Chapter 12
The enormous cat bucked Ranma about, but he held on firmly to its mane for all he was worth. Whatever it was, he didn't want to fall off or risk getting submerged and drown in the substance that covered the floor.
But he wasn't going to just bounce around and allow Tsubasa to take him for a ride. Ranma's "power" diminished when he became a girl, but his speed increased, and he had a plan.
And the Chestnuts Roasting Over A Fire technique Shampoo's great-grandmother taught him would come in handy here—and he used it to rip out the mechanics of the large cat, slowing it down to dead stop.
Straddling the cat's neck, Ranma wiped sweat from his brow. "Wow, what a ride," he said. "It's not a cat, just tell yourself, 'It's not a cat'. It's just some silly amusement ride. Yeah." Despite such, sitting on it still made Ranma nervous. But there was no where else to go.
Suddenly, he heard a loud noise—something like one would hear if they got an answer wrong on a gameshow. And on a hidden screen within a wall panel in the room, appeared Tsubasa's face. Obviously pre-recorded, because Tsubasa was in the Control Room with Ryoga and Akane as their prisoner.
"The gauntlet has ended, and you lose, Saotome," the recording said. "You broke the rules. Uyko is now mine, forever. Forever, and always."
Ranma clenched a fist at the screen. "I beat your sorry excuse for a game, Tsubasa! You're the loser here. Now let Ukyo go!"
Laughter followed. Not from the screen, but from the speaker's of the Control Room. "I told you, if you violated the rules of the game, you'd never see Ukyo again," said Tsubasa.
"Shut up!" came Akane's voice. "Ranma won your stupid game, now give us back Ukyo!"
"I'd do what Akane says, Tsubasa," Ranma told him, looking around for a way out of the room. "She can be very persuasive when she wants to be…I should know…" And then he found a closed door at the rear of the room, just a few meters from the tail of the large—he gulped, the thought made him nervous just to be on it—cat.
However, there was no platform to land on if he jumped off.
"Akane, open the door," Ranma shouted to a wall speaker. "I'll need to make a running start of the body of this…thing. What is that stuff on the floor, anyhow?"
"Acidic batter," Tsubasa said, with laughter. "No matter what, Ukyo was always going to be mine! There is no way you can escape from that room, Saotome. None at all!"
Ryoga grabbed Tsubasa by his shirt. "Traitor! Ranma played your game, fair and square!" He looked at Akane. "Is there a way to get there? I'll blast the door open with my Breaking Point!"
Tsubasa chuckled. "You can try," he said. "But the room is perfectly pressured to sustain the floor. If you suddenly disturb the air pressure, with, say, the sudden opening of a door, the acidic batter will jettison into the air and burn everything inside. Ranma would be vaporized!"
"You're insane!" Akane said.
"And look," Tsubasa pointed, "it's already starting. The moment Ranma violated the rules, the failsafe was triggered, and now the floor is bubbling upwards. The acidic batter is raising like a cake in a very hot oven. The fitting irony of cooky." Tsubasa laughed.
Ryoga had had enough and punched Tsubasa in the face with a quick thrust. The result, knocked Tsubasa out. Tsubasa collapsed in Ryoga's arms like a sack of wet cement and his body was laid on the floor next to the wall. With their enemy out, he could now help Akane fully. "Sorry, you had to see that, Akane."
"You did the right thing, Ryoga," Akane said. "Besides, I couldn't stand Tsubasa's voice anymore. Some people are just plain annoying. Now, how can we help Ranma?"
Ryoga looked at the upper monitors within the Control Room, but he didn't know what to do. He knew had had help his rival, somehow. If he just stood around doing nothing, he knew Akane would never forgive him. He wanted Ranma out of the way so he could be with Akane, but not like this. So, he put his personal feelings aside, and focused hard.
"The martial artist code is to always help those in need," Ryoga said quietly to himself, then he ran out of the room. Akane called out to him, wondering why he was leaving so quickly, but he didn't have time to answer back. He had an idea and he needed to act without haste.
He wasn't as book-smart as Ranma or other people, but he wasn't stupid either. He learned at his own pace and did visit libraries along his journeys and read a variety of different subjects. Something clicked when he saw the acidic batter bubbling out from the floor and what Tsubasa said about introducing sudden air pressure into an enclosed "pressured" room.
