As Ranma entered the deep stance, he felt his Ki shift into familiar yet unknown patterns, almost perfect, except... With few shifts in position he felt his Ki align with the pattern he had never before formed. His own essence flowed in perfect harmony with the earth beneath his feet, and he knew that nothing would move him from his position unless he allowed it, not Akane's mallet-sama, not Ryouga's Lion Roar Bullet, not even the pantyhose-freak or the old leech.
For a moment he remained in that stance, weathering an imaginary storm, before gliding into a one-legged crane stance with deceptive ease, his right leg flowing with his rotating motion into a high side kick, channelling the strength of the very bedrock into the blow, causing a dull thump of displaced air to echo in the abandoned lot as the foot expertly halted mid-motion, the kick neither cut short nor overreaching his goal. The foot then slowly lowered, gently touching upon the ground as he fell into another deep stance, this time spinning out in a low sweep that could easily have crushed rock just as easily as it would have knocked down an opponent.
Even as he settled into the new stance Ranma's upper body flexed, the kinetic energy and impacts of incoming blows from imaginary enemies deflected into the bedrock beneath his feet, causing the packed dirt and concrete foundations to shatter. But he was not only defensive - for every blow taken, he retaliated with a thunderous blow, heavy, slow and straightforward strikes completely at odds with his normal quick and flashy style.
And so it continued, Ranma striding purposefully back and forth across the lot, spinning, kicking, blocking and hitting imaginary opponents with a carefully measured perfection. Above him danced his aura, the giant tiger imitating his every move, stalking in place and lashing out with crushing jaws and raking claws. Slowly, the style began to change.
Ranma's movements becoming more fluid, his body rotating faster to deliver spinning blows with deadly precision and devastating force, the odd leap allowing him to come crashing down upon the ground like a wave breaking on a rocky cliff.
The flowing then became erratic, unpredictable as he darted from stance to stance, delivering flurries of swift blows that would have ground even the fiercest opposition into dust, overwhelming it with its sheer fury. The leaps became more and more common, carrying pretend foes upward in a flurry of blows.
Finally, the fury abated, even as the capricious nature flared into a style of its own, Ranma now bounding back and forth across the lot like a demented grasshopper, finally back in his own element. His arms and legs became like whirlwinds of golden-glowing limbs, returning to the ground only to leap up again. At moments, it seemed as if he no longer needed to touch the ground, merely dancing above it carried aloft on strands of golden Ki...
"All right fresh meat, line up!"
"Yes Boss!"
The voice echoed in the gloomy cavern. Despite sounding like the last breath of a chain smoker with tuberculosis, the speaker looked worse. His body was tall and bloated, the bulk barely restrained by a baroque armour forged from metal so black it seemed to actually drink light. In the depths one could almost see the reflections of screaming faces, and when the plates ground together, one could hear the echoes of their cries.
The thing's face was equally horrible, his fat cheeks and many chins sagging, a thick, bushy moustache adorning his upper lip, his mouth contorted in a horrible mockery of a grin, his rotting teeth crooked and yellow, his tongue a long, dark purple-blue thing emerging every so often to lick his lips in anticipation. His eyes were, contrary to what one might have expected, big and blue. The contrast was only made worse by the sickly yellow sclera, cataracts and manic light shining in them. His bald skull was topped off by an improvised wig stitched onto him, scalp still attached.
In turn, the 'fresh meat' was anything but fresh. Lined up by the dozen were scores of zombies and worse, equipped with rusty metal blades and tarnished leather hauberks. All of them stood before the monstrous Boss, behind whom a pair warlocks clad in tattered black robes chanted. Reaching a crescendo, the air between the two suddenly split with a sound like a breaking heart, revealing a winding black corridor leading to a bright light, beyond which towering spires of steel and glass could be seen.
"This is it!" The Boss roared out, taking the first step through the portal. "Our Mistress needs more souls for her forges, more flesh for her crafters! And here's a whole world just waiting to be harvested." Horrifyingly, the Boss's grin widened, before he suddenly turned, glaring at his troops. "What are you waiting for?! Useless maggot food, get moving!" Cracking a barbed black whip in the air, the Boss got the undead horde to begin marching.
Unofficial departments in both universities and governments all over the world reported a massive supernatural disturbance. Temples reported that oracles had begun screaming and fainting, and several seers had gone completely insane trying to track down the source. Wherever they had access to such information, masked defenders, magical protectors and other champions of an unsuspecting world immediately began to gear up for the new threat...
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(Posted Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:47)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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