Grave's New Life

Chapter 18

By Philip Weigel

Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi-Sama owns Ranma 1/2, High Lord Fred Perry owns Gold Digger, Godfather Ben Dunn owns Ninja High School, I'm just a poor college student who writes for fun, not profit and the occasional chance to bash brown-nosers calling themselves Government.

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"Are you sure you're okay?" Grave asked Ranma as the two walked away from the school. The Principal had decided to cancel school, considering the damage and the assault, the Principal had decided that it would have been better to cancel school than risk a lawsuit from students' parents.

Ranma waved her concerns off and smirked. "Nahh... Stung a little, but Ryoga couldn't hurt me on his best day." He wouldn't admit it, not to Grave at least, that Ryoga's curse was unsettling, and it wasn't just his looks either. 'If I hadn't been using Ki...' The pigtailed martial artist thought to himself, trailing off.

"Well... Okay..." The short Werecheetah said slowly, still worried that psycho would come back and try to finish what he started. She blinked as she thought about that, all he really did was start a fight and accuse her friend of something stupid.

Ranma smirked at Grave before wrapping his arm around Grave's shoulders. "Hey, it's okay. Nothing happened, so nothing to worry about." His gesture was completely harmless in nature, just a friend giving another friend a friendly hug. However, most people looking on would say that it was something more.

Watching the two young people across the street, two old ladies blinked, held up their pinkies while whispering among each other about how shameful young people were in public now-a-days.

Grave, for her part, blushed slightly as her friend hugged, her, not that she didn’t enjoy it, but it was a bit unexpected. Mentally shrugging, she wrapped her arm around Ranma’s back and hugged him back. “Okay, I’ll try not to think about it.” She said reluctantly, basking in the warmth of the simple gesture of a hug. She blinked as Ranma released her from his hug. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, she let go of him, pouting mentally that he broke off first. ‘Then again, he might have just been trying to cheer me up.’ She thought to herself, feeling even more down at that for some reason.

Not noticing Grave’s demeanor change, Ranma smiled and walked on ahead, thinking that she was feeling better now that he had talked to her. So what if Ryoga was a lot stronger now? In Ranma’s mind that was something he could use as a measuring stick, as well as something to look forward to.

Sighing, Grave shook her head and picked up her pace slightly so that she could keep up with Ranma. “So, do you think the school called your mom about what happened today?” She giggled as Ranma missed a step, before turning and looking at her as though she was crazy. “What?”

Ranma stared at the Werecheetah-looking girl for awhile. “Um, do they really call parents because there was a fight in school?” That was a new one to him. His last school actually encouraged fighting over stuff, like food and each other, so the mere thought of a school calling his mom over something as minor as a fight was as alien to him as poisoned cooking. (1)

Grave blinked and thought about that. All she really had to go on was the American school system. The Japanese one could have been a lot different than what she was used to. ‘Maybe they allow fighting because of cultural reasons.’ It was something that made sense, even if not a lot of it, at least to her.

The two walked down the street, soaking up the day. “Say, Grave, I was just wondering, why’d ya show up at the school? I mean, mom packed me enough food to hold me over for a couple hours, so, why’d you show up?” It really didn’t make sense to him why she’d show up out of the blue like that. Not to mention that Ryoga showed up, and the lost boy wasn’t exactly a safe person to be around when he was in a fight.

Looking away quickly, the petite girl could feel her face flush slightly. ‘Thank goodness for facial fur.’ She thought to herself. “Um, no reason.” Her voice was cracked, slightly scratchy at best. Clearing her throat, she tried again, “No real reason, your mom said that she didn’t pack all of your lunch and sent me to go and give you what she hadn’t packed.” She didn’t feel that there was any real reason to tell him that she missed him and was feeling lonely. True, Nodoka wasn’t bad company, but she preferred her friend first and foremost.

Ranma blinked a couple of times. “Um, okay...” He said slowly. If Grave said that there was no real reason, then who was he to argue? He blinked and stopped as three rather... Meaty thugs appeared in front of him and Grave. They were fairly big, especially for Japanese people, around six-foot-two, more muscles in their forearms than most people had in their entire bodies, and less sense between them than a roll of pennies.

The one in the middle, apparently the leader, smirked as he took in the two. “Well, well, what do we have here?” He looked from Ranma to the girl with him, before blinking. “Why’s a girl like youse hanging with a guy like that?” He asked, pointing at the shrimp next to the girl.

Ranma’s right eye twitched for some reason. This guy was just begging to get the crap beaten out of him. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard.’ He thought to himself, the three thugs not showing any signs of training, formal or informal.

