This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, Matt Bozon, Erin Bell Bozon and the creative teams of Kity Films and WayForward.
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
Chapter 19
The Pirate Master
The half-Genie was directing the small ship towards Scuttle Town navigating by a vaguely lighter blob of the wharf visible against the dark strip of the shore under the gray murk of impenetrable clouds. The purple bonfires of magical lighthouses were gone, Scuttle Town was completely immersed in darkness making the heroes worry also for the inhabitants: were they hiding, all lights extinguished, or was the town swarming with monsters?
They approached the wharf coming in between two piers. They could discern the tank wasn't on the wharf anymore. There were dark pits of holes torn in the walls of the warehouses to the left of the two collapsed ones. No one around, only silence.
Shantae concluded the tank had waddled away down the road leading to the palace. The peninsula with the palace was visible a ways off to the left but the shore in that direction was a broken mess of sheer cliffs and small bays so the road was making a detour. Where was the tank along it, and could they catch up with it if they run after it, no one could say.
"We can't let the tank engage alone," Shantae declared. "Likewise us engaging without it would be less than desirable. Because as soon as I join the battle, we kiss our element of surprise goodbye. He'll instantly figure my magic is with me."
"So, it was all for naught?" Akane voiced her doubts. "Our efforts to fool him, and Risky's sacrifice, mean nothing?"
"Of course, not!" the half-Genie reassured her. "We lulled him into complacence, made him predictable. Without this trickery who knows where'd he go? We'd have to chase him all around the world, then fight him on his terms, with him fully prepared beforehand. Brr, I don't even want to think about it... Let's do it like this: we disembark and play it by the ear. If he doesn't notice us, we sit quiet waiting for the tank. If we see he is about to leave or do something suspicious, we engage without waiting for the tank. All right?"
The Nerimans agreed with this plan.
Shantae was steering the small ship along the broken cliffs, towards the peninsula with the palace framing the bay.
"We're almost there," the half-Genie noted peering into the darkness but failing to see anything. "Um, what were we talking about..? Oh..! Ranma, when I transform into a crab — aim your throw for me to hit him around his forehead."
"Akane too," the redhead suggested. "This gorilla can throw with amazing power and precision."
He had put up a Herculean effort urging the half-Genie telling them everything about the enemy's techniques and devising at least some simplest team tactics... He'd never succeed if not for Xian Pu. Forced to admit it to himself, with greatest reluctance, that the amazon was the only one among them who had the required education - not of a mighty loner but of a warrior - he overlooked an incoming wave and now had to go into the epic battle as a wet gal. A minor setback but still annoying.
"I think I see the palace," Ukyou said.
"It's strange." Ryouga frowned. "I thought it only had one tower?"
"And then you realize the second one is moving," the half-Genie nodded with a knowing look. "And that the second one's top is a hat."
The vague shape looming large in the darkness confirmed her words. There was the tower of the Sultana's palace, huge so close by in darkness, no smaller than Tokyo high-rises, crowned with an immense onion dome. And there, next to it, was the enemy of comparable stature, crowned with an immense pirate hat.
Akane began having small shakes: it's one thing to hear of, it's entirely different to behold the looming menace in the flesh. Orochi hadn't been small, either. But a simple beast could be read and predicted — while an evil pirate sorcerer, experienced and unpredictable is a whole different kettle of fish.
The half-Genie steered to the right, closer to the shore and the base of the peninsula hosting the palace. The edifice was very long, its single-story side wings stretching wide. The tall central part was prominent further to the left of their course, the enemy towering near it, behind the palace.
The tinker tub's feet scraped across the bottom. The small ship careened sharply, then began waddling ashore, its legs creaking. Shantae was busy pulling and jerking levers, her tongue stuck out in concentration. The shore was swarming with some black things, only perceptible in the gloom because they glinted like tar.
A monster hopped up onto the deck, akin to a tar toad standing on two legs with a hunched posture. They didn't have a chance to take in details: Ryouga hit it so hard everything and everyone got covered in splatter. Thankfully, it turned out to be a quickly evaporating jello, quite like the remains of a dead tinkerbat.
"Watch out, they can grow claws too!" Shantae warned when formless tar blobs started crawling over the gunwale, quickly morphing into strange things with multitudes of toothy heads, clawing hands and jiggly... Hemispheres, Ukyou decided. Just hemispheres. Otherwise one could easily go bonkers.
Monsters were quickly mopped up. The crew jumped down onto the sand, mopping those there as well. A couple toads came from somewhere flying in long arches. Ranma punted one away with a backward kick without looking, Ukyou cleaved another in half.
"Now we could... Everyone got their auto-potion?" Shantae worried suddenly.
"Here." Xian Pu held her flask towards her. "And, you take it. You need it more."
"No! How could I...? It's... Your life..."
"You are the only one who can harm him, aren't you?" Xian Pu was stubbornly holding the flask out. "And that's because of your innate ability, isn't it...? If it was because of some sort of legendary weapon, I'd have suggested to give it to Ranma." She cast a glance at the pigtailed martial artist. "But we have what we have, you are our lynchpin. Everyone here goes into the battle to support you. You die, enemy wins. Then everyone dies."
"And mine, too." Akane, likewise, held the winged vial out for her.
The redhead was barely holding her facade, frustration gnawing at her from inside. Now was the perfect moment to be that knight saving his princess, but... He didn't have one! He refused taking it from pride, unbecoming of a warrior and all that. And could now only want to strangle herself.
The suicidal gals weren't giving up.
Shantae groaned in frustration as she relented accepting their gifts.
"Hey, hey, hey." Ukyou was slowly shifting her gaze from one rival to another. "You—" Her breath caught, unable to find words. She then slowly, through internal resistance, pulled out hers.
