Grave's New Life

Part One

Disclaimer: I don't own Gold Digger, Fred Perry does. I don't own Ranma 1/2, Rumiko Takahashi does.

This is an A.U. fic. It happens before the start of the Ranma 1/2 manga and during issue 47 of Volume 2 of the Black and White series of Gold Digger.

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The world was quiet as the dawn broke with the sun peeking over the horizon. The light continued unobstructed as it passed over the land. The light filtering in one cave happened to pass over a certain young Lycanthropoid. Grave squinted her eyes a bit, then cracked them open a bit as she woke up, the first thing she noticed was the sleeping face of the boy she had met yesterday. The next thing she noticed was the fact that his arms were wrapped around her body as she lay on top of him. "He held me? All night?" Her eyes misted as she remembered his kindness to her. "Kindness I never, ever got before." She buried her face in his chest as she let out tears of happiness.

She blinked when she felt his arms tighten a bit around her. "So why are you crying Grave?" Grave looked up, with tears silently falling down her face to Ranma's blue orbs. "A cute girl like you shouldn't cry like that."

Grave smiled and rested her head on Ranma's chest, she spoke clearly enough for Ranma to hear it. "I-I'm just so happy."

Ranma blinked. "Girls cry when they're happy?"

Grave nodded. "Yes."

"Okay." Ranma just continued to hold her to him, the feelings of her body pressed against his was causing feelings he hadn't experienced before to come forth. Grave smiled on top of him, just enjoying being held as it made her feel safe and warm, she wiggled and snuggled her body closer to Ranma's.

After several minutes Ranma asked a question that was on his mind. "Say Grave?"

"Hmmm?"

"Just where are we? I really don't know where I am."

Grave frowned a bit, and then muttered. "We're on Jade. A whole different world from Earth, that is if you are from Earth."

Ranma nodded and rubbed his hands up and down her back. "Yeah, I'm from Earth." He then frowned, "You really need some clothes don't you?"

Grave nodded against his chest. "Yes. But if I go to any town, people will just tell those others that are after me and then they'll find me and then. ." Grave trailed off as she started sobbing out that if the people she were running from found her, they'd kill her in an instant.

Ranma frowned and hugged her to him a bit tighter. "Don't worry about it Grave. I won't let anything happen to you."

Grave lifted her head up to look Ranma in the eye. Greenish eyes met blue. "You mean it?"

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, I promise you. They'd have to kill me first, I don't let my friends get hurt like that."

Ranma was surprised as Grave kissed him on the lips. His eyes bulged a bit for a while, but since Grave didn't stop, he gave into the kiss and was soon kissing back. Ranma closed his eyes and placed a hand on the back of Grave's head. This continued for a bit, when Grave's eyes opened a bit, she pulled back and looked at him. "Thanks." She smiled and sat up, stretching a bit, with both arms up as she leaned back just a little to get the kinks out of her body.

Ranma blushed as he watched her stretch; he still remembered that free show he received last night. "Eh heh. But, why thank me?"

Grave looked at him curious. "You mean you don't know?"

Ranma shook his head, trying to think of what he did to get her to say thank you. "All I did was give ya some of my clothes last night."

Grave shook her head. "You mean you really don't know?"

"Yeah, I mean, I did what anyone would do."

Grave shook her head. "You did more than that, you were kind to me. You're the first person to ever be kind to me." Grave sighed; she didn't want to start crying again. "But, you're right, I do need new clothes. But, you don't have any money."

Ranma shrugged and grinned. "Yeah, so? I always find a way of getting what I need."

Grave nodded, she trusted him. She got off of him, Ranma grinned and got up as well. "Well Grave, how about we just travel for a bit then?"

"Huh?"

Ranma nodded and went to go and get his stuff packed up. "I don't have a lot of friends in my life, plus I don't know where I'm at. So how about it? You don't want those people coming after you, and I don't want to be alone right now. Plus I said I'd get you some clothes, so, I will."

Grave smiled as he put the last of his stuff away. "Thanks."

Ranma smiled. "No problem."

Soon Ranma was packed and the two were heading for the nearest town, along the way Ranma decided to talk a bit to Grave, telling him a bit about him. "So then we left Ucchan there. I still don't know why he was running after us, or why we got his cart as a gift."

Grave nodded. "Wow, this Ukyou boy sounds like a neat friend."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, and, uh oh." Ranma stopped, narrowed his eyes and looked around, while he was doing that, he dropped his backpack.

