A Change in Him: Chapter 22

Author: Null Factor

This story contains scenes of explicit sex, naughty words, and other horrible, offensive things.  If you are underage in your house, village, town, city, community, state, province, country, or continent: READ NO FURTHER!  If that type of thing offends your tender sensibilities, or you are stupid: READ NO FURTHER!  All characters are the copyright of their respective creators and/or owners; no copyright infringement is intended by this story.  Any resemblance to people, places, or situations alive, dead, or otherwise is purely coincidental.

Chapter 22

While the Dissertation on Chinese Amazon History in the Previous Chapter was Taking Place

Three figures stood on the roof of the Tendo dojo, a chill breezing ruffling their clothes and hair. Ranma, in his female form, was in the middle of the roof, flanked by the two daughters of Silk, Rapier and Velvet. She was facing the older, blonde-haired Rapier and seemed totally unconcerned with her sister’s position to her vulnerable rear.

“I really think you’re taking this all a bit too casually,” Rapier remarked in response to Ranma’s relaxed and self-confident posture. “We aren’t going to take it easy on you, especially after you left us so abruptly. Wouldn’t you agree, Sis?”

“Quite so, Older Sister,” Came the quiet voice of Velvet from behind Ranma, but she refused to take her eyes off Rapier even as the other Amazon continued to speak. “Your...companionship was most enjoyable and was dearly missed when you left. But perhaps...”

“Perhaps it’s not impossible for us to return to that...closeness,” Rapier continued as her sister’s voice trailed off. “What do you say, Baby? We were fantastic together. You know that. But before we can do that, I think you need to realize just how much you hurt us.”

As those last words left her mouth, so did a pair of shuriken from her hands. Without bothering to move her feet Ranma was able to slap the deadly throwing devices away, the speed of the Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken coming in handy once again. A slight creaking from behind her alerted the scarlet-haired martial artist to Velvet’s attack and she quickly back-flipped over the slender teen. Rapier chose that opportunity to attack, hand to hand, but Ranma was ready for her, twisting her body in midair so that her opponent flashed by without touching her.

The few furious seconds of action ended almost as they had started; Ranma in between Rapier and Velvet, facing the former, but the position of the two other teenagers was switched. “Playing only defense isn’t going to win this fight for you,” Rapier observed, a smile quirking her lips despite her serious tone of voice. “You’re going to have to attack sooner or later and when you do...”

“How do you know I haven’t already started my attack?”

“What’re ya talking about?!” Rapier frowned at Ranma’s cocky question and body language.

“I mean, I haven’t just been sittin’ on my butt while you guys were coming after me. I’ve been training, too, and I’ve had the book to study and practice with. Maybe I learned a few pressure point attacks. Maybe I just used them on you when you came at me just now.”

“Are you crazy?! You didn’t even touch me!!” Rapier’s hands and eyes unconsciously dropped to drift over her body protectively...

“Rapier! Watch out!!”

Rapier’s head jerked up at her sister’s warning, but it was already too late. Shit! He’s even faster than before!! Was all the blonde Amazon could think as Ranma sprinted forward so speedily that he was right up in her face before she knew it. Even as her arms tried to move up to a blocking position, seemingly being dragged through solid lead in comparison to Ranma’s lightning quickness, twin blasts exploded into her midsection from the force of her red-haired opponent’s blows, flinging her from the rooftop.

While one of her adversaries hurtled off into the night, Ranma abruptly spun back the way she had come. Again she moved so swiftly that she wrong-footed the other combatant. Velvet had been dashing across the roof in an attempt to help her older sister, but Ranma finished with the blonde so quickly that she was unprepared when the shorter girl appeared in her face. Her hands were on the hilts of her twin swords, which were half drawn, but they might as well have been on a different planet for all the good they did her now. Before Velvet could complete the unsheathing of her weapons, the green-haired Amazon felt a series of attacks slam into her body, the last a crack to the temple that snapped her head back and sent her spiraling into unconsciousness. That attack would also have knocked her to the ground below, but Ranma caught her before she could teeter off the edge and gently laid her down on the cold tiles of the roof.

“Let her alone!” Looking up Ranma saw that Rapier had returned; a furious scowl on her face at the way she had been tricked as well as seeing the still form of her younger sister.

“She’s OK,” Ranma reassured her, slowly backing off her unconscious opponent so that Rapier could check her out if she were so inclined. Rapier approached her sister, but only cautiously glanced down to make sure she was breathing, obviously wary lest she get fooled again. “She’s just unconscious. She’ll wake up in an hour or so, with a splitting headache probably, but that’s it.”

“You really have been practicing, haven’t you, Red? I don’t remember you being anywhere near that fast before.”

“You know I hate that nickname,” Ranma growled, angry both at the name as well as Rapier’s patronizing tone.

