“Shishi Hokodan!”  Ryoga cries out as he attacks.

            This time, however, he does not have the element of surprise.  His attack is met by a more powerful one from the demon.  The demon’s attack shatters the ball of depression and streaks back towards Ryoga.  “Abunai!”  Happousai yells out as he tackles Ryoga.  His move is successful, although that success is by only inches.

            The demon’s attack misses the Senshi as well.  It continues on towards the young woman who walked into the battle by mistake.  It is in that moment that Ryoga recognizes her.  “Chikushou!”  He mumbles as he shoves Happousai out of the way.  He knows it’s too late to stop it, but he still puts forth all his speed.  His legs achieve the equivalent of the Amiguriken.  But this only succeeds in bringing him close enough to see her eyes go wide and hear her cry out for a savior that is not present.  “Ranma!”

 

            “Auntie!”  The Tendo sisters cry out.

 

            In the dojo

            Ranma’s eyes snap open.  They are wide and vibrate with a fear that he has never known.  Not even the Neko-ken made him this afraid.  This fear…it is the fear of losing the one he loves the most.  “Kaasan.”

 

Ranma Z

 

Chapter Six

 

Ranma’s Gamble

 

            The wood ceiling of the dojo never stood a chance.  People walking by the dojo were nearly thrown to the ground by the sonic boom that suddenly confronted them.  All this done by a worried son.  “Ranma your mother…” Akane’s voice dies as she notes the damage done to the dojo’s ceiling.  “Guess he already knew.”  She hurries back into the house.

 

            The rubble of the wall has settle upon her and all is silent.  Ryoga falls to his knees, tears threatening to come from his eyes.  “Chikushou!”  He cries out.

            Happousai walks up to him, his body numb.  “That was…That was…,” The words will not come out.

            “Saotome’s mother,” Ryoga mumbles.

            The demons laugh.  “Though we missed our target we still succeeded in breaking your spirits.”

            A soft beeping sound draws everyone’s attention to one of the Senshi.  “What is it, Mercury?”  Mars asks.

            After looking at the readings her computer is showing her, Mercury becomes pales…very pale.  “Something is coming.  Something very powerful.”

            Happousai, Ryoga, and the demons look into the sky almost immediately after she speaks.  “Saotome…” Ryoga says barely above a whisper.

 

            “Kaasan!”  He screams as he flies to the battlefield.  Ranma’s aura flares then disappears when he lands.  He ignores everyone.  The only thought running through his mind is, (“She has to be alive.”)  It takes his senses milliseconds to locate the fading ki of his mother.  He is upon the rubble without speaking a single word.  The first piece, and by far the largest piece, is thrown into the air and crashes into a nearby restaurant.  The smaller pieces do not stand a chance.  In seconds he has his mother free.  She is unconscious.  Her body is littered with cuts and bruises.  Without a doubt bones have been broken.  (“She’s fading fast.”)

            A hand falls upon his shoulder.  “Sumimasen ⁽¹⁾, Ranma,” Ryoga says.

            Ranma shrugs off his condolences and apologies.  “She’s not dead.”

 

            The Senshi are shocked to see the Saiyan land and move towards the buried woman. (“Kaasan?”)  Pluto thinks.  (“That was his mother?”)

            “She is not dead.”

            Those words are all Saturn needs to hear.  She runs to the fallen woman.  “I can heal her!”  She exclaims.  Ranma glares at the young girl.  “Please, let me help her.”  Ranma’s expression does not change.  He does, however, nod.  Saturn immediately sets to work.  Her healing power flows out of her hands and into the woman.  Ranma smiles as her injuries disappear and the look of pain fades from her face.

            Her eyes flicker open and focus in on the boy by her side.  “Ranma?”

            Ranma’s smiles broaden.  “Kaasan.”

            Saturn sighs in exhaustion.  “You’ve lost some blood so you’ll still be a little weak.”

            Ranma nods and turns to the young girl.  “Arigatou.”

            Saturn blushes and smiles.

