Consciousness returned slowly for the pigtailed martial artist, his eyes fluttering open slowly, only to squint painfully as the wind blew its harsh breath across his face. He hissed painfully as injuries he had no recollection of reciving made themselves known, increased by the swelting heat of the air and the large flat rock he found himself on.
It was too damn bright! The feeling akin to Genma’s heat resistance training, were he had to run across burning coals of flame to tough the soles of his feet up, before he had to roll through it bare chested for just that same purpose. Where the hell was he? How the hell did he get here In the first place? He was so tired…
Pushing himself up, he was slightly discouraged by the action when he felt skin peel off, it some how becoming fused with the rock he had found himself on. He stared at his hands for a moment, a deep frown crossing his features as he examined the stinging slightly blood stained flesh. “Shit.” He croaked out, voice course and exceedingly dry.
He stood up, feeling instant relief as his body left the burning stone beneath, a sense of content settled over him as he realized he had worn his thick leather sandles.. whenever this happened.
“Where the hell am I?” he asked, mind to lethargic to realize that was Ryoga’s trademark phrase. He wasn’t in a joking mood anyway. He took a look around, marveling at the near barren desert he had found himself in. It seemed to go on forever and ever, disappearing of the horizon in all directions. Not a good sign.
The blazing sun overhead reminded him of the need to find shelter, or at least regulate his temperature so he doesn’t die of heat stroke. Seeing no immediate shelter, he let off a shuddering sigh as he thought about the specifics of the temperature regulation technique he had learned so long ago from.. What was his name? ‘Oh yeah, Master Ngo. That old kook!’
He closed his eyes in an attempt to focus on his inner energies. It didn’t help much, the sun overhead acting like solar daggers, constantly driving themselves in to his pupils.
Ignoring the discomfort, he reached for his center, greatful to find that while he was weakened and lost some where in… wherever the hell he was, at least he had his constant ally by his side. He honestly didn’t know what he would do if his confidence ever abandoned him… prolly go insane, but hey, like that will ever happen!
As the tight restraints he kept around his inner being loosened, he couldn’t suppress a smile as whiffs of his energy escaped the bonds. Like a tuna net, tendrils of his coveted confidence pushed their way through, escaping with glee.
He took hold of that energy within his center, cooling it with a similar application to Cologne’s Soul of Ice, then distributed the cool energy throughout his tired hot body.
Instantly, as if he had stepped out of the furnace and into a freezer, he felt the sweat drenching his body cool, feeling as if a cool chilly breeze had blown across his entire body, leaving a subtle pricking sensation across his skin due to the immediate temperature change.
Letting out a relaxing breath, Ranma opened his eyes again, feeling infinitly better now that he wasn’t the poverbiable snowball in hell. As he examined his surroundings for a second time, Ranma began cataloguing what he knew, and what he didn’t.
How he got here, or where in the hell he was, he didn’t know. He remembered a brief flash.. of something pink, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what the hell he had been doing that involved that color. He thought back for a moment, dredging up the final moments he could remember… he had told Gibral something…
He snapped his finger’s, remembrance of that encounter coming back to the fore with a vengeance. And just as quickly as that particular memory returned, so too did the feeling of guilt for having to resort to such a tactic.
He forced that thought, and espically those depressing feelings into the back of his mind. He could apologize later, right now he had to figure out what he was doing to do. He took a tentative look at the sun, using that point of reference to differitiate east from west. He knew he couldn’t very well just stay here and hope some one came by to save him, what with no food or water he doubt he’d survive very long in this desolate region.
“Time to pull a Ryoga..” he said with a bemused grin upon his face, idly wondering where the lost boy was at this point and time. He could just imagine the look on Ryoga’s face if he ever figured out he was as lost as he usually is.
As Ranma hopped off the rock face he had awoken upon, he instinctively began to draw in surronding Chi to replenish the Ki he had recently expunged.
