US Research Division Omega - Survey file C437

Nexus II
by Black Dragon
https://www.angelfire.com/anime5/fanficlair

There's nothing I love more than spinning in an office chair with the Slayers soundtrack blaring on my stereo!
I'm not entirely sure why I just shared that...

" " human languages, {" "} demonic languages or languages different than the one in common use in a given scene, [ ] writing, ( ) smart-ass author comments, * * sounds.
If I don't happen to mention which language in particular is being spoken, then it's not important anyway.

Chapter 6
Shadows Beckon, Lizards Roar
***********************************************************************************

As the sun broke over the horizon, light spilled over the darkened hills surrounding the urban ruins of Seoul, basking the tall, shattered buildings and mountains of twisted rubble in a picturesque early morning glow. As picturesque as shattered concrete and rusting metal could be, anyway.
To many of the eastern lands that had survived the Death March, the old gouged-out buildings and torn-up shops would have been a truly depressing sight. But humans have long survived where none were meant to, and to the ragtag groups of survivors scattered around the east, the damaged skyscrapers and piles of scrap meant shelter and raw materials. From the damaged infrastructure the rubble was slowly cleared; parking garages became bazaars, malls became apartment buildings, and parks became farms. Demolished houses were searched over for useful materials, damaged shops were repaired as best the people could and reused, and huge piles of shattered concrete and steel were used to hide the presence of underground dwellings or bunkers.
Creatures came, too. Raiders, human and not, came to take what little the people had, but in time missionaries, knights, and soldiers all came, and every kill became more costly. Some were ignorant, malevolent beasts that simply wished to nest in the hardened ruins, and these too were dealt with as best the people could. And then others came that were different. Intelligent beings not of human blood, but who would seek to help before they would harm. Demons that the people usually shot on sight greeted them happily and traded peacefully; others wished to take up residence, and offered their skills to protect the humans rather than harm them.
Though still far from the metropolis it once was, the great Seoul was easily a match for any other settlement grown from the ruins of a nearly exterminated populace.
It's most respected boast, however, was not the area's rise from rubble to difficult prosperity, but a special clan of assassins that had made their home there. Once feared throughout Japan as the swift knife of those in power, they had lost significant influence after the Death March clearly and definitively changed people's idea of "fear". And so they left, knowing that they had lost their place in the world, and so they sought a new one. And so they found it.
The ways of the Ninja were the ways of the assassin: clear, silent, swift. They were not warriors that openly defended the innocent from the beasts that roamed the wastes, but champions of vengeance that brought suffering to the enemies of humanity. For whether from the shadows or the sunlight, a kill is a kill, and in such troubled times, the killer must assure he's still alive to kill again. In the absence of a gun a good hiding spot and a dagger will have to do. And if one cannot slay one's enemies openly, to their faces, then one shall slay from hiding, so that one's foes never know what it is that is slowly whittling them away; for fear is the most powerful weapon one can wield.
This is the way of the Shisou.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Ranma groaned as he slowly became aware of his surroundings, his vision quickly clearing as it adjusted to the merciless shine of the electric light built into the ceiling.
He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his head as was his usual practice in preparation to get up. As he did so he evaluated what had happened to him the previous day, and grimaced.
'Of course the one time I just choose to just avoid women like hell it goes and backfires on me... man...' In all fairness, Ranma wasn't sure that choosing to be a girl's roommate would have made things less complicated, but at this point he would have gladly accepted those complications to get away from his current roomie.
'Speaking of whom, he's like a foot away from you,' his brain informed itself, activating certain senses before Ranma could take conscious stock of what was currently happening around him.
"........." He paused for a moment in the action of rubbing his face as he digested this information.
"GYAH!!" *Thump!*
Jerking back so that his back was pressed against the wall that his bed rested against, Ranma glared at Tad, who was sitting in a chair right at the edge of his bed. "What the HELL are you doing?!"
Tad blinked. "Watching you sleep."
Ranma twitched. "Well, STOP IT!!"
Tad cocked his head to one side. "Did you know that you move around when you're asleep? That's weird. I should do something about that."
Ranma paled, and he felt a cold tremor shoot down his back. "Why... Why me?" He mumbled sadly, sliding off his cot. He was pretty sure his regular defenses that had been hardwired into his brain would protect him in his sleep from all but the most agile and dexterous opponents, but he also recognized that when people were as stupid and crazy as Tad was, it became a dangerous ability in and of itself.
"This training had better be worth it," Ranma mumbled, putting on his shirt and walking over to the old, partially broken dresser near the door.
As he withdrew his leather vest and began to put his hidden knives in their usual places, Ranma noticed that there was a large, black shape on the edge of the dresser. Immediately catching his attention, he made it out to be a young deathcrawler, and one that was obviously dead, if the giant wound in the thorax was any indication.
Ranma leaned a little close to the deceased demon spider, nodding appreciatively. "Hey, this is a pretty good taxidermy job." Matsute had said that Tad kept a dead spider as a pet. And now that Ranma had gotten to know Tad a little better, he was convinced it was one of the idiot's less eerie habits.
Tad blinked, getting up out of his chair. "Taxi-whaty?"
Ranma sighed. "You know, the way you stuffed it and all. I mean, the carapace is all glossy and stuff, and the legs look intact. You must have put some effort into that." Obviously the legs had been stuffed well, as the spider was standing up so that its body was fully supported. Not easy to do without damaging the leg exoskeletons, Ranma supposed.
The mentally unfit Ninja shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't stuff it."
Ranma rolled his eyes. "I should have guessed. Well, whoever did knew what he was doing." He gently touched one of the legs with his non-gloved hand and ran his finger down it, being careful not to apply too much pressure.
Then the wanderer frowned. "Wait... this spider wasn't here last night, was it?"
Tad nodded. "Nah, he likes to wander around in the walls a lot."
Ranma blinked. "He... likes to wander around?"
Tad nodded. "Uh huh. So?"
Ranma stared, frozen, as the demon spider suddenly jerked backward and reared its front legs up, its fangs wiggling malevolently.
"Uh oh."
"HSSSSSS!"
Without further warning the deathcrawler lunged forward for Ranma's face, intending to pierce the skull with its sharpened forelegs and pump its venom directly into the center of the wanderer's nervous system.
Luckily, Ranma was just a bit faster than that, and snatched the monster arachnid away in mid-lunge with his right hand, protected as it was by the mysterious gauntlet.
Wincing as the spider wrapped around his hand and attempted to bite it, Ranma turned toward Tad furiously. "What the hell are you doing keeping a live deathcrawler around here?!"
Tad blinked, and then snorted, as if Ranma had said something ridiculously foolish. "It's not alive, man. DUH."
Ranma held up his right hand to the light, with the deathcrawler still wrapped around it, trying to chew through his gauntlet to the juicy, nutritious fluids beneath. "Okay, fine. So that's a fatal wound. Which makes this another of those dead things that zombified on their own out in the demilitarized zone." At least, Ranma assumed it had zombified on its own. He had no idea why a necromancer would bother to raise a dead demon spider that was so young. "Matsute said you had a dead spider, not an undead spider!"
Tad shrugged. "Dead, undead, what's the difference?"
"A HELL OF A LOT, YOU MORON!!" Ranma yelled, knocking the other trainee down from the sheer volume.
Fuming, Ranma shoved the deceased arachnid toward his roommate's face. "Now get this thing off of-"
"SCREEEE!" Ranma was cut off as the deathcrawler let out an ear-piercing shriek, and the pigtailed boy watched with wide eyes as it suddenly jumped off of his hand and onto the floor before skittering away and hiding under Tad's bed.
Ranma stared at the darkened shadow that hid the undead beast, unable to completely come to terms with what he just saw. "Is... that... that thing... AFRAID of you?!"
Tad chuckled. "Ah, well, Phil's always been a bit on the skittish side." Then he grinned. "But he's sure taken a liking to you! I've never seen him just jump into somebody's arms like that!"
Ranma twitched. "It wasn't my ARMS he was jumping for, you idiot."
"Whatever. I'm sure you two will become best friends!"
Ranma slowly staggered out of the room, holding his head in his hands. 'If I spend too much time here, I'm going to go insane, or die. And not from the training...'

Mumbling irritably the whole way, Ranma walked down the hallway until he found the "women's dorm" which consisted of a single room clearly marked with a big sign written in English. After stretching slightly, just in case he was going to have to run away quickly, Ranma walked up to the door and knocked.
"Yes? Who is it?" Came Natalie's voice from behind the door.
"It's Ranma! I'm here for K! He in?"
"Just a minute!"
Ranma blinked as a number of rummaging noises followed the voice, and after a few moments, the door opened.
"YOW!!" He immediately jumped back the moment he took in the female trainee in all her semi-naked glory, as she had opened the door fully while wearing only a black bra and panties.
Natalie blinked as Ranma turned around to face the wall opposite her door. "Is something wrong?"
Ranma grimaced. "Uh... if you're only in your underwear now, what were you doing just a moment ago?"
She blinked again. "Putting my underwear on."
"Ah... of course," Ranma mumbled, sweatdropping.
The female trainee smirked, finally realizing the source of Ranma's discomfort. "What are you so embarrassed about? It's nothing more than you'd see at a normal beach, right?"
"Uh... K? You around?" Ranma said, raising his voice and trying to change the subject.
"Yeah, yeah, right here." The metadragon sidled out the doorway, waving his wings slightly to each side to get them nice and limber. Then he looked up at his roommate. "Thanks for the hospitality, sweets! Oh, and don't mind pigtail boy here. I think he's gay."
"Oh, shut up!" Ranma said irritably.
Natalie sweatdropped. "Well, you should go and get down to the second floor so that you can get breakfast early, since you're up already."
"Will do! Thanks!" Ranma said as he grabbed up K and rushed down the hall.

