Ranmazoku
Chapter 10 - Wolf Vs. Pheonix
By PansutoTarou5925

DISCLAIMER - I do not own the rights to Slayers nor do I own the rights to Ranma �. Long live the rightful owners of these two fine anime. This work is non-commercial and is done only in imitation of Rumiko Takahashi and Hajime Kanzaka. Imitation is the sincerest flattery, no? US rights owned by Viz and Software Sculptors. If I mention the Senshi, Sailor Moon belongs to Naoko Takeuchi(Sp, anyone?) and.. and.. I dunno who has the US rights, but it's theirs not mine. (I'm drawing a blank) Appleseed is the property of Masamune Shirow.

Author's note - This story originated from an idea on Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. If he's reading this, I'm curious to know what he thinks of all this. Questioning me would be like questioning Xellos if you ask when the next section comes out, because it's a secret.

ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events, characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are rabid canon-thumpers beware! (and eat a Dragon Slave while you're at it)

PREVIOUSLY - Ranma discovers he's not Genma's son, that Xellos is his father, that he's not even human, studies black magic under Phibrizzo, yadda yadda yadda, gets in a fight with Ryouga and curses a decent sized crowd to act like Kuno. Then he corrupts Hotaru into becoming a mazoku and put a world of hurt on some poor Daimon and Eudial. Afterwards he spied on the Inners, took Nabiki, and got Kasumi angry! Then they went to the Slayers world and met Lina and Co under false identities. After that they duked it out with Sherra and Ranma vanished after touching a magic sword. Hotaru smacked around the Senshi and now Ranma's back. Read the previous chapters, really, I'm not good at rehashing stuff.

NOTE - [...] indicates telepathic communication between Ranma and Hotaru in the Astral plane.

Ranma eyed Saffron warily. As of yet, no one there had made a move. Hotaru was floating in midair, crouched over the Glaive, which was currently aimed at the ledge Cologne and the others were on. Ranma ran a finger along his blade - being extremely careful to only touch the flat - and turned his focus inwards for a second. Saffron's muscles tensing intruded only dimly on his mind. Perhaps he ought to take the offensive. "Hotaru! Do it!"

What 'it' was didn't need to be vocalized. The Silence Glaive spoke, blasting the rock above Saffron's allies and burying them from the debris. Ranma didn't expect that to delay them overlong, in fact, even as he began to teleport he saw the rock rising and exploding from the Bakusai Tenketsu, but the other bird-person's brief yelp of surprise had distracted Saffron.

Saffron dodged with blinding speed, but Ranma still scored a clean slash along Saffron's cheek. The Pheonix God flew backwards, putting distance between himself and Ranma. Ranma laughed. "It shouldn't be that hard to cut you down to... size?" He stopped laughing. Even as he watched, Saffron's cut healed and vanished. 'On the other hand, this could be a bit harder than I bargained for. Forgot about his healing!'

Saffron replied with a storm of small fireballs, correctly figuring Ranma couldn't block all of them. However, Ranma simply teleported out of the way. Saffron didn't duck this time, he just fired a fireball over his shoulder.

Ranma slammed into the wall hard. "Damn fireballs!" He felt his skin quickly healing - if not quite with the speed of a pheonix, then close enough. He flew forward out of the crater in the wall he had made. The two combatants stopped to readjust their views of each other.

"Not bad." Ranma allowed.

"You're not too bad yourself." Saffron agreed. A nasty smile. "It's almost a shame I'll have to kill you."

Ranma's smile transcended nasty. "That's my line." He teleported away from a chi blast. "Heh, Herb, don't you know to only pick the fights you can win?"

Saffron snorted. "You should follow your own advice."

Another predatory smile from Ranma. "I always believe there's no fight I can't win." Herb fired another chi blast, which Ranma this time redirected at Saffron with his sword. Ranma flew in behind it, giving Saffron the choice of dodging blast or blade, but not both.

Saffron simply snuffed out Herb's comparatively feeble blast with a fireball the size of a Buick. Ranma spiked the fireball down into Cologne with the flat of his sword and tackled Saffron in midair. Shifting quickly, he transformed his free hand into the claw that his monstrous form had so he could match Saffron.

The two began a brutal midair wrestling match of claw and blade. Without enough room to swing for a truly lethal blow, though, the two merely cut each other up without doing real harm.

