Who knows?
Julia was many things. She was a fighter. A mother. A proud woman. A wife. She also always strived to be the best, a goal her father and mother had stressed since she was old enough to understand such things, thus old enough to being training.
Ranma was many things. A fighter. A proud young man. A surrogate father to an orphaned baby girl. He had always strived to be the best, the goal of his ultimately waste of space father. He and Julia shared many similar experiences; both had lost much of their childhood to uncompromising parents who thought they knew best.
Both had grown up knowing only one simple truth. The terrible truth that they wouldn't matter unless they lived, breathed, and became the Art they practiced so religiously. Their hardships had molded them, their experiences had shaped them, and their desire had chiseled them into what they were.
Fighters on the verge of becoming true Warriors.
***
Julia pushed herself up from the ground, hissing loudly as pain flared up along her sides and chest as she did so. "Were.." she breathed, catching he breath, ".. not done!" she snarled viciously as she came up fully.
Ranma blinked, before an exited smile spread across his lips. "I can see that." he said with a chuckle, preparing for the woman’s attack. He was happily surprised the woman lost all pretenses of anger, in fact of any emotion at all. She had fallen into a type of focus he had only seen on one other person when their title of 'The Best' was challenged, and he saw that face every morning when he looked in the mirror. "Maybe I wasn't giving her enough credit?" he thought for a breif moment, then he was left with no more as Julia engaged.
***
Slamming into the boy's defenses, Julia feinted a high punch, following thru with a low kick. Her feint was ignored; her kick blocked when Ranma raised his leg up and blocked the strike with his knee.
Ranma back stepped to gain some distance, dodging a quick jab to his ribs by twisting ever so slightly. He grabbed her hand at the wrist and applied intense pressure on the joint, before launching a punch with his free hand.
*WHAM*
Julia's hard cold eyes never left his own as his fist connected with her cheek, pushing her head back with the force of the blow. She winced slightly as the boy twisted her wrist, showing more strength then he had previously shown in their earlier battle.
She pushed forward, ignoring the sudden burning pain in her wrist as the boy twisted it and hit the boy with a flat palm strike to the chest, pushing him back slightly and forcing him to release her wrist to counter her following strike to the groin.
The boy back flipped, kicking Julia under her chin as he completed the maneuver and gained some distance. Julia flowed with the force of the strike, performing her own back flip and further increasing the distance between the two.
The two fighters both locked gazes, both finding nothing but a cold emotionless glare being returned. There was no acknowledgement that either were feeling the pain of the blows they had received. Both realized they were in more then just a battle. They were in a fight, a fight between two people who lived for nothing more then these tense moments.
The two lunged at each other at the exact same time, as if told too by some unseen signal. Both noticed the subtle differences in their charge, that being the smallest hint of a smile on their lips.
The fight was on.
***
Theo was having a dream. It was a nice one, involving lots and lots of red haired beauties with bountiful busts, long slender legs, and absolutely no desire to kick his ass with sharp pointy objects or with their bare hands.
He had enough of that just courting Julia, and this was HIS dream thank you very much.
He was also very pleased a certain unnamed twelve foot tall bitch of a mother-in-law wasn't present, swinging her axe and shouting about ripping his head off with her bare hands for daring to 'weaken' her little girl! That twat still refused to see him as her son-in-law despite having had a child and married her daughter.
One of the non-violent dream Julia's that was hugging his naked body from behind suddenly poked him in the ribs, causing him to squirm, as it was one of his ticklish spots. "Theo." she whispered, nibbling on his ear, which made him feel just heavenly!
"Hmm, yes my scrumptious apricot?" Theo returned in kind, running his hands down her bare legs.
She poked him a little harder, but it was still far from unpleasant. "Theo!"
"Oooh! That tickles! Stop! No wait, don't stop! Keep going! Ooooooh yeeeeah!" Theo grinned stupidly as Julia picked up the pace, tickling him fiercely.
"Theodore Pisqual Diggers! Your mother-in-law is here!" The dream Julia suddenly screamed in his ear!
