Gaia's Awakening --- " " are speaking ' ' are quotes { } are thoughts * * are sounds --- Chapter 5 : No peace for the braves --- It took a few days to prepare, but for the remaining Amazons, the dead couldn't go into the afterlife without a proper ceremony. They fought for what they thought was right, and gave their lives to protect their loved ones. Nobody could dream a better death than that. The farewell ceremony was magnificent, as always when Amazons are concerned. A very large bonfire was light at the place of the village, and everyone took his or her turn to mourn the dead. It then took days for the village to get a little life back. The death of Cologne, Great Matriarch of the village for fifty years, put a thick veil of silence on the village. And so, several days after the cataclysm in America, a family came through the doors of the village, asking for shelter. --- "Kasumi? Nabiki? Dad? Oh my God!! What are you doing here?" shouted Akane, her eyes in tears. "My baby! You are alright! We were so worried about you!" her father shouted back, trying to mimic a waterfall with great deal of success. "My, my, father, you might want to let her breathe." Kasumi tried to calm her father, seeing Akane start to turn a little blue, despite her growing power. "Well, sis, seems life here didn't change you all that much. And to answer you question : the big cataclysm in America caused the poles' ice to start to melt and Japan is more or less under water." Nabiki explained. "You mean... the house.." Akane asked, trembling slightly with grief. "We took all we could. Everyone was invited to go to China or any other country of the continent." Kasumi told her baby sister. "We thought that we might as well try to find you here, since you were already in China yourself. I'm so happy to see you. Bwaaa!" Soun explained, before going into another crying fit. "Come on, don't stay here, I'll show you the village!" exclaimed Akane, dragging her two sisters by the hands without much effort. "Wow, slow down sis, we are not as strong as you." Nabiki complained, causing Akane to walk instead of running. --- "Hey, Mister Tendo, long time no see. Paying us a visit?" Ranma asked to his future father-in-law. "Ranma, son, I'm afraid we lost our ancestral home because of that cataclysm in America." Soun explained to the Amazon group. "He means Japan was flooded when the poles melted..." Akane tried to resume for her friends. "What? Even with Ma Yuan dying to save the planet, there still was that much damage?" Ryoga wondered. "Ma Yuan? The World Master? What does he have to do with that?" Nabiki asked, her curiosity peeked. "He fought with some insane guy very powerful, and this guy used some attack he named 'Apocalypse' that could destroy the earth itself. Ma Yuan gave all his power to the planet to save it from blowing up. We currently have some scouts looking at the ruins of Los Angeles to see how it's doing." Ranma resumed. "Yeah, we were there when it happened and it wasn't pretty. Even the Amazon Great Matriarch wasn't even a challenge to these guys." Ryoga informed the Tendo family. "I don't see Genma anywhere. Ranma, where is your father?" Sound asked. Ranma face turned serious and lost all trace of happiness. Silently, he turned and left the group, not even saying goodbye. "Huu, Dad, it's a rather sore subject to Ranma. It'd be best if you didn't talk about him in front of Ranma." Akane told her father. "Why, is there a problem?" he asked. "Well, some time ago, Genma tried to kill us all, even Ranma maybe, or at least lobotomize us. He worked with the Beetle army. Ranma was forced to kill his own father." Ryoga told the Tendo Patriarch. "Ranma did what?" Soun shouted, getting angry. "He didn't have a choice, really, dad. Genma was ready to kill me and the others. When we got to Ranma, he was bleeding from a lot of wounds from his father. Then Ranma got back up again and his hair had turned golden. He tried to give a chance to his father, but he didn't have a choice." Akane explained to her father. "Genma did that? My dear old friend, how could you fall so low... "Come on Dad, I'll show you where you'll live from now on." Akane told her father, showing him the way. --- Akane family was easily accepted into the tribe. Kasumi helped with her cooking and housekeeping skills, Nabiki was busy learning Chinese and helping the Elders to manage the village without Cologne. Soun started to teach Anything Goes to the Amazons warriors, this helped him to ignore his sorrow. All was going well for the Amazon village. TOO well. That's when some scouts came back from Los Angeles. They weren't bringing good news. --- "What da ya mean? Big black ugly monsters? Be more precise." Ranma asked one of the scouts. "We couldn't get nearer or we'd have been discovered. But these monsters were building some sort of camp. They may be waiting for friends or something." the scout explained. "Damn, we need to look at that, and NOW!" Ryoga said. "Geez, thanks mister obvious. Thanks for the info. Get some rest, we'll go and meet with the rest of the scouting party. You did a good job." Ranma told the girl. "Aiya, now that Ma Yuan is no more, we get another problem. It's just not fair." Shampoo lamented. "I know." Ranma told her. "But we got no choice here, we need to find where they come from." And yet again, Ranma and the 'elite' group of the Amazons went to go to Los Angeles. A travel they were starting to know by heart. --- A few days later. The Amazon scouting camp. "Damnit. Water, why does it need to be water!" Ranma, in girl form, was complaining. "If you took an umbrella just like us, you wouldn't have got wet." Akane told the boy-turned-girl. "I ain't no girl, Akane." Ranma shot back "Not from where I am!" Ryoga teased his rival, smirking. "And I ain't no pig either!" Ranma shouted scowling. "Ah! you can shout all you want, but you are the only one wet here, and don't you tell you weren't warned. So put a sock on it, okay?" Shampoo told Ranma, happy that being a waken made learning other languages so much easy. A scout came to greet them. "We weren't waiting for you so soon. I'm Brush." the cyan haired girl told them. "We didn't really have anything else to do. Show us the plans, please." Ranma said. "Follow me inside." the girl told them while walking toward one of the bigger tents. "The monsters seem to be surrounding that part of the city. We couldn't get a clear view of that place, but it looks like they are guarding something there. You might want to check it." "Might be a start. Okay, Ryoga and Akane, you try to see if you can go there unnoticed by foot. Shampoo and I will try to get a clear shot from the sky. We meet here if anything happen. ok?" Ranma instructed his partners. They all nodded and each pair did as they were told. --- "It's not easy to fly while trying to hide as much power as possible." Shampoo told Ranma. "Yeah, I know. We can't go in there any other way as long as we don't know what we are facing this time." Ranma explained her. "True enough. Hey! What's that!" She explained pointing toward the darkened sky in front of them. "What the hell..." Ranma muttered. In front of them was what looked like a black scar into the reality itself. Like a vortex made of pure power, clouded into shadows. They knew they had just found what they where looking for. --- End chapter 5 next chapter : the Trinity, or where did the monsters came from. --- Vampyr666 ICQ : #2971440 Email : Vampyr3@wanadoo.fr http://www.chez.com/vampyr666