Chapter 5: Road Rage

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There was a loud explosion.

Smoke, thick, grey and roiling, swirled up from the broken beaker lying on its side and swelled into the small stone room, setting the inhabitants to coughing.

“Oh my, Master Mousse!” The tall, brown-eyed maid waved frantically in front of her face with her cleaning rag, trying to disperse the noxious fumes. “Please stop or you will surely blow the palace up, and then what would Master Happosai say?”

The thin figure on the bench coughed and huddled deeper into his robe. His long, shining dark hair hid his face from view.

“Don’t worry, Kasumi,” he mumbled. “I’ll never have that much power.”

“It’s not how much power you have, it’s how you use it,” the maid replied. “So my father used to say.”

The apprentice looked up.

“That sounds like an odd thing for him to say.” His chin on his fist, Mousse watched with tired eyes as Kasumi clean up the table. “What does your father do for a living?”

The hand mopping the tabletop stopped briefly, then started again, wiping wide, drying circles on the wood.

“He was a farmer,” Kasumi said. “He’s gone now.”

Mousse felt ashamed, as though he’d been prying.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, sir.” Her hand scrubbed determinedly at a stubborn spot. Mousse could have told her she was wasting her time. The table held the marks of too many of his failed magical experiments.

Instead he stood, leaving Kasumi to clean. Perhaps some fresh air would clear his head and refresh him. He left the room, striding down the low hallway that always made him claustrophobic. He never understood why the king gave the court magician such cramped quarters to work in. Happosai never complained, but then more often than not, he was out in the kingdom, working some magic or the other.

Eventually, the hallway grew wider, and fresh air blew some of the stink of chemicals away. Mousse turned the secret corner that led out into the gardens, and emerged from the shrubs into the garden of ponds. The lilies in the ponds stirred slightly as a soft breeze blew over them, but Mousse didn’t see them.

“Why did he even take me in as his apprentice?” Mousse looked down at his hands, the long fingers and square palms, remembering the shot of green light that had emerged from his hands, killing the evil sorcerer’s apprentice up in the mountains.

Hardly anyone remembered that, though. They remembered Kunou.

Prince Kunou was the one who had brought back Princess Akane safe on his warhorse. Pshaw, what had the prince done, anyway? Waved his sword about a few times, while Mousse and the soldiers did all the work. Yet there he was, famous, being touted by all the ladies at court as the bravest of them all. Even Akane seemed to listen to Kunou more these days, though Mousse had never thought she had any great affection for him.

As though he had conjured her up with his thoughts, Akane came into sight, in the garden. Dressed in loose trousers and a tunic cinched to her slim waist, she walked over the bridge that spanned the largest of the ponds, coming closer to him. Yet she hadn’t seen him. She passed the statue of the three intertwined bronze trout, and stopped near the pond of koi, touching her knee-length black hair gathered into two brass rings, one at shoulder height and one near her waist.

Mousse watched with some curiosity as she took up a warrior stance. He watched with growing confusion as she moved through a series of forms, most of which he didn’t recognize. Yet he knew the art itself.

Akane still hadn’t seen him, and he watched, entranced, as her hair moved through the wind as she slowly changed positions, flowing through them like water.

She must have heard something then, because she stopped, and looked straight at him. Her eyes widened, and her arms suddenly grew clumsy.

Mousse took a step forward, so it wouldn’t look like he was hiding in the fragrant flowers behind him.

“I’m sorry I startled you. I was just out for a breath of fresh air.”

She continued to stare at him, with wide brown eyes the colour of sherry. He’d never noticed that before. Well, he’d never really been this close to her before, despite living in the same palace as her.

“Mousse.”  She said his name as though it was unfamiliar on her lips. Slowly she relaxed. “It’s all right. I wanted some air, too.”

Shampoo watched Mousse warily out of her transformed eyes, remembering him from the raid in Kulloden’s cavern. She hadn’t seen the magician since then. She’d been too busy trying to settle into court life. She hadn’t even had time to do what she’d come here to do. The King, the Queen, Kunou- all of them kept her too close, as though they were afraid she might disappear yet again.

