Disclaimer: I'm running out of ideas of how to say that I don't own Ranma ½ or Tales of Symphonia. Just pretend that there is a disclaimer here that would be relatively funny because for the first time, I cant think of anything.
Ranma- Hey ClanCrusher, what's wrong?
ClanCrusher- Hmm. I think that I am suffering from writers block.
Ranma- Here let me help.
-Ranma charges his fist with ki and destroys the block that is on my desk-
ClanCrusher- Wow! Thanks, I feel a whole lot better now!
Ranma- No problem.
ClanCrusher- And without further ado, let us begin chapter 8 of the adventure.
One other thing of note, as you may have noticed in the last story, Lloyd has metal swords. I know in the game that he has wooden ones, but this is fanfiction.
Ranma and the Land of SymphoniaChapter 8 – Captured!
The Triet desert was created when the legendary spirit known as Efreet went out of control and destroyed the towns and grasslands for miles around, creating the desert. To this day the only town that remains is Triet, primarily because it has the only water source for several miles.
Triet was modestly built with buildings of stone and several makeshift stalls that were selling various items. The inn was easily the largest building, for none of the houses were over one story tall.
"We will rest here for tonight," said Kratos, "I'm going to go get us a room."
Raine turned to them, "Feel free to explore the village, just don't go outside."
Ranma began to walk towards the various stalls when he saw something that made his mind freeze up in pure terror. It was horrible, it was terrible, it was pink, it was THE KATZ TEAM!
Colette was right behind Ranma and noticed his body lock up and tense as if expecting a fight, "What's wrong?" she asked, but she got no answer.
Ranma was visibly shaking by now and starting to attract attention from some of the local shoppers. He was busily trying to convince himself that real cats were not colored pink, did not stand on two legs, or wear clothes, or carry cameras but the Neko-Ken only saw a cat and that put all reason to the winds.
Meanwhile the Katz were looking at this strange human with interest. He seemed afraid of them for some reason so they decided to go and reassure the person that they were harmless and only wanted to help people with their journeys. After all, they never wanted to turn away a potential customer.
As the Katz approached Ranma's fear grew and grew. They were only 5 feet away when Ranma snapped.
"C-C-CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!" he screamed and took off with a speed that would put an F-1 racing car to shame.
Colette stood there in shock for a few seconds before one of the Katz spoke, "What's his problem, were KATZ not CATS, sheesh."
Colette ignored him and went in pursuit of the martial artist.
Said martial artist was on the other side of the village cooling down, 'Damn it,' he thought, 'They just had to have not only cats in this world but ones that could walk and talk too!'
It took a few seconds but Ranma was finally able to calm himself down and take a look at his surroundings, which he did not recognize. He saw a tent nearby and decided to ask directions from the person within. When he entered he found a female fortuneteller there.
"Come in, come in," she beckoned, "Would you like your fortune told today?"
"Actually I was just wondering…"
"All will be answered when I look into my crystal ball, don't you worry."
"But I just…" he stopped when he saw she was ignoring him.
She stood motionless for a few minutes with her hand over the crystal ball before finally saying, "I haven't seen an aura like yours in decades, wherever you go great changes will happen, weather for the good or bad is anyone's guess for your aura of chaos and your own choices will ultimately affect the outcome."
'Man that's intense,' thought Ranma, 'What does she mean centuries? She's about 27 years old!'
She continued, "Other than that, your aura blocks any and all possible reading, so I'll only charge you 25 gold this time. Oh and the inn is a ways east of here."
Ranma sweat dropped before grudgingly handing over the money.
As he was walking back to the inn, making a wide detour around the evil felines, he met Colette halfway, "Do you want to tell me what happened?" she asked, "What did you father do this time?"
"How could you have ever guessed," he said sarcastically, "I'm going to tell everyone at once so lets get back to the inn."
Back at the inn Ranma had just told the Neko-Ken story. The reactions varied only slightly, Raine was gripping her staff so hard that her knuckles were turning white, Colette exclaimed that Genma was no father and that Ranma should stay away from him. If you had eagle eye vision and you looked very carefully at Kratos you would notice a twitch in his hand and eye.
"You know," said Raine, "I'm all for inflicting corporal punishment when I teach but this is plain stupid."
"Is there anything else that we should know of?" asked Kratos.
"Not that I can think of. All of my other problems are on my world."
No one noticed that a certain professor had gotten a familiar maniac glint in her eye, "You mean that you come from another world?"
