"Look out!"  Ranma shielded the terrified harem girl, rushing in front of
her and clutching her head low aginst his chest, as the Emperor's blazing
attack passed high overhead, unhindered by the dark wizard's barrier.  Even
though the fire was far above his head, he could feel a rush of scorching
air crash into his back like a rush of boiling water.

	He clenched his teeth at the sudden raw tingling of his skin and listened
to the panicked cries of the girl he was protecting and pictured the
dark-robed guy vanishing into the flames and wondered, "What have I done?"

		

	"Kya!"  Miko ducked behind Reikiba when the dark man was overtaken by the
fire.  She looked toward her guardian for answers as to what was going on,
but he was busy protecting the girl he was with (which she partially
understood since protecting was what a guardian did).

	Reikiba shaded his eyes and watched the event curiously.

	Twilight sat with her head high and her tail twitching, somewhat pleased.

	The crow's eyes flew wide at it's master's apparent demise, then it passed
out.

		

	Fang laughed aloud as he held his blast for a couple of more seconds,
reveling in his victory.  He'd won!  He'd defeated the Dark One!

	But he soon realized that his hopes were gravely misplaced when he stopped
firing and the flames passed into the distant sky like a dragon's tail...
and the dark-robed wizard was STILL hovering in the air where he was
before, unharmed, his arms folded defiantly and his face showing such smug
boredom that one would think he were just being made to listen to a
long-winded lecture on something he already knew about.

	"WHAT????"  Fang clenched his fists and glared at his opponent in
surprise.  "But how is this possible?!"

	Dismissing the query, the dark man smiled and held up the phoenix statue.
"I have what I came for.  Now why don't we get this fight over with?  I
need to get home to my bed."  He threw his hands into the air and bellowed,
"Midnight Storm!"

	With a crack of thunder, black stormclouds suddenly rolled across the sky,
swiftly surrounding and totally blotting out the previous clear blue.  And
with the storm came a sudden rain, falling swiftly but only moderately, and
flashes of lightning, which danced in threatening patches behind the clouds
but seemed to promise nothing more.

	Fang growled and glanced around through narrowed eyes at the new change of
atmosphere, but he seemed undaunted.  The dark man wouldn't frighten him
with tricks.  The Emperor was steamed, mostly because the rainwater was
evaporating on contact with his aura, and he spat harshly, "What kind of a
demon are you?"

	The dark man lightly folded his arms and laughed, "I am only a demon to
those who are weak and ignorant enough to believe so."

	"HOW DARE YOU!!!"  Fang pulled back his fists and called forth two balls
of fire.  He may have already spent a great deal of energy, but he was far
from finished with the fight.

	The dark man wagged a finger in front of his face and grumbled, "Temper,
temper." then brought his fist before him and shouted, "Flying Dragon..."

	Fang momentarily looked shocked, remembering the technique the wizard had
used before--the dark man had somehow utilized his burning aura while
projecting a cool aura to create the whirlwind.  So, just as the dark man
finished with "...Ascension Defeat!", Fang calmed his flames and projected
an aura as cool as his opponent's, hoping to nullify his technique.

	But just as the Emperor dropped his aura, so did the dark man, twice as
cold as before.  Fang simultaneously dropped his aura even more to match,
then proceededed to force his aura colder so that he might use the move
against his enemy.  They glared at each other, determination chiseled in
their brows, as they both steadily projected their auras colder and colder.

		

	Ranma blinked one eye open and glanced over his shoulder when he heard the
Emperor make his surprised exclamation, then he gasped, in shock as well as
relief, when he saw that the dark wizard had survived the flame attack.
Clutching Ranma as tightly as she could, almost digging her fingers into
his back, the harem girl peeked up from her hiding place, her eyes
shimmering with panic.

	"Gaa!"  Ranma jumped and the girl ducked back down when the wizard threw
his arms up and the sky suddenly went dark with thunderclouds.  The girl
was now whimpering and weak-kneed and would have fallen to the ground if
Ranma wasn't holding her up.

	Then, when nothing immediate happened, Ranma glanced over his shoulder
again.  The Emperor was clenching his fists, which were each glowing hot,
while the dark guy (whose back was mostly turned) seemed to taunt him.
Ranma, remembering the innkeeper say something about a whirlwind, instantly
recognized the feel of the situation--the familiar imbalance of warm and
cool chi energies.

	Just as he heard the wizard speak the first word of the maneuver's name,
he pushed away from the harem girl and took a few running steps toward the
hill Miko occupied, flailing his arms and yelling, "Get down!  Both of ya!
Get down!"  Neither Miko nor the samurai seemed to understand what he was
saying; Miko was still shouting at him while the samurai tried to hold her
back.

