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

The New Republic Commando demo rox! I am SO gonna get that game! And Empire at War too! I can't wait!
I wonder how long it's been since I did a legally significant disclaimer...

" " 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 7
Breaking the Ice
***********************************************************************************

*Whaboom!!*
Natalie held her arm up to her face to keep the dust out of her eyes as she struggled to drag Kim to safety among the village carved from the city ruins, just meters away from the dome of expanding darkness that tore apart the dirt road.
All around, people peeked out at the scene from behind windows and around barriers, trying to get a good look while staying as far away from the danger as possible. It was really a wonder they stuck around at all; while two swordsmen throwing energy blasts around in the street was more common than most people would prefer, usually it was not very well contained. Most would have been running to get the local peace enforcers if they hadn't been aware that three Shisou Ninja were already present, with two more elsewhere in the city.

As the dust cleared from his last attack, Rayden homed in on Ranma's aura and struck with a vicious slashing charge, hoping that the dirt kicked up by the energy bomb had blinded his foe.
It appeared to be wishful thinking, as nothing but dust and Earth parted before the blade of his sword. Then the demon hunter felt a sharp pressure on his back as Ranma kicked off of it behind him, and Rayden turned around, charging more dark energy in his hand.
"Eat it and die!" Rayden's arm shook slightly as each black, sparkling sphere of destructive power launched from his palm, not unlike the recoil of a cannon.
Ranma's image darted from side to side as he avoided the dark bomblets, moving backward the whole time as he dodged the projectiles and eventual detonations with ease.
"That the best you got?!" Ranma taunted. "I'll do you a favor and level the playing field a little! Let's make this a sword fight!"

Unstrapping the sheath attacked to his waist, he brought the sheathed katana before him, and held it up as he gripped the handle and slowly withdrew the blade.
Rayden watched patiently, and then sweatdropped. Ranma's sword was... ragged-looking, to say the least. The blade was chipped, the edge was dull, there were streaks of dirt and rust along the flat side, and what was visible between the ugly stains was marred with tarnish.
"Did you get that weapon at a yard sale, or what?" Rayden said critically, his eyes narrowing. "I've seen broken sticks more useable than that thing!"
"It was a gift given to me by a senile old man," Ranma explained, admiring the blade as if there something about it worth admiring.
K, who was sitting next to Natalie, sweatdropped. "It's not nice to call your Ninja master senile... no matter how accurate it is."
"Whatever," Ranma said dismissively, smirking. Then he fell into a ready stance. "Maybe I'm just using this weapon to show you how little I think of you as a fighter."
A vein popped up on Rayden's head as he shook a fist at the cocky Ninja. "HEY!! You think you can take me lightly?! I'll rip you apart!"
Ranma grinned and licked his lips. "That's right... get nice 'n mad..."

*Brzzt!* Arcs of black lightning began to crawl over Rayden's arms and shoulders, and a dark, misty haze gathered around him as his aura built.
"You won't beat me so easy! Shadow break!" The demon hunter's aura gathered in his palm, and he thrust his fist toward Ranma, the dark mana expanding outward and drilling into the ground as it formed an energy wave.
"Hmph. Couldn't try harder than that?" Ranma zipped to the side as the wave of dark mana smashed through the street, digging a wide trench in the packed dirt and rubble that made up the road.
Rayden waved some dust out of the way and backed up, trying to locate his opponent through the smoke screen he had himself kicked up.
"Your power is impressive. VERY impressive, actually. But that's pretty much all there is to you, huh?"
The demon hunter whirled around, and then grit his teeth as he saw his opponent standing calmly behind him, inspecting his katana casually.
"No skill, no speed, no brains. Just big muscles, a big sword, and a big aura."
"What's it to ya, human?" Rayden sneered, bringing Darkrune about so that he was in a ready position.
'I knew it! He's not human!' K thought, nodding sharply. Truth be told, the aura and near-invulnerability kind of gave it away, but then, traveling with Ranma had forced the metadragon to re-evaluate his opinion of human combat potential.
Ranma swung his sword back and forth, as if he was practicing a golf windup. "You are SO far out of your league. I mean, you're good, but you're just not good enough, you know? It would be easier on everyone, especially yourself, if you just gave up now."
"I DON'T give up!" Rayden shouted, dashing forward and slashing diagonally.
Ranma dodged to the side away from the attack, and reached Rayden's exposed flank with ease, and struck with a strong horizontal slash.
He expected Rayden's body to give quite a bit of resistance, if his katana did not break outright on the other man's skin, but was pleasantly surprised as he felt the edge sink past the clothing and into the flesh beneath the left arm, breaking skin about as easily as he had with his former weapon.
'Then again, that sword didn't do a whole lot of damage to him either,' Ranma thought, pulling his blade free and hopping back to avoid Rayden's counterattack.
Rayden slashed fiercely to the side, and then fell quickly off balance as searing agony enveloped his side.
Ranma blinked as his foe shouted in surprised, and then fell onto one knee, holding his wound as blood spilled freely through the cuts in his coat and underlying shirt.
The wanderer blinked again as Rayden pushed himself back up quickly and into a battle stance, eyeing Ranma's weapon with sudden confusion and respect.
Ranma did the same, and frowned at his katana's rusted, tarnished blade. 'THIS broken-up piece of junk did THAT to him? You've gotta be kidding me!'
Turning toward the adjacent wall of a building, Ranma carelessly slashed his weapon across it experimentally.
*Shrak!* A rain of gravel blasted out of the wall from the deep gouge Ranma's katana left, and the wanderer planted his fists on his hips and grinned proudly at the achievement. "Wow! This thing really is useful!"
Rayden, for his part, snorted and wiped off the area of his wound. "Hmph. My sword can do that."
"Yeah, well, your sword LOOKS like it can do that," Ranma explained, moving into another ready stance, "Mine, on the other hand, looks like it could fall apart if you breathed on it too roughly."
Ranma started to jog forward, and then dashed back as his foe lashed out with a strong downward stroke.
'Too easy...' Ranma made to cut at Rayden's unprotected torso, but was surprised when his attack was effectively blocked in time. 'Huh. Guy's faster than he looks... with the sword, at least...'
*Shtang!* *Chingk!* Ranma jumped to the side and lashed out with two more attacks, each of which were deftly deflected by the magic greatsword.
Then he noticed that Rayden was glowing again, and opted for a quick withdraw.
"RED BLITZKRIEG!!" The demon hunter's aura burst as he began lashing out in a lightning-fast series of diagonal slashes digging a long trail of messy ruts into the dirt road, and eventually smashing a large hole in the wall of the building he had been facing, ripping through the surface concrete with ease.
Rayden growled as he turned away from the damaged structure, and scanned the area for his opponent, ignoring the people now actively seeking shelter from the battle.
'That's impossible! He was right in front of me! How'd he-'
His musings were cut short as he felt a heavy pressure on his back.
"Ya missed me."
*SHANG!* Ranma flipped off of Rayden's back as the demon hunter's blade burned through the space he had just occupied, singing its shrill song of bloodshed as it sliced through the air in a wide arc of black energy.
"Too slow..." Ranma touched ground before Rayden had finished his swing, and the pigtailed boy positioned his katana so that it pointed straight forward. "WAY. TOO. SLOW."
*Shwick!* "Graugh!" Rayden gasped in surprised as Ranma's blade pierced his abdomen, digging through skin and organs to burst out the paladin's backside.
*Whoosh!* Ranma jerked his head to the side, allowing Rayden's countering haymaker to pass by his head harmlessly. "Heh. I learned a lot the last time we fought." That said, he planted his foot on Rayden's chest and pushed off hard, ripping his katana free of the man's insides.
Rayden grunted and stepped backward, building energy even as blood and less common fluids flowed freely down his coat. "Burial!"
Ranma dashed backward as the streaks of black magic surged toward him, and then jumped backward onto the wall of a building, jumping off again as the same wall was torn up along the ground.
Still trying to hold his guts in place, Rayden tried to track the smaller man, but quickly lost sight of him as the Ninja zipped back and forth in the air among the buildings.
"Geez... you really have gotten better, huh?" The demon hunter tried to gather his power again, but grimaced as he felt his energy reserves dip even further. 'Damn! That katana has some sort of light enchantment on it! With Darkrune still sealed...'
"Yes. I have gotten better."
Rayden turned and thrust his sword straight toward the source of the voice, putting the last of his mana reserves into a final burst of dark energy.
"... But you haven't," Ranma finished, grinning as his image seemed to split into two, with the greatsword stabbing between them. Both Ranmas' left fists glowed with power as their fire auras gathered into their hands.
"Dragon fist!" *Kra-KOOOOOM!!*
Rayden blanched as he was pounded on both sides by bursts of intense power, crushing his weakened body with severe impact force before engulfing it in Ranma's fiery aura.
'This... This is unreal...' Rayden thought, staggering down onto his knees as he began to lose track of his surroundings. 'Never seen moves... like that, never... how can... just a... human?'
His hardwired combat senses, still trying to keep a bead on the situation despite his body failing, noted that there was another gathered concentrated energy source coming from above and dropping toward him fast.
'I lost? To a... a human?'
*Kakroom!*

"Is... Is it over?" Natalie asked timidly, looking worriedly at the cloud of dust that had been blown outward from the bursts of flame.
"Oh, it's over," K said, not nearly as tense as she was as the female Ninja held him tightly against her chest. "Getting hit, cut, impaled, and then slammed with three dragon fists? That guy's down, if not dead."
"I would count on him surviving," Ranma said, stepping out of the rapidly clearing dust cloud, and patting himself down as he approached. "That guy's way too tough. Not nearly as good a fighter as I am... but WAY too tough." The wanderer frowned. It had taken one dragon fist to annihilate the hammaku back in China. It had taken three to bring down the weakened and half-drunk swordsman. 'What is this guy made of? His body gave the sword more resistance than that concrete wall did!'
Natalie let out a breath of relief, and then put K down, much to his disappointment. "I have to inform the Master of this immediately! This man could be part of a remnant army or a bandit group!"
"Doubt it," Ranma said, turning around and observing the insensate body (which was still on fire). "I've met him before. He travels alone, and seems to prefer killing things that don't have money."
"Even so, Matsute should be informed! We will also need to prepare a proper cell for the miscreant!" The female Ninja took off to leave, but was unexpectably stopped when the man at her feet grabbed her leg.
"W-Wait! Don't leave me here! Please!" Kim shouted, scooting closer so that he could get a better grip on the girl's leg.
"Hey! Get off of-HEY!! Don't touch me, you little..." She trailed off incoherently as she yanked her leg free of the wounded Ninja, and then gave the man an angry kick in the stomach, causing K and Ranma to wince. "Idiot! This is all your fault in the first place! You can just stay here until help arrives!"
Leaving her Ninja companion curled up in a fetal position, Natalie took off toward the main Shisou compound, not bothering to wait for Ranma or K.