After a short while Ranma reached the fire stairs that served as the primary method of moving through the damaged office building, and he jumped down to the floor immediately below him, still cradling K carefully in one arm.
"So, how was your first night in Frankenfreak's room?" K asked, raising his species' equivalent of an eyebrow.
Ranma grunted. "Don't start. I regret my choice, but I'm gonna stick with it for now. After all, I'm not here to have a good time. Training is about hardship and suffering for the sake of improvement." Jumping down another set of stairs, he landed just behind another Ninja trainee, who immediately lost his footing in his surprise and began to tumble headfirst down the stairs.
"Sorry!" K called out, wincing. As Ranma jumped once again over the railing (incidentally passing the surprised student), the metadragon move from Ranma's arm onto his shoulder, making sure to get a reasonable grip with his talons so he wouldn't fall off.
"Seriously though, you don't know what you're missing, man. That room has the best view in the whole building. Probably the whole city!"
Ranma blinked in the middle of launching himself over another handrail, and instead landed on top of it, settling in a crouch. "Wait... that was an interior office... or, it used to be, at least. It didn't have a window."
K snorted and smirked. "You thought I was talking about outside? Nothing but rubble out there!" Then he jabbed Ranma lightly with his wing. "In case you didn't figure it out from your conversation at the door, Miss Ninja up there sleeps in the nude."
Ranma turned and stared at K, his face expressing only confusion and curiosity.
"Uh... K? Can I ask you something?"
K blinked. "Sure. What's up?"
Ranma scratched his head, trying to think of the best way to phrase his question. "Well... how come you find human women attractive?"
K blinked again. Then he laughed. "Ha! I knew it! You ARE gay!"
*CRASH!!* Ranma grunted after facefaulting down to the next floor. That hurt!
"Would you knock it off?! I'm not gay!" Ranma yelled, hardly offended by the accusation but still finding it irritating to have his actions judged like that.
"Hey, it's cool," K assured him, slowly flapping his wings as he lowered himself down to where Ranma is, "it's okay to be a little different, you know? Just as long as you're not into dragons and pedophilia too, because I'm not like that."
Ranma twitched and snatched his draconian friend out of the air, holding him in front of his face. "I'm NOT gay, alright? What I meant to ask was... well..." he frowned as he once again tried to articulate his thoughts. "You're a dragon, so you should just be attracted to other dragons, right? Or maybe things that look like your kind, like a lizard, or a cheese grater?"
K sweatdropped. "I really wish you'd stop that..."
"Whatever. Do you know what I mean?" Ranma asked, sitting down cross-legged. "It's been bugging me a little ever since the Amazon village."
K adopted a look of contemplation, and idly tapped one of his claws on the tiled floor. "Well... it's sort of complicated. You see, all true dragons have a bodily form that looks pretty much like a human; it has all the same parts as you guys, and no extra ones. Anyway, all dragons learn to take this form as sort of an intuitive magic trick; after a while, it just becomes second nature. The human form is much more vulnerable, and loses many of the dragon's abilities, but it's also more maneuverable and agile, much smaller if there's a need to be, can use weapons, and it attracts a lot less attention."
Ranma nodded slowly, taking his time to absorb the information. "Yeah, I know about all that... So sometimes you mate in this human form, and your kind has sort of grown to like it?"
"Uh..." In total defiance of many theorized biological laws, K's metal scales reddened around his beak. "I don't THINK so... well... I guess we usually do that in our real forms... maybe..."
"You don't know?" Ranma asked, raising an eyebrow. He found it pretty strange to be ignorant of such an important aspect of your own species' behavior.
K shook his head. "Honestly, no. I wasn't raised in a normal dragon nest. And I haven't had any other dragons around to learn from."
"Ah..." Ranma rolled that thought around in his head for a moment. "So would YOU ever mate with a human?"
K grimaced. "Don't get me wrong man, you're a great guy and everything, but I'm just not interested."
*Thunk!*
Ranma's eye twitched as he shoved the tiny metadragon beak-first into the nearest wall. "Didn't I tell you to cut that out?"
"Urgh... Yeth... ahm thorry..." K propped his claws up against the wall and pushed away, pulling his head from the degraded plaster.
As Ranma began to walk away, something occurred to him, and he turned back around.
"Hey, wait... do YOU have a human form?"
K blinked as he scraped his beak against his wings. "Well, sure. Like I said, all true dragons do. That only excludes pseudo-dragons, like wyrms and wyverns."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Sooooooo... let's see it, eh?"
K scoffed. "Well, I can't do it NOW. Duh..."
Ranma rolled his eyes, sighing lightly. "Of course you can't. So why not?"
"The first transformation happens when the dragon matures past the infancy stages of its life... er... well, in human terms, it'd be sort of like puberty," the dragon explained awkwardly. "I'm really close to that age, but I think I have a ways to go, still. After the first transformation, a dragon can morph back and forth, and after a little while it becomes really easy to shift."
Ranma sighed and turned back around. "Great. Just what I need; a dragon teenager."
K snorted as he hovered up and landed on Ranma's shoulder. "Oh, right, like you're the PICTURE of civility."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Ranma mumbled. "You up for some pancakes?"
"Actually... I could REALLY go for some silverware right now!"
Ranma's eye twitched as he realized that K's metal cravings had returned, if not with less ferocity than before. 'I'm going to have a close eye on him. Otherwise, he might eat the supports right out from under us.'
___________________________________________________________________________________

"Ah, Saotome. Is good see you this morning." Matsute didn't turn his head to face the new arrival, his eyes locked on the training apparatus in the middle of the field.
"Good to see you too, Master." Ranma said humbly, bowing to the elder man. "I await the training you have to offer me."
The Ninja master nodded slowly. "......... Where is you companion? The dragon of steel?"
"Ah... he's..." Ranma sweatdropped slightly. "Well, I dropped him off at the forge near the material ore. He doesn't like scrap metal, so I figure it's less wasteful for him to eat ore rather than finished metal tools and stuff."
The Ninja master remained absolutely silent for a moment, then turned around, completely confused. "What?"
"It's a metadragon thing. And believe me, we want him eating as much useless metal as possible." A vein popped up on his head as he said this, being reminded of the gold and mithril items that had been lost to the hungry dragon in the past.
"Ah... if you is saying so. Very well!" Matsute gestured to the apparatus before him. "This be first training ground. Is simple." He pointed to the apparatus, which consisted of several mounted ladders that stretched several meters into the sky with small platforms on top. They were set up in pairs, and in-between each one was a large wooden log that was tied by a rope to a tall scaffold hanging over it. Upon immediate inspection, Ranma could see that the Ninja trainees were jumping from one ladder platform to the other, while striking the log on the way and still preserving enough momentum to make it across the gap.
"Is practice in both make quick attacks and attack critical points. See you circles on log? They crucial target area. This training teach trainees to make attack quick and make count; often time spent striking heavy blow could leave open to counter attack that end life! Ancient proverb say: 'stick the knife fast, you life will last! Stick the knife deep, and you get head cut up and ground like sardine in meat blender!'"
Ranma resisted the urge to comment out loud that the second verse of the "proverb" didn't rhyme. "Okay, so you want me to do what those guys are doing, huh?"
Matsute nodded. "Is so."
"Well then, let's get this over with." With a cocky smile on his face, Ranma took two steps over toward the training setup, withdrew his Nighthawk sidearm, and fired.
*Blam!!* *Blam!!* *Blam!!* *Blam!!* *Blam!!*
With a completely neutral expression on his face, Ranma blasted away at the target, striking each target circle dead center and blowing shattered wood chunks out the other side. Then, after five shots, he took an extra moment to aim higher above the log.
*Blam!!* *Snap!*
The trainees who had been using the training area watched with wide eyes as the rope holding up the log was torn apart, and the target was subjected to gravity's merciless grasp. *Thud!*
Ranma turned toward Matsute, looking somewhat annoyed. "Let's get one thing straight, Master: I don't have half my life to spend swatting punching bags or throwing shuriken at dummies. I'm not here to become a Shisou Ninja; I'm here to learn how to do that crazy trick where you split yourself into two. And maybe learn any other useful special techniques you have."
Matsute shook his head, frowning. "Ah, so impatient. And trigger-happy. But is no good. Ancient proverb say: 'he who no learn to crawl, will never learn to use L33T N1NJ4 5K1LLZ!'"
Ranma twitched. "I really wish you'd stop that..." straightening, his expression turned serious again. "Get real! I beat you, didn't I?"
The Ninja master shrugged. "Is true. So what that mean? Ninjitsu not about being stronger than enemy. Does fish claim to fly because it can swim better than bird?"
Ranma blinked, then scratched his chin. "Well... is it a flying fish?"
Matsute sweatdropped. "You not supposed to think about it..."
The pigtailed man frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well I don't mean to be arrogant Master, but let's be honest; whether I'm perfect Ninja material or not, I'm years ahead of these other saps you're training in both speed and dexterity!"
After a moment he felt numerous glares against his back. "Uh... no offense, saps!" He added, turning around to face the numerous Ninja who were training in the park clearing.
Turning back to his master, Ranma smirked. "If you insist on this 'crawling' nonsense first, go on and test me! I'll take anything you can throw at me!"
Matsute frowned, and lowered his head for a few moments in contemplation.
Finally, he looked up at Ranma again. "Very well. You want test to see if you good enough, you get test. You come with me."
___________________________________________________________________________________

"Ah, Natalie, David, is test room ready yet?"
The two trainees nodded, looking slightly out of breath.
"M-Master, why did you need the room ready on such short notice?" David asked, wiping his brow. The "test room", as it was simply called, was actually an underground corridor that had served an old sewer drainage system that had been decommissioned, but not destroyed, years before the war. Though most of the system had been destroyed by earth magic, the corridor and the adjacent tunnel had survived, and Matsute had seen fit to tear it apart and rebuild it with every trap that could be engineered with the materials at hand.
The Ninja master shook his head. "Certain trainee insist on taking test before he ready..." He sighed as Ranma entered and began to stretch. "I cannot teach him. Boy has no patience."
"He will learn patience," David said.
Matsute snorted. "Much anger in him. Like his father."
The American nodded. "Was I any different when you taught me?"

