Insertion

 Part 33

Super Ranma vs. Fire Dragon Takibi

+++++++++++++

 "What the hell?!" gasped Akane as she looked at Ranma in shock. 

 "What!?" snarled Takibi in a low hissing voice as he glared at the boy.

 Ranma chuckled and landed on the ground, his aura died down, but the
golden hair and more muscular frame remained. "You're not the only one
who can transform monster. Now you'll see what I'm really made of." He
removed the remains of his shirt by tearing it off of his chest and
smirked. He knew he'd be stronger and faster this way, but it had
exceeded his expectations beyond what he had anticipated. His power
hadn't doubled like he had thought it would, it had quadrupled.  "Let's
have some fun."

 Takibi snarled and turned towards him, bearing his fangs and claws as he
charged. 

 Ranma met the charge by flying towards him head on.

 "Come on! Show me what you've got!" he sneered.

 "Die!" snarled the monster. 

 Ranma stopped just in front of him and suddenly flew backwards, keeping
just ahead of the thing, and dodging it's strikes at point blank range.

 "You'll have to do better than that!" cried Ranma as he slammed his fist
across the thing's jaw.

 Takibi was thrown into the remains of the stage off to the side by the
blow. It staggered back to its feet and shook its head. "This isn't
possible! There's no way you're as fast as me!"

 "You're overconfident," said the boy casually as he eyed the thing for a
moment and landed again.

 "You're just blowing off steam boy! You'll never beat me!" snarled
Takibi as it jumped to its feet and reared its head back. A ball of fire
flew from its jaws as it snapped its head foreword again.

 Ranma remained where he was and swatted the ball away casually. It flew
into the stands and exploded, sending a shower of debris in every
direction.

 Takibi snarled and stepped back. "That was interesting."

 "You haven't seen interesting. I'm only at half my full potential," said
Ranma as he watched the thing for a moment.

 "What?" said the lizard as it jumped foreword. "You're bluffing!"

 "No way!" muttered Usagi as she watched the battle. "That's only half
strength!?"

 "He's playing with it!" gasped Jupiter as she realized what was
happening.

 Takibi slashed at Ranma desperately, the battle was far too fast for the
others to really see in more than in passing glimpses. "I will not lose
to you! You're nothing but a human!"

 "I'm more than that," said Ranma as he kicked the thing in its chest. 

 Takibi grunted in pain as he slammed into the ground. It rose to its
feet again and glared at him. "He's so strong! This shouldn't be!"

 Ranma appeared in front of him and hit him with a hard right in his
muzzle. The thing's neck snapped backwards and it toppled onto its back.
Ranma backed away as it rolled backwards and flipped onto its feet.

 The pigtailed boy put up his fists and smirked. "Give up?"

 "No way!" snapped the monster.

 The boy shrugged his shoulders casually and blasted foreword into a
kick. Takibi's claw shot up and he grabbed the boy's leg. "Ha! Too slow
this time! Die!" He tried to slam his opponent into the ground again, but
instead of surprise, Ranma had a smirk on his face.

 "Got ya," said the boy as he twisted in midair and slung the monster
into one of the concrete walls just below the stands.

 Takibi stood up and snarled again. "What are you?"

 "Ally to good, nightmare to you," said the boy as he frowned suddenly. 

 "You're just a human! I am the most powerful being on this planet!
You'll never win!" roared the creature.

 "I'm through playing with you Takibi. It's time I finished you off,"
said the boy coldly. "For everyone you've murdered, I'm going to destroy
you now."

 "Give it your best shot!" snarled the monster as he readied himself.

 Ranma didn't respond; he merely shot foreword with the force of a
bullet. Takibi backed up into the stands, blocking desperately as the
boy's relentless attack pummeled his body anyway. Finally, Ranma vanished
from in front of him and reappeared behind him, kicking him downward
again.