Ranma mentally slapped himself in the head. Raine hadn't been around for his brief life story. He really didn't feel like going over this again.
Raine saw the look, "Another time then. Right now it's time for your lesson."
Kratos and Colette quickly excused themselves to do other things around the village. This left him alone with Raine in the room.
"Um… professor?" he quietly asked.
"I'll take questions after the lecture now pay attention," she threw him his textbook which she had brought along.
It was pretty much one of the worst and best teaching sessions he ever had. The worst, being that he actually had to stay awake or suffer Raines holy wrath. Since she was only concentrating on one student it made her job of making him stay awake much easier. It was the best in the sense that Ranma actually learned a few things for the first time in his life besides martial arts.
The session went better then expected for he only had to be hit 27 times throughout the whole 2 hours. Raine looked to Lloyd as a personal academic failure on her part, she would not make the same mistake with Ranma.
After the session was over Ranma went out of the room and into the lobby. He found Kratos there waiting for him with a set of clothes that almost duplicated his current clothes under his armor.
"Put these on," said Kratos tossing him the clothes, "The real training begins now."
Ranma went back into his room in the inn and put the clothes on, surprised at how heavy they felt. He returned to the main room where Kratos was waiting.
"You will wear this clothing every day from when you first get up to when you go to sleep. You will fight, eat, walk, and train in this clothing. When you finally get used to the weight, we add more. During the day you will be the one to carry the company pack as well as your clothes,"
It wasn't anything new for Ranma, except for the weighted clothes. On the training trip Genma made Ranma carry almost everything, however he was unused to fighting with weights.
Kratos continued, "Each morning you will get up at 5:00 for your lesson and you will have an additional lesson at the end of the day. Once Lloyd arrives then he will probably be joining us. The only exception is when we are about to release a seal or other important event."
Ranma stopped short, "Lloyd?"
Kratos looked at him, "Do you really think anything will stop him from coming?"
Ranma took that into consideration, "Not really."
"Good, then lets start with a warm up spar."
The full contact 'spar' lasted for half an hour. Kratos was holding back slightly while Ranma took time to adjust to the weight on his new clothes. Ranma, in the meantime, was having a bit of difficulty keeping up. While weights were nothing new to him he was not used to being burdened so much in battle.
The battle finally ended when Kratos knocked him out. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Kratos had a select brand of smelling salt with a sent that was guaranteed to wake the dead. It instantly woke up Ranma.
"Put this on." Said Kratos tossing Ranma a piece of cloth.
"A blindfold? What for?"
"One of the primary skills that you should learn is detecting ki signatures or auras. This gives you warning in advance if someone is going to attack you from behind or if your vision gets impaired." He explained.
The trick was, as Kratos described it, to extend your senses outward using you ki. Ranma tried it but could barely get a glimmer of the auras. He was however, able to sense a dog for a brief second before it faded from view. After an hour Kratos took the blindfold off saying that was enough for today.
Kratos then fixed him some of his specialized tea which once again made Ranma feel physically better, "What do you put in this tea?" he asked.
"The main ingredient is the essence of the gels that are commonly used for healing. However by a specialized combination of herbs and various spices I found out how to counterbalance the bad taste of the gels," explained Kratos, "It's my homemade elixir."
Ranma really liked the sound of this, "I don't suppose you could teach me how to make it could you?"
"Even if I did the ingredients I use are hard to come by. Also repeated consumption of the elixir could lead to dependency on it and shouldn't be taken more than once every two days."
"If the ingredients are so rare where do you get them?"
"Well that," Kratos began, Ranma leaned in closer as his voice dropped, "Is a secret."
Facefault.
Ever since Ranma was taken on the 10 year training trip, he had never gotten a good nights sleep (well in his opinion anyway), having always been awoken by being thrown or splashed with water. But now that he was in a different dimension…
SPLASH!
Well lets just say some things never change.
"What was that for?" he shouted at Kratos who was holding a now empty bucket.
"We have things to do today and we will not accomplish them if you are sleeping like you are in a coma. This was merely the easiest way to wake you," he said ignoring the murderous look Ranma was giving him.
Ranma got into his clothes and armor and met the group in the main room of the inn where Raine was discussing they should go next.
"…so the most logical place to look would be the ruins south of here." Raine concluded.
Ranma thought for a second before asking, "Kratos, how far away do you think Lloyd is?"
Kratos closed his eyes for a few seconds, "About 2 hours away. Why?"