"Enough!" the half-Genie signaled with arms crossed in front of her. "Three are enough! I am not going to keep rushing like a lemming to croak time and again. Especially at the cost of such risk to you." She then turned towards Xian Pu looking her in in the eyes. "Thank you. I know how it Is when you are out of auto-potions but the most dangerous part is still ahead."
They moved out, walking through the darkness, punting away rare tar monsters.
The road from Scuttle Town was emerging from forested hills, crossing a tiny bay as a stone bridge then turning into a wide, cobbled promenade stretching away towards the tip of the flat peninsula, not visible from here.
To the left of the promenade, the palace's single-story wing was stretching away, the central part with its tower bulging out of it a fair distance away. Up close it became apparent that the regularity of architectural shapes was disfigured with tumors of meaty growths: the vile organic stuff was all over the building, like a disgusting ivy. In places you couldn't tell where masonry ended and flesh bristling with toothy maws, bone spikes and dangling snot began.
To the right, separated by a tall grate of decorative fence, there was a park once, now disfigured likewise. The flesh growth was strangling dead trees, blobs of tar monsters hanging everywhere.
But the main focus of attention was he, the Pirate Master. The same skeleton dressed in stylish pirate rags, with hammy arms of purple stuff — just having enlarged to the size of the central tower. His boots alone were taller than the single-story palace wings, his hat was the size of a large ocean-going sailing ship, and through the muzzle of the cannon crowning his right shoulder, two buses could fit side by side.
He was picking something on one of the balconies of the central tower, poking it with his huge finger, bent over it with a grin. That bone mask of his was actually flexile, possessing expressive mimics.
"What is he doing?" Akane whispered.
A strangled female scream echoed, full of pain.
"Torturing Risky." Shantae shuddered.
And wit that, any strategy, any intent to wait for the tank, flew out of the window. Without exchanging a word, the heroes joined the battle.
Up close and personal, at his foothills, the Pirate Master looked even more intimidating. The crew scattered across the promenade's width, not daring to step into the ruined park: it wasn't that wide, barely half a hundred meters, but it was swarming with monsters hard to detect, in addition to those hanging from the trees like innumerable blobs of snot. The palace to their left had yawning breaches but nobody was going to venture there, either, considering the walls were part meat and had maws with impressive fangs. And some breaches were turning to be maws.
Without announcing her arrival, using the last vestiges of the element of surprise, Shantae danced some new dance in silence. Poof — and she turned into a small shelled crab of ruddy orange color. She waved her pincer at Ranma - the crab had profoundly human eyes - and tucked all extremities in, withdrawing into her shell like a turtle, covering her face with her pincers.
The redhead picked her up, weighed her in her hand, then launched at the enemy's head in an arch.
Shantae, turned back into a girl in the last moment, whipped once with her momentum, slammed into enemy's left temple, tried to hold on whipping again and again but slipped off and jumped away in a somersault a moment before a palm the size of a household plot slapped against the bone face — just like a man trying to kill a mosquito that had suddenly stung him.
The half-Genie absorbed the speed of her fall with her bent legs, rebounded off his bluish-black clad knee and flew away into the former park.
The Pirate Master turned to his left slowly, deliberately. He then noticed the heroes at his feet.
"I see you are trickier than you tried to look," he hissed, his eyes narrowing in malice. "Well...? Here I am. Did tricking me help?"
And he started fighting back.
Only, his techniques had as much in common with Shantae's descriptions as a tropical downpour has with an afternoon drizzle.
The darkness grew denser, a thundercloud of giant scimitars hanging suddenly overhead, their thickness and length matching those of a lamppost. The tips of the blades were swaying ominously, pointed downwards. The whole strip of the promenade was threatened, as far as one could see.
The heroes stared up, some with horror, some with cold calculation, watching for tiniest movement of the swaying blades, searching for a wider gap.
The blades crashed down like sky falling, turned the wide promenade into a thicket of giant blades. Then vanished without a trace.
Xian Pu landed springily on the cobblestone, jumping from a park tree adorned with runny monsters. Ranma helped Ukyou to her feet, having knocked her down earlier into a safe spot. Akane let a shuddering breath out. Nabiki pulled her hat down tighter on her head to press down her hair standing upright. A closed maw on the flesh wall was torn apart bu Ryouga climbing out of its throat.
Everyone survived.
But the main battle was already happening in the air. The powder-blue harpy was flapping hurriedly, climbing towards the top of the enemy head — while dozens of pirate pistols were flying in the opposite direction tumbling chaotically, spewing out innumerable lights of magical bullets. She dashed to and fro, got hit a couple times and shifted back into a girl, a spell bubble surrounding her. All further bullets bounced, but she fell, the comet tail of her hair dropping down somewhere behind the enemy's back.
"I suppose, our task is distracting," Nabiki voiced in a measured voice, her whip held at ready, "and serving as decoys?"
"That was, kinda, obvious from the get go," Ukyou replied. "We can't even scratch him. If only I had a month to prepare and gather supplies, I'd have baked surprises for him. But we have what we have..." She weighed a throwing spatula in her hand. "Nah, throwing coins at a rabid boar woulda be smarter." She put her ranged weapon away whipping her battle spatula from her back.
The enemy stretched his hand high above — and the promenade was filled with five-meter clones, popping as if from under the ground. But not "two or three" as Shantae told. Dozens of them.
These ersatz copies oozing purple glow were bursting from one good hit, but they were attacking with dispersing arches of magical missiles the size of a good watermelon. And they were throwing these arches at arbitrary angles: sometimes vertically, sometimes at an angle. The heroes had to concentrate on dodging. Especially Nabiki, who had a fair reason to believe the first hit would be her last.
