Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ An American Dragon in Nerima ❯ Chapter the Seventh ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer:  Ain't mine, don't own 'em.  Wish I did though.  Flames will be extinguished.  Thanks to John Tannius for letting my borrow ideas from Dragon's Destiny.

Marx snorted.  "You expect me to surrender myself to murderers and liars?  I think not."  Marx spread his leathery wings, ready to launch to attack from the air.

"You are correct," Cologne replied.  "Mu Tsu, Xian Pu, Tigar," she called.  "Now!"  The three Amazons called leapt on top of the wall and hurled a large net towards the dragon.

Time seemed to slow down for Marx.  He jumped back, pulling his head in towards his body, but the net still managed to snag him.  "The more you struggle, the tighter the net will become."  The Amazon matriarch chuckled dryly.  "And to think that Dai Ryuujin no Nishi could be captured so easily.  Now, will you agree to come back to China with us?"

"Don't you think that my squadron will miss me?  That the Tendos will miss me?  I'm not that easy to forget, Elder."  Marx retorted.  He kept his movements calm.  Even though the wire mesh tangled his wings, his razor sharp claws were still free, and began working on cutting away the net.  Kasumi, trapped under the net with Marx, moved underneath his bulk for protection.  She wasn't nervous, per say, but she felt better the closer she was to him.

"We have ways, Dragon-boy, of making people forget."  Ranma shuddered.  He knew the shampoo that Cologne was referring to, all too well in his mind.

Marx smiled.  "Well, perhaps you forgot that I'm still not defenseless, Old Ghoul."  He opened his mouth, and a cone of cold, so intense that the grass just below and to both sides cracked and froze, shot out towards the Amazons.  The three females were just able to dodge in time, although Cologne was suddenly weighed down by ball of ice that was now at the end of her hair.  Mousse wasn't so lucky.  He was hit near full blast by the cone, encasing him in a super hard, super thin coating of ice so quickly that his curse didn't even have time to activate.  "You have ten minutes to thaw him out before brain damage begins.  I suggest that you leave now, and do not bother me or my loved ones again."  He swiveled his broad head, and the frozen net cracked open.  The Amazons collected their frozen male, and began roof hopping for the Nekohanten.

"This isn't over yet, dragon.  We'll get you.  Mark my words," Cologne howled from the rooftops.

Settling back on his haunches, Marx looked around.  "Where's Kasumi?" 

"Anata, this doesn't look good to my family," he heard from under him.

Dragons don't normally blush.  Nor do their noses bleed in perverted situations.  So for Marx to be both red faced and to have a bit of a nosebleed must have been an interesting sight when he saw Kasumi under him, in an extremely intimate position.  He leapt back as fast as he could.  Kasumi scrambled out and fixed her skirt.  Soun began wailing that his little girl was a pervert.  Nabiki had a smirk.  "Sorry, about that.  You should consider yourself lucky that I didn't land squarely on you, aisuru."

"No, I should have moved out of the way when the Amazons attacked."  Kasumi had her head down, embarrassed that the situation could have been deadlier.  "I was in your way.  You could not have fought to your best potential if I stayed there, if they hadn't thrown the net."

Marx nuzzled his heart's love with his snout.  "We will need to find some way to protect you."  He looked at the families still on the engawa.  "Nothing to see here, move along.  Move along."  Slowly the families dispersed.  Except for Ranma.  Concentrating, the dragon shifted back to his public form.  "What can I do for you, Ranma?"

"Marx-san…" Ranma took a deep breath.  "Now that the Amazons know where you are, and where you work, you'll need to watch your back.  And as long as I'm able to, I'll watch it as well.  As a repayment for helping me with my studies."

"No need, Ranma.  But thank you for the offer." a now human Marx said.  "It's going to be dangerous the next few days."

"'Days,' Lieutenant?"  Ranma asked incredulously.  "Try years.  Once the Amazons get their hooks into you, they'll for eternity to get you.  Believe me, I should know."