At least by crowding Saffron Ranma prevented anyone from taking potshots at him. He needed to think.

Down below, Hotaru was having the time of her life. The only one who could seriously hurt her was currently wrestling with Ranma a hundred feet above the ground. Herb, with his magic staff, was only interested in watching Ranma and Saffron and waiting for an opportunity. She herself was backpedaling, using her staff and enhanced mazoku strength to stymie all of the bird woman's - Kiima, her name was - and Cologne's assaults.

Cologne's staff darted in, fired at her leg. She noted Cologne wasn't wasting her time with pressure points and vitals this time. She figured the old monkey had finally figured out she didn't have any. It still made her only a small nuisance though,trying to cripple her. She was pushing six feet in her current form, and was wielding even the heavy iron Silence Glaive one handed. Her other hand alternately blasted the two with magical lightning and dark fire, or just slapped them around.

Kiima's sword rushed in at the same time as Cologne's next staff strike. Stepping forwards into the blade, Hotaru let it ram right through her. She slipped her other hand on the Glaive and swung the wrong end like a baseball bat, whacking Cologne and sending the light old woman tumbling. Then she slapped her hand on the blade, holding it fast, and wiping the victorious grin off of Kiima's face. "What are you smiling about?" Hotaru asked.

Kiima screamed as Hotaru pumped a few thousand volts of magical electricity into the blade. She dropped back, twitching.

"Herb! Stop goofing off and help us!" Cologne said. Hotaru raised her Glaive above her, asi if to finish off Kiima. Herb turned away from Ranma and Saffron's midair brawl in order to see Hotaru about to slash down on the helpless Kiima.

"NO!" he yelled. "Hito Ryu Zan Ha!" Multiple blades of ki energy flew towards Hotaru.

Hotaru turned around. "Suckers." She teleported away, leaving Herb's attack to smash up Kiima even worse than she already was. She reappeared behind Herb and simply tried to hack him in half with the Glaive.

Herb raised his staff, the Gekkaja, and blocked Hotaru's overhead strike, the sheer force of the mazoku driving him to his knees for a second. "Ugh!" he grunted, standing back up. Hotaru increased the pressure on him again, but their little strength contest was aborted by Cologne's arrival. Her staff strike was easily dodged, but she simply started backpedaling again.

She was back to where she had started - but with one less attacker. She felt time was on her side. After all they were only human. Or mostly human, at any rate.

A loud thud distracted them momentarily, as a huge mass fell from the sky.

The enormous winged wolflike thing that was the monstrous form of Ranma Saotome hunched over the slightly squashed Saffron. He stood on his rear legs, holding his sword in one talonlike claw. "Heh. Let's see how you can survive in a wrestling match with me now." Ranma growled, his voice unnatural and grating now. The sheer bulk of Ranma put him near Pantyhose's bulk, and a meaty hand formed a huge fist that slammed down into Saffron with the speed of the Amaguriken. The basin they were fighting in cracked, as Saffron was slammed through the ground with inhuman strength.

Ranma's fist reared back again, and Cologne and Herb thought this monster was going to finish off Saffron. How could anything survive another such blow? But a huge fireball shot up and blasted Ranma's head.

Blinded, Ranma's fist sailed wide of the mark, blasting another hole in the floor. Ranma shielded his eyes with his arm, narrowly missing slicing Saffron in half with the blade it was holding as he whipped it up over his scorched eyes. He howled in pain.

Saffron jumped forward with the Kinjakan, hoping to turn the tables even further, but Ranma's fist sailed out again and aught Saffron clearly in the chest.

Saffron grunted and opened his eyes to see the enormous bulk of Ranma's snarling form diving towards him, that deadly little blade - for tiny it was compared to the size of Ranma's monstrous body - whistling in a large arc, ready to tear him in two. He jumped forwards, accelerating his leap with golden wings, Kinjakan blazing fire and reeled back for a mighty blow. He came in too fast for Ranma's outstretched arms to readjust; Ranma had committed himself fully to the attack. Saffron grinned as Ranma's eyes widened.

Ranma's jaws shot forward, honed by years of snatching stray bits of food from midair.

Saffron was crushed between Ranma's jaws. He flexed his hand inside Ranma's jaw, intending to roast him from the inside out and see if he could shrug THAT off, but Ranma didn't give him the chance. Ranma flung Saffron against the wall and unloaded another earth-shaking punch into the Pheonix God.