They haven't forgotten about the boss, not really, but he dropped so low on most's attention that a triple bark of his cannon became an unpleasant surprise.
Glancing upwards — which in itself was no simple task as the remaining clones had redoubled their assault — Ukyou saw a cannonball incoming in an arch. It felt coming straight at her. To her eyes it felt not just the size of a two-story house, it felt like it was half the sky wide! And knowing those come in series of three...
She only managed to dodge by dashing with everything she got, catching several glowing balls on her battle spatula. She tumbled haphazardly to the side, not really sure if she guessed the cannonballs path or would be smeared. The clones dog-piled her, she was fighting back with her battle spatula while lying on her back. There was a crash of pulverized cobblestones, the ground bounced her up with a hard hit to her back, but the clones were staggered allowing her to jump to her feet. Then earth shook again, further away, and the third time too. Finishing cleaning the nearby clones with her battle spatula she saw a confirmation of Shantae's words: if cannonballs come straight at you, run towards them so that the first one flies over you as it bounces. Then the remaining two would overfly you as well.
The ground was shaking in series of three, cannonballs bouncing like overgrown balls coming away from the promenade's axis, smashing through the park, dead trees crunching. Then she heard three allmighty splashes, but there was no time for looking because there were giant scimitars hanging overhead again and she had to guess a gap in their chaotic swaying.
It was no battle, it was desperate survival by the skin of one's teeth, hanging on the edge with one's fingernails, unable to look around and check if others were alive. The clones, or the pistol swarm, then cannonballs, then scimitars. Only rarely Shantae was running up to someone, transforming into a crab and then Ranma, or Akane, or Ryouga - who happened to be closer - was throwing her at the enemy's head.
An eternity later... They didn't even realize right away that the hell was suddenly over. They stood glancing around wildly, waiting for an attack that wasn't coming.
The enemy was standing there, grinning, seemingly unhurt. Shantae was facing him breathing hard, looking up at him with defiance.
"Whatever those Genies were trying to achieve by rewinding time with their magic," the Pirate Master said with contempt as he leaned down towards her, looming and towering, "they had grossly miscalculated by not taking me into account."
"Genies...?" Shantae echoed in surprise.
"Oh? Did those lighty-two-shoes play you blind...? Quite amusing. Yes, my second chance is the Genies' handiwork. Bungling fools! I am a transcendent being, my existence is weaved into the very narrative fabric of this world! Any manipulations that change the flow of time only make me stronger! Increase my probability density by distributing my existence across all quantum branches of reality!"
"Bluster all you like." The half-Genie glared at him stubbornly. "But you can't beat us! I, too, know something! The hero of this fairy tale here is me!"
"The hero...?" the enemy grinned with predatory zeal. "Ooooh... Now I understand. The living nexus of probabilities, the chosen of the plot continuity, for whom everything that I am is merely a step on the way, merely a challenge to overcome becoming stronger...? My overconfidence that, previous time, not stemming from my error of judgment but being dictated by the laws of the narrative...?"
Shantae backed away nervously.
The martial artists' danger sense not just screamed, it was choking in hysterics.
"Let's see what you could do, gnat," the Pirate Mater roared, "when I fight you with everything I got!"
The swarm of tumbling pistols that flowed over the ground was more like a tidal wave. Dangerous by themselves, the pistols were spewing a hell of glowing bullets flying in dispersing arches — predicting their movement seemed impossible. And there were hordes of tar monsters coming out of the mutilated park, out of breaches in the palace wall. And then there was also rumbling overhead, with not even a fraction of a second to spare to check what it was.
Akane was twisting and turning, pushed to her limit, punching and kicking the incoming magical bullets and monsters, intercepting them in the last moment but being battered at slashed with claws anyway. A thundering roar was suffusing everything around, some blindingly bright light nearby. Something new...?
She beat monsters away, rolled under an arch of glowing spheres that hit like bricks, and could finally take a look around: thankfully, those pistols were mowing the monsters down thus remaining the sole danger... Not!
Roaring columns of thunderbolts were beaming down from the roiling clouds overhead, zigzagging chaotically as they sped across the promenade leaving jagged molten gouges in their wake.
Her sister was nearby, battered badly, limping calmly away dragging her right leg.
Nabiki guessed wrong. The thunderbolt turned not where she expected it, vaporized her off-hand and sped away, behind Akane's back, leaving only spots in her eyes and icy pain in her heart.
"Nabiki-onee—"
Reality flickered back and forth, unsure which version of it was correct: the charred, crumbling skeleton, or the unhurt middle Tendou. It stopped on the latter, thankfully.
"Nabiki-oneechan!" Akane exclaimed, tears in her eyes.
It worked! The auto-potion worked!
The harsh reality quickly reminded them, though, that the bullet hell would not pause for their reunion. Both got bruised instantly.
"Cannonballs! Watch out for cannonballs!" the middle sister shouted trying to duck under crisscrossing bullet arches.
Akane glanced up. The six-meter cannonball was coming straight at her... Should bounce far ahead... And turn her into a smear on its next landing!
She dashed towards it, hurrying to duck under it, forced to ignore the bullets — those punished her mercilessly. She made it in time. The cannonball whipped past her shoulders with the wind of its passage, despite her ducking low. It ruffled her hair and shook the earth behind her. But the next one was already incoming, she had to run towards it, through the pain of bullet hits and weakness in her legs. She made it in time to dive under this one as well. She felt it scraping against the back of her dogi. Too close! Closer than the first one! She pushed herself going all out, and made it in time to duck under the third one. She slowed down, catching her breath, exhaustion catching up with her...
