Grave's New Life

Chapter 17

By Philip Weigel

Disclaimer: Disclaimer? I need a disclaimer? (Goes to look in the dictionary) Hmm... Disclaimer, something used when people associate with Lawyers. Oh well, I don't own Gold Digger, Ninja High School, or Ranma 1/2, they're owned by High Lord Fred Perry, Godfather Ben Dunn, and Rumiko Takahashi-sama respectively.

Note: This is a test chapter. It’ll be a bit shorter on purpose here.

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“I’d be better if you were dead!” Ryoga said, charging forward, his fist reared back. “And I’ll make sure you see Hell!”

Ranma’s eyes opened slightly as his old friend/rival charged at him. “Hey, watch it!” He yelled out, jumping up and over as Ryoga rushed in, his fist slamming down and shattering the ground under him, a small explosion occurring.

Grave eeped and jumped to the side, covering her face and eyes with her arms as dirt, rocks and debris flew up around from the point of impact. “HEY! You could hurt someone!”

Blinking, the bandana-clad teenager looked at the source of that voice. He was slightly started as he saw a girl with blonde hair, dark spots, a white face with a stripe on the right side of it, she was wearing a skin-tight purple one-piece suit of some type. ‘A tail?’ He thought in surprise as he saw the furry appendage sticking out from behind the girl in front of him. He shook his head. “Sorry about that, I’m not trying to hurt you.” He said, before turning back to Ranma, or at least where he thought Ranma was. “Huh? Now where’d he go?”

“An opening!” Was all Ryoga heard, before he got kicked in the back of the head, sending him rolling forward.

He growled, before rolling with the blow and back onto his feet. “Ranma! You coward! Using a Neko-tama as a distraction!” He screamed before running back at Ranma and lashing out with a kick. He gritted his teeth as that jerk jumped the kick, before kicking back against him hard enough to actually split his lip.

As she watched her friend and that psycho-path fight it out, Grave sighed and ran her left hand through her hair. What was it with everyone in Japan calling her a Neko-tama? Did she have a sign on her back or something? Or was someone upstairs playing a game on her?

Ranma ducked under a roundhouse, before tripping the lost-boy up and kicking up as Ryoga was parallel to the ground. He smirked as his old friend/rival was launched up into the Sakura tree that he had been sitting under a few minutes previous.

He blinked as he heard a snapping sound, before a branch broke off and fell down, with Ryoga on his feet on top of it. ‘Woah, he got a lot better.’ He thought to himself. Either that or he just recovered quicker.

(----)

“Oh, it’s horrible!” A teacher, short, slightly overweight, blubbered as he ran into the teacher’s lounge, “There’s a student fighting someone else on school grounds!” All the teacher could do was blink as he saw that the only person in the lounge at that moment was that American, Professor Steamhead.

The spiky-haired American blinked at hearing that. “Is that a problem?” Honestly, if everyone got worked up every time that there was a small fight, then everyone’s nerves would be wrecked within a week.

“They’re wrecking everything and it looks like the one that’s fighting our student is trying to kill him!” The other teacher yelled out frantically, practically hopping up and down. “Why, if our student gets hurt, his parents could take him out, or worse, sue the school!” The teacher looked positively horrified at that thought.

Steamhead raised an eyebrow and followed his fellow teacher to a nearby window to look down on the courtyard. He smirked as he saw what was going on. “Oh, they’re just playing.”

“Playing?!” The slightly tubby teacher shrieked. “How is that considered playing?!”

The American smirked slightly as he watched the fight proceed. “Back in my old school, there was a blonde girl who always fought with a black-haired ninja girl all the time. Well, the blonde used high-powered weapons and armor while the ninja girl used every sneaky ninja trick in the book.” He said, nodding to himself slightly. “Compared to that, this is tame.”

The other teacher blinked and looked down as the bandana-clad kid got kicked into the outer wall hard enough to cause it to collapse. He nearly jumped out of his skin when said kid got back up, yelled something not-so-nice, before charging the new student. “This is TAME?!” He shrieked, similar to a young school girl.

“Very.” Steamhead said, nodding and smiling, causing his co-worker to face-fault at hearing that. “You know, that looks painful, maybe you shouldn’t do that?” The good professor said idly as he looked down at the fallen teacher.

His only response was a slight groan from said teacher.

(----)

Ranma ducked under a kick, before landing a five-hit combo on Ryoga’s ribs, sending his rival and old friend to the ground, shuddering slightly, before getting back up. ‘Oh, gee, Ryoga’s really gotten better since I saw him last.’ He thought to himself. Not that he’d admit that he was having trouble with the lost boy, since he wasn’t, but the fact that the maniac hadn’t gotten lost yet had gotten him slightly worried. “Hey, what the heck’s wrong with you?”