Hotaru returned her gaze to Colgone and Herb. "Looks like your birdbrain friend isn't going to last much longer. You two should leave. I'll let you live - but how long could you hold out against the two of us?"

Cologne and Herb stopped for a second, before Herb thrust the Gekkajan at her. Hotaru easily parried with the Glaive.

"What, you *want* to die? No probalem, we aim to please." Hotaru's fist snapped forward and caught Herb under the chin. Cologne held open a small paper fan. "What's that, a toy?" Flames burst from the fan, blackinging Hotaru's face.

She wiped off the soot. "Why, you!" she screamed, cutting loose with an aura of power that nearly brought the two to their knees through sheer force of the dread and hatred that it contained. Hotaru didn't waste time, abandoning her defensiveness in favor of trying to crush these little gnats.

Cologne and Herb hastily scrambled back out of the way of Hotaru's swipes with the Glaive. Its business end was now topped with a shimmering field of force and tore up the ground just by passing near it. Direct hits broke open rocks, which then melted and exploded.

Dodging crazily, Cologne backed up, spiralling inward. It wasn't a very neat spiral, but with the kind of power Hotaru was putting out, it didn't need to be. Apart from avoiding getting killed by the angry mazoku, the sheer force of Hotaru's aura kept disrupting her Soul Of Ice. It guttered again as she tripped over a rock. The Glaive screamed in, Hotaru's rage coming through the tip and emitting so much force it disrupted space itself. Cologne panicked for a second, before realizing. Ice. Her hand closed on Herb's staff.

"HIRYUU SHOTEN HAAA!" the old Matriarch of the Amazons called out, as an enormous tornado snapped Hotaru into the air.

"ARRRGgghhh!!" Hotaru's voice screamed, fading as it shot up into the heights of the chamber.

Ranma looked away from where he was pounding Saffron to see Hotaru vanish into the tornado. "NO!" he yelled, punctuating his cry with a thin bolt of energy that struck the Gekkajan straight on, sending Cologne into the wall. She was held up for a moment by the sheer momentum fo the attack, then fell, slumped, unconscious.

Saffron realized this was his chance to reverse the one handed beating he had been getting from Ranma. Reaching back he snapped off his wings and threw them as hard as he could. The golden wings of the Pheonix flew out, crescent blades of death. The left wing missed, but the right wing struck Ranma squarely in the shoulder. The monstrous limb fell off and dissolved into the primal black magic that was the true form of all mazoku. Ranma bellowed. In his shock from losing the limb, he transformed back into his human form.

Ranma looked at his shoulder. Saffron stepped forward, a fireball in his hand. "Come now, you're going to lose now. Even you can't grow that back fast enough."

Ranma looked at Saffron, looked over to where Cologne was lying, and turned back to Saffron. "I won't need it now." he replied, smiling.

Hotaru slammed into the ceiling, having been taken completely by surprise by that last attack. She snarled. Already her injuries were healing; but that attack had been a stroke of genius, using her own innate dark power against her. She felt a little sick; it had scrambled her a bit on the Astral, even.

Fortunately for her, Cologne was concentrating on Ranma's battle with Saffron. Her eyes fairly glowed when Ranma's arm was cut off. The Glaive shot up; the words "Silence Glaive Surprise" almost came to her lips. But then Ranma's own words reached her.

Just what did he have in mind?

Saffron smirked at the one-armed mazoku in front of him. Did he really think he could defeat the mighty Pheonix God with such a handicap? Saffron blurred forward, the Kinjakan snapping through the air.

Ranma calmly moved aside, the staff flaring to incandescence as it neared Ranma, scorching the earth as it hit. Saffron swung again, to be met this time by the impossibly strong mazoku. Ranma's blade caught the staff on its flat, and only a swift step to the side prevented Ranma from slicing him with that sword.

Ranma concentrated for a second, and the sword pulsed with a dark force all of its own. "Fear the power of my sword. With every taste of power it grows stronger." Saffron snarled and redoubled his assault. The blazing Kinjakan burned with Saffron's power, as Saffron sought to overwhel the injured mazoku. Ranma's own sword fairly hummed as Ranma poured more and more of his strength into the blade. It now hummed with a chainsaw buzz, and every time their weapons clashed great gouts over energy erupted, blasting everything around them. The walls began to blacken as the two fighters glowed with a power scarcely imaginable to mortal martial artists.

