[Ranma/Slayers][Fanfic] Redheads chapter two

[Rob]

Redheads

A Ranma 1/2-Slayers crossover

(And guess what? It's standard disclaimer time!)

Chapter Two-- in which Bandits plan for vengeance, the Heroes
plan to eat, Lina learns something about what Martial Arts are, and
Gourry mentions Bob. Also in which the importance of names is
postulated in an offhand way.

####

Lina Inverse was not what you would call a morning person.

Since it was morning, that meant that she was not in the best of
moods.

Especially since for some insane reason Gourry was shaking her.

"If there's not a VERY good reason for waking me up, Gourry, you
are going to get a fireball right up your--"

"You have to see this, Lina! It's incredible! You just have
to!"

Lina grumpily dragged on her clothes, followed Gourry out of the
inn, and stared in sheer astonishment. Much like most of the inn's
clientele, who were gathered in the courtyard gawking at something
that no-one in the world had ever seen before.

That something was Ranma and Akane performing a workout at the
obscure fighting system known as Anything Goes Martial Arts.

Which to Lina looked a lot like an extremely violent mid-air
ballet.

Now, Lina wasn't unfamiliar with feats of simply ridiculous
physical abilities. Prince Phil leapt to mind, as well as at time
Gourry and even Amelia. (Although Amelia never seemed to QUITE pull
them off.)

But those were short, spontaneous bursts of power that were
sometimes attributable to magic and sometimes to adrenalin, and
sometimes to something that she'd yet to identify.

You just didn't do this sort of thing on a continuous basis. You
couldn't keep that sort of thing up for more than, say, two or three
minutes. You'd run out of strength, or the spell would dissapate, or
the amulet would run down, or you'd lose your concentration or
SOMETHING.

Two, three minutes at tops.

"They've been at it for half an hour, Lina! Is'nt that neat?"

Few things could make Lina Inverse boggle. The idea that people
were doing THIS for THAt long...

And what were they doing?

Ranma was leaping around like she was using some sort of
stuttering Raywing. Akane wasn't leaping quite as much as Ranma, but
that only meant that she was hitting twenty feet to Ranma's thirty.
The grunts of discomfort of the dark-haired girl when the redhead
punched her were matched only by her sheer giggles of delight.

And both were considerably faster than should be possible. Akane
was at what Lina considered the limits of human quickness.

Ranma was... she couldn't think right off of an appropriate term.
The girl was at times a blur. Insanely fast. Inhumanly fast. Fast
as, well, something very very fast that should not be as very fast as
it was.

Ranma dodged a punch that would have broken walls. Akane's
punch, in fact, hit one, and predictably broke it.

Ranma replied with a flurry of fast taps. Well, to Ranma or
Akane they would be taps. To another person they would be severe
bruises. Lina didn't know this-- but she DID feel that they were
more forceful than they looked.

And the two were showing NO signs of slowing down.

Until Ranma leapt up to the top of a pole, balancing on one
foot-- no, the toes of one foot-- and said, "Came close to tagging me
that time, and your defense is getting a lot better."

"Arigato, Sensei... want to stop for now?"

Ranma realized that she and Akane were the center of a lot of
attention. "Um... maybe we should. I'm hungry anyhow."

Lina strode up to the pair, and demanded, "What the HELL was
THAT? You don't jump like that! NO-ONE jumps like that! Not that
often or that fast anyhow! What WAS that stuff?"

Ranma shrugged. "Martial arts. It's what we do. Say, is there
any place around here we can get some bricks?"

Lina was about to demand more, but this question caught her off
guard. "Bricks? Why?"

"Oh, Akane likes to break a few now and then. Helps her work off
steam."

"Break them? With a hammer or a mace, you mean?"

"Naw, with her hands. What would be the point of using a mace?"

Lina just stared. Breaking bricks with... Magic. Ranma and
Akane must be using some strange magic. But if they were, why
couldn't she sense it? She'd tried before, but the only magic she
could sense was the residual energy of Ranma's curse.