“Oh, don’t be angry, Baby. After all, it’s Sis and I who should be angry with you. Not a word of warning. Not a single goodbye kiss. Just an empty bed in the morning. And after we three were so very close with one another. That’s not very nice, Red. Not nice at all.” Rapier drew a pair of sai from her weapons belt and slowly began pacing forward.

“I’m sorry, but I had to go,” Ranma explained as she kept a careful watch on the approaching Amazon. She knew just how deadly she could be with those sai, her favorite weapons. “I wasn’t sure if your Mom and the rest of the Council would keep their word, so I had to go while I had the chance.” She dodged backward, ducking and weaving as Rapier abruptly slashed forward, narrowly missing her target with each of her swings.

“And now you insult our honor!” Velvet hissed angrily, pausing her attack for a moment before redoubling her assault, hoping to catch Ranma off guard. The other martial artist was prepared, however, letting the initial attacks slip past her to get within Velvet’s reach. Once in position, Ranma’s feet swept Velvet’s off the roof and as the Amazon fell backward Ranma fell with her.

The duo of curvaceous martial artists slammed into the tiles hard, the blonde losing her grip on her sai from the force of the impact. Before Velvet could acquire other weapons from her belt or even totally clear her head from the ringing consequences of Ranma’s attack she felt a single sharp jab to the side of her throat and then everything faded to black. Far below there was a clanging crash as the Amazon’s sai hit the ground.

Now,Flashback Over,Back to the End of the Last Chapter

Silk looked at her two unconscious daughters then back up at the smirking red-headed martial artist. “You really have been working hard, haven’t you Ranma-kun?” She observed quietly as she stood up and brought up a black veil to conceal her beautiful face. “I wouldn’t have expected you to defeat my girls so quickly considering how much they’ve been training in expectation of seeing you again. But we’re not finished yet. Unless you’re ready to turn over the...item to me?”

Ranma scowled at that question. “I said it before, it was given to me and I’m keepin’ it! If you want it back then you gotta take it from me!”

“Very well then,” Silk accepted with a slight bow. “But I suggest you switch back to your male side. You’re going to need all of your strength to have a chance at matching me.”

Ranma said nothing, merely frowning at her words. She did, however, follow her opponent’s advice, blurring back into the male Ranma. Then there was a further blurring as the two combatants disappeared outdoors to begin their fight.

“Oh, my,” Kasumi commented even as she approached the two younger, unconscious girls lying on the floor. “I suppose I should have been prepared for something like this.” She gently began rearranging the two Amazons into more comfortable positions, asking over her shoulder as she did so, “Nabiki? Akane? Could you both go to the house and gets some blankets and pillows for these two, please? They’re a bit sweaty and there’s quite a chill in the air. It wouldn’t do for them to catch a cold on top of everything else.”

Nabiki shrugged and got to her feet to go get the requested items. She was followed by her younger sister who stomped behind her muttering, “I don’t know why in the world we’re doing anything to help those two, two, two...Amazons!! This is all that stupid Ranma’s fault!! If he hadn’t...!” The angry teen’s rant trailed off into the night as the two sisters made their way back to their house.

“Great Grandmother?” Shampoo suddenly spoke up. “You know what they talking about? What they want from Airen?”

“Yeah,” Ukyou quickly seconded. “It’s gotta be something pretty important for them to follow Ran-chan all the way from China. Although,” She added with a snide look at her blue-haired competition from the corner of her eye. “There does seem to be a lot of crazy people who come from China for one reason or another. Even when that reason hasn’t got the faintest hope in Hell of ever coming true.”

Shampoo glared at the okonomiyaki chef and opened her mouth to reply, but before yet another quarrel could break out between the two, Cologne answered her granddaughter’s question, silencing them both as they listened carefully to what the Amazon Elder had to say. “I’m not entirely sure, Shampoo. As I said before the two groups have been on opposite sides for many, many centuries and have numerous secrets that neither one knows about the other. I can say, however, that just as our Amazon tribe has its magical items that are treasured by all members, so does Silk’s tribe. I do wish I had known about this matter earlier, but as it is we can only pray for the son-in-law’s safety.”

“His safety?!” Everyone blinked in surprise as this unexpectedly sharp question came from Kasumi of all people. “But why would Ranma dear be in any danger?”

Cologne frowned a bit at this rather unusual outburst for the eldest Tendo daughter, but answered quickly enough. “Well, it is painful for me to admit this, but... Before she left us Silk had the potential to be among the best our tribe had to offer. Just like you, Shampoo, she mastered every difficult technique she attempted quickly and always showed great skill on the battlefield. I doubt the years since I last saw her have dulled her abilities in any way; on the contrary they’re probably much improved as she’s also been learning what those...others have had to teach in addition to what experience has taught her. The mere fact that she was chosen to come here to recover whatever it is they’re after should be proof enough of her lethality. We two tribes may disagree with one another on a number of different things, but we both respect strength and skill in the Art. Without a doubt, the son-in-law will have his hands full dealing with Silk.”

