part 2 of 2


With a sigh, Ranma collapsed on his sleeping bag. The
Amazon and chased after him and Pop for most of the day.
That chick was worse than anything he'd ever met.
Fortunately it seemed that they had been able to lose her
when the night settled. It made Ranma a little grumpy that he
had to go to sleep as a girl. There hadn't been time to heat
water during the day, and a fire would be seen miles away
when it was dark. So, the Saotomes had eaten a cold meal
and had went to sleep in their cursed forms.

Sleepily, Ranma climbed into his bag. The Amazon hadn't
shown up yet, so she probably hadn't found their camping
place. He was too tired to care, anyway.

<G'night Lina,> Ranma murmured. He was asleep before
Lina could answer.

Grumbling to herself, Lina took over the body. Her opinion on
Ranma had gone down several notches during the day. The
boy had insisted that he could handle Shampoo, despite the
fact that the Chinese girl had been able to ambush them,
time after time. If that idiot hadn't insisted on staying in
control, the problem would have been dealt with already.
Lina was sure that with her magic she could have either
shaken the Amazon off their trail or killed her.

Whatever would happen, she was going to be in control
tomorrow. If Shampoo was foolish enough to show her face,
she'd get burned. Literally. But that was tomorrow. Now it
was best to get some sleep.

			* * *

Lina woke up with a gasp. She had had a horrible nightmare
about being gagged and tied into a chair, while something
prowled in the darkness, hunting for her. It was easy to guess
where that particular bad dream had come from.

Lina crawled to the tent's door flap and peered outside. It
was still dark. Yawning, she went back to sleep.

			* * *

Next morning, Lina and Ranma were woken up quite rudely.
This particular wake-up call involved a loud growl and a
splash of cold water.

Since they woke up at the same moment,  both tried
instinctively take control of the body and ended up hitting
their metaphysical heads together. This caused quite a
headache and left nobody in control.

<Hey! What's the big deal!> Ranma shouted.

<You asking me? It was my turn to be in control!> Lina
retorted.

<Yeah, I know! But what the hell just happened!>

<I don't know! Now, would you please let me take control so
we might find out?> Lina said in a tight voice.

<Yeah, sure,> Ranma grumbled, relaxing and drawing back
from Lina's way.

Reaching out, Lina felt the body. This time it was different,
maybe because there was nobody in control. She 'heard' a
snap and suddenly her perceptions shifted. She was in
control. Lina sat up to see Genma standing there, holding up
a sign saying: "Was about time, son."

"You know, pops," Lina said, creating a ball of energy in her
hand. "You have a really lousy memory."

Genma immediately started sweating. Frantically he flipped
the sign over and knelt down, bowing. "I'm sorry Lina-san.
Please don't kill me," said the other side of the sign.

Lina smiled cheerily and let the energy dissipate. "Okay,
what's the big deal?" <Your father's a total wimp,> she
remarked to Ranma.

Inwardly, Ranma grimaced. He had always known his father
wasn't the most courageous of persons, but it still bothered
him how easily Lina had scared him into what seemed to be
total submission. Sure, Lina seemed to be powerful, but she
wasn't _that_ scary!

Genma took out another sign. "We need to get moving." He
flipped it over. "The Amazon might be near."

Lina crawled out of her wet sleeping bag. "Always eager to
run away, eh?" She asked.

Genma nodded his head, unthinking.

"Thought so," Lina said and started packing her things.

			* * *

"Where to now?" Lina asked Genma.

Genma pointed to the general direction of Southeast and
took out a sign. "Xining should be a three days' journey to
that direction."

Lina nodded. "And what makes you think we can survive that
far?" she asked.

Genma sweated more.

"Anyway," Lina said "I know something that might help us. If
I'm strong enough to do it. Hold my hand."

For a few seconds Genma looked at the offered hand like it
was a dead fish. Then he remembered what Lina had done to
him the day before yesterday, and grasped it with his paw.
It was better to do what she said, he thought.

Lina closed her eyes, started murmuring a spell under her
breath. Around her winds started forming from nothing. Soon,
with a shout of  "RAYWING!" the young sorceress shot up to
the air. Genma quickly grasped Lina's hand with his other
paw too.