And as for Akane’s ladies-in-waiting, after meeting those bitches, Shampoo could almost find it in her to feel sorry for the princess. Well, not really, for hadn’t Akane slept in sheets of softest satin and drank from a cup of porcelain while she, Shampoo, had worn ragged clothes and slept in the dust of Kulloden’s cavern until she learned to spell herself a blanket?

She recalled her first meeting with the ladies-in-waiting.

“Princess Akane! You’re back!” they’d chorused when Kunou brought her back to her room wrapped in his cloak. They swarmed around her, cooing and whispering, and Shampoo stayed silent, taking it all in, taking in the massive bed, the soft carpets, the gleaming diamond-shaped windows, and envy ate at her.

Once they’d settled her in, almost to the woman they turned to Kunou, speaking to him in breathless whispers, caressing his arm, examining for wounds with tender concern. Kunou let them, as Shampoo supposed was his right.

As soon as he left, however, they turned on her.

“Akane, don’t you know what trouble you’ve caused?” One lady with short, brown hair dressed in a pale pink gown demanded, pointing a paper fan at her. Shampoo noticed she had dropped the honorific, but wasn’t sure whether that was proper procedure or not. “Prince Kunou was frantic while you were gone! How can you be so irresponsible?”

The lady sat heavily at the edge of the bed and glared at Shampoo. She snapped her fan shut and tapped the end against Shampoo’s arm, then leaned forward as though expecting a response.

Shampoo found herself in the odd position of defending Akane.

“I hardly had a choice,” she pointed out. “The sorcerer’s apprentice appeared with a sea-serpent and crushed the ship into matchwood.”

“That’s not what Mariko’s talking about, you silly goose!” Another of the women exclaimed. “You should never have left on that voyage in the first place! This is what happens to foolish princesses who think they can change the order of things.”

As Shampoo didn’t have a clear idea about what Akane had been doing on the ship in the first place, or where she had been coming from, she thought it best to keep silent. The pink-gowned lady, Mariko, took that as a signal to continue.

“You cannot expect us to wait on such a spoiled princess!” Mariko stood, and lightly straightened out a non-existent wrinkle in her dress. “We’ll send Ukyou in to see you to bed. I know we promised to accompany you to the ---- tomorrow, but I think it’s best for you to spend a day reflecting on your actions!

Come, ladies!” She sailed off, the other women grouping behind her like ducks waddling off t the pond.

Shampoo watched them go with bemusement. No sooner had then door closed behind them than it opened again, and a maid with a long, brown ponytail hurried into the room.

“Princess Akane!” She rushed forward and knelt before Shampoo. “Are you all right? We were so worried about you!”

“Really?” Shampoo couldn’t help glancing at the door.

“Oh, them!” Ukyou darted an angry glance behind her. “Ignore them my lady. You know if Mariko wasn’t your distant cousin she would never have become your lady-in-waiting.

Now hurry, my lady, we must get you bathed and changed before Madame St. Paul comes to check on you. Are you truly all right, my lady?”

“Of course, Ukyou,” Shampoo said with a much assurance as possible, strangely uncomfortable with looking the friendly maid in the eyes. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long day, and…I’m glad to be home. It was a long journey.”

Ukyou looked puzzled.

“You were only gone for a week,” she said, leading Shampoo into the marble bathing chamber.

“Ah, yes, I meant,it felt longer.” Shampoo tried to cover her mistake.

“But you told me you couldn’t wait to leave, before you left.”

“Yes, but once I was on the ship, it was different.” Shampoo silently cursed her tongue and stepped into the steaming bath before she could give herself away.

The mysterious Madame St. Paul had never shown up, and this morning Shampoo had decided to escape from her rooms to have some time alone, and the best way for that to practice her magic.

And here was Mousse. You’d think a girl could find some privacy in such a big palace. Yet, the boy magician didn’t look so good. His white robe had dark smudges on it, and his face and hands were grey.

“What happened to your clothes?” she asked.

