Ranmazoku
Chapter 2b
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.
Author's note - This story originated from an idea on Nighthawk's page and is some guy named NesTea's fault. So there. C&C, MSTs, random comments, letters of praise, hate mail, and accidental clicks on the reply-send button all welcome. If asked when the next chapter will be out, I will bob and weave, lie, stall , and bend more truths than a drunken Senator. So there.
ALTAVERSE WARNING - This is an ALTAVERSE. Events, characters and the like may not resemble canon. People who are rabid canon-thumpers beware!
I was adrift on the Astral Plane.
You must understand, we mazoku are more creatures of thought and power, nightmare made form, than the sort of solid, walking embodiments of evil most think we are. It's why solid food does not feed a mazoku, but the greed, petty anger and cruelty of a pitiful excuse of a 'father' could nourish a young mazoku. It's for the best that I was born what I am, and not what they think I am.
I was on a fishing expedition, you see, a search which had occupied my wasted nighttime hours, which otherwise would have been wasted pretending to sleep. In a way, I no longer needed sleep because I was asleep when I was walking abroad, interacting with the world. To me, the real world is the dream, to be altered at my whim. The dreams and nightmares are the stuff of my reality. I could see and feel the dreams of the other residents of the Tendo house, but I had bigger fish to fry tonight: no more poking around Nabiki's dreams to lead her around by the nose. I needed some serious hardware, and that meant poking around the Nekohanten. Dealing with Happy's perversions could probably drive a mazoku insane.
I had a very specific purpose in mind. I knew from the start that this was one of the Four Pillars L-sama had constructed, the pillar of the Dark Lord known as Death Fog. Just as in the Overworld and Shabranigdo's pillar, there would be items of vast magical power left behind by the Dark Lord in question, iems that, with the ridiculously low number of serious magic users on this planet. Most of the heavy duty magic users seemed to be in Juuban and near Jusenkyo, but none would be a match for even the minor mazoku I currently was. Meaning that if I had no competition for such objects of power, and I could drain them to further my own strength. Such items had been picked over and already drained by the five Mazoku Lords of my family homeworld, but here I could gain a significant advantage if I could hoard such sources of power. Of course, I already had my master plan in place, but there's no such thing as too much power. And if I was reading events right, Gaav would be dead soon.
That would create a hole in the ranks of the mazoku like never before. There's be an open spot in the highest levels, and Seigraam, Gaav's flunky, would probably be dead too. While Pops might be first in line for the position, it wasn't like I wasn't going to pass up this golden oppritunity.
So that's why I was off poking around in Cologne's mind. Which is a hell of a lot more dangerous than poking around in Nabiki's mind. For one thing, the old ghoul was on the alert for mental tampering, and for another she knew all sorts of nasty stuff... childhood rhymes and warm memories of children and grandchildren, for instance. At least it wasn't as bad as Kasumi's mind, though... I began to prod at her memories, inserting fleeting, random images of raw magical power and seeing what kind of response that got.
The very first thing I got, an instant after I began, was the image of a guy with gold hair and wings, looking like some cross between human and an eagle, but in the eye of Cologne's mind tinged with evil. It was also the first time I've ever consciously tasted fear from the old mummy. The image was hazy and indistinct, though, as if she had never actually seen it. Maybe it's the Joketsuzoku bogeyman or something. All sorts of things on him carried a name and a legend in Cologne's thoughts, but it was a set of gems he wore that seemed to carry a current of pride when Cologne thought of them. Hmm.. so the amazons stole.. Demon's Blood! I involuntarily flared my power in my excitement, and Cologne instantly went aware in her mind, the image of Saffron vanishing into the fog of her mind. In his place stood a mature woman, perhaps 40, with black hair just starting to go grey, very strong and exuding martial skill - not the ancient hag I know now, nor the young girl I saw when we used the Nanban Mirror. So this, then, is what Cologne's self image is. Fascinating.
"Show yourself!" she yelled, clutching the talismans. She looked back and forth, trying to find the intruder in her mind. She held the talismans. "I don't know who you are," she whispered viciously, "but you will never get these talismans! They are a treasure of the Joketsuzoku, and you will suffer our wrath!" She was still glancing, for I had not yet emerged from the mists. I laughed, a deep booming effect that reverbrated and seemed to come from everywhere.