Meanwhile in the Streets, Parks and on the Rooftops of Nerima

“Is that all you’ve got, Ranma-kun? And here I’d thought you’d improved! You’ll have to do better than this!” Ranma ignored Silk’s snide comments and taunts, knowing the older woman wanted him to react emotionally, angrily and make a mistake. He was aware of his weaknesses in that area, his tendency to react without thinking, so he did his best to focus his mind on keeping his mouth shut and his eyes and senses ready for the attacks of his opponent.

The two of them were dashing side by side, bouncing from ground level to the rooftops and back again, occasionally launching short, sharp assaults on one another as each probed the other’s defenses. So far, Ranma couldn’t detect any changes from when he had trained with Silk before, but he knew she could and almost certainly was holding back. Similarly he too was doing his best to conceal what he had learned since he had last fought the voluptuous Amazon, wanting to keep some surprises to counteract whatever she was holding up her sleeves.

“Boring, Ranma! Very boring! Why don’t you try this on for size?” Suddenly a bolt of the deepest blackness speared out from Silk forcing Ranma to launch himself into a sharp vertical leap to avoid it. The red-haired Amazon wasn’t finished yet, however, and the teenage martial artist was forced to keep scrambling from location to location as steady streams of dark rays were sent streaming toward him. He knew from experience just how unpleasant getting hit by one of them was and what made them triply dangerous was unlike other ki attacks that exploded when they hit something solid, these splashed, and those droplets of shadow force were nearly as dangerous as the original attack.

“Come on, Ranma-kun!” Silk teased even as she continued to keep her opponent hopping with her assault. “I thought you’d be studying and practicing while we were coming after you. Haven’t you mastered the Shadow Shot yet?”

“I haven’t got to that page yet, all right?!” Ranma snarled as he desperately looked around him for an equalizer. There we go! That’ll do just fine! His blue eyes glowed as he located a small park tucked in among some housing complexes. “My Chinese ain’t that good yet!” With a last prodigious leap he cleared a final barrage of ebony bolts and disappeared into the darkness of the trees and bushes that were clumped around the park.

“So, you think you can hide from me, do you Ranma-kun?” From his concealed location, Ranma could clearly make out Silk’s bountiful form as she stood on the edge of a nearby rooftop, the November moonlight shining full upon her. Come on! Do it!! Ranma urged internally as he watched, trying his best to keep his heartbeat and energy flow subdued so she wouldn’t be able to sense him that way. “You should know better than to hide from me in shadows of all things! Shadows are my element!” So saying the full-chested Amazon slowly began to sink into her own shadow. Yes, Ranma exulted. You just made a big mistake, Silk! Then Ranma too faded from view, but not into shadow as Silk had just done or as he had done to knock Happosai for a loop a couple of weeks earlier. No, instead Ranma utilized the Chrysalis Technique.

One thing the teenager had noticed upon mastering both skills was the total difference in world views experienced by the one using them. As he had discovered from Happosai, the Chrysalis Technique brought one into harmony with natural, living things; emphasizing their life forces in one’s mind and causing dead or manmade things to appear insubstantial. The Shadow Walk, on the other hand, brought one into a fairly flat lifeless world. In that realm it was the shadows themselves that were important, not the things that created them. This caused a rather skewed perspective and one of the most difficult points in mastering the skill was in simply being able to move around and understand just what one was seeing from the real world.

When Ranma had defeated Happosai with this view he had been holding all the cards: He knew the Tendo’s backyard like the back of his hand, the sun coming down behind the old letch had created perfect, sharp shadows for him to focus on, plus, of course, there weren’t really all that many living things in the yard. The grass of course, but the larger organisms like the trees, his Pops and Mr. Tendo had all been removed from the scene of the action. Finally, was the fact that he had had the element of surprise as the master pervert had never expected him to have that skill under his belt. All of these things were what had made it relatively easy for him to put the boot to the old goat’s skull.

This time, however, all of those elements were reversed. Ranma was in an area surrounded by large clumps of trees and bushes. His opponent was in a place she was not familiar with, where the shadows were choppy and uncertain; some caused by the natural moonlight, but others by various streetlights. Also Silk wasn’t aware of where exactly he was to begin with. Again, the element of surprise was on his side as she wouldn’t expect him to be using a different disappearing technique, one he hadn’t known the last time they had met. Finally, was the mere fact that the Chrysalis Technique focused on the viewing and blending with life force while the Shadow Walk focused on shadows. Ranma no longer had a shadow, but Silk certainly remained alive.