"So what do you think we should do now?" K asked, finally tearing his gaze away from Natalie's rear. He had no idea why female Ninja outfits incorporated ultra-tight miniskirts, but he couldn't argue with the results.
"Well, I'm gonna take this guy's cash and pay the barkeep," Ranma said, digging through the demon hunter's pockets. "Feel free to eat any metal on him... hmm?" Ranma found a large, smooth object on the inside of Rayden's coat (after he had put the fire out, of course), and was somewhat surprised when he pulled out a small glass flask of brandy. "Huh. How do you think this survived getting shattered? Weird."
Ranma continued digging through the various objects stored within the torn, bloody, and burnt trench coat, pulling each one out and setting it in a pile nearby.
"More brandy... scotch... beer... rum... more beer... yeesh. This guy is one serious alcoholic." Ranma looked at the growing pile of bottles in disgust, and then went back to digging in the man's coat, deciding not to bother with anything else that felt like a bottle, and also deciding not to bother wondering how so many bottles could have fit inside the coat alongside someone with Rayden's build. Nevermind that none of them had broken while the larger man was being beaten about like a punching bag.
"Huh. These are interesting." Ranma pulled out two blocky-looking, oversized handguns, and placed them on the ground next to him. "Pistols... obviously Earth technology, but not any design I recognize." He carefully picked up the item and observed it from all angles, careful to never point the weapon where it might discharge and hurt someone. "Dang. Those are big bullets. Glad he didn't pull these out." Ranma may have been able to dodge bullets, but they were far from his favorite obstacle to deal with. Also, guns had a way of leveling the playing field more than he would have liked. Much better to face someone who could only toss energy bolts that move at about the same rate as thrown rocks.
"Next up... wallet! Yes!" Ranma pulled out the small sack and opened it, pleasantly surprised to find a small assortment of high-value currency within. "Gems, a few gold coins, some American coins, fifty dollar bills... hm? These are odd." Ranma pulled out a thin coin that looked very different from the rest; it was made mostly of a shiny black material, was square with a dull point extending from each flat side, and had a dull green gem set in the middle. "Whassis?"
"It's a tand coin," K said immediately, eyeing Rayden more carefully. "It's a unit of currency minted in Dark Brotherhood cathedrals, and are pretty common on Brotherhood-dominated realms, as well as Hellplanes and other places where demons are the primary race."
Ranma frowned. "Would it be worth anything here?"
"Maybe, but not to most people," K said uneasily. "There are no Brotherhood elements here. Well... except for this guy, I think."
Ranma blinked. "Say what?"
K waddled over to the insensate demon hunter and poked the man's chest. Embroidered on the left breast of the trench coat were three parallel slash marks with a half-circle arcing away behind them, and a hole in the middle of the arc. "I was right. This crest is Third Brotherhood."
Ranma blinked again. "Third Brotherhood?"
The metadragon sighed, apparently exasperated from having to share some tidbit of information that everyone in the multiverse should know. "The Third Brotherhood is the dark cult dedicated to the Ancient of Destruction known as Kharak. They're one of the more powerful Brotherhoods militarily, or used to be anyway, and train their paladins to be 'dread knights': powerful, bloodthirsty solider mercenaries who use magic for the sole purpose of maximum devastation. They revere death, especially through combat, and are constantly at war with the First Brotherhood, with whom they're ideologically opposed."
Ranma stared at K blankly. "Oh-kay... and the First Brotherhood is...?"
"They worship Menos, the Ancient of Death," K said, rolling his eyes.
The pigtailed warrior nodded thoughtfully. "I don't get it." Then he shrugged. "If these carrot guys worship death, and these melon guys worship death, why do they fight?"
K would have slapped a hand over his forehead if it had been a feasible gesture for his body structure. "The followers of MENOS worship death, but their faith is represented through the raising of the dead as undead. They literally worship and empower dead beings. The followers of KHARAK, by contrast, worship destruction, and revere death in the sense of... well... you know, the living getting stabbed until they stop moving." The metadragon sweatdropped a little, but was at least reassured that the explanation didn't go over Ranma's head. "To the Third Brotherhood, raising the dead in either the practice of necromancy or full resurrection is an insult to the sanctity and peace offered by a creature's destruction, and seek to wipe it out wherever they find it."
"Great. Homicidal religious fanatics," Ranma murmured irritably, taking the small sack of currency. "As if we didn't have enough of those BEFORE you guys showed up." Then he began to put the demon hunter's pistols back in his coat.
Deciding to leave the alcohol where it laid, Ranma entered the bar and handed the entire purse to the barkeep, not bothering to listen to the man's stuttered thanks or his requests to know just what had happened outside (apparently he had been hiding behind the bar counter or something).
By the time he had gotten back to the battle site, K had already found some kind of metal block, probably an ammo clip for the pistols, to gnaw on. Ranma ignored him, pleased that the metadragon was eating somebody else's gear for once.
Planting his fists on his hips, Ranma surveyed the scene. There was extensive damage to the surroundings, but oddly enough, the demon hunter had avoided throwing any of the bigger energy bolts at the populated buildings. The relatively small ground-based wave had taken a sizable chunk out of that apartment structure, but on the whole the damage was entirely fixable.
"And then there's this thing..." Ranma looked at the dark greatsword lying on the ground a couple meters from Rayden's body, having been flung away by the sheer concussive force of the dragon fist. It didn't appear to be constructed of any metal Ranma could identify, but he had seen enough magical artifacts such that that didn't really mean anything to the pigtailed man.
Whatever it was though, it was radiating some kind of power beyond mere magic. His ki senses allowed him to detect active magic, but in a round-about, inefficient way that mostly involved looking at the flows of natural energies and weeding out small irregularities that seemed to have no other explanation. A technique he rarely had to use, as he usually either dealt with magic that entered the visible spectrum as it was flung at him in some cohesive energy bolt, or avoided it entirely. No sense messing with the powers beyond your understanding, and all that.
The sword was different, though. The magical aura was there, black as night, and gave Ranma the willies even as the mysterious blade just sat on the ground. From what he could gather from his limited senses, the sword's magic aura was attempting to rip apart the very ground it laid on, but was instead beating upon... something. Ranma found his lack of proper perception frustrating, but ultimately satisfying; the power was trying to do what it had been refined to do-destroy, kill, maim, yadda yadda-and something was holding it back. That was good.
But what bothered him was that the sword had ki. Not active, human ki, or even natural-feeling ki, but the blade had an aura that, if he were to close his eyes and track with his ki senses alone, he could mistake for an actual living creature.
From what Ranma knew, the idea was ridiculous. He had heard stories of sentient items and swords that could speak and think and tended to do so to the point of annoying their masters, but his limited understanding of the process placed their conscious firmly and totally in the "magical" spectrum. There shouldn't have been any presence within that could emit a ki aura.
"Hey! Are you gonna stand there all day staring at that thing?!"
Ranma frowned as he glanced toward K. He wanted to snap back at his companion, but the overgrown lizard was right; if past incidences were any indication the demon hunter would be waking up soon, and the man's weapon was really putting him on edge. If he was going to deal with the demon hunter again, he really preferred that it be in the midst of many friendly Ninja.
That said, he quickly snatched the sword up with his left hand. Bad idea.
*GRR-za-a-ack!* "BWAAAUGH!!" Ranma screamed as an arc of black lightning lashed out of the sword's handle and surged into his hand and forearm, wrapping coils of deadly energy around his skin and searing it badly.
"Gyaa!" Luckily, seeing how his arm had become completely paralyzed upon contact with the handle, the intense pain of having dark magics try to rip his arm right open was followed by a powerful, short-range kinetic blast that knocked Ranma backward and away from the cursed blade.
*Thud!* "Gwaah! Augh! SON. OF. A. BITCH!!"
"Ranma!" K dashed forward as fast as his little metal legs could carry him, looking quite worried. "Ranma! What happened?! Should I get help?"
Ranma twitched, and then grit his teeth as the minor numbness in his arm faded. Which allowed him to move it (a good thing), but also made it hurt even MORE (a very, very bad thing). "Help... right... no. I don't-GOD! What the hell is that thing?! *Gasp* I... I don't think anyone around here could help out with this." There were plenty of people around, but most of them were just standing in small groups, whispering to each other and looking ready to flee. Stupid people. They got Ninja and demons on a regular basis, and this frightened them?
Observing his arm, Ranma let out a breath of relief as he sat up. Apparently the pain was worse than the damage, which he supposed could be expected of a small anti-theft enchantment. His arm sported a number of small second-degree burns, and he had one long strip of hardened, smooth, black-and-red matter that had once been healthy biological components of his upper forearm. But his arm worked, and hadn't suffered any damage that looked incurable. He couldn't ask for much more than that. He was glad the sword's presence had put him on edge; he had been unconsciously channeling some ki defensively in a small effort to protect himself should the sword do anything to him once grasped. Sometimes he really wished his conscious mind could keep up.
"Okay then... moving the sword... this is gonna be trouble..." He couldn't just leave it here. To someone who wasn't sensitive to magical threats, the weapon was just BEGGING to be stolen from off the streets, and the energy backlash from touching it could have permanently injured a normal human, or killed a curious child.
"Maybe you have to wear gloves to wield it? He's wearing gloves," K pointed out helpfully, though he was chiding himself mentally. No magical protection enchantment would be thwarted so easily by a thin layer of cloth.
Ranma was thinking the same thing, but was smirking slightly, as he was one step ahead of the metadragon. He still didn't know what the gauntlet on his wrist was supposed to be, but it was more than the demon hunter had been wearing, and had proven unreasonably durable so far.
Carefully approaching the weapon and crouching down, Ranma reached out with his right hand and extended his index finger, carefully positioning himself so that if he got shocked again and his arm went numb, then it would fall out of contact with the blade's handle.
He almost flinched when a small spark popped up from the point of contact, but gently proceeded to lay his entire hand on the handle of the sword with no ill effect.
"Okay..." Grasping the sword's handle fully, he stood up and tried to pick up the irritating weapon. Of course, he had been using the exact amount of strength he thought would be appropriate to lift up a weapon of the sword's size. As such, the blade didn't budge, and Ranma barely caught himself from falling down on top of it from his misplaced leverage.
"Whoa! Easy!" K shouted, making sure to stay a good ways back.
"Yeah, okay! Fine!" Ranma braced his legs and pulled much harder, and was rewarded by the magic sword slowly rising up off the ground in his grip. His opinion of Rayden immediately jumped a few notches; this thing weighed at least three times what it appeared to. More than enough to discount it as a useful weapon to most creatures, even disregarding that it seemed to electrocute people it didn't like. He really had no idea how strong the demon hunter had to be to wield the blade as easily as he did.
He noticed the gem set in the pommel glow briefly, then faded back to normal. Rarely a good sign.
Moving over to Rayden's body, Ranma angled the sword into the sheath attached to the man's back, and carefully slid it inside.
"Now what?" K asked, flying up to land on Ranma's shoulder.
Ranma sighed. "Now I lug this guy down to Ninja central," he said irritably, quite aware that the task he had just spoken of was going to be more problematic then it sounded. Rayden was a deal bigger than he was, was wearing heavy clothes, had who-knows-how-much weight in his pockets dragging him down, and had that damn sword on him too.
Simply pulling the man's arm up to get him in a position to lift him into a fireman's carry, Ranma knew that it was going to be a loooooong walk back.
___________________________________________________________________________________

"K, the next time we run into this guy and I have to beat him unconscious, remind me to finish him off," Ranma muttered as he stomped up the path to the Shisou compound, Rayden's limp arms draped over one side, and his limp legs hanging off the other. "I mean, seriously. Guy's way too much trouble."
The metadragon sweatdropped as he waddled behind Ranma, on the ground. Not his favorite method of transportation, but he recognized that he weighed a good twenty or thirty pounds himself, and didn't want to be the straw that broke the Ninja's back. "In all fairness, he just seems to have a bad habit of getting into fights. First in the Amazon village, then those grend hunters, then the dryad, then the other dryads, then the Phoenix, and... well, here we are." K frowned. "I mean, we haven't seen him do anything really EVIL yet."
"He looked about ready to kill Kim," Ranma noted, rounding the last corner before the Shisou main compound.
K looked at him curiously. "So?"
Ranma just sweatdropped. He could see the metadragon's point, but... "Look, it's a human thing. Some of us think it's wrong to kill a human unless you have a really good reason. And someone swindling you out of a bar tab isn't a good reason."
"But... it's KIM," K reasoned. "He's an idiot."
"Stupidity isn't a good reason to kill someone, either," Ranma said evenly, "though some would argue that it should be."
The metadragon frowned. "Okay... but don't humans have a long history of warring with each other?"
"Look, don't argue with me, okay?!" Ranma said, obviously agitated. "I'M the expert on humans here! And killing an innocent human is wrong!"
K nodded, accepting Ranma's explanation despite his unwillingness to indulge his questions. "Okay... so does that mean killing innocent non-humans is okay, then?"
"Technically, no," the pigtailed man admitted, "although it is a helluva lot easier on the conscience."
After a short while longer, they had reached the main building of the Shisou, and Ranma finally dumped Rayden on the ground, trying to catch his breath.
K frowned. He hadn't been distracted with a load, and had thus been observing his surroundings the whole time. "Hey, Ranma? Does it seem... a little cold to you?"
Ranma blinked, then shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. No big deal though." Unusual weather patterns were hardly on the top of his list of things to deal with right now.
Then he took a good look at the building he was facing, and noticed that the door and outer walls had frost on them. "Oh."
"There's no way that's natural ice," K said nervously, stretching out his limited magical senses at the same time Ranma deployed his own ki-based ones.
After a bare moment, they came up with the same result.
"Oh, crap."
___________________________________________________________________________________