The fourth cannonball was incoming with inevitability of doom. There was no time to think why suddenly one extra, no time to make her battered body go all out again. No time to regret giving her auto-potion to her friend.
"Finish him for me, Shantae-chan," she thought closing her eyes.
Something whipped at her left side, jerking her hard by her dogi with a wet tearing sound. There was an earth-shaking hit, very very close... But it missed...? She was alive...?
She opened her eyes. A huge spider, half girl, was dragging her, wrapped in web, with this web rope pulling back into spider's butt. Poof, and there was Shantae and no web. The half-Genie asked her something, then started dancing while Akane was lying on her back not fully believing she was still in this world.
An invigorating wave of freshness washed her pains away like turning them off. Unhurt, Akane jumped to her feet. Her head was still a spinning ball of confusion but she couldn't let her friend's efforts to heal her go waste. She had to fight, to dodge — but where were the pistols...? Not a single one around. The threat had passed, ebbed. The Pirate Master was breathing hard, puffs coming out of his mouth. He had exhausted himself... For nothing! Her sister was alive, and Ranma was alive, and the Chinese bimbo, and the okonomiyaki girl, and, of course, Ryouga-kun as well!
Something was pulling at her pants leg from below. The crab. Right, of course! She aimed, and she lobbed. Her transformed friend arched straight at the villain's mug.
But he, suddenly, slapped the palms of his huge arms together!
He ground, like crushing a mosquito, pulled his hands apart...
Reality flickered between a falling purple-haired girl and a rain of nauseating... crab crumbs... Two auto-potions left, the intact Shantae landed sprigily, bounded away from the attempt to crush her under an immense boot and dashed away. To somewhere behind the enemy's back!
Ranma reached the palace roof in one huge leap and ran in the same direction, towards the central tower behind the enemy.
"I wonder," Xian Pu drawled, "why haven't we tried flanking him from the beginning?"
The enemy turned around leaving those staying on this side of him out of his attention.
Against the two on the seaward side, the swarm of pistols with its bullet hell proved useless: Ranma was bending impossibly, showing off maddeningly while dodging everything. Shantae was displaying pointed boredom inside her mirror bubble. And more, turned out that any pistol reflected by it was homing back at the enemy showering him in bullets!
The horde of clones proved even more useless: Ranma was dodging their projectiles — so rare they couldn't even be called a bullet hell — with flashy acrobatics, flaunting her effortless avoidance. Those that managed hitting Shantae were hoist by their own petard returned to sender.
In this environment, the series of giant cannonballs lost their deadly element of surprise, demoted to mere obstacles one had to maneuver around.
But the half-Genie couldn't attack either: the enemy was vigilant, always ready to slap the crab incoming in a predictable arch or meet the harpy with a swarm of pistols.
Those staying on this side felt useless. Were they a dead weight all that time...?
Ryouga tried. He jumped onto the edge of the boot to launch a "Lion Roar Blast" inside. That even made the enemy twitch. Tickled him? But Shantae then yelled at him from distance with a long, vocal indignation, berating him for "feeding". To think of it, Ryouga's techniques was based on negative energy while the villain was breathing and feeding on such negativity.
The stalemate stretched for so long that Xian Pu and Nabiki began devising various wild strategies of attracting the enemy's attention. But then something slammed into the back of titan's head exploding in a white cloud that peppered the brim of his hat with glittery debris!
Everyone turned around.
The tank was emerging from the darkness, the huge flippers of its feet pumping, the entire machine swaying as it waddled inelegantly. Its top part, the cross-breed of a caiman head and a bicycle seat, was lowering, the "maw" closing with hissing clouds of steam. There was a huge, steaming cannon muzzle in the tip of the upper jaw — not as big as the Pirate Master's cannon, but still good two meters across. If the barrel was the whole length of the tank, it must have had a much larger range too.
The armored jaws snapped shut, the stylized teeth of the lower jaw covering the cannon muzzle and connecting with those on the upper jaw in a reliable interlock.
Ranma and Shantae did not waste any time. A crab to the face, a good whipping. While she was falling, he tried slapping her against his shoulder.
The enemy turned towards the mainland in irritation. The tank was standing at the base of the peninsula, before the bridge it couldn't cross. Its wide rear was shifting, aiming its narrow front.
The giant cannon on the villain's right shoulder spat four overgrown cannonballs. Those thundered bouncing forward with ponderous inevitability.
"Is the tank done for?" Ukyou supposed: the rough cut armor was impressively thick, but the cannonballs were six meters across, even a bulldozer would be a featherweight compared to them.
"One built by four masters of magic?" Xian Pu didn't think so. "Based on a set of four legendary artifacts...?"
The bouncing cannonballs reached their target and hit the tank right in the muzzle. There were thunderous crashes and clangs and the rear was bounced up into the air, the tank ending up turned sideways.
While everyone was staring — including the enemy — Shantae came again as a harpy, whipped him one more time.
Turning around, the Pirate Master launched a swarm of pistols after her in livid rage... Absolutely pointless because she was retreating not as a magic-less harpy but as a girl protected with a bubble.
Tank's mechanisms were chugging, rotating it back towards the target. A couple stylized teeth of the lower jaw were blunted, their tips crumbling, but that was all.
Ranma was taunting, shouting something offensive. She was given a honor of being attacked with wandering thunderbolts: two blinding, pulsating columns struck from the suddenly roiling clouds chasing her.
The redhead pranced away, giggling mockingly. She even ran a circle around of one of the thunderbolts. Both sped away towards the sea where they flickered out.