Thus, Ranma saw his opponent clear as day, clearer even as she used the Shadow Walk to teleport from shadow to shadow through the park, waiting patiently until she was in reach. One downside of the Chrysalis Technique was the inability to launch attacks while in it, unlike the Shadow Walk, but he knew that if Silk came close enough, he’d be able to drop his invisibility and nail her a couple of times at least before she could react. While he bided his time, a sudden thought popped into his mind, I think I know at least one reason the old letch is so randy all the time! Whenever he’s using this technique, whoever he’s lookin’ at seems like they’re just about naked ‘cause their clothes fade from view!! That was an interesting discovery and rather pleasant one as he viewed the gorgeous Silk approaching him, but it also made him uncomfortably aware of the number of times his ‘master’ must’ve been peeping on him while cloaked in the Chrysalis Technique. When this fight’s over, the next time I see him I’m gonna clobber him just on general principles.

Ranma didn’t have long to dwell on the matter, though, as Silk swiftly drew closer. Then with a final teleportation to the shadow of a nearby cherry tree, she was in what seemed like to him a good position for him to get the drop on her.

Silk responded almost immediately when Ranma abruptly appeared out of nowhere and began his attack, his hands almost invisible with the speed of his Kachu Tenshin Amaguriken. Almost, but almost wasn’t good enough in this situation. Despite the fact that she too had mastered the Roasting Chestnuts technique, the initial surprise gave her opponent the edge. At first she was able to block many of his blows, but not all of them, and each one she missed knocked her further out of position to defend against the following ones, in addition to causing damage in their own right. Soon the red-haired martial artists was reeling backward, absorbing punch after punch. Then, when his opponent was desperately trying to avoid his hands, Ranma launched a spin kick the crashed into her midsection and slammed her across the park and into a pine tree, nearly cracking it under the force of the impact. While a shower of needles fell from the disturbed branches of the poor, abused pine, Silk also stumbled forward, right into the arms of her teenage adversary who was continuing his attack. Silk wasn’t beat yet, however, and she managed to lock up Ranma’s arms, leaving them face-to-face and so close that they could feel each other’s breaths on their faces and on particularly deep inhalations, he could feel her massive breasts pushing into his chest.

“Maybe I was wrong,” Silk admitted as the two martial artists stood locked together, nearly motionless, but muscles straining as they tried to gain an advantage over one another. “I guess you did learn one or two things since we last fought.”

“That ain’t the only thing I got up my sleeves,” Ranma grunted, shifting his weight backward slightly in an attempt to give himself enough room to use his legs and feet against his opponent. “You’ll find I’m full of surprises.”

“Me, too.”

CRACK!!!!!

What the Hell was that?! Ranma groggily thought as he desperately dodged and back-flipped towards the rear, trying simultaneously to avoid the attacks he knew must be coming as Silk pressed her advantage and give himself enough time and space to clear his head from the smashing strike she had just delivered. Somehow the Amazon had managed to snake her foot up between the two of them deliver a jarring snap kick to his jaw that had felt like a bolt of lightning to the stunned teenager. How in Buddha’s butt did she manage to...?

Before Ranma could complete his thought he felt something wrap around his ankle in the midst of one of his gymnastic spins through the air. Glancing downward he was able to make out that it was the end of a length of black cloth just as it tightened and sent him whirling towards one of the stone walls surrounding the park. With a thunderous crash the teenager slammed into and through the obstacle, causing a cloud of debris and dust to billow up into the night air. Silk’s attack wasn’t finished, however, as with a snap of her wrist she straightened out the cloth she was holding, the sash she had just been wearing around her waist as a matter of fact, until it appeared as rigid as a bar of steel. Then she used it to slash repeatedly into the wall, the jumbled stones and anything else in the area, the seemingly fragile silk ripping through everything in its way.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Silk shook her head in bemusement as Ranma’s voice caused her to cease her massacre of masonry. Looking up she saw the teenager standing on the roof of a nearby building rubbing a rather large welt on his jaw as he watched her. While the red-haired woman wrapped the suddenly pliable cloth back around her slender waist, Ranma continued; “And I still can’t figure out how you managed to kick me like that. I mean, how in the world could you fit your leg up there?! We were standing face-to-face and with your...” Here Ranma gestured toward Silk’s sizable breasts. “I just can’t figure.”

“Of all people, Ranma-kun,” Silk observed with a smile. “You should know just how...flexible I can be.” She paused as she looked at all the broken stones, trees and other bits of debris littering the park. “But I guess I can’t really talk. I thought I had you with that last attack, but I should’ve known you wouldn’t go down easy. Will you?”

“Never. You ready?”

Without bothering to reply Silk launched herself towards her younger opponent, only to be met in mid-air by his nearly simultaneous attack. Now the fight entered a new stage with neither martial artist bothering much with special moves or clever techniques. Instead it was fists versus fists; feet versus feet; speed versus speed; strength versus strength. Like a destructive gale they spun through the neighborhood, slamming into one another and through anything that got in their way.