Prologue
Taming the Wild Horse
a My Little Pony/Ranma 0.5 crossover fanfiction
by SFaccountant
Prologue
"Sweet Celestia... what the hay happened here?"
Smoke billowed into the sky in a thick, dark column, very nearly blocking out the sun above. It originated from the gutted remains of a large, abandoned homestead. Mere hours ago, the building would have seemed overgrown and ill-maintained. Now, however, two of the exterior walls had been shattered, the roof was shredded, and smoldering coals covered much of the ground around and within the building.
Looking over the carnage was a group of five creatures: a unicorn, two pegasi, and two griffons. All bore the appearance of seasoned mercenaries; the winged warriors all boasted tough leather armor and were loaded down with weapons and traveling gear. The ponies had blades on their legs, while the griffons each carried a heavy crossbow. The unicorn was a rather gaunt stallion with discolored yellow fur under a black cloak and a series of morbid bone charms hanging around his neck.
"Hold on... is that...?" One pegasus crept closer to the devastation, spotting a stripe of bright red amongst the smoke. Once she got a good angle to view the interior of the wrecked house, her eyes widened. "A salamander! That's what did this!"
Most of the others tensed, expecting a sudden attack. The unicorn frowned.
"Is it still alive?" he asked.
"Uh... not sure. It isn't moving. Definitely looks injured, at least." She squinted, watching for any movement. The beast was large, nearly 8 feet long with bright red, rubbery skin, and she didn't have a good enough view to check if it was breathing. "I don't really want to start poking it with a stick to make sure."
The unicorn's horn flashed, and his eyes flooded with green light. "... It is unconscious, but not dead. Seems like it bit off a little more than it could chew."
"You think it got our target?" asked a griffon. The hybrid avian already had his crossbow out, ready to unleash the weapon at a moment's notice. "The wagon tracks we were following definitely stopped here."
"I believe it probably attacked Havoc, yes," the stallion mumbled while looking over the ruins. "This scene fits everything we know of the lout: a reckless brawler who leaves a trail of devastation behind him."
"I kind of feel like this is more the salamander's fault than the pony's, though."
"And I feel like there are too many burnt-out husks in this stallion's wake to grant him the benefit of the doubt. But it doesn't matter." The unicorn’s eyes went back to normal, and then he nudged his head sharply to the side, gesturing to a griffon. "Search the ruins. We'll either find the smoldering remains of the wagon, or the tracks leading away from here. I'm betting on the latter."
"Wait, you really think our mark fought that thing and won?"
"Until I find our bounty lying in a shattered crater as well, yes, that is my conclusion."
"Look at all the damage it did! The salamander nearly ripped the entire house in half! It took a beating in the process, sure, but you gotta figure it got the pony eventually. Probably ate him already, or burned him completely to ashes."
The unicorn shook his head. "It didn't do this."
"Huh?"
"It didn't cause all this damage to the house. The fires, yes; because that's how salamanders fight. They don't plow through walls or try to hammer their foes into submission. They burn them. It's their only tactic." He pointed to the crumbling wall. "This impact was from something else. Like, say, an unreasonably strong pony bucking a three hundred-pound fire monster through it."
The griffon shuddered, her feathers ruffling around her neck. "Well, I guess you don't rack up a 200,000 bit bounty for being subtle. You think we can handle this, Ghastly?"
The unicorn narrowed his eyes. "Don't lose your nerve. A pony who only understands brute force might be able to muscle his way through the Royal Guard, but it will take more than that to escape us."
"Hey! You guys! I found the tracks!" The other griffon soared back to his teammates, pointing down the road. "The wagon went that way! Fresh tracks, too! He can't be more than a few hours ahead of us!"
"So this guy takes down a salamander and then just strolls off like nothing happened? Crazy."
"And yet, perfectly consistent with what we've heard so far," the unicorn mumbled. "We'll need some extra bodies for this one, I think." His horn began to glow.
His teammates cringed and started backing away. After a few seconds, a bolt of crackling green power blasted from the stallion's horn and lanced through the comatose salamander.
The creature spasmed, its tail lashing back and forth several times in reflexive agony. Then a pall of pale, mystical smoke seemed to rise from the comatose beast. Its head twitched slightly, but its eyes never opened.
