After slamming Alita into the ground with a diving stomp kick, Ranma leapt away from her to see how the Pokégirl handled the hits so far. So far Alita’s defenses seemed to be pretty good, even though she was letting her guard down an awful lot. Her speed and reflexes were okay, but nothing too exceptional as yet. But that last hit would tell Ranma if she needed to back off a bit to keep things fair, of if she needed to up the ante a little more.
Although she was reluctantly impressed, Ranma didn’t let it bother her when Alita hopped back up as if she’d never even taken a hit. ‘Okay, so she’s at least as tough as Ryoga was before he learned the breaking point, maybe even after he learned it. She’s faster than bacon-butt usually is though, but let’s see what her offense is like for a sec,’ Ranma thought silently as Alita got up and charged at her.
The girl was roughly as fast as Shampoo was, maybe a little faster, but still nothing too special just yet. Ranma had to dodge around a quick four hit combo aimed at her face and chest, but she managed to do it without giving up ground. A low, high, low, combo forced Ranma into a backwards roll to avoid the second sweep kick Alita aimed at her legs. Ranma continued to tumble roll backwards in a tight ball to avoid Alita’s continuing onslaught.
During Ranma’s retreat, she noticed that Alita seemed to have a minor problem fighting opponents smaller than herself. However, that would only help Ranma out here if she planned to continue the rest of the fight from a fetal position. She needed to find a more exploitable weakness, and then save it for when the Pokégirl finally did start taking Ranma seriously.
Timing her rolls, Ranma leapt, keeping her backward momentum and used it to rebound off the wall behind her, somersaulting over Alita to land behind her. A kick caught Ranma in the gut before she could take advantage of the situation though and launched her backwards, the other way, to tumble across the floor. When she stood up Ranma needed to shake her head a little to stop the world from spinning, but it wasn’t all from the kick and tumble she just took.
Her dizziness cost Ranma a couple of hard knocks to the head that reminded her of Ryoga on one of his rampages. She recovered in time to stop the third hit though, and Ranma used the opportunity to see if Alita was double jointed or not with a simple joint lock. She wasn’t double jointed, but Alita was agile enough to twist her way out of the lock and counter it with a trip and throw combination.
Ranma hit the glass where Nova and all the girls, including the Tendo sisters, were sitting and nearly freaked when she saw their panicked faces. For a terrifying moment she’d been convinced that the glass would break and she’d injure someone on the way down. Fortunately the glass stayed put, without even a sign of cracking, but now she was pissed again; this Alita girl had risked the others for the sake of an easy hit.
Alita smirked to herself just a moment as her opponent took a second longer to recover from being thrown against the wall this time. ‘It took her long enough, but it looks like the girl’s finally starting to hit her limit, not bad for a pure human. If she were a Pokégirl, I would be so disappointed right now, but I think I’m actually starting to like her instead,’ she thought to herself while Ranma recovered. Alita was feeling generous enough at the moment to allow Ranma a tiny little breather.
The girl caught Alita entirely off guard though when Ranma all but exploded away from the base of the wall and renewed her attack with an angry vengeance. Ranma was somehow twice as fast as she’d been a moment ago, and half again as strong as well. The human girl was now an untouchable whirlwind raining kicks and punches down on her so fast that Alita was overwhelmed for a moment.
Alita actually felt herself taking damage for the first time since the battle began. Her arms were taking the brunt of the damage, but enough of Ranma’s attacks were getting through that her ribs had taken a bruise or two was well. One blow even nailed Alita in the face, sending her flying across the room several feet before the assault ended for a moment.
“I don’t know what the hell you were thinking just then, throwing me against the glass like that. But if you risk Akane and the others like that one more time, I ain’t going to be so nice anymore. You got that, macho girl?” Ranma snarled at her angrily, cracking her knuckles to emphasize the point.
“If I really was your enemy, Carrot-girl, I wouldn’t think twice about hurting your friends to make beating you that much easier. The sooner you learn that lesson, the longer you and your friends will stay alive in this world,” Alita retorted without a second thought. She was honestly impressed to find out that Ranma had been holding something back all this time. However, sentimentalities like that would just get her killed in the end, no matter how good Ranma really was.
Alita also used the conversational pause to activate her healing function, as well as increasing her speed and strength to compensate for Ranma’s sudden burst just now. Ranma might have been holding out on her, but unless she still had a few tricks held in reserve at this point, it wouldn’t be enough for her to win this match. Alita decided to illustrate her point with a rush that put Ranma in the same situation Ranma had put her in a second ago.
Ranma glared daggers at the android like Pokégirl as she basically admitted that she didn’t care if the others got hurt because of their fight or not. She also noticed Alita’s body rippling slightly, yet noticeably while she was talking. Then suddenly she charged Ranma so fast that even she couldn’t keep up for a moment; she deflected most of the Pokégirl’s attacks, but the ones that did get through felt like Taro’s monster form hitting her, just with a smaller fist.
Ranma actually had to focus some of her Ki into reinforcing her stomach muscles to keep from bruising too badly, but nothing draining just yet. She grudgingly gave up a few feet of ground under Alita’s assault before deciding ‘to hell with it’ and used her Roasting Chestnuts attack to counter the onslaught of attacks. Despite Alita’s increased speed, Ranma still got roughly fifty clean hits though her defenses in roughly a second and sent her flying back again.
“It’s about time you started taking me seriously, tough girl. Now let’s see just how tough you really are,” Ranma taunted as Alita shook the cobwebs out of her head. She might have managed to land on her feet again that time, but the Pokégirl definitely hadn’t been expecting Ranma to be able to counter her crazy rush just now.