 The beast was blasted back through the stands, carving a path through
the bleachers as he rocketed back into the ground.

 Ranma smirked at him, floating just above him as the thing began to move
inside the crater his landing had created. "You fool. I am the weakest of
my kind. You're power is nothing to the others. They will destroy you."

 "I'll make sure to tell them that when I send them to see you in hell,"
said the boy as a ball of golden energy appeared in his palm.

 Takibi tried to jump up and attack, but Ranma's blast was too fast, and
too powerful. The entire stadium shook from the force of the blast as the
thing was shot back into the ground again. Finally the light subsided and
Ranma stood alone, staring down at a smoking skeleton inside the huge
blast crater that was now present where the monster had once been. He
snorted and turned to face the others.

 The senshi backed away nervously as he approached calmly and looked at
Jadeite and Akane for a moment.

 "You were late," said the man with a smirk on his face.

 "I got sidetracked," replied Ranma with a shrug. "How are things here?"

 "Not good since you left," replied Akane as she frowned at him. "The
senshi have been working with us, and we've got some help from that green
headed guy."

 "The Mask, huh?" said Ranma as he looked at the group of girls for a
moment. All of them except for Usagi backed away a little more. He
pointed at Jupiter and frowned. "You owe me an arm lady."

 "Huh?" muttered the girl in confusion. 

 "Where are the others? I don't see tux boy around either," commented
Ranma as he looked around for a moment.

 "He was hurt," said Usagi sadly.

 "Still alive?" asked Ranma casually.

 "Yes," said the girl nervously.

 Ranma didn't respond to that and turned towards Akane again. "Well, here
I am."

 "Just in time, as usual," commented Jadeite with a small snort.

 "I'll see you guys back at headquarters later on," said Ranma as he gave
them a small nod.

++++++++++++

 Ranma landed on the rooftop of the building that housed the headquarters
of the MIB. He looked out over the rooftops for a moment and sighed.
"Well, we're definitely back."

 "You two still there?" asked Dan.

 "Yeah, but there's only one of us at the moment," said the new being.
"I'm not sure, but I feel a little weird."

 "Huh?" asked Pissant in confusion.

 "Something's happening," said Dan as he felt something as well.

 Ranma fell to his knees, a weakening feeling coursing through his body
suddenly. "What the?"

 "You all right?" asked Dan as he took control and made them stand again.

 "What the hell?" said Carrot. "We're back...to normal..."

 "How?" asked Ranma in confusion.

 "I'm not sure," replied Carrot. "Maybe merging together like that is
kind of like mixing oil and water. It doesn't last very long?"

 "We'd to well to remember that in the future," said Dan.

 "Maybe we can make it last a while, we should work on it. If that thing
wasn't bluffing, and we transform back at the wrong time..." said Carrot.

 "Right," said Ranma with a slightly nervous edge to his voice. 

 "Come on. Let's go inside, we've got some explaining to do," said Dan.

 "It sure feels good to be home," said Pissant cheerfully.

++++++++++++

 "I could have stayed in the past. I could have even been king!" said
Ranma as he pushed a shopping cart through a department store with Akane
and Nephrite following behind him. "But, my place is here. So I drank the
juice, said the words and here I am." He had decided to buy some larger
clothes to fit his new form for his training. Rather than wait until he
explained things to the others, he'd just left. Nephrite and Akane were
impatient and decided to tag along.

 There was a flash of light in front of them. The Senshi of Pluto stepped
out and glared at him. "I thought as much. So that was you."

 "Huh? Oh. Hi," said Ranma as he looked at her for a moment.

 The other people in the store paused and stared at the woman as she
faced off against the trio. "Hi? That's all you have to say?" asked
Pluto.

 "What else do you want?" replied Ranma with a shrug.

 "Did you say the words right?" said Pluto as she glared at him for a
moment.

 "Well, maybe I didn't say every little syllable no, but basically I said
em, yeah. Basically..."