"Ranma?"

"There's a bunch of people all around us."

Grave blinked when suddenly ten big, muscular men surrounded them. All of them were scarred up and rather filthy, Grave nearly threw up from the smell.

All of them had dirty, filthy pants on, slimy from not washing them. The pants were gray and matted with mud. None of them were wearing shirts, so their scarred bodies were on display.

Grave blanched as she took this all in. "Yuck!"

The leader, Stan, looked amused; he was about six feet tall and had slimy black hair. "A Werecheetah? Heh heh. Boys we just found ourselves a valuable piece here."

A bald man, who was about five foot eight, chuckled. "Boss, not only would she be valuable, but she's got a great ass too."

Grave shuddered at that, feeling repulsed at that. Normally compliments like that would feel nice, but considering just WHAT, these thugs didn't deserve to be called people, the words were coming from, it made her sick.

Ranma narrowed his eyes at the group, he had seen people like this before in the bigger cities, bullies and cowards, they were only strong in a group, plus they liked to pick on people weaker than they were.

Stan chuckled a bit and spoke to Ranma. "Look kid, just give us the Werecheetah and we'll let you go free." He then smirked. "First we'll have some 'fun' with her, and then sell her on the Black Market."

Ranma frowned and whispered to Grave. "Can ya do that hot mist thing again?"

"Scalding Mist? Yeah why?" Grave whispered back to him.

"Can you make it super hot?"

Grave grinned. "How hot do you need it?"

"Good, make it as hot as you can and fry the jerks that are behind us." Ranma whispered as the bandits came closer. "I'll take out the three in front, that leaves four others, ready? NOW!!"

"Scalding Mist!" Grave turned and spread her arms out, causing the bandits behind her, three of them to get hit with water at 100 degree centigrade, or boiling point. Grave made it extra hot, just so she made the jerk pay who commented on her butt. The three screamed in agony as they were burned.

Rushing forward faster than what the bandits thought possible, Ranma smacked Stan in the chin, sending him flying into a tree. Ranma then side-kicked the other guy in the throat and into a tree.

The remaining thieves were surprised, but they quickly got over it, one of which had a bolo, a rope with weighted ends, specifically metal. He threw it and it wrapped around Grave's legs and tail, wrapping them together and causing her to fall to the ground. "What the?" Grave fell to the ground, she tried to use her magic to levitate, but something was stopping her magic from working correctly.

Two of the bandits converged on Grave, while the other two went to help their comrade, who was just knocked out from a rather painful knee to the gut and uppercut combo. Ranma turned around to prepare to fight them, but then he made the mistake of turning his attention elsewhere and saw Grave on the ground as two bandits approached her. He only turned away for a second, but that was all the other two needed as they attacked him. Ranma turned to them, since he was caught a bit off guard, he was a little off-balance. He Judo threw one guy away from him, but the other one hit him in his back, Ranma grimaced but did a spin kick to the guy's ribs. The guy that Ranma threw got back up and threw a heavy rock that was on the ground, which hit the boy to the ground. They wasted no time and then jumped on top of him, each one grabbing a limb on either side of his body.

They lifted him up and a tubby guy, with slimy brown hair, the one who threw the rock looked at Ranma. "Heh, boy, you shoulda let us just have her, we woulda let ya go and not have ta see this, but I guess ya have ta be stupid huh?"

The other two bandits were on top of Grave, one of which, a six foot five guy with red hair that looked like a bird's nest, held Grave by her arms painfully.

The other guy was a five foot five sweaty, smelly, pudgy, but muscled and scarred individual.

Grave struggled. "Let me GO!"

The guy in front of her chuckled. "Oh? You think we'll let a little girl like you go?" He looked up and down her body. "You don't look like much, must be a fourteen year old or something." He smirked. "But a rather well developed fourteen year old." He reached up and groped one of Grave's breasts through her shirt.

Grave closed her eyes and winced, the man was being rather mean and forceful about it. "Ugh."

