Disclaimer: Man I'm getting depressed. There's only so many ways that you can make fun of a disclaimer and I'm running out of ideas. Oh well, only one thing to do.

(ClanCrusher pulls out an assault rifle and fills the disclaimer with lead. Then he takes a flame thrower and burns the rest of it into ashes. Finally he sweeps up the ashes, throws them in the trash, seals the lid and throws it out the window. The garbage can lands in a garbage truck where it eventually ends up in a landfill, buried, never to be seen again)

ClanCrusher- Well that was therapeutic.

Lloyd and Ranma are looking at ClanCrusher with a shocked expression on their faces

ClanCrusher- What? Something on my face?

(Warning: This fic contains mild swearing)

Ranma and the Land of Symphonia

Chapter 9- Escape

Ranma and Lloyd were roughly tossed into a jail cell, the latter being unconscious. A few of the guards left while two of them stayed and started talking to eachother before one of them finally left. This left one guard casually walking around the cells.

The guards had taken all of Ranma's equipment and armor and casually threw it in a locker. They hadn't bothered to keep the restraints on them when they threw them in the cell. Hell, they didn't even remove the exspheres even though they knew how dangerous they were.

"Lloyd," Said Ranma and getting no response tried again a little louder, "Loyd!" still no response. Finally Ranma got right next to his ear and shouted "LLOYD!"

"I didn't do it!" Lloyd shouted waking up.

"Hey shut up!" yelled the guard.

Lloyd franticly looked around a bit before realizing where they were, "I suppose we lost then didn't we?"

"They took us all after you were incapacitated," explained Ranma, "We can trade stories later, right now we need to escape."

"How are we going to do that? All my equipment is gone."

Ranma waved him off, "Since when did I need equipment?"

Ranma started concentrating for a few seconds and a slight aura became visible to Lloyd. Then in a flash of brilliance Lloyd placed a hand on Ranma's shoulder breaking his concentration.

"What?" Ranma asked annoyed.

"Don't you think that they might have built in some kind of alarm?" he asked.

Ranma considered that for a second, then powered down, "You got a better plan?"

Lloyd told Ranma the plan who quickly agreed with it.

The guard was just dropping off to sleep when one of the prisoners shouted at him, "Hey stupid."

Surprised the guard looked up at the prisoners.

"See Lloyd, I told you the idiot would look." The guards eye twitched a little before he resumed his napping.

"Wow the guys actually sleeping on the job? Guess he wasn't good enough for any place else. Probably one of those lazy throwbacks they couldn't find a better place for." Said Lloyd.

"Shut up!" shouted the guard.

"Make me. Although you're probably to lazy to get off you fat ass to do it," said Ranma while pulling down one eyelid and sticking out his tongue.

Snarling the desian got up from his seat while grabbing the whip from his belt. He snapped the whip forward at Ranma.

The next series of event went so fast that Lloyd had trouble following them. Ranma grabbed the whip in mid strike and jerked on it, pulling the desian along with it. Ranma released the whip and grabbed the desians head through the bars and bashed his head repeatedly into the cell bars. Finally Ranma grabbed the remote from the desian and pressed the open button.

"Satisfied?" Ranma smirked at Lloyd's shocked look.

Lloyd shook his head and recovered, "Lets get our stuff."

They took the guard and threw him into the cell they had vacated and locked it. After searching for a bit they found their equipment and suited up.

One of the main aspects of the Saotome Anything Goes Martial Arts is stealth and trickery. Even Genma's ultimate techniques were based on those aspects. Although Ranma had never (mostly) used his stealth techniques for personal gain, training under Genma's style had instilled in him a high sense of awareness and ability to move without making noise.

Ranma's ear twitched slightly as he heard the main door to the room open. Quickly he gestured to Lloyd in some very well known universal hand signals. He pointed towards the door and held up two fingers. Then he went and pressed himself up against the wall, corner to the hall where the two guards were coming from.

The poor guards never knew what hit them.

Lloyd finally got a chance to talk to Ranma, "Did you get a good look at where they took us?"

"Nah, the guys blindfolded me before we came into the base," said Ranma as he was searching the two guards.

"Do you have any idea how we're going to get out of here?"

"Sneak past the guards and don't get caught," replied Ranma simply.

"Good to know you've got a plan," said Lloyd sarcastically.

"Got a better idea?" asked Ranma.

"Not really."

"Then lets get outta here," said Ranma as he finally found a key card on one of the guards.

"What about these guys?"

"Throw them in the cell."