 Pluto turned completely red. "You idiot! Do you have any idea what
you've done?" She pointed the time staff at him threateningly.

 "Um...Ranma?" muttered Akane nervously.

 "I thought I was just buying a new shirt," replied the boy in confusion
as he looked into his cart.

 "Crystal Tokyo is gone! When you misspoke the words you summoned an army
of creatures to this world! It will be changed forever!"

 "You did that?" asked Nephrite as he looked at Ranma for a moment.

 "I guess so. How bad could it be? I mean, I can take a stupid army of
creatures," said Ranma casually.

 There was a commotion near the registers, a strange energy crackled
across the people standing in line and sent them flying away.

 A small fuzzy creature stood between two racks of assorted candy on
either side of the register with its back to them.

 "What the hell?" said Ranma as he shoved Akane and Pluto aside.

 The small creature turned to face him and glared at him for a moment.
Power crackled across its hide as it stared him down and gave a
horrifying call.

 "Chuuuu!"

 Ranma stepped back and was thrown off of his feet by a bolt of power
that blasted from the tiny rodent. He was thrown into the sporting goods
section of the store, behind a counter of weapons.

 "We must destroy it!" said Pluto from where she was sprawled across the
floor.

 The tiny rodent turned to look at them and jumped up and down excitedly.
"Pika!"

 "What is that?" gasped Akane.

 The animal abruptly stopped jumping as a gunshot rang out across the
store. The ground at its feet shattered and it looked up to see Ranma
standing on top of a display with a rifle in his grip.

 "Sir. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the store," said the
boy calmly.

 The rodent hissed at him and backed away slightly. "Pikachu!"

 Ranma tossed the weapon into the air and jumped onto another display
that was on wheels. It rolled foreword and he caught the rifle he had
procured and began to fire shots at the creature. It jumped around
excitedly, dodging the bullets. 

 The pigtailed boy jumped down off of the display as the creature bounced
off a trampoline and into the air over his head, showering the room with
electricity. The boy fired into the air at the thing as it passed over
him.

 Finally, just over his head, the creature seemed to explode in a rather
messy shower of gore. The hindquarters fell to the ground and twitched
for a moment. 

 Ranma smirked as he twirled the weapon around on his hand and put it in
the leather holster at his side. 

 "Moron," commented Pluto. "If you had stayed in the past, I would have
destroyed you. You also wouldn't have screwed this up, and we'd all be a
lot happier."

 Ranma grabbed her and leaned her down. "Hail to the king, baby." He
promptly kissed her full on the lips and then dropped her on the ground.

 She sat there for a moment working her mouth in silence.

 "Come on, Akane," he said as he pushed his cart through one of the
registers. 

Nephrite followed behind the girl, chuckling the whole time. He paused
and looked down at the senshi for a moment. "Hasn't changed a bit, has
he?"

 Pluto screamed in anger and vanished in a flash of light.

+++++++++++++++

 Somewhere, deep in the wilderness of Japan...

 A flash of light formed in the middle of the woods. A tiny figure
stepped out and looked around for a moment. She adjusted the backpack on
her shoulders for a moment before stepping towards the city. 

 Unknown to her, another figure stepped out of the porthole just after
she left. He was taller, and dressed in a business suit. "Now where am I?
Oh bother," said Ryoga as he sighed and realized he was in the middle of
the woods again. Moments before, he had been indoors.

++++++++++++

 The next day...

Ranma was lying on his back under the Mikon Taka. It was parked in the
woods on the mountain that housed the Masaki shrine. A thick book was
beside him, and various tools were spread out across the ground. He was
working on something on the ship and cursing every once and a while
before flipping through the pages of the book again.

 "Let's see, this goes here right?" he muttered to himself.

 "No moron! It goes there!" he replied to himself out loud while smacking
himself over his head. 

 "Ouch! Okay! Jeez," he replied again. "What about this?" he asked
himself.