But how could anyone do the things she'd just seen without magic?
Her new "cousin" was a lot more than she seemed. WHAT, Lina didn't
know.

So she did the only thing she COULD do.

Eat breakfast.

####

Breakfast with Lina and Ranma was, to say the least, unusual.

Lina's ability to consume mass quantities usually tended to leave
others less than sated. But Lina had never met someone using
Anything Goes Martial Arts Eating tactics.

Lina could eat more than Ranma... possibly. But there was no way
she could match her speed. Ranma ate with a weird mixture of
delicacy and hyperactivity.

Also, Ranma cheated. Lina hadn't figured that part out yet.

She only knew that a pickle would be missing that she had been
certain was there a minute ago. Or a sausage. Or some rice. Or
something. But no, guess not, it's gone.

Then again, Ranma was finding breakfast a challenge also. Not
that Lina could steal any of HER food-- but rather that Lina ate with
a speed and voracity that was beyond anything she'd ever seen. Ranma
had seen a total of seven episodes of Slayers, and had assumed that
the insane eating shown in that series was comic exaggeration. Well,
maybe it was-- but it was also strange reality.

Akane watched with amusement as Lina attempted to eat three
sausages at once and wondered why there were only two as Ranma ate
the missing third. This scene replayed itself repeatedly. Lina
would attempt her habitual "Wolf Down Vast Quantities" and Ranma
would make the quantities somewhat less vast.

Or as a certain Chinese Amazon would put it--

"Lina grab food. Ranma steal part of food. Lina blink, try
figure out where food go. Airen so clever!"

The end result was that Lina was so damn confused at where the
food was going that Gourry and Akane also got enough to eat as well.
She KNEW that she'd eaten it-- she MUST have had-- it just didn't
feel like it.

Ranma burped.

Akane elbowed Ranma and reminded her to watch her manners.

####

"I tell you, it WAS Inverse!"

"Look, I've seen Inverse before-- that girl was not her even if
she looked like her!"

The two bandits were in an argument about the identity of the
redhead that, in company with a slightly taller brunette, had pretty
well thumped the hell out of their scouting party the previous day.
The bandit chief-- who was named, descriptively, Chief-- mused over
the matter.

"Tell me, Fang, why you're so certain this wasn't the dread
Dragon Spooker," Chief murmured in his elegant and subtle tones.

"Well, for one thing she had blue eyes, and Inverse had reddish
ones."

"A good point, but hardly conclusive."

"And she was, I think, maybe a little taller, and not as skinny."

"Perhaps, but people do grow."

"And she had MUCH bigger--"

"Hardly relevant, I think. At any rate, if the person who
'balked' you was not the famed Lina Inverse, then she was someone who
could conceivably be just as much of a problem. You did say that
this person and her companion attacked you without weaponry? Only
bare hands and feet? Inconcievable."

"Well, actually, they were both wearing boots, and Inverse had
gloves on--"

"SHE WASN'T INVERSE!"

"She WAS! She threw a fireball at me!"

"She wasn't Inverse and it wasn't a fireball! I don't know what
it was, but it wasn't a fireball!"

"She WAS Inverse and whatever it was it had to be some sort of
magic, so there!"

Chief sighed at the sight of two mature, capable, and hardened
bandits start a classic schoolgirl style tongue war.

"Biiiii!"

"Biiiiiin!"

(At times I begin to think I should have remained in the
Librarian business. But no, I had to take up banditry.) Chief was
not happy with his men.

For example, he had made the error of allowing them to pick the
name of the gang. He'd expected something banditally appropriate,
such as "The Bloody Skull Gang" or "The Howling Vultures Gang" or the
like.

"The Very Mean And Dangerous Gang" somehow didn't QUITE have the
menacing ring he'd hoped for.

Chief was beginning to realize that intelligent people didn't
normally join bandit gangs.

Mercifully, he was spared the realization that they normally
didn't start them either. Chief had a very high opinion of his own
intellect.

