Ranma nodded, suddenly ripping the sleeve off his shirt, "Right. I'll take care of it. You two just be ready when I open that gate, or I'm gonna be up shit creek with out a paddle." he gave his two friends a stern gaze, waiting for their nods.
"Sun sets in three hours, Ranma, we'll be ready." Theo grunted.
"Just be careful Ranma, please?" Pantha gave her friend a pleading look.
Ranma waved her concern off, giving her a comforting smile, "Hey, this is me were talkin about here! Mr. Safety!" he grinned when a smile appeared on their lips. "Don't worry none." he raised the cloth to his face, his jaw muscles tensing as he focused on his inner energy. "Goshin Dai Ryu Sei Fu" he whispered, vanishing from view.
"Good luck." Pantha called out after he vanished.
***
Ranma crossed his fingers and prayed to whatever Japanese gods he could remember as he landed on the precipice, no farther then one foot away from one of the undead zombies keeping look out. "Please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't see me, please don't pull a mallet out and yell at me, please please please!" he chanted mentally.
The zombie was male, wearing a ratty old muscle shirt and shaggy black pants. His skin was pale and taunt, his fingernails were thicker then an average human of his stature, and the boy knew those nails would be enough to seriously hurt anyone who decided to test their luck against it. Aside from the skin, the lack of Iris's in his eyes, and the fact his jugular had been ripped out, Ranma mused he could pass off as a relatively normal guy.
Ranma tensed as the zombie turned right towards him, only to walk right past him. Relaxing slightly, he jumped from the side of the wall down into the courtyard below.
Sparing the surroundings a glance, he realized really quickly why he didn't see water exiting the place. The water rolled in to the center of the courtyard, where it flowed to either side of a set of stairs, before descending into the earth. It was weird looking, and he couldn't see the point of it being set up like that, but he really didn't have time to think about it. Looking up at the sky, Ranma sighed. At least another three hours before he needed to make his move.
***
"Is everything prepared?" the cold voice of her boss intoned through the communication crystal.
Cecila grunted, "Everything is ready up here."
"Have those little pests been taken care of?"
Cecila grinned an evil little grin as she replied, "Yes sir. The one's who are fated to always protect the seal of Valusan have been destroyed. Peter Pan and his Lost Boys will trouble you no longer." She was very proud of this accomplishment. There was just something so full filling in killing a weirdo tights wearing bastard with no muscle tone and a small dick. In those tights, he couldn't hide the fact it was so small.
"Good. Queen is requesting another snack, arrange it will you?"
Cecila grimaced, "Queen has already killed more then three fourths of my troops, boss. If Queen keeps doing that I won't have anyone to defend the entrance to Valusan's grave."
The voice of her boss chuckled, "What could possible go wrong this late in the game, Cecila? Just send some one down there, or go yourself for all I care." and the communication crystal flared once, before dimming, the other person disconnecting the call.
***
Ranma had to fight the urge to groan, and I mean groan as he saw Cecila step out into the courtyard. "What the heck is she doing here?" he mentally sighed. This wasn't good, not at all. Pantha was going to flip her lid the moment he saw her... at least Happo, that damn perverted weasel, wasn't around. Whatever happened to that little guy, anyway?
***
Meanwhile in Lirith.
"Can you believe it Clarence?" a sexy kitsune giggled, rubbing her new weasel skinned shoulder guard. "I was walking down the street, and then BAM, this little guy shows up."
***
Pantha nodded as she finished cataloguing her assortment of arrows. She was very glad Ranma and Theo had agreed to splurge more of their money on an 'Endless' quiver enchantment. While it wasn't endless, it did offer her the benefit of always retrieving the arrow she needed whenever she wanted it.
"Seventy three normal arrows, ten ice penned arrows, and one sun flare." she mumbled to herself as she put her quiver back in place on her belt, before turning to her bow and removing the current string. While the string didn't need replacing, she felt it was best to do it now then to worry later if it happened to break on her during a fight. "And knowing my luck.." she grumbled mentally.
