"WHAT?!"
The high-pitched shriek cut across the cavern, halting all combat for a moment as everybody turned to look at the very upset werecat who was generating a battle aura that could be seen from the far side of the cave. "Stupid panda-man promise Airen to me!"
Mousse quickly pulled himself up, turning his attention away from Makoto. "What? Saotome, you swore you wanted to get Ranma and Akane together so I could be with my Shampoo!"
"Never!" Kuno stood up abruptly, nearly knocking Sheila over. "I shall not permit it! For the father of that fierce tigress, Akane Tendo, has promised her to me!"
Ryouga threw Tarou aside as he stood up quickly. "What? Tendo-san said I could be with her!"
"Hah!" Kuno reached inside his hakama, pulling out a scroll. "I have the formal arrangements right here!"
Soun spoke up and said, "Now, boys, we shouldn't be fighting each... o... ther..." As he looked at the glares he was receiving, he realized that perhaps attracting their attention to him wasn't the brightest idea he'd had all day. In fact, it probably didn't even rank in the top ten.
Shampoo had been having a bad day. She'd had to negotiate with a sociopath earlier, discovered that their New York portal had been compromised, and had to admit to Claudius that there was likely someone from the U.S. Military running around inside the base unnoticed. And now she found that Genma had never intended to follow through on the promise he had made to her. With a feral yowl, she ran across the floor and pounced on Genma before the stammering panda could try to explain his way out of this one.
Genma attempted to run, only to find himself flat on his stomach as Mousse expressed his displeasure by tying up Genma's feet with another set of chains. "Ah, Shampoo," he cried as he pulled out a javelin and threw it at Genma's arm to keep it pinned down too, "at last we fight together!"
"Shut up and keep stupid panda from running away."
Soun was too busy trying to teleport around the place one step ahead of Ryouga and Kuno to try and talk them out of hurting him. Several large cracks in the cave wall testified to Ryouga's inability to change direction once he got into a full charge.
Everybody else on both sides just stood and stared in shock as the core of the Nerima Wrecking Crew fell in on themselves. Even the swordfight between Tuxedo Mask and Jadeite briefly ground to a halt. Tuxedo Mask simply said, "You never did have much luck with choosing allies, did you?"
Jadeite snarled and started up the fight again, but he was now angry enough to be sloppy, and he found himself starting to lose.
Mars sighed as she looked over at Moon, the only person who hadn't been paying any attention to the drama in the middle of the cave. "I think you can stop beating him up now. They're both unconscious."
"Both?" Moon looked at the were-rabbit she had been using as a weapon, and dropped him. "Eek! Sorry, usagi-san."
Mars just rolled her eyes. "What are we going to do with you, Princess?"
Ranma brushed the dust and pebbles off his clothes, then turned as he felt someone sneaking up behind him. He dropped into a combat position just in time to see Konatsu get struck by lightning from a rather weary-looking Jupiter. He flashed her a grin. "Thanks, Mako-chan."
Ranma looked back at the growing chaos, and winced as he saw Shampoo attack his father in a rather sensitive location. Turning back to Jupiter, he said, "Look, I've got an idea, but we need to start it now while they're distracted. You done any meditation?" He started running with her, heading over toward Sheila.
"Some."
"Good, I need you to keep calm and try to project that calm. It's called the Soul of Ice."
Sheila, just within hearing range, held up Ice Fang and said, "I can do ice."
Ranma said, "I'm going to be moving in a spiral. She-chan, I need you a ways back behind me using Ice Fang to create cold; Mako-chan, you follow up behind her keeping calm and focussed. We need to be about even around the circle."
"Got it."
Ranma turned around, and slammed straight into the chest of a large weretiger that was glaring down at him. "I don't know what you're planning, but I wasn't promised anybody, so I can beat you up instead of your father."
Ranma frowned, the voice did sound familiar. "So what did you get to join up?"
"Your father promised to finish teaching me the Yama-sen-ken and Umi-sen-ken!"
"Ryuu? Kumon Ryuu?" At the tiger's nod, Ranma said, "I thought we already fought over this. Didn't you agree to seal the techniques?" Either not noticing or not caring about Ryuu's rising anger, Ranma continued, "Besides, Pops has made lots of promises he never had any intention of keeping, what makes you think this one is any different?" Then, with a wider grin, Ranma continued, "So, why you want them so much, you planning on becoming a thief like my father? I guess with the family school destroyed, that's about all you've got left to try for, isn't it?"
Ryuu snarled out, "I'll kill you!"
"Gotta catch me first!" And with that, Ranma ran off, Ryuu hot on his tail. He turned his head to yell back to Sheila and Makoto, "Follow the plan!"
Sheila nodded and took off, running after Ranma as fast as she could. A few seconds later, she shifted to human form, shooting up to a height that even Makoto considered impressive. She might be nearly as strong in her hybrid form as in her human form now, but she needed the longer legs if she was going to have a hope of keeping up the pace Ranma was setting.