After the guards were taken care of Ranma and Lloyd exited the cell room and began exploring the fortress. Along the way they had to ambush several guards to keep their presence quiet. Unfortunately when second shift came around…

Lloyd and Ranma jumped about 10 feet when the alarm went off. Ranma retaliated by incinerating the alarm with a ki blast, "Hmm, that's not good." He mused.

"Damn it, I thought we took out all the guards."

"They must have found one of the bodies, hurry!"

Ranma and Lloyd ran down one corridor, up an elevator, down a flight of stairs and dogged two guards who were coming down a hall by dodging into a side room.

"Whew," breathed Lloyd, "Now that was close."

"And who the hell are you?"

It was then that Ranma and Lloyd realized a very important fact. They were not alone in the room.

The two turned around at lightning speed to find themselves face to face with Botta from Martel temple and another man with blue hair and a cape.

"Yuan, its them. They're part of the chosen's group!"

"Of course, I was with the group that apprehended them. You would be Lloyd," he said gesturing to the red warrior, "and you would be Ranma, escaped convict F197, host body to the exsphere for the special project."

"Huh? What special project?" asked Ranma.

"That doesn't mater now. What does matter is that you will hand over your exsphere to us now, Ranma Saotome." Yuan brought his hand forward and a ball of electricity manifested. It looked very familiar, in fact…

"So you're the jerk that took a cheep shot at me!" shouted Lloyd, "Why you… DEMON FANG!" Yuan sidestepped the energy blast which continued on to destroy the desk he was standing in front of.

"Watch it!" shouted Yuan, "That desk was an antique! Do you have any idea how much that cost?"

Ranma and Lloyd sweatdropped.

"How dare you attack Yuan, you will pay for that!" yelled Botta before he pulled out a wicked looking red colored hook sword. He moved to attack Lloyd but Ranma deflected his sword by hitting the flat of the blade on its downward decent. Ranma kicked Botta in the stomach, forcing him back a couple steps.

"So you're the jerk that attacked Martel temple, I've been wanting a piece of you." Said Ranma.

Both sides retreated to opposite ends of the office and got into battle positions. Yuan drew his weapon, a double bladed sword. Just when they were about to charge eachother Yuan shouted, "Wait!"

Ranma, Lloyd, and Botta all turned to stare at Yuan who said, "Can we please take this somewhere besides my office? I just got this place refurbished."

Massive facefault.

After Botta, Lloyd, and Ranma picked themselves off the ground Yuan led them to an open space in the fortress.

"Now can we start?" asked Ranma thoroughly annoyed.

"Yes, begin!" and he swung his double bladed sword at Ranma who ducked under it.

"Still taking cheep shots huh? Well I guess you couldn't win any other way." Taunted Ranma. He retaliated with a palm strike to Yuan's gut which was easily dodged.

Meanwhile Lloyd had started fighting with Botta. He threw several quick thrusts at Botta who quickly blocked all of them and countered with a few slashes of his own.

Meanwhile Genis was leading Colette's group towards the renegades base. Kratos was easily keeping pace with Noishe as Genis and Colette rode atop him.

"How did they get captured?" asked Kratos, the picture of cool as they neared the desian base.

"Someone hit Lloyd with a ball of electricity while he was fighting off a group of desians," said Genis.

'Electricity?' Kratos thought, 'Only one person I know who can use that and he…' He broke off his thoughts abruptly and quickened his pace.

"LIGHTNING STRIKE" shouted Yuan as he jumped into the air and dived down, causing the immediate area around him to erupt with electricity, blasting Ranma back. Ranma had to admit, Yuan was good. Almost as good as Kratos it seemed.

Ranma quickly got up in time to doge several lightning balls that Yuan shot. He was running out of energy and the fight had been lasting a long time and it was taking its toll on Ranma. In the beginning it had appeared that they were evenly matched but when Yuan started using his techniques the battle had slowly started to go downhill.

Ranma cursed as he felt one of the lightning balls brush him and send a current of electricity through his whole body. Yuan came in close again and Ranma found himself quickly on the defensive trying to keep from being cut open.

"STALAGMITE!" shouted Botta, causing several stone spikes to erupt out of the ground around Lloyd, who quickly danced around the protruding objects. He ran in close again engaging his foe in melee combat.

Lloyd's battle had been going slightly better than Ranma's, in the sense that he was dishing out as much as he took. Botta packed a lot of power but he was slower than Lloyd who was constantly dancing around him to get the upper hand.

Botta brought his sword down straight into the ground, causing several chunks of the floor to shoot at Lloyd. He managed to block most of them but one got through and hit his chest, winding him. Botta charged forward and swung at Lloyd's chest scoring a slash right along his chest.