At first he didn’t notice anything different, keeping his eyes focused on the eastern horizon as he walked. Streamers of energy, quite visible to the naked eye began forming in the air around the boy. Quicker than anyone would expect, motes of an ethereal green began to transverse those streamers, pulsing irractically as he drew in the energy. When the first mote of energy reached his skin, Ranma’s eyes opened to the size as saucers as unbidden his battle aura flared to its full power. Two feet of shimmering, erratic wild energy sprung into existence around his being, pushing outward and causing a depression in the sand as the force of his aura pushed it away. Strands Ranma had never seen when he summoned his aura in the past could clearly be seen. Each strand formed together seamlessly, pulses of energy almost to quick to see streaming past on those strands. All together it formed a cocoon of semi-transparent spider webs of Chi.
“What the hell!”
For a moment Ranma marveled at the intricacy of his battle aura, but his curiousity soon lost to caution. He immediately stopped drawing in the super charged Chi, feeling relief as slowly but surely the excess Chi that had brought his battle aura forth tapered away.
“Whew… what the hell was that about?” he wondered out loud. More out of habit than out of need, he took a quick moment to probe his body for any adverse effects that may have appeared due to the unexpected Chi surge. Finding none, other than the fact his Ki was full to his very limit, he allowed his mind to return to reality.
Ranma took yet another moment to examine his surroundings. Where he had been walking on level sand beforehand, he now stood in a five foot depression. He realized quickly that his battle aura had pushed the unstable sand down and away from him. Quickly he jumped out of the depression, he turned around in time to see the sand collapse in on itself, covering up the hole he had unintentionally created. “What kind of fucked up place is this?” he asked again, not expecting an answer.
Just what the hell happened? He thought back to what he had been doing previously, and realized he had been drawing in Chi at his normal rate. That didn’t really explain why he had gotten such a large surge of the stuff though. ‘Unless I’ve been asleep for years upon years while my body trained, heh.’ He snorted at that idea, he would remember doing something like that, not to mention the differences he would have undoubtable felt in his body had he been training so long.
So that left Chi, and how he drew it in. He tentatively reached out with his senses, expanding the bubble his senses enveloped to twenty feet in all directions. He took a moment to marvel at what he felt, doing this always gave him an euphoric rush due to his defined sensory perception.
Shaking himself, he focused on everything around him as he began to draw in Chi once again. At first nothing happened, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what he had done to create such a strange reaction in his aura. Slowly however, he began to pick up streams of.. something.. forming in the air and connecting themselves to his skin. He kinda felt like a car, when you stick the funnel into the engine port to pump gas.
He became slightly apprehensive of strobing motes of.. something appeared on those near invisible threads. Almost too quickly to see, those self same motes streaked across the threads and slammed into his body. Instantly he felt his body react by instinct, at first directing the surge of energy to his Ki stores. Finding them full, it moved through out his body toughing and strengthing the skin, muscles, appendages, and increasing his senses to an absurd degree. Quickly however, he reached his limit in that regard. Seeing no escape, he subconsciously called on his battle aura, the only place his mind could think of to hold the enourmous amount of energy surging into his being. The two foot thick battle aura filled to max quickly as well, forming a depression around his feet where the aura pushed out.
Ranma released his hold on the incoming chi, elated to see the battle aura dimming slowly as the excess energy tapered off and escaped. Shortly there after his senses retracted to their normal twenty foot radius, and then all together it faded.
“Jesus.. there must be a TON of Chi available here.. wherever the hell here is!” he exclaimed, once again jumping out of the deep depression before the sand could smother him beneath the surface.
“Okay.. weird.. just… weird..”
He sighed softly. As much as he wanted to stay and experiment with this new development, he really needed to find some source of water. Food he could do a few days with out, but in this heat water was an absolute if one wanted to survive for more than a day.
He turned back to the east and continued on his way, hoping to find some source of nourishment.
****
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(Posted Mon, 17 Nov 2003 15:48)
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