A Long Journey

Ranma kicked a few stones out of his way as he dejectedly wandered along one of the banks of the river. This place seemed almost deserted. It had been a few day and he was losing hope of ever getting home, or even civilization. The sun never seemed to rise, but it never seemed to get truly dark either. The constant twilight gloom was wearing away at his optimism. It wasn't like he was hungry, those big crocodile things were actually pretty tasty, and had more meat than even he could eat. Maybe more than Genma could eat, though it boggled the imagination.

The crocodiles were large but didn't seem supernatural or evil. They weren't even very intelligent, wandering into his path until he kicked them into the river. He tried to cheer himself up by thinking of it as training for Mr. Turtle, but considering Mr. Turtle was never a threat put a damper on what little enthusiasm he could work up.

The main problem was the time that this oppressive place gave him to think. Ranma admitted to himself that this wasn't his favorite activity. He just didn't enjoy silent contemplation. If he had the choice he would rather train, perform hard physical labor, or even just meditate on his chi. The only thought exercises he enjoyed were strategy and tactics. Here he had to keep moving, the crocodiles weren't really dangerous, but were enough of a threat that he had to pay some small attention to his surroundings.

Being forced to think about his situation wasn't helping his mood either. Sure the gift/bribe he was receiving from Thoth would get rid of three of his major problems, Cologne and perhaps Happossai, maybe even his father. This wouldn't help his situation with Shampoo, Ukyo, or Akane. It wouldn't help with Kodachi either, but Ranma was hard pressed to work up any tears for that raving loon.

It wasn't that he didn't like the girls, he just wasn't sure if he loved any of them. He and Akane had been getting along much better since he had rescued her from Saffron. At times he even thought it might be more than friendship. Still, he was pretty sure that she was unaware of how little her hammer strikes and the other objects he was beaten with on a regular basis, actually hurt. While he feared her cooking (except for the curry), he had to admit he now knew more about toxins than maybe even the old goul, and it had really helped increase his general resistance. He hardly ever had to go to the hospital to get his stomach pumped anymore. Still the very fact that she was willing to inflict what she considered massive amounts of pain, often made him wary about future relationsh.i.p.s with her.

Shampoo was an enigma. She said she loved him and then drugged, or enchanted him into oblivion. She knew he was uncontrollably terrified of cats, yet continued to 'hang' onto him in cat form. Most of his Neko-ken experiences could be attributed to her. During her encounter with the ghost cat she had refused to give up the enchanted bell, despite the terror he was obviously suffering on her behalf. Yet she still helped him when he needed it. She had even opposed some of Cologne's schemes in order to help him. Of course many times he only needed help because of her in the first place. He had few illusions regarding his plan with Cologne. Getting the old goul off his back would make Shampoo even more desperate, especially when it became obvious that Cologne no longer needed an heir. She was required to win him as a husband or kill him. Killing him in honorable combat had been beyond her capacity for quite some time now. It might help resolve his feelings towards her if he knew if it was just Amazon law behind the apparent about-face she had undergone, from trying to kill his girl half, to falling in love with his male half.

Even Ukyo wasn't immune to these weird fits of violence that seemed to plague the females in his life. She had gone from wanting to kill him, to wanting to marry him in the time it took for him to say she was cute. Most of the time she was kind and supportive, but she had her grimmer moments. He had long since forgiven her (being almost incapable of holding a grudge) of crashing his aborted wedding, but she had come very close to killing people he cared about. Besides, he still couldn't seem to think of her as more than a old buddy.

Without any distractions the situation revolved endlessly within his mind. Honor versus love. Love versus friendship. The job for Thoth and championship for Anhur promised to keep him busy and away from Nerima for large portions of time, but this solution left a bad taste in his mouth. He loved his father, but wasn't sure he liked him. He was positive he didn't respect him. He had watched, not always understanding what was happening, as Genma ran away from one situation after another. Most of Ranma's problems could be traced back to his father, one way or another. What Ranma feared most (aside from those things of the feline persuasion) was that he would start to run from his problems and spend the rest of his life in a never-ending retreat.

It was with some relief that he was jarred from his thoughts by a rustle of reeds, and the sensation of a presence hurtling at him from behind. Grinning in anticipation, he confidently stepped to the side, allowing his new enemy to hurtle by him, while slamming his fist on the thing's head as he moved through. At least that was the plan. The blow he aimed at the creatures head merely glanced off the skull, the surface being much flatter than he expected. The tail of the creature whipped around in passing and slammed into his t.h.i.g.h. If it wasn't for the burning agony that spread from this impact he wouldn't have even noticed the force.

Leaping back, away from the creature, he looked down at his leg to gauge the damage and was shocked to see a deep puncture wound seeping a black fluid. Beginning to be concerned, he examined his attacker more closely. About twenty feet away, turning to face him, was some sort of humanoid crocodile creature. The long scaly tail whipping back and forth behind the creature had a long hooked stinger attached to it. A moment passed before he recognized it, a scorpion sting. He had a moment to consider than he had never been exposed to scorpion poison when the first wave of weakness hit him.

Ranma kept his feet under him through the dizziness, drawing forth his battle aura in an attempt to stop, or at least slow, the poison's effects. He had an enemy to deal with before he could concentrate more fully on his wound.