	Before Ranma knew it, the dark guy had completed saying, "Flying Dragon
Killer Strike!" but there was no immediate whirlwind.  Ranma froze and
glanced at the two combatants, a little fearful.  It seened like the wizard
was delaying the final punch rather than cancelling the move.  Why? Then,
when he realized that they were constantly projecting colder and colder
auras, his eyes flew wide and he gasped, "Oh no!"  If he was guessing
right, then they were all in worse danger than he thought.

	He started to run forward, yelling anew, but his ears instantly focused on
the choked whimpering behind him, reminding him that there was an even more
fragile girl he needed to worry about--and what was worse was that she had
no protective clothing at all.

	With one more panicked wave and plea in Miko's direction, he turned and
ran back to the harem girl, who had fallen to her knees and was once again
clutching the orange and blue robe for dear life.

	"GET DOWN!"  He tackled the girl, wrapping his arm around her shoulders,
and pulled her face-down to the ground.  Hopefully, if Miko saw that he was
ducking for cover, she'd do the same--he prayed to whatever god that had
brought him to her side that she would.

		

	The bile that rose in Miko's throat left a horribly bitter taste in her
mouth.  She didn't know what was more frightening: seeing the Emperor
hovering in the air, blazing like a demon from one of her worst nightmares,
or seeing the dark-robed wizard stand up against the demon's hellfire
without so much as a singed hair.  Were these people human???

	She clamped her eyes shut and tried to disbelieve everything she saw as
part of a dream.  She'd defeated the wizard earlier--or at least she
thought she did--but there was no way she could have gotten the better of
that THING out there.  It couldn't be real--none of it could.  She must
still be sleeping in her guardian's arms on this very hilltop, letting her
imagination get the better of her--concocting a horrible nightmare about
losing her newfound love or creating an out-of-control fantasy in which her
love would save her.  But then why was he over on the next hill with
another girl?  She wanted the fantasy to stop.

	When the wizard's two-word chant suddenly brought chaos to the sky,
filling the air with thunder and darkness and rain, she couldn't take it
anymore.  She screamed and bolted around the samurai, crying aloud,
"Guardian Spirit!  Help me!  Tell me what's going on!"

	Reikiba was momentarily distracted by the change in weather, his hand
still rubbing the back of his head in concern, when he realized that Miko
had suddenly moved.  "?"  He tightened the grip of the arm he still had
around her, but she had managed to slip out and take a large step away
before he was able to grab her wrist.  "Miss Lee!  It's too dangerous here!
 You mustn't go!"

	He threw his other arm forward to grab her shoulder, but, as fast as
quicksilver, she ducked under his extended arm, shrieking, "No!  I have to
go to him!"  He crossed his arms to make an awkward grab for her, but she
just dodged and ducked back to the other side.  He made several more
lightning-quick attempts to restrain her, but they proved futile; the only
thing keeping her from getting away was the hold he had on her wrist.

	However, when Miko saw her guardian suddenly start running towards her,
shouting something and gesturing like he wanted her to stay back, she
hesitated just long enough for the samurai to throw his arm around her
shoulder.  Miko pushed forward as hard as she could, tears rushing to her
eyes.  "What're you saying?!  Who is that girl you're with?!"  Why did he
want her to stay back?  She needed him--she needed to know that he was real.

	"Please, Miss Lee!  I have a bad feeling...."  Reikiba very briefly
loosened his hold on her wrist so he could grab her other shoulder when
suddenly, she dropped down through his arms, leaving him holding a ring of
air.  She started running down the hill before he could reach out again.
He cursed and tried to catch up to her.

	Miko's eyes flew wide and she choked when she saw her guardian pull the
girl to the ground and, as far as she could see, fall on top of her.  She
reached through the air and started to cry out to him, to beg him to come
back to her, but she didn't get the chance.

		

	The Emperor was clenching his teeth, shivering furiously.  He was
projecting his aura too cold!  Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he
continued to freeze his spirit, stubbornly trying to beat the wizard at his
own game.  But it had gone too far.  In a moment, he'd turn to ice.  He
should have just let the wizard create his whirlwind, for now he had a
feeling the result would be far worse.

	In the scant few seconds that they were engaged in this battle of wills,
Fang's expression had altered from bold determination to extreme doubt,
while the dark man's face remained placid, if not a little amused.  The
Dark One seemed to be a creature of the cold with an unnaturally chilled
spirit, but Fang had realized that a few seconds too late.  As he shrunk
back, limbs becoming numb, the only thing that kept him in match with the
other was childish spite and recklessness.

	Then, while the Emperor could still see and hear clearly, the dark man
chimed, equally childishly, "You win!"  Suddenly warming his aura to its
normal temperature, he raised his fist high over his head in completion of
the maneuver and laughed aloud as he was sucked upward by his own cyclone.

