“You!” she yelled, pointing at one of the higher-up of the guards. “Get guards back on duty quick as you can! You!” she switched to one of the people with minor magical talent, “ go check portal and make sure it stable. And you,” she said with a snarl as she lifted up the person who was supposed to be running the site by his collar, “You are going to explain to Master Claudius exactly what happen here, yes?”
The one thing he was sure of was that this wouldn't be an easy fight.
Jadeite's maniacal laugh was finally interrupted by a cry of ‘Burning Mandala!&rsquo In the ensuing silence as Jadeite patted out the flames on his uniform, Sailor Mars said, “You always did gloat too much.”
Jadeite's only response was to snap his fingers. Sōun teleported behind Mars and slammed her in the back of the neck with the base of the naginata he was carrying. He had just raised the naginata up and was about to bring it down on the prone Mars when he found he couldn't move the polearm in his hands.
A quick glance behind him showed a very pissed-off werewolf Jupiter holding the far end of the shaft. A fact he was unable to respond to as Ranma kicked him hard in the side and sent him flying back toward the rest of the group, minus the naginata. Ranma then took the weapon and tossed it over to Dr. Diggers.
At which point the battle began in earnest, and rapidly descended into a chaotic melée.
Ryōga, never the most innovative in tactics, charged full-force screaming at Ranma to “Prepare to die!&rdquo Ranma just grinned, waving him closer, then leapt up over Ryōga's head as the wereboar passed underneath him and slammed into the stalgmite hidden behind Ranma's body. The jagwere twisted in the air, coming down facing the other way, and kicked Ryōga's head into the stalagmite again. He used the reaction from the kick to launch himself closer to his father before he landed, leaving a stunned and ever angrier lost boar behind him.
Brianna managed to lay down a few lines of suppression fire before the two groups got tangled together so badly she'd be risking friendly fire. She grinned, and chambered a few glue rounds, using an epoxy-based gel she'd been working on. “Let's see if that tengu can teleport when he's glued down.” There were several loud splats as she blasted Sōun back to the cavern wall.
Mamoru, seeing Jadeite start to prepare another spell, flipped out his cane and rapped Jadeite's hands. “Perhaps you should worry about more immediate concerns.”
Jadeite snarled, held out his hand, and summoned a sword from out of thin air. “And perhaps you should remember who was the teacher and who was the student back then,” he said as he launched into a flurry of strikes that left Mamoru scrambling to block.
Sailor Moon was trying to head toward the swordfight, heedless of Mars' grip on the collar of her uniform. “But I've got to help Mamo-chan!”
Mars abruptly dropped Moon as another weretiger ran at her. She may not have been the super martial artist that most of these people were, but she did have some training in Tai Chi and Aikido for meditation practice, and the transformation had its own upgrades. She grabbed the charging tiger, spun half-way around, and threw him at the rather ugly-looking rabbit that was trying to sneak up on her. “You can help Mamo-chan best by making sure nobody else gets a shot at his back while he's fighting.”
Jupiter had just started to follow Ranma into the fight when she was tripped by something that hit her foot. She didn't hit the ground, though, as several other chains wrapped around her, binding her tightly. Looking up along the iron chains at the wereduck that was throwing them, she said, “Boy, did you pick the wrong person for that. Sparkling Wide Pressure!” She shot her attack up along the chains, resulting in the smell of roast duck at the far end. Grinning, she jumped in celebration, then tipped over as she was still wrapped like a mummy in the chains. Even her increases werewolf strength wasn't having much luck breaking these. “Umm, help?”
Kunō had immediately sought out the one swordswoman on the other side, and proclaimed to Sheila, “Fear not, fair maiden, for I shall rescue you from the demon Saotome and allow you to shower me with affec... erk.” The resulting pervert beatdown was something highly familiar to both parties.