I oozed out of the mists, taking my inhuman monster form. No sense having her tie this to me. "Amazon." I snarled, dropping the cheesy echo effect and using as guttural a voice as I could manage. "What makes you think you can dare best me in the battlefield of the dream!" I laughed again, sans echo.
Cologne smiled, the knowing simle I've come to know. "I have many techinques to use against you, demon! Behold the secret unknown even to the greatest of the Indian mystics, the Iron Soul Spear!" She formed a spear by pure willpower and fury, directing the mighty blast against me in an attempt to eject me from her mind. Of course, she was doomed to failure. Cologne might have more experience fighting here, where the normal rules of combat went out the window and will alone determined the victor, but I was born to this. I absorbed the spear, accepting the anger and hate she had used to make it, and grew larger, losing my form and turnign into a great black mist.
"Hah! You cannot resist me, little Amazon. I will take your talismans..." I said, enveloping her and firing nightmares - actually just Happousai's stray thoughts rerouted into her head, but that was probably worse, anyhow - as she screamed and hacked into me with a sword she had pulled out of nowhere. Just before she went back under she realized what she faced.
"MAZOKU!!!!"
The next day, I was jarred awake by Akane. It was still dark out.
"What's the big idea?" I said sleepily. "Not even oyaji is up yet." She kicked awake the panda in question. I stretched and made like I was going back to sleep to keep up the ruse.
"Cologne wants to see us right away. Says it's important. Or at least, that's what Mousse is telling us. She and Shampoo are still at the Nekohanten." she said, " They say some horrible monster is trying to steal their treasure and want us there right away."
"Jeez, OK, you'd think it could wait. I mean, monsters gotta rest too, don't ya think?" Ranma said, smiling internally 'Well, I hate a fight in the middle of the night, anyhow...'
"Ranma, this isn't a joking matter! Now get moving!" Akane yelled, chasing me out the door with a bucketfull of water.
It is a few minutes later that I find myself in the Nekohanten, watching a very distraught Cologne. She looked like she hadn't gotten enough sleep last night, heh heh. It was a struggle to keep a grin off my face as she yawned her way through the explanation. "Ahh.." she said, drinking some tea. "I need to warn you all of a very powerful demon among us. Somewhere in Tokyo is a being of almost unrivalled magical strength. He is searching for items of magical power. I felt I should warn all of you with Jusenkyo curses that he might come after the power of the magic in your curses." Actually, I hadn't thought of that, but it was a good idea. Well, maybe not. Nevermind. My own experience had shown that Jusenkyo's magic was beyond my control. I'd probably end up absorbing the other curses if I went that route.. 'Sorry, sir, you have curse of female winged pig-cat riding panda fighting yeti riding bull carrying eel and crane!' Yech. I tuned out the disgusting mental image (though I filed it away to stick in Happousai's dream if he ever fantasized about my girl side in one of his ecchi dreams again) and tuned back into Cologne's speech. " -thrive off negative feeling and emotions such as depression, anger, and jealousy. I think for the moment we all know what this means. Akane, Shampoo, Mousse, Ukyou.. you four really need to calm down until the danger passes. We need to deny the mazoku such a potent source of nourishment." Damn! Well, at least I had Ryouga.. "Tell Ryouga if you see him, though he is probably safe." OK, so I still have Happi to piss off most of the female population of Nerima. No problem. "But, I believe the demon has something specific in mind."
"What is, Great-Grandmother?"
"These." she said, opening a box and revealing four reddish stones set in silver. To me they seemed to be blinding in their power, and yet I had been unable to detect them when they were in the box. "These are the legendary Demon's Blood talismans, taken from Saffron the Pheonix God in a great battle a thousand years ago. They are said to contain the power of the four lords of the Mazoku. This box itself was constructed to hide the power of the talismans eight hundred and twenty-three years ago."
"She saw it being built, that's how she knows," Genma whispered, earning a bop on the head form Cologne.
"None knows how to use them save the Pheonix God. But in his hands, they were a tool of unparalleled terror, amplifying his already incredible power to levels unthinkable by any but the gods Saffron claimed he was one of. That is why a thousand Amazons attacked him, seeking to take these stones away before he destroyed us all. He nearly did anyhow: only two survived." Cologne paused to smile. "One of them was my own ancestors, Toothpaste." I ignored the irrelevant history lesson: if she didn't know how to use the talismans, I could drain them to the tiniest fraction of their power without her noticing. "In any case, if they were bad in the hands of the Pheonix God, they would be a catastrophe in the hands of such a demon as a mazoku." Akane picked up a talisman and inspected it, seeing the chinese inscribed on it.