Natalie stared at the scene, then whispered to Ranma. "Do you know what they're talking about?"
Ranma shook his head. "I'm kind of wondering about him knowing my father, really."
"Enough of this!" Matsute declared, walking up to a wall switch. "You want take test? Very well!"
*Cha-chunk!* *Whrrrr...*
Ranma turned and crossed his arms over his chest, watching as various parts of the tunnel began to move. After a few moments, the entire area was a chaotic maelstrom of motion, with numerous wooden poles jabbing out of the walls and floors wildly, and the occasional jet of flame bursting from small holes scattered throughout the small gauntlet.
"..............." Ranma stared impassively at the obstacle course. "This is IT?"
Matsute nodded. "Yes. You get to other end without being struck once, and you pass test."
"GIMME A BREAK!!" Ranma shouted, startling the Ninja, "I've seen golf courses more intimidating than this! This is an insult!"
"Well aren't we cocky," David muttered, his eyebrow twitching. He himself had only recently passed the course, and just barely.
"I dodge bullets on a semi-regular basis," Ranma said disdainfully, "this little jungle gym is a waste of my time."
"Well, if you so sure of self..." Matsute began, scratching his chin. "There is more difficult level, but-"
"I'll do it," Ranma interrupted, his arms crossed over his chest.
The Ninja master bit his lip. "Is very, very dangerous, though. I not sure that I able to give test to those I not sure of. Is very irresponsible of teacher."
"Just jack up the difficulty on this thing, all right? I want to hurry up and learn that cool multi-form trick!"
Matsute sighed, and then walked over to a separate, heavier-looking switch on the wall. "Okay, but no say I not warn you..." *Ch-chunk!*
A heavy grinding noise echoed deep within the tunnel, and dozens of large spikes suddenly began shooting out of the walls down the length of the course at irregular intervals.
Ranma nodded seriously. "Well, that's more-" *Grrrrrrrnd!*
A second grinding noise preceded the appearance of four pendulums that ended in heavy blades, swinging from side to side in the only remaining spaces throughout the obstacle run that looked even remotely safe.
*Chunk!* A moment later, several spears jabbed down from various points on the ceiling, staying still and blocking any clear path over the many obstacles.
Ranma sweatdropped. "Huh... so... I have to make it through all that without being touched once?"
Matsute shook his head. "No, no. This very difficult course, so will settle for you making it to the other end alive."
"Okay. I guess that's not too bad..." Feeling his confidence return to him, Ranma walked up to the beginning of the tunnel and began to stretch.
He didn't get very far, however, as a sudden flash of light alerted him to a nearly invisible object between him and the beginning obstacles.
"Whoa! Hey! Is this razor wire?!" Ranma backed away, twitching, as he scanned the length of the course, just barely making out small strings of lethal metal among the whirlwind of poles, spikes, and blades.
"Ah, yes! You catch that! Maybe you is good enough after all!" Matsute said, looking extremely pleased.
Ranma looked less so, and began to back away.
"Wow! Are you really going to go through that?"
Ranma froze at Natalie's excited gasp. "Uh..."
Looking over at the girl, Ranma felt his doom settling upon him as a direct result of the shining adoration coming from the female Ninja's eyes.
"You're incredible! Master doesn't even make his master graduates go through the death course!"
Even David, as jealous as he was, had to nod his head in admission. "Man, you really are something..."
"Eh heh heh... yeah... I really am... aren't I?" Ranma said, his voice cracking horribly. 'Me and my big mouth... this sucks...' "Are you sure this is level two?"
Matsute shrugged. "Is only other level. I design for those who wish to become true masters of Shisou and take on pupils."
"Er... yeah... it's kind of a long way from a 'level two' difficulty, you know?" Ranma said, bigsweating nervously.
"You going, or no?" The Ninja master asked, annoyed. "If you wish go back to first level, you just say so."
'God dammit.' Ranma rubbed his head, and then sighed. "Here goes everything..."

"Oh wow! Look at him go!" Natalie squealed excitedly, watching as the pigtailed wanderer dashed in-between the maelstrom of hydraulic polearms.
"Whoa! Look out! He made it! This guy is for real! I think he's going to-"
*Wschink!*
The three spectator Ninja winced.
"Ouch. He still alive?"
"Wait! He's getting back up!"
"Should complete course fast, then. Even if make it to other end alive, may die from blood loss now."
*Thwack!*
"Ooh! So close!"
*Sching!*
"Ranma! Watch out for the... uh... okay, never mind..."
"He's almost to the end! This is it!"
*Thunk!*
The three Ninja winced again, and Natalie held a hand over her mouth as she suddenly found herself violently ill.
"That's... That's just not right..." David murmured, looking pale. "Well... he did make it, didn't he?"
Matsute sighed. "First we check for pulse; then I tell you. Natalie, you go prepare bed in clinic room, yes?"
"O-Of course Master!" Natalie said, stumbling on her way out in a manner not at all befitting a high school athlete, much less a trained assassin.
"Kids today... always in a rush to prove themselves. Ah well, it's like they say: 'Forgive the young, for they are impatient, and will probably be killed and eaten soon anyway'."
David sweatdropped. "It seems a bit... disenheartening, don't you think?"
"You shut up and drag Ranma to clinic; he bleeding all over test course."
"Er, yes Master."
___________________________________________________________________________________

"Explain this to me one more time."
Condoleezza Rice sighed and massaged her head. "Sir, the demon we had imprisoned in Arizona has escaped."
"......... The one with the geeky name?"
"Yes sir. Demetrius."
"......... The one I ordered executed a while back?"
"Uh..." Condoleezza chewed on her lip, wondering how best to explain the complications with his order. "... Yes."
"Damn! I thought he was dead! How long does it take to execute somebody in Arizona?! I should have sent him to Texas instead!" George W. Bush scowled as he recalled the precautions he had ordered in the demon's imprisonment. "How'd he get out?"
Rice sighed again. "It was a carefully calculated strike; a diversionary force entered sensor range and engaged a dispatched combat patrol while a small, but obviously powerful unit infiltrated the facility and ripped apart the machines keeping the demon imprisoned."
"Well, then recapture him!" Bush said impatiently. "We got him the first time, didn't we?"
"That's a problem too," Condoleezza muttered in frustration, "when I say he's escaped, I don't just mean he's no longer in his cell; we can't locate him at all. If our sensors in the military base are to be trusted, he pretty much just up and vanished. Judging by the amount of energy and damage that he's frequently generating, I'd say he's no longer even in the United States."
Bush frowned deeply, clasping his hands together under his chin. "What does the our intelligence division have for us?"
Condoleezza sweatdropped. "I called them immediately after I found out," she deadpanned, "their exact words were: 'Yaermon? He escaped? When did we catch that guy?'"
"Weren't we going to have a meeting to get the intelligence divisions fixed?" The president asked, annoyed.
"Yes sir, but then you skipped the meeting to see the new Harry Potter movie."
"Oh, right. I remember now," Bush said, scratching his chin. "I hear it didn't do that well in the box office now that the world is all nutty; half the people who saw it thought it was a documentary about Stanford."
Condoleezza's eye twitched. "Sir, if we could stay on topic?"
"Right, right," Bush said, turning around. "Rummy, what do you think we should do?"
Donald Rumsfeld, who had been drawing "X"s on a globe sitting on the President's desk during the whole conversation, grunted and stood up. "Well, since we don't know where the demon is, we should destroy Iraq immediately!"
Bush clapped his hands and then pointed to Rumsfeld excitedly. "Yes! I like that! Let's do your idea!"
"We can't invade Iraq," Condoleezza said irritably, "the Arab nations outside of Africa were all but wiped out in the war; except for a few traders, there isn't a living thing left in Iraq."
"We could kill the traders," Rumsfeld said hopefully.
Bush frowned, scratching his head. "No, I think Condi's right. If we just start invading crippled countries at random, people will think we're trying to take over the world, and we really don't need that right now."
"Absolutely," Rice said, nodding, "not now, when I'm so close..."
"What?" Bush said, looking confused.
"Nothing. So what are we going to do about Yaermon?" She asked.
"The same thing I always do when I don't know what to do," Bush said decisively, "ignore it and work on my reelection campaign." Then he frowned. "Who's running, again?"
An inky blackness suddenly rose from the shadow cast by Bush's desk against the light, and the black-cowled form of Karl Rove materialized, his eyes glowing crimson with evil power. "The candidates include yourself, John Kerry, Ralph Nader, and Lord Grimtal Nawth'laieem, supreme lich overlord of the hellplane Sholmath."
Condoleezza nodded. "We should start making attack ads against Grimtal immediately, as he's the most charismatic and charming of our opponents."
"For an independent, he's unusually popular," Rove agreed. "Worse yet, his campaign promises to purge the land of the weak and helpless while spreading war and devastation across the globe greatly appeals to Republican voters who are displeased with our poor government spending decisions."
"He does sound like he's on the ball," Rumsfeld admitted, going back to marking countries for destruction on the cardboard globe.
"Yes, he is," Rove said, turning back toward the President. "He'll draw even more votes from those who wish anyone but you to win, but can't help but find Kerry and Nader laughably pathetic."
Condoleezza looked worried. "That's all the liberals except the Democrat loyalists!"
"Precisely," the Hell-spawned advisor said evenly. "Nawth'laieem will next attempt to leverage the votes by sending his agents of darkness to slaughter those who would oppose him most strongly; specifically, the Green party."
Bush's eyes widened, and he jumped up out of his chair. "We have to stop him!"
"Why?" Condoleezza asked, blinking.
The President stopped and thought about it. "Good point." Then he sat back down and turned to face Karl Rove. "You sure know a lot about this Grimmy guy, Karl."
The agent of the shadows nodded. "Yes, well, actually, he's my uncle. Or was, before he further defiled his tainted soul with the forbidden arts of necromancy in exchange for the agonizing immortality of undeath." He paused. "Speaking of which, I kind of promised him my vote come November. No hard feelings, Dubya."
"Damn!" Bush cursed. "I don't want to lose to some fancy magic corpse! How about... can we just make up lies about him, like saying that he kills baby kittens for fun or something?"
"Actually, that's not a lie," Rumsfeld muttered, "he killed three of them at the preliminary debates. Plus Dennis Kucinich."
"No wonder he's polling so well," the troubled President murmured, "this is going to be harder than I thought..."

(I would like to apologize in advance for any offense this section may have caused, and assure my readers that this painfully biased departure from what passes for a plot in these stories is a reaction to all the brain damage caused by the American election campaigns. Sometimes it does NOT pay to be an informed voter.)
___________________________________________________________________________________

"Ow... Ow... Ow..." Ranma muttered expressions of pain like a mantra as he climbed stiffly up the stairs, one of his arms in a cast and one of his legs wrapped so tightly in red-stained bandages that he was unable to bend his knee.
"Damn Ninja master with his damn traps and his damn proverbs with the damn 'he who does not suffer for his art will not impress hot Ninja chicks'..." Gritting his teeth, Ranma pulled himself up on the handrail into the hallway leading to his room.
Gasping for breath, the newly proven trainee began walking unsteadily toward the room he shared with Tad. "Okay... almost there... you can do it Ranma..."
Almost falling down as he grasped the doorknob, Ranma managed to pull himself up and open the door, stumbling painfully into his bedroom.
"Gah, finally!" Ignoring a strangely entranced Tad who was watching from atop his own bed, Ranma fell forward onto his mattress, savoring it's accommodating softness as he squirmed about to get under the covers.
After managing to get most of his body covered by the dirty patchwork quilt that covered his bed, Ranma turned his head toward the wall and sighed deeply, already drifting into unconsciousness.
Not that he'd get off that easy. "Hey, Ranma!" Tad said suddenly.
'God dammit...' "What do you want, Tad?" the wanderer mumbled, not turning toward the other boy.
"Do you not like Phil?"
Ranma remained silent for a few moments. "............ Phil who?"
"My pet spider, remember?" Tad asked, slightly annoyed.
"Oh," Ranma mumbled unpleasantly. "I loathe the undead."
"Even Phil?" Tad asked, somewhat hurt.
"ESPECIALLY Phil," Ranma said bitterly.
Tad sighed. "I figured as much. Well, maybe you'll like him more once you two become closer."
Ranma's eyes snapped open, and he jerked upright painfully. "If you EVER bring that freak of nature near me, I swear I'm going to rip off your arm and beat you to death with it!"
"Would you calm down?!" Tad shouted. "I mean, look! He's just trying to say hi!"
"What do you mean he's just trying to-" Ranma froze as he caught some movement at the foot of his bed, and the color drained from his face as he watched a small lump that had previously gone unnoticed suddenly dart toward his leg.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
___________________________________________________________________________________