"How much time, Pantha?" Theo asked, narrowing his eyes as he watched the castle from a distance.
"A little over an hour." Pantha said as she pulled her long bowie knife from her belt, giving it a few practice swings before returning it to its sheath. "You're worried, aren't you?" she accused.
Theo grunted in the affirmative, but said nothing else.
"He's not an fool, Theo. He won't do anything stupid." Pantha patted him comfortingly on the shoulder, mentally adding 'I hope'.
Silence reigned between the two for a time, until Theo sighed and turned to face her, his blue eyes locking onto her own purple, "Pantha, can I ask you something?"
"What?" she raised an eyebrow, curious.
"Before we go in there.. I just want to know.. what.." Theo hesitated, before steeling himself and just saying it, "Do you like me?"
Pantha stiffened slightly, before a small smile grew on her lips, "Some times, when you look at me I.." she sighed, "..I wish you wouldn't stop. I.. I do like you, Theo."
Theo looked relieved, very relieved in fact, which only made her smile brighter. "If we ever get out of this... would you.. umm.. like to.." he blushed, before continuing, "..Like to take our relationship farther? I.. uh.."
Pantha smiled, leaning forward, taking him by the chin with her thumb and index finger before answering his question with a kiss, a soft, gentle, and warm kiss.
***
Ranma had a problem. Actually, he realized the whole situation sucked monkey balls. He had observed the guards and their placement for the better part of two hours, and found to his dismay they were in perhaps the worst position for what he had planned.
The guards only separated from each other by twenty yards at most, and there was always some one looking at one of the guards at any given time, which meant he couldn't attempt to widdle away at their numbers before opening the gate. Which, of course, meant once he opened the gate he, Theo, and Pantha would soon find themselves in a rather large melee. He didn't doubt they couldn't win, but whether they could win with out serious injury was another matter.
Which brought Cecila to his attention. She was a major crink to his plans. He would need to find a way to immobilize her before he opened the gate, but time was already running out and it didn't seem he would get a chance to jump the woman while she was alone.
Putting Cecila aside for the time being, he focused on the gate itself. Some mechanical device didn't seal it like he had hoped, but rather was sealed by a simple long wooden log that locked the gates together. Destroying the gate would be simplistically easy, it was surviving after that point that was really giving him a headache.
If only he could cause a massive amount of damage in an area of effect right after opening the gate, that would certainly help and, hopefully, disorient and confuse the guards and Cecila long enough for him and his friends to do some devastating damage to the opposing force.
But how? He didn't know any spells that would help him complete something like that, and his Ki techniques didn't lead to anything so damaging so fast. The Hiryu Shoten Ha was useless, there wasn't anything generating enough heat for the Ascension Blast to hit everything he needed too. He didn't have many spells that would deal with all the undead. What the heck was he going to do?
Ranma blinked. An idea popped in his head, actually it was an old attempt to combine certain spells into a greater effective spell, but he had pushed the attempt to the side in light of getting booted from Gneiss's tower all those months ago.
Could it work? He didn't know. If he fucked up he knew what the price would be, and the price to his body would just be dealing him and his friends a crippling blow, and would most assuredly turn the fight from a close thing into the favor of their enemiesif he failed. Well.. never know unless you try, right? He slightly slipped his mythril studded gauntlets off his hands, shoving them into his dimensional pocket. He needed access to everything in order to pull this off.
Ranma, embraced in the Shooting Star Defense Cloth, eased up towards the gate as the time to strike came. The shimmering 'Sun' overhead had begun to wane greatly, creating a fake night within this hallowed out cavern.
"Well Ranma... here goes nothing!" he thought as he allowed his technique to gutter out, he shimmered into existence, hand extended towards the door as he shouted the name of his spell.
Lets Look Towards:
See other episodes by Matdeception
(Posted Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:05)
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