"Now zen, little girl, vy don't ve stop vasting time. You zink I like zlaughtering you veak mortals?" Leia grinned as she beheld the Ninja girl standing shakily before her. "I haf... questions. And I'm no longer hungry. Ve can vork zis out, yes?"
"I will tell you NOTHING," Natalie swore, her voice almost cracking as she held her kodachi at the ready. All around her laid the corpses of her former trainees and not a few of the Shisou's full-fledged Ninjas as well. Many were impaled on huge blades and spikes of ice, others had been sliced apart cleanly, while others still had been frozen solid in place, looking as if they had been taken by the shell of ice in the middle of some defensive action.
The most disturbing thing for the young woman, of course, was that several of the corpses were missing limbs, and the human-looking fiend in front of her had partially frozen blood around her mouth and dribbling down her chin.
Leia shrugged, her grin lessoning to a smirk. "Very vell, I have plenty of time, and I can torture you at my leizure. But first... ze knife haz to go."
Merely waving her hand, Leia caused several small blue motes of light to appear around the withdrawn blade. Within a split second of forming, each individual spark shot toward the blade of the weapon, causing frost to instantly coat the edge.
Natalie gasped and quickly dropped the blade, grasping her weapon hand against her chest in an attempt to warm it. In the bare moment it had taken her to drop her weapon, her fingers had turned an almost pure white from the sudden drainage of heat, and she had freeze burns on the sections of skin that were actually grasping the hilt.
*K-shak!* The kodachi, dropped as it was still suffering a sudden extreme drop in temperature, shattered instantly upon hitting the ground.
"Now..." Leia grinned even wider than before, revealing perfectly human-looking teeth that slowly shifted into long, red-stained spikes before the frightened girl's very eyes. "... It eez time ve had a CHAT."
"I hope you can talk in your sleep, then," a voice said from behind Leia, right before Ranma's roundhouse kick impacted solidly with the side of her head.
The strike, by all rights, should have caused serious damage to her cranium and knocked her into and through the adjacent wall, all the while causing her to plow through several of her own ice formations.
Instead, Leia gasped in surprise as her body flew through the air, and then quickly decelerated while still airborne, coming to a dead stop in mid-air right before hitting one of her own ice spikes.
Ranma sweatdropped. "Tougher than she looks. Of course." The attack had been blunted by some sort of shield that was constantly present around the woman's body, creating a small buffer between the tight bodysuit she wore and any incoming attack, and Ranma could tell by the significant chill in his foot that it had other effects.
"R-RANMA!! We have to get out of here!" Natalie screamed, dashing up to him and grabbing the pigtailed man's arm.
Leia would have no such thing happen, and she thrust her palm out, holding it in the air as a blue glow encompassed her hand.
A sharp noise alerted Natalie, K, and Ranma to a thick wall of ice spontaneously forming over the nearest exit.
Leia grinned, though it was a very angry kind of grin that gave Ranma the impression that she was contemplating pleasure rather than experiencing it. "Zo... you are ze mortal keeper. I zee you haf ze artifact. And my brozer dragon."
Ranma blinked, and fought the urge to scratch his head (he had to keep both hands free for a defensive action). "Okay, what? What's this all about?"
Leia flexed her hands as she focused energy on making the bruise on her face heal. She was going to greatly enjoy completing her mission, and didn't want the light throbbing on the side of her head to blemish the experience.
"Ze demon lord Dashtall Greken zends his greetings, human zcum! You vill die for your theft of my mazter's property!"
"What property?!" Ranma shouted, taking up his defensive stance and grasping his sword. Unarmed attacks might not work, but seeing how the woman's energy shield only blunted the force behind attacks rather than stopping them completely, a sword would work much better toward harming her.
"Ze glove. And ze metadragon." Leia said simply, before gazing fondly at K. "Do not vorry, brozer. You vill soon know ze bliss that I do under Lord Greken's care."
K shuddered in revulsion, and glared at her. "Go suck an ice cube, snow dragon. I'm not interested."
Unbeknownst to K and the bristling Leia, Ranma's pigtail suddenly stuck straight out. Surprisingly, he managed to avoid any other indication of surprise. 'Snow... DRAGON?'
"You can be forgiven for your ignorance," Leia said, her anger boiling to the surface and mostly sharpening the lazy drawl that usually made up her Japanese, "you are young, and you know nothing yet of our master. You are coming vith me, and your human vill die."
K just snorted. He had no idea what had happened to this casually cruel, short-tempered snow dragon to ever make her so subservient to a creature not of her own species, but he wanted no part of it. "There's no point in talking about this. Go get 'er, Ranma!" He was actually quite surprised that Ranma hadn't already butted in when she had implied that Ranma had belonged to him.
"... K?" Ranma asked hesitantly. "When you say 'snow dragon', you mean... you know... snow DRAGON dragon, right? Like you, but bigger?"
K blinked. "Yeah. She's a dragon. She's just in her human form now."
Ranma lowered his head and shook it back and forth, an action that confused all others currently in the room. "I get it. Okay, fine. Natalie, get behind me, please."
The trainee did so hesitantly, more than afraid of what was going to occur soon.
Ranma shifted into a sideways stance, and let his aura burn tightly around him, easily entering the visible spectrum.
Leia seemed neither surprised nor impressed by the spectacle, and pulled her arms in as her own aura, augmented by her innate and trained magic abilities, came to bear. The room temperature immediately dropped at least thirty degrees, and four volleyball-sized spheres of mana coalesced into existence around her, forming spell patterns automatically within them.
Ranma smirked slightly. No way was he going to let her get first strike. "Let's see you deal with this!" Suddenly his aura burst, and Leia's eyes narrowed as she raised another shield in front of her. "SAOTOME ANYTHING-GOES SECRET TECHNIQUE!! FAST BREAK!!"

The sound of cracking ice was the only noise that remained in the office's main lobby, aside from the almost imperceptible hum coming from Leia's spell spheres. For several moments, one could even hear a weak cricket chirp a few times from just outside the formerly-blocked entryway, right before its body succumbed to the numbing cold and it died amongst the frost.
Leia's mind was in turmoil. Complete turmoil. Realistically, turmoil wasn't nearly descriptive enough. Trying to understand what was running through her mind at that very moment would have yielded about the same kinds of results as violently electrocuting a sleeping man and then asking him what had happened the moment you turned off the electrodes. A sharp, complex tactical mind tried its hardest to analyze Ranma's departure as some sort of ultra-complicated Ninja technique that would end with many blades coming at her, while at the same time her natural draconic arrogance and prejudiced disdain for humans tried to throw caution to the wind and pursue the fool, all while her higher senses were grasping desperately for some trace of the target she had essentially been just a gesture away from destroying a moment ago. The other mental faculties opted to stay out of it, watching with bleak helplessness as the struggling logic centers slowly drowned themselves in anger.
Hardly the best solution to mental gridlock, but it got the job done.
"He dies slow..." Her eyes glowed a bright blue, and her aura flared even brighter. Needlessly, she expended the power of her spell spheres.
___________________________________________________________________________________

Ranma observed with no small amount of trepidation that the whole of the Shisou primary compound had become one huge, jagged icicle jutting up from the ground. He didn't expect anything less after his escape, but the reaction didn't make him feel any better.
"What are you doing?!" K asked irritably. Ranma had been so quick to grab him and Natalie that he hadn't had time to put either in any comfortable position for being pulled along with him through a relatively strong ice wall at speeds neither of them could hope to reach alone. In K's case, Ranma had resorted to holding onto his neck, and while the wanderer's grip didn't even begin to irritate K's metallic hide, the drag created by his body trailing along behind his head had done the job easily.
Natalie looked to be in slightly better shape; Ranma had gotten a better hold around her, though he didn't seem to notice yet that he was gripping one of her breasts. Overall, the girl could hardly complain though, and there were far more important matters to see to.
"Why're you running away?! If you needed me and Miss Ninja to get back, you didn't have to go yanking on us!"
Natalie flushed, but remained quiet. She was actually more than grateful that she had been hauled out of there, but still felt that this conversation was a tad beyond her.
"Why am I running away?!" Ranma said, looking at K as though the metadragon were truly stupid. "Why do you think?! She's a dragon! A REAL FREAKIN' DRAGON!!"
K stared at him. "So? You could've taken her!"
*Slap!* Ranma groaned and massaged his head. "Is there something wrong with you?! For your information, Mister Monster Library Lizard, dragons bigger than you are just slightly out of my league."
K looked at Ranma as if he had just noticed that he was standing next to a total stranger. Ranma grimaced.
"K, look. Certain monsters and demons rank quite clearly on the wanderers' general 'Do NOT Screw With!' list. They include, but are not limited to: Greater undead, mind flayers, beholders, dragons, gorgons, blood angels, psilors, espers, and anything with the word 'God' associated with it! We're not talking beefed-up killing machines, here; we're talking beings of insane magic ability who can kill scores of people while sitting down!"
The metadragon, for all his complete understanding of what Ranma was saying, was nonetheless flabbergasted. "But... I mean... before, with the psuedo-dragons..."
"They were psuedo-dragons," Ranma explained calmly. "Psuedo. Not the real thing. Stupid, overgrown reptiles with no unusual abilities beyond tunneling underground really fast and breathing fire. Full-fledged dragons aren't even CLOSE! Hell, you should know that better than anyone!" By now the pigtailed man had set Natalie down, even if he hadn't noticed where he had grabbed her. She kept her peace, though.
"Well... but..." K struggled to collect his thoughts, even as it dawned on him that this conflict wasn't going to be as simple as him sitting back and watching Ranma show off. "You said you killed a dragon before! It killed your friends! That's why you hate dragons!"
Ranma snorted. "Yeah, I've killed a dragon before. With a squad of other mercenaries. AND heavy weapons. AND the element of surprise. You just don't mess with these kinds of creatures unless you have backup and you know exactly what you're getting into!" He looked away, arms crossed over his chest. "And for the record, I don't dislike dragons because one ate some of my friends. I've lost people I've known to almost every species of monster and mystic. But that's what I tell people when they ask why I don't like dragons."
K blinked. "Then what's the real reason?"
"It's not important right now, that's what it is," the pigtailed man snapped. "Look, most of the trainees and graduates were either out training in the field or out in town, so the people killed in the building represent a pretty small portion of the people that'll eventually be coming here to check things out."
He turned toward Natalie. The girl was scared, obviously, but behind the fear was a much stronger desire to help, for fear that many more of her friends and companions could die. The female Ninja stood at attention, and swallowed nervously. "Wh-What do you want me to d-do?"
Ranma couldn't help but smile a little. The massacre he had seen inside the office lobby wasn't the sort of thing most people could have walked away from with much determination and confidence left. "Natalie, I want you to find all the Ninja you can, preferably the higher-ranking ones, and keep them AWAY from here at all costs. None of them can beat this thing. Hell, Master Matsute himself would be just barely enough of a threat to it to warrant actual attention while being wiped out. We're talking serious magic power with serious constitution to shrug off an attack. Got it?"
"What are you going to do?" The female trainee asked. She was a little more than worried for the Shisou's latest prodigy. Not only was he the target of the assault, but he seemed the type to go and get himself killed to save everyone else if he had to.
"I'll try and get her attention and lead her away from the city," Ranma said, confirming Natalie's fears.
"Ranma, there's no way!" K insisted, "If you can't beat her, there's no way you'll last running away from her! Especially not once you leave the city!"
"I'll worry about that WHEN and IF I get that far. Priority one is luring that freak away before she decides to butcher some more Ninja out of spite." Ranma said firmly. His tone spoke of one who knew what he was doing, but who knew he was brushing it too close.
Natalie grabbed his arm. "Ranma, don't! Please! We can get everyone away without you acting as a distraction! Don't go out there!"
"Not gonna happen," the pigtailed man said firmly, looking away. "She's after me. And if typical 'evil dragon' tactics hold true, then she's gonna start a massacre as soon as she decides it'll bring me out quicker than a search. I can't let that happen."
A few tears slid down Natalie's face, but she remained mostly calm as she sorted through the situation. "I... I'll do as you ask, then."
To Ranma's surprise, instead of rushing off to follow his instructions, the Ninja girl grabbed him and pulled him down into a deep liplock, grasping the back of his head as she invaded his mouth with her tongue.
K raised the little ridge of metal that served as an eyebrow for him, and smirked as Ranma twitched helplessly, caught completely off-guard.
Natalie finally broke the kiss, and held the sides of Ranma's head with her hands as she looked into his eyes imploringly. "Please... don't die. I saw David among the people on the main floor, and... I don't think I can stand losing another friend today." She smiled sadly as a few tears ran down her cheeks, and had Ranma not been busy regaining higher brain functions, he would have felt compelled to hug her reassuringly.
Nevertheless, Natalie turned away with determination and leapt toward the wall of a single-story building that had been a convenience store at some point in the past, grasping the edge of the structure before flipping herself up on top.
"Well, this is all quite nice and overdramatic. You have some kind of plan?" K said, idly poking Ranma with his wing.
"No, not really," Ranma said immediately, surprising K with his recovery from the unexpected burst of affection.
'I guess he's used to it,' the metadragon thought. "So what're we gonna do?"
"What are the chances of you being able to talk some sense into her?" Ranma asked, not really holding much hope for that approach. Diplomacy and negotiation weren't his preferred methods of dealing with problems, and in fact seemed to have a much higher rate of failure than usual simply because of his presence.
"Not bloody likely," K snorted. "Something's wrong with her. I've never seen or heard of a dragon so enraptured by servitude. EVER. She's so into it that she expects me to jump at the chance to join her. Negotiation is out."
Ranma sighed. "I thought as much. Anything you can tell me about snow dragons in general?"
"Well, I'm sure you've noticed the affinity for cold magic by now," K drawled, "but actually, snow dragons are considered weaker than ice and storm dragons because they're physically inferior."
Ranma immediately perked up at that. Physical weakness was good.
"However, that's just among dragons, who have a very high resistance to magic. To most other creatures, a snow dragon's greater control and mastery of elemental spells and manipulation make them deadlier than the physically stronger species."
Ranma's hope died a very painful death, and his left eyebrow twitched miserably.
"One of the more interesting abilities they have is the ability to create a very sudden and severe drop in temperature at a single point within their field of vision, which can freeze enemies almost instantly from the inside, unless they have proper resistances. Not very useful against armies or anything because of the concentration involved, but, well... I guess it's something you should look out for."
Ranma twitched some more. "This... is very bad..."
"Uh..." K sweatdropped. "Well, their weakness is severe heat. That's good for you, right?"
Judging by the man's grimace, he didn't think much of the advantage.
'Master Rakkyo, you old bastard,' Ranma thought, looking up the Heavens as he prepared himself to move out, 'if there was ever a time I needed your art's strength, this is it! I swear to every deity I've ever heard of, if your stupid techniques don't get me through this alive, I'll come back and haunt you for the rest of my afterlife!'
___________________________________________________________________________________