Grave blinked as Ranma tensed up slightly. She rolled her eyes, did men only think about fighting as the only way to solve problems? Placing a hand on Ranma’s shoulder she smirked at him slightly before shaking her head. “Just watch.” She whispered to Ranma, before turning back to the thugs. “Why, I don’t know why I’m with him when I could be with a big, strong, and slightly handsome man like you.” Smiling, the small Werecheetah sauntered up to the guy and smirked at him, running a hand over his pectoral muscles. “Why, these are so hard, I don’t know why more women don’t throw themselves all over you.”

The apparent leader blinked and smirked before looking at his friends. “Well, I knew that youse was a smart girl.” He said, obviously happy with himself.

Ranma blinked, what the hell was Grave up to? If she didn’t do something soon, he was going to tear into those three jerks. If he was asked what he was feeling, there was no way he could explain it, just something that made him feel irritated at those three, especially the guy that Grave was touching, for some reason.

The Lycanthropoid stopped smiling after a moment, her eyes narrowed and went cold. “Oh, and one more thing...”

“Yeah..?”

A loud crack could be heard for three blocks in all directions. Ranma and the other two thugs looked at Grave in shock for a moment and at where her knee was raised to on that thug’s body.

Smirking nastily as she heard the big thug whimper in pain. “Don’t insult my friend, or I’ll do worse next time.” She pushed the guy down onto his back, where he curled up into a fetal position and his hands between his legs, trying to protect something important.

The other two thugs looked at each other, then at their leader, then at the little cat-girl who took him down. “Uh, now what?”

“How about get lost?” A male voice spoke up, causing the two thugs to look at the shrimp with the girl. Said shrimp was cracking his knuckles and looking at the two with narrowed eyes. Normally the two wouldn’t care about the look and attack the punk, but the fact that their boss was down had them thinking clearly and actually listening to a little something called their survival instinct, which was telling them to get the heck out of there.

Ranma and Grave watched as the two thugs turned around and ran away from the scary people. Ranma walked over to the guy whom Grave kneed, before kicking him at his fleeing friends. “Oh, don’t forget your friend!” He called out before knocking the poor sap into the air and at the other two.

The two watched and laughed as the leader crashed onto the top of the other two as they ran away. Grave giggled. “Now that’s funny.” She smiled at Ranma before leaning over and kissing him quickly on the cheek. “Besides, I’d never go for someone like that; he’s too arrogant for my tastes.” Ranma got that way at times, but at least he was nice, that guy struck her as mean. She then blinked at the slightly silly smile on Ranma’s face. It wasn’t the first time she had kissed him, so why was he acting like that? Feeling slightly uncomfortable, she turned around and blinked as she saw all the people staring at the two of them. ‘So that’s why.’ She thought to herself. She idly wondered if people were staring at her, what she did to that punk, or because they laughed at the three thugs getting knocked around.

The thought of public displays of affection being taboo was as foreign to her as the thought that magic couldn’t fix all problems were to any semi-decent mage. (2)

Ranma chuckled as Grave turned around and grabbed his arm, before walking off quickly.

(----)

“We’re home!” Ranma called out as he and Grave walked in the door and took off their shoes. When he walked into the living room, he blinked as he saw his mother looking at him with a raised eyebrow. “Um, what?”

“I heard that you got into a fight at school.” She couldn’t hide the smirk on her face when her son looked at her bug-eyed and Neko-tama-chan giggled from behind Ranma. “I heard that someone came up and started the fight. The school just didn’t want me to sue if you had gotten hurt.” She said, rolling her eyes. If her son could heal that quickly from a punctured lung, then a small skirmish should have been nothing to him.

“Um, yeah. An old friend showed up at school and started fighting.” Ranma said, shrugging. “What? The school kick me out or sumthin?” When his mother shook her head, Ranma nodded. “Well, that’s good. I’m gunna go outside and work out.”

Watching her friend walk out of the room, Grave sighed, before following him out. It wasn’t as though she had anything better to do after all.

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Preview of Next Chapter:

”Hey, that was short, guess it was a filler. Hey, it’s me, Grave Digger. In the next chapter, we’re skipping forward a few days. Looks like a multi-school event is happening, and you know that Ranma’s going to be in it. Nani?! Professor Steamhead’s going to be the teacher in charge? Amazons, steam and bears! Oh my!”

(1) Heh, he hasn’t had Akane’s cooking yet. And no, while it’s not poisonous, it isn’t exactly good, to put it mildly. Note here: In the manga, Ranma ate some of Akane’s cookies and got incredibly sick early on in the series. Genma even said this, “He must have eaten something horrible.”

(2) I’m poking fun at a lot of people in this chapter here.