For a while Lina flew on towards Xining. Then she frowned.
She had felt completely OK when she had cast the spell, but
her reserves were draining fast. It was like the magic took
more energy to maintain than it had before.

Deciding that she had flown far enough, Lina landed on a
crossroads. One road was the dirt road they had been
following from Cunzhuang, but the other was covered in
some kind of black substance.

Kneeling down, Lina poked at the black road. It was hard as
rock.

<Hey, Ranma,> She asked. <What is this stuff?>

Ranma did the mental equivalent of a blink before
he realised that Lina probably hadn't seen anything like a this
before.. <That's asphalt. They cover roads with it so they're
easier to travel, or something.>

<Oh. What's it made of?>

<I, uh...> Ranma faltered. <I dunno.>

<Right.> Lina turned to look at Genma. "You can release my
hand now, we're no longer in the air."

Hesitantly Genma let go and looked around, as if to make
sure he really was on the ground again. Then, he studied the
sign standing on the roadside for a while, looked around
again, looked at the sign, peered at both roads and finally
pointed at the dirt road and took out a sign. "This way."

Lina shrugged. Any direction was as good as any for her.
"Okay, lets go then." The two continued to follow the dirt
road.

			* * *

Looking around the outsider's camping place, Shampoo
frowned. It was clear that they had spent the night here, but
there were no tracks leading away from the place. It was like
the outsider girl had disappeared into thin air...

Shampoo started circling the abandoned camp in a widening
circle. Hopefully they hadn't bothered to cover their tracks for
long.

			* * *

It was almost dusk when Shampoo reached the crossroads.
For hours she had tried to find the outsider's tracks,
unsuccessfully. Then, she had sat down , convinced that the
outsider had used this diversion to change direction, and
tried to figure out where she was heading now. She had
raced around the countryside, checking all the directions the
outsider could have gone. Finally, Shampoo had ran to this
intersection on the off- chance that her prey had continued to
the same direction than before.  Indeed, it seemed that the
outsider was indeed heading to Xining.

Cursing how she had been caught up in her own cleverness,
Shampoo raced onwards.

			* * *

Lina finished polishing off the remains of the third helping of
the dinner and sighed. They had built camp in the middle of
nowhere, next to a small spring. They hadn't come across
any villages, large streams, rivers or other places where one
could get food, so Lina was feeling a little grumpy.

Well, there wasn't much she could do to correct their meal
situation now, nor was there much she could do to ease her
frustrations. Whining to Genma was no fun since he just
cringedand started begging for mercy. Complaining to
Ranma was equally unproductive, since it always escalated
into an argument, and Ranma being a voice inside her head
(or vice versa), she couldn't physically pound him which
made it much less satisfying.

Lina picked up a stick and started doodling on the ground,
bored. A fine mess she had found herself in this time. She
was in the future, in a world a thousand years away from her
own time. A world filled with Amazon tribes with totally
ridiculous customs, strange martial arts, and all that strange
'technology' she had witnessed and heard of.

A world where the Mazoku were no more,  where her magic
was weak, and where she had only one person she could call
a friend: Ranma. And Ranma was a loudmouthed,
overconfident jellyfish brain who had a total idiot for a father
and because of whom she had to keep half of her time doing
nothing. It was also because of Ranma that she was alive at
all.

A fine mess indeed.

			* * *

Ranma wrung water out of his ponytail and cursed. Again,
the day had started out just fine, and he had been able to
change back to his proper form. But, somewhere in the
afternoon, dark clouds had started to gather over them. Soon
after that the two travellers had been making their way in the
middle of a fierce rainstorm.

The storm hadn't lasted that long - only ten minutes or so -
but it had been quite enough to totally drench Ranma.
<Damn I hate this weather,> the he said to Lina. <You sure
you can't do anything to help me?>

<You mean to keep the water away?>

<Yeah.>

<Well...> Actually there were several things Lina could have
done to help Ranma. Unfortunately all of them required her to
either being in a separate body or in charge of this one, so
she hadn't bothered mentioning them. There was one thing
she might ask, even if she was sure Ranma didn't have what
she needed. <I don't supposed we have any diamonds or
jewellery lying around?>

Ranma blinked. <Of course not. Pop would have sold them
long ago if we ever had any. Why do you ask?>

<Because if you had had a preferably largeish diamond or
some other precious stone I could have tried to enchant it.>