####

The quartet of heroes-- or a close simulation, anyway-- strode
along the road, each deep within their own thoughts.

Ranma considered the cruel irony of once again being sealed in a
form that, while she no longer hated, tended to dislike. And she was
dead certain that the baka who'd sent her and Akane here had known
this would happen. She wished she'd watched more of that Slayers
show, or remembered more about it, but her tastes went more to
DragonBall or Gundam usually.

Akane mused on the possible difficulties or trying to survive in
a world with real magic spells being fairly common, and the
possibility that perhaps one of the characters could remove Ranma's
curse-- that would make the girl who was really a boy very happy
indeed. Happy enough that certain things at home could be finally
resolved...

Gourry pondered the interesting fact that that cloud looked like
a ducky, and that one like a bunny, and that one like a horsy. He
merrily pointed these deep revelations out to Lina.

Lina cogitated on her plans for the Nyannichuan should she be
able to get to it, the remarkable physical feats that Akane and
especially Ranma were capable of, and what the best and most painful
way to kill Gourry would be if the moron didn't shut up about the
damn clouds.

"You know, he's right," mentioned Ranma. "That one does look
like a horse."

Akane followed Ranma's pointing finger. "Hey, it does, doesn't
it?"

For reasons that are hard to explain, Gourry's innate good cheer
and happiness made the two extradimensional travelers somewhat at
ease. In a way, he reminded them of a giant swordwielding Kasumi.
They had found themselves taking an immediate liking to the man.

This also bugged Lina, although she couldn't really say why.

In an attempt to change the subject-- as though it WAS a subject,
she mused-- Lina asked Ranma, "Really... exactly how do you two do
that stuff? I mean the hyperleaping and superfast things and all
that? I don't think you're using magic."

"We ain't. It's practice, training, and Chi."

"Key? You mean a magical item of some sort?"

"Not Key, Chi. It's... OK, this is complicated," replied Ranma.

"Chi is like... well, a fundamental force behind life. Everyone
has it-- generally polarized between Yin and Yang, light and dark,
male and female... So anyhow some people have more and learn how to
use it, to augment their physical abilities. It's not that hard to
learn that part, really. You just have to learn how to center
yourself and reach your Wa. Well, at least get close to it. Akane
and I have more, or stronger Chi than the average person, so we can
do some pretty neat stuff with it.

"Anyhow, all living things generate it, but you get more from a
person than a plant, see? Oh, and if you get it really really
balanced you can become one with the universe, but I don't think
that's a lot of fun."

Lina blinked. "Now I know how Gourry feels when I try to explain
something to HIM," she mumbled. Louder, she asked, "There's no
invocation of the spirits, or of dark or bright powers?"

"When you got a real grip on your Chi, you don't need none of
that. No way is Ranma Sa-- Ranma Inverse gonna depend on some
outside spirit thingy if he-- ah, she don't have to."

"Your grammar's slipping, Ranma," chided Akane.

"In this place, I don't care. I'll apologize to Mother when we
get back."

"Well, so this Chi enhances your physical abilities?" interjected
Lina.

"That and other things, yeah."

"What sort of other things?"

"Well, some develop a sort of danger sense, or rapid healing-- I
heal fast anyhow, but controlling my chi speeds it up even more--, or
resisting damage, or chi-blasts."

"Chi-blasts?"

"Yeah." Ranma held out her palm and began to gather a small bit
of Chi in it. "You make it big enough, you can do some serious
damage."

Lina stared. This was NOT magic-- she could sense that-- but she
wasn't sure what it WAS. No invocations, no spell gestures, just an
open hand and a ball of light.

"Fascinating... and you're creating that with your own energy? I
wonder why nobody in our world ever figured that out..."

"Oh, they did long ago," chipped in Gourry. "The stories of the
long lost Martial Arts are full of all that sort of thing. They talk
about that Chi stuff too, although they didn't call it that. They
called it Bob. I don't know why they called it that. Anyway, those
were just stories, and no-one knew how to do it anyway, so nobody
bothered with it."