Gnashing his teeth, the villain tried concentrating on Shantae. Struck with a combo of scimitars of Damocles and, without any delay, his cannon spitting four cannonballs. The half-Genie held her ground dodging it all with practiced ease.
Meanwhile the tank, as those remaining on this side could see, was already opening its jaws. The top jaw slash cover was rising, baring spinning flywheels, steaming pistons and blue-coated ammonians adjusting something hastily. The long-barreled cannon was rising higher and higher, the rear was shifting holding it pointed at the enemy.
Boom!
The two-meter cannonball — despite its speed everyone recognized it was made of ice — arched towards the back of Pirate Master's head. He twisted around at the sound, only to catch it with his face. Crunch, shatter, ice shards flying everywhere, a cloud of white dust obscuring his vision. He staggered, stumbled... Here comes the crab, sign the receipt.
Whipped again, the villain held his arms out making a new nuisance. Across the entire promenade, on both sides of him, rare thunderballs lit. Red beams flickered to life connecting them... So unhurriedly even Nabiki had no trouble avoiding them.
The beams flashed, thickening into bright lasers thick as a lamppost, burning through the air uselessly... Shining blindingly where they met tank armor...
The harpy came in around the palace tower, dropping from above where no one was looking. And again, hair to the face. Don't just stand there gawking at the tank with hope.
When the heroes blinked the last spots out of their eyes, there were quickly dimming red-hot spots on the tank's armor. And that was all. The machines kept chugging, the rear kept shifting holding the aim and white clouds were blowing from under the machine's belly.
The Pirate Master turned around to the seaward side where Ranma and Shantae lurked, held his palms up ready to slap at the crab. The half-Genie danced harpy, began climbing. He launched a swarm of pistols at her, in a wide gesture with his entire arm. She transformed back, dropping to the ground, protecting herself with the bubble. The enemy lost sight of her behind the pistol swarm, shot his cannon blindly. He completely missed the crab dropping from above. Ranma could throw at high angles, too.
Whipped in the face again, he didn't have time to regain his balance as another cannonball hit the back of his head. Shantae managed not to slip off this time, clutching at one of the rusty cutlasses stuck in his shoulder pad. She pulled herself back up and gave him yet another whipping.
His bone face was all covered in tiny chips now. Real pinpricks for his scale, doubtless not dangerous for him at all. The problem was, these weren't regenerating. However tiny the half-Genie was compared to him, however little damage she was inflicting, wasting so much time to reach his face each time and whip only a couple times... That damage was permanent.
The Pirate master went livid. A cloud of scimitars covered the entire peninsula — not just the promenade, but the palace and the park as well, to both sides of him, to the horizon. The chilling heroes had to focus again, desperately searching for a gap wide enough. And there were roaring columns of thunderbolts, two to each side, and the cannon was thundering non-stop.
The scimitars were hanging with a promise of death for too long. The thunderbolts ripped through their thicket dispelling them, leaving jagged glassy strips on the shattered cobblestone... With strips of clear sky above. When the blades crashed down, all heroes were safely inside those strips, avoiding danger effortlessly.
Shantae risked it, took a giant scimitar strike on her crab shell. The shell held and now the tiny critter was scuttling around somewhere in the thicket of blades, invisible to the enemy. The giant cannonballs flying towards her guesstimated position were pounding the ground in vain: when the blades disappeared, the crab was ways to the side, waving her pincer mockingly.
The villain corrected his aim. He kept shooting with no pause in a blind murderous rage.
The cannon coughed and fell silent, glowing dull red.
"Godzilla - missilla," Ranma quipped as she jumped onto the right wing of the palace. "Why haven't they nailed you a hundred years ago? Forget heroes, you can't hit the broad side of a barn!"
She then stood there, her arms crossed, her posture challenging.
The Pirate master grit out something unintelligible in his eldritch voice as he stretched his arms out towards her. The red-hot canon on his shoulder was twitching, coughing out clouds of steam. The thunderbolts striking from the sky all turned sharply, accelerating towards the redhead, cutting through the building top to bottom. She sidestepped one lazily, the other missing her completely. The pigtailed girl jumped away onto intact part of the roof crest when part of the building collapsed from under her.
"Cant-hit-a-barn," she repeated dismissively, grinning.
Shantae snuck in as a harpy, grabbed at the tail of the red kerchief dangling from under the pirate hat and hung there, holding at it with her right hand and her legs, whipping the enemy's left cheekbone again and again.
He had noticed, but at this moment Risky Boots lying on a balcony of the central tower suddenly ripped the chains off herself with creaking and clanging of bending iron, arresting his full attention. Bare-headed, and battered, her long hair in disarray, she grinned condescendingly: "You can't even tie your catch up properly!"
She threw the chains at his face, turned around with dignity and disappeared into a dark door frame.
While the villain was steaming, sputtering and trying in vain to break through the tower wall with his fist, Shantae kept rearranging his cheekbone with great efficiency.
Finally he shook her off slapping himself with tremendous force. Roaring something unintelligible, he chased her trying to stomp on her, making her dash to and fro in panic... Until the redhead joined the chase. She kept bouncing around his boots and even across them like an especially brazen flea, luring him after her toward the tip of the peninsula.
"You know," Xian Pu said looking at the chains lying on the ground where Risky threw them at enemy's face. "This could work. Ryouga! Break the fence, let us make harpoons out of its poles and those chains!"
A part of the park was separated from the promenade by a fence of tall iron poles, their spear-shaped tips sharp. And a fraction of that fence even survived, not flattened by the mega-cannonballs.
"What use are harpoons against him?" the eternally lost one grumbled, feeling like the fifth wheel. Ranma was hoggong all the glory for himself, again!