Far away, in a small cave in Mongolia, a man that looked to be in his early thirties suddenly sneezed, wiped his nose, and then quickly went back to romancing the young woman sitting across from him in his hot tub.
___________________________________________________________________________________

*Crack!* *K-SHOOM!!*
The wall of sheer ice that covered the Shisou's main base exploded outward, sending cold shrapnel flying across the street to shatter against the other buildings that made up the local ruins.
Within moments Leia stomped out of the office tower she had just frozen, absolutely livid with rage. Not only had the human angered her with his impudence and insulted her by employing such a simple trick, but because of her outburst she had expended a great deal more energy than she should have while maintaining her human form. And to top it all off, she couldn't detect the damn human! Her magic senses, which were capable of acting as a form of relatively accurate "life radar" seemed strangely ineffective toward locating the more experienced of the human Ninja, and her more basic, raw mana senses were being thrown completely off kilter for some reason.
Had she not been so upset at being duped, she would have thought to search for K's life energy instead, which would have been absurdly easy. But at the moment, she had become far more interested in what was disrupting her lower senses, and quickly located the source of the disturbance.
A large man, looking to be in his early twenties, and appearing to be completely human, slowly got up off the frozen ground before her, grimacing and holding a hand over his stomach. He was clearly wounded, as the area of his coat he was clutching was dark with fresh blood, and had another cut and several burns besides.
As the man began to stretch to relieve some of the tension in his body, Leia pinpointed the source of the disturbance as being the sword strapped to the man's back. Dark mana gushed from the weapon like water from a broken hydrant, except that the power was being somehow contained within a powerful seal or bubble that prevented any significant release of the energy. That explained why she hadn't even noticed the magical signature until now.
A second glance at the swordsman, who still hadn't noticed her or his current environment, revealed another fun fact. "You... You're not human!"
Rayden turned around, and blinked as he beheld a thin, blue-haired woman. "You're not human either!" He countered, pointing at her. He wasn't sure why the accusation was relevant, but it only seemed fair after she had said the same thing to him.
Leia ignored his comment. "Tell me where ze human went! Ze one vith ze black glove and ze metadragon! Vhere did he go?!"
The demon hunter frowned, recognizing the description immediately. Then he scratched his chin and stared down at the ground in deep concentration.
"Hmmmmm.................." suddenly his head jerked up, and he snapped his fingers. "Ah! That's right!" He turned back toward the disguised dragon. "I was unconscious up until now, so I don't know!"
*SHNG!* "Gwah!" Rayden doubled over in agony as Leia promptly rammed a large icicle into the open wound in his stomach, the point bursting out his backside in a spray of blood and gore.
"Not... again... twice... last hour... oy..." The swordsman fell to the ground twitching, and reflected upon the unfairness of having his earlier impalement wound torn open again. It certainly didn't help that the icicle spike used was much greater in volume than the katana that had stabbed him before. Using the sword wound as an easy entry point, the attack had done all sorts of very bad things to his precious organs.
Leia walked right past the demon hunter, giving full attention to her magic-enhanced senses. She had contemplated stealing the man's sword, but the power inherent in the blade was making her wary of making contact without preparatory spells and safeguards in case the weapon was cursed. And as those spells took some time and preparations themselves, she decided to put the weapon aside for now and concentrate on her primary objective. Her master would not be pleased if she were to fail her mission and bring him a cursed sword as recompense.

Stalking irritably down the street, the snow dragon continued her magical scan, and continued to fail to pick up any trace of Ranma.
Stretching her senses out further, she noted several small groups of humans on the outlying area of the ruins, clustered together and moving into the forest. Judging by the movement and size of the group...
Leia grinned maliciously. Trying to evacuate people, were they? 'The human seems like one of those corny hero types... a little, anyway. Maybe he'll come out if I spill a little more blood. Expelling all that energy HAS made me hungry again...'
Floating up off the street, she momentarily debated whether or not to switch to her dragon form, but decided against it. It was fairly impossible to hide as a massive, floating, sixty-foot snake, and it might intimidate her target into cutting his losses and running. Well... running some more.
"Hey, sno-cone breath!"
Leia blinked as she heard the metadragon's high-pitched voice from atop one of the buildings to her side, and she turned.
"Huh. Zo you abandoned ze human? Smart creature," she deadpanned. If the dragon was giving himself to try and save his human, or some nonsense like that, then he was in for a severe disappointment. She was told quite clearly that the mortal's death and the recovery of the gauntlet was top priority; recovering the stolen dragon was just an extra bonus that would be sure to bring her favor among Dashtall's servants.
K snorted. "Hardly. Listen up, you sycophant: I don't know what this 'Greken' dweeb means to you, but I'm not being carted off to be some demon lord's slave, you got that?!"
The snow dragon smirked. "Oh, come now. Eez it zlavery if you chooze to zerve him?"
"I'm choosing NOT to, you dip!" K said angrily. "Now go away! You're not wanted here!"
Leia simply shook her head sadly and stuck a palm out at K, manipulating the flows of moisture in the air and preparing a spell pattern to flash-freeze them into a shell around her bounty.
She never got the opportunity, as her honed senses suddenly detected a powerful heat source dashing toward her back, seemingly having appeared out of thin air. Reflexively she attempted to dodge to the side, too surprised to attempt a shield or proper defense.
*Kshk!* *Thwoom!* streams of flame curled around the dragon as the ki-enhanced katana pierced her body, barely missing the heart due to her last-second movement.
Ranma drove his sword down to its hilt as the snow dragon screamed in shock and agony, allowing his blazing claw technique to expend the last of his built-up ki.
He clicked his tongue as he realized that he had missed the key vitals. Not that he was expecting it to be that easy. "You know, you really should do something about guarding your back. As you are now, you might as well just stick a sign there that says 'attack here'."
Still speaking calmly, as if wasn't jabbing his weapon into a creature who overpowered him by leaps and bounds, he gripped the katana firmly and then twisted it while Leia was still impaled, eliciting a gargled scream from the wounded snow dragon.
Rearing back a hand to strike, Ranma hesitated on the attack once he saw that his katana had suddenly collected a thick frost over its edge that was quickly solidifying into a thick coating of solid ice. He didn't feel anything, because his left hand wasn't touching the weapon, and his right one was protected by the mysterious gauntlet. Nevertheless, Ranma quickly released his grip on the handle and leapt away...
Or tried to. As it turned out, while the gauntlet still seemed to be indestructible, apparently there was nothing keeping the moisture on the glove from freezing and sticking to the sword handle.
"Well, crap." *Thwack!* Leia's backhand easily broke the bond between sword and glove through the sheer power behind it, and Ranma flew across the street and into an adjacent building, smashing into it with enough force to leave a deep impact crater in the concrete wall.
Leia looked distastefully at the sword poking through her chest, and, seeing how the blade hadn't contracted deeply enough to break apart on its own from the cold, quickly decided on a method to deal with the wound. Not her favorite way to handle damage control, but the sword was obviously magical, and it was already frozen to her body anyway. No sense in taking pointless risks.
K, who was observing from above, blinked as ice spread slightly further around the impalement wound in Leia's chest, leaving a thick coat of ice atop the plain black bodysuit she wore. On one side of the wound, the ice continued spreading, moving to the right side of her torso and merging under her arm.
K's eyes bugged out of his head as the snow dragon suddenly ripped the mass of ice right out of her body, sword and all, leaving a gaping hole in her torso covered in frozen shards of blood and bone.
A thin, vein-covered layer of skin immediately covered the jagged, icy exposed area, and quickly began to expand and thicken as the internals unfroze and began to regenerate themselves.
"Now that's just unfair," Ranma mumbled, idly dusting dirt and debris off his side. 'I really AM the only person who can't get right back up after being impaled!'
"Life izn't fair," Leia snarled, "but you von't haf zat problem for much longer!" She stuck her palm out toward the wanderer, and her eyes narrowed as she concentrated.
Ranma grimaced as small motes of lights appeared around his legs, darting into his body and disappearing in small flashes of light as they drained the heat from his body. "Not... good!"
K took action, jumping off of his perch and dive-bombing Leia at terminal speed. With all his meager power, he knew all he could do was distract her (since she didn't have any metal on her for him to steal and eat), but that was all that was required to break the attack upon Ranma.
*Thwap!* K failed spectacularly in his self-assigned mission, slamming beak-first into an invisible barrier of ice that Leia had thought to set up after being assaulted from behind twice in a row. He painfully slid down the face of it, and eventually landed on the ground, mostly unnoticed.
Lei grinned as her foe fell down to his knees, her attacking already having moved past his legs and up toward his waist. She ignored the fact that her ability was responding slightly differently than usual - the lights were bursting instead of simply disappearing into the body - as using it on a living being rather than an inanimate object always yielded less predictable results.
Ranma grit his teeth as his body continued being assaulted by crippling cold, his body heat being swiftly sucked right out of his body. 'Just a little more...'
"It'z really a shame I don't haf a more painful vay to execute you at my disposal. Ice magic eez ZO limited in itz ability to inflict zuffering." The snow dragon grinned cruelly as she finished draining around Ranma's chest, and thus his heart and lungs.
'That's it...' Ranma thought, his consciousness shaky as he felt the massive strain on his ki reserves. 'Just keep yapping...'
Leia had FINALLY noticed, at this point, that while Ranma's body had been drained up to his neck, his body wasn't showing many of the signs of having the heat sucked out of your flesh almost to the point of absolute zero. The wanderer was on his knees, for one thing, rather than lying insensate on the ground. His body was covered in thick frost from the freezing moisture, but hadn't cracked itself and broken apart, which was usually the effect from having the body's liquids freeze and expand while the rest of the tissue contracted normally. And most odd of all... he just exhaled. 'Didn't I just freeze his lungs? Odd... oh well. I'll just spend some extra time on his head.'
Her curiosity turned to surprise when Ranma slowly stood up, shivering as frost and liquefied gases clung to his body. "Wh-What? What's going on here?!" Leia growled as she forced more power into draining Ranma's body of heat. How was this possible? Creatures that had a suitable resistance to magic to survive her attack didn't just survive her attack; in such a case the ability failed, leaving the target unscathed. In this case, her attack had succeeded, but the target had inexplicably survived. But that was only possible in creatures like fire elementals, or salamanders, because they their bodies generated enough heat to... Leia's eyes widened.
Ranma coughed up the last of the air in his lungs to clear his mouth, and then sucked in a breath of cold, but gaseous, air. "Ch-Chemistry 101 f-freak..." his face twisted into a pained smirk. "Liquid o-oxygen... plus f-fire... equals..." Without another word, Ranma thrust his hands forward and released control of his aura, channeling his ki flames forward through the liquid gases covering him and into the heat vacuum left behind by Leia's draining technique.
*BWOOM!!* The snow dragon panicked and put more power into her shields as flame exploded around Ranma, immediately snaking around his body and seeping into a red-hot ki beam that blasted straight toward her.
Leia screamed as the firebolt pounded against her shield, which had been sloppily erected and hastily reinforced. Almost immediately, huge cracks branched out from the impact point of the beam, and a loud shattering noise was drowned out by the roaring flames as they broke past the shattered pieces of the dragon's defenses, engulfing Leia in a storm of fire.

