‘Dammit!’ Ranma cursed himself mentally. He’d know there wasn’t enough time.
The arrows swiftly flew towards their goal, as he sped across the grass.
20 Feet
‘If only I’d had more time.’
15 Feet
‘A couple of seconds.’
10 Feet
‘Who am I kiddin’, I’d need at least five minutes and some paper.’
5 Feet
‘I suck at fancy speeches.’
Ground Zero
Zipping in front of Hotaru, brushing close enough that she was pushed backwards, the currently long-haired martial artist pulled two long stemmed purple roses out of weapon-space and wielded them like tonfa, casually smacking both arrows out of the air. He twitched his wrists to keep from getting entangled in the flowers' suddenly lengthened stems. ‘Note to self: Iron Cloth techniques work differently on plants.’
‘Man, I still don’t have a speech or pose ready. Kuno would have already been 'Fiend this' and Foul sorceror that'.’ He harshly berated himself, feeling a bit down at his poor showing.
Slender arms of surprising strength pulled him off balance for a moment, causing them both to lean on Mercury. Hotaru, for no reason he could fathom, had suddenly embraced him from behind. His bad mood vanished instantly.
He dropped the roses, reached behind himself and grabbed her legs, wrapping them around his waist as he straightened up. It’d be much easier to protect her if she was riding piggy back, right?
With Hotaru safe, he quickly refocused on their current situation. The cherubs were reloading and the two roses he’d dropped had taken root and were beginning to grow into a pair of good size bushes. ‘Heh, Pink and Link are gonna be pissed if they find out I know how they make their plants sprout so fast.’
He could easily see how a technique for making cloth into armor could lead to the discovery (by two horticulturally inclined martial artists, anyway) of a way to make bushes sprout from seeds in seconds. All it would take is one block with a plant you had planned on attacking with, knowledge of the Iron Cloth technique, and boom -- instant bush.
Amazons generally disdained the Iron Cloth techniques, preferring to use flesh strengthening ones, but Pink and Link wouldn’t have had time to learn the much more involved techniques with all the time needed to learn about their chosen art, so it was much more likely that they were the only Amazons to know about it.
‘It’s been years since they’ve been by ta challenge Shampoo, so at least I don’t gotta worry about them showin’ up and trying ta off me in order ta protect their techniques.’
Death Valley
“Why we follow Pig-Boy again?” A brown robed figure asked another brown robed figure.
“Cause he lead us to Shampoo, faster then actually walking straight line to her.”
“But he keep yelling about some guy named Ranma.”
“Ranma Shampoo’s airen, is cute pigtailed boy we see last time.”
“How about we steal her airen?”
“Sugar try that. Get flattened by Shampoo and three outsider girls.”
“She give kiss of death?”
“Try many times, get flattened every time. Took week before Sugar give up.”
“She give up too easy.”
“Girls were fighting each other and not notice. She gave speech about leaving and they still not notice. Bad enough get beat, worse get beat and no one notice doing it, even worse happen over and over.” “So Ranma off limits?”
One of the two figures shrugged. “He good catch, but someone practice art like we do be much better.”
Statue Park
Ranma ignored the sudden chill that shot down his spine with long practice. His father had probably done something stupid again and deserved another beatdown. Even if he didn’t, Ranma was sure he still owed his father hundreds of them for the crap he’d put him through in the last couple of years alone. He’d make sure and give his father a through beating later, on general principles.
Very aware of the girl clinging to his back, Ranma plucked a pair of roses from the bush in front of him and flung them like throwing spikes. The awkwardly shaped projectiles hit their targets, spearing right into them, leaving only the flower’s head sticking out, but they didn’t do a whole lot of damage. Piercing weapons did little damage to things without internal organs, he realized. Venus had said Mask used them to good effect, but Ranma obviously didn’t know the techniques necessary for the job.
He plucked another two roses and tried to figure out his next move. From the description of Mask’s techniques, he was extremely skilled. Anyone talented enough to strike a breaking point with a thrown object, much less a rose (not the most aerodynamic throwing weapon around), was someone to be respected. Ranma had hoped to see Mask in action and copy some of his techniques (no use reinventing the Horse stance, right?), but hadn’t gotten a chance, which was a bit disappointing. He was sure there was some trick he didn’t know about that would make these things more useful.
‘Man, it feels good to have Hotaru wrapped around me like this.’ He quickly buried that thought, realizing what it sounded like, as he reminded himself that she was much younger then she looked at the moment. He made another mental note to give Happosai a thorough beating as well. Certainly, the shrunken old pervert would give as good as he got, but Ranma figured it was exposure to Happosai that caused thoughts like this and Ranma deserved a beating for having them anyway.
Turning his head, he met Hotaru’s questioning eyes with a grin and tilted his mask up enough to let her see under it.
Her shocked, but happy smile was everything he could have hoped for.
‘Never keep secrets from your girlfriend, they always find out.’ He thought to himself, a trifle smug, but mostly relieved with how things had gone.