***
Jonathan frowned as his son suddenly shot up screaming bloody hell, his hands patting his neck as if he was looking for any blood marks. He felt a little guilty about waking him up with the threat of his mother-in-law visiting, but some times it was the only way to do it.
"Son! Do you know what time it is?!" Jonathan gave the young man a stern look.
Theo sighed in relief when he realized Mumsey hadn't decided to torture.. eer.. grace him with her presence. "She's the mother of your wife. Think happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts. You don't want to grab her axe and show her were she can shove it. Think happy thoughts." Theo chanted mentally as he woke up more fully.
"Dad?" Theo winced at the bright light in the room, covering his eyes to relieve some of the pain he felt until his eyes could adjust. "What's wrong?"
"Boy! Your wife and that kid are tearing up the yard! They have been fighting non-stop for six straight hours! They won't listen to me!" Jonathan ranted; "If I have to suffer with changing diapers and cleaning piss off the floor, you're damn well going to suffer with me!" he finished, dragging Theo by the color of his jammies.
"Ow! Dad! Come on, I can walk you know! Hey! Ow! That hurts! What do you mean Julia and Ranma are fighting! Hey, what the heck is this puddle your pulling me through!? It smells like piss!"
***
Their fight had ranged all over the lawn, which was a near complete beautiful landscape now laid in ruins. Here and there blood from both the fighters had landed, often times in a wide spread as they landed a particularly ruthless attack on one another. Small trenches were dug into the ground with their enemies body, victim of rather powerful strikes that had sent them hurtling away from one another briefly.
Ranma grunted as Julia connected with a rabbit punch to his kidneys, countering by grabbing her arm and slamming her to the ground roughly. He tried to back step, but the hand he had grabbed to slam the woman into the ground latched onto his own, her other hand coming up and grabbing his already ripped leather top to drag him down on top of her.
Julia snarled as she pushed on the boy’s stomach with her feet, flipping him over and away from her in retaliation for his earlier slam. She flipped back to her feet, turned around and charged at the boy as he recovered from the throw.
***
Gina watched curiously as mommy and her friend moved away from the house, both disappearing at times in a fury of limbs, attacks, holds, feints, and throws. "Grandpa?"
"Hmm? Yes sunflower?"
"Can I be a fighter when I grow up?" Gina looked at the man with puppy dog eyes.
"Eh.." Jonathan sweated, "Maybe." he allowed. "I hope this is just a phase." he grumbled mentally. Bad enough Julia was a martial arts nut; he didn't think his son could survive if their daughter turned out like one too.
***
Ranma stumbled backwards, nearly losing his balance when Julia managed to connect with a powerful spin kick to his head. He groaned as his vision started to become hazy, but he wasn't so far gone yet that he couldn't defend himself from Julia's follow up attacks. He managed to block another punch to his groin, but he failed to defend himself from Julia’s true attack to his face. The force she hit him with nearly knock some of his teeth out, but it only managed stun him momentarily, and flip him around so his back was facing Julia now.
Too slow to move or dodge Julia's next attack, Ranma took her thrust kick straight to the back and blasted forward. He slammed into the outer wall, the one marking the end of the Diggers property, his head hitting the concrete and putting him in a daze.
Julia seized the advantage and grabbed Ranma by the back of his hair, then slammed his head into the wall numerous times. The wall started forming spider cracks from the force of his head slamming repeatedly into its surface.
Somewhere between the tenth and eleventh head slam, Ranma realized if this kept up he was going to lose. And we all know, Ranma Saotome doesn't lose. (Those damn card games don't count!) Reaching back, he grabbed the hand that was holding onto his hand and applied enough pressure to force Julia to release her grip. Swinging around, he pulled her arm up behind her back and then rammed himself into the wall. It didn't hurt, thanks to Julia being in-between him and the walls surface.
Julia grunted, her shoulder screaming in pain as Ranma pulled back, and slammed her into the wall again while he held her arm behind her back. She was about to counter the hold, but he yanked on her arm before she could move. She twirled around with the motion, now facing him. She was a bit disoriented and was unable to deflect Ranma's punch to her face; the blow flung her back against the wall painfully.