"Well, I think that someone should wait for him since they're starting to put up wanted posters," he had noticed the posters the day before while exploring the town, "If someone was to tell him where we are going then we can keep him out of the town until things cool down."
"Remarkable foresight. I have no problem with it." Said Kratos.
"I have my moments," said Ranma giving his trademark smirk.
"To bad they're only moments," teased Raine.
Ranma took a few seconds to work that out, "Hey!"
Lloyd and Genis had continued towards Triet after they spent the night at a passing wagon. They were able to make better time than Ranma's group because of Noishe, this also helped them to outrun most enemies that they saw. It was around noon when they appeared at the entrance to Triet.
They were about to enter the city when Ranma dropped right in front of them, Genis let out a shout of surprise but Ranma quickly covered Lloyd's mouth before he could say anything.
"Not here, lets get outside."
Ranma waited for Lloyd's nod before he uncovered his mouth. Ranma led them a little ways from the city before Lloyd finally spoke.
"Okay Ranma, what's going on?"
"Our faces have appeared on some wanted posters and the desians are in the city." Ranma explained.
Lloyd chuckled nervously placing his hand on the back of his head, "Well about that…" Lloyd explained to Ranma about Iselia and Forcystus.
"So what are you doing here anyway? Where's Colette and Raine?" asked Genis.
"They went on ahead to the seal. I volunteered to stay behind and wait for you guys."
"They knew we were coming?" asked Lloyd.
"Well Kratos did anyway. Anyway we should hurry on to the seal of fire. They said it was in the ruins south of here."
"Uh oh. Guys we got company!" shouted Genis. Several thieves had snuck up on them while they were talking.
"Drop the goods and leave and we might let you live," said the Thief who appeared to be their leader.
"We don't have time for this," complained Ranma.
"Hey are you listening?" yelled the leader, "I told you to- URK!"
His sentence was abruptly cut off as he found Ranma's fist in his gut. Ranma picked him up by the throat and threw him into the thieves behind him.
"Anyone else?" asked Ranma nonchalantly.
His response was the remaining thieves charging the trio. Lloyd whipped out his swords to help. The thieves had them outnumbered 2 to 1 but their weapons consisted mainly of knives and their skill was terrible.
Ranma dodged a stab from one and swiftly disarmed him. He then grabbed the guys head and brought it down while simultaneously bringing his knee up. Finally he back kicked with the same leg and hit the thief who was sneaking up from behind.
When Genis had first seen the thugs he had already started quietly chanting a spell, trying his hardest to hide the aura. The result was that two thugs were hit by the lightning spell he cast.
Meanwhile Lloyd had neutralized his two guys as well. The thieves that were alive crawled off the battlefield while the others would become food for the vultures.
"Damnit. Someone must have heard that!" said Lloyd.
"We need to get moving quickly," hastened Ranma.
Several desians had heard the sounds of battle and had run outside the village to see what the noise was. When they saw the two most wanted criminals right in front of them battle was joined once again.
Ranma had just beaten off another desian when he saw a figure with a blue ball of energy in his hand aiming for Lloyd. He let off a Demon Blast but the Desian had already fired. Ranma desperately ran towards Lloyd hoping to push him out of the way but it was to late. Lloyd fell to the ground, stunned.
"Stop fighting now or he'll get hurt!" shouted one desian, his sword near Lloyd's throat. Ranma and Genis didn't see any way out of the situation so they allowed themselves to be shackled and led away.
After an hour of walking (or being carried in Lloyd's case) they came upon the desian's base. The remaining desians were greeted by the guards there and Lloyd and Ranma were taken inside.
"Leave the kid, we don't need him," said one guard.
They released the restraints on him and sent him away. Genis wasted no time in getting away from the base. He knew that he had no chance of rescuing them alone. He needed help of some kind, he needed…
The Chosen's group had just entered Triet ruins when all of a sudden Genis riding Noishe burst into view.
"Ranma and Lloyd have been kidnapped!" he shouted to the group.
To Be Continued…
A/N: Finally, a new chapter up. It took me long enough. My thanks goes to everyone who reviewed my story and stuck with this first time writer. Please, keep reviewing. As for those of you who noticed typos, I plan to fix them once my computer stops disagreeing with me.
Computer- I'll stop contradicting you as soon as you start being right!
ClanCrusher- Damn the computer is trying to talk to me again. This is my cue to go and get some sleep. No more anchovies on my pizza. No sir.
Computer- Idiot.
ClanCrusher- Who are you calling an idiot?