It was times like this he was glad he’d paid attention to Nabiki’s lectures...well, part of one.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-Flashback-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Nabiki had set him down and told him stories about guys in debt to her, because they hid things from their girlfriends and needed help covering things up. She had explained to him, in detail, with pie charts (everything's better with pie charts, she said), about how much easier things would have been for them (and cheaper) if they’d just come clean in the beginning. She also explained how easy it was for lies to spiral out of control. For once, he’d listened.
Rule number one was: Never keep secrets from your girlfriend, they always find out.
He’d almost asked if any of the rules applied to fiancées as well, but Akane had been watching and he remembered how asking Kasumi about boyfriends was flirting somehow, so asking her other sister about anything related to that subject was just asking to get pounded. He’d finally just memorized what she’d said long enough to repeat it back and then promptly forgot most of it.
It wasn’t like any of it applied to him; he’d never had a girlfriend and likely never would.
It was the first in a long series of lectures.
Normally, he’d have figured Nabiki spontaneously teaching him anything was part of some scam to separate him from any spare yen he happened to have, but it turned out that Kasumi had asked Nabiki to ‘civilize’ him. Since it was Kasumi asking… They had both started spending at least an hour a day together, filling in some of the gaps in his schooling. The fiancée brigade had all stopped by to make sure Nabiki wasn’t pulling a fast one, but after seeing Ranma’s shock at learning about things he didn’t know about, things that even Shampoo had been taught in her village… There were no complaints.
-o-o-o-o-o-End Flashback-o-o-o-o-o-
Ranma watched nervously as another two arrows were launched. It wasn’t that they were dangerous (he could knock them out of the air in his sleep), it was that he’d discovered he hated looking bad in front of Hotaru. Sure he’d shown up in the nick of time and saved her, but he didn’t have a cool pose or an inspiring speech. Looking cool and being romantic seemed to be part of the whole Mask deal and he was seriously lacking in both at the moment.
Ranma fed chi to the rose in his right hand, watching it lengthen into a fair approximation of a bullwhip as the stem tried to reach the earth. He slowed the amount of chi to a trickle, feeling for the fine line between giving it energy for a growth spurt and just enough energy to weaponize it.
A flick of his wrist snapped both arrows out of the air as he wondered what to do with the other rose, since one was enough at the moment.
‘If I was female I’d slip it behind my ear, but that just don’t work as a guy.’
Rolling it in his hand, he flicked the thorns off and reached up to slip it behind Hotaru’s ear.
‘Cool and romantic, what do I know about cool and romantic? I’ll probably open my mouth and stick my foot in it.’
Saturn’s smile and blush went completely unnoticed by the distracted martial artist, who was sure he was going to screw things up.
There was a distant crack from over the main gate, as both the cherubs fell apart, familiar looking purple roses growing profusely from the remains. ‘Heh. Guess those two worked after all. Not exactly a fast attack, though.’
Seeing no other threats, he turned towards the other magic girls.
Ranma tapped Saturn on the shoulder and pointed to the Silent Wall, to let her know to take it down. There was no point in draining her energy when he could guard them. He could see out of the corner of his eye that she was feeling a bit weak, since she was red faced again.
“The central point of the web is in the center of the maze. There’s a control module next to it, so don’t blast indiscriminately. If you hit that module, all the energy is going to be released at once...and I’m not sure what that’ll do.” The one who looked like Akane (well, a bit more like Akane then any of the other girls he saw there) called out, making the blond with the weird hair fall over.
“Even the strongest of hearts can stumble, but as long as you have true friends, they’ll always help you to your feet once more, knowing you’d do the same for them.” Mask announced while helping Moon ('That was her name!' Ranma recalled) to her feet.
Ranma had to admit he was impressed. Not by the speech, though managing to say that and keep a straight face was impressive on it's own. And saying it in such a way that it sounded believable...well, he figured the girls bought it, considering the way they sighed and smiled.
‘I could've sworn I’ve heard Kuno say that before. Well, there ain’t no way I’m talking like the Blue Blunder, not Ranma Saotome. Nabiki said something about fools and remaining silent once. Wish I could remember what it was exactly, but I think she meant that me not talkin’ is a good idea sometimes and I'm fairly sure this counts.’
No, Ranma was impressed by the amount of energy Mask released as he spoke. He still couldn’t really feel it, but the sparks of chi and the way all the girls seemed to gain strength told him a lot. Mask had managed to feed them all a second wind.
‘Hmmm. The girls are absorbing a bit of chi with all that energy.’ Ranma silently flared his aura without letting it fluoresce into the visible range, instead allowing it to cover both him and Hotaru in a warm and comforting embrace that nourished the ego...possibly a bit more then was healthy, if you asked a Freudian Therapist about it.
The blond girl that scared… err, made Ranma nervous, turned and stared directly at him. He suppressed the urge to run (barely), when she suddenly turned pale and started to cry.
‘Is she bipolar or what?’
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(Posted Sun, 24 Aug 2008 08:56)
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