Gold Digger Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Smoke and Wind ❯ A Bit of History ( Chapter 5 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

The Disclaimer is in the Prolouge.

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Gina sighed from the living room as she listened to yet another round of arguing between Brianna and Britanny.

"No, I am not letting you use my Peebos to blow Tanya up."

"Why not, she deserves it."

"I agree with you on that, but I'm still not letting you."

"Tell me why not?"

"Do you really want someone who can fight mom to a draw to get angry at you?"

'That always ends the arguement.' Gina thought, though privately she wanted to go and hurt Tanya as well. Hearing someone walk into the room she turned and saw Seance, who had just returned from visiting his parents late last night. "Hey how are you doing?"

Smiling slightly, "I'm fine Gina, do you know where your mom or dad is?"

"I think they're outside right now. Why do you want to know?"

"I just have some news to pass on to them."

Gina nodded, "All right, if it's important I'll find out anyway."

Seance smiled a bit more and was going outside when he saw Brianna, with a box full of weapons being followed by Britanny, who was asking if she could borrow some to attack someone. Turning to Gina he had to ask, "Is there something I should know?"

Gina sighed, "Apparently Tanya's gotten out of Sanctuary and is on parole, and she's now married and Brit wants to hurt her for what she tried to do to Strype and her baby."

"Oh really, well that's interesting. Who'd she get married to?"

"Some guy named Ranma."

"Oh." Seance was careful to keep recognition out of his voice and off his face. 'That's the guy that was disturbing the peace yesterday.' "So, how's the rest of the family taking this?"

Gina sighed again, "I don't like the fact that she's free, neither does Brianna, I don't need to say how Brit's feeling. Mom's giving Tanya a chance to redeem herself, dad pities her, and Strype feels sorry for her, and because of that, he's sleeping on the couch tonight."

Seance shook his head, "Poor Strype, well, better him than me. I'll be seeing you."

Seance left the living room, ignoring the yelling that the two sisters were doing and went outside and spotted Julia and Theo tending to some flowers. "Mrs. Diggers, Dr. Diggers, hello!" Seance called out in greeting.

Theo looked up and smiled at seeing his student, "Good morning Seance, how are you today?"

"Pretty good actually, I've got some news from Jade you might be interested in."

"Oh, what is it?" Julia was definitely interested, usually news that came to her was the result of a fight of some sort.

"Apparently the bounty hunter and mercenary Ryoga Hibiki attacked someone named Ranma Saotome yesterday and both have been put in lock-up. Mr. Saotome should be out of prison by now since he was merely defending himself."

Julia groaned, slapping herself in the forehead she couldn't believe this. "And here I thought Tanya's husband was actually a decent person."

"You mean you don't know dear?"

Julia looked at Theo, "What do you mean?"

"Mr. Saotome is actually a pretty popular person in the Retreat and Seer's Hamlet, about four months ago he took care of some of the bandit gangs that were plaguing the area and got everyone's stuff back that had been stolen by them. He's been given the nick-name of Bandit Phantom, because those bandits that were in jail said they never saw him coming, nor did they feel him at all."

Julia blinked when she heard that, "Oh so that's who the Phantom is. It makes sense since he was capable of becoming invisible during our fight."

Seance looked at Julia, "You fought him Mrs. Diggers?"

Julia nodded, "Yep, we fought to a draw, only holding back killing and crippling strikes, of course I didn't go full out, and I think he held a few things back as well. But anyway, I still don't know how he did that thing with the pine needles."

"Pine needles?"

Julia smirked and nodded, "Yep, pine needles, somehow he was able to turn pine needles into small throwing knives, and he did all his tricks, including his invisibility trick without using the Ethereal Stream."

Theo shook his head, "I still say that's impossible to do what he did unless he was using magic."

"I asked him about it, all he did was wink and say 'Now that. . . is a secret.' God I wanted to smack him for that."

Seance chuckled, he could just imagine what Julia's face was like.

Meanwhile on Jade. . .

Onoli was meditating and thinking about what had happened yesterday, and what they were going to do today. Suddenly Sheila burst through the door, a surprised expression on her face. "Onoli, we've got some serious problems!"

"What is it Sheila?"

"Remember that guy yesterday? The one that was arrested for starting a fight?"

"You mean Mr. Hibiki? Yes I remember him, what's wrong?"

"I went to his cell to check up on him, and he was GONE!!"

Onoli got up and tensed, "Did he break out?" That shouldn't have been possible, the cells were warded to block people from accessing the Ethereal Stream.

"There was no sign of a breakout, nor did the lock looked picked, somehow he got out of his cell without breaking anything."