Cologne and Herb were awestruck. The two could not move before the spectacle of power in front of them. Even when the power being put out forced them back, sliding them back across the floor like so much loose garbage, the two did not avert their eyes, did not utter a word. It was a clash of titans that they could never hope to match in power.

Cologne hoped ferverently that the two killed each other.

The two were so mesmerized by the power struggle between Ranma and Saffron that they failed to hear the sound of an angry mazoku dropping from the ceiling onto her feet, nor did they see the aura coming off the pissed Dark Senshi behind them. Hotaru stalked up behind them, Glaive raised in both hands above her head.

"DIE!" Hotaru shrieked, the Glaive snapping over Cologne's head. As Herb's head whipped around at the sound, her leg lashed out, punting him skyward. Even as Hotaru lifted Cologne off the ground, strangling her with the pole of the Glaive, Herb reversed his direction of flight and returned, sped by a fresh increase in the power coming off of Saffron and Ranma.

"Ryu Sei Hisho!" Herb said, firing his special double ki blast. Hotaru simply gritted her teeth and stomped on the annoying Ryuuzoku.

With Cologne vainly trying to resist her innate mazoku strength and Herb firmly under her boot, Hotaru laughed. "Worms! I'd have let you go, but for that last attack I'm going to have to eliminate you." Cologne's struggles grew a little more feeble, and her eyes were beginning to swim with blackness from the intense pressure. Hotaru wasn't just cutting off the air, she was cutting off the blood as well.

Cologne tried to think of a martial arts technique - any technique - that could help her in such a situation. Her ki was low and she wasn't in a good condition to use it anyhow. Nothing else would faze the mazoku - unless...

She gritted her teeth. She'd hate to feel indebted to Mr. Part Time, but there was no need for him to hear of this anyhow. Her hand slipped into her sleeve. She felt her hands slip into the pockets her ki made, and found what she was looking for. A few packets of hot sauce she kept in weaponspace, along with spare forks, knives and the like. She reached up and popped them in Hotaru's face.

"AIIIIEEE!" Hotaru shrieked, covering her eyes and dropping Cologne. Her other hand shot out and cracked across the back of Cologne's head. The Amazon Matriarch flew off, impacting against the wall with a loud THUD. Herb escaped from under Hotaru's foot. Angry, blind, and now beyond all restraint, Hotaru started swinging wildly, blasting everything nearby.

Cologne watched as Ranma and Saffron continued their battle, the ground below them now glowing slag, but the fight continued above ground. Cologne noticed the two Jusendo taps melting. At least it would be a while before the Pheonix People could bring Saffron to maturity again.

She watched as Ranma seemed to spiral backwards, as if he were going to perform the Hiryuu Shoten Ha. But his aura was enormous, almost as huge and energetic as Saffron's. So that couldn't be it?

Or was he just on the defensive, playing the waiting game?

What was Ranma up to?

Ranma continued to give ground, looping inward. The Bras Blade was untouched, pristine, and shrouded in black magic, whil the Kajakan was more battered, the power of the magically sharp blade damaging even it, but it too glowed with the fire of Saffron's magic. Ranma backed up and reached the center, tripping.

The Kajakan leapt forward, seeking his heart.

Ranma stabbed forth with the Bras Blade, smiling, as he poured every ounce of his black power into the tip. He called out the name of his impromptu attack, that used the danger of mixing black and white magic - "MARYUU SHOTEN HAAA!"

The Demon Dragon Ascending Wave. Mixing magic of black and white was dangerous, but this was a directed danger. An explosion of immense power ripped skywards, tearing apart the ground and sucking the waters of Jusendo upwards. Meanwhile, Saffron was blown backwards, borne away on a storm of darkness.

Ranma began to absorb the ancient power of Death Fog, which had lain dormant in Jusendo these many years.

Cologne's eyes widened in horror. The dark tornado seemed to explode outwards, expanding and consuming the chamber. It expanding walls slowly spiralled towards her. Heedless of her injuries, she sprang to her feet. "Herb! Get Kiima and escape!" Her voice was barely carrying over the infernal roar of Ranma's attack, but Herb ran out from behind his rock, her finger pointing at Kiima telling him all he needed to know.