"What does this say?" she said, pointing at the inscribed writing.
"Ah. Those are the names of the four Dark Lords the stones represent." I welcomed her question, as it had everyone passing around the talismans. I made a show out of inspecting each one , draining it carefully, so as not to raise suspicion. I would need to do this carefully, and provide the 'mazoku' she expected so she could forget all about these stones. I smiled as I felt the familiar energies of Shabranigdo from the second talisman. "As I recall correctly, the legends record them as Death Fog, Chaotic Blue, Dark Star, and Shabranigdo."
"So there are four of these demons in the world?" I said, feigning ignorance as I drained the fourth talisman. The energies were familiar,and earned an internal scowl Apparently the reason I couldn't destroy the Jusenkyo curse was because Death Fog's magic had created the place.
Cologne shook her head. "No. Only one is said to exist in each world, and the four worlds they reside in are connected. In this world, the forces of the demons and the gods destroyed each other, and they were sealed away in many pieces across the world." I smiled, my power had grown fivefold and all I needed to do was act normal. "Yes, Ranma, that means that the one we fight cannot be powerful by their standards. Nor is he even from this world." She got up and hopped over to the counter for a second. "Sixteen years ago, there was another mazoku, who came across the village. He was looking for Jusendo, the spring that feeds Jusenkyo. None of the three tribes that lives in the valley, the Musk, we Amazons, or the Pheonix Mountain people, wished to see him accomplish whatever mission he had with the spring. Despite our combined best efforts we were unable to destroy him."
"Then how are we supposed to fight such a creature?" Genma roared, fearful.
"Hopefully, we don't," Cologne said. She put the talismans back in her box. "But.. if worse comes to worst, I need to know that I can depend on you. I cannot fight off such a demon alone. Ranma, Genma, I would need you two to keep it away from the talismans until I am able to use a powerful scroll I have. It should destroy the demon."
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At lunch later that day, having already been asked to defend possessions against a crime I had already carried out, Nabiki came up to me. "I need to speak with you, Saotome." she announced loudly, more to Hiroshi and Daisuke than to me. I shrugged and followed her. We went back by the Kendo shed, where people were unlikely to interrupt us.
"OK, Saotome, you still owe me 1500 yen. I'm going to cut you a deal. I'll cut your debt in half if you answer a few questions. Deal?" I nodded absently. "Deal. Anyhow, Saotome, I figure you're the person to ask on the whereabouts of other werewolves in Tokyo, so I'd like to know if you know the whereabouts of the wolf demon. Has it left the city? It hasn't been seen in Juuban the past few nights." She waited expectantly with pencil over paper.
"As far as I know, Nabiki, he's still in town. I'd know if he left." Duh.
See nodded and wrote that down. "All right then. What was Cologne all upset about this morning? Just for confirmation, Saotome."
"Oh, she was worried about some demon stealing a tribal treasure or something." I said, as uninterestedly as I could. "You know how that goes."
"We seem to be hip deep in demons lately." Nabiki grumbled as checked off something on her sheet.
I put my hands behind my head. "Well, it ain't like it's as many as Juuban has on a weekly basis, ya gotta admit. And ya know Nerima is weirder than anywhere else. You'd think we'd have at least as many as Juuban."
"You might have a point, Saotome." She then seemed to flash with anger for a second. "Hey Saotome?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you know who took these pictures of me?" she said, waving a handful of photographs under my nose. They showed a nude Nabiki rolling around in wolfsbane at midnight. I smiled internally. This ought to be fun - and increase my poser besides.
"Come on, Nabiki, and you accuse me of being stupid. Who's the only person likely to know you got permission to enter the botanical gardens at night? Who's the only person around here who'd even care about the botanical gardens?"
"Kodachi." Nabiki said, with more venom in her voice than I ever heard in anyone's ever before.. It took all my years of martial arts training not to hug myself in glee at THAT anger. Damn, I needed to get her pissed more often; it was even tastier than Akane's.
"She usually gets Gos to do her camera work." Sending grief to one's students was a prime tenet of the Anything-Goes school. It's something Gos should have kept in mind.
Heh heh.
Nabiki, of course, merely smiled. Evil smile. A smile so evil Phibrizzo could only manage it if you fed him sourballs for an hour. Her eyebrow was twitching. "Saotome.. thank you for your input. I'll see that those two are properly thanked..."
