Insertion

Part 12: Ranma's New Friends

by Sean D'Anna

=====

It was an average day for Ranma Saotome, one week after his battle
with the Senshi; he'd managed to avoid any other altercations thus
far. He was walking through the streets on the outer edge of Nerima,
simply enjoying the day. His clothing was what had become normal for
him over the past few weeks, black slacks, shined shoes, and a button
up Chinese shirt. He was also wearing his shades and whistling to
himself as he walked. He seemed quiet, and calm, but in reality there
was a heated discussion going on inside his head.

"Let me get this straight, you think we should just die?" muttered
Ranma angrily.

"If it means we don't have to hurt anyone, then yes," snapped the
new voice.

"The hell we will! You can't stop all of us!" snarled Dan
irritably. "We'll fight whether you like it or not!"

"Look Pissant, we're going to survive," commented Carrot.

"Yeah, quit your whining, or I'll kick your ass again, Pissant,"
agreed Dan.

"I still don't think that's a very good name," grumbled the voice
irritably.

"It suits you. Hey, babe," said Carrot as he turned their head to
watch a particularly attractive passer by.

"Pervert," grumbled Ranma irritably.

The woman turned her head and smiled at them as she noticed their
gaze. Carrot gave her a small salute as he continued on his way. "Lay
off Boy Scout, she doesn't mind us looking."

"What did you call me?" snapped Ranma angrily.

"Shut up, both of you," grumbled Dan.

"Yes, being a Boy Scout is an honorable tradition dating back..."

Carrot slapped them.

"Thanks," commented Dan.

"Would you just stop talkin already?" snapped Ranma at Pissant.

"Welcome," commented Carrot as he continued to stroll down the
street. He paused and looked around for a moment. "What's this?"

There was a rather nasty looking group of children huddled around
what appeared to be a vicious beating.

"Freak!" cried one of the little boys. He paused when he noticed
the shadow standing over him. Ranma Saotome was cracking his knuckles,
and glaring down at all of them.

"What the hell do you little shits think you're doing?"

That caught the attention of the entire group. They all looked up
at him for a moment.

"Mind your own business! This little freak of nature..." said one
of the boy's angrily as he raised his fist to strike the child huddled
on the ground.

Ranma simply lifted him up by his shirt. "That little freak of
nature what?" he asked coldly.

The remaining children scattered like roaches.

"You had better have a really good explanation for this punk,"
said Ranma.

"I...I..." stammered the boy in terror.

Ranma looked down at the child who was still lying in a protective
ball. "You all right kid? Hey kid..." He gently shook her arm, and she
shuddered for a moment, pulling herself into her protective ball a
little tighter. "Oh man." He picked her up and held her gently in one
arm, she was pretty badly bruised, and had a little blood coming from
the corner of her mouth.

"Hey! I know this girl!" he muttered under his breath. "Hotaru?"

The kid in his other hand was shaking visibly, and clutching at
his arm in a desperate attempt to escape.

Ranma turned to look at him and frowned. "Where do you live kid?"

++++++++++

"Who are you? What are you doing with my son?" gasped the woman
who met him at the door of the child's home.

"My name is Ranma Saotome, and I thought I'd show you what your
son was doing to this little girl," he replied as he looked down at
the girl who was sleeping soundly in his arms.

"What?" gasped the woman in shock as she stared down at Hotaru in
horror. "You're saying that..."

"I found him beating on her with about six other kids about two
blocks from here," he replied calmly.

"I should call the police, you can't..." started the angry mother.

"If you do, I'll make sure her family presses charges against your
son," replied the boy calmly. "I'd like to keep the police out of this
at the moment. If I see this again, I'm taking him in myself." He
turned away from her, leaving her standing in the doorway with her jaw
hanging open.

As he walked away, she heard a loud smack, and the familiar
wailing of a young child. He grinned to himself as he carried Hotaru
to a park bench and set her down next to him.

After a few moments, she woke up and gasped as she looked around.

"You feelin all right?" he asked her.

She blinked and looked up at him in terror. "Who...?"

"Relax, I'm not gonna hurt ya. Why were those kids beating you
up?" he asked with a small smile.

"It's...nothing..." she muttered quietly.

"Yeah, those healing powers of yours must be pretty scary to
someone who's never seen stuff like that before," said Ranma with a
small chuckle.

The girl looked up at him, her eyes wide in shock. "What? You
mean...you know...about...?"

"I know a lot of stuff," replied the boy with a shrug. "You'll
make a really good doctor one day. If that's what you want to do with
your life."

"I..." It was becoming painfully obvious that she was very shy.

