Ranma strolled casually through ‘Upper’ Valua, taking in all the ornate and expensive buildings and clothing. For a while he had cloaked himself in the Umi-Sen-Ken, but had eventually decided that conserving energy was more important than staying completely hidden. Thankfully, the two Jagweres had explained the basics of shifting from one form to another, so assuming his human form drastically reduced the number of people who would bother to take notice of him. Oddly enough, some people were giving him odd looks despite the fact that he wasn’t a one-of-a-kind werecat at the moment.
They weren’t the only one doing the staring, though. Ranma had been in many different places over his decade long training journey, but he could honestly say he’d never been in a city like this one before. It wasn’t so much the city itself, but the people living there that really caught his attention. Some appeared to be rat people, while others were wolf people (‘Wererats and werewolves?’). Others looked like the dwarves or elves Ranma had seen in that gaijin movie he had been forced to take Nabiki to, and a minority were normal humans or werecats. The areas he had walked through generally had more of one race than any others, suggesting that they generally kept to their own kind, but things got kind of crazy when he wandered into a marketplace. Bombarded from all sides with bright colors, powerful scents, and the shouts of various stall owners selling their wares, even in human form the Saber-toothed weretigers newly enhanced senses were overloaded. He quickly hunted down an exit and escaped into the open streets, relaxing almost immediately.
‘Damn, that was intense.’ Sighing, Ranma continued on his way. ‘Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. I’ve got no idea where anything is in this place, and that girl could be anywhere by now.’ Still immersed in his thoughts, Ranma’s feet led him down to a railway station, and towards the ticket office. Snapped out of his introspection by the screech of a train slowing down as it entered the station, Ranma blinked in surprise at his current location; right in front of a large map of the city. Idly wondering if Bast had anything to do with this, he searched the map for anything that stood out.
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While Ranma was seeing the sights of Upper Valua, Gar and Sheila were sneaking around Lower Valua. The poorer inhabitants of the city had no ships worth stealing, and the Industrial section was filled with incomplete vessels and slow barges for towing. Eventually they found a seedier section of Lower Valua where pirates and mercenaries weighed anchor, so now they skulked form ship to ship, giving each a cursory examination, but finding nothing that suited their purposes. All of the ships were either too crappy to be of any use, or too heavily guarded to take without a very loud fight that would draw too much.
Frustrated, they took a moment to rest on a few empty crates, and Sheila turned to her older brother to ask a question that had been bothering her for a while. “Gar, just what kind of werecat is Ranma? Besides the fact I’ve never seen a ‘cat his size and coloring before, he didn’t even know how to change forms! Even a child knows instinctively how to change forms, so why wouldn’t he?”
Gar sighed and shrugged. “That’s a good question, but unfortunately we may never know.”
Confused, the smaller werecat frowned at her brother. “What do you mean?”
“For Ranma to answer those questions, he’d have to escape the Valuan guards. Then he’d have to escape Upper Valua, which relies on us finding a ship, and then finding him in a city full of people. And even if we do find him, we still need to get through the Grand Fortress, a structure that withstood persistent bombardment from over a hundred Nasr ships during the last war.”
Sheila groaned slightly in resignation. “Were screwed, aren’t we?”
Gar was about to answer in the affirmative when he spotted a large, familiar figure hopping off a battered old ship further up the dock. “…Maybe not.”
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With his back against the wall-mounted map, Ranma considered his options. ‘There’s the Royal Palace, the Prison, and the Colosseum. The Colosseum’s out, because I don’t think they’d wanna execute her right away. Spellvis was talking about the ‘High Elder’ and how she wanted to talk to a ‘Silvite,’ so it’s possible the girl was taken to the palace.’ Ranma stepped away from the wall and nodded. ‘If she’s in the Prison she’s not going anywhere, so I’ll check the Palace first.’ With his destination chosen, Ranma moved to enter the train clearly marked as heading for the palace, but was stopped dead in his tracks as a mass of firm, tanned flesh covered in a yellow and orange outfit slammed head first into him. The martial artist staggered back a step, but managed to keep the two of them on their feet.