"All right, the others should be getting up right now." As if to punctuate his statement, Gar, Tirga, Thropan and Raphiel all entered the room, ready for a briefing on what was going to happen. Turning to them Onoli spoke, "I've got some bad news, Mr. Hibiki somehow got out of his cell last night."

After much blinking Gar protested, "How's that possible? The only way to get out would have been to break out, pick the lock, have some help, or teleport out. The only way he could've broken out, was if he was a dragon or something, and he couldn't have teleported, those cells were warded against magic, so how'd he do it?"

Onoli shook his head, "I'm not sure, while you're out on your normal patrols, keep an eye out for Mr. Hibiki."

Everyone nodded, Thropan then spoke up, "Hibiki-san and Saotome-san seem to have a history with one another, perhaps Saotome-san knows how he did it?"

Everyone nodded, though Onoli, Gar, and Sheila frowned at the mention of Ranma's name, they had nothing against him personally, but rather they didn't like his wife. Seeing this Thropan took matters into his own hands, "If it's all right with you, Raphiel and myself can go and talk to Saotome-san and find out what's going on."

Raphiel blinked at Thropan, "Really? I'm not the most experienced one on the team Thropan."

Thropan smirked, "I know, but this is one way to gain experience."

Onoli nodded, "Okay, Thropan and Raphiel you two go and question Mr. Saotome, then go on your rounds, the rest of us will patrol the city like normally and keep our ears open for anything about Hibiki."

Everyone nodded and took off, meanwhile, outside of town, and standing on a hill Ryoga was standing next to a female who was dressed in a brown shirt and green pants and was wearing tennis shoes. "Honestly Ryoga, you have to cause so much trouble."

Ryoga growled, "It's not my fault Nabiki, it's all Ranma's fault. Now I have the law after me."

Nabiki shook her head, the two of them had been partners for around six months when she had stumbled into Jade, she had started to learn magic under a powerful mage and was practicing out in the open when Ryoga had saved her life from some bandits. She then teamed up with the lost boy for a mutual benefit, he provided protection, and she dealt with the rewards that came with beating up bandits, she also helped him get from place to place, but then two days ago Ryoga had vanished, fortunately he kept beating up bandit gangs and all she had to do was follow them.

Last night she had caught up with Ryoga and found out that he was in prison, waiting until nightfall, she snuck up to his window and splashed him with cold water, just enough so that his curse would activate. She then used a lasso to pull Ryoga out of the cell, then she tied a hook to the rope and got his clothes as well. "Whatever, look you want your revenge on Ranma, wait, right now there's a rumor that G'Nolga's coming for him."

Ryoga blinked, "I thought she was dead?"

"I did too, but apparently she survived and is now looking for Ranma, if you wait, you can have your revenge."

Ryoga nodded, chuckling at the thought of being able to finally defeat Ranma.

Nabiki smirked, "Though I have an idea how to help you."

"Really?"

"Yep, but we need to visit my master's tower that's in the middle of nowhere."

********

Meanwhile Thropan and Raphiel were meeting with the Saotome's.

"Pig-boy's out?" Ranma said. "@&*^%*&@%!! He must've gotten lost or something."

"You let him escape?" Tanya said, aghast. "How could he escape?!"

Ranma remembered the cells well enough a force wall, magically reinforced walls with one small window. It should have been able to hold Ryouga, the window was big enough for P-Chan, but too high up for the pig to jump to.

"Hey, I've heard those words before," Raphiel said. "Some fortune-teller said I'd be hearing them a lot!"

********

In a giant rat cage a dimension away, a blonde Wererat sneezed.

********

"Wait a minute," Thropan said. "Pig-boy? Lost? How does him getting lost explain how he got out of the cell?"

"I don't know," Ranma said, shrugging. "I always thought he just had no sense of direction."

Ranma proceeded to explain Ryouga's direction problems, starting with his inability to find a vacant lot behind his own house.

"Hmm," Thropan said. "We felt some magic on him, maybe he's an unconscious teleporter. But then, we felt the same magic on you, and the prison should have held against teleporting."

Of course, Ryouga's ability, or curse, to get lost had nothing to do with teleporting. He simply had no direction and an inability to recognize land marks for what they were.

He once spent a half day resting in an expensive, narrow lounge with bad food and a whole bunch TVs set to the weather channel and when he came out everybody was speaking German for some reason.

Then came that warehouse he was camping in for a few days. The one that kept rocking in very nerve-racking manner. Ryouga would have almost sworn they were on a boat if he hadn't known that was impossible. Anyway, after he got out of the warehouse finally, everybody was speaking Japanese again.