Lina's jaw dropped. That Ranma could know something of
significance she didn't she could understand. After all, she was
from a different plane of reality. But that GOURRY would--

"Gourry, you never mentioned this to me!" Lina said, aggrieved.

"Well, I always thought it was just a story. I guess it's not,
though," Gourry replied, reasonably.

"Ranma, stop showing off," complained Akane. Ranma sheepishly
dissipated the chi-ball.

"At any rate... I'm really intrigued about this Chi stuff.
Hmm... tell you what. How about we cut a deal?"

"What kind of deal?" asked Ranma, suspiciously. Lina's tone of
voice at that moment was far too much like Nabiki's for her liking.

"Well, I can throw a fireball, but I could do better at throwing
a punch. And you say that a lot of what you two do is skill rather
than Chi, right?"

"Right. So, what's your point?"

"Well, maybe you can teach me a little bit about these martial
arts, and see if I can learn any of this Chi stuff. And I'll see if
I can teach you some magic. Nothing big, you won't have time to
master anything big, but I bet even in your world a healing spell or
the like could work to your advantage."

Ranma paused. She didn't think she could learn the kind of magic
that Lina was supposed to use, but... she'd adapted her Chi to odder
things before. And since Lina and Gourry WERE helping Ranma and
Akane to find the Destiny Chain, common courtesy demanded... heh.

"Well, I suppose I can teach you some Kempo... and the first
thing you have to learn is how to fall."

"There's something hard about falling?"

"Yeah. It's called the ground." Ranma smirked.

And Lina suddenly felt that she may have made a BIG mistake...

####

The innkeeper was having a bad week.

It began with a pack of bandits that had planned to ravage his
inn. Fortunately, a passing swordsman and a red-haired sorceress
chased them off, but there had been more breakage than he'd liked.

Then there had been that other sorceress three days ago, who had
driven half of his clientele off with her insane laugh. The other
half had stayed behind to gawk at her overly voluptuous and underly
clad figure.

Thank Ceipheed SHE was gone.

Then that jerk priest had popped in, ordered a drink, paid, and
suddenly painted a giant smiley face on the wall. When the innkeeper
had asked WHY he'd done something like that, the priest had merely
said that that was a secret and left before anything could be done.

Actually, that was a fairly normal week in that particular inn.
Weird things always seemed to happen to his establishment. A passing
fortuneteller claimed it was because of the name of the inn, but the
innkeeper didn't believe it.

Why would weirdness be attracted to the Nerima Inn? It was a
good enough name.

Joachim Nerima fumed as he polished glasses. At least today
seemed fairly normal.

"Nerima Inn? Akane, this is too cool. Wonder if they serve
okonomiyaki here?"

Ah, customers. Joachim looked up-- and dropped the glass,
shattering it.

The redheaded sorceress had returned. Accompanied by... the
redheaded sorceress.

"I don't know what that is, but they have a really good mutton
and onion stew," added one of the twins. Good gods, they even
SOUNDED alike.

"What's mutton?"

"Sheep meat."

"I never ate a sheep before."

The pair were accompanied by the swordsman he recognized and by a
girl he didn't. But she moved like a warrior. Joachim buried his
hands in his face (not the other way around) and sighed. SOMETHING
was going to happen, he just KNEW it.

The quartet took a seat at a table and Joachim sent a serving
girl over. After warning her that the order was likely to be large.

Unnoticed, a scruffy, flea-bitten type of guy left the inn with
the expectation of reward for news rendered.

####

Chief had thought about the matter. Weither Lina Inverse or
someone else, such interference was unacceptable. However, there was
the small matter of having no idea HOW to deal with such a foe.

After all, Inverse was rumored to have slain at least a part of
the Mazoku high lord Ruby-eyes, as well as other less probable feats.
And he'd certainly never heard of any bandit gang that has succeeded
against her.

And if it wasn't Inverse, then a fighter/sorceress such as his
henchmen had described was still a possible problem.

But something had to be done. No doubt about that.