"Do you REALLY need to do this?" one of the pegasi asked with a grimace. "You know how much this zombie stuff creeps us out, Ghastly."
Ghastly chuckled while his horn pulsed again. "Don't think of it as turning a dead body into a mindless weapon. Think of it... as giving the losing side a second chance!"
Green streams of magical energy floated out of the unicorn's horn, curving and circling seemingly at random. Most of the mana flows dove down into the ground and disappeared, but one of them curled around the deceased salamander before swooping into its body.
"Move ahead on the trail and find our target," the equine necromancer ordered the pegasi. "Come back as soon as you find him, or if you see anypony else on the road. And watch your backs! We don't know if this 'Calamity' pony is with him, or what her deal is exactly, but there's a chance he has flying support."
The pegasi quickly raced off to do as instructed. The griffons moved closer to Ghastly, watching the ground around them uneasily. Patches of dirt started to shift, rising up into crumbling mounds as something beneath the ground struggled to dig free. The salamander twitched once more, its body stirring from the necromantic energies flooding through its devastated nerves. A few seconds later its eyelids snapped open.
"I would guess that this place is the lizard's feeding ground. Lots of leftovers around here," Ghastly whispered with a smile. All around him, mutilated pony bodies started breaking free of the earth, clawing their way to the surface while groaning weakly. "Waste not, want not..."
"Having wings is much more of a pain than I thought."
Ranma grunted and flapped the aforementioned limbs, splashing water over her back. She was floating in the middle of a placid river, treading the water with a brush clenched in her teeth. Her mane and tail was undone, flowing gently in the river current like a long fan of fiery red algae.
"You'd think you could just scrub them, like fur, but no! They get all bent out of shape! I never guessed birds had it so tough," she complained to herself while running the brush over her feathers. Several of the gray quills tore free from her efforts and fell into the water, but Ranma had no idea if that was progress or a problem.
She'd heard that pegasi sometimes "preened" their feathers, but Ranma had no idea how that was supposed to work. She'd never spent much time studying birds, and the concept was generally fuzzy to someone who had only possessed wings for a matter of weeks. Much like flying, actually.
As her thoughts turned to flight, Ranma glanced up at the sky. Then she looked down the river. Her eyes narrowed.
Then Ranma took a breath and dove under the surface of the water.
For nearly a minute, all was still. A blue light appeared beneath the water.
Then a geyser surged upward from the river's surface, blasting into the air at a slight angle. Another one immediately followed next to it, and then another, and then another, each in accelerating succession downriver. The waters surged for over forty feet before Ranma burst from the river's surface, soaring up into the air on a trail of swirling mist.
The cursed pegasus whooped loudly while she ascended, flapping her wings hard and relishing the rush of air. Ranma still felt like her flying was sub-par compared to the average pegasus (never mind the ordinary birds who didn't have to deal with a horse's body), but she had learned a few impressive tricks nonetheless. Her landings had also improved to the extent that she no long had to literally crash in order to stop. Trixie found that to be a ludicrously low bar to clear, but Ranma thought it was pretty good progress for someone who had to familiarize herself with a new body and a new mode of transit for the lesser part of three weeks.
Ranma shifted her wings to glide, stumbling slightly on the transition. Being soaking wet didn't seem to be improving her flight technique any, and her feathers still felt wrong. But she remained defiantly airborne, airing out her damp fur in the late morning breeze.
Suddenly, she spotted a rising spot of light in the distance. It climbed up over the trees, and then burst into a cluster of sparkling red.
"Is that...?"
Several minutes previous to Ranma's flight practice, Trixie lay next to her travel cart along the side of the road. Several sheets of parchment were laid out in front of her, consisting of the many notes she had stolen from Blood Rite regarding his study of the MacGuffin Stone. The gem itself sat between her front hooves, resting atop a small velvet pouch with a loop of string attached to it.
On her side was a ruby. This gemstone didn't have papers sitting next to it, as she didn't really have any notes on how it worked. She did know its name, though, as it was mentioned briefly by the ruby's former owner before said owner was savaged by a thunder spell: the Alchemist's Heart, an elemental magic aid used by General Firebrand. That certainly implied that it was an artifact of considerable worth. So much so, unfortunately, that Trixie considered that she might not want to be seen with it. The Canterlot Royal Guard was fairly jealous of its magical weapons, as Trixie understood it, and she found traveling with Ranma a great enough liability as it was.