 

            “Another has joined.  His power is greater than the others.  This should be fun!”  The demons exclaim.

            Ranma frowns and turns to the demons.  “What’s going on?”  Ranma asks.

            “Happousai summoned the demons to beat you, but they turned on him,” Ryoga explains.

            Ranma growls and glares at the old pervert.  “Hey, I didn’t know they’d do this!”  He defends himself.

            “You and your stupid revenge,” Ranma mumbles.  He quickly scans the demons and nods.  “Descent power.”  He takes off his weighted shirt and wristbands.  He pushes a button on his watch.  The clothing upon his body blurs and is replaced by blue armor.

            (“Saiyan Armor!  Upgraded probably!”)  Pluto notes.

            “Do you think that scares us boy?”  The demons ask.

            Ranma growls and grits his teeth.  “You hurt my mom.  For that I’m going to send you straight to Hell!”  His aura explodes around him.  The concrete street doesn’t stand a chance.  Cracks spread out from Ranma as though he were the epicenter of an earthquake.  And in all honesty, that’s what it feels like.

            Everyone looks on in shock.  Of all those assembled only Happousai and Ryoga have seen Ranma like this.  (“He’s powering up his ki!”)  Happousai thinks.  (“It’s just like when I used the Moxibustion Pressure Point ⁽²⁾ on him.  After he used the Hiryu Shoten Ha on me and destroyed the chart, he got angry.  His anger increased his ki and canceled out the pressure point without the chart!”)

            Ryoga, on the other hand, is not thinking about the Moxibustion Pressure Point.  He is reliving the fight with Saffron.  (“When it looked like Shampoo was going to die and Saffron was going to kill us, Ranma got angry.  He did things that I never saw him do before.  His angry gave him the strength to rip apart a god.”)

            Both Ryoga and Happousai look at the demons then each other.  They nod.  “They’re dead,” They both conclude.

 

            “Send us to Hell?”  The demons ask.  They laugh.  “We doubt that.”

            “I’ll tell you a little secret that you can pass onto the demons in Hell.  Don’t ever piss off a Saiyan!”  And with that Ranma begins his attack.  He zanzoukens in front of one of the demons.  Ranma decapitates it before it has time to react.  The other demons are shocked and retaliate as one.  They unleash a ki attack apiece.  Ranma crosses his arms and allows the attacks to strike.  He erupts from the smoke before the demons lower their arms.  He lands in front of one of the demons.  It swings and connects with a strong punch.  Ranma’s face, however, is like steel.  When the demon pulls its fist back it is broken.  Ranma smiles and kicks the demon in half at the waist.

            The other demons hop back and reassess their options.  “He is indeed powerful.”

            “More powerful than we are separately.”

            “But not more powerful than we are together.”

            Ranma raises an eyebrow.  (“What are they up to?”)  The demons stand side by side.  He power up their dark auras for a moment.  Then the auras die out.  “Giving up?”  Ranma asks.

            “Oh no.  Not by a long shot.”  The demons say.  Their figures seem to blur and become almost transparent.  Then they fade into one another.

            “Chikushou!”  Ranma yells out.  He has finally figured out what they’re doing.  But it is too late.  The three demons have become one.  The demon looks up at Ranma and smiles.  “Fusion ⁽³⁾.”

            The demon nods.  “Now we are one.  You have no chance.”

 

            “How does it look, Mercury?”  Pluto asks.  Mercury mumbles something that Pluto cannot hear.  “What did you say?”

            “Hopeless,” She repeats loud enough for everyone to hear.

            “Nani?”  Uranus asks.

            “The demons combined.  Now they’re even more powerful than the Saiyan.  More powerful by a large margin,” She explains.

            “Ranma!”  Ryoga yells.  “You can’t die until I’ve had a chance to kill you!”  Everyone sweatdrops.

            “Ryoga,” Ranma says.  His voice is low, barely loud enough to be heard.  “Take my mother and run.”

            “Nani?  Are you giving up Saotome?”  Ryoga yells back.