Ranma finally stopped channeling his energy into the ki bolt, not because he was anywhere close to out of energy, but because it was getting too damned HOT!
The moment he stopped engulfing his body in superheated ki, his eyes widened and he fell down to his knees, biting his tongue to keep from crying out.
His fire aura had been tightly contained within his body such that he could have survived Leia's heat-draining attack. This had succeeded in keeping his body interior warm enough that it didn't suffer any real damage. Likewise, the same aura protected him when he had ignited his ki to its full power, preventing significant damage even while the fireball that had consumed him reached and passed the kinds of temperatures he could safely generate.
And while his abilities had done an EXCELLENT job of preventing any actual damage to his body, and actually had even protected his clothes from being burnt right off, having your skin subjected to life-threatening cold followed by life-ending heat hurt like you wouldn't believe.
"Never - *Gasp!* - gonna do that - *Gasp!* - again!" Looking down at himself, Ranma noticed that somehow, flash-frying his skin had resulted in an usually fine tan, rather than his body turning red as cherry from burns. Odd.
"I'll bet I just tripled my chances for skin cancer," Ranma mumbled irritably, getting up as he managed to push the stinging agony to the back of his mind. Then he noticed the flames surrounding Leia's position as they quickly began to die, yielding to a powerful blue aura that swallowed up the heat. "Of course, death from some possibly curable condition twenty or thirty years down the road isn't looking that bad right now..."
Leia got up slowly, the flames ebbing away as the air around her chilled.
Her bodysuit had been completely burned away, though her heavily burned and severely damaged body only provided a distraction at this point if one were of a weak stomach. The wounds were regenerating though, if not at a much slower rate than before.
The snow dragon didn't speak. She offered no taunts, warnings, or angry promises of retribution. She raised her arms up, and allowed twin streams of death to pour from her hands in the form of two thick beams of pure cold.
Ranma wasn't about to be caught flat-footed by such a brutal frontal assault, and leapt away toward the adjacent building as huge blossoms of icicle spikes exploded out of the ground below him, where the beams impacted.
'Well, I got her nice and mad. She's hurting though, I can tell. Even with the regeneration.' He grimaced as Leia fanned her hand to the side, and he began running horizontally across the wall of the building he had jumped toward as projectile icicles homed in on him, each one missing by only a few feet and smashing into the concrete.
Leia hastily erected another barrier, and then a blue circle drew itself around her in the air, slowly rotating in a position parallel to the ground.
"Lonely hearts buried beneaz cold earz, rize up und pierce ze living vith your mizery! Suin splinter!"
Ranma finally jumped off of the building he had been running on, having determined the locale relatively unsafe as huge tendrils composed of writhing, fluid ice burst from the ground and stabbed into the structure, wrapping around it and growing upward like monster vines. Sailing across the street, he touched the side of the building opposite his previous perch and latched onto a windowsill, trying to determine the best vector for attack that wouldn't end with his intestines wrapped around a stalagmite.
'I've done some serious damage to her because I was able to surprise her before... but now what?! I can't even get my sword back without an extra thirty pounds of frozen meat attached to it!' Ranma was running out of tricks, and he knew it. He had managed to utilize Leia's arrogance with better results than he had hoped for, but now the draconian witch had finally buckled down and decided to take him seriously.
He grimaced as he saw her summon several light-blue spheres that floated around her head.
"Furies of old, hear my plea..." Leia chanted. Let the vile human run. The more he delayed the inevitable, the more time she'd have to heal her wounds. And when she could concentrate her full energies to the attack again... "drain the life of mortal, take the soul of-"
*BWEEOOO!!*
Ranma's eyes bugged out as a thick black beam of energy appeared out of nowhere and smashed into Leia's back, sweeping her along and continuing, uninterrupted, until it met with the very building Ranma was hanging on to.
*KA-KROOM!!* The beam detonated, with Leia at the head of it, at the base of the former hotel, and Ranma winced as a sphere of dark lightning expanded outward violently from the detonation point, tearing through cement and rending steel in its wake.
The sphere stopped expanding roughly twenty feet from the point of impact, and Ranma jumped from his perch as he felt the building tremble uncertainly from the sudden stress to its substructure.

Landing a good distance away from the crater (and the either dead or extremely pissed off snow dragon), Ranma made a dash for his katana as he located the source of the energy blast.
"What? You're awake already?" The pigtailed man said, grasping the handle of his blade and shaking it to determine how well the chunk of Leia's torso was attached.
Rayden stood in an alleyway, leaning on a wall and breathing heavily as he held his left palm out, his entire hand smoking and crackling with excess energy released from the attack. "What the hell'd you do to get hunted down by a DRAGON, kid?"
"Apparently I stole some stuff. I dunno." *Whok!* *Whok!* *Whok!* He beat at the frozen mass for a moment, and then held the katana against the ground with his foot as he pulled at the handle. "People are always out to kill me for one reason or another." He frowned as he looked Rayden over. Apparently the fool had hurt himself since their fight; the hole in his stomach was much more apparent, and everything below it was stained with longs streaks of blood and dirt. The lower part of his coat must have been completely soaked a deep red.
"Well, I wish you'd leave ME out of it!" K shouted, alerting the two demon hunters to his whereabouts among the scorched crater from Ranma's attack. "Bad enough I get blasted with fire, but that stupid dark beam almost took my friggin' head off!"
Rayden would have argued that he should've expected as much being in a battle zone, and Ranma would have argued that K was only subjected to attempted assassinations because he had insisted on coming with him, but both fighters were alerted to the active aura being emitted from the impact point of Rayden's energy blast.
Leia stalked out of the impact crater, smoke wafting from her body, and aura burning so brightly it actually flickered red among the mighty haze of bright blue.
That last attack had hurt. Significantly. That energy beam had been pure grade "A" dark magic, the kind that excelled wonderfully at inflicting that special kind of nasty pain, suffering, and ultimate demise, and had she not had such a high resistance to magic, she would have been toast, pure and simple. The minor ice shield had helped cushion the blow... but only barely.
The human, though... THAT one had to die. And she would've insisted his death be horrendously slow and intensely painful, in front of his family and loved ones (or perhaps kill them first, in front of him?), had she the luxury of taking him alive. Not only did her normal magic resistance offer no protection against the strange, apparently non-magical flames that came from his body, and that last attack had hurt like HELL, by the way, but he continued to elude her attacks and trick her into lowering her guard. And now, he had made her so incoherent with rage that she had considerable difficulty forming a simple strategy to deal with him. Oh, yes. There would be much pain, hurting, and gnashing of teeth before night fell.
"Die..." she mumbled, forming a sphere of blue mana in her hand.
"Die!" She shouted, releasing the sphere into the air.
"DIIIIIIIIIIE!!!" She screamed, shoving both her palms forward. A huge ice beam, similar to the other ones she had fired but with roughly twice the radius, burst forth from the spell sphere, plowing through the air with an audible rumble and streaking right for the two adventurers.
Ranma was about to dodge, when he noticed Rayden smirk and jump forward, slashing his sword into the beam.
"GO BACK TO YOUR NEST, SERPENT WITCH!!" The dark paladin shouted, allowing the huge ice beam to strike his sword's edge head-on. *SHWOOOM!*
To Ranma's shock, the ice beam immediately split off wildly when it touched the sword, and the energy that passed over it and around Rayden's body quickly dissipated into nothing, first losing its kinetic energy, then any sign of its elemental properties, and finally fading away as if it had never been. After a few moments, the entire spell had expended itself, and when the light had cleared, Rayden stood at attention, smirking, with no sign that the huge beam had ever been expelled.
Rayden laughed. "Not so tough now, are ya? Think you're something, walking up to me and cramming a big ol' icicle through my-"
"Shard blozzom!" Leia shouted, snapping her fingers in annoyance. A blue magic circle immediately formed and began spinning slowly under Rayden, who blinked in surprise.
*K-shang!* Ranma winced as a large cluster of razor-sharp ice spikes burst from the ground, severely tearing up Rayden's already-bloody lower body and tossing him away.
"Well, so much for double-teaming her," Ranma said miserably as he wiped some of the blood spray off his arm.
*Klang!* *K-Klang!* Rayden's greatsword clattered noisily on the sidewalk, being flung away from the much-abused dread knight.
"DEAD!! YOU'RE BOZ DEAD!!" Leia screamed semi-coherently, summoning yet ANOTHER ice shield around her body, and also forming two large ice blades, one in each hand.
Ranma's eyes widened as she charged. 'She's closing to melee? HER?! NOW?! She must have hit her head when that beam struck her!'
*Kling!* Ranma deflected her initial slash with his gauntlet, and cut toward her unprotected shoulder as soon as he got a clear opening. *Shween!* His katana's blade slice harmlessly against the shell of ice around his opponent, and he dodged as Leia's other blade came down in a vertical strike.
'She's got to be literally crazy with rage to do this up close,' Ranma thought, stabbing quickly in a series of lighting stabs that left tangible cracks in her shield. Then he ducked under another slash. 'She couldn't hope to beat me. She doesn't even look like she's used to this kind of fighting! She's a freakin' spellcaster!' Ranma was able to strike three more times before the snow dragon stabbed for his head.
Leia growled as Ranma's form seemed to split into two , parting before her attack, and shouted in surprise as both images rushed past, each one slashing at her ice shield.
By the time she had turned around, Ranma's mirror image had disappeared, and his aura was burning again.
"Blazing claw! HIYAH!!" Slashing twice with his sword, he dug two deep gouges in the shield surface before ducking under a counter-slash. Then he twisted while crouching on the ground, and thrust his leg upward in a kick right for Leia's midsection.
*Thrack!* Rather than digging into her midsection, his boot embedded itself half an inch into her ice shield, the ki flames trailing around his body digging into the frozen wall and causing cracks to appear throughout the afflicted face of the shield.
"Hmmm... not good," Ranma concluded, noting that while his ki-enhanced kick had initially melted some of the ice it came in contact with, the moisture had frozen again a split-second later, probably due to contact with the damn shield. And besides making his foot cold, it also made his foot stuck. "Dejavu. DEFINITELY not good."
Leia growled and swung the blade in her left hand forward.
Ranma quickly switched his katana out of his right hand for his left, and then grabbed the edge of the left ice sword as it came down. Thankfully, his gauntlet acted as expected and protected his hand from the blade, leaving only the force behind the blow for him to deal with
Snarling, the snow dragon tried to chop into him with the ice blade in her right hand, only to have it deftly blocked by Ranma's own sword.
Ranma sweatdropped. He was standing shakily on one leg, with the other leg implanted in Leia's shield, one hand holding her left sword, and the other hand blocking her right sword. "Uhm, hello? K? Dark, semi-evil sword guy? Think you could give me a hand, here?" 'Before this psycho remembers she can kill me with a properly worded sentence!' he added mentally.
"What am I supposed to do?!" K shouted, having retreated to a safe distance from all the violence, "I tried distracting her already, it don't work!"
"You're friends cannot help you!" Leia hissed, feeding energy into her shield with a mental command. "DIE!!"
*CRACK-Boom!* A sharp noise, like the breaking of a window, was followed by an explosion, and Ranma grunted as he was struck by a cold wave of kinetic force. At the same time, Leia's shield burst outward from the shockwave, firing ice shards in all directions with great force.
Ranma grit his teeth as his body was pummeled by the shrapnel, but took the hits easily, even as he landed on the ground and rolled. His danger sense flaring, he rolled much faster as small blue circles began to light up under him, and flipped away as bundles of icicle spikes exploded from the ground under him.
'Damn, she's serious this time! No monologues or nothing! Gotta think of a plan...'
He jumped high over a relatively slow-moving ball of blue light, and was only slightly surprised when it burst into a shotgun-style spray of icicles that devastated the already-devastated gas station behind him.
Glancing back at his opponent, he groaned as he saw her chanting again, though he blinked when he saw another barrier, this one visible, spring to life around her.
'ANOTHER shield? Yeesh! At this rate, I'll never get through to her!' Then he landed on the ground, and noticed that the demon hunter from before was crawling toward his sword, which was lying on the sidewalk nearby. 'Huh. Maybe I can surprise her again. Worth a shot.'
Without bothering to ask permission, and ignoring Rayden's startled cry, Ranma swooped in and snatched the magic sword up off the ground with his gloved hand.
"HEY!! COLD-BLOODED FREAK!!" Ranma yelled, eliciting a glare from Leia, who was trying to concentrate. 'I wonder if she really is cold-blooded... ask later! Kill now!' "LET'S SEE YOUR FANCY MAGIC SHIELD BLOCK THIS!" Ranma held the great sword back, and then flung it toward Leia, trying not to smirk as the snow dragon's eyes widened.
Leia, for her part, quickly regained her senses after the surprise of seeing a powerful, heavy magical weapon THROWN at her when it obviously wasn't meant for such use.
After a quick decision, in which she recalled the effect of the blade upon her ice beam, she lowered the shield, stepped forward, and haughtily snatched the weapon out of the air by it's handle, even though it was twirling wildly in the air.
"Sucker," Ranma said, grinning.
*GRR-ZA-ZA-ZACK!* "EGWAAAAAAUGH!!" Leia screamed and flailed about wildly as dark lightning tore into her arm, managing to stun her despite her innate resistance to magic.
Ranma licked his lips and withdrew his nighthawk, not wanting to get close enough to the maelstrom of nasty magical energies for melee combat. "Time to END this!" *Blam!* *Blam!* *Blam!* *Blam!*
Leia lurched sporadically as .50 caliber slugs ripped into her chest (her head was jerking around too much to be a worthwhile target), which shook her enough so that the shock-inducing great sword finally fell free of her paralyzed fingers.
*Blam!* *Blam!* Ranma fired his last bullet and let the spent clip fall out onto the ground, breathing heavily as he watched Leia's body convulse.
And then, the snow dragon's much-abused body started to glow white.