Mousse felt a tide of blood rush into his cheeks.

“One of my…my magical experiments failed.”

Unexpectedly, the princess burst into laughter that stung him to the quick. She saw his face.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean insult.” Her eyes danced with laughter and she waved her hands. “I merely remember a time when I myself….have had accidents. Magic is not an easy art, I suppose, though it looks like it.”

“You were using the martial form of magic just now.” Mousse’s curiousity returned.

The princess stopped laughing.

“I was taught the rudiments of it when I was away. I…didn’t want to lose the knowledge, so I came out here to practice.” She came closer, was now just a few feet away. “What were you working on?”

“I was hoping to create a shadow to protect you, princess. Nothing that would harm you, but something that would let others know you are in trouble, perhaps even where to search for you.”

Shampoo knew the spell. When she was 11, she had painstakingly put the ingredients together to play a prank on Ranma. Her fellow apprentice hadn’t gone near water for a week after that, until finally Kulloden ordered him to bathe or be drowned rather than spread his stench. She grinned at the memory.

Mousse thought she was laughing at him again, and bowed, and made to leave.

“I’m not laughing at you, silly!” The princess said, coming even closer. She was close enough now to have heard him if he’d whispered loudly. She looked back at the palace, then at him. “Are you wearing your glasses?”

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Ranma and Akane were well on the road from Rouge’s palace when disaster struck. They’d been walking for over an hour in the pre-dawn darkness, and Akane spent most of that time throwing covert glances at Ranma and the rest of it mulling over the peripatetic manner of their journey. She hoped they reached the palace sooner than later, because traveling with a sorcerer’s apprentice was getting on her nerves.

Why, he’d even been inscrutable when he kissed her. More so then than ever! Akane’s nurse, the terrifying Madame St. Paul, had always warned the princess about what happened to young maidens left alone with strange men. In a word, they got themselves ravished.

Ravished. Yes, she’d certainly felt ravished when Ranma’s lips had….she shut her eyes, but fevered images popped into her head, and she immediately opened them again. The forest was loud around her in the dark. All sorts of chirping and croaking noises could be heard. The road curved around bushes and over small hillocks, making it hard to see farther than a few yards.

Akane felt a strange emotion bubbling up within her gut, something she hardly recognized. Anger. It was such a rare emotion that it surprised her. Anger had been browbeaten out of her at a young age. But Ranma hadn’t said a word to her since they got started. In fact, he was very busy not saying a word, Akane thought, watching him. She didn’t understand why he’d relented in bringing her along to the palace. After all, his master had stolen her in the first place.

For the first time, Akane’s shell-shocked mind began to come up with questions. Why HAD they kidnapped her? It obviously had something to do with Shampoo. Akane’s single most horrifying moment had been watching the purple-haired virago turn magically into her, Akane, and then be rescued by Kunou! No doubt by now, Shampoo was happily ensconced in the palace as Princess Akane. Ranma knew that. So then why would he allow her, Akane, to come to the palace with him, reveal their duplicity, and wreck their plans? Akane wondered what had happened to Ranma’s master.

Maybe it all had something to do with Mousse. Ranma apparently wanted to find him, because Mousse had somehow bound Ranma. But how? Akane racked her brain.

Thus, the princess and the apprentice were both occupied when trouble came upon them around a corner.

“Why, lookee here, Ollie, if t’isn’t a pretty young maid all by her lonesome!”

Akane stopped, startled by the appearance of two scruffy, thick men. They looked the sort that she’d seen in the dungeons once, when Madame St. Paul had decided to scare her by showing hr exactly what happened to naughty princesses.

“It’s our lucky day, Jesse!” the other man said, eyeing her in a distasteful manner.

“Hello, sweetpuss,” the first man said, grinning at her. He was straw-haired, with a bulbous nose and a dirty face, with two small blue eyes set in them. “Out fer a stroll, are ye?”

“G-Good day, sirs,” Akane replied, sketching a pretty curtsey and trying to sidle past them. They were ignoring Ranma completely, she saw. She didn’t understand how. Ranma seemed to command attention somehow, wherever he was.