Growling, Ryoga glared at his nemesis for all he was worth, his green eyes practically glowing with anger. “What’s wrong? You have the GALL to ask me what’s wrong after the horrors that I’ve seen?!” After saying that, he shuddered horribly as the memory of what he had seen came back to him.

Behind them, Grave frowned at that. “What? Because you saw something horrible, you get mad at someone and try to kill them?! What kind of psycho are you?!” The petite Werecheetah growled slightly as the idiot who attacked her friend turned and faced her, his face red and flushed slightly.

“You don’t understand! It was horrible!”

Rolling her eyes, Grave Digger wondered what was up with all the loonies that she seemed to be meeting since being separated from Brianna. First those wacko arch-mages that tried to kill her but couldn’t get their heads out of their butts, then that dwarf, the Undead and that woman with a lot of personalities, then Ranma’s mother, okay, she was nice, but still, she was weird, and now this guy. “What? A bunch of ugly people or something?”

Everyone blinked as Ryoga suddenly stopped, before falling to the ground and shuddering. “N, NO!! AHHH! KEEP AWAY!! GAHH!!”

Several of the students blinked and shuddered at the mental images that were running through their heads. Whatever it was that caused the apparent psychopath trouble must have been horrible.

Sighing, Ranma walked up to the downed martial artist, crouched next to him and started poking him with a stick. “Hey, hey, hey, this is no time to take a nap.”

“Stop that!” The Lost Boy growled, uncurling and lashing out with a kick at Ranma, who jumped back purely on instinct. Climbing to his feet, the Lost Boy snarled, before lunging at his rival, who hopped over him, before lashing out with a kick to the back of his head.

Frowning as he saw Ryoga hit the ground before bouncing up a good meter. “What’s your problem, Ryoga?” It was almost as though the guy wasn’t happy to see him or something.

Growling as he skidded to a stop a foot away from the street, Ryoga stood up. “It’s because of what you did to me!” He screamed before blinking and looking around. “Just where did you go? COWARD!!” He screamed to the heavens.

Ranma sweat-dropped, he had nearly forgotten how bad Ryoga’s sense of direction was. Grave walked up next to him and frowned slightly. “Is he just stupid, or plain moronic?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest. She barely noticed Ranma shaking his head slowly. As far as the petite Werecheetah was concerned, the fool who attacked her friend was an idiot and deserved little to no respect. Unless they could come up with a good excuse, Grave wouldn’t think too highly of people who attacked her or her friend; having so-called sisters and parents who would kill you as soon as they saw you tended to do that to a person.

As far as she was concerned, the fool in front of them was just psychopathic and crazy, a decently skilled fighter, nothing like her friend though, and that was about it. He had a weird magical aura around him, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Even if Grave had been able to see the future, she wouldn’t have been able to believe what happened next.

A yellow taxi drove by the school, before the driver threw a can of something out the open window. Time seemed to slow down for Ryoga as the can hit the curb right in front of him, spraying the cold, liquid contents all over him. “NOOOO!” He screamed, unable to believe that this was happening to him.

Everyone blinked as the person who showed up and started attacking suddenly... Changed. Several of the students screamed in horror as they saw something straight from a horror movie as the person suddenly gained muscle mass, height, his hair grew insanely quickly till it was down to the small of his back. He still looked human at least. Ranma gulped as Ryoga stood up, now nearly seven-foot-six, with more muscles and an aura on him that even he could feel. “Man, oh man.” He muttered to himself.

Grave gawked. “A, a Jusenkyo curse?” She practically hissed out. She looked at Ranma. “You never told me he had a curse.” She whispered to him.

Ranma shook his head. “I, I didn’t know.” How could he? The last he knew, Ryoga was still in Japan, not China.

Ryoga growled, looking at Ranma with his inhuman eyes, “You shall pay! And I’ll use this new form to make sure you PAY!” He screamed, before rushing forward faster than his form would suggest.

Ranma’s eyes widened as he jumped back, purely on instinct as Ryoga’s fist hit the ground hard enough to cause a crater for three meters in all directions. “Holy!” His eyes widened further as he looked around. “Grave? Where are you?”

“Right here.” A slightly shocked voice said right next to him. ‘Thank god I used that leap spell.’ Even though it normally was used to jump high and land slowly, she was able to use it to jump back quickly enough, and it was low-level enough that she didn’t need to worry about a pesky magic user finding her out.