Fortunately Lloyd's armor took the main force of the blow but it still left a shallow cut along his chest.

Ranma was quickly getting exhausted. He had tried almost everything he knew but Yuan was still winning. Finally in a last desperate gambit he began focusing his remaining energies into his fist and rushed at Yuan. Yuan swung his blade in a figure eight pattern but Ranma jumped to the side, focusing all his energies into his speed and strength Ranma rushed Yuan from the side and shouted out a single word.

"IRON PALM!" the strike sent Yuan into the far wall and also sent Ranma to his knees his ki stores finally exhausted. He groaned as he saw Yuan extract himself from the wall that he had been slammed into, albeit a bit shaky.

"Damnit that hurt!" he yelled at Ranma. Then he started chanting as a purple aura surrounded him, "LIGHTNING BLADE!"

A blade of pure energy slammed into the ground about a foot away from Ranma's current position sending an electric shockwave out in all directions for about 10 feet. Ranma lapsed into unconsciousness as the lightning attack went through his body.

At that moment the door to the desian base flew open to admit Kratos and the rest of the chosen's group. Kratos quickly assessed the situation and ran towards Botta as he was about to bring up his blade for another attack. Kratos charged his blade with ki and brought his sword down on the flat of Botta's blade, cutting it at the hilt.

Botta felt the weight of the blade leave him and immediately turned around to face Kratos, before he was kicked in the stomach and sent into the wall, hard.

"Damnit, not you again!" shouted Botta throwing the useless hilt aside and running for the door. Yuan was already gone, a depression in the wall the only evidence he had ever been there (well, as long as you don't count the charred floor, the destroyed tiles and other various forms of destruction in the room).

The two men gone, Kratos went to examine Lloyd. Muttering under his breath he traced a glowing hand along Lloyd's chest where the cut was, closing it off and healing it. Raine, who had entered the room behind Kratos, went to examine Ranma and started healing his wounds, her staff glowing white.

Back at Triet Inn…

"So Kratos, who were those people?" asked Ranma

"Why would you assume that I would know them?"

"Call it a hunch," stated Ranma.

"I don't know Botta personally but Yuan and I have met before. That's all." He said it in a way that indicated the conversation was over.

After the fight with Yuan and Botta, the chosen's group had headed back to Triet for the night, to exhausted to deal with the first seal. Ranma had been interrogating Kratos about the two he fought but he couldn't get anything out of him. The only thing he knew for certain was that Yuan was going to pay the next time they met…

Lloyd had reunited with Colette who immediately took to fawning over his wounds and apologizing. Kratos had taken Ranma's clothes to the customizer to add more weight claiming, "If you had enough energy to cause havoc like that in the desian base then your obviously not being challenged enough."

While he was lying in bed Raine had given him a few books to look at telling him to memorize their contents or else. The fact that she was brandishing her new staff which had dozen of spikes protruding from the end helped him to concentrate on the task.

Raine had later gone off ask Lloyd and Kratos about their exspheres. Apparently she had found the discarded hilt of the sword that Botta threw and wanted to know if she could use one herself.

Ranma put the book up with a stretch and a yawn. As much as he hated to admit it, he was actually starting to enjoy reading. Unconsciously putting his ki to the job of healing his wounds Ranma went to sleep.

Yuan fell to his hands and knees as the warp panel reached its destination. Coughing up a bit of blood Yuan thought back to the earlier fight.

At first it appeared Ranma would be a little tricky to put down. After all, he had gotten past almost all of the guards and straight to his office without so much a scratch. When they had started fighting he wasn't able to get the upper hand until he started releasing some of his more powerful techniques.

Just when it looked like victory would be at hand Ranma had pulled an insanely fast and powerful blow right into his side. He had heard his ribs groan in protest from that blow. It was only thanks to pure adrenaline and panic that he got off that last blow and was alive right now, along with Botta.

The entrance of this person, Ranma Saotome, changed things. If the chosen had such avid guardians then they might have to call in a few reinforcements. One thing was for sure however, the next time he met Ranma, he would pay.

End Chapter 9

A/N: Short chapter, I know but this seemed like a good place to end it. Remember, I want comments, criticism, suggestions, flames, water, lightning, ice, whatever. I have also decided to start pairing polls so cast your vote.

Ranma- What? You mean that your deciding who I'm going to be spending the rest of my life with on chance?

ClanCrusher- Well, yeah. Something wrong with that?

Ranma- Why you… RAGING LIONS ROAR!

ClanCrusher- Gah!

Well I better give him some time to cool off. Until next time folks stay tuned for…

CHAPTER 10

The Trail We Blaze