Demetrius Yaermon stretched his heavily muscled arms, relishing in the sensation of having tangible flesh that tingled with feeling. He grinned and ran a hand through his long black hair, tugging on it slightly to stimulate the sensations that he was at last experiencing.
"Feels good to have an actual body again, eh?" Doppler asked, idly filing his nails on one set of hands with the other set as the other demon lord stretched leisurely.
"Months of invincibility... a soul barely contained in a shell of pure power..." Demetrius grinned again. "It is a superb thing, but not pleasant. And these human fools will BURN for their insolence!!"
The psilor turned toward Doppler, his eyes twin pools of pale blue, glassy windows that differed greatly from human and demon alike.
"I thank you... Master," the psilor said the word awkwardly, as if he was trying to fight an instinctual urge to say it mockingly. "And now that I have my freedom, I will rain destruction upon these weak, pitiful fools!" Demetrius stretches his arms again, carefully flexing the muscles of his tangible state. "They will suffer a hundredfold for daring to oppose me!"
Doppler had been trying very hard not to roll his eyes throughout his companion's rant, and cleared his throat as he felt his tolerance reaching its limit. "Demetrius, really, putting aside the fact that the humans handed you your unstable, energy-based ass the last time you sought to oppose them," the veirheelu mage began, ignoring the other demon's deadly glare, "you seem to be short an army. It's quite difficult to invade a nation without one, I hear."
"Your sarcasm is wearing upon me," Demetrius said dangerously, blue arcs of energy crackling around his hands as he balled them into fists.
Doppler was unperturbed by the implied threat. "That was hardly sarcasm; everything I said was true." Doppler stood up and put away his nail file, clasping two arms behind his back as he admired the view from the newly-installed balcony near the peak of Phoenix Mountain.
The psilor snorted. "Find an army that feeds off war, and you have an army that's cheap to feed. There are thousands of demonic bands scattered throughout the realms just waiting for fresh land to bloody."
Doppler just smirked. "I'm afraid your simplistic proverbs won't help you this time, old friend." He punctuated the last word slightly, attempting to remind the creature before him of the debts he still owed. "The Americans control the Nexus now, as well as all travel through it. Any creature that appears immediately hostile is exterminated, and they've begun establishing formal trade routes alongside their programs of study. Assuming you could get past the outpost, I'm certain whatever allies you manage to scrounge up among your chaos-embroiled lands and properties-most of which have already been seized or inherited, by the way-won't be as lucky."
The very air began to thicken as energy began to crackle around Demetrius in waves, the mighty psilor fighting his rage with little success. "THEN GIVE ME AN ARMY!! YOU KNOW OF A WAY!!"
Doppler sighed, a sweatdrop rolling down his head. "Would you PLEASE stop that? The charge is messing up my hair." He smoothed down a few strands atop his head that were standing up in irritation, as if to punctuate his point.
*Frzack!* Demetrius' form shifted, and where once was a perfectly human-looking man with strange eyes stood a merely humanoid-shaped cloud of pure power.
"YOUR JOKES TRY MY PATIENCE, MAGE," the psilor snarled, an energy sphere collecting in his hand.
Doppler looked nonplussed. "Oh, right. You're going to kill ME. I'm sure that'll solve ALL your problems."
The energy form's eyes narrowed in a crude imitation of a sneer. "I DON'T SOLVE MY PROBLEMS. I OBLITERATE THEM!!"
The veirheelu blinked, and rubbed his chin in consideration. "Hmmmm... touche."
"IF YOU WILL NOT HELP ME, THEN YOU WILL DIE HERE." Demetrius declared, his hands growing into large, spindly claws as energy crackled around them.
"And how, exactly, am I supposed to do that?" The demon mage asked conversationally. "All I can offer you is a small horde of undead and a few well-built golems. You've been on enough campaigns to know the limitations of such creatures."
Demetrius twitched, feeling even more annoyed as the mage's words continued to ring true. Lesser undead were easily vanquished, and greater undead were among the most treacherous and unreliable creatures in all the realms when mixed with anything still possessing the heat of life. Golems were perfectly loyal, but incompetent and clumsy; in the long run a golem army did almost as much damage to itself as to the enemy.
"YOU HAVE YOUR WAYS," the psilor hissed, "I AM WELL AWARE YOU HAVE CONTACTS IN ALL THE BROTHERHOODS, AND YOU HAVE A CONTRACT WITH THE SLAYER'S AND MAGE'S GUILDS AS WELL. YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND WEAPONS IS UNMATCHED EVEN AMONG THE INNER CIRCLES OF RANTATH! YOU HAVE MUCH TO OFFER ME!"
"Unless I'm dead," Doppler reasoned, shrugging.
"Graaaaaugh!!" Demetrius screamed in frustration as his energy form once again stabilized. "Why do you taunt me?!"
Doppler sighed. "It's fun. But besides that, I really have no desire to destroy the humans."
"And why NOT?!" the psilor snarled. "If not for those pitiful scholars, you and I would rule this world, waging glorious, bloody wars against the other demon lords to conquer territory, not huddling in the shadows to protect our brethren from their cowardly war machines!"
Doppler shook his head as he entered Phoenix Mountain's peak, opening up the double-doors to his lavishly decorated main quarters. "There, you see? Right there. I don't see why we NEED to rule this world. If that is our ambition, why this realm? There are countless others, the vast majority of which aren't capable of such effective defense."
"You are weak," Demetrius snarled.
The veirheelu just chuckled. "Well now, I'd rather be weak and comfortable in my big, freshly furnished mountain stronghold than strong and locked up in an oversized superconductor."
Feeling the heat rise around him again, Doppler smirked and picked up a cookie from the large jar of snacks kept on the night table next to his bed (one of his favorite perks of being a demon lord). "Temper, temper, Yaermon. Do not forget the reason you are able to maintain your unstable form for so long."
Smiling brightly, the demon mage whirled around to face the psilor. "If it weren't for my research, the humans would have slain you LONG ago. And OF COURSE there's no need to remind you of that little oath of servitude you swore to me when I bestowed that... gift... upon you?"
Demetrius snorted, but held his tongue, a far less volatile reaction than Doppler expected. Doppler knew that the oath meant nothing to the displaced demon lord; it was only now, when he had no one else to turn to, that the psilor would ever defile his tongue by calling another "Master".
"You are defeated. Dishonored. Many believe you to be dead," the veiheelu said bluntly, idly taking a small bite out of his cookie and swallowing it. "You now possess nothing, save your own admittedly considerable power, and your allegiance to me. Choose your path now, psilor, for I will not risk my own ambitions for your sake once again."
Demetrius twitched, obviously struggling with the implications of the decision. "The humans must PAY for their treachery..."
"There you go again," Doppler sighed, rolling his eyes. "You tried to kill them. They stopped you. That's not 'treachery', that's 'combat'."
"They hide behind their steel magic!" The psilor raged, his hands balled into fists and set aflame with blue fire. "They lurk beyond our sight and lob their alchemy and crude projectiles! The cowards do not deserve to live!"
"Which is why I prefer intelligence and study over strength; you can learn something from just about anyone or anything: a coward, a weakling, a hero, or a rock. Pure power is only good for killing and intimidation," Doppler said brightly, tossing the rest of his cookie in his mouth.
"I fail to see why you would require more than that," Demetrius growled, finally letting down his guard and taking a seat in one of the many velvet-padded chairs strewn about the late Saffron's redecorated chambers.
"And that, my dear friend, is merely one reason why you were defeated by the humans while I've conducted my horrible and unreasonably dangerous experiments in peace and quiet. The humans of Earth realm aren't really so clever as they are adaptable; so long as you don't threaten them directly, you'd be surprised how much you can get away with!"
Demetrius seethed, his teeth grating as he clutched the armrests of his chair. "You would surrender this world to these rats, then?"
Doppler snorted. "And why not? I don't want it. Aside from a few... speculated theories, and maybe a few old trinkets scattered about the globe, the humans themselves are the most fascinating thing on this rotten, magic-stunted realm. It would be an unforgivable shame if they were to die out before they've been stripped of all useful knowledge."
Seeing his "subordinate" scowl, Doppler sighed again and crossed his upper arms over his chest condescendingly. "If it makes you feel any better-and I just KNOW it will-I have no intention of using you against the humans in any manner that doesn't involve killing them. Serve me and, if nothing else, you'll have ample opportunities to work out the anger from your irrational little 'grudge'."
Demetrius snarled and stood up. "I do not want to 'work out' my grudge! I will satisfy it, and exterminate them all!!"
A sweatdrop rolled down Doppler's head, and his eye twitched. "Were you even listening? I just said I don't want to do that!"
"Oh, I will play your game for now, mage," the psilor said threateningly, "but I expect to be compensated for my services. And once I acquire enough resources, I will see your little Guinea pigs all turned to ash." His pale eyes flickered slightly, and bright blue arcs of electricity ran along his arms and across his shoulders.
Doppler sweatdropped again. "Uh... well, whatever." Then he picked up the jar on his nightstand and held it out to the other demon lord. "Cookie?"
"............ Okay."
___________________________________________________________________________________

Ranma fought to keep his breathing steady as Natalie applied the last few pressure points to his back, causing sharp stabs of pain as the numbness that had been spreading all over his body slowly ebbed away.
"Okay... are you starting to feel better?" the female Ninja asked worriedly, caressing the swollen lump on Ranma's leg that marked the spider bite.
"A little," Ranma mumbled bitterly, trying to remain absolutely still as the applied antidote began to circulate along with the venom. "In the sense that I can feel pain now instead of feeling nothing at all."
"Yeah, well you were lucky," K admonished sleepily, quite tired from being up at the late hour, "the deathcrawler was young when it was raised, and it's been dead for so long that its venom had decayed. If it was alive, then there's nothing these people have here that could have saved you."
"Thanks for the pick-me-up," Ranma murmured darkly.
"Well, I've applied and wrapped plenty of antidote, and the salve should help the swelling," Natalie said, washing her hands in a dish next to Ranma's infirmary cot (at this point they were considering putting his name on it, as he had already used the same one three times in two days). "However, I'm still worried about the area around the actual bite... even when the antidote is applied right away, it can destroy and dissolve the poisoned cells very quickly."
"He's fine!" Shouted an impatient fourth voice, causing Ranma, Natalie, and K to grit their teeth in anger. "Hurry up and help Phil! He's not breathing!"
Natalie turned around slowly, a thin aura enveloping her. Behind her, where he had been waiting semi-patiently as Ranma's wounds were treated, Tad sniffled over the mutilated body of the (formerly) undead spider, it having been reduced to completely dead by virtue of Ranma crushing it flat and then beating it with his bed frame (an impressive feat when he was still injured and suffering from a fresh deathcrawler bite).
"Tad... if you and that ugly little spot that used to be a monster don't get out of here this instant, I'm going to make sure you remain here in the infirmary for a LONG TIME."
Tad stared at the girl standing over him threateningly. "Huh?"
"She means go away or she'll beat you," Ranma said, hoping that the girl wouldn't actually hurt the unstable Ninja; if she did, it would affect Ranma's conscience when he beat Tad himself.
Tad sniffled again, then stood up with "Phil's" bloody remains carefully cradled in the blanket he held in his arms. "You... You're all just a bunch of... a bunch of... nasty zombie-haters!"
Ranma blinked. "Well, I can hardly deny that. Now get lost, freakjob."