"Great," Marx muttered.  "I'm going to bed.  I do have to go to work in the morning."  Kasumi began following him to the guest bedroom he rented.  "Kasumi-chan, if I can ask an impertinent question, but isn't your room upstairs?"

The calmest Tendo looked a bit ashamed.  "Father and Ojisan think that they can get Ranma and Akane together, if they see us living together as a perfect couple.  They moved me into your room."

Marx rolled his eyes, even as he pulled the younger woman into his arms. They were both feeling nervous with what happened this evening.  "This has been one hell of a day.  What else could go wrong?"

Kasumi looked into his silver-flecked eyes.  "Well, if I wanted to, I could tell you I'm pregnant.  But since I'm not, I won't."  She had a smile on her face as she said it.

Marx looked down at her, noted the smile and smiled back.  "Well, that's a relief.  I still can't believe that Genma and your father would conspire to get Akane and Ranma together.  Haven't they noticed that one of them is going to kill the other?"  They continued to towards what was now their room.

"Christopher, Cologne all but threatened my family.  My family!"  Kasumi was on the edge of tears.  "I've already lost my mother, I don't want to lose anyone else."

Leading the crying girl into his room, he told her that he was concerned.  "I'll talk to Cologne.  Perhaps there is some sort of reasonable agreement we can come to."

"I hope so, anata.  But I'm also afraid for you, as well.  If you go there, they may not let you come back."

"Then you know what, we'll get married, and move on base.  There's no way the Amazons will be able to get through a Security Forces squadron alerted to the threat to their executive officer."

"But…but…" Kasumi was at a bit of a loss for words.  "Does this mean that you're proposing to me?"

Marx smiled at her.  "Yes, I am.  But, I want you to select the ring."  With the door slid shut and locked, he closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated as he clenched his fist.  "Ah, there it is."  He opened his fist, and a small golden skeleton key appeared.

"Is that the key that Elder Cologne was talking about?"

"It is.  If that…" Marx paused for an appropriate word, so as not to offend Kasumi, "…canicula said it was an Amazon treasure, she was sorely mistaken.  This key has been mine since I found my first lair."  Walking over to the closet door, he inserted the key into the air.  Twisting it like it was in a lock, a door appeared.

"How…" Kasumi started, but realized if her soon to be fiancé could make a key appear, possibly without knowing Mousse's Hidden Weapons technique, then making a doorway appear in the air is just simply magic.  "Never mind."

Marx smiled at her, as he opened the doorway.  As they stepped through, long dormant light spells activated, bathing the chambers in cool light that reflected off the treasures spread throughout the chambers.  Gold and silver coins and bars littered the floor in piles as tall as Marx himself, and as broad as Marx's draconic form was long.  Rare precious gems reflected the magical light. 

"Oh…my," Kasumi said, in awe of the wealth displayed here.  "Christopher-kun, just how much is in here?"

There was a toothy grin on his face.  "I think there's enough here to clearly place me as the richest person in the world.  At current market prices for gold, silver and precious gems."

"If Nabiki saw this, she'd be…"

"Moderately impressed, I'm sure.  This, really, is the reason why I can pay for my rent so far in advance."

"If you own this, why not a more extravagant apartment in say, Juban, or closer to the Palace?"

"Because that would send flags up and down, not only in my chain of command, but to the IRS of both Japan and the United States."  Replacing the toothy grin with a genuine smile, Marx told her that she was only the second person he brought with him, as he rummaged around the treasure piles.  "I really need to organize," he muttered.  Marx noticed Kasumi was starting to look around.  "Be careful where you walk.  The floor can be very treacherous."  She nodded, as the glint of the magical lights reflecting off of a large crystal caught her eye.  Heeding her fiancé's advice, Kasumi made her way towards the crystal.