“OOOOooowww!” The brunette woman blinked the spots from her vision before gazing up at the obstruction in her path. Seeing the confused and slightly pained expression on the face of her blue-eyed roadblock, Six hurriedly began checking to see if she hurt him. She is much stronger than a human, after all… “Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t hurt you did I?” She began gently pressing on his chest with a gloved hand, checking for bruises or breaks.
Ranma shook his head. What little pain her violent impact had caused had rapidly faded away. “Nah, I’m fine. Are you alright?”
Six was slightly distracted by the solid muscles under his shirt, so it took a second for her to answer, and she blushed and stammered slightly. “Y-Yes, I’m fine.”
The pig-tailed werecat frowned as he noticed her stammering and delayed response. ‘Maybe she’s got a concussion?’
He was stopped from checking further when an annoyed voice called out over the hustle and bustle of the station. “Six! Get your ass over here, the train’s about to leave!”
The drake in question ‘eeped,’ and with one final worried glance at Ranma she ran off to join her purple-haired companion.
She had hopped onto the train headed for the Grand Fortress, and Ranma blinked, curious. ‘What is a girl like her going to a fortress for?’ He walked down the length of the train, peering through windows, and found her in one of the first of some twenty carriages. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she was talking animatedly to a woman with long purple hair and wearing a similar outfit. Then he saw who they were with: the Silvite.
Ranma’s mind locked up briefly. He’d been searching for the woman all day, but now that he’d found her he was at a loss as to what to do. ‘It’s not like I can just get on the train and ask her to come with me.’ He thought it over for a moment. ‘Hell, why can’t I?’
Before he could consider his options, the train’s whistle blew, external lights lit up, and the electric motors powered up. Backing away in surprise, Ranma could only watch as the train started to pull out of the station. Glancing at the surrounding building, he tried to figure out how to get onto the train without alerting any of the many passengers on board. He spotted a bridge passing over the tracks, and smirked at the clichéd plan that popped into his head. Running alongside the train before bounding up the staircase leading to the bridge, he made it onto the bridge with only a few carriages still left to pass beneath. Vaulting over the ledge and landing lightly on the second last carriage, Ranma had to roll several times before his momentum caught up with the trains. He got into a low crouch as he slowly made his way to the front of the train. “Heh, always wanted to do that.”
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Six stared out the window, watching buildings and people pass by. She had tried to start up a conversation between the three women in the carriage, but Thirty-Eight’s impatience and Archon’s nervousness had eventually left the group in an uncomfortable silence. Six’s curiosity left her with a lot of questions she wanted to ask, though. ‘What is it like in the Silver Civilization? What do the people there do? Are there Dragons there?’ She considered trying to start up a conversation again, but a glance at Thirty-Eight told her that the wurm was in no mood for idle conversation. Sighing in boredom, Six turned back to the window, but before she could fall back into her thoughts a soft noise startled her into looking at the ceiling. Even in human form her ears were far more sensitive than most other creatures, but even so she could barely hear the soft thuds make their way across the roof.
Jane quickly noticed her inspection of the ceiling. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s someone walking on the roof…now they’ve jumped down between the carriages.”
As the door opened Jane shot up out of her chair to confront the intruder, and Six followed hurriedly behind. Despite herself Jane was surprised; the last thing she expected to see was a Yafutoman. “What are you doing here? This is a military train and you’re trespassing!”
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“What are you doing here? This is a military train and you’re trespassing!”
The Yafutoman Japanese Martial Artist grinned reassuringly and held up his hands to show he was unarmed. “I just wanted to talk to Miss…” He gestured to the redhead standing between and behind the two lesser dragons.
“Archon.”