Ranma was watching this growling, he made a promise to protect Grave, and right now he wasn't doing a very good job, 'If only there was someway to get free, if only there was something that could help.' Ranma closed his eyes and accessed his inner being, trying to find something, anything that could help out right now. He found a wall, a dark wall and a wave of fear coming from it. Ranma mentally shuddered, 'The Neko-ken?' What Genma didn't know, was that Ranma, several months before they reached Jusenkyo, was trying to consciously tap into the power of that technique. But no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't do it without passing out. Ranma figured he just didn't have a reason to try and learn the technique fully, and that's why he didn't master it. But now he did, he had one reason, that was to protect his friend, even if he could only tap into the power just a little bit, it would be better than nothing at all.

Unbeknownst to Ranma, while his eyes were closed the two bandits that were holding him blinked when he started glowing a pale golden color. "Um, is supposed to glow like that Rich?" The one who had spoken to Ranma earlier asked.

"Don't know. Unless he's a mage of some type."

The first guy gulped. "A m-mage?"

They didn't get to speculate on it any longer as the boy started glowing a brilliant golden sheen, he snapped his arms and legs out and pulled them back close to his body, he ducked his head as the two bandits clonked their heads together. This caused them to let go of Ranma, who turned to them and they gulped when they saw the feral, slightly insane look in his eyes.

Meanwhile the other two weren't watching this, so they didn't know what was about to happen, the one in front of Grave spoke. "Hmm, you know, maybe we should keep her as our personal whore?"

Grave shivered and glared defiantly at him. "Do that and I'll kill you."

The one holding her chuckled. "She's a feisty one, you know what they say about women with fiery tempers, Joe."

Joe chuckled. "Yeah, they're wildcats in the sack." He then smirked. "And since she's a Werecheetah, she'll be an even wilder cat in the sack."

The guy holding her looked a bit doubtful. "I'm not so sure. I mean, she only has one eye stripe, not to mention human ears."

"Heh, true."

Suddenly, they heard a noise, Joe, turned to look, only to receive a tree limb to the face, thrown at high speeds, knocking him out. The guy who was holding Grave shuddered, let the Lycanthropoid go as she fell to the ground, as he took in the sight of a golden glowing human, but this human had a feral look in his eyes, like he wasn't completely there. Behind the boy were the other two bandits, beaten and bloody.

Bob, the one that had been holding Grave, took a couple steps back and turned to run, only to find the boy in front of him. "I don't think so." The boy growled out as he jumped toward Bob at higher speeds than before, and kicked him in the gut, causing Bob to double over in pain, then Ranma pulled his hand back, put all his strength into it and delivered an open-palm strike to Bob's cheek and jaw, shattering the bone and causing Bob to fall down and into unconsciousness.

Ranma fell to his knees, panting, as the golden glow left him; he looked up and around and was confused when he saw all the bandits out cold. Shrugging he made his way to Grave. "You okay?"

Grave nodded. "Yeah, but what was with the golden glow?"

Ranma scratched his head. "Golden glow?"

"Never mind, can you help me get this off?"

"Sure." Ranma went to his pack and pulled out a knife. He then cut the rope that had Grave's legs wrapped up. "There you go." Ranma then went back to his pack, put the knife away and hefted it up. "So what's this about a golden glow?"

Grave blinked as she stood up. "You mean you don't know? Just a second." Grave turned and looked at Joe, "Ice Lance!" Grave threw her hand back, gripped it like she was holding something and then threw a spear of pure ice at Joe, who turned into a human Popsicle. "That was for groping me, you jerk!" Grave turned back to Ranma. "So, you don't know huh?"

Ranma shook his head as he looted through the bandits, taking their money. "Nope, no idea." It seemed that only Stan, the leader of the gang, had any money. Ranma didn't know much about currency, but he found about 100 silver pieces, 100 gold pieces, and 50 pieces of some type of metal that he had never seen before. Ranma didn't know it, but he had 50 pieces of platinum.

Ranma looked at Grave as he held up the bag of money. "So why don't you tell me about it while we head to the nearest town. I think I got enough money to get you some clothing."

Grave smiled and nodded. "Sure." And so, the two took off.

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A.N. Yes Ranma has some, I repeat some control of the Neko-ken, but not conscious. It's a semi-conscious thing with him, at least right now. Ranma can only gain the Neko-ken's abilities when he absolutely needs them and only while he's fighting, due to battle stress. In a way, it's like the Light Hawk Wings that Tenchi uses, he can only use them when absolutely necessary.

The feral look, in case you're wondering, in his eyes is due to the cat spirit of the Neko-ken semi-merging with Ranma for short periods of time. All Ranma gains now are slightly enhanced strength and reflexes, later, who knows?