"I'll tell you a secret, I've got a special power too," he said as
he gave her a small wink.

"R...really?" she muttered as she looked up at him.

"Yeah, it's not as neat as yours though," he commented as he
looked up at the trees for a moment.

"Do people beat you up because of it too?" she asked quietly.

"Naw, I'm too strong for em to beat," he replied with another
wink. "Come on, I'll walk you home."

She moved away from him, slightly nervous.

"Can you walk okay?" he said gently.

"Yeah," muttered the girl as she jumped off the bench and almost
fell over. She staggered back to her feet, and appeared to be fine
after that.

++++++++++

"Who are you?" asked Hotaru's father as he stared at the boy.
"Hotaru! What happened? Who...?" He fell down to his knees and pulled
her into a hug.

"A bunch of punks a few blocks from here. She's lucky I ran into
her," said the boy with a small grin.

"Those boys again? It's never been this bad before..." said the
man with a frown on his face.

"Have you considered putting her in a self defense class? I
noticed a dojo nearby that teaches Karate." asked Ranma with a small
frown.

"I would, but she's so young. I'm afraid she's not very healthy
either, she's a very fragile child," said the man as he hung his head.
"I must thank you."

"Fragile huh? Aikido would be good," said Ranma as he appeared to
ignore the man's thanks and peered down at the little girl. She was
hiding behind his leg.

"Pardon?" said her father dumbly.

"I live at a dojo in Nerima, I'm gonna inherit it someday
supposedly. My name is Ranma Saotome, and I'm the heir to the Anything
Goes School of Martial Arts. The style itself isn't very good for
someone like her, it requires a lot of strength and energy. However,
I've mastered several softer styles, ones that don't require a lot of
effort, but are very effective."

"You mean..." muttered the man as he looked down at her.

Ranma smiled at him. "I could do it for free. It would only take
about an hour, maybe three or four times a week to teach her a little
self defense."

"Excuse me, it's a nice offer, but I don't want my child turning
into one of those bullies," said the man nervously.

"Naw. I wouldn't worry about that much. The styles I have in mind
aren't very useful for offense. Mainly defensive stuff really,
blocking punches, redirecting attacks, things like that."

"It's very kind of you, but..."

"I hate to sound pushy, but I want to do it. Especially after what
I saw. This is a once in a lifetime offer, unless your born into it,
free martial arts is unheard of. If you're doubting my credentials, I
could bring some references by later."

The man blinked at him, and then looked down at his daughter
again. She was still blushing, and hiding behind his leg. "All right,
bring some references by, and we'll talk."

+++++++++++++

"Why did we do that?" said Ranma dumbly.

"Hotaru is probably the most powerful of the Senshi. We've got
quite a while before she becomes Sailor Saturn, but if we have her as
an ally rather than trying to kill us..." said Carrot with a small
chuckle.

"What's this about references?" asked Dan.

"Remember when Ranma told us about those dojo he trained at while
he was still in Japan?"

"Yeah?" asked Ranma. "What about em?"

"Those are our references. We're gonna go around and visit a few
of em tonight," said Carrot calmly.

"I think this is so sweet, but we should really be teaching her
how to talk her way out of..."

The trio smacked themselves, causing Pissant to become silent
again.

++++++++++++

Three days later...

"Yeah, that's it," said Ranma as he smiled at the young girl.
"You're getting it!"

"It's hard," muttered Hotaru as she looked at her hands. She was a
very spoiled child, and didn't like doing much if she didn't have to.

"It takes a long time to learn it right, but it gets easier the
more you do it," said Ranma cheerfully as he knelt down beside her.
"You'll feel better, and you won't be so tired so often."

"So. I'll be normal one day?" asked the girl.

"I can't promise you that you'll grow as strong as other kids
will, but you'll be able to stop people from hurting you. One day, if
you practice enough, no one will be able to hurt you, not even me."

"Why would you do that?" asked the girl fearfully.

"I wouldn't. But someday, I won't be able to, even if I did want
to."

"Oh. Okay Saotome-sensei," said the girl with a small sigh.

"Ready to try again?" he asked gently.

"I guess so..." she grumbled.

+++++++++++

"Well, that was fun," said Ranma cheerfully.

"God, what a brat," muttered Dan irritably.

"She's just not used to this sort of thing. You saw her room, I
thought my brain was going to explode. I've never seen that much pink
before," muttered Carrot with a small frown.

"I thought her room was pretty," commented Pissant.

"Speaking of which, we should start practicing more ourselves,"
commented Ranma.

Dan nodded in agreement. "He's right, we're good at dodging thanks
to our job, but we're going to need some new attacks."

