No subject

ant carrying a grain of sand on the beach."

"Then why not just leave them alone?" Shampoo's voice hardened. "Why?"

"Convenience," Cologne replied. "There were a few girls I wanted to
check in on, and some loose ends to tie up. It was also a fitting test
for those few I wanted to bring with me. Don't you understand? From the
moment they had me, the rest of the village became irrelevant. There is
nothing you or your sisters could contribute to the future that is not
already within me."

Shampoo's grip on her weapon tightened.

"Are you going to fight me, girl?" Cologne asked, and her lips curled
into a smirk. "Do you honestly think you have a chance of winning?
You're a failure, Shan Pu, and you know it. Your mother... your
grandmother... they had some potential, but you...? I have trained four
generations of geniuses, and your abilities are sorely lacking. A boy
child could have filled my heart with more pride."

Shampoo was, by this point, as still as a statue.

"Ohh?" Cologne tilted her head. "Are you going to cry?"

But she stood, silent.

"Shampoo," Ranma started to say.

"I know," she replied, voice subdued. Slightly lowering her weapon,
Shampoo took a step back. "Be careful, Lieutenant."

He nodded. "I will."

Cologne blinked; surprised.

"I'm going to help my friends," Shampoo said, and with that, she turned
her back and headed towards Ukyou and Konatsu.

For a moment, just a moment, Cologne's expression turned contemplative,
but then it was gone. She and Ranma both waited, standing, until Shampoo
was gone.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that, Ranma, but she had no business getting
involved...."

"Shut up!" he barked, not caring just how pissed off he sounded. He
didn't like to fight angry, but right now he couldn't remember the last
time he'd been so filled with rage. Cologne's dainty eyebrows rose
slightly at the force of his words.

"You're angry I mistreated your friend," she calmly observed. "Deep
down, you always were too kind, Ranma. I just hope that the last few
weeks have taught you the importance of bloodshed."

"I'm gonna destroy you." He locked his rifle securely behind his back.
There was no way he'd hit Cologne with it under these conditions.

"I'm sorry you feel that way," the ostensibly older woman let her hands
fall to her sides. "I suppose... it's a fight, then."

-----

The crackle of flares bathed the alien hangar complex in a soft red hue.

"Where is he?" Ukyou hissed, standing almost back to back with Konatsu
as they frantically searched around them. They were on the floor of the
garage, now, having been all but ejected from the upper railing when she
had tried to attack their new opponent. Unlike the hangar back at
Seiran, the aliens kept theirs almost bare of any equipment or other
functional objects. Only the landed UFOs sat in their berths, like
buildings within a building.

"Children," the voice came, and the two spun to see a dark shape perched
on top of the alien battleship nearby.

"I'll ask you again," it said. "And for the last time. Don't make me
fight you."

A blast of plasma was their reply.

"Very well," the voice continued, this time from behind them. "If you
insist on being stubborn..."

Then the voice was gone, trailing off and leaving the threat unspoken.
Ukyou searched with her eyes, with her ears, and with her sakkijutsu.
All came back negative. It wasn't even like they were getting false
positives, and jumping at ghosts. There was nothing to see, nothing to
feel. It was like the man had no ki at all, except that even a non-
living threat could set off the near precognition of sakkijutsu. However
their senses were being fooled, it was well beyond what Ukyou knew of
the highest levels of the Art.

Only their motion sensors were of some help.

Ukyou tried to keep an eye on the display, but even glancing at it made
her feel vulnerable. Their enemy wasn't just practically invisible and
un-sensible, but fast to boot. She saw the sensor register a contact,
briefly, and then it was gone. He had to be moving in short bursts - she
assumed - which meant a form of speed movement. Her eyes moved from his
previous position to his last one. It was maybe forty meters, but he
hadn't gone through her or Konatsu, which meant he'd probably used two
jumps in quick succession. So: two speed steps of about 30 meters. That
wasn't too insane or out of their league.

Just slightly insane and slightly out of their league.

"Is there something interesting over there...?"