Ranma and Thropan didn't realize how mundane Ryouga's lost curse was, of course, and most seemed to think it was the most likely cause for his escape.

"An the magic you felt was probably Jusenkyo anyway," Ranma said.

"Jusenkyo?" Thropan asked. Tanya sighed and grabbed a cup of water, upending it over Ranma's head causing him to shrink into a girl. "Uhh...Jusenkyo?"

"Jusenkyo," Ranma confirmed resignedly as Tanya spilled hot water over the red-head, turning her back into a he.

"Wow," Raphiel said. "That must be fun sometimes."

Thropan, Ranma and Tanya, all making slightly gutter assumptions of the comment, turned to face the Werecheetah with aghast expressions on their faces. Though, considering the slight amount that Ranma had colored, it was likely the subject had come up before.

"You could go to town and pretend to be someone else," Raphiel finished, resulting in groans from the rest of the group.

"Pig-boy turns into a little black piglet." He gestured to show how big.

Thropan started pacing, blinking for a moment when he passed the door to another room of the cabin and noticing through the crack it was open that Tanya had apparently jury-rigged an artificer's workshop into the cabin. That was something he'd have to report.

"A pig that size could get out the window," Thropan noted. Ranma snorted.

"He may have gotten stronger," Ranma said. "But he can't make that jump as P-Chan."

"Then he either got 'lost' somehow," Thropan said. "Or he has outside help. Well, thanks for your help, Saotome-san. And I hope you and your wife continue building toward a better tomorrow."

Tanya blinked and then rolled her eyes as she walked to the workroom door and opened it to show the work going on behind it. Work that was currently interrupted.

"I've got permission to build a few lesser golems for home-defense," Tanya said bluntly. "Go see for yourself! Ask Sanctuary."

Ranma was instantly at her back, massaging her shoulders and holding her comfortingly.

"Just calm down, dear," Ranma said, knowing his wife's temper and not wanting her to make a bad showing to the friendly Were-cop. "I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it."

Clinched fist, narrowed eyes and gritted teeth slowly eased off in Ranma's comforting grasp as Thropan watched. It was no wonder the young woman ended up in Sanctuary if she had that much trouble controlling her emotions

"Yeah," Thropan said apologetically. "I shouldn't have said anything, my apologies."

"Forget it," Tanya said finally in a struggling tone of voice, shrugging and leaning back against Ranma.

"Hey," Raphiel said. "What's this do?" He picked up what looked like a large pea-pod.

"No!" Tanya and Thropan yelled. "Don't touch...!"

*POP*

Suddenly everybody was ducking as the pea pod exploded and released a small hail of seeds across the cabin, shattering glass and splintering wood.

"Don't ever pick up a blast flower's seed pod without being careful," Thropan told the young Werecheetah.

"That was cool," Raphiel said, apparently not hearing. "Are there more of those?"

Noting the decidedly irritated looks an Ranma's and Tanya's faces, Thropan laughed nervously.

"We'll be going back to report now," Thropan said.

********

Rook did not like the situation at all. Mostly, he did not like being threatened by a mortal, of whatever power, or the fact that he had to consider that threat seriously. However, when he heard the situation more clearly, he smiled. It would be a relatively simple matter to appease the dwarf.

"Your prey wears a Sanctuary observation bracelet?" he asked, amusement obvious.

"Yes," G'Nolga said. "Is there anything you can do to help me find her?"

"Certainly," Rook said. "In fact, I have something on hand." He gestured and a skeleton stepped forward bearing a bracelet. He took it from his minion and displayed it for G'Nolga. "The counterpart design. With this, you can track anyone that wears one of the other bracelets...as well as be protected from any direct spells they cast at you."

"Hmm," G'Nolga said, smiling and reaching forward to take it, Rook snatched his hand back before she could.

"You are aware, that I will be asking for recompense of this at some point," he said.

"When you think you're ready," G'Nolga said, smiling viciously.

"Of course," Rook said, handing her the bracelet. "Just picture the fugitive you wish to find in your mind."

"I see," G'Nolga said, slipping the bracelet on and picturing Tanya in her mind. instantly she had an sense of where to go.

Rook didn't voice his thoughts as G'Nolga left, but he did fold his hands together and leaned forward in thought.

"I'll be repaid for this extortion sooner than you think, G'nolga," Rook thought in amusement. "With in an hour the Mages of Sanctuary are going to feel your tracking. Soon after that they'll determine that it's not one of their agents that is doing the tracking and when they realize who is being tracked...well...everything the council of Mages can throw at you will be coming your way."

He laughed low and sinisterly as he considered that.