<Enchant?>

<Basically, if several conditions, such as a correct angliment
of the gem and a magical circle drawn in the right way are
set, I can infuse a diamond, or in some cases some other
kind of precious stone, with magic and cast a spell, usually a
protection spell or a travelling spell, to the said stone. Now, if
done right, the spell will attach itself to the structure of the
stone permanently, so that it will be always on, or, in case of
such spells as Raywing, can be activated without needing to
draw on your own mana reserves. Basically, when done right,
you get a magical amulet. How powerful the amulet is and
what it can do depend, of course, on the skill and power of
the casted and on what spell was cast on the stone. The
most common magical amulets are different kinds of amulets
of protection, such as protection from fire or cold. There are
also amulets that protect from different kind of creatures,
such as vampires or...>

<Whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell are you trying to say,
Lina?>

There was a silence for a second. <You didn't understand a
thing, did you?>

<Uhh... No. What were you trying to say?>

<Knew it,> Lina muttered. <If you had had an diamond, I
could have enchanted it to keep the rain away.>

<Oh. Couldn't you use some normal rock to do that?>

With an effort, Lina kept herself from launching into a long
and angry rant. It wouldn't be worth the effort since Ranma
wouldn't understand anything.

<No,> the young sorceress said in a tight voice.

			* * *

Tired, Ranma sat down on his bed. After that initial shower, it
had rained for most of the day, making turning back to a boy
a futile effort. And now, when Ranma was finally in a dry
place there was not much he could do to change. The
facilities in this little inn were minimal, and he didn't have
the energy to go to the kitchen and try to ask for hot water.

Ranma had picked up a little Chinese on this trip, but his
vocabulary was very limited, and he wasn't sure of the
meanings of several words, so he'd probably end up getting
something completely different.

			* * *

Lina muttered a few choice oaths under her breath. She
hated being broke. And she hated the modern money system
even more. Earlier that morning, before had Ranma
awakened up, Lina had tried to get something to eat with
Genma's paper money she had 'borrowed', only to find out
that it was of wrong type. She had tried to make Ranma
explain it to her, but the boy didn't seem to understand the
stuff very well himself, and to Lina it sounded ridiculous.
What was the point of having different money in different
countries anyway? Back in the old days it had been much
simpler. Gold was a common currency, fairly valuable,
accepted everywhere and by everyone, and easy enough to
get from one bandit gang or another. Now, you had to
change your money from one type of paper to another if you
went from one country to another. Ridiculous.

Later, when she had went back and tried to bully Genma into
buying her a decent meal, she had found out that they were
almost out of the local money, yuan, and didn't have much
money left overall. So she had to settle for a light breakfast
before moving on.

<It's too hot and I'm hungry and tired of travelling and I
haven't had a decent meal since that amazon village and
even there it was interrupted and I'm...> Lina took a deep
breath. "... Sick and tired of this!!"

Genma, who had turned back to human that morning, jumped
almost two meters into the air and started sweating
purposefully. Nervous, he turned to look at Lina. "Uhh...
What was that Lina-san?"

"It's too hot here and I'm hungry and I don't have any decent
clothes and I'm hungry and I'm tired of just walking on to
who-knows-where that's on the other side of this continent
and it's boring and I'm HUNGRY!!"

Genma just cringed back and started stammering. Ranma,
however, was more vocal.

<Seesh, don't you have any endurance, Lina? We're not
even running away anymore.>

Lina scowled, making Genma even more nervous. <I'm not
any stupid martial artist! I'm a sorceress and I should be out
there beating bandits and having good time. Instead I'm stuck
inside your head half of the time and have to follow your idiot
father back to some stupid island that's probably halfway
across the world from Zefilia in a time where all my friends
and relatives have been dead for a millennium. And I'm
getting sick and tired of this all, and I especially want to have
a DECENT MEAL!>

<You ain't the only one who's stuck inside somebody's head
half of the time, and now I hafta suffer from your whining too!
There's nothing you can do to change that stuff now, so why
don't you just be a man and take it you tomboy?>

<I'm NOT a tomboy, and I most definitely am not a MAN YOU
STUPID TACTLESS JERK!>

<You sure ain't a girl either, not with that chest size!>

<Why, you... MORON!!!>

<TOMBOY!!!>

<IDIOT!!!>

<CRAZY CHICK!!!>

Genma decided that it would be best to take several steps
back, considering the quite intense aura that was building up
around Lina.