The question was what?

One of his henchmen then came running up, calling "Chief! Chief!
You ain't gonna believe this!"

"And what, pray tell, am I not going to believe?"

"One of our contacts says that there are TWO Lina Inverses! And
they're both at the Nerima Inn right now! Along with a couple of
fighter types!"

"It wasn't Inverse," a voice from farther in the hall grumbled.

"Was TOO!" retorted another voice. Tongue wars resumed.

The Chief sighed. "I am surrounded by imbeciles. At any rate, I
find the idea that there are TWO of her impossible. Indeed, I find
the existence of just one to be an affront to my sensibilities, but
two of that Enemy of All Who Live? Inconceivable."

"Hey, the guy may be something of a drunk, but he's reliable. We
should check it out, maybe?"

"No. We strike. Hard, fast, and leave NOTHING in our wake. We
owe it to ourselves and to all banditry to erase even the POSSIBILITY
of a second Inverse."

The henchman blinked. "We do?"

"Of course we do. Honor amongst thieves and all that."

"We have honor?" replied the confused henchman.

"No, but we can pretend. Gather the men. If what I've heard
about Inverse is true, she will be distracted by food and we can, as
it were, get the drop on her. Them. Whatever."

"You mean a cowardly ambush and gang-attack?"

"Precisely."

"Oh, good. I was afraid you were talking about a fair fight for
a second, what with all that honor stuff..."

"I may be educated, my dear flunky, but that does not mean I'm
stupid."

####

Akane looked doubtfully at the stew. It was basically chunks of
mutton-- an unfamiliar thing-- and onions in a brown gravy. Little
bits of fat floated in it. It's scent was unfamiliar also. The
gravy was lumpy, and there were a few unidentifiable somethings in
it-- she thought they were vegetables, but she wasn't certain.

In fact, it looked like something she would have cooked six
months earlier and still would cook if she wasn't careful. And
sometimes if she was.

Ranma had a peculiar expression on her face as she looked at the
stew. Hesitantly she took a spoonful, and ate. And her eyes
widened.

"Akane, if you don't want yours..."

That was all Akane had to hear to realize that it had to taste
better than it looked. She tasted a spoonful and froze. It did NOT
taste good.

It tasted fantastic. Incredible. Magnificent.

"You want some of the potatoes to soak up the gravy," Gourry
mentioned helpfully. Lina nodded, unable to comment because of her
need to concentrate on inhaling the stew.

"And it's that cheap? Three coppers a bowl?" asked Akane.

"Yeah, that's why Lina likes the place. Lots of food, very
cheap, and it tastes good too. She likes it so much that she tries
to avoid fights when she's here. Not that she looks for fights, but
sometimes fights look for her."

"THAT is a feeling I know all to well," mumbled Ranma over a
potato soaked in mutton gravy.

"You make it sound like I'm always getting into fights,"
complained Lina from in between potatoes.

"Ne, Lina, you are. Last week we were here and those bandits--"

"Mere coincidence."

"Well, the week before and that troll.."

"Hardly proof of your assertion, Gourry."

"Three days ago and that guy in the caftan?"

"He called me uncute! That's the worst thing you can call a
girl! He DESERVED that Flare Arrow!"

Akane nodded. THAT she could agree with.

Ranma held her peace.

"So, we're going to Sailoon first?" Akane asked.

"Hai," nodded Lina. "Check out the library there to see if they
know anything about a Reality Chain. With luck we won't run into
Amelia."

Akane tried to remember what she'd seen of Slayers. She'd only
seen six or seven episodes, and really didn't remember that much
about them, her tastes going more towards Sailor Moon or Wedding
Peach.

"Amelia... name sounds familiar," noted Ranma.

"She's a princess and a fighter for justice who like to stand on
high places and talk a lot," explained Gourry. "But she falls a lot
too."

"She's Sailor Moon?" quipped Ranma. Akane giggled, while Lina
and Gourry looked on, nonplussed.