Her eyes darted to her left, where she saw the man just behind her.
Pupils growing small, she reacted on impulse, and tried to displace her
target with an instinctive elbow strike. It was a mistake. She saw, but
couldn't move her body fast enough to stop, him as he reached into her
guard and let her strike flow like water down his forearm. It was so
smooth and gentle, not like the hard and fierce blocks and counters she
was used to. Before she knew it, her elbow was up in the air, vertical
to her body, and exposing her arm pit.

The man's other hand flattened, and she could guess he meant to strike
her there, in one of the body's principal soft spots.

'One move... he's beaten me in one move? No!'

"No!" She fired, almost without thinking, and as the blast hit the
ground at their feet, she started to fall back. His chance for a clean
strike lost, the man instead shifted instantly to a different means of
attack. His arms and hands moved in a practiced blur, and in an instant
he had her by her arm. Ukyou found herself staring at the barrel of a
plasma carbine.

"I wouldn't fire if I were you," their assailant suggested, painfully
holding her between himself and the genius ninja. Konatsu didn't lower
his weapon, and she could guess that he was looking for some way to
shoot around her. For her part, Ukyou could tell she was pretty well
immobilized. She still held her plasma rifle in one hand, but it had
been seized at the wrist.

And then her hand opened and her weapon fell to the ground. She knew
there was a pressure point there that could do that, but not that it
could be used through the personal armor they wore. She hadn't even felt
pressure being applied to it! Rapidly considering a more drastic means
of escape, or at least putting her opponent off balance, the last thing
she expected was to be set free. He let go of her hand, and she twisted
forward even as his hand brushed up and past her neck.

Before she had even recovered, Konatsu opened fire. Ukyou could see that
it had missed, and that it was now his turn to try and grapple with the
stranger. Except it was no stranger. She had been briefed on who is
was... who it had to be. Who it had to have once been. Doctor Tofu...
except no one had ever fought the doctor before. No one knew what he was
capable of; except that he could somehow mask his aura and that he had
an extensive knowledge of pressure points.

Reaching behind her back, she retrieved her battle spatula.

Konatsu was fast and skilled, she knew that first hand, but the doctor
was easily keeping pace bare-handed. And Ukyou could tell that Konatsu
wasn't holding back even a fraction. Blades popped out of the ninja's
forearms as he slashed and spun. Four, then six, long lines of sparks
slashed a purple tinted cylinder of alien metal. The doctor parried the
blows without apparent effort, weaving deftly inside Konatsu's guard,
and striking.

And hitting smoke as Konatsu vanished.

She'd encountered that before, having fought Konatsu, but this time his
body replacement was unusually small. A single plasma grenade hung
suspended in midair, a few bits of straw wrapped around it in a rough
approximate of the human form. Had he tried that move on her, Ukyou's
training would have instantly dictated that she hide behind the flat of
her blade. That was, if sheer shock hadn't stunned her into making a
deadly mistake.

'There's no time to dodge! Konatsu did it!' she almost lowered her
guard.

Then Doctor Tofu plucked the plasma grenade out of the air and held it
calmly in his palm.

"Hm," he mused, examining it. "That was pretty dangerous."

Casually tossing the grenade onto the ground he let it roll away and
into a corner.

'A dud? No. Aliens don't make duds! Did he...' she could scarcely
imagine it. 'Did he disarm it? That's impossible! They said it was
tamper proof, even with telekinetics!'

A moment later, a thunderous explosion rocked the hangar.

Tofu ignored the sound and fury and instead looked up. Konatsu wasn't
even announcing his techniques anymore. The air filled with bladed paper
as the male kunoichi unleashed his Fujin Seikyu Senpu (Heartless Bill
Whirlwind). From another angle, another Konatsu launched a volley of
shuriken, and from another, a barrage of needles. It was a combination
attack from every angle. There was no where to quick step to, no matter
what the manner of Tofu's speed technique was. Unless he could teleport,
anyway, which Ukyou dearly hoped he couldn't.

Tofu didn't and couldn't.

