A/N: Sorry I haven’t updated in a while. Basically I had gotten writers block as to how I wanted to continue the story on from where I had it before but now I’ve worked it all out. So I hope you all like this new chapter in the Wild Tale! I’ve worked hard on it, I’ve been getting a lot of good reviews for this story and I want it to be one of the best vampire fics for the Ranma1/2 series out there! What do you guys think? Sound good?

Some of the other problems I’ve been having deal with my computer, the Grin Reaper. See, it hates me and loves to shut itself down for no reason. One day I was reading and suddenly it shut down. I thought nothing of it but when I tried to start it up again it wouldn’t even get to the desktop before it would encounter an error or something. Finally I took apart my computer and took it to someone who could fix it.

Unfortunately the guy was an idiot so it took two weeks and he couldn’t save a damn thing on my hard drive so it died a painful death. All chapters for my stories were gone and even stories I had never posted disappeared forever. God, it sucked. So basically I’ve been licking my wounds and wondering where I was going to go on from here. Obviously I’ve decided to keep writing and not let this setback get me down! ^.^

Oh, I have a question for you Anne Rice fans out there, are you going to go see Queen of the Damned? I’m gonna go, I can’t wait to see it. I’m just glad Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt are no longer Lestat and Louis. God, I hated that although I’ve never watched Interview with the Vampire. Have any of you?

Okay, I’ll shut up now. LOL

******

"Ranma?" The black hair vampire studied him for a moment before his chalk-white colored face broke out into a cheerful smile. He knew this young mortal! It was the same boy he had met during his visit to Hong Kong, China. "It is good to see you again, friend." Louis said softly, his voice was not as accented as Lestat’s but it was still a bit hard to understand.

Ranma unfolded his arms and his face seemed to lighten up at the prospect of talking to his old friend again. Of course he realized that Louis was in fact, a vampire now, it did not hinder his opinion about his French friend named Louis Point de Lac. For the first time since Ranma had been taken to Night Island, Marius and Armand actually saw their wild horse’s smile reach his eyes. None of that pain of his life in Japan shone in his ocean blue eyes, only the happiness of seeing an old friend glinted in those orbs of his face.

"I never thought I would see you again, man! Pops took your address that ya gave me and I never saw it again. That’s why I hadn’t come and visit ya yet." The Japanese youth replied. "I shoulda had someone look for yer address but I uh . . didn’t have the money on me for it." Ranma’s cheeks took on a pinkish hue as he admitted to money problems was the main reason for not actually looking for his friend. He really wanted to but every time he had some money, Nabiki and her stupid money plots would take it away from him before he had a chance to use it.

"It’s alright. We’ve met now, haven’t we?" Louis soothed to his young mortal friend. He understood that he and his father were always on the road and he couldn’t get the money. But seeing the expensive-looking Chinese coat, black silk, and slippers the braided youth now wore, the vampire knew that Armand and Marius were taking good care of him. As long as Ranma never turned out like his father, Louis would be sure to let the poor boy have whatever he wanted from the child vampire Armand and the ancient Marius.

"Louie I’m shocked! Really I am." Lestat’s blue eyes took on a mischievous glint. "You hadn’t told me you traveled to the East lands when we were apart." His devil-may-care smirk slid onto his face as he looked at his fledgling with a ‘I-told-you-so’ gaze. "Aren’t you glad we came, then? Hmm?"

The black haired vampire decided to ignore the Brat Prince for the moment and walked over to Ranma. He slipped his arms around the Japanese teen and hugged him gently and let him go before he got uncomfortable with the unusual display of affection. "I see you like Chinese silk now that you’ve gotten a taste for it."

Ranma smirked, his old self coming up to view instead of the depressed young man he had been just a few hours before. "I wear all I can. S’lot more comfortable then training gi and I don’t have ‘ta worry about it ripping like other clothe since it’s stronger then cotton."

Louis raised an eyebrow. "I thought you liked it because you look good it in." Ranma made an almost inaudible ‘humph’. The vampire’s lips twisted into a small smile, he was glad to have his little wild horse back as a companion.

"Louie you can catch up on old times later. I want to know how this young mortal was able to do that disappearing trick of his. Umi-sen-ken, was it?" Lestat questioned the wild horse. His voice was full of curiosity, he wondered if this mortal really was mortal to be able to do such things.

"Yeah," Ranma said hesitantly. He unconsciously sized up the Brat Prince and compared his skill to the vampire’s speed and strength. If it were to ever come down to a battle, he would loose just because of Lestat’s superior speed at his disposal but he would bet that the vampire wouldn’t come out of the fight unscathed. That, he mused, would be a very interesting battle. "It’s a martial arts school my father came up with when he was younger. It also has a companion school and they both are a separate branch of Anything Goes, my school."