The creature leapt towards him claws outstretched for a raking blow. Leaping over the creature using his good leg he avoided the first attack. As he expected the tail, he was able to safety grab the tail as it sped towards his still leaping body. Landing behind the creature, he used his momentum to swing the monster by his appendage, over his head and into the ground. Feeling another wave of weakness, he quickly followed through with his advantage hitting the creature with several C.h.e.s.tnut Fists while maintaining his grip on the tail. Ranma was actually surprised that it took several blows before the thing slumped into unconsciousness.

Ranma was about to slump to the ground in relief when his senses picked up seven more creatures approaching. As he turned to face his new enemies his vision briefly doubled before returning to normal. Four of the monsters rushed forward while the remaining three stood back growling at him and glowering at him in seeming concentration.

Ranma repeated a variation of his last move, this time tumbling between the large creature's legs and grabbing the tail in passing. Still kneeling he swung the lizard into his two companions. He had just returned to his feet when he felt an ominous wave of magic from the three creatures in the rear. Cursing his failing senses to have not detected this earlier, Ranma attempted to jump out of the area where he senses the gathering energies. He was disappointed, but not overly surprised when he found his feet firmly attached to the ground. He'd seen this effect before and he didn't like it at all.

One of the creatures he'd hit seemed to be down, the others merely bruised by the impact. Seeing how the human was now incapable of dodging their attacks the three remaining fighters closed in from different directions. The effects of the poison seemed to have reached a plateau, not debilitating him further but far from releasing his body from its effects. He found his vision alternately blurring, doubling, and clearing. Despite this he was able to block all the tail strikes and most of the claw strikes. The ones he couldn't parry caused long bleeding cuts, joining the now almost healed marks from his fight with the Gorgons, and the now forgotten skirmish with the Raksasha.

The crocodile monsters did not escape unscathed. Since Ranma had been concentrating his parries on the tail's and his counterstrikes at what he believed were vital points, two of his opponents tail's lay trailing brokenly behind them. Without two of the three scorpion stings to worry about, he was able to eliminate two more of the opponents within grappling range. He made sure that one of these was the one with the working tail.

He was about to finish to last lizard thing, when one of the three who had remained further back growled something at his companion. Taking this as a signal, the conscious reptile, which Ranma had been fighting, backed away. The reptile mage who had done the grunting, waited until his companion had backed away before completing a gesture.

A sudden hurricane wind demonstrated what this magic involved. Ranma, grimly expecting something, was still unable to halt his fall, as his injured leg collapsed beneath him. He found all his limbs, except his right forearm immobilized. He also noted that his head was free of restraint. This was a mixed blessing, as he watched the reptiles regroup and begin to walk toward him.

Ranma knew he was still far from helpless. Most of his options had been removed, true, but he still had sharper teeth than these creatures knew. He could probably take out at least half the opposition with a barrage of chi blasts. The problem was he was fairly sure he couldn't take them all out before they scattered. The barrage would also reduce his chi reserve more than he thought he could afford. He was presently using a large portion of it merely to keep the more debilitating effects of his poisoning at bay. Reducing that too much and unconsciousness was the least of his worries. He also doubted he would be able to accomplish much after that degree of effort, which would again leave him helpless.

He hadn't wanted to experiment. He had theorized about the deeper ramifications of the techniques he knew, but laying on the ground was not the condition he had in hoped for when he first tried it. Still the move had the potential to take out the entire lizard brigade at once, and that was the only thing that might save his life. He also believed the maneuver would be much more energy efficient, if harder to control, than just throwing chi at the creatures.

As the lizard's approached he made up his mind. He didn't like it but many of his most devastating attacks were developed in midst of a crisis. This definitely counted as such. Gathering the perception he needed to perform the Breaking Point, he was surrounded by the familiar web of energy. Focusing deeper still, he strove to see, not merely the single points, but the multiple points between himself and the enemy that might conceivably form a line. Finding such a configuration he focused his chi, not at the one intersection that was the Breaking Point, but the point that was the beginning of his line, and passed his chi through it.

"Breaking Point Revised, Cascade Avalanche Strike!"

Ranma watched in fascination as the chi burst traveled in almost the exact path he had predicted. As the energy traveled through the intersections, wave upon wave of explosions burst forth, creating a straight line of devastation as it progressed. Ranma didn't get the chance to see the end result of his new technique. He had barely time to note that a small portion of the energy he had projected was reflecting back toward him. His last sight of the battlefield was the ground around him exploding.

A portal opened in the air above the silent field. A large deity with the form of a human and the head of an ibis, stepped out of the gateway. As he stood floating above the carnage he sighed at the devastation. A crevasse cut through the ground below him. Two hundred feet in length, twenty feet in width and ten feet deep it looked as if the hand of god had reached down and gouged a furrow through the land. Thoth was pretty confident it hadn't been him, so he reached out with his senses. After a moment the only life signs he detected was at the bottom of the trench fifty feet from where it began.

Sighing again, he used his psionic abilities to throw the dirt and rocks off the object of his search. Minutes later a battered figure was revealed. Only shallow breathing showed that it lived.

"Let's get you out of here. I don't know how you ended up in Ammit's back yard, but I think we should leave before he notices your renovations."