He spun as the attacks rained down, gliding through the hailstorm. Those
attacks he couldn't dodge, he picked from the air or knocked aside. All
around him, shuriken and needles clattered to the ground, bouncing and
skidding against the impenetrable surface. It wasn't just an amazing
display of agility, but perception as well. Konatsu's doubles had varied
what they threw, adding a few needles in with the shuriken and some
shuriken in with the needles. Almost certainly, all had been poisoned
beforehand as well, just like Konatsu's sword.

Which left only the comparatively harmless "bill whirlwind."

Ukyou began to build up her ki to jump in when Konatsu landed nearby.

"Now!" he yelled, and the flurry of papers around Tofu constricted,
sticking to him rather than trying to cut through his Ethereal's cloak.

For a half second, standing amid a pool of deflected or avoided
weaponry, Tofu stopped and looked down at the papers on his arms, legs
and torso. And then he exploded.

"Konatsu Andon!"
(Konatsu Paper Lantern)

Amid the flames, Tofu stumbled.

"You can't put them out," Konatsu informed his victim, and holding out
his hand Ukyou could see a small remote. A remote detonator!

"You've heard of napalm, I assume. I treated many of my paper shuriken
with either an incendiary agent and or a small amount of plastic
explosive..." he dropped the remote. "This fight is over. Those flames
will burn you down to your bones."

"Amazing, Konatsu!" Ukyou let her ki dissipate, as she clasped her team
mate's shoulder in congratulations. She was inwardly more than a little
peeved that she hadn't been able to help, but that did nothing to
detract from her friend's accomplishment. Konatsu hadn't just improved
on his techniques; he'd adapted them to become far deadlier.

He really was a genius!

"Miss Ukyou, thank you..."

Still burning, Tofu fell to his knees. Ukyou couldn't help but feel bad
for him; it was a terrible end for such a kind man. But she focused her
anger at the aliens. They had done this to him. Not Konatsu.

"Ahhh... that really was impressive! Praiseworthy, even... You actually
killed Betty."

Standing atop one of the parked large scouts, Konatsu's double let out a
strangled cry. On top of another UFO, another of the doubles contorted
and fell, gracelessly, off the edge of the ship and to the floor.
Standing where the last one had been was a familiar form. Ukyou quickly
looked back to the burning corpse...

Betty?

"Betty," Tofu repeated. "My assistant."

Ukyou did vaguely remember. Doctor Tofu had jokingly called the skeleton
in his office "Betty" before, when she had visited there with Ran-chan
(er: Lieutenant Saotome). But whatever Konatsu had destroyed... it had
looked like Tofu, albeit in his Trenchard state. What was going on?

"You seem surprised by something," Tofu casually observed. "You see, I
don't like fighting. I prefer to let Betty, or one of my other
assistants, do it for me."

"No," he interrupted, before they could ask. "I don't mean a clone. It
would be cruel to use a clone of me in that way."

Ukyou could see the corpse, even through the fire. Its face was mostly
intact. It looked human. Or human-ish.

Then it came to her.

She switched to her armor's external speakers. "You were manipulating
someone's body..."

"It was no one you knew," he explained, as if such a statement was
actually reassuring. "I just recycled one of the women we picked up in
the Amazon village."

Ukyou felt a sharp spike of anger rise up inside. This was...

"Disgusting..."

"You think so? It was completely painless..." His expression didn't
waver. It was as if he had been standing and watching the whole time.
"Once unconscious, I simply necrotized the parts of her mind relating to
memory and personality. I'd be hesitant to even call it a she. Betty was
just a skeleton... so don't feel bad about breaking her. Really."

The dark holes where his eyes had been caught a hint of red light.

"Making another only takes a few minutes."

For a few seconds, the two younger martial artists just started at him.

"Such fierce expressions. I suppose I'm fortunate this isn't a
popularity contest..." the robed figure chuckled in apparently genuine
amusement. "Isn't that right, Shampoo?"