Her heart had been struck. Pierced by a lead bullet and torn asunder within her body. That was it. It was ON.
Really, Leia had no alternative at this point; once her human form had suffered lethal damage, her only recourse was to transform into her normal body, or go into a healing stasis. The second of those options was not only unattractive, but also severely endangered her mission objective. So it was out.

Outside her consciousness, Leia's body glowed to the point that it seemed her entire body was composed of pure light, restricted by the outline of her human body. And then that outline shifted, and the mass began to grow.

She relished in the feeling of power that overcame the transformation from human to dragon, the energies that had been available to her before finally being loosed at their full potential, like a faucet that had gone from half-closed to full blast.
Her form continued growing, and she experienced a small wrenching pain as the wound in her heart was spontaneously corrected, disrupting the energies involved in the shift. A necessary nuisance; the rest of her battle damage would be more or less reflected in her dragon form, but she could hardly transform back into a dragon while leaving her heart damaged as it was.

Leia's form stopped growing once it had reached a length of approximately sixty feet, and several large fins, like those of any common fish, began to form from panes of pure light as the dragon's snake-like main body started to fade into a state of stable flesh.

She let ecstasy overtake her as organs she had been missing and limbs that had changed began to settle into their comfortable places, allowing her mind to finally take full control of the power her true body commanded.
It did occur to her, however, that she had waited a fairly long time to transform into her dragon body, when doing so would have rendered most of the human's tricks and assaults utterly useless. Really, she couldn't even remember why she didn't do it in the first place anymore.
It might have been something complicated, like the possibility of more points of attack in the urban terrain. Or maybe she had just been wary of scaring him off, and making her presence more difficult to hide as she hunted. Not that she had done a flawless job of that otherwise.
Once her body continued its transformation, forming a huge, sixty-foot snake-like creature with smooth white skin rather than scales and beautiful fins that shone brightly in gorgeous rainbows as the sunlight streamed through them, she remembered why. Her transformation into a dragon took a good forty seconds, in which her enemy could usually get a good head-start on escaping, set up a quick trap, prepare a powerful spell, or simply stand at the ready and get ready to strike for her most vulnerable spots immediately. Considering how clever this human had proven to be in his battle tactics...
Leia suddenly became aware of a powerful heat source that was dropping toward her.
She opened her eyes to see a giant dragon's maw composed of angry flame rocket down toward her unprotected head, Ranma's form barely visible behind the fierce attack.
Unprotected head. That was the other thing about transforming. When the body shifted, it also purged all defensive spells from shifter. No shields. No protections. No defensive spells. No time to dodge, or bring a less sensitive component of her body around to block. Nothing to keep the hungry ki flames from devouring her, except for skin and bone. Tough skin and bone, granted, but...
... But as it turned out, Ranma's attack would be the last thing she saw for quite a while.

"PERFECT DRAGON FIST!!" Ranma yelled, putting every last bit of energy he could possibly channel into the single strike, ki reserves be damned. Adding to the equation the physical force of Ranma driving the punch down, along with gravity, and, well...
It was going to take more than Advil to fix this.
*KA-KROOOM!!* The ground shook as Leia's head was smashed into the concrete ground, and the upper portion of the dragon's body and Ranma alike momentarily disappeared in a massive fireball that almost rivaled the one Ranma had generated earlier.

K gaped as he watched the destruction, and swallowed nervously. "Man... if that did it, that was awesome, but if... if it didn't..." Now that Ranma had revealed that he WASN'T some invincible human of mysteriously God-like power, K had no more illusions about him surviving an attack from a snow dragon in its true form. The huge spells that could kill scores of weaker creatures, that normally took a chanting period, could be called up in half the time, and used in conjunction with other abilities simultaneously. If Ranma hadn't managed to kill her...

Lei screeched horribly, and Ranma covered his ears as he jumped back, panting badly and resisting the urge to scratch the new burns on his left arm.
The snow dragon writhed in agony, tossing her flaming head about with such senseless ferocity that she ended up slamming her head right into a nearby office building.
Rather than pull away, however, she began to rub her head into the rubble, trying to put out the fire and stop the searing agony that had been branded into her skull.
"YOU... YOU... W-WRETCH!!" Leia hissed, her long, snake-like body twisting about as if in spasm. "I CAN'T... OH, LORD GREKEN HELP ME, I CAN'T SEE!!"
She then let out another high-pitched screech, which once again caused Ranma to wince. If he didn't know any better, he would've sworn that the dragon was... was she CRYING?
'Huh. If she weren't such a monster, I might feel sorry for her.' As it was, though, Ranma could only feel proud about the suffering he had inflicted upon such a powerful creature, to have it twisting and writhing around like a pinched worm.

"Or, I guess that works too," K said, sweatdropping. He couldn't imagine the kind of pain that Leia was experiencing right now, though as it stood, he was only slightly more sympathetic than Ranma.
A shuffling noise attracted his attention, and the metadragon jerked back as watched Rayden shamble past, leaving a trail of splattered blood behind him.

"S-Sword. Give it." Rayden demanded, struggling to stand up as he approached the wildly thrashing serpent king (or queen, perhaps).
Ranma snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Oh, so now that she's almost dead, you want to come in and finish her off, huh?"
"So what?!" the dark paladin yelled, flushing a bit.
Smirking, the pigtailed man started toward the sword. "All right, you can-"
*CRASH!!* Ranma jerked to a stop as he was peppered with small debris fragments from behind, and he whirled around just as Leia's long tail whipped into him, knocking the wanderer away into the street.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!" The snow dragon swore, her bleeding, soot-covered head still trembling from the pain she felt. Despite the agony of doing so, she opened her jaw and squeezed the chemical sacs in her mouth, expelling a long, thick stream of deadly frost.
Nobody paid much attention to it, as the blast harmlessly spread over a convenience store, well away from where any of Leia's opponents were.
"Ow! What does it take to slow that freak down?!" Ranma got up off the ground irritably, feeling slightly sore but mostly drained.
Rayden growled and held out his hand. "The sword! Give me the sword! I don't know how you can hold it, but... just give it to me!"
Ranma frowned, but nodded and got up, only slightly intimidated by the series of icicle spikes that seemed to be emerging from the ground at random now. 'I guess its hard to cast a spell right when you're in that much pain and you can't see...'
Dashing forward as the snow dragon's tail whipped about aimlessly, Ranma grasped the handle and then flung the blade over to Rayden, only slightly worried as to whether the demon hunter would be able to catch it.
Rayden snatched the blade easily out of the air, more as if the sword's handle had been attracted to his palm rather than him having simply possessed that kind of dexterity.
As soon as he had the sword gripped in his hands, Rayden cracked a smile, feeling some of the pain and weakness in his horribly shredded legs fade away.
Ranma sweatdropped as he watched a shadowy aura engulf the demon hunter, occasionally complemented by an arc of black lightning coming from the sword. Of course, rather than electrocuting him, it seemed to simply bend energy around him, as if... preparing for something.
"Hmph." Rayden swung his sword back, and dark energies started to collect along the blade. "Much better... I missed this."
Rayden stepped carefully over toward the struggling snow dragon, who had finally gained the sense to try and fly away. To that end, her blackened head suddenly arched up into the air, darting for the sky with her body trailing gracefully behind her.
Naturally, Rayden would have NONE of that. "You're not going anywhere! Venom strike!" he shouted, jumping up into the air, black fire exploding around his sword's edge.

Ranma raised an eyebrow as he watched the lower one-third of Leia's body get sliced right off, falling lifelessly to the ground amid a spray of blood. He whistled. "Niiiice."
Leia herself, having lost both her eyes and her head still throbbing from the intense heat it was exposed to, was in no position to notice the loss of her lower body as anything more than a minor stinging sensation followed by a sudden drop in her total mass. At that point, understandably, she just didn't CARE. She wanted to get away. Away from this human who had tricked her again and again and managed to inflict severe, almost mortal damage to her. Then, after some much-needed rest, she would return to rip his spine out of his back and hang him with it.
She wasn't, however, so out of it that she didn't recognize when she was in even MORE trouble. Losing the lower part of her body wasn't really a big deal for her at this point, but she couldn't help but notice that wound felt different than it should have. And what did that demon call the attack he used? Venom strike? Well, no poison could hurt a dragon, unless it was specially prepared for that purpose, and even then it was iffy, but really, the attack felt more like...
'Oh no...' Leia whimpered as she crashed onto the ground just a kilometer away from where she had escaped the demon hunters. She could feel it. The energy was devouring her body, and for some reason her regeneration wasn't working. If she couldn't stop it...
'How could this happen to me?' The snow dragon thought, looking up to the sky imploringly. 'How? WHY? To be humiliated like this, to fail my Lord Greken so thoroughly...'
While most of her mind was busy drowning in self-pity, the rest went toward analyzing her wound. It was odd; most of the time that dark magics like this infected a creature, it was instantly noticeable because the energies tried to consume the soul or damage the link between body and spirit. This energy, however, was simply annihilating her body, careless of what happened to her soul. A most fortuitous circumstance, for that left a way to survive.
Leia's body began to glow softly as she mumbled the spell in draconic.
{"Light beyond fire, wind, and lightning. Power beyond the reach of darkness. Take this soul from the sea of time, and let the spirit heal the body, free from the ravages of this realm. Where time does not flow, let time heal all wounds! Stasis cocoon!"}
A bright flash of light engulfed what was left of her body, and a thick, white beam blasted upward toward the sky as the complex weavings of the spell pattern took effect.