"We'll stick them in his hat, Shantae could then whip while hanging on them," the amazon explained walking up to the fence and tearing off a tar arm that tried clawing at her from the other side. "Come on, this pole will do."
Together, with Ryouga's strength — Xian Pu wasn't weak either - they quickly made several harpoons by thrusting the back ends of sharpened iron poles through links and bending them close.
The tank hit the enemy with another ice cannonball. He did not stagger, though, but ran back disregarding Ranma. He was clearly intent on trying to stomp the tank. This played into Nerimans' hand as they started launching their harpoons head-on. Akane, Xian Pu, Ruouga, Ukyou as well. Nabiki was cheering for them, commending their clever plan.
Half the harpoons bounced but some caught, more on the red kerchief sticking from under the hat than on the hat itself. Shantae immediately grasped the strategy, came in as a harpy and began whipping, jumping from chain to chain. Non-stop, relentlessly, not wasting her time anymore on lengthy approaches.
The villain slapped himself tearing some chains off. Shantae dodged by dropping to the ground. He started towards the tank. Ranma lobbed the crab — and again the half-Genie was hanging on the chains, whipping. He forgot about the tank, chased the taunting Ranma launching a swarm of pistols at her. He grinned, sure that she wouldn't be able to dodge both the bullet hell and his boots at the same time.
She pulled out a magic scroll, read it silently - and was surrounded with a bluish bubble. Any bullets touching it were disappearing. She proceeded leaping like a brazen flea, making him absolutely livid with anger.
While Shantae kept coming, kept hanging on the chains and whipping...
The tiny chips accumulated, her next strike made a tiny crack run trough the right bone brow. Tiny for his size but growing with each hair strike. He gnashed his teeth, squinting in a blind rage... And found suddenly that that part of his face was losing fluidity, hardening into a common bone.
The boss froze in shock, as if hit with icy water. He fretted coming to his senses, tearing the chains hastily from his kerchief. The gaze of his huge yellow eyes was darting around in mild panic, assessing.
Heroes, as determined as ever - check. Their ranks haven't diminished at all. An unkillable tank biding its time for a sneak attack, check. Lost prey, the prisoner having disappeared to parts unknown, check.
The villain realized: this was it. He hissed with malice "There won't be a second tome!" as he pulled out a tiny golden speck, a golden grain held between his fingers.
The lamp!
The Nerima wrecking crew rushed to the rescue — too slow. The tank spat hastily, not even a cannonball, just half-formed ice debris — and missed.
The sucking stream of magic caught Shantae, dragging her, tearing at her magical half like hooks sunk into her very soul...
A mighty kick threw her aside none too gently — and then the stream was dragging Ryouga, tearing out... A piglet.
Akane froze, dumbstruck, staring.
Ryouga met her eyes, going numb with horror, the pain of his curse being ripped out nothing next to the despair flooding him.
Akane was standing poleaxed, the pieces of the puzzle in her head coming together with painful snaps, breaking through her weakened armor of cluelessness. Ryouga's piglet being a youkai. Ranma's shiftiness. Shantae's promise to make certain someone make an admission...
"Pi-chan is Ryouga," Akane thought with a strange sense of detachment.
"Akane-san knows!" Ryouga thought. "It's over. Over!"
What Ranma thought is not customarily said in a decent company.
"Such rare opportunity..." Xian Pu was only entertained the temptation for half a second. "But... Above you, idiot! Look up!"
Akane lifted her eyes slowly, confused why it was becoming darker.
Ryouga lifted his eyes too, staring in horror at the boot sole the size of a bus descending towards her.
Ranma dashed, painfully aware she was too late. Ukyou was far away on the other side. Shantae transformed back from the harpy halfway to the enemy's head, but she had a long way to fall.
Nabiki flattened herself in a dash, spinning her whip up, managing to catch her younger sister by her ankle then pulling back with her entire weight, dropping backwards, the tendons in her arms screaming.
Akane was slammed face first into the ground, dragged across, then hit with an explosion that stunned her, stone shrapnel biting into her head and shoulders.
"Akane... San..." Ryouga dropped to his knees, having missed the last-moment rescue. And now the saved girl was obscured from him by the bulk of the boot.
Ranma felt like being splashed with icy water: she haven't noticed as well, not right away.
Shantae nearly died inside thinking she led her friend to her untimely death — until she saw Nabiki dragging her bloodied sister thrown over her shoulder, whipping monsters away with her free arm.
The villain, likewise, failed to notice. He ground his boot pointedly, grinning at Ryouga. He lifted his other foot above the despairing hero.
The eternally lost boy did not shout any technique names: so meaningless. He flashed with black lightning, a crimson glow of his aura surrounding him - it wasn't even his usual green. Pain and emptiness and despair and pain and guilt and worthlessness and pain. So much even the Pirate Master's grin slowly faltered, the villain now unsure in this decision to recharge on freebie negativity.
"Stop, I told you, it heals him..." Shantae shouted helplessly as she landed next to the Tendou sisters and began her full restoration dance.
The stream of negative emotions that erupted from Ryouga did not even resemble the perfected "Lion Roar Blast", it was more like a giant laser beaming from him towards the zenith in a spiral of black and crimson.
With Pirate Master leaning over him, the villain's crotch was right in the way.
The world shook from an explosion of negative energy, a shockwave ring emanating from there accompanied by the sound of something esoteric that burst like a guitar string.
The world shook again, from Pirate Master's inhuman screech. The villain was clutching at his tender bits with both hands, his head thrown back in agony. Glasses were shattering in the faraway Scuttle Town behind bared windows. Heroes were writhing on the ground clutching at their ears. Monsters were blowing up from resonance.