"Oh, don't mention anything about me telling you this, OK?"
"It's completely fine, Saotome, I want all this payback to myself."
Another day, another threatening note from Ryouga. "I will have my revenge, Saotome. The usual place, three days from now." Ryouga had postmarked it in Sapporo, but it was obviously from Hong Kong, the maroon. I smiled.
"Well, our resident berserker is back on the prowl. I wonder if he perfected his new Shishi Hokodan attack yet." He really should rename that move the mazoku munchie. It put all his considerable power in one convenient and easy to absorb package. Come to think of it, it's too bad there's no way of getting him here quickly. Maybe there's some kinda spell Phibrizzo knows that can draw him like a magnet or something, so I can have some eats whenever I want them. Delivered, even.
Now that I think about it, I really should be going. I grab my pack and start stuffing the usual stuff into it, using what I've picked up of hidden weapons to hide some magic books and such in with the normal gear. Ryouga was giving me the perfect excuse to hang out in the Kataart Mountains for a few days on his little "training trip"
"Yo! Oyaji! I'm going on a little training trip for my fight with Ryouga!" I hollered as I ran out the door. I quickly hung a left past the Yamani's house into an alley and opened the gateway Hellmaster had created for me. Faster than I could think about it I was in safe territory once again.
Tha Kataart mountains are where Hellmaster has been spending most of his time lately. Suprisingly, though, when I visited his house, he wasn't there. My father was, however. "Pop?" I asked, as he was kind of out of it. In fact his arm had been torn away, revealing inky, swirling blackness. "Hey, what happened to you?"
He smiled, which told me it couldn't be that bad. "Ah. Just the result of a little disagreement from Gaav."
"Gaav?" I goggled. "I thought you were smarter than that, picking on someone so much more powerful than yourself. What were you thinking?" I exclaimed angrily.
"You sound like Amelia." Pop said, sneering. I gave a hurt look.
"Where's Phibrizzo?" I said, poking at the junk left behind in the old house. There wasn't much. Phibrizzo had spent centuries wandering the great desert before taking up residence in this tiny town in the Kataart range.
"Sairaag. It seems he's finally shown his true colors. We were right. He's planning on getting Lina to cast a Giga Slave.. he's going to try to destroy the world." he grumbled. "Mother saw that coming years ago. I'd guess we have a week or two before Lina arrives to confront him. Is our safe house in your world still fine?"
The safe house has always been an item of preoccupation with Granny and Pop. The whole reason she sent Xellos to my world in the first place was to have a hideyhole once she realized Hellmaster was going off the deep end. "Sure, it's still ready to go. I've been checking in on it in Juuban. There are some minor league do-gooders who might be a pest, but they aren't anything I couldn't handle, never mind you guys." That brought a smile to his face.
"Hellmaster keyed that portal so only you can open it. Now, Zelas is strong enough to open one herself, but-"
"Ahh, we can't let an old lady like her make such an effort. I'll bring you two over myself. Let Hellmaster do the work." I said, chuckling.
"Old lady, am I?" Zelas's voice sounded out of the air, instantly ending my chuckles. She materialized, wine glass swishing in her hand, and not very happy looking.
"Ah.. you se. well.. you are what, 5000?" I said, stammering, as Pop disguised a laugh by pretending to cough. Grandmother's frown just deepened. "Ah.." More frowing. Stupid mouth, think! A black mallet materialized and hammered me into the floor. "Uggh... 5000.. ite! going on 25.. yeah!" I croaked, the hammer dispelling at the end along with Zelas's frown.
"Yes, I do hold my age well, don't I?" she said, laughing. Pop laughed too, politely. It wasn't that funny a joke. Mazoku don't age. That didn't stop Granny from obsessing over her looks, though. "So, Ranma, despite your utter lack of the manners befitting a demon lord, I will accept your offer to transport me to our safe house." She snapped her hands, healing me.
"Whew!" I said, patting my now-healed body. "OK. I'll bring you guys over and then come back. I plan on doing a little martial arts training over here. So.. hey, what should I look for if the world ends?" I asked. Maybe Lina would get there early, who knows.