 "Here," he replied to himself while pointing at the innards of the ship.

 "Okay," he answered and started working again.

 He paused and looked up. A woman's head was poking from the underside of
the ship watching him intently.

 "Hiya," said the woman. She had long, spiky, cyan colored hair.

 "Oh. Hello," he answered as he blinked at her.

 "Is this your ship?" she asked as she phased through the hull and sat
down next to where he was lying, hunching over just below the hull.

 "Yup," he answered dumbly. "You must be Ryoko."

 "You know me?" she answered in suspicious looking surprise.

 "Yup, 'scuse me," he reached for a tool near where she was sitting and
looked back at his work again.

 "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Who are you talking to?"

 "I'm talking to myself, and I live here," he said as he looked at her
for a moment.

 "On the mountain?" she asked as she peered at him with a small frown on
her face.

 "No. I live in Nerima, but I don't have a place to park this thing. I
got old man Masaki's permission to leave it here for a little while."

 "Oh," said Ryoko dumbly. "How do you know who I am?"

 "Everyone's heard of A class criminal Ryoko," replied the boy as he
leveled his stare at her.

 "I've been here a while kid, you'd better have a better explanation than
that," said the woman coldly.

 "There's an old legend that goes with this mountain. It talks about a
demon that was slain by a great warrior named Yosho. It coincides with
the disappearance of the Jurai Crowned Prince Yosho, and the A class
criminal Ryoko. It doesn't take a genius to figure the rest out. I ran
into Tenchi Masaki yesterday just after he released you."

 "You mean, you know who I am? You're not scared?" said the woman as she
peered at him for a moment.

 "Yes, and no," said the boy with a sour looking frown forming on his
face.

 "Well. I suppose I can forgive you this time. If you could do me a
favor," said the woman with a rather unusual smirk on her face.

 "The reason I'm fixing this ship is because it isn't working right now.
I can't take Princess Ayeka back to Jurai," said the boy as he turned to
look at her.

 "Hey, you seem to know an awful lot for an Earthling buddy," said the
woman with a slightly angry tone.

 "Yeah, well. It's my job to know these things," he said with a shrug.
"Besides, who the hell doesn't notice a Juraian Cruiser descending on
your planet in the middle of the night?" 

 "Your job?" asked Ryoko with an even more confused frown.

 "I keep track of people like you on this planet. You're currently under
the protection of Jurai, however indirectly that is. So, you're legal I
suppose."

 "I didn't know Earth had a police force like that," said the woman as
she looked at him.

 "A lot can happen in... seven thousand years? Is that what it was? I
forgot," said the boy as he looked thoughtful for a moment.

 "Something like that," said the woman with a shrug. She lost interest
and floated back into the sky, by passing through his ship.

 "Man, what a crazy chick," said Ranma as he shook his head and went back
to work. He promptly smacked himself again. "No! It goes here!"

++++++++++++

 Later that day...

 "How are you feeling Mamo-chan?" asked Usagi as she stood at the foot of
her boyfriend's bed. She had a bouquet of flowers in her grip as she
looked at him for a moment.

 "I've felt better," he replied a little sourly. He was lying on his
back, covered in bandages and casts. The only thing not covered by one or
the other was his head. "If it wasn't burned, it was broken basically."

 "You poor thing," said the girl sympathetically.

 He turned his head away in self-disgust. "I can't believe I was so
careless. I let him get his hands on me and it was all over. You barely
got away in time..."

 "I know, we all think you were very brave," insisted the girl as she sat
down beside him. "Mamo-chan. I've got good news."

 "What is it?" he asked with an interested look on his face.

 "We got it, it's finally gone," she said cheerfully.

 Mamoru sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. Hopefully things will get back
to normal. How did you..."

 "We didn't," replied the girl. "That man who used to beat us all up all
the time came back. He destroyed it, with his bare hands."

 Mamoru looked visibly shaken at this. "He what?"