Ranma nodded and continued. “…Miss Archon about something called ‘Moon Crystals’. So if I could just have a minute alone with her…”
Jane cut him off. “I don’t think so. The Moon Crystals will soon belong to Valua, and the world will follow close behind.” The wurm got into a fighting stance. “There’s nothing you can do to stop us, so surrender and maybe we’ll let you live.”
With a cocky smirk, Ranma stepped back slightly and got into his own stance. “We’ll see…” With a quick jab to the side his fist smashed through a glass pane and slammed a button marked ‘EMERGENCY BRAKE’.
With a deafening screech the train began skidding, slowing down drastically in the middle of the city. The dragons winced at the noise but managed to stay on their feet by grabbing onto the back of the seats. Archon, not reacting quick enough, stumbled rapidly down the aisle and into Ranma’s waiting arms.
Staggering slightly with the train’s deceleration and the passenger in his arms, Ranma kicked open a door and jumped from the still moving train, shifting to hybrid form in mid-air. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t have chosen a worse place to stop the train. A guard station was positioned on the road running alongside the tracks, and even as he was in the air guards were pouring out to see what the noise was about. Being in the Upper class section of Upper Valua, the guards were more numerous and better trained than any other guards in the city. Even worse, the wererat guards Gothwrain had posted on the train had followed Ranma’s lead and leapt from the train. Seconds after he’d hit the ground, soldiers surrounded him on three sides, with the still skidding train blocking the last side.
“That was quite clever, little boy. But now you’re surrounded, and you’ve forfeited whatever chance you had of surrendering and surviving. Now, hand over the girl so she doesn’t get hurt while we kill you.”
The weresmilodon sent an annoyed glare at the wurm, but his mind was racing furiously. His combat-oriented brain was working overtime to figure out how to get out of this mess. None of his personal experiences had prepared him for dealing with being completely surrounded by a large number of opponents, all with undetermined physical abilities and unknown degrees of skill. Since his own experiences had failed to produce an escape plan, he fell back on the knowledge imparted on him by the numerous Masters he’d trained under over the years. Frowning when even the lessons of those wise masters failed to inspire him, he reluctantly turned to two ‘Masters’ he once swore never to emulate: Genma and Happosai. ‘The Crouch of the White Tiger is useless here, and the Saotome Secret Technique is pointless if I don’t know where to run.’ He frowned in thought. ‘I have to figure out how get away from these bastards and make enough of a commotion that Gar and Sheila can find me and pick me up in the ship.’ He blinked in surprise. ‘Running away, and raising hell at the same time.’ A smirk spread across his lips as an idea came to him. ‘But how to get it started…’ He smiled cheerfully at the purple-haired woman impatiently waiting for him to release the gi…Archon. “Just out of curiosity, what color panties are you wearing?”
It was Jane’s turn to blink in surprise, an action copied by Archon, Six, and most of the guards. “What kind of question is that?!”
The cheerful smile turned into a grin. “Well?”
Jane flushed slightly in anger and embarrassment. “That’s none of your damn business, Furball!”
The grin turned evil. “Oh well, I guess I’ll have to find out on my own, won’t I?”
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Some distance above the Capital City, Gar, Sheila, and the crew of the ship they’d hitched a ride on searched for any sign of the wayward Martial Artist, using binoculars, telescopes, and their own enhanced senses.
Growling in frustration, a muscular troll woman with green hair lowered her binoculars and rubbed her eyes. “This is impossible! How are we supposed to find a single werecat in a city of over a hundred thousand people?” She turned to the Captain of the vessel. “Brod, can’t you just scry for him or something?”
The older troll shook his bald head and slipped his telescope into the pocket of his gold-trimmed white robes. “Unfortunately, no. If I knew what he looked like, or had a possession of his to use as a guide, then perhaps I could. As it is, scrying would be of little help.”