“I don’t believe it! That girl actually managed to get Alita to augment herself and still stopped her cold! There’s no way that she’s just a regular old human! There’s just no way!” Sechs shouted in disbelief after Ranma used her chestnut attack to stop Alita’s counter charge.
“Scary . . . ,” the twin like Elf and Zwolf agreed together in mild fright at Ranma’s accomplishment. Their reaction suggesting that it was anything but normal to run into a human of Ranma’s caliber.
“Can you blame him though? You all saw the look on Ranma’s face when he hit the glass a couple seconds ago. I’ll bet you just about anything Ranma thought he was going to go straight through it and crash into us when it happened,” Akane observed, shrugging off the incident.
“And pissed to hell about it too. Sorry, sis, no bet,” Nabiki seconded her sister’s take on the exchange. Ranma may be an ignorant, insensitive heel at times, but she treated protecting non-combatants like it was her own personal religion at times.
“I don’t care if she’s pissed off or not; I’m telling you it just ain’t possible for a normal human being to fight like that!” Sechs protested adamantly. The very idea of it seemed to have the battle scared Pokégirl worked up and on edge.
“Well she is from another dimension, Sechs. That could account for some of Ranma’s abnormal abilities. There is no way to be certain just yet what sort of effects Ranma’s so-called curse may have on her physical performance either. According to these readings, not only are her physical abilities well above non-gifted human norms, she also seems to be able to selectively enhance portions of her body at will. Perhaps Ms. Nabiki would care to explain how this is possible for a normal human being?” Nova placated the agitated clone.
“Sure . . . after we settle our bet of course,” Nabiki replied automatically. She wasn’t about to give out any freebies until Nabiki knew for certain which one of them would be paying out to the other in the very near future.
Ranma winced as she broke away from her last exchange with Alita. The Pokégirl scored two good hits to her ribs and a grazing blow to the face that still stung. The back of her hand came away slightly bloody when Ranma wiped at it too.
She didn’t come out of the trade off empty handed though. Ranma landed a blow to Alita’s left kidney and a chop to her lower spine during one of her spins that aught to be affecting her legs soon. But the best hit was the solid shot to the heart Ranma got in that forced the other girl break away before Ranma had to.
‘Huh? There’s that rippling thing again? Is she powering up again?’ Ranma noted silently as she eyed her opponent warily. If Ranma hadn’t been looking directly at her, she would have missed it, but Alita’s entire muscle tone was noticeably different both times she did that ripple thingy. Without getting any bigger, Ranma could tell just by looking at her that Alita was both stronger and faster now. “You know, I would have thought you’d kick things up a notch or two by now, tough girl. I mean, it’s got to be embarrassing to have your butt handed to you by little old me,” Ranma taunted her, intentionally pretending not to notice the change in Alita’s physique.
Alita smirked knowingly at Ranma like she had a secret, then suddenly leapt toward her at twice her previous top speed. The taller female was nearly a blur as she sailed at Ranma, parallel to the ground; she kicked down at the last second, making herself flip over Ranma in an odd arch. While in the air, Alita aimed a quick kick at Ranma’s back aimed to slam her face first into the ground.
“How as that for kicking things up a notch, Carrot-girl? Or should I say down in your case” Alita jeered as the blow landed and propelled her a little farther along.
Instead of crashing into the ground however, Ranma tucked and rolled with the hit, stealing its momentum to propel her into a leaping somersault at the end of the roll. Ranma touched down in a crouching skid facing Alita and immediately sprinted back at the Pokégirl once she had traction again. If she were fast enough, she might even catch Alita still off balance from her last attack.
“Not bad! I just hope that isn’t All you’ve got, tough girl!” Ranma called out with a classic flying side kick. The blow nailed her and bounced Alita off the nearby wall, but it didn’t knock her down though.
Alita shook her head once, then charged Ranma so fast that she had to give up ground again while the two of them traded multiple fast paced blows. The two of them literally punched, kicked, leapt, and flipped the entire length of the training room back to the other end. But while Ranma was giving up ground, she wasn’t doing it for nothing. Their backward pace stole a lot of Alita’s damaging power, and Ranma was starting to get a feel for the Pokégirl’s techniques, timing, and strategy.
Just as they were about to hit the wall, Alita feinted high with a punch and then tried to pin Ranma against the wall with a hard kick. Ranma anticipated the combo though and grabbed the feinting wrist while doing a backwards wall-walk into a somersault and shoulder throw combination. Leverage and momentum worked perfectly to slam Alita’s whole body face down onto the floor.
It also allowed Ranma to put Alita in an arm-bar, pinning her to the ground so that she couldn’t get up or fight back. Until Alita’s body rippled a third time that is and she literally threw Ranma away from her despite the bad leverage on her end.
When she got up again, Ranma noticed a slight look of concentration on Alita’s face and her body started to ripple again. Two thoughts instantly came to mind. The first was that Alita had somehow shifted to nothing but strength to throw Ranma off of her just then. The other was that the Pokégirl didn’t dare stay that way now that she was free again, probably because she’d never keep up with Ranma if she stayed that way.
Which inspired her to try something very risky. Letting out the loudest, shrillest ‘you-who’ whistle she could manage, Ranma charged Alita headlong, hoping to break her concentration and stop the change.
It worked like a charm, allowing Ranma to get several good, full power hits in before Alita literally threw Ranma off of her. Unfortunately for Ranma, Alita’s one catch and throw just about made up for all the damage she managed to inflict on the other girl during that opening. The Pokégirl had also thrown Ranma into the glass again, cratering it.
See other episodes by Corrupted Saint
(Posted Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:00)
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