The huge beam of light was rather easy to track among the scattered urban ruins, and it wasn't long before Ranma had found the wounded dragon, climbing mounds of rubble and scattered debris to make the best time he could.
"Hey! Hurry it up, wouldja?" He yelled back, eliciting a grumble from Rayden, who was only managing faster than a walk with the use of his sword as a walking stick (apparently that jumping slash had drained whatever minor boost he got to be able to use his torn-up legs normally; it had taken several minutes just for him to stand up again), and getting silence from K, who would have had no trouble keeping up, but preferred to hang back in case their quarry decided she was feeling good enough to take the offensive again.
Ranma turned back around and began to hop down the pile of debris he had climbed, doubtlessly left over from some building devastated on the ground floor by a powerful attack spell, deftly hopping from one jagged piece of rubble to the next. All around him, caught out the corner of his eyes, small creatures that made their home in small crevices and dark enclosures, both those natural to Earth and those not, scampered back to their homes, abandoning their own surveillance of Ranma's target.
The pigtailed wanderer blinked as he finally jumped onto the ground, which was scarred primarily by Leia's uncontrolled collision with the street. This... was not what he expected.
Leia's body, that is, her human body, lay still within the multi-faceted crystal that laid on the ground, like a perfectly sculpted oval gem with a hideously marred fire victim inside.
Leia's pelvic region looked as if it had been sheared right off across her body, leaving only the torso and its attached parts remaining. Those didn't look like they were in good shape either, sporting long, scar-ridden burns and other gaping, cauterized wounds. Her head was the worst, looking like some sort of mummy; black, shriveled, and lacking eyes.
"Well, she 'aint pretty no more," Ranma commented off-handedly, waiting for K to arrive so that he could tell him what the hell was going on here.
"Ugh. No kidding," K mumbled, flying up to land on his shoulder. "And despite that, she's STILL not dead."
"Mind telling me what this thing is?" Ranma kicked the crystal with his foot, once again ignoring the little voice in his head that told him he shouldn't mess with such things so casually. Thankfully, nothing happened, other than his foot being slightly sore. That thing was HARD!
"It's a stasis field," K said, frowning. "It's probably part of a healing spell. That crystal will protect her and halt the harmful elements, while energies inside the crystal will work to remove the elements and repair the damage. I'm guessing she's in human form because it's a much easier body to fully regenerate than her dragon form; the magic should work at the same rate in either to restore mass. So once her human body is fixed, she wakes up, and the healing will transfer over to her true form whenever she next transforms."
Ranma nodded, mostly understanding K's complex and slightly uncertain explanation. "Great. So she's going to wake up eventually feeling like new. Can't let that happen."
He turned around, and noted that Rayden was still slowly sliding down the debris mound behind them. And still trailing blood, too. He'd have to help him with that later.
"Hey! Mister Dread Knight! C'mere!"
Rayden stopped and pointed to himself for a moment in confusion. Then he reasoned that there weren't any more Third Brotherhood paladins around, and doubled his efforts to get down to the street.
"That technique you used to cut the dragon's tail off, that was the same one you used to kill that Phoenix king guy, right?" Ranma asked as Rayden finished sliding down.
The dark paladin blinked and scratched his head with his free hand. "Phoenix... king... Oh! Him! Yeah, it was the same one!"
Ranma nodded. "Okay. That kept him from regenerating and being resurrected and whatever, right?" He pointed toward Leia's healing cocoon. "Will it stop this spell from healing her?"
Rayden glanced at the crystal lying on the ground, and then shook his head. "Nah." He turned back toward Ranma. "The venom strike corrupts and destroys whatever I hit with it, and stops any normal healing and regeneration. But dedicated healing spells can stop it, and eventually fix the damage done." He shrugged. "Powerful ones, anyway. And it's only if they survive that long. But a dragon? Yeah, she'll live." Then he hefted his sword and let if rest back against his shoulder, once again returning the burden of his weight to his legs. "That is, unless you want me to finish her off."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Can you do that? This crystal looks pretty solid to me."
"Not a problem," the demon hunter insisted, "one more venom strike will cut through that like it wasn't even there." Surprisingly, to K at least, Rayden made no move to use the attack, and Ranma rubbed his chin in consideration of the idea.
"Well? What're you waiting for? Finish her off!" K said.
Rayden shrugged and started to heft his sword, when Ranma suddenly raised his hand.
"No, wait. I'm still deciding."
"What's there to decide on?!" K said incredulously, practically shouting in Ranma's ear. "She showed up, slaughtered innocent people, and tried to kill you!"
"Well sure. That's on the one hand," Ranma explained. "But I sort of have this ethical thing about killing things that can't defend themselves."
"Me too, really," Rayden said off-handedly.
K whirled around to face the demon hunter. "YOU?! You're a frickin' Dread Knight! You're supposed to be destruction incarnate! Since when did the Brotherhoods have such high moral standards?!"
"Well..." Rayden scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "It's more a personal thing, really. I mean, killing someone after they retreated and while they're asleep trying to heal up... it just isn't any fun, you know?"
*Thud!* K commenced a spectacular facefault dive from Ranma's shoulder, landing in a twitching heap of tangled metal appendages.
"FUN?!?! You call that FUN?!" K yelled accusingly, getting up and jabbing a wing at Rayden. "You have a hole in your stomach big enough for me to crawl through! Half of your legs' muscle mass is still hanging off of the ice needles back in the battlefield! You've lost more blood in the last ten minutes than I have in my entire body! You call that FUN?!"
The target of K's ranting actually stopped and thought about the question, and then sighed. "Well, not THAT much fun. I mean, getting the kill is the best part, and I didn't get to kill anything today..." K's face darkened at Rayden's downcast expression. "But even so, what's the point in killing something that's pretty much asleep?"
"How about the preservation of hundreds of innocent LIVES?!" the metadragon snapped.
Rayden shrugged. "Meh."
"Okay, shut up you two," Ranma said suddenly, distracting the two non-humans. "I have an idea." He looked down at K. "Now, on an elemental table, this spell would be considered holy magic, right?"
K blinked. "Uh... yeah. I mean, it's too powerful a healing spell to be rooted in ice magic."
"Perfect," Ranma said, earning more confused looks from K and Rayden. "And the elemental opposite of holy magic is necromancy, right?"
"Yesssss..." K drawled, wondering where Ranma was going with this. As holy and necromantic magics were each more refined forms of simple light and dark magics, the two mana types remained diametrically opposed.
"Then it should be adversely affected by necromantic energies. And the healing spell would get all screwed up, right?"
K sweatdropped. "Uhm... maybe. You'd need an actual mage to tell you that... but how are you going to harness necromancy and infuse it into the spell?"
Ranma ignored him and pointed to Rayden. "You. C'mere."
Rayden did as he was asked, though he shook his head as he approached. "I don't know how much you know about Dread Knights kid, but I don't do zombies or nothing. Actually, I don't even approve of those who do."
"Yeah, whatever," the wanderer said dismissively. "Pick up the crystal and follow me. We're taking Miss Snow White here for a walk."
___________________________________________________________________________________

Some time later, K was busy contemplating the almost casual flashes of brilliance Ranma seemed so prone to having as they walked among the tattered corpses and charred craters of the Korean demilitarized zone. During the fight, a fight that even he had though he had little chance of winning, he had managed to shock his opponent time after time and strike while her guard was down. Even against a dragon, certainly one of the smarter of the numerous creatures in the realms, and one that had attacked him without mercy or quarter, he managed to outsmart it and turn the tables on it again and again. It really was remarkable.
Especially when his ideas outside of combat were so very, very bad.
"Am I the only one who think that this is all going to go horribly wrong?" the metadragon asked irritably, riding atop Ranma's head as the pigtailed boy forged the path ahead, slicing up any zombies that wandered nearby with a casual flare that made K uneasy and made Rayden impressed.
"I think you are," Ranma said, stepping on the head of a juga upper torso that tried to crawl up on its belly to grab his legs. He put a slight twist into his foot as he drove the creature's skull down into the Earth, and smiled in satisfaction once the grasping claws fell limp, accompanied as they were by a loud cracking noise.
"Gotta agree with him," Rayden said off-handedly as he shifted the large crystal he was carrying on his shoulder slightly, "it looks like it's working." Indeed, where Leia's body could best be described as "messed up" before, it had started to take on malformations that indicated a mutation into something truly horrendous. The spine had already grown past the pelvic region and was twisting about the other bones that should have been forming legs, and skeletal fragments that one would have called ribs when properly formed stuck out of the spinale column and curved in all directions, creating a series of wicked scythes along her back. The other portions of her body seemed to still be relatively unchanged at this point in the transformation, though that was most likely because of the severe battle damage Leia had already sustained.
"I'm not ARGUING that your plan isn't doing very bad things to her healing spell, Ranma," the metadragon said in exasperation. "And I congratulate you for such an unorthodox use of mana pollution and whatnot... but even though your plan is going to work, I don't think you've fully considered what's actually going to HAPPEN."
Ranma considered this for a moment. "Okay... do YOU know what's going to happen?"
"Well, no, but-"
"Then what're you complaining about?" Ranma said dismissively, idly kicking away another zombie that got too close. "It'll probably just end up killing her, like you said we should do."
"And then it will probably RAISE her." K hissed, "or have you noticed that dead people around here have a habit of getting up and moving around?"
"A brain-dead spellcaster isn't much of a threat," Ranma reasoned, causing his draconic companion to groan weakly.
"And YOU!" K shouted, turning around to face Rayden. "What's with you? Not that I'm complaining, but why are you following Ranma's orders?"
The demon hunter frowned. "What're you talking about? I don't take orders from-"
"Shut up and put the crystal down," Ranma said suddenly, interrupting the larger man. Rayden did so immediately, and without uttering another word.
K sweatdropped, and then bent his neck around so that he could speak right in Ranma's ear. "Hey... why IS he doing whatever you say?" the metadragon whispered.
"I dunno," Ranma mumbled back quietly, "I guess 'cause I beat him up again. Doesn't really matter why." Then he cleared his throat and once again addressed the demon hunter. "Okay then; blast a big hole... uhm..." he fingered his lip as he turned and scanned the surrounding area. "Ah! Over there! Make a big crater right there!"
Rayden nodded and calmly held his hands out in front of him, palms up, at about the level of his stomach. Then, closing his eyes, he began to chant. "Shadows, gather in my hand and unleash your hatred..." Darkness seeped up from around him and into his hands, like streams of ink flowing through the air, forming a sphere of black magic that had a blue glow around it.
His eyes opened, and Ranma could see them flash red as the demon hunter threw his arms forward.
"Rune beam!"
*KA-BLAAAM!!* A continuous beam of energy, just like the one he had seen used against Leia before, lashed out from Rayden's hands and stabbed into the devastated ground, exploding into a large cloud of dust and arcs of black lightning.
Ranma didn't hesitate in walking up to the blast site, observing the results of the attack with satisfaction.
"Perfect. Now put sleeping ugly here inside."
Rayden didn't get the Walt Disney reference, but complied anyway, hauling the crystal back up, and then tossing it haphazardly into the hole.
*Thump!* After the cell landed, Ranma immediately slid down the side of the crater, landed on top of the crystal, and removed something from his pocket.
K, who had managed to keep his perch on Ranma's shoulder, blinked as Ranma took out a piece of paper and started writing on it. "Uh... hey... what're you doing?"
Ranma continued writing as he answered. "Well, I thought a little bit about what you said, and you're sort of right; she might turn into something pretty bad while stuck in the crystal. Of couse, the way I figure it, as long the spell never finishes healing her, which we can all see it won't, she'll stay trapped in the crystal. Which means she'll be frozen unless something else frees her."
K gaped as his companion, obviously impressed. "Oh... okay... then, what're you doing?" Could it be that Ranma was forging some sort of magic seal? Did he even HAVE that kind of power?
"Writing a note that says: 'Danger! Don't open!'" Ranma explained.
He ignored K as the metadragon fell face first off his shoulder.
"Let's see... I should probably write it in different languages... I've got Japanese, English, Hebrew, some skewed Spanish... hmmm... I don't know the word for 'danger' in Chinese. I guess I can just stick to 'don't open'."
Eventually, the pigtailed boy turned toward Rayden. "Hey, what languages do you know?"
The demon hunter pointed to himself in confusion, and then spoke after a moment of thought. "Well... I'm fluent in Gaerieth, Temtrodaeel, Japanese, and English... I know some tribal lycanthro speech... and I can understand Hive. Mostly."
"Great," Ranma said, not understanding half of what he had just heard, "write 'Danger! Don't open!' in as many languages as you can on this."
As he handed Rayden a pen, K got back up from his facefault, sputtering incredulously. "What is this?! You think a little handwritten note is going to stop anybody?!"
Ranma shrugged. "Well... it wouldn't stop ME, but who knows? Besides, this way whoever breaks her out can't claim they weren't warned."
K lowered his head and covered it with his wings, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"Done!" Rayden said, slapping the piece of paper across the face of the crystal. "Well... I understand Hive, but I can't read it... come to think of it, I don't even know if there IS a normal writing system for that... so I just drew some random glyphs I remember seeing the last time I was in a hive city."
"Fair enough," Ranma said, shrugging. "Throw some dirt over her and then let's get a move on."
K groaned as he realized that they were really going through with this. "Nobody EVER listens to me..." he mumbled. Naturally, he was ignored.