The conversation was interrupted by the sound of an explosion coming from he city. The trolls and werecats on deck rushed to the portside of the ship to investigate, and with little searching spotted a rising column of smoke in Upper Valua. Brod turned to the bridge and yelled to be heard by the troll at the wheel. “Ekxiay, take us closer!” The troll on the bridge nodded in reply and started up the engines sending the ship soaring towards the disturbance.
By the time the surprisingly fast old ship made it to the rising smoke column three other explosions had occurred, each one closer to ‘Lower’ Valua than the one before. As the ship lost altitude and dropped closer to the streets the crew were able to make out the disturbance; a huge crowd of people, both Valuan Guards and civilians, all chasing after a single, large, black-furred figure, bounding along the streets, dodging and laughing madly.
Brod couldn’t help chuckling, at both the situation and at the expressions on the werecats faces. “Vyrlga, would you be a dear and bring the rope ladder up from storage?”
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Ranma was having the time of his life. He’d never say it aloud, but he now understood perfectly Happosai’s need to rampage through Nerima. Evading an ever-growing number of enemies was surprisingly fun, especially once he’d made a few little discoveries early on. Firstly, trying to form a ki-blast while wearing the lightning-stone charged gloves resulted in a lightning bolt blasting from his hand, a trick that came in handy if a guard got a little too close. Secondly, stealing a woman’s panties was a very quick and easy way to make her, and any other women around her, extraordinarily mad. It was the second discovery that had swollen the ranks of his pursuers, particularly once he’d made a quick detour through the women’s section of the public spa he’d stumbled across.
Leaping over a number of guards that had somehow gotten in front of him, Ranma decided that it was time to start another ‘beacon’ to show Gar and Sheila where he was going. A conveniently empty luxury vehicle was severely damaged by a well-placed lightning bolt, creating another explosion, and drawing the now irate owner of said luxury vehicle into the mob out for his blood.
RANMA!!!
Almost tripping in mid-run from surprise, Ranma found the source of the yell; Gar, leaning over the edge of a real rust-bucket of a ship sailing overhead. A ship trailing a weighted rope ladder in the air in front of him. Grinning in mixed relief and disappointment, Ranma made sure he had a secure grip on the slightly shell-shocked woman in his arms before leaping up to the ladder, using yet another luxury car as a springboard. Easily reaching the ladder, it took less than a minute for Gar and some huge pale guy to haul him up. “Lucky you guys came along when you did, I was starting to run out of people to piss off.”
Gar and Sheila laughed, slightly stunned at the scale of the chaos he had caused, and a huge green guy in white robes chuckled before moving to the bridge. “We should get a move on, it won’t take long for the Valuans to close the Great Fortress now that they know you’re on a ship.”
As the rest of the group moved to follow Brod, Sheila helped up Archon and led her to a room where she could rest for a while, and Gar turned to Ranma. “Just out of curiosity, what’s in the sack?”
Ranma chuckled nervously before throwing the sack in question overboard. “Nothing important. Hey, is there a kitchen on board? I’m starving.”
While Gar led him to the galley, Ranma thanked whatever gods were listening (Probably Bast) that Gar had dropped the subject. It might be difficult to explain why he’d stolen several dozen pairs of women’s underwear. Of course, he hadn’t gotten rid of the two rather skimpy pairs he’d taken from the women on the train, one pair orange, one pair purple. They might come in handy if he ever needed to piss of that purple-haired babe again. ‘For some reason, I doubt I’ve seen the last of her.’
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Down on the ground, Jane screamed with rage as the bastard werecat sailed away with her underwear and the Silvite. “Six, fly me up there!”
The tanned drake blanched at her anger, but refused. “Jane, they have cannons!”
Jane would have screamed at her co-wife, but the worried/scared look on her face calmed her slightly. “Fine. They shouldn’t be able to get past the fortress, so they’ll be caught one way or the other.” She stalked off to get back on the train to the Fortress, and after taking one last look at the retreating ship, Six followed her.
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(Posted Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:40)
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