"I don't think she knows how to sail," said Gourry, "but she's
very nice, and she's really good with white magic."

"She's also a trouble magnet. And if she hears about our little
excursion, she'll insist on coming along. Personally, I don't need
the headaches," retorted Lina.

"Well, Ranma's something of a trouble magnet too--"

"Hey!" protested Ranma.

"So it might not make any real difference anyhow," finished
Akane. Then she stuck her tongue out at the redhead. The one with
the blue eyes, that is.

"I'm a trouble magnet? You're the one that gets kidnapped on a
monthly basis!"

"I've only been kidnapped four times in a year and a half!"

Lina blinked at this. (I think I'll have to ask them more about
their lives on their world...)

"That's still more than most people in a lifetime!"

"Well, you were kidnapped once yourself!"

Ranma snorted. "Midol doesn't count. Disguising yourself as a
taxidriver and trying to reroute the cab to a love hotel isn't the
same as being grabbed by a hairy guy on a chariot of fire and whisked
away to his pandimensional castle on top of Mount Olympus! And I
didn't need rescuing either!"

"Maybe, but you did need bailing out of jail! The hotel wasn't
happy about all those broken walls!"

"Is it MY fault they can't be reasonable in Shinjuku about things
like that like they are in Nerima?"

While the two settled down into some more or less good natured
bickering, Lina reconsidered. Maybe she DIDN'T want to know that
much about their world after all.

####

Outside the Nerima Inn, a menacing crowd gathered. Ruffians,
scum, the dregs of humanity. People of small mind and large bulk,
preying on the weak and strong alike. Had they larger mind, they
would restrict themselves to preying on the weak.

In other words, The Very Mean And Dangerous Gang was out in full
force to make a tactical strike against the hated Lina Inverse, the
Enemy of All Who Live, the Bringer of Chaos, and possessor of a few
more unhappy titles. Chief, that is, thought of it as a tactical
strike. His gang thought of it as a game of "Dogpile on the
Sorceress".

Inside, Lina was on her fourth bowl of stew, Gourry was on his
fifth, and Ranma on her third but just about to order a fourth.
Akane, even with an appetite stimulated by a long hike, had only
managed one and a half bowls, and was toying with her remaining
potatoes in gravy.

"How can you people eat so much?" she asked.

"'m hungry," Ranma said from around a chunk of mutton. Bowl
three done, order bowl four.

"Same here," added Gourry.

"I'm a growing girl," replied Lina.

"We don't know when we'll get another meal, Akane, so eat up,"
added Ranma.

"Unlike SOME people who got their looks from weird magic, I have
to watch my figure," sniffed Akane.

"Then how come I ain't fat when I'm a boy either? It ain't
magic, it's just my efficient metabolism." The fourth bowl arrived,
and Ranma started in on it just as Lina finished HER fourth bowl and
ordered a fifth, and Gourry was halfway through his number five.

Akane shook her head. How could anyone eat as much as these
three? She'd always thought that Ranma and Genma were odd, but that
such a slip of a girl as Lina could eat the same way as Ranma or that
hulking Gourry...

"Maybe I should get the recipe," mused Akane. As Ranma froze,
she added with some asperity, "For Kasumi. Don't get that scared
look again, Ranma..."

"It's-- it's not that, you are cooking a lot better, it's just
that, well, can we find mutton in Tokyo?" (Good save, girl. A lot
nicer to say than pointing out that even if she HAS gotten better,
her first try with a new recipe is always a disaster...)

"Hmmm... I bet Kasumi can find it."

"She probably can."

"Who's that?" asked Lina from behind a just arrived bowl of stew.

"My sister. SHE'S a really great cook... sigh."

"Yeah," added Ranma with more enthusiasm. "If you get to visit
our world someday you'll have to meet her. I wonder what she's doing
now? What they are all doing?"

Ranma's enthusiasm drained, and she and Akane began to look
gloomy indeed.

Lina began to realise that the two were becoming homesick, and
tried to think of something to distract them.

"SURRENDER AND DIE, LINA INVERSE!!"