The Brat Prince studied the mortal carefully. Each slight unconscious movement the boy made spoke of extreme grace like that of a feline. The way he spoke sounded of someone with never-ending confidence yet was not arrogant enough to say they knew everything, but they had pride. He was interesting, he decided finally. This was some rare jewel among a cave of coal, something unique. He wondered if Armand and Marius intended to make him into a vampire, the handsome features of his would make him into a perfect vampire. The young, boyish look about him had a charm would have victims just throwing themselves at the boy.

"And I didn’t really disappear, I was just on a different plane." The mortal’s voice startled the blonde vampire out of his thoughts.

Lestat looked at the wild horse with a puzzled expression. The other three vampires were also puzzled, what did the boy mean by a different wavelength? "Perhaps you should explain what you mean, wild horse." Armand said while sat down in a comfortable plush chair and smiled when Ranma turned his head to look at him.

"Oh, uh, it’s kinda like . ." Ranma paused trying to explain what he meant. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what he was talking about -he did know- but it was hard to put it into words. The way he couldn’t explain it was kind of like if you were asked to explain what reality is, you can’t explain it but you know what it is.

He scratched the back of his head in a nervous gesture. "Well I guess it’s like you can’t see me because I’m on a different uh -wavelength? - then the rest of you but I can see and hear everything you do." He wasn’t satisfied with the explanation but that was all he could really say about it. He couldn’t explain it to himself so how could he explain it to them?

"You’re not on our visional spectrum when you do the Umi-sen-ken. Like you’ve traveled onto a different plane of existence." Louis supplied the boy. He knew Ranma was extremely smart when he put his mind to it, but give him anything other then marital arts and he wouldn’t be able to understand it as well as the art. He couldn’t blame it on Ranma’s intelligence, it was his father’s fall for not giving him the schooling he needed.

Ranma looked at Louis with a slightly confused expression. "I guess you can say it like that." He shrugged, dismissing the thoughts of just how the Umi-sen-ken worked. Just then, his stomach rumbled demanding his attention. Ranma laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his head. "Ah, I guess I’m hungry again. I was workin’ out a lot today."

Armand smiled softly. "Were you? Doing what?"

The wild horse seemed to break out into a huge grin. "I went to the village and I basically spent the whole day entertaining the kids and some adults too. At first I was doin’ it cause I needed to practice my katas but then these kids showed up and were watchin’ me fighting mid-air and punchin’ like they do in those martial arts movies, all blurry and stuff."

Marius watched the emotions play off of the boy’s face. His eyes glittered as he talked about how he had entertained the children of the village and how it had reminded him of all those stories of entertainers in the circus. The vampire cursed Genma, how could he do this do such a unique child like this? He should have lived a full childhood and be able to go to the circus like normal boys, get a good education and all of that. He just hoped that maybe if Ranma stayed with them, he could still grow up to be a wonderful man full of life.

******

A while later, Ranma watched the vampires talk about what had recently been going on in their lives since they all had last met up. For a change, he actually ate his ramen noodles slowly so that he could taste their favor and enjoy the chance to eat at a normal pace.

It was weird, watching all different aged vampires talking like normal people in front of a fireplace. Well the scene itself wouldn’t had been very weird, but the vampires had pale white skin, fingernails sparkling as if made of glass, and of course, the power. He was ten feet from them but the power rolling off of them could be felt from such a distance. The power didn’t have that soothing, rippling wave of cooling life force compared to the auras he had come across since his move into Nerima two years ago. The vampires had the aura of not exactly chilling, but cooler then the feel of life force. The feeling reminded him a bit of Air Conditioners. The Conditioner’s air didn’t blow across your face like a nature’s gentle wind; it washed over you like a chilled blanket that crawled over you to smother you completely in its embrace.

Ranma shivered before he could stop himself and Armand saw it out of the corner of his eyes. The five hundred year old vampire turned to the Japanese boy. His face was gentle as he addressed the young man. "Are you cold, wild horse?"

The martial artist shook his head and gave the vampire a weak grin. "No, I ain’t cold. Hell, it isn’t even as cold as Japan here. It’s . ." Ranma trailed off for a moment before he looked up at the vampires sitting down not too far from where he sat. "I was thinking about the power you guys radiate and it reminded me of an Air Conditioner on the highest setting."

Lestat leaned back in the plush red chair he was sitting in. Intrigued, he raised a brow with a questioning glance. "Oh?"

He looked amused although Ranma couldn’t tell for sure since he wasn’t exactly looking the vampire in the eyes. He put his bowl on the table near his fluffy chair. He always heard stories that if you looked a vampire in the eye they would hypnotize you. When he had first met Armand, it had seemed that he had been hypnotized in that gaze. The pig-tailed martial artist didn’t want that to happen again, at least not until he was sure he could let down his guard around these vampires.

"Yeah," the wild horse shrugged. "See ‘cause I trained for about twelve years in the art, I got kinda a sixth and seventh sense now. The sixth sense is the ability to sense danger a couple seconds before I’m actually in danger. The seventh is being able to feel ki and other powers."

The brat prince ‘hmmed’ softly in thought. He looked Ranma over with steady gaze of his eyes. The boy was young but his body was in top physical condition, the muscles the boy had were astounding for someone his age. From the stories Armand and Maruis had told him of this boy and the facts that were thrown into his face by the boy of this ‘sensing’ thing and those amazing techniques- it was quite astounding!