On the other side of her was a pot of hot water hung over a fire and a sack of grain for when Ranma returned from taking his bath. Trixie had already washed up earlier, but Ranma preferred bathing separately from his traveling partner for some reason. Probably another silly human hang-up. Trixie didn’t know and didn’t care.
Trixie squinted down at the MacGuffin Stone, as if she was trying to peer into the magical core of the gemstone and the strange, arcane prison that had once confined Ranma Saotome and then Twilight Sparkle. Blood Rite's notes were complex, esoteric, and constantly wandered into the theoretical, but Trixie thought she had learned enough to use the artifact's most unique function: capturing a living creature to be used as a magic battery.
That is, if she ever found occasion to do so. Trixie had Ranma around to fight off mortal threats, after all. Just this morning he had taken down a salamander that had charged in on them while they were sleeping. Using the MacGuffin Stone to handle such threats not only seemed unnecessary, but Trixie wasn't very confident in the magic involved. The one time in the past she'd tried using an all-powerful artifact to get her way it hadn't gone very well.
Trixie picked up the gem on her hoof and held it closer. Even if she hoped never to use it, she felt inclined to test it. But on what? Ranma was right out; if something went wrong, then she didn't want to be responsible for accidentally vaporizing him or trapping him in the gem forever. She wasn't going to use it on herself, obviously. Random woodland critters seemed like a better option, but Trixie wasn't sure that creatures with such negligible magical energy would make good test subjects.
"Maybe Trixie should take the opportunity to use it on the next aggressor that appears to try to murder Ranma," she mumbled to herself. "Plenty of magical heavyweights among them, and it's not like anypony would miss the chumps. It won't be more than a day or so before the next batch of idiots or monsters zeroes in on us."
The sound of hooves hitting dirt came from behind Trixie, and she snapped her head around. A pair of pegasus mares in light armor were drawing short blades from their leg sheathes just a few feet behind her.
"As usual, Trixie’s pessimism fails to keep up with reality," the magician sighed.
Trixie pushed herself upright and turned to face the pegasi, her expression one of mild irritation. "Okay, what is it this time? Bandits? Guards? Assassins?"
The pegasi gave her an odd glance, then looked about for anypony else.
"Bounty hunters, actually," one of them replied, searching the ground for tracks. "We're looking for somepony."
Trixie hesitated. "And that somepony isn't Trixie?" she asked, pressing a hoof to her chest.
"No. Looking for a pony named Havoc," explained the other pegasus, "or any of his associates. We got a tip that he was headed this way, towing a wagon."
Trixie tilted her head upward as two more bounty hunters swooped in above the road. These were griffons, and each one had a crossbow drawn. Great.
"This is Trixie's wagon, and Trixie is alone," the magician said blithely, "so Trixie can't help you."
One of the pegasi stepped forward, her eyes narrowing. "I'm not saying you're lying," she began, "but your wagon's tracks are the only ones fresh enough to be from our target."
"Trixie can't explain that," the unicorn offered with a shrug. "Are you done? Trixie was just about to sit down to eat."
"No, we're not done," scoffed one of the ponies, "not by a long shot."
A rustling noise came from behind her, and Trixie's eyes darted the bushes along the side of the road. She fully expected to see Ranma strolling out into the confrontation as if nothing at all was wrong, just in time to ruin her story of traveling this road alone.
She was mistaken, and not the good kind of mistaken.
"SWEET CELESTIA, WHAT IS THAT?!" Trixie screeched, jumping up in the air. A stumbling pony corpse was emerging from the brush, groaning. Much of its fur and flesh had been stripped away, and the two rear legs were nothing but scorched bone. Yet the body shambled forward in defiance of the mere laws of nature, its eyes glowing softly and fixed on the blue unicorn.
One of the pegasi chuckled. "Oh, don't mind them. The boss likes to use those creeps every once in a while."