"The sky turning black, the sun turning red, that sort of thing." Zelas said dismissively. "Everything dying a horrible death. Yare, yare, yare." So that's where we get it from. "If you see that sort of thing happening, jump out. Hellmaster is strong enough that he'll be one of the last things around, so you should be fine. From all reports though, it'll be at least a week, so unless you're staying longer.." I shook my head. ".. you'll be fine then. In that case, let's get going! It's been a thousand years since I saw anyplace new." I nodded and opened up the gate.
An hor later I was back in the mountains, practicing on a hillside. I really wish I could figure out that little spell Zelas had used to make cash. It would come in handy with Nabiki. Of course, if granny kept buying every bit of tobacco and alcohol in Tokyo like she was, the tax men were going to get suspicious. Of course, she'd just be recreating her private stocks from this world. " I wonder why she didn't just transfer over all her stuff from here?" I mused aloud, then realized that if she transferred all that junk and Hellmaster's plans went bust, she'd just make Pop and I bring it all back. "I can't believe she's just going to ditch her friends though. Dolphin is going to be pissed if Hellmaster dies and she finds out Granny rabbited." Though it wasn't too hard to see his grandmother's master plan. By having the excuse of Ranma so as to have Hellmaster open a gate, Zelas could set up a base in another world, and by ditching everyone else from this world...
..we'd rule the Earth. No one would be able to match Zelas's power; heck, they wouldn't even be able to match Xellos. Even I, at this low level of power, was one of the most powerful single beings around. I wasn't the most powerful, but very few things were as strong as even a young mazoku, and I had been put in Nerima, possibly the richest, densest source of dark emotions possible, with all those crazed martial artists. And I had just drained Cologne's Demon's Blood Talismans. There would be no possible force to oppose us if we wanted to take over the world. Of course, Granny wouldn't bother taking over the world, that would just be a major headache, but there would be no question about who the real power was. There was something I could feel, as if in the back of my mind, that told me I was missing something. I reached back to scratch my head, only to catch hold of a hand. Oops. I turned around to see..
"SHAMPOO!" I yelled, jumping in fright as the absolute last person I expected to see here was in front of me. Except there were two of them. They were giving me weird looks.
"Like, are you a mazoku?" one Shampoo said.
"Of course. He's like, floating in midair without magic." Oops.
"Well, maybe he just has a really weird spell for levitating." the other Shampoo said, tilting her head.
"Totally. Like, who calls a spell 'Shampoo'?" the second Shampoo reorted.
"Well, it doesn't matter what you call it, does it?" I said. I stepped lightly back ont the ledge I had just jumped off of in suprise. I gave the Shampoos a look- over. Both seemed to be martial artists, though weapon users. Of course, they just ignored me and continued their argument.
"I still think he's a mazoku." the second Shampoo insisted.
"There's only one way to find out. We'll have to use the spell." the first Shampoo agreed. Then they started to fish around in their packs.
"Uh, girls?" I said, wondering what the hell was going on. The two quickly ran behind a boulder and re-emerged wearing what looked like Happousai's interpretation of a fuku.
"Right!" they chorused, and pulled out microphones. At which point I summoned two small spheres of dark energy and blasted them unconscious.
"Sorry about that, but I had to nip that in the bud." I dragged their unconscious forms over to where I had left my pack and made camp, taking out the questionable cuisine Akane had made me and letting it heat near the fire. I'd wait for them to wake up and find out what the hell they wanted from me. The two woke up faster than I figured they would. "Ah, I see you've finally woken up."
"So who are you?" Shampoo one.. I think.. said. "What are you?"
I laughed. "Ah, you don't need to worry about me or nothing. I'm Ranma, a wandering martial artist." I gave an enigmatic grin and pretended to eat some food, again using the Gourmet de Fois Gras to fire it off the mountainside without them noticing. "You two wouldn't be hungry, would you? Help yourselves." Like martial artists on any world, the two were ravenously hungry, and ate Akane's teriyaki...
..with entirely predictable results. "ARRGH! What is in this crap!" one Shampoo yelled, rolling around on the ground. Her twin crawled weakly to the cliff and threw up. Both turned gray, then a sort of sickly green, and crawled towards their packs and their water. "Water, water.." they mumbled, reaching for a canteen. I hid my smile behind my own canteen.
It took a while, but the two finally recovered and turned to me. "Ugh.. *hack* *cough*... Anyhow, I'm Mimi and this is my sister Nene, and we're, like, famous martial artists and idol singers, and, like, how can you eat that stuff and not get sick?"
"Yeah, totally." Nene chimed in.