“My, whut pretty manners,” the second man guffawed. He was dark-haired, leaner and even meaner looking than his companion. Both of them had swords tucked into their belts as well.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Akane said, still trying to sidle past.

“There’s no ‘urry,” Straw-hair, or Jesse, said.

“Aye, it’s a lovely day,” said Ollie. “Why’nt you spend a bit of it with us?”

“The lady’s with me,” Ranma said impatiently. Ruffians like this really weren’t worth his time, and were only holding him up.

They ignored him. Jesse put a meaty hand on Akane’s shoulder, surprised by the slimness of it.

“She’s just a bit of a thing, Ollie,” he said. “Dunno as ‘ow she’ll keep me warm…”

“Ah, I like ‘em small,” Ollie said, baring his teeth.

Akane gasped, her eyes going to Ranma. Choose between the lesser of two evils, she thought.

“Look, I said…!” Ranma reached out to pull Jesse’s arm off Akane, and his fingers simply passed through the beefy arm.

In shock, Ranma passed his hand back and forth through Jesse’s arm. He touched Akane. Yes, he could still touch her, but why couldn’t he touch the men?

“Can you see me?” He waved his hand in front of Ollie’s face, but the man’s eyes never wavered from Akane.

“Ranma, what have you done?” Akane groaned, her blood chilling as she realized that she was at the mercy of these men. Ranma was invisible to them.

Ranma growled with frustration. Mousse’s magic was seriously screwing with him.

Ollie, tired of waiting, grabbed Akane’s arm and began to pull her to him. She ignored him, her eyes wide on Ranma, waiting for him to save her.

“Do something, you idiot!” Ranma ranted. “Run!”

“They’ve caught me!” she replied, struggling.

“Who she talkin’ to?” Jesse inquired.

“Hit them! Kick them!” Ranma yelled. Seeing her struggling ineffectually, he tried to grab a tree branch. No luck. Akane was the only thing he could grab.

Akane.

He put his arms around her waist and pulled.

“Ow!” Akane yelled.

“Garn, she’s stronger than she looks!” Ollie exclaimed, feeling Akane being wrenched away.

The two men pulled harder, and Ranma yanked too, his arms clamped around Akane.

Akane shrieked. She was getting torn in half! Neither side seemed ready to give way.

Ranma abruptly released her, sending her tumbling into Ollie’s arms. The beefy man caught her with a grin.

“Ah, a bit more friendly-like, that’s what we want, eh?”

Akane screamed, trying to pull Jesse’s hand away from where he was raising her skirt. She felt Ollie’s hand on her breast, his hot breath on her neck.

“Ranma!”

“Akane, listen to me. I can’t help you.” Ranma could feel the binding tugging at him, but it wasn’t urgent. Apparently the binding might not let her die, but it didn’t count rape as great bodily harm.

The only way she could escape was if he asked for permission to use his magic. And then she’d know about the geas.

He’d be at her mercy.

Ranma folded his arms and scowled down at the scene before him. The two men had Akane on the ground now, pawing her vigorously. Her dress was torn in places. She was fighting more now, but it was too little too late. She should have run when she first saw them. He should have warned her, but he’d had no idea he was invisible to everyone but her.

One of the men took hold of her chopped hair and brutally pulled her head back, causing the pale column of her neck to arch in pain. He lowered his head to her.

Ranma turned his back, an odd feeling growing in him. It was like sharp red thorns blossoming in the back of his brain, reaching up to cloud his vision with crimson. Hot rage welled up, shooting like stabbing claws through his chest.

He whirled around.

“Princess! Do you want me to use magic to save you?” he demanded.

“Yes!” came a voice.

“Oh, she wants it, Ollie!” Jesse crowed.

“No!”

Ranma cupped his hands, and a sphere of blue formed there. But he couldn’t release it.

“Dammit!” Why didn’t it work? He’d asked her permission!