The Amazon landed nearby from where she had been hiding, watching, and
listening. Ukyou could guess that she had probably also thought that
Konatsu had won the fight, and as such, hadn't intervened.

"Monster!" Shampoo spat.

"You worked for me before, Shampoo," he noted. "I even wrote you a
fairly glowing work reference when you left. I... seem... to be looking
for a new assistant at the moment. I don't suppose I could tempt you?"

Shampoo, still holding her rifle, lifted it to her shoulder.

"I see. Three on one is a little messy, so..." Tofu turned his head to
face a different direction. "Assistant Number Two?"

Without further warning, the doors of one of the large scouts opened,
and another cloaked figure stepped out. Against the light of a nearby
flare, Ukyou could clearly see her face. The girl seemed perfectly
normal, pretty even, but she wasn't anyone Ukyou knew or recognized.

"This is Rouge," Tofu introduced the new arrival. "Let me apologize in
advance for her temper, but she'll be helping me kill you."

-----

Ranma grimaced as he landed, arm throbbing with pain. The heel of his
boot was just touching the wall behind him. He had used it to keep from
crashing into the wall of alien metal, but the force transmitted into
the structure was still telling. Tiny purple leaves drifted through the
air, loosened by the indirect force of the blow he'd received. Their
fight had taken him down the hall and into what could only be one of the
alien garden complexes. Intel had briefed him on these areas, and that
they were often infested with Chryssalids.

At the moment, fighting a Chryssalid would have been a relief.

Cologne stood in the center of a large oval clearing, strange alien
plants rising around her and up towards the ceiling, twenty meters
above. Her stance was practiced and casual, with one arm up, and palm
up, and one arm down, and palm down. She appeared untouched, unharmed,
and in contrast to the slashes and damage his armor had on display.
Worse than that, he could tell that her blows were primarily internal,
and not external, using soft martial arts and explosive bursts of power.
Even using the more heavily protected sections of his personal armor as
a crutch; she'd still been able to hurt him.

Pushing off of the wall, he assumed his own stance, fists clenched.
Direct confrontation wasn't working. Not only was Cologne just as fast
as he'd expected, as he'd remembered, but her experience and style were
throwing him off. Abstractly, he understood that she had fought
Happosai, the founder of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu, whereas the only Amazon
he'd had much experience with was Mousse. There were some similarities
there, but not enough to reliably exploit.

Spreading his legs, Ranma concentrated his battle aura, sending it down
to his legs before shooting towards his opponent in a sudden burst of
speed. Cologne stepped into a circular motion, right arm rotating
clockwise to field an inverted palm strike, and then anti-clockwise to
redirect another blow with Ranma's left hand. There was little time to
see Cologne's counterattack, or even to read it. But he could guess that
it would be, and fell to his left, avoiding another open palmed thrust
to the throat. He had to take advantage of his flexibility and
unpredictability to attack from unusual and unexpected angles.

Stopping his fall with his left hand, and supporting his body with only
that arm, he kicked out with one foot and then the other, aiming for
vulnerable parts of the lower torso, and then the face. He'd hoped to
drive Cologne back, but her arms spun in oblique circles as she parried
the blows, and continued her spiral footwork. Cursing at his missed
opportunity to land a clean hit, Ranma switched instantly to both legs
and a low stance. He'd have preferred to not use Kung Fu against
Cologne, but the position had left him with few other options. Striking
upwards with snake, and then moving as quickly as possible into a more
familiar hard style, he locked wrists with her and kicked - toes, inside
of the knee, groin, kidneys, arm pit, and then into a heel strike.

Cologne shifted her footwork, spinning her body as well as her arms.
Those blows that actually seemed to get through and connect became
brushed aside by the movement of her body, and then she struck. The
first blow was only to stun him and throw him off balance, and then she
had circled around and stepped behind him. Twin strikes: to the back of
the skull and the lumbar indentation of the vertebra, sent him tumbling
and spinning. For the first time, he couldn't manage a proper landing on
his feet and instead he hit the ground face first, his body twisting
from the blows.