            Ranma turns back and yells out in anger.  “Do as I say!”

            “Eyes front!”  The demon exclaim as it slams into Ranma.  It sends him back nearly 20 feet before he can stop.

            “Chikushou!”

            The demon reappears above Ranma.  Ranma senses this and his eyes go wide.  The demon smiles and whispers in his ear.  “Don’t give up yet.  Entertain me some more.”  It punctuates its statement with punch in Ranma’s back.  The pigtailed boy slams into the ground face first and bounces up nearly two feet.

 

            Washu whistles as she watches the television.  Sure the cameraman was having trouble following the fight, but she could make out some of what was going on.  Right now the Saiyan was being beaten…beat bad.  The sound of shattering glass behind her causes her to take her eyes off the television.  “Chikushou.  I knew I should have watched this in the lab,” She mutters.

            Behind her Ayeka, Princess of the Jurian ⁽⁴⁾ people, has gotten an eyeful of the news.  More specifically she has gotten an eyeful of the young man with a tail.  “Saiyan…” She whispers.

 

            Ranma pants in exhaustion.  (“Couple of broken ribs, major internal bleeding, this doesn’t look good,”) He notes.

            “Surrender and I will end your misery,” The demon assures him.

            (“There’s got to be something,”) He quickly runs through his options.  (“No, too many people around.  No, not enough control.  No, I’m not in any condition to pull that off.  Wait!”)  He looks at Saturn out of the corner of his eye.  (“It might work.”)  Ranma smiles as he formulates his plan.

            “Have you gone mad?”  The demon asks.

            Ranma shakes his head.  “Nope.  I just figured out how I can beat you.”

            The demon smiles.  “Did you?”

            Ranma nods.  He moves his hands to his face and called out the attack.  “Taiyoken ⁽⁵⁾!”  The demon never knew what hit him.  And neither did anyone else on the battlefield.

 

            Saturn blinks and tries to regain her sight.  “It’s only temporary,” A voice assured her.

            “Who?”

            “It’s me, Ranma, the guy that’s been fighting.  We don’t have a whole lot of time.  Can you heal me?”

            “Hai.”  A hand grabbed hers and placed them on a chest.

            “Do it.”

 

            By the time the demon and the other recovered their eyesight, the first part of Ranma’s plan was complete.  He was healed and at full power.  Saturn was exhausted and had to sit down, but it was well worth it.  “What do you plan to accomplish?  Even healed you are no match for me,” The demon declared.

            “I know.”  Ranma spread his legs out and gritted his teeth.  “So I’ll gamble and bet my life on Goku-san’s technique!”  He tensed for a moment.  (“Please let his work.  Even if I haven’t mastered the technique I need it now!”)  Ranma looks up at the demon and called out the technique’s name.  “Kaio-ken ⁽⁶⁾!”  The red aura erupted around Ranma completely covering his old aura and nearly hiding him from view.  For a moment all Ranma felt was more and more ki feeling him.  Then it happened.  Pain.  He felt the pain of his muscles budging and ripping.  His screams of pain broke the windows of some of the nearby stores.  But in the end he dealt with the pain and focused in on his enemy.  “Get ready to feel the technique created by Kaio-sama ⁽⁷⁾!”

            “I look forward to it,” The demon said.  In the blink of an eye they disappeared, only to reappear in the sky.  Each throwing punches that were only blurs to those on the ground.

            Mercury looked at her computer in shock.  “His power.  It’s still going up!”  She exclaimed.  “He’ll explode if this continues!”

            “Ranma!”  Nodoka called out.

 

            Meanwhile, Ranma pushed his advantage to the brink.  He too knew that he had a limited amount of time before the power of the Kaio-ken overcame his limits and killed him.  (“It was a gamble that I had to take.”)  With a burst of speed and power he threw the enraged demon into the sky.

            It took the demon a while to regain control.  When it did it looked down upon Ranma with unadulterated hate.  “You worm!  How dare you!  I will kill you!”  With that it cupped its hands and prepared to attack with all its power.  Ranma followed suit.