Embedded within the eight foot tall piece of quartz was Peng's wedding gown and headpiece.  The crystal itself was on a two foot marble plinth on a clear section of the floor.  Marx had found what he was looking for and walked over to her.  "It was a gift from her father, the Emperor," he said, noticing how entranced she was by the gown.  "That and the wedding."  With a wry chuckle he explained what had happened in Leyi three millennia ago.  "Our engagement was the scandal of the capital city.  The gossipmongers had a field day with both our engagement and wedding.  The biggest question was how did a third-rate flunky in the Imperial government receive the honor of being engaged to the eldest princess.  The nice thing about it was we didn't have to deal with paparazzi like celebrities do nowadays.

"Peng's father declared the week prior to our wedding a national holiday.  Festivities abounded, both noble and commoner broke out their finest clothes.  It was quite the spectacle.

"No one wanted to miss out wedding, mainly to see the gaijin that captured the princess's heart so much.  For both our sakes, it was a blessing that the ceremony was short."

"And then the two of you left for Jusenkyo?"

"Yes.  Only to protect ourselves, and keep myself out of the line of succession, otherwise the Xi Zhou dynasty would still be in power."

"Christopher-kun, did Peng ever," Kasumi blushed as ecchi thoughts crept back into her mind, "sleep with her husband as a dragon?"

Marx's eyebrow went up.  "She did, on more than one occasion.  Especially after the Amazons began their war for lebensraum.  I remember her saying that it was like sleeping with a big furry dog, just without the fur.  It gave her a sense of security."

She placed her hand on his arm.  "Christopher-kun, can we do that tonight?  I'm still nervous that the Amazons will try something."

"Certainly.  I'd like that as well."  They left the lair and, after shoving the bed that the fathers acquired through the door before closing it.  Marx shifted back into his draconic form for the second time this night.  Cramped as the room was, he still managed to circle a couple of times before settling down like a cat.  Kasumi changed into a nightgown, and settle herself up by her fiancé's shoulder.  Marx fluttered his wings once, and covered her with the one below that shoulder.

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With a shrill cry, the alarm clock announced to the world that it was time to get up to the occupants of Marx's room.  Cracking open a largish eye, Marx regarded the annoyance to his slumber.  He was about to "delicately" quiet the modern annoyance permanently.  Particularly when Kasumi stirred in his forelimbs.  Forget it, he said to himself.

Trying not to disturb his sleeping fiancée, Marx carefully slipped the limb she was sleeping against and stood.  Which resulted in clocking his head against the ceiling and Marx growling ancient Egyptian.  While not as colorful as some of the other ancient languages, Egyptian had a graceful flow to it.

He shifted back to his "normal" form, put on a fresh set of utilities, and kissed a still sleeping Kasumi gently on the lips.  "Be extremely careful, my love.  I have this feeling that if Cologne can't get me one way, she'll try to get me through you."  Kissing her on the lips again, Marx made his way down the hall to the front door.  Changing house slippers for combat boots, he spied Ranma walking past with a glass of water.  "Ranma," he called.

"What can I do for ya?"

"Protect Kasumi today.  I don't care if you have to skip school today to do it.  I'll write you a note for school tomorrow.  I have this feeling that the Amazons may try something today."

"Gotcha, Lieutenant.  Be careful yourself." 

Marx nodded as he headed out the front door.

Around the corner of the compound's wall, a redhead grinned as she noticed the scent trail of a certain silver dragon crisscrossed the area.  "So, my old friend, you've fallen for another of these pathetic sub-creatures.  And if I know you, she'll be like Peng.  So predictable, and so pathetic.  I still can't believe I lost to you all those years ago."  The red dragon turned comely human female headed down the street.  "I wonder if there are any Amazons in the area?"  She said, walking along.  Her lovely face twisted in the rictus of an evil grin.  "If there are, I can do what I did all those years ago for my revenge.  But first, I'll challenge him, and then I'll plot my revenge."  Any of the residents of Nerima that were up this early were treated to a horrific laugh; one worse than Kodachi's must unstable day.