Ranma planted his hands on his hips as Rayden finished shoving dirt over the stasis crystal. "Hey, good work. By the way, it just occurred to me that we've fought against and alongside each other twice, and I don't know your name." He stuck out his hand in a Western greeting. "I'm Ranma Saotome: martial artist, treasure hunter, and hero-for-hire. You?"
Rayden didn't hesitate to take his hand and shake it heartily, smiling. "I'm Rayden Shikodan: Dread Knight, demon slayer, and mercenary."
Ranma nodded idly as he picked up K and started to walk away from the burial site. "Huh... no offense... well, if you TAKE offense at this kind of thing, but, you don't really strike me as a 'God of Destruction' cultist nut."
The demon hunter looked honestly surprised at this, and scratched the back of his head nervously. "I don't? I mean... well... really?"
"Nah. I mean, don't get me wrong, you have the whole 'dark power' and 'thirst for blood' thing going on. But you don't really seem... how should I put this... evil. Ill-tempered and pointlessly violent, sure, but not EVIL, ya know?"
"Oh. That." Rayden shrugged it off as he followed the pigtailed boy back through the wastes. "I don't worry about people's ideas of 'good' and 'evil', really. The whole idea is overblown as it is, really."
"Huh. You're not going to start preaching about the balance of dark and light in the universe and how morality is only a matter of who's left alive after a conflict, are you?" Ranma said.
Rayden blinked. "Uhm... well... I could... but it sounds to me like you've heard it already."
"Yeah. Keep it to yourself." The two fighters spent the rest of the walk in relative silence, with K occasionally complaining about the current state of affairs. They ignored him.
___________________________________________________________________________________

"You is certain of this?" Master Matsute said calmly, sitting cross-legged on the tatami mat in the new Shisou clan meeting room.
"There's really no other alternative," Ranma insisted, squatting before the man who had acted as his teacher for a rather short period of time. "There's no way I can stay here. Somebody's after me, and they're dangerous. If I stay, it will only put you and everyone else in more danger."
"Ranma, you not responsible for what happen here," the Ninja master insisted, not wanting to let his new prize student leave so quickly. Especially after fending off a dragon! That could earn serious reputation points for the Shisou clan!
"I know it's not my fault. Directly. But that doesn't matter." Ranma sighed and lowered his head. "So long as I stay here you're in danger of attack. I'm sure that snow dragon wasn't the only lizard this Greken jerk has hunting me."
"Then, you will not even stay for funerals of those fallen?"
Ranma nodded somberly. "If I stay long enough to attend funerals, I'm afraid I'll just end up having to attend a lot more of them."
The pigtailed boy got up, stood at attention, and then bowed down toward Matsute. "I'm not really good at saying goodbyes... but Master, I want you to know that I've learned a lot here. And I will not let your teachings go to waste."
Matsute took a long look at Ranma, then nodded slowly. "I see this. Very well. Ancient proverb say: 'Man who open mind overcome many trial and learn many skill... and eventually die anyway.'"
Ranma sweatdropped. "Thanks for the pep talk. I think I'm going to go say the rest of my goodbyes now."
Not waiting to be dismissed, Ranma straightened up and turned toward the new quarters that were being set up throughout the office building chosen to be the new Shisou headquarters.

Natalie, who had been silent throughout the whole exchange, finally spoke. "Master Matsute... do you really think he'll be okay? Being hunted by dragons... isn't it safer for him to hide out here?"
The Ninja master shook his head. "Maybe... but is not for us to decide. Man like Ranma... has fate greater than any one of us. Such man tangled in affairs of demons and dragons... who we to tempt greatest forces in realms? Is conflict beyond us. Ranma fate beyond us."
The female trainee frowned. "Fate... you think Ranma has some greater role?"
Matsute nodded. "Maybe it superstition. Maybe I just getting old. But one thing certain, Ranma fate involve many explosions we not survive easy. Ancient proverb say: 'Destiny is bitch.'"
Natalie sweatdropped. "Right... I think I'll be going now, Master," she drawled, turning toward the stairwell.
"Actually, there other ancient proverb that say-"
"GOOD NIGHT, Master!"
___________________________________________________________________________________

*Pow!* *Pow!* *Pow!* *Whump!* *Pow!*
Ranma backhanded Tad across the face, causing the unstable young man to spin around in place. Then he planted his fist solidly in Tad's gut, causing him to double over in agony.
"Now Tad, seeing how this is goodbye, I wanted to make sure you knew why I'm doing this." Ranma said conversationally, occasionally eyeing the smashed remains of Tad's latest undead spider for any signs of un-life.
"Be-Because it's the l-last time you'll g-get the ch-chance?" Tad stuttered weakly, shaking slightly from the strikes he had already suffered.
"Yes. But mostly because you're stupid and annoying, and because I don't have the ethical wherewithal to spare you from responsibility for your actions just because you're actually retarded."
Tad sniffled, though it was unclear whether it was from sorrow or pain. "I'll miss you too, buddy!"
*Thock!* "AUGH!! My spleen!"

Ranma descended the stairs with an extra spring in his step, happy enough about beating a man who had never caused him intentional harm that he had mostly forgotten about having to leave the friends he had made among the Shisou, as well as the incident that had ended with some of those same friends dead.
When he saw Natalie waiting for him outside her room, he sobered up slightly. She was one of the ones he would miss, but she was also the one life he had managed to directly save that day.
"Soooo... I guess this is g'bye, then," Ranma said awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. Saying goodbye to girls was always harder than guys.
Natalie nodded expressionlessly. "Yes, it is. I wish you luck, Ranma. And I hope we meet again sometime."
He smiled, glad that she wasn't going to end up complicating the encounter. "Yeah, that'd be cool. Thanks for all your help! See ya!"
He had just passed by her when the female trainee spoke again. "You're leaving tomorrow morning, correct?"
Ranma blinked. "Uh, yeah. I won't make it very far tonight if I left now. Kinda drained from the fight and all."
"I see..." Natalie turned and gently took his hand, entwining his fingers in her own. "In case we don't meet again... could you grant me a favor and... extend your goodbye?"
"Eh?" Ranma mumbled as warning alarms went off in his head. "Whazzat mean?"
Rather than explaining, Natalie instead grabbed Ranma around the head and kissed him hungrily, pressing her body against him as she did so.
"Mmph! Mlhhg!" Ranma mumbled in surprise, failing to get any words past Natalie's tongue as his arms flailed wildly up and down in their typical "surprise affection attack victim" reflex.
Eventually she pulled back, and her chest heaved against his as she took several deep breaths.
"It's unfortunate that you're mostly out of energy..." she said huskily, one hand playing with Ranma's pigtail while the other sank down to caress his lower regions. "So you just relax and let me do the work, okay?"
"C-Can't we j-just be friends?" Ranma squeaked out, cutting short his usual spiel about liking her but having to leave in order to match the pace at which she was seducing him.
"Of course we can just be friends!" The voluptuous Ninja assured him, smiling. "Just think of this as... an expression of gratitude."
Without allowing him time for more than a nervous chuckle, she then yanked him into her new bedroom, slamming the door shut and locking it a moment later.
___________________________________________________________________________________

American military research base. Codename: Delta Prime. Location: India highlands. Primary function: central base for research team Delta, designated as the U.S. government's primary researchers of mana-based artifact recovery and analysis.
"So these networks of gateways act as inter-system rifts, offering instaneous travel between different systems, or realms," one soldier explained carefully as he cleaned his T-21 magitek rifle. "The Nexus is actually a cluster of gateways, which indicates that at some point in the past, Earth was actually used as a gathering point, or maybe connecting realm, for the types of creatures that are pouring out of it now. I mean, that could explain why there are so many more stories about demons and spirits in Japanese lore than in western lore."
The two soldiers sitting next to him, who had been listening quietly, didn't seem impressed by his insight.
One of them spoke up. "You know, something I've always wondered is: if this Nexus thing leads to other dimensions, how come NONE of them came up with guns? I mean, if no other race had laser-guided missiles or something, that wouldn't be weird, but are pistols really that complicated?"
The first soldier rolled his eyes. "No, no... look, the Nexus doesn't lead to 'parallel dimensions' or universes or anything. It acts as a gateway between REALMS, which our scientists are guessing are actually other solar systems. The Nexus bends time and space to glue two separate points in the REAL universe together on some minor sub-plane, so that when you walk through it..."
The man trailed off as he realized that both his companions were anxiously scratching their heads, obviously not understanding.
He sighed. "Okay, look at it this way: It's like Stargate SG-1, not like Sliders."
"Oh! Now I get it!" The others said immediately.
The one who had spoken up before then looked thoughtful. "But... wait. Wouldn't that make the demons and monsters aliens, instead?"
"They ARE aliens," the first soldier said dryly. "They're strange, foreign creatures not from this planet who have come here through artificial means; just because they don't fly in space ships or use laser guns doesn't make them any less alien."
"I get that," the other soldier who had not yet posed a question asked, "but where does Quantum Leap fit into all this?"
"It DOESN'T," the first soldier said sharply. "There's no time travel involved."
"But, what about-"
"NO TIME TRAVEL!!" The man shouted, causing his companion to flinch back.

The Major in charge of the base's usual security entered the tent just as the discussion was winding down, his rifle already loaded and at the ready.
"Look alive, boys! We've got something incoming, and it 'aint human!"
The three men quickly got on their feet and began loading and checking their weapons, fully alert.
The Major nodded to them. "We have a high-energy reading four clicks east of here, and incoming fast! The base shield is online, but if the energy signature doesn't attack then we're going to-"
*BWOOM!!* *Vmmmmmm...*
A loud explosion was followed by the noisy hum of the base's dome deflector grid repelling the attack, and all the soldiers felt their hair rise as the energy bleed from the grid released a surge of static.
"Well, I think we don't have to worry about it not attacking," one of the men said irritably, cocking his gun.
The Major was about to issue another command, when several bright flashes of light seemed to engulf the area outside the tent in pure white.
*VOOOOOOoooooooom*
A low-pitched whine was all the warning the soldiers got as the protective dome over the base buckled under the energies bombarding it, a full four seconds after the beginning of the assault.
"It... It failed? Already? ... Not possible..." the Major mumbled, drunkenly turning toward the tent entrance, as if he was in a dream.
His vision was instantly awash with white light, and as he squinted against the brightness, his numb mind noticed that it was actually getting... brighter.
*KA-SHRAK!!*

Demetrius would have grinned as several cloth tents were engulfed in hellfire, had his current form possessed the ability to manipulate such muscles.
"BY THE ORDER OF MY LORD AND MASTER," his gargled voice boomed, and the psilor threw his arms out to the sides, huge spheres of pure energy gathering around his relatively small appendages of impure energy.
"BURN..." A flick of the wrist, and laser-like streaks flashed through the air, cutting into the primary research station and tearing it apart.
"SUFFER..." A swing of his left arm sent a spiralling ball of power down on the vehicle depot, causing ribbons of electricity to leap out and spread upon impact, killing technicians and mechanics instantly before leaping toward new victims.
"DIE." Spreading his arms and legs out, several spheres of light gathered in the air around his body, gathering energy to unleash more destructive beams of power.
In the distance, computer technicians struggled to bring the shield back online, to activate the base's automated defense systems, and to activate the new experimental defense drones that were designed to rush to the rescue and support the troops in defense of the station. Some of those technicians would even succeed. But none would survive.
"I MISSED THIS... AH, THE WONDERS OF WAR!! COME, LITTLE MEN!! SEE THE DOOM OF YOUR PITIFUL ARMY!! WEEP! TREMBLE! PERISH!!"

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End Chapter 7