As the idiot Ninja walked away sulking, Natalie rinsed the washcloth she was using to clean Ranma's bite and began to gently scrub his back. "Don't worry about that fool; other than letting that spider wander around, he usually isn't very dangerous."
"I'm sure I'll find that more comforting once I can stand up again," Ranma said sourly, poking at the swollen lump that was his left thigh.
"Well, if worse comes to worse we could always hire the priest outside the ruins to come in here and fix any really bad damage." The female Ninja started to move past Ranma's back and began wiping his shoulders, but allowed her eyes to roam over the martial artist's bare, wet back, licking her lips as the room's dim electric lighting caused his muscular form to glisten ever so slightly.
"Mmmm... you have some pretty ugly scars back here," she said tenderly, feeling certain impulses take control of her libido. Ranma did have many scars on his back, but really, Natalie found that the assortment of thin, faded marks only enhanced the "mighty warrior" image that she was already infatuated with.
Ranma shrugged his shoulders, feeling a little drowsy from his own exhaustion, as well as Natalie's efforts to keep him comfortable. "Yeah, well I've been in some ugly scrapes. Hell, the lump from when you clubbed me over the head only healed recently."
Natalie blushed, but then leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Ranma's torso and whispering into his ear. "You know, I never did... apologize... to you for doing that."
Ranma blinked, feeling slightly disoriented by the sensation of the girl's warm breath in his ear. "Uh... actually, you did. Right when I woke up, remember."
Natalie and K sweatdropped.
"Dude, do little Ranma a favor and shut up," the metadragon said bluntly, causing Natalie to raise an eyebrow at him.
"Who asked you?" The pigtailed man groused, blushing heavily. He wasn't so dense that he couldn't see where this was all leading, but that didn't change the fact that he had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
"Hmm, a shy one, eh?" Natalie giggled, pressing her body more tightly against Ranma's back. "You know, a lot of girls find that a real turn-on..."
K raised his head from where he was resting, his interest peaking.
"Whoa! Down boy!" Ranma called, giving the dragon an annoyed glance.
Natalie, misinterpreting the outburst, giggled louder and moved her hand downward, openly groping Ranma's groin.
K began to snicker, and Ranma blinked before swallowing heavily.
"Oh-kay... I'm not feeling this..."
"Oh?" Natalie said huskily. "Let me try a little harder..." To Ranma's growing alarm, the Ninja pulled her hand up to his waist, and then began to slide her fingers under the waistband of his pants.
"Uhm, you don't really understand..." Ranma said nervously, causing Natalie to pause in confusion, "I'm NOT feeling this... at all."
There was absolute silence as the other two occupants of the room allowed this to sink in.
K was the first to speak, his eyes wide. "Well, I take it somebody's going to get hurt very badly now."
Natalie, trembling, slowly got to her feet, and then clenched one hand into a fist. "TAD!! I'M GOING TO RIP YOU APART, YOU LITTLE PRICK!!"

Ranma and K winced as Natalie yelled, and sweatdropped as she stepped out of the infirmary room, hoping that she wouldn't upset the building's other residents with all the noise.
K turned toward his companion, his expression holding only pity for the pigtailed man. "I... I'm so sorry, Ranma. I mean... this is HORRIBLE."
Ranma frowned as he began to squeeze his upper thigh, hoping to feel some sensation in his legs. "Tell me about it. With my legs like this I can't even stand up, much less fight! And how hard is it going to be to go to the bathroom now?! This sucks!"
K sweatdropped, but decided not to comment. He supposed that Ranma's perspective was right, in this case; if you were paralyzed from the waist down, there were more important things to consider than your sexual endeavors. "Don't worry about it too much, man. I'm sure there's some magic spell that can... fix... you... up?"
The metadragon trailed off as Ranma stood up shakily.
"Okay...... Whew! I guess it's not permanent after all. That's a relief!" He began to pat his legs down, and K twitched.
"So, what, were you faking it?" K asked, rather annoyed.
"Naw, it just took a little time for the antidote to spread down there, I guess." Ranma began to pat his legs down to circulate the flow of blood, and hopefully speed up his recovery. "I'm kinda hungry. You wanna go down the mess hall and grab something?"
K sweatdropped again. "Now? It's like 10 o'clock!"
"So? I'm hungry."
The metadragon could hardly find an argument against that. "What about Natalie?"
"I think she's going to have her hands full with the dork," Ranma said dismissively. "Besides, I'm tired and injured. I don't need any more strenuous activity for tonight."
K shrugged as he jumped up and then flew over to Ranma, landing on his shoulder as the wanderer unsteadily made his way to the door. "Whatever. Can I have your fork?"
"No."
___________________________________________________________________________________

"Are you sure you feeling better?" Matsute asked, Ranma, one eyebrow raised. Though Natalie had seemed... unusually overjoyed with Ranma's level of recovery, it had still been only a day before that he had suffered the traps of the testing grounds, and then was attacked by a deathcrawler.
"I'm fine," Ranma groused, doing his best to stretch despite the tight bandage wrappings and numerous wounds that had only begun to heal. "If I can't deal with having to train while I'm injured, I might as well be dead out in the wastes."
The Ninja master smiled slightly. "Such bravado. Yet there wisdom in words. Look past pain, discomfort, and fear. Find power within self, and take. World is unforgiving place; you either fight it, or die. Ancient proverb say-"
"Master?" Ranma interrupted impatiently. "Not that I don't appreciate the heady pep-talk, but could we get on with this?"
"Hmph. Fine," Matsute sulked, wanting to finish his line. "Step one is learning advanced stance for Shisou style. Is very unusual form, and require great balance and determination to master."
With that explanation, Matsute backed away from Ranma slightly, then took up a backward-leaning position in the center of the dojo floor.
The Ninja master smirked slightly. "Now you punch me."
Ranma frowned, then shrugged, pulling back the fist which didn't have his gauntlet on it. "Okay... dragon fist!!"
*KA-KROOM!!*
___________________________________________________________________________________

The next day...
"Okay, now we try again," Matsute said irritably, having had most of his body wrapped in bandages. Behind him was a section of the dojo wall that had a hole blown through it, and had been hastily covered up with a number of wooden boards (though they hadn't yet hidden the huge black mark circling the hole). "Only this time, you use regular punch."
Ranma sweatdropped. "Well, you gotta say that! I 'aint no mind reader." He took up a ready stance. "Just say the word."
Matsute again took up his advanced Ninjitsu stance, holding both his arms loosely at his sides and leaning backward such that it looked like his body was going to fall over.
The Ninja master winced, feeling the position start to put a strain on his injuries from the previous day. "Now you punch-ow! Cramp! Wai-"
*Thwack!* *Pow!*
___________________________________________________________________________________

The next day...
"Maybe we should take a couple days off?" Ranma offered, sweatdropping heavily. "I mean, you've already missed two days of instructing your other students, and I don't know how much more of this you can take."
Matsute grit his teeth, and fought the urge to finger the large gauze pad taped over his eye. "No. We continue until you learn proper technique!"
"Well, we should at least stop this whole thing where I train by attacking you. I'm not exactly learning much from it anyway," Ranma reasoned.
"Yes," the Ninja master admitted, "but it be harder to teach without example."
Ranma blinked. "But you already showed me an example. A few, actually." Then, to Matsute's surprise, the pigtailed boy leaned back slightly, holding his head forward. His arms hung loosely at his side, and to the ignorant observer, it would have looked as he was only moments from falling down.
"Ah! That stance!"
"I saw you use it in our first fight," Ranma said, smirking. "It looked kind of weird at first, but then I saw how you used the positioning to dodge all my short strikes."
In demonstration, Ranma pivoted slightly on the foot in the back, shifting his upper body immediately with a minimal change in position, while still keeping perfect balance.
Ranma dropped the stance and smirked. "I've already got the form down, so why don't you go take a nap or something, old man?"
Matsute's expression was perfectly neutral. "Very good, yes. But not perfect. Use of 'whispered souls' technique require perfect form. You still have far to go." 'It took me months to get the basic form down of that stance, and this child mimics it without actual instruction? The spirits must be playing some kind of joke on me!'
"What's wrong with my form?" Ranma asked, slightly annoyed, and cautiously taking up the stance again.
Rather than responding, Matsute slowly reached forward for Ranma's stomach with a single finger, poking the martial artist in the gut even as he tried to swing away and causing him to stumble and lose his form.
"Hey! What's that about?!" Ranma complained, rubbing his stomach irritably.
"Is weakness of basic form stance; you learn to cover opening in lower torso in time."
Matsute turned around, his hands clasped together behind his back. "In meantime... nap sound good."
Ranma grumbled as he got back up, glaring at the old Ninja master as the man left through the front door of the main dojo.
"Hmph. I didn't hit him hard enough yesterday."
___________________________________________________________________________________