		

	!BOOM!  The valley turned white as it suddenly became the center of a
vicious blizzard.  A flurry of snow and frozen rainwater rose in a spiral
over a mile high and wailed outward with such force that several trees were
uprooted.  The rice field turned into a sheet of ice and the rest of the
valley was quickly buried in several inches of snow.  And for nearly a mile
radius, the provence of Xinghai experienced the first and only summer snow-
and hailstorm.

	"HANG ON!"  Ranma pulled the screaming harem girl close to him as the wind
pushed them backwards across the frosty ground.  The girl hid her face in
his chest and hugged him with all her strength, terrified that this was
going to be her final day alive--and Ranma wasn't sure he could argue at
this point.  He grabbed the robe she was lying on just as she rolled off of
it; it struggled to be whisked upward by the wind and acted a makeshift
sail, turning them lengthwize against the gail and sending them rolling
together to the opposite side of the hill.

	"Waaaaaaa!"  Miko suddenly found herself flying through the harsh, powdery
air, away from the valley, before she knew what had happened.  Biting wind,
as well as small shards of ice, almost seemed to rush through her, batting
and scratching her at tender flesh and stinging her like a swarm of biting
flies.

	At some point while in the air, she slammed into something big and heavy,
which she guessed was either Twilight or the samurai--but who or whatever
it was, she felt something in her left shoulder crack on impact.

		

	When the world finally stopped spinning and the sky brightened, Miko
plummeted to the cold ground on the other side of the hill, landing in a
small drift of snow, crumpling like a sack of potatoes.  Almost immediately
after, Reikiba and Twilight splashed down about fifty feet to either side
of her.

	"*gurgle*  Ow...."  Miko blinked her eyes open, but only a squint--they
were, for the moment, half sealed shut with frozen tears.  She couldn't
immediately move--her limbs ached and her skin was burning.  And when she
finally could coax a movement, it was very painful, like hundreds of
needles piercing her all over.  And she was shivering fiercely, as much
from the cold as from the trauma of the flight.  But at least it felt like
the sun was out again, so she didn't think she'd freeze to death.

	Ironically, her first coherent thought upon gaining consciousness was
whether or not her guardian had survived--because if he wasn't alive, she
didn't care if she was either.  As much as she was in pain now, she knew
that the tragedy of losing him would be far worse.  No.  He HAD survived.
He was too strong not to.

	It was this hope that allowed her to push herself to her trembling
hands--she had to get up to see if he was alright (then she could curl up
and die beside him).  No.  She wasn't going to die either.  She just hurt
all over.

	Clenching her eyes tight, she could feel the water condensing on her
eyelashes, so she'd soon be able to see more than just blurred colors.  She
faultered a bit, her left shoulder pulsing with pain when she put too much
weight on it, so she shifted most of her weight to her right arm, which
felt like she as trying to hold up a rock with a dry twig.  It was still
better than collapsing for good.

	She lowered her head and blinked a few times until her eyes could open
freely and without too much effort, then looked forward to see a pair of
massive legs rooted before her.  "!"  Startled, she looked up to see Lon
standing grimly with his massive arms folded, and as far as she could tell,
he wasn't wearing anything.  But he was still just a fuzzy blurr of shaded
flesh tones, and she was somewhat thankful of that.  The mere thought of
his appearance was enough to make her want to be sick.

	"Gaaa!"  She threw herself back when the giant started to reach for her,
but when she tried to catch herself with her arms, throbbing pain jarred
her left shoulder and she spun to the ground, crying.  She came to a stop
flat on her back and looking skyward in time to see a giant foot thrusting
down in her direction.

	An adrenelin rush allowed her to throw herself out of the way just as the
foot pounded a few inches INTO the ground.  She managed to roll to her
knees and pull out her needle, but then she realized two things: she needed
two hands to sew with, and one wasn't responding, and neither of her arms
would be able to tolerate her lightning reflexes.

	So all she could do was watch helplessly, her bottom lip quivering and her
eyes misting, as Lon stepped foward and backhanded her hard, jarring her
teeth, rattling her skull, and making lights flash extremely bright in
front of her eyes.  When she was able to think about anything but the thick
saltiness that had entered her mouth, she was lying on the ground with one
eye clamped shut and blood welling from the side of her mouth.

	Lon reached down to grab her collar when a voice from behind yelled,
"Wait!"  Lon casually looked back to see Pae-Kau, who was only wearing a
wolf-fur loincloth, kick the stupid samurai upside the head to knock him
out (again).  He then turned to Lon and said, "Bait is more useful when it
is alive."

	Lon groaned but nodded in agreement, then grabbed one of Miko's arms and
started dragging her.  Miko winced and tried to scream, but all she could
do was cry.