"Boss? Creeps? What are you, crazy?" Trixie shouted, stumbling backward. Her hoof knocked the MacGuffin Stone aside while she backpedaled, and she glanced down at the artifact briefly.
"Don't get me wrong, I don't like necromancy either," admitted the other mare, "but Ghastly is a consummate professional, and he pays well."
A griffon continued. "That means that you won't get hurt, since you're not our target. IF the boss decides you're telling the truth."
More zombie ponies shambled out of the brush, and Trixie shivered at the grotesque sight. Even with all her travels and recent exposure to high-level evil magic, she'd never encountered actual undead before.
So many lovely new experiences. Ranma always attracts the highest-quality freaks, she thought bitterly.
Then a gangly unicorn emerged from the woods behind the groaning monsters. He was a stallion, with a tattered cloak and either heavy bags under his eyes or a disastrous application of eye makeup. Judging by his sketchy cult fetishes and glowing horn, Trixie promptly decided he was the necromancer that led the feathered thugs facing her.
The unicorn swung his head toward the wagon, staring at it for several seconds before his eyes darted back toward Trixie. The zombie ponies stood in formation in front of him, teetering back and forth and trembling with agitation.
"You. What's your name?" the stallion asked.
"Rude! You surround Trixie with corpses and thugs, and then you immediately start making demands?" Trixie sniffed. "What kind of vigilante lawman are you?!"
Ghastly blinked. "I'm-"
"But since you asked," Trixie continued, talking right over the other unicorn, "you stand before the Great and Powerful Trixie, magician extraordinaire!" She kicked out her cape and posed, and her hat slid back to reveal her horn. "AND, as Trixie already told your goons, Trixie doesn't know the pony you're hunting for. So you're just wasting Trixie's time."
The stallion waited a few seconds, scowling. "My name is Ghastly, Miss Trixie. I am hunting the pony fugitive Havoc." His horn pulsed, and a rolled-up poster floated out from his robe. It opened in the air, revealing a picture of Ranma.
Trixie stared at the poster. "Never seen him," she said with a shrug. Then her gaze dipped to the number under the picture, and her eyes widened. "Wait, 200,000 bits? What did this guy do?!"
"His list of crimes actually required an entire other poster, and I didn't bring it with me," Ghastly admitted. "What you need to know is that he's extremely dangerous, and he's nearby."
"Well, Trixie will keep an eye out, then," Trixie said, giving another disgusted sneer at the nearest zombies. "Now go away. These things smell!"
Instead of leaving, Ghastly started walking in a circle around Trixie, looking her over with intense scrutiny. The close attention caused a chill to run down the mare's spine. "What are you doing? Trixie said go away!"
"You're not burned," the necromancer mumbled. "Nor are you bruised. You’re not even dirty. How did you manage to knock out a salamander on your own?"
Oh, fireballs. Trixie TOLD Ranma we should have just run away.
Trixie rolled her eyes and waved a hoof at him, slipping instantly into Boasting Mode. "That thing? PLEASE. The Great and Powerful Trixie can handle wandering monsters without enduring so much as a scratch!"
The bushes rustled again, followed by the sounds of snapping branches. Trixie hesitated, but after a few seconds she turned her head to look.
"YEEP!" the mare shrieked and jumped back, her hat bouncing up in the air before landing over her face. This newcomer was another zombie, but unlike the other bodies, it was made from the corpse of a certain territorial monster that she had encountered that morning.
Ghastly smirked as Trixie backed away in terror. "Really? You defeated the salamander all by yourself? I'm very impressed! I'd like to see how you did such a thing!"
"Uh... w-well... yes! Yes, of course!" Trixie stuttered. "B-But, you know, it w-was alive at the t-time!"
"Oh, don't worry. They don't get much tougher after returning from the dead," Ghastly assured the other unicorn. The zombified salamander stomped up behind him, its swollen tongue hanging limply from the side of its mouth. "Go right ahead. Don't hold back!"
"W-Wait!" Trixie shouted, glaring at the necromancer. "Why does Trixie have to fight because you showed up out of nowhere? Trixie hasn't done anything!" The salamander continued slowly plodding forward.