"Some sort of chi blast?" asked Carrot.

"Yeah, right. Like it's just that easy!" snorted Ranma angrily.

"Well...maybe it is?" asked Dan with a small shrug.

"Have we ever tried?" agreed Carrot.

"Well...no..." said Ranma dumbly.

+++++++++++

A short time later, they were standing in the middle of the park.
It was getting late, and the area was mostly deserted.

"All right, here's the way we do it," said Carrot as he made them
face a tree.

"You know what you're doing?" asked Ranma dumbly.

"I know the basic idea," replied Carrot with a small frown. "It's
the weight of the emotion. Find the emotion you feel the most of, and
use that. We've got to work on focusing it."

"Right," chimed the other three voices cheerfully.

"How do we do that?" said Ranma with a smug looking grin crossing
his face.

"According to what I've read, we focus it in our abdomen, here."
He poked them in the stomach, and closed his eyes. "Then we will it
into a ball by forcing it out of our hands. It's some sort of
willpower, and mind focus thing."

All four of them concentrated at the same time.

A tiny ball of light formed in their hands, it grew very slowly,
until it was about the size of a golf ball. It swirled different
colors, blue, red, white, and yellow.

"Whoa!" gasped Ranma in wonder as he stared at it. He lost his
concentration, and all the yellow faded out of the ball.

"Ranma! We're losing it!" said Carrot as the ball faded away.

"We should try that again," commented Dan as he looked at their
hands for a moment.

"Right, but what now? I mean, it was just sitting there."

"Push it away with your mind, kinda throw it at something
mentally," said Carrot.

"Right," said the other three.

After a moment, another ball of light formed in their hands. They
willed it forward, and something completely unexpected happened.
Rather than shooting the tiny ball of energy away, it erupted into a
huge beam of light, almost as big as they were tall.

"WHOA!" cried Carrot as he and the others cut the beam off and
stared forward dumbly. "What the hell?"

The tree had taken the brunt of the blast, and was unharmed.

"It looked cool, but didn't do much," said Dan irritably. "In
fact, I don't think it did anything."

"What's that?" asked Carrot as he walked them over to the tree and
looked down. On the side of the trunk, where the blast had struck, a
small sprout was quickly growing into a tiny branch. It was fast
enough to be visible. "Cool. What emotions were you guys using?"

"Confidence," said Ranma.

"Anger, what else?" snored Dan.

"I was using sarcasm," commented Carrot.

"That's an emotion?" asked Ranma.

"I guess so, it worked," replied Carrot with a small shrug.

"I think it was my fault," said Pissant sheepishly.

"Huh? Howzat?" muttered Dan. "What the hell were you using?"

"Peace and love," said the girlish voice cheerfully.

"Well, that would explain it. All right, let's try this again,
without Pissant," grumbled Carrot.

"No! We'll hurt the baby tree!" cried Pissant.

Dan smacked them again.

"Stop that! I don't want too kill the little tree branch on it's
birthday!" whined the voice.

"Fine! Damn it, we'll just use another tree," grumbled Carrot.

"Mmmmmm..." Pissant seemed like he'd start crying.

"A dead one! Are you happy now?" snapped Carrot irritably.

++++++++++++

"Moukou Takabishi!" cried the trio in unison as they incinerated a
dead stump, and a large area of the ground behind it. The blast struck
the ground, and blasted a huge hole in the ground in a massive
explosion.

"C...c...cool..." said Dan.

"Wow," agreed Ranma.

"It's too big," said Carrot with a small frown.

The beam had been a little smaller without the four of them, but
the results were much closer to what they had desired.

"Whatever," grumbled Dan irritably.

"I think it works like the Kaio Ken. It gets stronger when we all
do it," said Carrot with a small frown.

"Makes sense, I mean, we weigh about four hundred pounds, and our
attacks get stronger when we do them together," agreed Ranma.

"We weigh how much?" gasped Pissant in horror.

"We figured it out a while back, our weight is the same as the
three of our original body weight's combined," said Dan.

"Wait a minute, there's four of us now. How much does he make us
weigh?" asked Carrot as he thought about it for a moment.

"It's like we're four separate people, jammed together somehow.
It's really weird. We haven't discussed it much, but do you guys
realize that it's like we're, I dunno...roommates?"

"That is weird," agreed Dan. "We can sleep at different times,
when one of us gets knocked out, the others don't. We can even combine
our strength to attack things, or attack separately. This is a weird
situation."

"That could mean that we might be able to separate ourselves one
day, if we find the right way to do it," said Carrot with a grin
forming on his face.

"Yeah? Well let's start lookin!" snapped Ranma.