			* * *

Shampoo sped down the road, her hair trailing behind her in
the breeze. It had indeed been a lucky break that she had
found this bicycle. It had been easy enough to persuade the
previous owner to give it to her. After all, a mere postman
didn't need it nearly as much as an amazon warrior hunting
for her prey.

Suddenly, there was a giant explosion in the horizon,
throwing huge gouts of flame thirty meters into the air.
Though the explosion was kilometers away, it was clearly
visible to the ridgetop Shampoo currently was on.

Shampoo screeched to a stop, staring at the explosion. She
hoped that the outsider hadn't died in whatever had just
happened. She wanted to kill the redhead herself.

			* * *

In the middle of a quite large crater, Lina fell down to her
knees, gasping for air. Never before had she lost control so
completely. Almost all of her reserves had been spent in that
explosion of uncontrolled magical energy. She hadn't felt this
spent since the battle against Shabranigdo. <Damn you
Ranma, look at what you made me do!> she weakly
complained.

<Hey, it was you who started it!> And equally spent Ranma
answered. Somehow, the violent outburst of energy had
affected him too.

<I... Oh, damn it all!.> Lina was too weak to argue right now.
Grabbing her backpack that had somehow survived the
explosion, she clambered out of the crater, grumbling at
herself, at Ranma and at the world in general.

"One way or another, I'll get something to eat." The young
sorceress muttered.

			* * *

 Half an hour later Lina was fishing at a small river, a
sizeable pile of fish resting next to her.

<Don'tcha think that's enough?> Ranma asked in a bored
voice.

<No! That's barely enough for an appetiser!>

<Oh. How much are you going to eat then?>

<LOTS!> Lina said, smiling. She had forgotten her anger. At
the moment she had more important matters in her mind,
mainly the fish and how to cook it, and if she should give any
to Genma. After a very brief internal struggle she decided
that since she had caught the fish, they were hers. If
Ranma's lazy idiot father wanted something, he'd better catch
it himself.

Finally, another half an hour later, Lina decided that she had
enough food. The pile was half again as high as she was.
Grinning widely, the young sorceress rubbed her hands
together. <And now for some firewood!>

<You're gonna eat that all?> Ranma asked, disbelieving.

<Yup! I know it might be a little much, but I'm hungry!>

Ranma didn't say anything.

			* * *

Shampoo was sure her prey was near-by. The trail she was
following was very fresh, most likely less than a hour old. The
outsider girl was near, very near. Shampoo wasn't sure why
she and her panda had left the road, but it didn't matter. All
that was important was the kill. Hearing commotion on the
trail ahead, the Amazon maiden jumped into the trees, and
continued her way there.

A few minutes later, Shampoo smiled. The outsider girl was
below her, gathering firewood, seemingly completely
oblivious to Shampoo's presence. It was time to end this.
Screaming her battlecry, Shampoo dropped down, her sword
drawn.

Lina glanced up just in time to see death coming at her in the
form of an angry Chinese girl holding a sword bigger than
Gourry's. Lina almost fell down when her body suddenly
seemed to decide on its own that it would be a good thing to
drop the firewood and step away from the sword's way.

Unruffled by the fact that her first strike had missed,
Shampoo started swinging her sword in tight pattern. The
outsider girl backpedalled frantically, barely able to dodge
Shampoo's slashes. It was clear that the redhead was in
panic and would soon fall victim to Shampoo's sword. If
she hadn't been so intent on killing the outsider girl,
Shampoo would probably have noticed that the outsider was
moving very oddly.

Lina was in panic. Her control over her movements was
shaky. It was like her mind was telling one thing, and the
body was trying to do something completely different. This
really wasn't a good thing, considering that she had a
bloodthirsty enemy in front of her, currently trying to do her
best to kill her.

Finally, Lina tripped on a treeroot and fell down. Shouting in
triumph, Shampoo thrust her sword down. Lina, however,
rolled to the side and pointed her hand to her opponent.

Somehow, the shock of falling down had cleared most of
Lina's confusion and caused her body to once again
cooperate with her mind. Rolling to avoid the sword, she
reached inside herself for the little power that was left there.