"Well, I'm afraid there isn't much else to do now that we have no further trail to follow," Ghastly admitted with a sigh. "Unless, of course, you have some information that could help us?" He held up a hoof, and the salamander zombie lurched to a stop.
Trixie stared up at the undead monster. Then she glanced back at Ghastly.
Then she turned to face her wagon, and her horn flashed.
"Fine! I'll defeat your stupid monster! You'll regret messing with the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
The bounty hunters all backed away once Trixie declared her intentions. Ghastly retreated behind a screen of his other zombies, while the winged mercenaries all hovered backward until they were certain they were out of danger. The zombified salamander lurched forward hesitantly, and a rumbling groan came from its throat.
They were no doubt expecting a volley of magical projectiles to fire from the mare's horn, or perhaps for her to drop some defensive spell to stop her opponent. Instead, the cart by the side of the road started trembling, and a loud hiss came from under the crates and blankets.
With a sharp whistle, a half-dozen firework rockets shout out of the cart. The glittering projectiles spun wildly in the air, seeming to zig and zag at random while trailing jets of sparks every color of the rainbow. Five of them regardless curved to the ground onto or around the undead salamander, and the pegasi gasped in surprise and wonder as the creature was consumed in colorful explosions of pink, green, and blue. A sixth rocket curved upward instead, spiraling into the air high above the assembled creatures before detonating.
Ghastly looked up at the firework exploding overhead, smiling as the crimson lights bloomed in a huge globe before falling apart into a cluster of flickering lights. "Beautiful..." he whispered.
Then he dropped his gaze back to Trixie. "Useless. But beautiful."
Trixie gulped and took a step back. The colorful explosions had been expended, and patches of the ground had been lit ablaze from the fireworks. The salamander itself, however, seemed completely unscathed. The undead beast continued lumbering forward, its jaws yawning open.
"The salamander is, after all, an elemental creature," Ghastly explained with a chuckle. "While many undead are vulnerable to fire due to the decay of their bodies, I'm afraid this one is fresh enough that it maintains its fireproof skin. Good try, though."
The salamander continued to advance at a sluggish pace. Colorful embers still clung to spots of its body, peeling and bouncing off with every step before fading away into smoke. Its tail swept back and forth, digging scorched furrows into the ground behind it.
"What's wrong, Miss Trixie? Is that all? Surely you didn't defeat the salamander the first time with fireworks, did you?" Ghastly asked with an arched eyebrow. "I will ask one last time: Where is Havoc?"
"Trixie told you, Trixie doesn't know!" the magician shouted as she stumbled backward. "If you guys want to know where Calamity is, then Trixie might be able to help!"
"Calamity? The pegasus?" Ghastly asked, his ear twitching. His horn pulsed, and the salamander zombie froze in place. Then several more rolled-up posters levitated out of his pack and hovered around him. One by one they opened up for his perusal, and the necromancer's gaze fixed on one of them. "Hmmm... 5,000. Not exactly a great payday, but I suppose it's worth letting you go."
The other posters rolled up and floated back into Ghastly's pack. He looked over at Trixie. "Very well. Where is she?"
"Wait for it..." Trixie mumbled.
The other unicorn arched a brow. "Wait for what?"
"KYAAAH!!"
The bounty hunters whipped around at the scream, turning just in time to see one of the pegasi hit the ground. She bounced and rolled, eventually stopping in heap of twitching limbs and scattered feathers. Her short sword fell to the road behind her, stabbing into the dirt by her leg.
Soaring above them, a certain redheaded pony banked hard in the air, curving into a wide turn around the confrontation below.
"Trix, you okay?!" Ranma shouted down. "I was gone for like a half hour and we have bandits already?!"
"They're not bandits, they're bounty hunters!" Trixie retorted sharply. "Three guesses as to what they're here for!"
"Ah. So this is my fault," Ranma mumbled as the griffons took aim with their crossbows, "should have figured that from the beginning, I guess."
The griffons fired, sending a pair of blunt-tipped bolts springing into the air at the martial artist. Ranma rolled in an attempt to dodge the projectiles, but she was still inexperienced with flying and the eagle-eyed mercenaries were on target. One projectile struck her hip and bounced off painfully, while the other grazed her wing and sent Ranma into a tailspin. She hit the road hard, grunting painfully while a cloud of dust billowed up around her.