Dr. Diggers had managed to get a fire shield up around himself just before the chimera swooped down to attack him. The shield didn't stop him from being thrown back against the wall and stunned, but from the way that the creature was shaking its hands off and mooing in pain, it probably wasn't going to try the direct approach again. He was startled as the chimera suddenly flipped forward, face-planting into the dirt.
The explanation became obvious when a red and black blur pushed off Tarō's back and flipped into the air again, using the leverage from the bull/yeti/etc.'s larger mass to propel himself across the cavern. Ranma was having the time of his life, and literally hadn't touched the ground since he'd jumped over Ryōga: bouncing off the lost boar, swinging from a stalactite, using the updraft from Dr. Diggers' flame attack, using Pantyhose as a springboard... he landed on Kumon Ryū's head as the tiger was beginning to stand up again, then leapt toward the middle of the cave, where his father was leaping up to meet him. The two traded several blows with little effect before flying away from each other, Ranma's high speed punches having little effect against Genma's thick hide.
Sailor Moon was standing back to back with Mars, making sure nobody hurt her Mamo-chan, when a giant crocodile with a palm tree growing out of his head appeared in front of her, holding a pair of foot-long shears in one hand and an electric razor in the other. “Aloha, keiki! Time to trim that long hair, eh?”
Moon's response was to shreik loud enough to startle Principal Kumō, then grab the nearest thing at hand and start beating him with it. Unfortunately for him, the nearest thing was Sasuke, and the rabbit ninja-wannabe found himself being used as an improvised weapon. Mars just shook her head, then used the distraction to throw a ‘Mars Flame Sniper!’ at Ryōga, who had just been starting another charge. The brief blindness as he closed his eyes combined with his lack of direction sent him crashing into Tarō.
Sōun had finally regained enough of his senses to teleport off the wall, leaving a lot of his feathers behind glued to the rock. He slammed his elbow into Brianna's back as she paused to look around for him, then brought his fist down atop her head, knocking her senseless. He ducked under a magical blast from a now-angry Dr. Diggers, and jumped in to try and recover his naginata.
Jadeite was finding Mamoru much more of a challenge in the swordfight than expected, even with Mamoru only using a cane rather than a sword. While Jadeite was definitely faster, the few hits Mamoru did get in hurt badly. Worse, the Prince of Earth was getting better as they progressed, obviously picking up more memories from his past life. Jadeite snarled, realizing that he'd missed his brief opportunity for a quick victory.
Ryū was getting frustrated at being a punching bag, and screamed out ‘Kijin Raishu Dan!&rsquo as he started to toss vacuum blades around, nearly hitting several of his allies in the process. Sheila just barely got a protective ice wall up in front of her in time, only to watch it fall into sections as the blades hit it. Makoto saw what the blades could do, and managed to roll just to the edge of one as it chopped into the ground beside her, cutting enough of a section of chain that she could get the rest of herself free. Only to be faced with a recovering wereduck who threw a training potty at her face, just barely missing.
Meanwhile, at the center of the fight, father and son were fighting each other to a level neither of them had ever been able to reach before. The two had reduced stalagmites to powder with their blows, and even the other martial artists had been having trouble following them as they zipped around, bouncing off any available object or person for the higher ground. With his confidence at its peak, knowing that Makoto and Sheila were there for him, Ranma was slowly but surely whittling Genma down, getting in enough blows to the werepanda that even the thick hide and recovery factors weren't able to keep up.
Of course, it's the unwatched opponent that always messes you up. Konatsu had disappeared at the start of the fight, and everybody else had been too busy with other opponents to track her down. The kitsune made her reappearance by dropping down from the ceiling and slamming the butt of a dagger down on Ranma's head, just as Ranma was mid-leap going after his father.
Thus stunned, Ranma was in no position to evade as Genma slammed into him, bearing him down to the ground and smashing his head into the cave floor. With a nasty grin, Genma sat up over his prone son, and proclaimed: “Now, boy...
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Mon, 26 Apr 2004 11:17)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.