Part Two, Chapter Two: Training, and Complications

Ryouga woke up with a start. Wha… she looked around the tent frantically, certain that something was terribly wrong. But found nothing, even though every instinct was screaming at her.

She slumped back down, the sudden rush of energy gone leaving her feeling tired even though her heart still pounded in her chest. A dream. Just a dream… and I can’t even remember what it was about. But the feeling that something was horribly wrong remained.

She got up after a few minutes, and stepped outside for some water. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the second tent in the clearing. Who… oh, right, Ranma. She felt a little embarrassed by her lapse in memory. How could I have forgotten that?

Ranma came out just a second later, obviously alerted by her own exit. “Want some breakfast?” he offered, holding out a plate. “I got up early,” was quick excuse.

“Sure.” She accepted the plate. Pancakes. Odd that Ranma would know a western dish, much less how to cook at all… but it was welcome. She could remember having breakfast on the trail, but usually just whatever was left from dinner the night before. She ate quickly and started the fire again.

Ranma looked at her quizzically. The morning was warm enough to do without. “To guide us back here,” she explained, tossing a few more sticks on the fire.

He almost pointed out that it was unnecessary, but decided to keep quiet. It couldn’t hurt to keep a fire going.

***

“Are you just going to stand there for the rest of your life, Saotome?”

Ranma glared at Ryouga, but the effect was somewhat diminished due to the medium-wide river that flowed between them. She’s doing this on purpose… “Why do you want to train over there, anyway?” he called back.

“Because this is the best spot around!” Ryouga called from the large, sunny clearing on the opposite side of the river. “Besides, we’ll be on a more equal footing this way. Now cross already! It’s not very deep, just wide…”

Ranma scowled and stepped into the water, running across as fast as she could. She emerged on the other side a few minutes later, soaked up to her armpits in water. “Not very deep?” she said sarcastically. An hour of searching, of course he had to find a way to get me wet…

Ryouga shrugged, but the beginnings of a smile tugged at her lips. “It’s not my fault you’re shorter than me.”

Ranma glared, and started to wring out her clothing.

Her pink-haired counterpart listened to her mutter, amused, but couldn’t pick out exactly what she was saying. Finally, Ranma had dried her clothing sufficiently and stood, swiping her hands together, and kicked to loosen wet fabric that still clung to her skin. Now recovered of some of her dignity, Ranma smirked at Ryouga and put her hands on her hips. “Whenever you’re ready…” she said, making no move to attack or defend.

Ryouga grinned darkly. “Whatever you say…” She reached up and pulled the umbrella off the top of her pack, then let it slip off of her shoulders while she assumed a defensive stance, a little awkwardly with the heavy weapon, though.

Ranma noted how the umbrella unbalanced her opponent and frowned. “I don’t think you should use that, but…” she shrugged, then, without any other warning, rushed forward to attack. Ryouga swung to deflect her, but she had predicted that and jumped up, out of the way of the horizontal slash, and landed on a tree limb to watch what she had predicted would happen.

Ryouga, having seen Ranma jump just exactly too late for her to do anything about it, had tried to stop, but this only had the effect of changing the arc’s direction to almost straight down, and Ryouga was dragged to the ground. “Ouch…” She groaned at the unexpected pain. That's never happened before…   

Ranma hopped down. “Y’okay?”

Ryouga pulled herself to her feet and nodded. “Yeah, but… what just happened?”

Ranma tried to explain. “You tried to stop, didn’t you?” at Ryouga’s agreement, she went on, “but you lost a lot of mass in that body, not to mention a lot of sheer strength. You can still use the umbrella, but… unless it hits something solid, it just won’t stop. And when you tried… well, all you could do was change it’s direction. It's momentum was too great.”

The pink-haired girl gave the offending weapon a vicious glance. “I guess I’d better leave it alone then…” She took an unarmed stance. “But don’t underestimate me, Ran - ma!” The second syllable of the name became her battle cry as she charged forward.

Ranma grinned as she dodged, but the smile was quickly replaced with a look of concentration. The two pseudo-girls fought at speeds that often made their outlines blur, a fast-paced dance of attack and dodge, defend and leap. Ryouga still wasn’t anywhere near her top form, and Ranma had to hold back more than usual and even so had a clear advantage; but the sparring had the effect she wanted. It warmed both of them up, and let her correctly access Ryouga’s strength. Unlike her male body, Ryouga’s strengths now seemed to be in her speed and her feet; her arm muscles had weakened, but her legs were not nearly as atrophied, and when one of her kicks connected, Ranma felt it.

“Good, good…” she muttered under her breath, not talking so much as merely allowing her thoughts to spill over into speech; she wasn’t even conscious of it. Ryouga was starting to adjust more… is was obvious that she hadn’t fought much since transforming, if at all other than that one miserable failure… but now she was starting to realize that she had strengths as well as weaknesses and exploiting them. Her confidence almost visibly improved, as well.

After about ten minutes (a good length of time, Ranma thought), Ryouga began to slow down, obviously tired. Ranma stopped. “Not bad,” she commented. “Not as good as me, but then… ack!” Her legs were suddenly not supporting her anymore as Ryouga stopped her bragging with an unexpected foot-sweep. She fell to an undignified heap on the ground, and Ryouga laughed.

“What were you saying, Ranma?” she asked innocently, but the effect was ruined by the smirk she just couldn’t hide. “I couldn’t quite hear you…” she couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing again.

Ranma eyes narrowed, and with a lightening-fast motion grabbed the distracted girl’s arm and pulled her to the ground. After a little bit of struggling, the redhead had her rival in a firm headlock. “As… you… were… saying… Ryou… ga?” she said, squeezing her neck a little with each word.

Ryouga gagged dramatically and clutched at Ranma’s arms, trying to loosen them, but to no effect. Then she tried something else, flailing with her leg that wasn’t pinned, managing to knee Ranma in the stomach through sheer luck.

It worked, and Ranma let go, crawling away and rubbing where she had been kicked. “Okay, okay… truce then…” She stood and dusted herself off. “Not bad, Ryouga.”

“Not bad yourself. Been a while since anyone’s gotten me in a headlock…”

“I imagine.”

They both started laughing at that point, from the unbelievability of it all. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that we were acting like friends…

***

Ranma made Ryouga take a break – she seemed insulted by the idea that she was tired, though – and reached into Ryouga’s bag for something to eat, she was feeling hungry. She had to rifle through several of the pouches to find something suitable, though, and found one that was open and full of water. She scooped the liquid out and looked inside it, hoping whatever it was hadn’t been damaged, but found it empty. She suddenly got a very bad feeling about it…

“Ryouga,” she asked, “what was in here?” she indicated the correct compartment.

“Was?” Ryouga said, startled. “It’s missing?” She looked at which pouch it was, thought for a moment, and suddenly paled. “Oh no…”

Ranma didn’t like that answer. “What was it?”

“The map…”

Ranma’s heart sank. “You mean we’re lost!?”

“…and most of our money,” she finished gloomily.

Ranma buried her head in her hands. “Oh, crap.”

***~Mordain

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