            “I’ve only got one technique to counter that.”  They both gathered as much ki as they could and unleashed their beams with a thunderous battlecry.  Ranma did not even bother calling out the Kamehameha’s name.  He just let it fly.  The beams collided and pushed on each other, each trying to gain the advantage and shatter the other.  But in the end the Kamehameha and Kaio-ken were too much.  Ranma’s beam shot through the demon’s and vaporized it.

 

            Ranma landed with a crash, considering that he had only a small amount of ki left it was a rather soft landing.  The others were upon him immediately.  “Saturn!  Heal him!”  Sailor Moon begged.  It was all but obvious that Ranma would die at any moment.  It was also in that moment that everyone noticed that Saturn had collapsed.

            “We must take him to a hospital,” Pluto said in concern.

            “There isn’t time!”  Mercury shouted.

            “No…no need,”  Ranma said.

            “Saotome!  You’re not giving up on me are you?”  Ryoga asked.

            Ranma shook his head and pulled a small square shaped container out of his armor.  He handed it to his mother and said, “16.”

            “16?”  She asked as she opened the container.  She found something with the number 16 on it and pulled it out.  “This?”

            “Hai.  Hit the button…and toss it.”

            Nodoka nodded and did so.  With a boom and a cloud of smoke a small chest appeared.  It was maybe the size of her hand but she opened it.  “Beans?”

            “Senzu ⁽⁸⁾.  Give me one.”  Nodoka nodded and did so.  Ranma eat it slowly.

            “Ranma this is no time to eat!  We have to get you to a hospital!”  Nodoka said.

            Ranma smiles and gets up.  “No need.”

            The others look at him in shock.  “H…How?”  Mercury stammers out.

            “Those beans are really good at healing injuries.”  He looks himself over.  “Chikushou.  Looks like my armor’s gonna have to be replaced.”

            He receives a slap on the back of his head for comment.  “Ranma!  Your language!”

            Ranma rubbles the back of his head in embarrassment.  “Gomen, but I’ve only got a few of these things.  I can’t just go dimension hopping and have Bulma-san make me another.”  Ranma turns his head to some sounds and frowns.  “Looks like our fight made the news.”

            The others look over and groan.  “Great there goes our Urban Legend status,” Jupiter complains.

            Ranma leans down and picks up his mom.  “Come on mom.  I’m taking you to the Tendos.”

            Nodoka shakes her head.  “No.  Take me home.  After all it is about time that you and your father moved back in.”

            “Move to Juuban?”  He asks.  He smiles and kisses his mother on the cheek.  “Arigatou!  I can’t wait to get away from Nerima!  ‘Course I’ll still work at the Nekohanten.”

            Nodoka nods.  “In any event…lets go home.”

            Ranma nods.  “Hai, Kaasan.”  He turns back to the Senshi and bows.  “Ja ne ⁽⁹⁾!”  With that he takes off into the air.

            “You know what this means, right?”  Ryoga asks the girls.

            “What?”  Pluto asks.

            “You have to put up with him now.”

            “Great,” They groan.

 

Sumimasen- Sorry, I’m sorry, something upon those lines

Moxibustion Pressure Point- Pressure point that robs a person of all his strength

Fusion- Technique of Dragonball.  Used to my two people one. Here it’s three demons.

Jurian- People from the planet Jurai. You want to know more?  Go watch Tenchi Muyo!

Taiyoken- Solar Flare, attack that blinds an opponent with a flash of light

Kaio-ken- Fist of the World or something around that.  Powering up technique that allows a person to increase their ki, speed, strength, etc. Kaio-ken 1= increase of *1.5, Kaio-ken *2= increase of *2, Kaio-ken *3= increase of *3, and so on

Kaio-sama- the god of the northern galaxy in Dragonball.  Creator of the Genki Dama and Kaio-ken

Senzu bean- bean that contains like ten days of food within it.  It can heal any non-permanent injury.  Made by Korin-sama.

Ja ne- until later, see ya, something along those lines