The titanic figure began falling slowly onto its back, like a falling tree of immense proportions. Between the heels of his boots there was a scorched starburst of a crater with a catatonic Ryouga, soothy and shirtless, who was indifferent to anything.
"Well, I'll be!" Ukyou stared in disbelief.
"Ummm," the freshly healed Akane drawled, experiencing mixed feelings. She was staring at the giant boot toppling over at an arm's length revealing the crater with Ryouga.
"One could think: it's nothing but bone in there," Xian Pu added wisely. "And yet."
Ranma winced in sympathy. What Ammo Baron thought no one knew because they couldn't see him inside his tank.
The titan finally finished collapsing. A buffeting wind exploded from him, mixed with debris, as the ground shook under their feet. The hat fell from the giant head shrinking immediately to human-sized proportions.
Shantae was already there, already running up, having calculated correctly where the head would land. Without losing a step, she covered her face with the crook of her arm from the shockwave, dashed after the hat and immediately looted the priceless magic item.
The boss was thrashing and writhing, kicking his legs, his heels making craters. The Nerimans took cover from the flying stone chips: Ukyou behind her spatula, Nabiki behind Akane, Ranma and Xian Pu were simply catching the debris, both trained against a swarm of wasps. Everything was bouncing off the catatonic Ryouga. The tar monsters were being mowed down.
Shantae danced quickly, protected from this shrapnel by the head. Climbed into the air as a harpy. Dropped onto the enemy's forehead as a girl. Then went whipping with all her might, encouraging herself with battle cries.
The Pirate Master was shaking his head, snapping his teeth, threatening her with horrible punishments. The only thing he was unable to do was tearing his hands away from his crotch. While the half-Genie would not be shaken off, would not relent, holding onto his bone mug like a tick. The invincible bone was cracking up. The enemy didn't have anything imposing nor dreadful in him anymore. He sounded pathetic, like a coward used to bullying weaklings who met his match for the first time and realized to his horror he himself was a weakling here.
Clones popped up, all cracked and incomplete, without pirate gear. All stumbled and limped with one intent: to scrape Shantae off their master's face. Some were missing a foot, others a whole leg. The Nerima wrecking crew, minus Ryouga, fell upon them like a ton of bricks. None even reached the head.
And the half-Genie hero kept whipping, and the bone mask was crumbling further, losing fluidity and expressivemess, and the purple mass was flickering under it, becoming a little see through like mist.
The Pirate Master deflated into his lesser five-meter tall form. He jumped to his feet throwing Shantae off, swinging his left arm around protectively — his right hand was still glued to his tender parts. The dark clouds overhead roiled, pregnant with a growing funnel. Tar monsters rushed in en masse from everywhere around.
Xian Pu staggered him with her shoulder under his knee. Ukyou blocked a swing of the huge arm with her spatula. She got catapulted away but allowed Ranma grab that arm with both hands around the bone shoulder while pushing at the massive wrist with her feet, slowing and distracting. The enemy stumbled, fell onto one knee twitching awkwardly, trying to dislodge the redhead.
Shantae was jumping and whipping mid-jump, flexing her entire body — with fury, with incredible speed, yelling something barely intelligible about "there won't be a third time" and "for my Mom". A white glow of battle aura surrounded her and the enemy began breaking, caving under her strikes. Ukyou, Akane and Nabiki were fighting the onrushing tar monsters, dashing to and fro, pushed back, against impossible odds — it was like trying to stop a tidal wave. But then, a huge Wrench hovered overhead with Sky on his back. The second rider dropped down - it was Bolo, who began spinning his spiky ball on a chain. The tank made one last shot cutting a swath trough the crowd of monsters. Risky Boots fell from above in a whirlwind of chains, spinning, using them like iron whips.
The tidal wave of monsters broke upon the defenders' resolve, splashed apart into separate packs of monsters running around without any coordination.
Shantae was shining, her outline sparkling like sun through storm clouds. The enemy managed to overcome himself, his right hand reaching for the scimitar on his belt. Xian Pu stood in the way of that arm, pushing with her hands and feet, her whole body like a stubborn spring not letting him close his hand. She only held for a couple seconds but that was enough.
The bone mug split in half under a strike of the ponytail shining like a blade of silver light. Split - and shattered to pieces. The fiery pit of a mouth on the melting, evaporating head wailed in anguish. The angry lights of eyes flashed before dimming. There was a gust of rotten wind — knocking the crew down, dispersing any surviving monsters. And the Pirate Master was no more. Only crumbling bones and rotten rags remained, dropping to the ground.
They did it.
Shantae was bouncing up and down with so mush joy she then had to straighten her top, it nearly slid off. The rest of the heroes were exchanging glances, relaxing, beginning to feel they won.
Dark clouds were dispersing rapidly, pierced by sunlight that felt blinding after the darkness, their edges were shining gold. A sea breeze came cleaning the horizon. The sun was close to setting, shining straight at the torn front of the palace. The demonic flesh entwining it was shrinking under its rays, drying and falling off or petrifying into ugly bas-reliefs. The dead trees of the ruined park were casting long shadows across the torn up cobblestone of the promenade. The tar monsters were writhing, melting off their branches, evaporating in the light. Some hid in the few available shadows, their huge eyes adapted to darkness blinking owlishly from those hidey holes.
Shantae danced full restoration without holding back: Nabiki was barely holding upright while the barely clothed Xian Pu was showing more bruises than skin.
"Thank you," the middle Tendou thanked her with uncharacteristic sincerity.
"Are you all right, Big Sis?" the youngest worried about her.