"Damnit...!" he hissed, instinctively tucking and rolling onto his feet
and backing up. He could feel a spike of ice shooting into the back of
his brain, and it hurt to move his neck. His spine seemed to have faired
better, but only because of the armor there.

Regaining his senses, he saw Cologne standing, in the same stance as
before.

Her style of fighting wasn't completely unknown to him. It seemed be a
form of Baguazhang (Eight Trigram Palm) or Xinyi Hunyuan Taijiquan (Fist
of Form and Mind). He recognized the Zuo-You Shuang Shou movements, but
it wasn't one of the styles of fighting he was intimately experienced
with. Genma had never taught him that there were people who could use it
at this level.

While her movements were frustrating enough, her strikes were doubly
troubling. Ranma had taken any number of terrific blows over the
years... the damage to Nerima Ward was proof enough of that. But he'd
trained to take direct damage to the body and get back up. He'd trained
to keep fighting, even with normally crippling injuries to his
musculoskeletal system. Cologne's blows were different, sending shocks
of twisting force into his nerves and disrupting his localized ki. If
she kept it up, her blows would actually wear him down faster than
Ryouga's...

It had to be some mutation of normal Fa-jing or Chan Si-jing. The
explosive force or "issuing power" of Cologne's blows, even when
striking within a very short distance, was a result of her using her
whole body to project force instead of relying on just her arms and
legs. Even when she blocked or deflected an attack, there was an element
of counter-force she applied.... her mastery over the release and
projection of physical forces created by the body, coupled with the
"silk reeling force" of her Chan Si-jing (the circular and spiral
forces) basically turned her entire body into a dynamo.

The strength of her style was in the point of contact, and the required
moment of relaxation in her body as she redistributed the forces
involved, usually down and then up, before adding the twisting force of
her Chan Si-jing. The normal way to overcome that was to hit harder and
faster than the forces could redistribute. The problem was that Cologne
was already inhumanly fast herself. Another possibility was to overwhelm
the body with direct blows, making it impossible to redistribute force
to all the points of contact.

The Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu was predicated on the analysis of an enemy's
fighting style and techniques, and Ranma's mind constantly searched for
weakness to exploit. Having found one, he resolved to put it to the
test. Field testing was also a traditional staple of the school of
Anything Goes...

"Cologne..." he began, standing and shaking out his shoulders while he
talked. "This style of Taijiquan. Is it based on Fu Style Baguazhang?
The attacks seem more like Xingyiquan."

She smiled amicably as the inquiry.

"How nice of you to ask, Ranma," she replied, and he waited for her to
relax a little as she lectured. "Actually, this is neither traditional
Xingyiquan or Baguazhang, but an amalgamation based on local styles
predating Dong Haichuan and updated several times in the intervening
centuries..."

Behind his helmet, Ranma's eyes glinted with hidden malice. The Moko
Ichigeki Tai (Fierce Tiger Hit Figure), of the Saotome Ryu Urawaza
Hiougi	(Saotome School Underhanded Techniques) was about to claim
another victim! Of course, the secret technique was just distracting an
enemy and then hitting them, but the trick was to find out what it took
to distract the opponent in the first place. Normally, a hundred yen
coin would suffice (or the pretense of one, since martial artists were
usually dirt poor), but in Cologne's case, a long winded lecture on
obscure martial arts would work just as well.

She had just began talking about how the underlying Taoist philosophy of
the style, when he struck. Her stance slightly relaxed, her mind
slightly distracted - she blinked. It was a mistake.

"Shichuu Rakuchi Sei!"
(Brace Falling Down Strength)

"Wh...?"

Emerging from the quick step, there was no time for Ranma to execute the
Umisenken move like he had before. He had to keep from using anything
less than one contact point at the same time. Substituting his leg for
one of his arms, he drove apart and disrupted Cologne's stance, while
using his elbow as the compound strike to her abdomen. It was the first
clean hit he'd gotten since the fight began.