(That'll do it.)

Lina went to the door, and blinked. Bandits. Almost a hundred
bandits. NONE of which she had ever seen before.

"It's not Inverse we want!" complained a voice in the throng.

"Yes, it IS!" retorted another voice.

"Is Not!"

"Is Too!"

"Not!"

"Too!"

"Jerk!"

"Weasel!"

"Poopy-head!"

"TENDO!"

"Why you-- NOBODY calls ME a-- ARRGH!"

While two bandits were now apparently trying to remove each
other's lungs by way of the ear canal, Chief shook his head. He
turned to his second in command, and sighed, "Why did you do that?
This was supposed to be an ambush. Why did you challenge her?"

"Ambush her in the Nerima Inn? Chief, if we do that it'll get
smashed! YOU want to smash the best mutton and onion stew joint in a
hundred leagues?"

Chief paused. "That's a good point. Still..."

"Rax has his detection crystal working, and if she even starts a
spell, THEN we'll charge, right?"

"Very well... you may continue."

"Okay." He raised his voice again. "I repeat, surrender and
die!"

"Isn't that surrender OR die?"

"Um, no. We're going to kill you anyway, but we thought that it
would be a good idea if you surrendered so as to make things less
messy."

"You have GOT to be KIDDING! That's the stupidest thing I've
heard since... since... Hell, I haven't ever HEARD anything that
stupid before!" (And Gourry doesn't count in this case!)

"It is not! And anyway, there's no way you can escape! We have
the inn surrounded! So you might as well come out and face your
inevitable fate!"

Lina turned to the others. "I have a problem here. One of those
guys is a low-level magus. He's got a detection crystal, which means
the instant I try to charge up a fireball or anything like he'll
know. Now, that's not usually a problem-- but there's a LOT of them,
and I won't have time to gather enough magic to make a really big
fireball. He'll try some countermagic or something, and they are
pretty spread out so we don't have the advantage of surpr... Counter
MAGIC... hmmm. Ranma, how big can you make those chi-things of
yours?"

"How big you want, Cousin Lina?" the other redhead smirked.

"That's what I'd hoped you'd say... Give me a moment. I have a
plan."

"What kinda plan?"

"You just follow my lead... and start that chi thingy." She
turned back to the door.

"Inverse, I repeat, surrender and--"

"Okay," Lina said to the bandit spokesman.

Ranma, inside the Inn, began to gather Chi.

"Inverse, you can't possibly hope to-- Okay?"

"Sure. No way I can beat a hundred bandits alone, can I? Guess
I'm doomed. Doomed as doomed can be. So, I'll just come on out and
you can kill me."

Ranma gathered more Chi.

"Both of you!"

"Both of-- Oh, you mean Cousin Ranma? Why her?"

Ranma had gathered a LOT of Chi. "Hurry up," she whispered. "I
can't hold this forever..."

"I TOLD you it was Inverse!" came a voice.

"Doesn't count, it's not the same Inverse!" retorted another
voice.

Chief sighed.

The second in command continued. "So, there ARE two of you! A
clever trick, but not clever against The Very Mean And Dangerous
Gang!"

Lina blinked. (The Very Mean and-- I don't BELIEVE this..." In
a whisper, she said, "Get ready, Cousin Ranma." Then to the gang
outside, she called, "Okay, we'll both come out. But can my cousin
say something first?"

"Last words, eh? Well, then, let her. What does she want to
say?"

And Lina threw the door open to reveal Ranma, chi-ball in hand.
The magus, Rax, stared in utter shock at something that SHOULD have
sent the detection crystal into overdrive, but hadn't. "Oh, no..."

"MOUKO TAKABISHA!"

And it was a pretty big Mouko Takabisha too. A quarter of the
bandits fell down and went boom, living, but not at all well.

