Almost exactly the same in feel to the heavy Ki resonating from the Ragnaid she had found earlier it pointed at a rather disturbing idea. With a sharp intake of breath Ranma shot to her feet as the realization dawned on her, "the machines here can utilize some form of Ki…" With that startling thought Ranma looked back at the maelstrom of gun parts that was the currently disassembled heavy machine-gun and pulled out a bullet. Bringing it up to her eyes she slowly rotated it. Carefully grabbing the slug and casing in separate hands she twisted and pulled. Small grains of black powder intermixed with flecks of light blue fell onto the table before her. Engaging her Ki-vision Ranma saw what she feared: Ki. Almost unrecognizable and almost insubstantial but still there nonetheless. It wasn't just the machines here; it was the entire technological tree. Everything that utilized energy in some way seemed to have some traces of this strange heavy Ki in it.

With that she dashed out the door, and into the back clearing where she had stashed what parts of the engine she could salvage. She had had little in the way of mechanical know-how in the past as there was no real need for it. Now there was real need. A machine that could harness Ki, no matter what form, meant that it could channel life energy in a much more profound way than any of Cologne's 'amplifiers'. Rummaging around in her stuff space revealed a medium sized tool chest that would do nicely for what she had in mind. As she set herself to the task of disassembling, memorizing and re-assembling the engine Ranma reflected on how far she had come with Mousse's technique. Originally the tool-chest had been stored to push the boundaries of how much weight she could store in stuff-space and was ultimately forgotten about over time as her reserves and grasp on the technique expanded.

"Hah!" exclaimed Ranma as she yanked a large tank partially filled with a softly glowing blue fluid connected to the main components of the engine. This seemed to be the fuel source and now it was testing time! With minimal effort Ranma opened the top of the tank and directed a trickle of Ki to enter the fluid. Immediately she could tell it was a mistake as the fluid in the tank seemed to hungrily latch onto the meager flow of Ki. Startled, Ranma cut the flow only to find that the crystals on her bracers began to resonate and glow. Accompanying this was a sudden grip on her Ki that funneled it directly into the now brightly glowing fluid. Eyes widening Ranma realized just how much energy this tank now contained and hastily threw it with all her might away from the cabin.

A white light. Silence. Suddenly the world around her blurred suddenly as a powerful pressure-wave blasted leaves from trees and flattened foliage around the point the tank landed some five hundred meters away. The blast forced Ranma to cover her face and, afraid to use Ki at this point, press herself to the grass as debris whipped past. A column of blue fire spat its disapproval at the sky as the initial violence of the reaction wore itself down. Raising her head a full thirty seconds later Ranma surveyed the damage to her temporary home and reached up to touch her collar and bracers in trepidation.

"What have done to me now Ryoga? What have you done now?"

Two days march from the falls he had originally spotted the Valkyrur, Jeriik and his men looked on in awe as a tongue of blue fire belched out a low thump that resonated slightly with the heavy armour of their few tanks and jarred a lose coupling in the chain holding the Darcsen captives. Silently saying a prayer Jeriik hoped his men had it in them to bring down this foe. At the same time an older Darcsen noticed the broken link in his cuffs and calmly put a hand over the break. Hopefully he could later get his comrades out of this mess. As he heard it there was a Valkyrur afoot.

A/N

Okay. So, first order of business: thank you to all of you who reviewed/faved/alert+ etc. It was a very pleasant surprise to get that much of a reception that quickly so thank you all!

In response to some of the reviews this is indeed a Valkyria Chronicles/Ranma cross so kudos to all of you that got that off a single word! Yes, this probably should be in the crossover section but its here now so here it shall stay...for the time being... This story has been kicking around in my head for a while and I thought Id get it out. Its a little more serious than Im used to writting and Im actually really enjoying this so far so here's hoping it all goes smoothly...I have my next few major plot points planned out and that should allow me to do updates about once a week or so! Hope you all enjoyed this chapter!

-Arkninja