"Goshin Ryu Sei Fu!"
(Self-Protection Falling Star Cloth)

Moving quickly, he retrieved the garroted cloth he kept stashed near his
spare ammunition clips. Sliding back his left foot in a wide arc, Ranma
twisted and propelled himself around Cologne's left side, and to her
exposed back, all while slipping the cloth around her neck.

"Haizan Tokai Tai!"
(High Mountain Fall-to-Sea Posture)

Technically, it was an inverted version of the technique, but it was the
thought that counted when it came to announcing one's special moves.
Tucking in his legs and driving them into Cologne's hamstrings, to make
sure she couldn't get into a defensive spin, Ranma's arms shot out,
tightening the razor edged garrote.

Except...

His arms wouldn't move.

Looking to his right, he saw Cologne's hand holding his wrist. On her
knees, nearly choking, blind, she had still managed to read the position
of his body by their contact points! Bending one of her knees up, she
tucked into a forward roll that sent Ranma into the ground, with her on
top. Face down, with her back to his, his mind raced to find a counter.
Then he felt, through her, that she was lifting her legs up, to point
vertically into the air.

'Oh... fuck me...'

"Eight Trigrams Rising Moon."

Ranma squeezed his eyes shut as his entire body pressed into the ground
and corkscrewed in place. Grinding against the packed earth of the
garden floor, around and around and around, his armor wailed from the
friction and from the pieces that tore straight off... then, when it
seemed as if it wouldn't end, a tremendous force built up behind him. He
knew what it was: all the accumulated forces from before were about to
uncoil, and hammer him even further into the unyielding ground.

It felt like one of those heavy American cars drove off a bridge and
landed on his lower back. He next saw Cologne twist up into the air and
off his body. Lying in a circle of torn personal armor, having drilled a
crater into the ground with his body, Ranma blacked out for all of a
second. Then, painfully, his arm moved and he slowly crawled back onto
his feet. What was left of his personal armor was a mess. The torso
section, the sturdiest, was mostly intact, but the arms had been sheared
off trying to protect his face, and his helmet had simply been torn from
its connection port.

Wiping blood from his forehead, Ranma had to admit:

"That was pretty good..." he stood, facing the woman, back in her
infuriating stance. He flexed his fingers, and golden ki began to build
between the digits. But his confidence wasn't high, and the technique
was far from peak levels of output.

"Giving up on fighting me hand to hand?" Cologne asked, seeing through
his technique and its weakness. "Isn't that like admitting you're not
good enough to beat me? If you can't fight me honestly, do you really
think you can beat me with special techniques?"

Ranma gritted his teeth, anger rising and confidence falling.

"Oy, Ranma," a voice cut in, and the pigtailed one turned to see Ryouga
standing on top of one of the plant formations, his arms crossed.

"Want me to sub in for a while?"

The golden ki in Ranma's hands evaporated, and he turned to face Cologne
with a savage look of unquestioned determination. So he was angry. He
could work with that.

"TO HELL WITH THAT!!" A twister of air, burning hot and glacially cold,
swirled around him like a tempest. Cologne's mouth turned into a petite
"o" as a gale force wind tossed back her hair and sent ripples down the
fabric of her ethereal habit.

"Toppatsu Higi Hyoga Reppo Soku!"
(Instant Secret Art - Glacier Storm Breath)

Holding out his hands, and exhaling deeply, flakes of ice began to
collect, first on Ranma's fingers and then creeping, like fine
spiderwebs, up his arms. Cologne hadn't put out one iota of hot ki yet,
which meant he had to supply both cold, via the soul of ice, and heat,
via anger. It wasn't normally possible, but Ranma had discovered the
technique's secret back door, and learned to specifically alternate
between hot and cold battle auras. He was about to show Cologne just
what that meant.

"You think you've beaten me?!" Taking a strong step forward, he thrust
his right fist forward. "You're wrong! Dead Wrong!!"

