Staring at the infuriatingly oblivious boy, Jane was actually having to struggle to get her emotions under control before she did something unfitting for a proper dragon. As a dragon that had spent her entire life seeking more power, the idea that the boy would knowingly pass up the opportunity was incomprehensible. "What do you mean that was the point?"
Still wincing as a screaming irate dragon proved to be quite loud, the young man rubbed his ears for effect. Just like most angry girls though, Ranma didn't have much of a clue as to why Jane was so pissed. "Well it's not like I don't think being a dragon is cool and all."
After a day of trying to deal with the problems of her husband's life that existed because he insisted on acting weak, Jane was a bit fed up with things. She had actually entertained a brief fantasy of leading the boy on a dragon rampage through Nerima when he had prepared to use the device. "Why do you insist on remaining weak?"
That remark hitting his ego caught his attention, though the young man considered the irate dragon slowly instead of firing off an angry retort. "What makes you think I'm weak?"
Becoming just a hint cautious as the feeling of entering a proverbial minefield, Jane wound down to merely annoyed as Ranma for once seemed vaguely dangerous. "You let all those weaklings walk all over you. Was your battle with that worm Herb just a fluke?"
Staring at the irate dragon, the inkling of understanding was beginning to dawn on him. The dragons didn't understand his martial arts or why he bothered to practice. Jane was dismissive of the worth of his training, while Six just seemed to stare like Kasumi did. From what he remembered about what they said when they first got the Enigma, they got stronger basically by becoming more powerful dragon types. "Nah, Herb hadn't gotten any stronger from the last time I beat him. The first time was close, but I've gotten much stronger since then, so it was actually kind of a let down fighting him last time."
Seeing that Jane wasn't immediately continuing the argument, Ranma realized as an expert of pissing people off that explaining the difference would be a bad thing as it would involve pointing out Jane's glaring weaknesses. Considering her temper, if he let her know he could probably take her in a fight, that would likely lead to a fight. If that were to occur, as strong as she was it would probably end up being a pretty serious fight, and that was something he'd been trying to avoid all along.
Despite realizing all of these dangers, Ranma wasn't exactly good at not pissing off people. "You girl's are kinda like Saffron. You get all your power from just being a dragon."
Pausing for a moment, the martial artist decided to go ahead and just bite the bullet. At least they were were in a place where a big fight wouldn't cause a lot of trouble. "Alright Jane, just turn human and hit me and I'll show you."
Taking on her human form, the purple haired woman idly considered her errant husband. A number of reasons came to mind for why he'd make such a foolish request, but she had a feeling she'd have to hit him to know for sure. "Are you sure, Sire?"
Tapping his sternum, the young man seemed unperturbed about the imminent pain about to be inflicted upon him. "Yeah, you know how to throw a punch, right?"
As Six was growing increasingly uncomfortable at watching the two, Jane shrugged as if to dismiss responsibility. "If you insist."
Drawing back in an obvious punch, the purple haired woman launched herself forward. Despite her attempts to make the threat obvious, the boy was simple standing there unconcerned and unguarded. If he thought she might not follow through with his bluff he was dead wrong, as Jane fully intended to take this opportunity to knock a bit of sense in the boy. She wasn't going to hurt him too much of course, but he'd definitely be feeling it.
As her fist brushed against the silk of his shirt, the dragon in human form found herself spitting out the dust and gravel on her lips. Shaking her head as the monolithic boulder she was embedded face first in crumbled around her, Jane tried to understand just what had happened. Slowly the image of what occurred came to Jane's stunned mind. Not harmed from the impact, she realized Ranma had twisted to the side with her punch, one hand grasping her wrist and pulling her onward as his other hand slapped her back.
She was aware that it had happened, but she'd been unable to react in time. She hadn't even stopped mentally gloating over knocking the boy down a peg until she was already face first into the rock.
"You okay Jane?"
Idly brushing the dusting off the gravel and grit from her impact, the purple haired woman turned an inquisitive eye towards the human. "Is that your new power then?"
Shaking his head, Ranma was glad the dangerous woman was unharmed and merely curious after eating boulder. "Nah, that's martial arts skill. You girls have got serious power and all, but well... did Herb create some sort of strange tornado in your fight that hurt you bad?"
Curious how he'd guessed that as they hadn't particularly talked about their time with Herb, Jane's interest was becoming obvious. "Yes, it was some sort of entropic wind magic."
Shaking his head, Ranma figured she'd misunderstood what had happened. "Nah, that's an amazon technique for beating someone with a lot of power. If you're angry and putting out a lot of energy, the technique hits your aura and causes the tornado, but it's really ripping on your own power. Even though they made the technique for fighting Herb's people, Herb was good enough to learn it and figure out how to counter it. Me, I was good enough to figure out his counter and hurt him bad in our first fight, and I've pretty much mastered that move since then."
Seeing that he had Jane's attention still, Ranma decided to get around to his point. "It's been my experience that big power tends to make people sloppy and over-confident. It's dangerous to be sure, and I'm tired of being the underdog to be honest, but I was trying to make sure I didn't fall into that trap."
At that point Ranma was beginning to get a bit nervous under the intense look Jane was giving him. "You... You've been hiding your ability. Your true power."
Rubbing his neck, the young man was obviously avoiding the question as he studiously looked at anything but Jane. "Uhm, can we talk about this later? I'm kinda hungry."
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(Posted Thu, 01 May 2008 13:22)
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