"MEGABRUNTO!" The spell coursed through Lina, drawing
the last remnants of her magical strength to her outstretched
hand. Lina's hair suddenly turned white as the spell was
released.

Shampoo barely had time to scream as she was engulfed in
flames. Her world turned red, and the black.

Lina laid down on the ground, panting, and looked as the
magical flames swallowed Shampoo, fried her crisp and then
died down. The Chinese Girl's burned and blackened body
fell down with a thump.

<What the hell were you doing!?> Ranma, who had been
quiet during the fight, mostly because of shock of not being
able to do anything, shouted. <You scream at me for not
hitting her when you got us near fucking killed!!>

<It wasn't my fault! For some stupid reason this body was
acting like it had a will of its own, trying to do some of your
fancy martial arts or something! Even if I'm not a great fighter
like you, I'm not incompetent!>

<You sure looked like a total klutz to me!>

<Oh, do shut up you moron! Unlike you ,who couldn't even
lift a finger to attack,  I got her!!>

<I... Uhh...> Ranma stammered, unable to come up with a
good retort. <Ummm... What did you do to Shampoo,
anyway?>

Lina blinked, confused at the sudden change of topic, looked
down at Shampoo and then smirked. <What does it look like?
I nailed her!>

Ranma studied the blackened corpse before Lina. He was no
expert, but Shampoo didn't really look that good. <Uhh... Is
she all right?>

<Huh?> Lina retorted. <All right? Of course she isn't all right!
That's the whole idea! When somebody is after your blood,
you're supposed to blast 'em, not worry about their health!>

<What the hell are you at again!? We can't just let her die
here!>

Lina took a deep breath, more out of reflex than actual need,
since mental ranting wasn't really that exhausting. <And what
kind of stupid attitude is that? 'We can't just let her die here'?
Huh? Her health isn't our problem, but hers. If Shampoo's
tough enough to survive, which I think she is, all's good and
well for her as long as she's far away from me, but I sure ain't
gonna start worrying about her.> At this point Lina knelt down
to check if the Amazon was breathing. She was. <Now, you
don't need to be so concerned about her since she's
obviously breathing, and those burns are mostly just
cosmetical. Even if she's a maniac, I'm not as cruel as to
completely obliterate her, even if she surely deserved it, but
her survival isn't my concern either!> Ranma was quite tired
at this point and didn't bother to answer the rant. It would
have just led to another fight, and he really didn't feel like it
right now.

<Yeah, whatever,> he said. <What happened to your hair
anyway?>

Lina blinked and for the first time realised what had
happened.  The young sorceress fingered her ponytail a little
nervously as she turned to return to the camp. <It's like this.
When I use all my magical reserves...>

end of chapter 4

Spells:

Ray Wing: A flight spell.

Kiyor Switch: Orginal spell. Name invented by Joshua
Prismon. Since Lina doesn't know how to cast it, we probably
won't be seeing it in this story.

Megabrunto: A moderately powerful and quick firespell. Lina
once blasted a couple of 'peeping toms' with it while bathing.
(see Slayers episode 11 for details.)

other stuff.

some conversions:
1 kilometer = 0.621 miles
two meters = 6 and a half feet.
thirty meters = approx. 100 feet.

Cunzhuang means literally 'a village'. If Takahashi-sama can
make puns, I'll be damned if I don't...
Thanks to Gary Kleppe for suggesting this... ^_^

The Village Leader's name was taken from '250 names for
Feng Shui!' webpage. I don't have a clue if it makes any
sense. My apologies to all those, who can speak Chinese.
^_^

How come Ranma realises that if he turns into male,
Shampoo won't chase him, since he didn't think so in the
manga?
Well, since Ranma's female form is Lina in this story, he
thinks his two forms are kinda like separate people. (in the
body) There's the male Ranma Saotome -body and female
Lina Inverse -body. Shampoo is after Lina, so Ranma thinks
if he turns into his male body, he's safe. And, for once, he's
right. Too bad he doesn't have time to pour that hot water on
him.

And for those who don't know: Lina's definition of a good
meal includes at least the entire menu. In many cases
several times the entire menu.
----------
Jussi Nikander
Jussi.Nikander@alien.nixu.fi