"Like we haven't been?" snapped Dan irritably. "This is nice and
all, but we've got to get home soon. We've got school tomorrow, and
then work, and now martial arts lessons."

+++++++++++++++


Once again, about half way to the Dojo, a familiar old friend
stopped Ranma.

"So, at last I find you Genaku McTome!"

He looked up and frowned. Nephrite was hovering in the air over
his head, and smiling at him.

"Hey, how's it goin Nephrite?" he asked casually.

"I've come for your life," snarled the man angrily as he stared
down at him.

"Huh? What for?" muttered Ranma as he looked up at him.

"I'll never forgive you for what you've done," he snapped.

"Come on, don't be like that buddy, it isn't like you to hold a
grudge," said Ranma as he crossed his arms and frowned at the man.

"I am not your buddy!" snapped Nephrite angrily.

"So, you want to fight?" snapped Ranma with a frown on his face.

"I want to destroy you!" snarled the evil general angrily.

"Okay, but how about this. If I win, you forget about this stupid
thing, and make up nice like."

Nephrite paused and frowned at him. "What?"

"Come on. I don't wanna spend all my time fighting you too. I've
got enough problems with those stupid Senshi," he said as he looked up
at the general for a moment.

"You needn't worry about that," snapped the man coldly. "After
tonight, you'll never fight again!"

"So, is it a bet then?" said Ranma with a smirk on his face.

"Always one for games," replied Nephrite with a chuckle. "Very
well. I should warn you though, my power has been increased a hundred
fold by Queen Beryl. You do not stand a chance."

"Great!" said the boy cheerfully as he took up a combat stance.

"What?" gasped Nephrite in shock. Genaku wasn't much of a fighter
without his sword in the past, he was strong, and a good brawler, but
seeing him take up a martial arts stance was a little odd to him. He
snorted and waved it off. "Go my minion! Destroy him!"

Ranma blinked, and a large dog like creature appeared in front of
him. It was pitch black, and had several horns protruding from its
head. The thing bared its teeth at him and growled.

The boy blinked, and picked up a nearby stick. He began to
whistle, and shook the twig in the air. "Here boy! Wanna fetch the
stick?"

The thing cocked its head and looked at him for a moment. It's
long whip like tail moving violently from side to side.

"Go get it boy!" cried Ranma as he tossed the twig away and into
the darkness.

"What the hell are you doing? Destroy him I said!" cried Nephrite
angrily.

"Aww, isn't that cute?" commented Ranma as the thing gave chase
and went after the stick excitedly. He glanced up at Nephrite and
grinned. "You done yet?"

"Die!" snarled the general as he raised his hand and at him with a
dark energy. It slammed into the ground where he had been and
exploded. "What?" gasped the general when he realized that he had
missed.

"Surprise!" said Ranma as he appeared behind him and punched him
in the back of his head.

Nephrite was thrown forward, and clutched at his head painfully as
he floated in the air. "How?"

Ranma was in front of his face again. "Give up yet?"

"Die!" cried Nephrite as he shot another blast of dark energy at
him at point blank range. He saw the boy's aura flare before he
vanished again, dodging the attack. "How can this be? He wasn't this
fast in the past!"

"I've learned a few new tricks. Wanna see my latest one?" said
Ranma as he appeared in the air beside him with his hand held out.
There was a small ball of light in his palm, pointing directly at
Nephrite's head. "Or do you want to stop this before one of us gets
hurt?"

"What?" snarled the man angrily. "I will not lose!" He tried to
turn and strike before his opponent could release the attack.

Ranma snorted, and blasted him in the head. The general was
knocked out of the air, and was now lying on the ground.

"That was only at about one third strength Nephrite. Come on,
can't we be pals again? The others still like me."

Nephrite tried to jump to his feet, but the boy put his foot on
top of his neck and applied a little pressure.

"Please?"

He growled under his breath, and shifted his eyes away. "You're
stronger than I remember you."

"Well, I've got my old memories, and this new life too," replied
the boy as he stepped back and offered his hand. "I think I'll just
sit back and watch this time. I don't care to get involved."

"You'll have to pick sides soon enough," said Nephrite coldly.

"I'll probably go with whoever is winning at the time then,"
replied the boy with a small shrug. "Nothing for you to worry about. I
figure I've got plenty of time."

"Not as much as you think," growled Nephrite coldly.

"Maybe, but I like where I'm at now. I don't want to work for
Beryl, she doesn't like me much anyway," said the boy with another
indifferent shrug.

"Heh. I imagine that she still remembers that time you filled her
palace water supply with 'Lime Jello'."