"G'night K," Ranma mumbled sleepily, nearly stumbling as he headed up the stairs.
The metadragon blinked, then fly up to land atop his head, hoping that he wouldn't unbalance his companion. "Yo, what's up? You look exhausted!"
"I am exhausted," Ranma said simply, his eyelids drooping.
K blinked. "Why? You didn't get hurt again, did you? I thought you were mostly better?"
The pigtailed boy yawned, then grasped the handrail of the stairs and continued hauling himself up to his room. "The old man had me practicing ki manipulation, since I've mostly got his fancy stance down already. I was practicing ki bursts for a couple of hours."
K was about to ask another question, when Ranma suddenly continued.
"And THEN I accidentally set one of the dojo on fire, since the Hyoken training altered my aura. Then I had to rush around trying to put that out. Then the geezer asked me to show how I burned down the whole building just practicing the technique he showed me, and when I demonstrated it I accidentally set HIM on fire."
A sweatdrop slowly rolled down K's head.
"Then as punishment, I had to demolish the burnt dojo myself and haul away the burnt timbers. Plus they made me do a whole bunch of other chores like sweeping and junk."
"Whoa...... rough day?"
Ranma snorted. "Nah. It's hard work, sure, but that's sort of to be expected. I'm just glad I don't have any new bandages."
When the wanderer reached his floor, he was about to continue toward the room he shared with Tad when he realized that K was still sitting on his head.
"Uh... hey, shouldn't you be getting to your room?"
The metadragon sighed. "Nah. Apparently Natalie's 'in the mood'; David's missing and there's all sorts of noise coming from her room. I think I'll crash with you and the nut for tonight."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "I would have thought you'd wanna watch."
K snorted and drew his head up, looking offended. "There's a line between lechery and perversion, you know! Just because I like seeing a girl naked doesn't mean I want to see her doing it with some dude!"
"Meh. Whatever." Ranma dismissed it and continued stumbling toward his room, not really caring about the extent of K's bizarre attraction to humans.
"You know... she has it pretty bad for you," K said after a moment of silence, lightly slapping his tail against Ranma's shoulder in imitation of a suggestive nudge.
"I can tell," the pigtailed boy responded, "and believe it or not, that's saying something." Ranma knew he was quite attractive to the opposite sex, but he also knew that he had a tendency not to think about women as women unless they were already naked or feeling him up. Not that he would admit to being dense, but it seemed to be a favorite word among those girls who grew frustrated with his inattention.
Ranma sighed. "Look, a part of me would like nothing more than to go and... well, you know... but the rest of me knows that I really don't need that kind of a distraction right now."
K shrugged. "The rest of the guys don't seem to let it bother them."
"And THAT'S why they're throwing knives at big chunks of wood, whereas I'm setting things on fire with my mind." Ranma explained condescendingly.
The metadragon winced. "Touche..."

Ranma finally reach the door to the room he shared with Tad, and K jumped down behind him.
"Well, here we are. Home, stupid home..."
Entering ahead of his draconian companion, Ranma noted that Tad was sitting on his bed with one leg in a cast and propped up on a chair in much the same position he had been loafing around in ever since the Shisou's resident female Ninja threw him out the window.
The unbalanced trainee grinned upon seeing his roommate. "Hey Ranma, you wouldn't believe what I found today!"
"You're probably right," Ranma said, "now shut up." He gestured toward K. "My dragon's gonna be crashing here tonight; you touch him, and you lose the other leg. Clear?"
Tad blinked, then nodded. "Crystal. Now, about what I found-"
"About that," Ranma interrupted, shambling over to his bed, "I don't care. Stop talking." He then fell forward onto his mattress, not even bothering to remove his weapons and light armor before getting into bed.
"But Ranma, it's really cool!" Tad protested, struggling a bit to stand up.
K suddenly shuddered involuntarily as he jumped up onto Ranma's bed, and began to look about nervously. Something in the room was making him uneasy, and if he was sensing something wrong, then it was only Ranma's complete exhaustion (or perhaps his familiarity with Tad) that was keeping the pigtailed boy from high alert.
"Tad, I NEED to sleep! Tell me about it in the morning!" Ranma growled.
The idiot Ninja pouted, but sat back down. "All right, fine. Though I think that Betty will want to introduce herself to you before then."
"............" Ranma didn't move from his face-down position for several seconds, and then pushed himself up into a kneeling position. "God dammit..." He turned toward Tad, his left eye twitching. "Did you bring another undead spider here?"
Tad grinned and nodded happily.
"Erk!" K made a noise that sounded vaguely like a gasp, and Ranma turned to see that the tiny dragon was looking up at the ceiling above Ranma's bed, horrified.
Without further fanfare, he looked straight up, not really surprised as he recognized the massive, eight-legged black shape that clung to the ceiling above his cot. With a legspan as wide as Ranma was tall, the deathcrawler's cloud gray eyes atop its head peered straight down at the vulnerable wanderer, and a bit of rotting flesh fell out of the large hole in the zombie spider's thorax, splattering messily on the edge of Ranma's blanket.
"Isn't she cool?" Tad asked excitedly, "I found an adult this time!"
"SCREEEEEEE!"
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"
___________________________________________________________________________________

(Several weeks later)

Ranma let his breathing increase as he moved deeper and deeper into his kata, forcing his body to speed up without actually putting more force into his motions, and subtly shifting his stance to the proper form.
Matsute nodded minutely, more out of habit than in any actual attempt at communication, and remained silent from where he observed the wanderer's progress.
Ranma felt beads of sweat gather all over his body as his ki peaked to the critical point, and the heat surrounding him rose as a side effect of his Hyoken aura. Beyond the dragon's flame ki, Ranma stretched out his spirit beyond length of his body, willing his ki to tear itself apart and separate from its physical vessel.
The visual result, as was apparent to the dozen or so Ninja standing at attention in the main dojo, wasn't quite so impressive, but very nearly so as Ranma's form faded and split into four semi-transparent images that slowly separated and slid away from each other, still holding the same position.
"Shadow split!" Ranma shouted suddenly, causing three of the images to wink out of existence as the fourth barreled forward in a series of lightning-quick knife-hand strikes into an invisible enemy.
"Hyah!" As the first image was still attacking, a second materialized to the right of the imaginary foe, approaching fast and striking in a high sweeping roundhouse that could have taken most people's head right off.
The next two images both appeared at once, twin phantoms appearing from the rear of the imagined enemy and striking high and low at the same time.
The whole time the first image struck tirelessly at the ghost opponent, flowing from a punching barrage to an elbow strike to a roundhouse in perfect time with the wraith Ranmas that struck from nowhere, and finally launching upward into a backflip kick.
And then the first image disappeared.
Gasps of surprise filled the dojo, and the various Ninja began to look around the room nervously, recalling that they hadn't bothered to track the other images that they had assumed to be complex ki bursts.

Matsute raised an eyebrow at the whole display, then smiled and shook his head. "Did not expect that. Is very good, Saotome."
Behind the old Ninja master, Ranma smirked and slipped his hands into his pockets, feeling quite smug as the other Ninja in the room stared at him in surprise. "Heh. We're on even ground now, old man. The next time we fight, I'm gonna kick your ass!" Then he stopped and pretended to think about what he had just said. "Well, I'll kick it faster."
"Arrogance refreshing when not combined with incompetence," Matsute said brightly, leading Ranma out of the dojo and away from the ring of stunned shinobi.
"Yeah, well, being Tad's roommate helps the comparison," the pigtailed boy said sourly. "I mean, really, what was up with that whole resurrection attempt last Sunday?"
Matuste nodded somberly. "Is true. Especially when he do such bad job killing you first. And then he act surprised when it fail."
"That whole weekend was pretty messed up," Ranma muttered, unconsciously rubbing the spot on his chest where Tad had attempted to impale him with a golden banana.
"Indeed," the Ninja master agreed, lowering his head, "ancient proverb say: 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned who happens to possess personal army of undead gorilla.' We lucky to get through that alive."
The he patted Ranma on the back. "But enough! You do very good! Do Master proud! Come. I want give you something."
Ranma blinked, but followed silently as the old man headed outside the main building and across the street to the broken-up store that lay opposite the office building used by the Shisou Ninja.
Entering past the large, candle-stocked shrine that the majority of the structure had been converted into, the Ninja master continued on toward his personal quarters behind the shrine with his pupil in tow.
"Saotome, I train many generation of Ninja. From long before war, I teach men and woman, boy and girl way of assassin, one who kill without detection in the service of master. I myself kill many old leader after World War II; people who fight change and bring chaos to preserve old ways to die by old ways. No have proverb, but is... appropriate in own way."
Ranma, seeing that this was going to be one of those "old person looking back on troubled times" conversations, gave a silent prayer that it would be a short walk down memory lane and remained silent.
"Generation after generation, I have pupil that meet or pass own skill. Ninja that kill small armies and survive to kill again. But always before, that all I end up with: assassins. Soulless killing machine without will of own, who give life for mission of taking it, with unquestioning loyalty to master in government; for killing machine without master is monster to be destroyed."
He entered his room and looked up at the ceiling as Ranma stood in the doorway. "Death March change all that. Human killing human seem so petty, so pitiful now. And yet, now is time when assassin wanted most. Even amidst chaos of demon invasion, Empire want people killed in silence to keep power. And we do. Ninja do as have always done." He dropped his head and turned around. "Even now, when I leave Empire and come here, our ways not change. Only enemies do. We sneak in shadows and strike at foes from behind to break power of raiders and marauders. Even now, we not band together and fight our enemies to face. Is not our way." Finally, he smiled. "But it is your way."
Ranma blinked. "Huh?"
Without further explanation, the Ninja master walked up the mantle above his bedding and reached for the ornamental katana that was attached to it.
Pulling the weapon off the wall, sheath and all, Matsute turned and tossed it to Ranma, who caught it easily. "Here. It yours."
Ranma blinked, then sweatdropped. "Uh... thanks... I guess... isn't this your family blade?" The weapon was quite a bit heavier than a normal katana, and the hilt and upper handle had several heavy, semi-precious stones set in it. The sheath had Matsute's family crest carved thickly into it, and the whole blade looked poorly made and poorly aged. All in all, hardly a weapon that a respectable combat master would want hanging above his bed, much less a weapon that a wandering fighter would rely upon in combat.
Matsute nodded. "Is indeed my family blade. Was handed down to great, great-grandfather long time ago, and have sheath made. Where sword come from is mystery."
Ranma had to physically restrain his mouth with his free hand to keep from suggesting that it came from an arts & crafts workshop.
A glance at Ranma told Matsute that he was planning on waiting until he was finished explaining the weapon (if the hand over his mouth was any indication), and so he continued. "If you look at blade, will notice symbols in red carved into the sword."
Ranma frowned, then carefully unsheathed the weapon, afraid that rougher handling might cause the poorly forged item to snap. Indeed, there were vaguely Japanese-looking symbols along the sides of the chipped and heavily scratched blade, all of them painted in a curiously resilient reddish-brown paint. "Okay... what do they say?" He asked, assuming that the symbols were simply old kanji from his native language. Though he made an effort to keep the two thousand or so symbols that comprised the kanji writing system more or less memorized, and thus remain largely literate in his first language, there were still a good many he didn't know in common use, and he certainly didn't know any of the older ones that only had a place in historical texts.
"No one know what they say," Matsute said, causing Ranma to raise an eyebrow. "When my great, great-grandfather accept blade from lord, he ask what it say. Lord say that his own ancestor once ask the man who gave sword to him, who ask the king that it come from, and so on. Nobody know."
Then the Ninja master grinned. "Of course, real mystery is where one find mithril edge blade over thousand year before nexus open."
Ranma started, surprised, then gazed at the weapon with a more cautious eye. "Mithril?"
Matsute shrug. "Evon mystic say it mithril. Whatever it is, it magical. Sword look like decoration, but is very combat worthy, even now."
"People actually USE this thing?" Ranma said, a hint of skepticism in his voice. Mithril or not, the edge looked dull, the blade was badly chipped, and the general forgework seemed to indicate that the weapon had been made for decoration.
"Do not be fooled by sword appearance," Matsute warned, smirking. "Red color of symbols come from layer on layer of blood, hardened and dry, set and aged for so long that it become hard as blade itself."
'That would be pretty impressive if the blade didn't look like it was going to fall apart at any moment.' Ranma thought, not wanting to actually complain to his master when he was being granted a free weapon. "So... why give this to me? I'm not even really a Ninja."
"That why I give to you," the Ninja master explained simply.
Ranma blinked. "Oh. That makes sense." 'Senile old twit.'
Sitting down on his bed, Matsute motioned for Ranma to do the same.
"Saotome, I meet and train many kind of man. Man who devote life, body, soul, and mind to perfecting art. Man who devote all to killing, and placing art as means to end. Man who fight with pure heart, refusing to kill. Man who take all power for self. Man who fight for money, man who fight for justice, man who fight for peace, and man who fight for pleasure. I meet all men like this, and know them like brothers. And yet, I never place blade in their hands."
Then he leaned forward, and placed his hand on Ranma's shoulder. "Ranma. You nothing like any of these man. Yet you like all of them. I see within you a warrior, not just assassin. But one who not kill for any single purpose, or single master. One who would challenge world with own mind and power, and do what he think is best. You not aware of own power, or own importance. THAT why I give you blade. And you will need it."
Ranma gazed upon the old master for a long moment, then clutched the katana close to him, stood, and bowed deeply. "Thank you, Master. I won't make you regret this."
Matsute nodded, smiling slightly as Ranma straightened. "I know, Saotome." Then he walked past the pigtailed boy and stepped out into the shrine. "Other trainees going to village at edge of ruins today; you should go too. They have TV there, and it important for wanderer to keep track of events in world."
"Sounds good to me," Ranma said, watching as Matsute left the shrine and walked out onto the street.
Then he looked down at the katana that had been bestowed upon him, his gaze lingering on the dull shine of the large opal set into the middle of the sword's grip.
"It's official: the old man's completely loopy," Ranma concluding, undoing his belt so that he could tie it to the sword sheathe. "At least he didn't quote another 'ancient proverb'..."
___________________________________________________________________________________