Makoto blinked at the change, but didn't let it distract her. As she saw Ranma coming around the other side of the chaotic fight in the middle, she started off running herself, following the stream of cold air coming off of Ice Fang. She let herself settle into a runner's trance, using that to keep herself calm.
Ranma kept himself from grinning; Ryuu's battle aura would make this even better than it would have been with just the rolling 'heat' of anger off the ones fighting Pops and Tendo-san. When Ryuu tried throwing a couple of vacuum blades at him, he let the Umi-sen-ken work with the Soul of Ice and the spiral step he was building, sending the blades spinning into the cavern roof at the center of the spiral. This casual avoidance just got Ryuu even more angry, feeding even more energy in. Quietly, so as not to alert the others, he began to voice the technique.
"HI..."
Tarou, meanwhile, had discovered that turning your back on a mage to threaten his unconscious daughter was a bad idea, and was currently stuck to the ceiling by the magical equivalent of a bungee-cord net. All his attempts to break it were simply getting him even more tangled up.
Doctor Diggers looked down toward where Ranma and the others were running. He may not have been a fighter, but he could read auras... and having lived with one of the best fighters in two worlds for years, he could recognize a master technique in the preparation. Realizing this was going to get messy, he grabbed Brianna and started building a shield around them both.
"RYUU..."
Genma was scrambling harder than ever now. His danger sense was screaming at him that this was going to be a very unhealthy place very soon. Genma's danger sense was, if anything, even finer than his son's: Ranma wasn't quite as self-serving, after all. Unfortunately, neither Shampoo nor Mousse seemed at all inclined to let him run for the hills at the moment, so neither of them had noticed yet.
"SHOU..."
Mars had nearly fallen over when Ryuu's battle aura hit full force; the only person she'd ever seen with that much chi had been Ranma, and his was normally much better controlled. She did wonder why they were all running in circles like that, though. After blasting the crazy crocodile with another 'flame sniper' to knock him out again, she closed her eyes to try and feel what was going on... and gasped as she felt the way the lines of chi were building up.
"Usagi?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, and sounded dry, even to her.
"Yes?"
"Find something to grab onto. Now." Mars ripped the red bow off the front of her uniform, and lashed herself to one of the larger stalagmites.
"TEN..."
Soun appeared right next to Genma, panting heavily. He'd been teleporting so much he was getting tired, and for some reason his last couple of teleports had misfired, and he hadn't left this area. Which meant that...
Sure enough, Kuno was right behind him, with Ryouga there, having managed not to get lost yet. And there were Ranma, and Ryuu running in as well. Wait, what was Ranma doing?
Ranma came into the last turn in the spiral step as he built up to release the technique. Whether it was some sort of connection between the chi of the three of them or just luck, Ranma could see Sheila and Makoto turning in as well. The three of them ran together to the central spot, and all threw upward punches at the same time, their three upraised arms linking together around each other just as Ryuu closed in on them.
"HA!"
It wasn't until then that Ranma realized he'd never tried this maneuver inside an enclosed space like a cave before. While he, Sheila, and Makoto were untouched at the eye of the storm, the same couldn't be said about anyone else.
The chi-generated tornado was more intense than any Ranma had made before, with the possible exception of the staff-assisted fight with Saffron. Ryuu was slammed into the cavern roof with sufficient force to embed himself partway into it, with the other martial artists near the middle following soon after.
Dr. Diggers could feel the winds ripping against his shield, but wasn't in too much trouble. Tarou could feel himself losing a lot of his feathers, and was actually glad to be tied up for the moment.
Sailor Moon held on as hard as she could to her sole anchor so she wouldn't be pulled into the vortex. Unfortunately, her anchor was Mars' arm, and Mars was not so happy about the matter.
Tuxedo mask jabbed his cane down into the floor of the cave, and knelt down to grab it tightly, trying to bind himself to the Earth. Jadeite had teleported out the moment the tornado had appeared.
While the vortex was intense, it was also short-lived, quickly exhausting itself against the ceiling. Several drained and unconscious martial artists fell back to the floor.
Moon also fell to the floor as the winds holding her aloft and horizontal ceased. Mars moaned, and pushed her shoulder back into its socket. "Don't do that again."
"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry!"
As Tuxedo Mask stood up, Dr. Diggers walked over. "Miss Moon?"
Instantly, Sailor Moon was standing back up and shifting into 'Princess' mode. "Yes?"
Waving an arm across the field of fallen weres, Dr. Diggers said, "If you would do the honours of cleansing them while they're out?"
Tuxedo Mask said, "Yes, then we'd better get moving. Jadeite is already gone, and we can't know how loyal these people will be afterward."
"Oh, of course! Moon Healing Escalation!"
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(Posted Tue, 27 Apr 2004 14:27)
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