Ranma swore. The only reason he couldn’t call his magic was because of the extent of harm he planned to cause with it. The more powerful the magic was, the more specific he would need to be.

“Princess! Do you want me to kill these men for you?”

Silence. Akane lay stunned. Was it kill or be killed?

“Princess!”

Ranma formed the blue sphere again, cupping it in his hands, then drew it out until it formed a bow. He gathered energy in his palm, closed his fingers around it, drew his fist back, past his ear, so that he aimed a blue arrow of energy at Akane’s assailants.

“Princess, make your choice!” he shouted, glaring at her even as every muscle in him strained to release the arrow.

“But…” She shoved a meaty hand away from her bodice, and thought frantically. Why was it her choice?

“Do you want me to kill them? Yes or no?”

Akane stared up at him. He hovered a few feet over them now covered in eldritch blue light, icy fury in his eyes, the muscles in his shoulders and arms straining to leash the energy until she released it. She. Akane. It really was up to her. For some inexplicable reason. And these two wretches deserved it! Righteous anger rose like a whirlwind inferno within Akane.

 “Yes!”

Ranma released the energy bolt, and it found its targets with ease, making a whining noise as it sped down the path Ranma had set for it. Blue light blinded Akane’s vision and her attackers cried out in surprise and pain. Another arrow of energy hit them, and Akane rolled away.

When she stood, small aftershocks of blue light still imprinted themselves I her vision, and she shook her head to clear it.

The two men lay on their sides, burnt and silent. Slowly she walked towards them, bent and examined them with her eyes.

“They’re dead.” Ranma floated to the ground, the eldritch blue energy left him. He walked forward and wrapped his fingers around Akane’s upper arm, more to see if he could touch her than to give comfort.

Akane shrugged his hand off and stood.

“Rouge would never have let those men touch her,” she said in a low voice.

“Rouge is part-demon,” Ranma pointed out.

“You needed my permission to attack them.” Short blue-black strands covered Akane’s eyes, but Ranma didn’t like the introspective tone in her voice.

“I might have hurt you,” he said.

“Since when have you cared about that?” She was still looking at the bodies so she was surprised when Ranma turned her about and frowned at her.

“What are you talking about?”

“You need me,” she said slowly, looking up into his troubled gaze.

He set her down.

“Nonsense.”

“You need me,” she insisted. “That’s why you couldn’t leave me behind on the island. I thought you were just being kind.”

“Fine.” Ranma grabbed her shoulders, pushed her back until her back hit the trunk of a tree, pushed her until her soft skin ground into the bark.

“You are bound to me, understand? Mousse put a spell on us that backfired. Whatever he tried, the results were entirely different. Yes, I would have left you, but we can’t be separated very far without one of us feeling it. I can’t work magic on you without your permission. But…” He abruptly pulled her closer. “But do not think this gives you any kind of power over me, understand?”

“That’s why you’re going to the palace,” Akane breathed. “You don’t really have any intention of letting me unmask Shampoo, do you?”

“None whatsoever,” Ranma confirmed, creating a lead weight in Akane’s chest. “But if we don’t go to the palace, the geas will stay.”

Akane stared, fear in her wide sherry-coloured eyes.

“Is that what you want?” His hot blue gaze burned into her as he conjured a small ball of glowing blue magic in his hand. “To be tied to me forever?” “No!”“Well then.” He released her, and she sank against the tree. “Let’s go.”

Akane straightened. Rouge wouldn’t take this kind of treatment. She poked a finger under Ranma’s nose and shook it.

“I’d like to say here that I’m going to try and defeat you and your girlfriend and your master, no matter what! I won’t just be a pawn!” She shook with fury. “I’ll get free of you and then there will be hell to pay!”

Ranma smiled at the princess’ sudden transformation from a timid mouse into a tiny lioness. He suspected it was the shock.

“Do what you want,” he said. “Just stay close.”

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Okay, hope you guys are happy. I wish I was getting more reviews on this one, but fantasy never seems to be that popular in the Ranma fanfiction universe, or maybe I should write a sequel to Hord! :)