"All right! Time for some shore leave! Woo! Party time!"
Ranma sweatdropped as he walked through the bazaar, the metadragon atop his head shouting excitedly and consequently drawing the entire street's attention toward him.
"Uh, K? You've done nothing but loaf around the Ninja training ground since we got here," Ranma reminded his companion, "I mean, you've already been out here twice, even though I haven't."
"Don't rain on my parade, Ninja boy!" K shouted, jumping off of Ranma and hovering in the air overhead. "Ooh! Ooh! Brass! I LOVE brass!!"
"All right, all right. Cool it, metalhead." Ranma sighed and took out the meager amounts of cash he had gathered alongside his training through one-time jobs and private duels (a practice that Matsute firmly discouraged, but flourished nonetheless). "All right, just pick out something cheap and ugly-looking, all right?" He allowed, following his companion to a small stand that was selling cheap statues (such things had to be cheap, since most residents of ruin villages didn't have much to spare on decorative items).
As K thanked him and began poking around at the various hunks of metal (the shopkeeper, obviously familiar with the metadragon, demanded that he not "taste" any), Ranma turned away and looked out over the relatively large village that had been carved out from the shattered remains of the old city. Many of the old office buildings had clothes or other items hanging from the window, and on the floors lower to the ground, the walls with holes in them had been build into extensions, with wooden balconies or small alcoves that hung over the street. In-between the sturdier skyscrapers, one could easily tell where a smaller or weaker building had collapsed, as there were flat patches of ground with small shacks made of wood or crudely patched-together walls of concrete and sheet metal.
Looking around, it was easy to find what he was really looking for among the ramshackle shops. Certain stores made it a priority to secure goods from the American military trading posts that had been positioned in strategic points in the East, and thus sold a much more expensive and higher quality stock of supplies for the traveler who didn't want to skimp when his life may be on the line. While such shops were difficult to maintain and fairly rare (because often not enough people could afford higher quality goods), they were always easy to locate among the myriad of competing local shops.
"Here you go." Ranma paid the vendor for his statue, and K happily took the small brass crescent moon up in his front talons before perching on Ranma's shoulder.
"Where to next, chief?" The metadragon asked before biting off the tip of the statue.
Ranma nodded his head over to the pristine white building set aside from the rest of the shops. "Next, we pick up some good stuff."
K swallowed, then blinked. "As opposed to... bad stuff?"
"As opposed to dragon food," Ranma said somewhat sourly. He still hadn't forgotten losing most of his best gear to K's unusual appetite.
As Ranma approached the quality shop, more differences between it and the ragtag stores around it became obvious. The material of the building, rather than being plain or even well-prepared wood, looked like concrete but had a smooth, white texture to it. The corners of the structure, which were smoothly rounded rather than straight and angled, had clearly defined seams that held together tightly to keep the walls together. All in all, it looked as if it had been assembled from a kit rather than having been built.
Entering through the metal panel door, Ranma took one look at the interior and smiled.

The shopkeeper looked up as the bell attached to the door rang, and he grinned as a young man he had never seen before entered with some sort of silvery lizard on his shoulder. Unfamiliar customers were always a good sign in his business; travelers had greater need for durable, reliable supplies, and tended to have more money to burn than the small businessmen in the ruin village.
"Well hello there son! What can I do for you?"
Smiling, Ranma walked straight up to the counter, slowly withdrew his Nighthawk pistol (so as not to alarm the man), and then placed it on the counter.
"I need some .50 caliber clips, some binoculars, a heavy med pack, and a standard mess kit. Also, I'd like to know about any mithril forges you know about around here."
The shopkeep, trying to ignore the sight of K munching on a brass statue, raised his eyebrow as he looked at Ranma's gun. "You know, I have to admit, when you came in, you struck me as one of those Shisou fellas."
Ranma blinked. "I am. Why?"
The shopkeep raised his eyebrow. "Son, I only know of a few Ninja who use guns, and those that do at least use ones that can be fitted with silencers."
Ranma just shrugged. "I figure if the bullet is too big for a silencer to work, it's big enough that it doesn't matter in the long run."
"....................." The owner stared at the pigtailed boy for a long while, unable to come up with a suitable response to that.
"So... my stuff?"
Snapping out of the daze, the shopkeeper quickly responded. "Uh, yeah! No problem. Well, at least for the supplies. I'm afraid you won't find any mithril forges around here." Then he leaned forward, smiling slightly. "Although... I do happen to have some 'special' stock of these .50 cal slugs. Not mithril, but some cheaper alloy that's almost as good. Give ya a real nice price on it, too."
Ranma rolled his eyes, recognizing the pitch that he had heard a thousand times before, applied to all manner of item. "That sounds pretty good, but I'm a little short of cash." He glared down at K as he continued addressing the shopkeeper. "My dragon ate all my gold."
K swallowed the last of his brass, and then gave Ranma an annoyed glance. "Hey! I said I was sorry!"
"Ah... oh." The owner of the store didn't really know how to address such a situation, so he eventually decided to ignore the exchange. "All right. I'm gonna have to duck into the back to get your ammo. Just a minute."

As the owner left for the back, K hopped off of Ranma's shoulder onto the main counter, feeling slightly intoxicated from the mixture of metals he had just eaten.
"Whoa! Check it out! Is that a real television?"
Ranma raised an eyebrow, then nodded as he took note of the device hanging from the ceiling above a display of combat knives.
"Yes it is. These little shops are made with supply kits purchased from the American trading posts; they have small generators and everything."
Seeing that the program was tuned to a American satellite news network, Ranma reached up and turned up the volume.
*-And so far the movie industry has continued to take repeated hits from networks and studios releasing dedicated documentaries of post-war China and Russia, culminating in the third and final Lord of the Rings movie netting less than five million dollars worldwide two weeks after its release. Likewise, Dawn of the Dead suffered as well, as one reviewer claimed they had seen much better scripted zombie attacks on the Nature Channel.*
"It's kind of uncomfortable to think that the wastes are weirder than Hollywood," Ranma said uneasily, not particularly interested in the information, but having nothing better to do while he waited. Luckily he was mostly fluent in common English from his travels, and didn't have too much trouble following the broadcast.
K shrugged. "I hear it's still less brutal out here than in Manhattan."
"That's not saying much, K."
*In political news, President Bush participated in his first debate earlier today against his political rivals for the presidency in 2004: Senator John Kerry, of the Democratic party, and Grim... Grimtah... Grimtah? Grimtal? It's Grimtal, right? Forget that last name, I'm not touching ANYTHING with an apostrophe in the middle of it!*
Ranma and K sweatdropped. On the TV, the screen split into two images, one presenting two news anchors, and the other presenting a recorded image of one of the candidates responding to a question.
*I know better than to judge a candidate by his looks Todd, but I have to say that Grimtal's absolutely REPULSIVE image didn't do him any favors tonight. Flesh hanging on his face in long, rotten strips with a smile that looks almost painful to present, that lich looks anything but presidential.*
*...... Uh, Bob, that's Kerry, not Grimtal.*
Ranma and K each sweatdropped again.
"Are human politics always like this?" The metadragon asked curiously.
"No way," Ranma responded immediately, "this election is going WAY better than they usually do."
*Er... of course! I knew that! I wasn't referring to THIS clip in particular, it's just... well...*
The anchorman cleared his throat.
*Well, Grimtal didn't get off to a good start in the debates at all; while his decisive answers appealed to some Americans, his damnation of all who oppose him and his insistence that all of humanity enter a new age of horror and suffering just didn't connect with the voters.*
*Besides that, his image suffered significantly when John Kerry angered him, and he responded by draining the senator's soul and causing it to burst into hellflame. Not a very professional image.*
*Never mind that it didn't have any tangible effect on Senator Kerry at all; he didn't even stop talking.*
*Click!*
Ranma pulled his hand away from the television as his other held his forehead, trying to stave off a headache. "Okay... that's quite enough of that..."
At that moment the shopkeep reappeared carrying a crate.
"All right son, I'm gonna make you a deal," the man dropped the crate on the counter, then withdrew several pistol clips along with the rest of the items Ranma requested. "Five twelve-round clips, plus the other stuff for an even $200."
"Grk!" Ranma immediately choked and stumbled backward, indicating that the offered price was not satisfactory. "Give me a break! I still have to eat, you know!" Then he stood up straight and looked considerate. "Hmmm...... I'll give you $100."
In one swipe of his hand, the shopkeeper scooped up the ammunition and dropped it in the box, leaving only the non-combat items.
"Hey, hey, hey! I need that stuff to kill people!" Ranma protested loudly.
The owner shook his head. "Look son, that kind of firepower 'aint cheap. You look like you've seen your fair share of the road; it's rough out there. Now I take care of myself by selling you this gear, and you take care of yourself by using this gear. That's just how it works, see?"
Ranma stared at the man for a moment in silence. "That doesn't really help me any."
The shopkeep sighed. "All right, look. You have anything you wanna pawn? That's a pretty nice piece; I'll trade you a cheaper gun for it, and you'll have a much easier time finding ammo." Seeing Ranma shake his head, the man gestured toward his gauntlet. "How 'bout the glove? Looks like it'd only get in your way, and it's flashy to boot. That'll sell for a lot to the right people."
Ranma stared down at the mysterious gauntlet, considering it. "...... Nah. This thing's saved my life a couple times. I should at least go through the trouble of finding out what the heck it is before I sell it off for a few bullets."
Then the pigtailed boy rubbed his chin in consideration. "Say, old man..." he leaned forward slightly, and the shopkeep raised his eyebrow and leaned forward as well.
Then Ranma smirked. "What'll you give me for the metal lizard?"
"HEY!!"
___________________________________________________________________________________