Before Chief could give an order to attack, his men were attacked
instead. Ranma went into one of her high-speed zigzags, slamming
bandits left, right, and often up. Akane decided that even with what
Ranma had taught her some things never change, and went into an
improved version of her old "Beat the Hell Out Of The Morning
Perverts" method she'd used over a year and a half before. Gourry
went into a demonstration of swordsmanship that would have had Kuno
begging at his feet and calling the blond "Sensei". And Lina started
casting Flare Arrows and Freeze Arrows like they were on sale.

It was twenty-five to one odds. But there were only four people
on the twenty-five side.

Chief stared as his men were beaten, kicked, bladed, magicked,
and generally insanely outclassed in less than ten minutes. He
couldn't bring himself to move. It was just not possible... Nobody
was THAT good with magic, THAT good with a sword, THAT good with
whatever the HELL those other two were doing. "Inconceivable..."

"You keep using that word," groaned one of the few members of the
gang that were still conscious. "I don't think it means what you
think it means..."

Chief would have made a witty retort. But with two Inverses and
a pair of Gabrievs facing him, he wasn't certain which one to use.

Four people had trashed his entire gang in a matter of moments.
And they weren't even breathing hard.

Time for his last resort trick.

"You think you've beaten me? Do you? Well, I fear you are
mistaken. For it is I who holds the Amulet of Kharra!"

Lina ulped. "Um... that's mythical, ne?"

"You WISH! I can only use it once, but it will give me power
beyond power! No magic, no blade, no hand can touch me! BODY OF
FIRE!"

And the quartet stared as Chief literally became a Human Torch.

"This is bad. The Amulet of Kharra is legendary for a one-shot
magic item! We can't touch him, my magic won't affect him, he's WAY
stronger now... Ranma, Akane, what's so funny?" The two
extradimensional travelers were... laughing.

"Ooooh, did HE make a mistake!" Akane chortled as Ranma began,
for no apparent reason, to run in circles around Chief.

"Why a mistake? What's the mistake here? How is this a
mistake?" demanded Lina.

"Because he made himself HOT! And Ranma has a special technique
for that sort of thing," explained Akane. Inadequately, but an
explanation.

Lina realized then that Ranma was not circling, but spiraling,
drawing ever closer to the now blazing Chief.

"A Chi thing?" she asked, analytically.

Akane nodded.

Chief, on the other hand was getting very very upset. The other
Inverse girl was running circles around him, not even trying to hit
him, and she was too fast to get a blow in with her sword. "Damn
you, wench, take me seriously!" he snarled.

"'Kay!" Ranma came to the end of her spiral, thrust an uppercut
that did not connect-- and did not have to-- and screamed, "HIRYUU
SHOTEN HAAAA!"

Chief blinked. He had been certain he'd been standing on ground
before. But he wasn't standing on anything. This was wrong.

And there was a LOT of wind. Wind so strong that the Body of
Fire was being blown out. Which wasn't supposed to happen.

He looked up. Funny, there was ground in the sky. No, he was
upside down. Hmm... Oh, hell.

He was a half a mile in the air, and rising. Then he stopped
rising.

And started falling.

(I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna)

Chief didn't die. Ranma didn't let him.

Of course, it WAS a bit mean of Ranma to break Chief's fall with
a Mouko Takabisha. But he probably deserved it...

####

"That was incredible..." Lina kept saying.

"Aw, I just got lucky that his magical thingy walked right into a
Hiryuu Shoten Ha like that. If it'd been another magical thingy we
would'a been in trouble, like you said."

Akane jingled the now almost overstuffed purses. "Well, as far
as Bandit hunting goes, I think Team Inverse can get a rep. And we
won't be hurting for cash anytime soon."

"Who would have thought the Librarian's Guild had a bounty on
that guy?" added Gourry.

Lina just smiled. Nerima Inn had come out unscathed, to the
surprise of all involved. And Joachim Nerima had in gratitude
offered their next three meals there free. With his stew, that was
quite a reward.

"Well... to Sailoon, minna!" she chirped, fed, exercised, flush,
and happy.

Looked to HER like it was going to be smooth sailing.

You'd think she'd learn.

####

To be continued.