"Hiryu Hyou Toppa!!"
(Flying Dragon Ice Breakthrough)

Ice and Fire, hot and cold, twisted into a spiral tornado, first wide
enough to swallow a train, and then narrowing down into a confined beam
as thin as an arm. At the end of that beam, alien plants froze solid and
shattered, torn into incalculable pieces. It was telekinetic temperature
control, mastered through repeated refinement of the Hiryu Shoten Ha,
coupled with extremely powerful and tightly confined wind.

And it moved.

Cologne skipped easy to the side, as the beam tried to dwell on her
position. Ducking under it as it slashed, back and forth, Cologne
flipped out of the way as Ranma brought it down in a vertical slice. Not
getting anywhere with the initial approach, Ranma gritted his teeth, and
the horizontal tornado started to distort - becoming less a beam, and
more a snake. It coiled this way and that, the tip always freezing and
tearing apart whatever it hit. Cologne vanished in a burst of speed, and
this time Ranma jumped, avoiding a descending heel kick. He snapped out
his left arm, and a tornado formed and detached, spinning like a top
towards his opponent and threatening to engulf her.

Cologne slipped around, spinning her body and neutralizing the outer
rotational energy of the tornado. Then, her right hand shot out and
back, as she buried her fingers into the tornado behind her. With a
grunt of effort, feet skidding across the ground, the master martial
artist spun and literally hurled the tornado back in the direction it
came.

Ranma leapt away from the spinning storm of wind and energy, first to
the trunk of an alien plant, and then ten meters into the air, in the
process losing the cohesion of his initial Hiryu Hyou Toppa. Kicking his
feet, he fired a barrage of golden ki attacks, inundating the area
below. Cologne spun, deflecting those attacks that got within range with
a sound like cymbals slamming together. Glowing orbs shot off in every
direction, and the attacks she didn't knock aside hit the ground, but
didn't explode.

Instead, they burned with a fiery intensity, saturating the area with
heat.

"Gotcha! Hiryu Kourin Ha!!"
(Rising Dragon Descending Blast)

Ranma's left fist shook with fury as he punched down, and as the heat
from below rose up and met the downward spiral, the same trap that
ensnared Sink back at the Amazon village surrounded Cologne. Wind
swirled up all around her, pinning her in place while the descending
dragon - the inverted tornado - fell to earth.

"One more time! Hiryu Hyou Toppa!!"
(Flying Dragon Ice Breakthrough)

Once again, he thrust out his right arm, and an adjacent tornado formed
within a column of cold air. It was a tornado within a tornado, and like
before, it narrowed down to a freezing and merciless point. Cracks of
ice radiated in every direction along the ground from the impact site;
from within the Hiryu Kourin Ha. The mated vortexes twisted and
trembled, and finally tore themselves apart. A flash of cold snap froze
everything within a half dozen meters, turning plants and leaves, even
in midair, into so many ice crystals.

Ranma landed on his feet, wisps of icy vapor rising out of his mouth.
Crackles of ice still lingered on his arms, and he was breathing was
heavy, labored. He coughed, hard, and licked his dry, frozen lips. His
skin was pale, but starting to look healthier with each passing second,
when he coughed again, harder than before. After a few moments, he
started to breathe more slowly, and the icy vapor dissipated. Spitting
off to his right, he watched as the winds died down around the frozen
epicenter of his makeshift final attack. As the ice left on his body
melted, it also conjured up another problem.

Looking down at his chest, Ranma dryly noted the sudden appearance of
some "old friends." The D-cups, and the clingy and wet white undershirt
he had worn under his armor, mocked him.

"Great! And now I'm a girl again," the he-turned-she grumbled in a
soprano voice. "God damn Jyusenkyou..."

He/She also noted Ryouga standing off to the side, and smirked at his
old enemy/rival.

"Looks like you were late again, P-chan."

"Ranma!" the lost boy snarled, shaking his fist. "How many times do I
have to tell you not to..."

The angry Lieutenant of India Squad paused in mid sentence, staring at
the center of what had been Ranma's attack. Easily visible now, they
could both see a strange dome, frozen over with ice.

Cracking ice.