In the hallway, he looked up. And then with the lightest of a touch, he blasted a hole into the ceiling and found the venting system that travelled throughout the mansion. The duct work was the perfect venue in which to make his plan work. He pried off the metal plate that lead into the duct work, the same Shampoo used to flee from the previous room in her cat form.
Ryoga climbed in. It was large enough for him, even giving him a few inches on either side to slide forward to his destination. It was straight-forward path and he looked down from the vent to the room where Ranma was trapped on the giant cat. The floor was "popping" up spatters of acidic batter, that Ranma was desperately trying to avoid.
He pried open the vent. Ranma looked up at him. He gave Ryoga the largest smile ever.
"Well, aint'cha a sight for sore eyes," Ranma said. "Quickly, get me outta'ere!"
The duct work was obviously part-and-parcel of the "pressurization" of the room, so his presence didn't affect the immediate threat of the floor.
"Ranma! I'm coming!" he shouted down.
But then it hit him like a punch in the face. The distance between himself and Ranma was much more lengthly than an out-stretched hand. He failed to take this into consideration.
Then another though hit him. He did have the means to help.
"Hold on, I have an idea…"
And Ryoga began to remove his clothes, and then tired one pant leg within a shirt sleeve, and lowered them down through the vent. But even so, he still came up short. Ranma reached, but couldn't even touch the make-shirt "rope", the distance missing by mere feet.
"Jump, Ranma!"
"And risk missin' and fallin' into that stuff? No way!"
"Jump, you idiot!"
"No way, I said! You gotta think of sumthin' else!"
Ryoga pressed his thoughts for another way, but instead of "another way", he thought of something to add to his original idea, and he pulled back his clothes, and baring it all, he removed his shorts, and his banana, and tied them to the "rope". The bandana was tied to the free pant leg, and the other side, was tied around one hole of his striped boxer shorts. And he lowered it down again. This time, it reached.
Ranma looked awestruck. "You serious?"
"Just grab on and I'll bring you up. You have no time to argue!"
The acidic batter had reached up above the giant cat's legs and was now threatening to topple it over, wobbling slightly.
"I hope they're clean, seein' you're always on one of your 'journeys' and rarely take a bath," Ranma said sarcastically, and slipped an arm through Ryoga's boxer shorts.
Despite the obvious attempt to rouse his anger, Ryoga ignored Ranma's remarks, and began to haul his rival up, and out of danger. A sudden spit of acidic batter burst from the floor, but just missed Ranma by inches. Ranma weighed less as a girl than his female form. It was true what experts said about muscle weighing more than fat. But he wouldn't call Ranma 'fat', although a woman's breasts mostly consisted of—
Ryoga flushed with embarrassment with the mere thought, and his strength lessened for a moment, thinking of Ranma's breasts.
"What's the hold up?" Ranma shouted up.
With a shake his head, Ryoga focused back on bringing Ranma up, and helped his rival up into the vent. Both took a well-deserved breath of relief.
"Thanks, man, I owe ya big time for this," Ranma said. "Good thinkin' using your clothes as a lifeline. You're smarter than you look."
Ryoga began to dress. "Is that anyway to talk to your saviour?" He reached into his pants pocket and brought out a small, silver flask. It was water. Ryoga said he always had a hot water on hand just in case he had a sudden change in fortune with his own curse.
Once they crawled out of the duct vent, Ranma used the flask water to change back, pouring it over himself. He went from a buxom-large breasted, red-headed, young female, to a well-toned, taller, black-haired, some-would-say, handsome, young man—with a pigtail.
Ranma flicked his head about to whisk some of the excess water off.
Ryoga put his hands up in the air. "Hey," he said. "Don't flick your grubbiness onto to me." He sniffed his hand. "You kind of smell like a wet dog with all that sweat."
Ranma shoved the flask back into Ryoga's hands. "Thanks," he said frowning. "And consider this rescue payback for the time I rescued P-Chan from that rich couple, whereas I took a beating from their armed henchmen. Now, let's go find Ukyo."
"First, let's go back to the Control Room," Ryoga said. "Akane is there with Tsubasa. I punched him out, so he won't be any more trouble for us."
"Good thinkin'," Ranma said with a smile. "You're really usin' your head today."
But Ryoga didn't appreciate the sarcasm.
Bolting down the hallway, they made it back to the Control Room. But when they entered, they were sighted with a shock. The entire room was empty.
All for one lonely shoe.
To be continued...