"Yeah. She had to take a bath in that stuff for like a week. It
took months for her skin to turn white again," replied Genaku with a
small chuckle.

"Heh. Unlike me, she does hold a grudge," said Nephrite with a
small frown.

"Whaddaya mean? It's been millennia since that happened!" said
Ranma with a small frown. "It wore off eventually."

"It was my wedding night! I had to spend three days of my
honeymoon waiting for it to wear off!"

"Sorry. I didn't mean for you to get that upset," said the boy
with a small apologetic grin. "C'mon. You know I didn't mean any
harm."

"I suppose," muttered the man as he turned away from him.

"We're supposed to get together again in a couple of days. You
gonna be there this time?"

"You promise not to use a star cruiser as our ride home this
time?" said Nephrite with a small frown.

"I would if I could, but..." said Ranma cheerfully.

"I suppose there isn't much you can do now," said the general with
a small frown. "I suppose I could attend."

"Great. See ya then," said Ranma cheerfully.

"I suppose so," muttered Nephrite as he faded into the shadows.

Ranma paused as the giant dog youma appeared next to him, it was
wagging its tail excitedly and had the stick in its mouth.

Nephrite appeared again. "Come on!" he snapped at the dog thing.

It whined and followed him into the vortex.

Ranma shrugged and continued to walk away.

++++++++++++++++++

"Your mind is just as important as your body Hotaru," said Ranma
sagely as he sat across from the girl in her backyard.

"Yeah, but meditating is boring," she groused.

"Not if you think about what you're supposed to. You can't just
sit quietly, there's more to it than that. You've just got to learn to
focus."

"How do I do that?" asked the girl in confusion.

"Okay, we'll start with something easy. I want you to think about
your favorite thing in the world."

"Huh?" said the girl in surprise.

"Go ahead, try it," he said cheerfully.

"Okay. How about...my teddy!"

"That could work, anything you want," he replied with a small
shrug.

She sat with a grin on her face as she visualized the stuffed
bear.

"How do you feel?" he asked her.

"Fine," she said as her train of thought was interrupted. She
frowned a bit at the question.

"No, about the bear. How does thinking about it make you feel?"
said Ranma patiently.

"Oh. It makes me feel warm, and safe," she said cheerfully.

"Okay. Think about that feeling," he said with a grin forming on
his face.

Hotaru did, she felt the warmth growing through her entire body.

"Good, think about everything that feeling does to you. How it
makes your body feel, every little thing that feeling does to every
part of your body."

"Wow," she said cheerfully as she did. "I never knew it did so
much!"

Ranma smiled, and waited as she sat across from him in wonder.
"Well, you're meditating now."

She blinked, the feeling fading away from her body in an instant.
"I was?"

"Yup," he replied cheerfully.

"That's all there is?" she said in confusion.

"No, there's more, but that's the basics. You should practice
that, and after you're really good at it. You'll be able to move on to
other things."

"Like what?" she said in confusion.

"Oh, like being able to tell where other people are with your eyes
closed, sensing danger, knowing about every part of your body, making
it so pain goes away, lots of things," he said with a small shrug.

"I can make stuff stop hurting?" she said in wonder.

"After a while, yes, to some extent," he replied cheerfully. "If
you get really good, someday you'll be able to do things like this."
He held out his palm, and a small white ball formed there.

"Wow!" she gasped. "Is that your special power that you told me
about?"

"No, this is something else," he said cheerfully.

"Can I touch it?" she said as she reached forward.

"Sure, this one is made of peace and love," he said as he put his
hand down to her. "It can't hurt you."

"You can make ones that hurt people too?" she said with a small
frown.

"Well, you can, but you don't have too," he said with a shrug.
"It's up to you."

"Oh," she said with a small nod.

"Will you teach me how?" she said tentatively.

"Sure, if you practice your meditation every day. I suppose you
could learn in a year or two," he said with a small shrug.

"I can't wait!" she said cheerfully as she put her hand through
the ball of light. "Wow. I don't feel tired at all."

Ranma smirked at her. "This one kind of works like your power
does," he said cheerfully. "It can sort of heal things, make things
grow, and basically makes you feel stronger."

"So, can you do that all the time?" she asked.

"If I want, but being tired is good for you. If I just healed you
all the time, you'd never get any stronger."

"Oh," she said in slight disappointment.

"Don't worry Hotaru, it's a lot of work, but it's worth it," he
said cheerfully.

"Yeah. Thanks Saotome-sensei," she said with a grin.

"Now, let's go over that kata once more," he said to her.

"Okay," she grumbled as she stood up and began.

+++++++++++++++++

TBC...