Bit by bit, the frozen water flaked away or melted, revealing a palette
of black, brown, green and purple. It was instantly recognizable as the
colors of the alien plants. It reminded Ranma of the plants he had seen
Pink and Link use in the past. And with the threat of frozen
annihilation all but gone, the shell began to constrict and melt away.

"Wood style..." Ranma whispered. Shampoo had told them about it, giving
the class of techniques a workable name. According to Perfume's
information, Cologne's strongest element in the Wu Xing was water,
followed equally by Wood and Metal. The latter dealt mostly with
artifacts and weapons, and their use and manufacture. The former,
Shampoo had explained, was mostly a set of medical and healing arts,
with the ability to manipulate plants and animals. The principles were
also known, in a scientific sense, to UNETCO... though the biokinetics
they dealt with were mostly the result of psionic and telekinetic
warfare.

Emerging from within the shifting mass of plants, Cologne stood
unharmed.

"You want to play with special techniques, do you?" She asked, stepping
out of the shell, and holding out her hands. Tendrils of plant matter
rose out of the ground, forming into vines that coiled around her
forearms. In one of her palms, droplets of water began to coagulate and
condense, while in the other, a snap of her fingers resulted in a shower
of sparks.

"Great work, Ran-KO. Looks like you pissed her off."

"Hey. ... Shut up."

The two rivals stared at each other. Ryouga was 100 percent ... while
Ranma had to admit that he was exhausted, hurting, and worst of all, in
his girl form. He didn't want to admit it, but that last bit was a big
problem. He hadn't trained or fought as a girl in a long time, and
testing his aura with what little ki he had left, he could tell that he
wouldn't be able to pull off another Hiryu Hyou Toppa. Maybe if he was a
guy, he could fire another, but not as a girl. A regular Hiryu Shoten Ha
was still possible, but Cologne had taught him the damn technique; there
was no way she'd fall for it. Plus she was too damn fast. Summoning up a
spark of confident ki, he narrowed his eyes in distaste.

'Maybe 20 percent of my reserves left, and that's being generous... I
doubt I could fire a ki attack at more than 40 percent normal power.
Generating all that hot and cold ki at the same time and all by
myself... damnit, and I'm still sort of breathe...'

Blue eyes darted over to Ryouga.

"What makes you think you could do any better, P-chan?"

Ryouga's helmet turned; he was looking back, and Ranma could guess that
he understood he'd never get an open invitation. Ranma Saotome would be
beaten to a pulp before he cried for help, after all. Even if he was in
over his head. Now, it wasn't that he'd... object to a little
assistance, but he sure wouldn't ask for it.

"I won't know until I try."

It was close enough.

"Ok, ok, if you insist," Ranma agreed, glad Ryouga had caught the hint.
His rival knew him as well as anyone, and the thought of that almost
made the pigtailed fighter grin.

"I'll jump back in when it looks like she's about to finish you off."

"Thanks for that," Ryouga joked, and stepped between Ranma and Cologne.

"Ryouga..." Cologne said, having waited politely for them to decide who
she'd fight. It was common courtesy, after all. Every martial artist
understood that.

"Cologne," he replied, but without warmth.

"Are you sure you don't want to surrender?" she asked, assuming a combat
stance. "I still think we resolve our differences using words..."

"Sorry," Ryouga replied, shaking his head. "I'd rather not. Besides,
Nabiki seems to enjoy holding her microphone up to her speakers to keep
you from tricking me with your voice. It isn't pleasant. And for God's
sake, she can stop now. ... Thank you."

Cologne lifted her chin, and her smile faded slightly.

"I see you boys have grown a bit too attached to your new roles..." Her
eyes narrowed dangerously, and as her battle aura began to grow, sharp
and hard, Ryouga could feel it cutting across his skin even through his
armor. It wasn't massive, not like Happosai or even his own, but it was
obviously honed and refined to a razor's edge.

"I didn't want to hurt either of you, but I can see the only way you'll
come with me is by force..."

"That's unfortunate," she concluded.

And, without further warning, Cologne attacked.