As soon as her glove incased fist touched the ice shroud, it moved. With a convulsive shudder that threw her away from it, it shattered its ice covered form and reemerged from its glacial cocoon.

**********

Ranma-chan stretched for a moment, knocking off the stray piece of ice here and there. A brief twisting of her body cleared the rest of herself of ice. She yawned, popped her neck, and cracked her knuckles before settling into a loose fighting stance. Looking at her opponent she blinked a couple of times, then shrugged.

"Look. I don’t know who the hell ya are, or what the hell ya want with me now, but if it’s a fight ya want, it’s a fight yer gonna get!"

By this time, Mercury had regained her feet, and some of her scattered wits. She realized closing in on the redhead would equal pain for her, so she refrained from doing so. A quick scan showed power levels up around those of Usagi’s second or third readings. Nothing like what she was at now, but powerful by itself nonetheless.

"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!"

"Whatcha gonna do? Sing me ta sleep?!"

**********

Minutes later, Ranma-chan was watching the blue skirted soldier of love and justice with new found respect, and no little amount of curiosity, in her eyes. She had just barely dodged that first attack. Her arm still stung from where she hadn’t quite dodged well enough. Now, if only she could get the girl to use it a couple of more times.

As the pair circled each other, Mercury was thinking franticly of ways to hold out till the others could get there. She had never faced such a fast opponent before! She was beginning to get worried.

"Ya couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn!!"

"Mercury Aqua Rhapsody!"

"Yattai!"

The blast impacted full force into a smiling Ranma-chan’s chest, hurling her backwards to crash into, and through, several trees. For a moment, Mercury almost believed that she had won. Then an eerie chuckling floated through the grove from where Ranma-chan had landed.

Mercury stared in disbelief and abject shock as an uninjured Ranma-chan pulled herself out of the crater she had formed and grinned mischievously at her.

"So that’s how you do it…"

Mercury, tired both physically and magically, panicked.

"Mercury Sorairono Ekusutashii!!"

The Azure Ecstasy, basically a super-powered Rhapsody, fueled with all of her strength behind it flew towards the unmoving Ranma-chan, who merely held up her hands.

"Saotome Ryü Sentaku, Naminooyu!"

The cascade of boiling ki washed over the blast of ice and the two cancelled each other out, knocking the two casters back. Mercury looked at Ranma-chan with an overwhelming sense of horror and dread filling her. She had lost, miserably, both to her stupid pride and ignorance. She laid back on the ground in surrender and stared at the sky.

**********

Ranma-chan stood in confusion. Her pride at learning a new move was completely cancelled out for once by the state of confusion her opponent’s actions had landed her in. In her entire life no one had ever just… given up! She didn’t know what to think of this new development in the situation. So, she just stood there dumb-founded and pondered the situation. At least, that’s what she did if you call standing stock still with your jaw dangling around your kneecaps pondering.

The tableau had effectively frozen in place, making it look disturbingly like Mercury was about to be either raped by a leering Ranma-chan, or that she was submitting to her, with her fuku torn from ice. Not very good either way.

**********

Unfortunately, this was the scene that Sailors Moon, Jupiter, and Venus walked in on. Then matters were made even worse as they immediately were sucked into the "Ranma-dilemma". They jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"Mercury! How COULD you?!" wailed the blonde-headed princess of the moon.

It was just the thing needed to shatter the scene. Mercury snapped around.

"Moon! Thank the Heavens! Help!"

Which, of course, caused them to jump to the other wrong conclusion.

"PERVERT!!!"

Ranma-chan reacted in the traditional manner to hearing people yelling pervert when Happosai wasn’t around. Which, didn’t help. Jupiter screaming out an attack phrase did though.

"Supreme Thunder!"

"Moko Takabushi!"

The searing ball of super-heated plasma impacted violently with the scarlet missile of super-confident ki. Needless to say, neither one went where they were intended. The plasma charge smashed nastily through several trees, while the ki sphere handily disbursed, giving everyone in the grove a rather nasty feeling blast, but not debilitating enough to knock out anyone but Mercury.

"Venus Love Me Chain!"

The name of the attack was enough to seriously worry Ranma-chan at first, but the rather intriguing links flying past her face as she hopped and weaved about trying to dodge slowly knocked that out of her system. She began moving slower, a strange smile on her face as she started flipping deliberately around the chain.

"Would you just hold still and let me hit you?!" Venus screamed at the rapidly moving Ranma-chan.

Ranma-chan altered her dodging just enough so that she could throw Venus a confused look.

"Now, why would I want to do something so utterly stupid as to stand still and let you beat on me with a whip made of chain?"

"You know, she’s got a point, Venus." Jupiter commented, nursing a burnt hand and watching the goings-on with a distracted sort of interest.

"Hey, Goldie! Mind if I borrow this for a couple of days? Thanks!" Ranma-chan piped up suddenly, snatching the chain out of mid-air and hiding it somewhere.

"Hey! Waitasec!"

**********

Moon had had enough. First this show-off had tried to … to… she didn’t even want to think about it… to Mercury, then she did something that hurt for crying out loud, and now she was stealing her fellow Senshi, not to mention good friend, Venus’ Love Me Chain?! This was way too much.

She snatched up a branch that had landed near her, and scared the hell out of her, when Jupiter’s Supreme Thunder had blown up the trees. Spinning around, she blasted it at Ranma-chan.

"Moon Frisbee!"

Unfortunately for her, her excellent attack with its perfect form was met only by trees. Ranma-chan had already vanished from the grove.

**********

Ranma, after a quick stop at a coffee shop for a glass of hot water, veritably flew home from the park. When he finally reached the gates, he didn’t even bother opening them. With a quick leap, rounded off with a tight, mid-air somersault, he was over and leaning against the wall. It was happening again. The craziness of his life had followed him. He knew that he should have expected it, but it usually took longer than this.

He would have spent a few moments longer pondering his situation, but just then Nodoka stepped from the house.