I made a big show of cocking my head and adopting a sensei-type voice. "Ah! You see, months ago, I learned a powerful technique that would allow me to finsih entire plates of food, no matter how bad, with blinding speed. It is one of the most devastating techniques of the School of Martial Arts Dining-"
"Martial Arts DINING?" they exclaimed in disbelief.
"Yes. As I was saying, the school likened eating to combat, and designed this devastating technique to deal with even the most disgusting and horrible foods. If one can master it, they need never fear bad food again." I smiled. I had seen the look on these two's faces before, it was the look of a martial artist willing to go to any length to learn a technique. "It is called le Gourmet de Fois Gras." I then demonstrated by making the rest of my 'dinner' vanish, chucked into the lengthening shadows.
"Wow! He can really eat that poison!" Nene said.
"I told you he was a mazoku!" Mimi said. "Nothing human can eat that much of that and live."
"Oh, but on the contrary - the Gourmet de Fois Gras can be learned by any martial artist who is skilled enough." I said, having moved in between them without them noticing.
"AAAH!" they yelled, and promptly smashed me with their tin plates. "Sorry!" they said, apologizing. "As interesting as that technique sounds," Mimi continued, "I don't know if we have the time to learn it. We were going to head to Atlass City to perform in two weeks."
"Oh, that'll be no problem." Yeah, the world will likely be destroyed before then. "I'll teach it to you if you two don't mind helping me with my own practice. I wouldn't mind some sparring partners." In the meantime, I could watch two people willingly subject themselves to Akane's cooking. I felt a simle coming on.
It was two days later when Nene finally figured out the real Gourmet de Fois Gras. I had fed them nearly all of Akane's meals that had gone with me, and I was halfway amazed the two were still alive. I figured a steady diet of Akane's cooking could kill anything, and in fact Dr. Tofu used Akane's cookies to kill rats. Anyhow, Nene had begun to slip chunks of her food into Mimi's, and on this last plate she had unloaded a quarter into her sister's plate, half into the fire, and chucked the rest into the woods. I figured that was enough. I stood up to Nene and congratulated her.
"Wonderful! You've mastered the Gourmet de Fois Gras!" I said, smiling broadly.
"Huh?" they both said. Quite annoying, that.
"Oh? You didn't realize? The secret of the Gourmet de Fois Gras is to secretly throw the food on your plate so quickly that the casual observer doesn't notice! It doesn't actually involve eating the food at all." I put my fist over my heart and lowered my eyes, appearing very solemn. "It is the greatest technique of Martial Arts Dining." The twins looked at each other, then slammed their plates on the ground.
"You mean we really didn't have to eat all of that?" Mimi demanded.
"No! Of course not." I said.
"Then why didn't you TELL US?" Nene growled.
I put my hand behind my head and laughed. "Um.. you never asked me!" I answered, still laughing. The two grabbed the logs we had been sitting on and started smashing me with them.
"JERK!"
"BASTARD!"
"Hey.. OW! Stop that!"
"TAKE THIS.. AND THIS.."
"HOW COULD YOU.. you..you Inverse!"
"Hey, that's was uncall-OW!"Eventually, the pummeling subsided and the two sisters walked off. I staggered to my feet and smiled. "That was fun." Maybe I'll open a dojo after becoming one of the High Lords of the Mazoku. I suppose I could never give up learning and teaching the martial arts. It was just too much to ask for... besides, if all the martial artists aspired to learn at my feet - and who wouldn't? - I'd have another base of power that the others didn't have. And I could have a lot of fun yanking my student's chains. "I suppose I understand Happousai now." I said, sighing as I studied the stars. An image popped into my head of Happousai diving into a pile of bras. "Scratch that." I added, sweating.
Well.. all the stuff I said would happen in this update.. will happen next update. Since this chapter is getting long.. again.. I'm cutting it off. I'm not going to call the next part 2-C, because that way lies madness, so the next chapter is 3.. damn.. I need to redo all the numbers in my notes.
Thanks to all the people who have miscellaneous comments and suggestions. Your comments are all appreciated. More random comments, C&C, they're always welcome. How fast chapter three, or a teaser, comes out depends a lot on my classes. I figure I might be able to speed up, though, as the story seems to write itself sometimes. Not bad for the first fanfic, eh?
Oh, and wild guesses are always welcome if you feel like predicting Ranma's actions. I always try to respond promptly - I'm on the computer most of the day, so I generally respond fast and often.