*Sigh* "Two lousy clips, and no binoculars... damn overpriced foreign goods..." Ranma murmured sourly, walking out of the shop with his backpack slung over one shoulder.
K followed, looking rather cross as he crawled along the ground after his companion. "You weren't really considering selling me... were you?"
Ranma snorted. "Not for fifteen bucks! Hell, after all the money in eaten supplies and weapons I've spent on you so far, I'm not going to pawn you for two digit figures!"
K's eye twitched, but he managed to hold his tongue as he recognized that he was largely responsible for Ranma's lack of traveling gear.
"Ranma! There you are!" Ninja and dragon turned toward Natalie's voice, and Ranma waved to her as the bouncy trainee jogged over to them.
"What's up? Did Tad get stuck in the well again?" He asked.
Natalie sighed. "No, not this time."
"Damn. Well, then what's wrong?"
The female Ninja looked appropriately embarrassed as she explained. "Well, I've never been to the village with Kim before, and he asked me a while ago if he could borrow some money for a present for his girlfriend."
Ranma blinked, recalling the name of the trainee who had taunted him upon his first meeting with the Shisou. "KIM has a girlfriend? That loser?"
Natalie sweatdropped. "Well, no. I was surprised, but I believed him and lent him the money. Then I talked to Chang about it, and he told me that apparently Kim is quite familiar with the local tavern around here..."
"Ah, I see," Ranma muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. "So, what, you need me to go in there and get your money back the hard way?"
"Oh, no, I can do that on my own," Natalie insisted, "it's just that Chang said that some pretty rough customers can come through here, and Kim has a knack for... finding them. He suggested I have some backup in case he gets into trouble."
*BWAM!!* Ranma raised an eyebrow as a body flew through the wall of a building a little ways off behind Natalie, crashing through the wooden barrier and continuing on to roll to the other side of the street.
"Too late."

Kim grimaced as he fought to get to his feet, the vertigo from having been smashed harder than he had ever been in his life mixing with the vertigo from drinking four whiskey shots in as many minutes.
He was vaguely aware of the sound of heavy footsteps coming from the direction from which he had flown, and rolled onto his rear so that he could at least see his antagonist before he got beaten up again.

K groaned, and Ranma held his face in his hands.
"Oh, mother of Charon..."
"Not THAT guy again!"
Natalie blinked, then took another good look at the large, imposing man wearing a trenchcoat with a broadsword strapped to his back. "You know that man?"
Ranma sighed. "We've tried to kill each other before, yeah."
The female trainee looked alarmed, and immediately withdrew her main daggers. "Is he evil?"
"The jury's still out on that one," K said sourly. "We can tell ya he's a nut, and a damn strong nut, but that's about it."

Rayden stared down at the Korean Ninja, and his frown deepened as he teetered slowly from side to side.
"Ya know," the dark paladin slurred, raising a finger to point at the downed man, "in mah natif culcha, I wou' get tah kill yoo fah sayin' dat abou' mah momma..."
Kim almost doubled over in pain as he tried to scatter away. "B-But I didn't s-say anything about your mother!"
"Ah kno tha'!" Rayden admitted, pointing unsteadily at the trainee. "Bu' when ahm this was'ed, I gif da same speesh tah e'eryone who piz me off!"
"G-G-Get away from me, you FREAK!!" Kim shouted, scooting away in a panic.
The demon hunter scoffed, and casually withdrew a beer from the inner folds of his trench coat while he aimed the palm of his free hand at the socially inept shinobi. "Well, THA' was jus' rood!"
*Brzack!* A short arc of black lightning flashed around his free hand, and Kim's eyes widened as a sphere of dark energy coalesced into the man's palm.
*Glug* *Glug* *Glug* Rayden took several large gulps from his beverage, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve and returned his attention to the frantically retreating Ninja. "*Hic!* Die!"
*Thwack!* The attack hardly went as expected as a flying roundhouse suddenly struck him in the side of the head and sent him flying into a collection of trashed cars next to the main road, causing him not only a great deal of pain, but also causing the energy charge in his hand to instantly disperse.
Shaking his head as he got to his feet, Rayden's vision suddenly snapped back to normal, and the ringing in his ears stopped.
"Aw, great! My buzz is gone!"
Then he turned toward the source of the kick, and he blinked in surprise.
"Hey! Didn't you kick my ass once?"
Ranma smirked. "I would've kicked it twice, but we were kind of pressed for time in Phoenix Mountain. See you're still alive, though."
"Hmph." Rayden jabbed a thumb at Kim, who had managed to stand up but was still too badly hurt to run away. "This jerk a friend of yours? He asks to hear a few of my stories, has a bunch of drinks with me, then tries to sneak out and leave me with the tab!"
Ranma blinked, then smiled. "Perfect! Then he can give Natalie her money back!"
"Hey!" A vein popped up on Rayden's head. "I 'aint paying his tab!"
"That isn't my problem," Ranma said, shrugging nonchalantly. "Though if you want to settle the bill, I'll fight you for it."
Seeing the pigtailed boy grin, Rayden nodded seriously, and then undid the strap connecting his sword to his body.
"Whoa, wait!" K shouted from a safe distance away, next to Natalie. "You're actually going to fight him? HERE?!"
Rayden shrugged, eyeing his opponent with a far more calculating look than he did last time. "Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, last time you got owned," Ranma explained, scratching his head in irritation. "And SINCE then, I've been constantly training to make myself twice as fast and deadly as before. You don't stand a chance!"
"I do not fight for the spoils of victory," Rayden said, suddenly sounding far more serious and wise as he withdrew his broadsword, holding it in his right hand while he held his sheath in his left, "I fight for the purity of blood shed in combat. I fight for the end."
"..............." Ranma remained silent, not taking up his own stance. "Whatever man, you're going to get beaten down again."
"I don't mind losing," the dark paladin shouted, dashing forward suddenly, "TO A WORTHY OPPONENT!!"
___________________________________________________________________________________

"Hmmm... zo he'z here. I can zenze it." Leia smiled slightly as she looked down at the shattered city below, her keen eyes picking up subtle signs of inhabitation among the wall of desolate, broken structures that would have led most to believe no civilization existed within.
"Vith luck za human zat vas vith him iz ztill here. Za question of courze, iz vether or not to zimply vipe out ze entire village, or to inviltrate ond make zure zat ze dragon doez not ezcape."
Her smile turning into a grin, the tall, unnaturally thin blue-haired woman gently raised a hand and blew on her index finger, causing a cloudy stream of shining blue dust to flow from her mouth and gather into a pinprick of white light on the tip of her finger.
Then she turned toward one of the larger rocks that lay on the top of the hill beside her. "I do not like to talk to myzelf, you know. Vy don't you come out, ond ve can dizcuzz any reazonz vy I shouldn't kill you."
There was only a moment of hesitation before a Ninja, dressed in the traditional black mission outfit, rose up from behind the rock that seemed way too small to hide him as well as it did.
"We are a peaceful people, demon. Peaceful, poor, and far too organized to wipe out easily. I can assure you, an attack upon our villages is far more trouble than it's worth."
Leia's eye twitched, and she brushed a hand back. "You... You DARE call ME a demon? You vould do vell not to miztake vuhn of ze zerpent kingz for zuch filthy monzterz." Then her eyes narrowed. "It can be... hazardouz to your health." And with that, she flicked her finger at the investigating assassin.
The Ninja, knowing that whatever she was doing was an attack, moved slightly out of the way of the path of the pinnacle of light, preparing his own weapons as his stance shifted ever so slightly.
*Shink!*
Then his eyes widened as the small point of magic exploded into a cone of large, razor-sharp icicles that barrelled toward him with such speed and an area of effect that he couldn't possibly dodge.

Leia smirked as the wave of blue and white burst outward, followed promptly by a wave of red. Then the snow dragon slowly walked up to the neatly-cut corpse of the assassin and waved a hand over it, causing the cleanly sliced strips of muscle and flesh to freeze until they were of proper consistency.
"Hmmm... if ze humanz inzizt on delivering my mealz, zen maybe I vill spare zeir village after all." Her mission only consisted of recovering the stolen dragon and gauntlet and to kill the thief. And she had been warned that the humans of this particular area were considered quite dangerous.
*Crunch!* Picking up a strip of what used to be the Ninja's arm, Leia bit into it with fervor, breaking off a large, frozen chunk and savoring the rough texture before swallowing the hardened meat.
"I don't know vy, but for zome reazon... humanz alvays tazte better ven in human form." Shrugging to herself, she took another bite out of the arm.
She really did hope that the thief was younger than this man. She always did like her meat... tender.

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End Chapter 6