Of course, he just had to fight the boy! He was already building up his excitement. Never had he thought a mortal could possibly do half the things a vampire could accomplish. However the boy could leap buildings with ease, punch so fast that his fists blurred into after images, and the boy could disappear in thin air! How clever, he mused. So very interesting this Ranma boy was. He must test his skills against his. The fight would be glorious!

Louis could see that familiar gleam in his lover’s ice blue eyes. He refrained from heaving a heavy sigh as a mortal might when exasperated with someone. Lestat was so impulsive! Did he have no sense for such things? The way he saw the blonde give Ranma the once-over, he knew that the gleam in those eyes were for the boy alone. He wanted to find out something about Ranma and most likely, he would end up cleaning up the mess. He never blamed Lestat for his faults, at least not a long-standing grudge. He knew the french noblemen loved a new challenge and from what he remembered, Ranma loved the same thing.

Now that he thought about it, Lestat and Ranma were quite similar! The two both liked a new challenged, to see new things, to learn techniques. They always liked to push the limits and burst past them without a care. The need to go on and on learning was what the two shared the most. Louis supposed that if the two were to ever get into a fight, it could end up being a draw! Impossible, no! Unlikely? Well it could happen.

Ranma glanced at Louis, the man that he knew from a couple years ago. He looked happy, you could just see it in his body language. From the way he kept glancing at Lestat he could see that it was the blonde that was keeping him happy. That was good that he was finally happy. The wild horse remembered that in Hong Kong, Louis was very sad and unhappy although he tried not to show it too much. When he asked him so long ago why he was unhappy, the vampire stated that he had a fight with a very close friend and they were no longer as close anymore. In fact he hadn’t seen him for years!

This vampire named Lestat must have been that close friend that the other had lost. It made sense, the guy seemed to be the little brother of everyone in the room. Not that he knew about families much but from what he had seen in his travels, the little brother was always the brat in the family. However the little brother seemed to have the most effect on everyone in the family because he was the youngest.

Ranma wondered if that made him the new little brother.

Armand struggled to keep himself from breaking out into a wide smile. He had been listening to the other talk of what had been happening in the last few years when he caught Ranma’s thoughts of Louis’s happiness. He followed the young mortal boy’s thoughts and it made him feel warm inside. So easily his little horse read their family, Lestat was like the little brat prince of a brother to them all. He was the little brother to them all, to Louis he was a lover but to the rest of them he was just the little child in the family that made mistakes and was very rash.

When Ranma’s thoughts drifted to his own involvement in this family, he had wondered if that made him the little brother. How that warmed his old heart! He knew his wild horse had no idea what that meant to him, he supposed that the mortal boy would never know. To hear such sentiment from him it caused him to feel happy.

Oh, don’t get so attached, he mused to his self. If he were to get too attached to Ranma, that could be trouble! No that was inviting trouble to his doorstep to think such things. Armand knew he could not think like this, if he did he would be tempted to change the wild horse into one of them and he could never forgive himself if he did such a thing to the unique child.

Ranma yawned as he leaned back into the chair he had propped himself up against. It was late, he didn’t realize just how late until his body started to tell him it was so. He rubbed at one of his eyes as he tried to keep up with the conversation. In Nermia he would have never been able to go this long without getting splashed with water or getting into a fight. At night he would never be able to stay up this late because he knew the next day that extra bit of sleep could help him win in a fight. The martial artist feared he would loose his edge if he kept being lazy. When was the last time he had a decent fight?

"Ranma?"

He looked up to see the blonde vampire named Lestat gazing at him with an oh-so-familiar glint in his eyes. It was the same glint he himself had whenever a new challenge presented itself to him. When he met someone that seemed to be a challenged- he wanted to fight this and test himself against the new challenge!

The sight of those eyes caused Ranma to straighten up and gaze at the vampire with the same glint of a new challenge. Ah, to fight a vampire would be awe-inspiring! He had fought demons, dragon princes, a ghost cat, three hundred year old martial artists, and a phoenix. But to fight a vampire would be a true challenge!

"Tomorrow night, I want to see these skills of yours." Lestat assessed the boy for a moment before he smiled. "We’ll fight in the basement, it’s large and should be a good place to go ‘all out’ as the saying goes."

Ranma’s body posture changed into the cocky stance he thought he had lost back in Nerima with his depression. The pig-tailed boy flicked his braid over his shoulder and he smirked arrogantly. "Sure old man, bring it on! I’ll give ya a run for yer money!"

The vampire’s smile widened. "I’m counting on it."

******

This is the end of chapter six of The Wild Tale! I hope you all enjoyed the long-awaited chapter. Please review and tell me what you all think of it! I’ll try and updated as fast as I can for this story again. Sorry it took so long to get out as I was very busy catching up since my computer crashed. Anyway, I hope you all liked this chapter!

-AlantisB