She was on the brink of loosing consciousness when she felt Ranma grab her throat and push her up against the wall, moving his body in close so she couldn't effectively kick him away. Her arm was still hurting from when he nearly dislocated it earlier, and her other arm was effected pinned behind her, she was unable to get it out from behind her due to the force he kept her pinned to the wall with.
Ranma snarled as he held the woman against the wall, punching her mercilessly in the abdomen. He saw it a fitting retribution for all the head slams. He also ruthlessly ignored the fact much of Julia's clothing were in tatters, and threatened to fall off and destroy and sense of modesty she had left as he rained punch after painful punch on the slowing form.
***
"Dad? Where's Julia? Or Ranma for that matter?" Theo asked after setting the table. It was his turn to cook dinner tonight, which he had already done so. It was a steak dinner for the grown ups, with Gina getting a smaller steak that he had already cut up into smaller pieces so she wouldn't choke on them. Brittany was enjoying the wonders of Starfish canned Tuna, and likely wouldn't care she was missing out on some prime steak.
Jonathan gave his son the lazy eye, "Where the hell do you think she is?"
"You mean she's still fighting Ranma?"
Jonathan humphed, pushing his plate away after finishing off the last of his dinner, "Don't believe they’re going to stop any time soon. Last I saw them, they were both still going at each others throats with no sign of cooling down." he shivered internally as he remembered that breif instant he had caught the two in their rumble. It wasn't pretty.
***
She was on her last legs and she knew it. The boy was far more skilled than she had thought at first, and truth be told she was really enjoying this fight. It's not often she got to fight against some one so skilled, with out the fighting resorting to death blows or special techniques within the first two minutes of battle. Those types of battles, as far as she was concerned, lacked the purity this one did.
Julia grunted, glaring at the boy as he struggled to his feet. That skirmish had blown them both away from each other, and threatened to knock her out. At the moment, she was kneeling down on one knee, watching the boy stand up straight and looking ready for more. Well.. if that’s what he wanted, she aimed to please.
Summoning strength she didn't think she possessed, Julia launched at Ranma with a wicked haymaker.
The boy caught her blow and redirected the force of the strike to the side. He was too slow to step out of the way of her forward charge, and she was simply to beat to actually stop her motion or throw another attack at the boy.
Her body slammed into his, and for a breif second Julia thought he was going to fall backwards. He seemed to struggle for a moment, but managed to hold his ground. "Well, that’s the end for me." She thought tiredly, unable to bring forth even an iota of resistance. She had been beaten. After the long, tiring yet exhilarating day, she had been defeated.
Ranma groaned as he fell to his knees, pulling Julia down with him. "How bout we call this a draw?" he offered up weakly. He couldn't fight another second, his strength completely spent after the long day. He had lost. After the long, tiring but exhilarating day, he had been defeated.
"Draw it is." Julia managed to mumble before sliding off him and collapsing to the ground in pain, only now realizing just how hurt she was. Hell, in this condition, she didn't think she could crawl to the house!
"Deal." Ranma managed to mumble in return, crashing down beside Julia as he allowed the pains he had ignored for the day to come rushing back at him. If radioactive hamsters from mars decided to invade, he couldn't even summon the strength to laugh. Well...
"At least the stars are pretty.." they both thought as they rested.
***
All was silent in the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse (Brittany got to it!).
All the tykes were tucked in their beds (Gina, Theo, Jonathan), images of snow frost danced in their heads.
***
"Have you ever lost yourself in a fight, Ranma?" she asked.
"Wha? Wha's that mean?"
"You know. When we were fighting, how everything in the world just didn't matter anymore? Where you forgot who you were, what you wanted, why you were fighting. Where your sense of self just fades away, unimportant?"
"Yeah.." he answered after some thought. "It's a great feeling.."
"I think so too." she stopped, and hesitated for a moment, "Thanks for helping me feel that again."
"Same to you." Ranma chuckled. Oh look, he could move his pinky again!
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(Posted Fri, 16 Jan 2004 19:18)
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