 "I don't think he's evil. I think that woman is wrong about him. He
seems familiar somehow," said the girl as she looked away from her
boyfriend.

 "I think he seems familiar too, but he's..." Mamoru looked up and went
pale.

 "Hiya," said Ranma as he walked through the door of the room. "Well,
don't you look like hell?" He had a cheerful looking smile on his face as
he strolled across the room.

 "What are you doing here?" stammered Mamoru as he looked at the boy in
shock.

 "I heard you went and got yourself hurt, so I thought I'd stop by and
laugh at you for a little while," said Ranma with a casual shrug.

 "You came to visit him?" said Usagi dumbly.

 "Sure. Why not?" said Ranma as he looked at her for a moment. "So, how
is my favorite punching bag doing today?" He put his hand on one of the
raised legs and Mamoru groaned in pain. "Oh. Sorry," said the pigtailed
boy as he moved his head.

 "No better than when you put me in here," snarled the man as he glared
at the boy.

 "Hey, you and those crazy chicks kept attacking me for no reason. What
was I supposed to do? Let you kill me?"

 "Sorry," said Usagi sheepishly. "We don't have to fight anymore do we?"

 "Not if you stop trying to kill me," said Ranma as he glanced at her for
a moment. "Really, Princess, I thought you were better than that.
Following that idiot Pluto around like a dog on a leash."

 "Who's an idiot?" snapped Pluto as she came into the room with Tsuki by
her side.

 "Tsu-chan! You're all right!" cried Usagi as she jumped up and hugged
the girl roughly.

 "Hiya!" said Ranma cheerfully.

 "What's he doing here?" asked Tsuki as she glared at the boy for a
moment hatefully.

 "Leaving I hope," said Pluto coldly.

 "Come now Setsuna, let's be civil. There are sick people here," said
Ranma as he tapped Mamoru's leg for emphasis. The man gave another set of
painful groans in reply to this.

 "You are a threat to the future. I will see you destroyed, with or
without their help," said Setsuna coldly as she glared at him.

 "Bah! The future," snorted Ranma in disgust. "This one a long time have
I watched. All her life has she looked away...to the future, to the
horizon. Never her mind on where she was. Hmm? What she was doing.
Humph!" Ranma poked Pluto in the chest to emphasize this and turned away
from her. "Bah!"

 Pluto simply stared at him in shock. She worked her mouth for a moment
before turning red with anger yet again, and storming out of the room in
a huff.

 "Sorry Usagi, Mamoru, I gotta go now," said Tsuki sheepishly as she
followed after her mistress. 

 Ranma smirked after they left and nodded his head. "Too easy they make
it at times."

 "Why are you talking like that?" asked Mamoru dumbly.

 "It's nothing. I've seen what I wanted to, I'll leave now," said the boy
as he walked out the door.

 "See, he's not so bad," said Usagi. It was easy to tell something was
bothering her though. 

 A roar of laughter started in the hall just after the door closed and
slowly faded away as Ranma left.

 "Yeah, he's a great guy," commented Mamoru with a sour frown.

 Usagi wasn't paying much attention though. "Princess? Where have I heard
that voice before?" she thought to herself.

++++++++++++++++

 "So, Takibi has failed us?" said Metallia as Beryl stood in front of her
shrine.

 "Yes, he was destroyed by a powerful fighter..."

 "It is of little consequence. The others are still gathering energy more
quickly than I had anticipated. They will be to late to stop us," said
the evil thing coldly. "Destroy him if you can. Otherwise, it is a
problem that can be easily ignored for the time being."

 Beryl frowned at this. "If he could be turned, he would be a powerful
ally."

 "Can it be done?" asked Metallia.

 "He shall join us, or die, my master," replied Beryl as she bowed
deeply.

+++++++++++++++

 TBC...

 Next time: Ranma Saotome vs. The Army of Cuteness.
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