Growling and standing up, everyone blinked as they could only see the head of the person who caused that crater from within it. “I will make you pay, Ranma!” He growled, similar to a dog, before jumping out of the crater and into the air.

Ranma shook his head. “Hell with this.” He muttered, before jumping up after Ryoga. So what if the guy was stronger and faster? He didn’t seem any more skilled than he was before, and that’s what really mattered in the end.

Grave paled as she saw Ranma jump into the air and go up after Ryoga. “RANMA!” She screamed, fearing for her friend.

Ignoring her screams, Ranma quickly caught up with Ryoga as he got to the apex of his jump. Channeling as much Ki as he knew how to into his limbs, Ranma threw several powerful and fast strikes at each vulnerable point on the human body that he knew of. The first three strikes managed to actually hit. But Ranma hadn’t counted on a few things. First off, the cursed body that Ryoga had was a lot tougher than a normal human body. Secondly was the fact that the body was capable of using large amounts of Chi quickly and thus being able to ignore most attacks on said body. Lastly, Ryoga’s natural toughness was transferred over to his new body. So while the curse on a normal human would be extremely powerful and tough, with Ryoga, it was insanely tough, strong and powerful.

Grave gasped and her eyes widened tremendously as that crazy person landed several powerful blows on Ranma, even though he managed to block them, sending him down onto the ground hard. Thankfully, Ranma managed to land on his feet.

Groaning, Ranma shook his arms, which he knew were bruising from those attacks.

Ryoga smirked, even with the... Unusual drawbacks of this new form, it gave him the necessary power to defeat his rival. They had always been even, but now... He started chuckling. ‘After I kill you, I’ll get cured of this curse and not have to worry about it anymore.’ He thought to himself.

Ranma sneered, before taking a more defensive stance as Ryoga took a couple steps forward. If that maniac thought he was going to beat him easily, he had another thing coming.

After five steps, Ryoga stopped, and grabbed his head. “No, no, shut up! NO! I won’t listen to you!”

Everyone blinked, until Ryoga spoke again, only this time, in a new, more distinguished and smarter-sounding voice. “Benji! What are you doing wasting your time with that human? I told you we have to get back at Gina Diggers!”

“NO! I am Ryoga! Not Benji!” Ryoga shouted in his voice, thinking back to what had happened a few weeks ago.

(----)

Flashback... (Don’t we all just love these?)

“Oh no! Is very bad, sir!” A fat, bald Chinese man in a Maoist uniform and hat said as he took in the appearance of his guest.

Ryoga blinked as he brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. “What is?” He asked, surprised that his voice sounded different now.

“You fall in spring of “Drowned stupid-but-really-strong-guard-boy-to-really-smart-dog”. Very tragic story of fused being that was sent back to dawn of time and fall in first Jusenkyo spring ever and drowned. Now whoever fall into spring gains height, muscles, speed, and ability to use Chi.” He said, his eyes seemingly closed, his left hand up with one finger pointed upwards.

Ryoga blinked, trying to ignore that pounding in the back of his head. “What’s so wrong with that?” It all sounded pretty good to him.

“Aiyahh, person who fall into spring also goes crazy. They have a second person in their head.” He said, shaking his head sadly. “Most turn back to normal, only to kill themselves right afterwards. Very, very tragic spring.”

Ryoga blinked, before the voices started up again. “What the? Who’s Gina Diggers?”

“Ah, yes, people say that voice in head always tells them to go after a Gina Diggers.” The Jusenkyo Guide said idly, before pouring a kettle of hot water over Ryoga’s head, turning him back to normal.

“Whew! No more voices.” Ryoga said, sounding relieved.

“Oh, sir no understand. Voices come back when splashed with cold water.” The Guide said, stepping back nervously.

“What?” Ryoga asked slowly, hollowly.

“When splashed with hot water, sir returns to normal. But only until splashed with cold water, then sir turns back into big muscled monstrosity.”

End Flashback...

(----)

Shuddering, Ryoga growled at the voice in his head. “Just shut up!” He yelled, before turning around and running away, and through the Sakura tree, and through the outer wall, causing both to collapse.

Blinking as he rubbed his arms, Ranma blinked several times. “What was that all about?” He asked no one in particular. Beside him, Grave just shook her head, she didn’t know either.

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Okay, so this isn’t all that short.

I decided to do a mix of seriousness and zaniness for this fight. (After reading the first 15 books of Ranma 1/2, I decided that this would work perfectly for this chapter.) So, what do the rest of you think about this? And, yes, Ryoga’s sense of direction comes into play, even in his cursed form.

And, yes, you the readers actually get to decide if this chapter stays or goes.