Besides, only a dunce would have realized that the wall of swirling darkness advancing upon them was a bad thing.

Hotaru opened her eye without hot sauce in it and eyed the wall of darkness warily. Sure, this was obviously Ranma's, but she had the feeling that it would take out anything, regardless of affiliation. Seeing the others fleeing, Hotaru decided to teleport outside.

Outside, everything had been blasted away. The roaring tornado of black magic screamed skywards, and gale force winds ripped over the land. Of Saffron and Ranma, nothing could be seen.

Suddenly, as abruptly as it had exploded across the landscape, it vanished.

Ranma hovered over a blackened, smooth glass crater. His arm was fully healed, and he flexed his regrown hand. Ranma sheathed his sword. "Power," he said simply. Ranma shifted into his female form, then returned to male.

Ranma looked at Herb. Herb suddenly shifted to his female form. Ranma smiled. "The power of Jusenkyo is mine. The power of Jusendo is mine." Ranma pointed his finger at a nearby mountaintop, which promptly exploded into ruins. He cut loose with good old fashioned maniacal laughter, which echoed across the reshaped landscape.

Herb-chan and Cologne shivered and quickly slunk away. Kiima, however, started looking for Saffron's egg. He was obviously dead, or he would have flown down to challenge Ranma. She shifted painfully. Obviously her wing had been broken in the fight, and it would take a while to heal. Her left arm hung limply as well, and her eye on that side was swollen shut as well. She had to get Saffron and get him to safety. Then she'd have to make the journey to Tokyo. They needed stronger allies against this monster.

Ranma stopped his laughter and saw Hotaru. He teleported next to her in a flash. "Hey, Hotaru!" he said, smiling broadly. "Pack your bags. We have a trip to make!"

Hotaru smiled back. "You're going to lay claim to one of the two open positions as Mazoku Lord?" Her smile widened into a grin.

"Of course."

"Then.. shall we go?"

Two mazoku vanished from Earth, making a brief stop in Tokyo to give Nabiki some instructions.

Afterwards, Cologne and Herb had gathered the collected Musk and Amazons. Cologne rapped her new staff on the challenge log to get their attention. "Listen, my people!" she gravely said. "There is a new force for evil in the world. Despite our proud and storied past, we cannot prevail alone. Beyond that, the dark power of Jusendo is awakened. We cannot stay here overlong. We must abandon the lands of our foremothers and go to Tokyo, there to meet with others who can help." Cologne paused and looked over the assembled crowd. "The force we fight we cannot possibly confront and beat alone. I know your hearts tell you this cannot be, but it is true. We two, and Saffron besides, were not enough to win. We would be like wheat before the reaper."

Herb took over. "There are those who possess a power different than that of the mazoku, but strong in its own way. We need to go to Japan and get their help. That is the only way. Neither we nor they can kill the mazoku alone. But combined, we stand a chance."

A voice cried out from the crowd. "Just a chance?"

"Better than no chance!" another replied. The crowd erupted into a thousand arguments. Cologne and Herb tried to get them under control, but it was not until hundreds and thousands of shadows swept over them that they were silenced. "Look! It's the people of Pheonix Mountain!" the second voice cried out.

"If even the proud people of Pheonix Mountain seek allies, you MUST see that flight is our only option!" Cologne yelled.

It took a few hours, but the Amazons were on the move. The day after, the Musk began an eastward trek as well.

Nabiki laughed, as she looked over her assembled army. Ranma had taken one of her pens and enchanted it, giving her the power to command the minds of animals cursed by Jusenkyo. Between that, the Chiuusuton, the waters of Jusenkyo, and a nearby anthill, she had quite the credible force built up. She took each thousand soldiers under the command of one of those Brass Demons Ranma had shown her to summon. Soon she would have enough troops to send a force to storm one of the nearby Red Army bases and seize weapons. Most of them would be slaughtered, but then again, she thought, looking at the army of tigers, yeti-riding-bull-holding-crane-and-eels, wolves, Asuras, and other assorted nasties. Once she had uniforms and weapons she could equip a force that would attract less undue notice.

From small time loan shark and blackmailer to potential conqueror. Yes, her sights had been set much higher by her deal with Ranma...

Heh heh! And the first arc of Ranmazoku ends! Hope you enjoyed it. I'll probably start the next arc in October.