"I..." The other girl lifted her eyes towards the sky, shifting her hat to the back of her head with a devil-may-care smile. "I danced with pain, I danced with death. And I feel like a stone fell off my soul, one that was laying there from my birth. Watch this!"
Nabiki jumped two meters straight up, somersaulted, botched her landing - and fell onto her back, laughing spreadeagled with careless relief, feeling herself as if suffused with light.
"Toldja!" Ranma nodded wisely. "A breakthrough!"
"By the waaay," Xian Pu beset the pigtailed girl demanding an answer. "How did you manage reading the magic scroll? Wherever I've been, those are always written in ancient forgotten tongues, deciphering them is a whole quest."
"Meh," Ranma waved dismissively. "Remember, which language plays the role of that ancient forgotten one here."
"Really? Could it be...?"
"Yup. It's English." the redhead was radiating smugness.
"Hey, look, a tinkerbat!" Ukyou tried urging the celebrating crew to pay attention. With no success.
One, then another, emerging mysteriously the black midgets began scuttling around, nearly swarming. Here one picks up the pirate pistol that dropped when the enemy disintegrated, there another shakes bone crumbles out of the boots, two more straining to drag the cannon.
"Where's Risky?" Ranma tensed, growing alert. There were about a dozen tinkerbats around but the pirate queen was nowhere... No, there she was! How did she get behind everyone's backs...?"
Battered, all covered in bruises in cuts, unkempt, her disarrayed hair flopping freely in the wind... But with a maniacal glint in her eyes that made your spine frost over, the pirate queen stood with a complex tinkertech gun in her hands, the horseshoe magnet on the tip of its barrel spinning up.
Ranma opened her mouth to shout a warning, but she was too late. Risky shot Shantae in the back, a black lightning bolt from the magnet striking her. The redhead started forward to stop her but there was a double shout of alarm from Nabiki and Akane behind her. The half-Genie was rasping, thrashing and convulsing on the ground surrounded by blindingly black discharges. The Tendou sisters were beset by a whole army of scimitar-wielding tinkerbats threatening to bury them under a wave of bodies and sharp prodding metal.
Ranma dashed to help them, knowing beforehand she was too late. But Ukyou and Xian Pu were already there, covering Nabiki from the flanks — one with her spatula, another with scimitars taken from the tinkerbats themselves. The middle Tendou was holding the front with sparse but powerful strikes of her whip. Akane was holding her own. Bolo cut into the enemy ranks from behind. Wrench, having shrunk to his normal size, was coming in, pulling the black midgets' red kerchiefs onto their eyes, then breaking away.
They scattered and routed the tinkerbats in five seconds flat. They turned around.
Shantae was twitching weakly on the ground, last discharges sparkling along her body. A lone tinkerbat was legging it with the hat stolen from her. Risky Boots, with an insufferably self-satisfied expression on her face, was pulling some whirring egg-sized thingie from her tinkertech gun.
"Why you, treasonous creep!"
"Shantae-chan!"
"I told you? I told you."
"Get her!"
They rushed to catch. Risky instantly pocketed the whirring thingie, dropped the gun, pulled out the pirate scimitar... And sped away in a blur of afterimages, having gained speed for a scimitar dash in three steps. They ran after her: the peninsula was long but finite. But the pirate queen was already ascending atop the cannon. Pulling out the hat, she sped away over the sea incredibly fast, at times switching to the cannon to regain attitude.
"Pathetic worms," a voice growled from behind them, low and more befitting some boss than a girl. "For whose sake was I wringing myself dry with effort? Huh? And where's yer gratitude? Where are the adoring crowds and obedient harem boys...? Huh...? HUH...?"
The Nerimans and other friends of the half-Genie turned around, fearing of what would they see.
Shantae was rising up slowly, swaying like drunk. Her hair was bright crimson, her eyes glowing solid white.
"I'll make you all crawl before me!" she growled glaring at them with those scary white eyes. "I'll make you respect me!" She lit big balls of roiling flame in both her hands. "Gnaw the earth, now!"
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
October 09, 2022. Translated to English September 09, 2023
A.N.#1: whoopsie.. Could this be a Boss Rush? Wait for the next chapter and see for yourself! I hope it would only take a couple weeks instead of a year as my previous chapters. I am seriously intent to write two chapters in October, two in November and two chapters of the sequel before the New Year (in addition to three written in 2019 and waiting their turn).
P.S. Those plans were totally derailed as I had to put my everything into dodging mobilization (because cops hunting for the draft worked much faster than bureaucrats processing my exempt from service, isn't that hilarious). The next chapter was only released in Russian in December 2022 and the closing chapters aren't finished even now. But I will get there, rest assured.
A.N. #2: did you expect a different end for the big bad? More decent? Yeah, as if. Unlike the anime, the manga "Ranma one half" I follow as my guideline has zero tolerance for drama. If drama tries to butt in and yap it is immediately kicked into a pit full of starving clowns with a shout "This! Is! Nerima!"
A.N. #3: somewhere around here there should be an onesot prequel for this fic titled "How I ended the half-Genie hero" where my interpretation of the canon is detailed. If you have read it you should have an idea what the hell Risky is doing and what for.
A.N. #4: youtube Ad8k1PW-SYI - the previous time. Someone's run for the golden ending and the "Squid Savoir" achievement (gather all dark magic, gather all heart squids but never upgrade your health). I wanted to finish the game likewise before writing this chapter, but got distracted. I beat the last of the ordinary bosses with only two hearths, only had to collect the few remaining squids and cacklebats... I let if for too long, now that save is lost because Steam can't run on the machine where I was doing this anymore because it stopped supporting Windows 7. Well, I beat Seven Sirens with Squid Saver achievement on new game plus (e.g. with only three starting hearts while you take double damage).