"Reload! I want her to take a few lumps before we bind her!" Ghastly ordered. His horn flashed brighter, and the zombies lurched in the direction of the road. "Surround her, my servants! Pin her down!"
As the undead sped up into a stumbling trot and the salamander turned toward the road, Ghastly caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. He whipped his head around, fully expecting to see Trixie trying to launch some kind of sneak attack or diversion in order to escape.
What he saw instead was a large magical gemstone arcing through the air toward his head. He was surprised enough that he didn't manage to dodge the object, and he flinched away when the gem hit his cheek and stuck there.
After a moment, he realized that last part was strange. Gemstones didn't tend to adhere to things. His unease only grew as it began glowing and emitting some kind of soft keening noise. When he felt the magical energy seep out of his horn, Ghastly determined that, yes, he was definitely in trouble.
"What is this? Get it off!" the necromancer growled, pawing at the MacGuffin Stone with a hoof. His panic grew when it too instantly stuck to the gemstone.
"Just a little experiment," Trixie quipped. "Feel free to explain your experience in detail as you're absorbed into the artifact, please. It will help Trixie determine exactly how cruel and dangerous this process is."
"You treacherous mule!"
"Or you can just scream impotently the whole time. Trixie is okay with that, too."
The other bounty hunters remained unaware of their leader's plight, having swooped down to surround the pony they had grounded. The griffons swiftly reloaded their crossbows, ready to pummel the martial artist into submission from afar. The remaining pegasus drew some rope that was attached to her side, prepared to swoop in and bind their prey.
Ranma pushed herself up off the ground and shook herself like a dog, throwing off the dust from impact. Then she turned her head up.
The crossbows snapped back, releasing another pair of blunt-headed bolts at their bounty. The pegasus dropped into a low dive, her rope held loose in her mouth.
Ranma's legs struck like lighting, lashing out like a gray blur. She slapped one bolt away into the dirt, and knocked the second up into the air, sending it spinning over her head. She turned around, briefly wetting her lips while the crossbow bolt fell back down from the height of its arc.
Then her back leg kicked out at the bolt on the way down, striking it perfectly on the back end and sending it shooting straight for the other pegasus.
The bounty hunter barely had time to blink before the projectile smashed into her head, pitching her into a backward somersault. She spun twice before she hit the ground, a lump growing on her temple and her eyes swirling in her head.
While the griffons gaped, Ranma glanced over at the slowly approaching undead. "Geez guys, really? Zombies? You're out-creeping the last evil sorcerer I had to fight." One of the pony zombies got close enough to bite her, and Ranma slammed a hoof into its chest. The monster was sent sprawling into the dirt, tripping up another approaching zombie.
Ranma kicked away another corpse, and then heard the snap of the crossbows above her. She hit the ground in a roll, dodging the pair of bolts, and then flipped herself back upright with her wing. Another undead pony lunged from behind, and it was promptly bucked into the air for its trouble.
Coming up on her side, however, was a familiar-looking reptilian creature. "Wait, is this the same lizard that jumped us this morning? Yeah! I can see where I kicked it in the neck!"
The undead beast lunged forward, and Ranma leapt to the side to dodge its snapping jaws. She kicked out at one of the salamander's legs, and it staggered briefly before swiping at the redheaded mare.
"Don't worry about the zombies!" Trixie yelled. "I got the necromancer! Once he's out of action the dead freaks will fall apart!"
"That's not how it works, you fool!" growled Ghastly. The stallion was on his side now, thrashing painfully while the gemstone attached to his face pulsed with magic. "Getting rid of me doesn't destroy the zombies, it just means they're no longer under my control!" The stallion's body started to glow, and he screamed before his body broke apart into motes of glittering light. The magic sparks immediately sucked themselves into the MacGuffin stone, which gleamed brightly before it dropped onto the ground.
"...... Oh," Trixie mumbled, frowning at the zombies around her. "Oops."
"Grrrrraaagh!" One such undead pony stumbled over to the magician, lunging for her tail. Trixie squeaked and bolted away, galloping in wide circle around Ranma and the salamander zombie trying to squash her.
"Hey! What are you doing, you fool?! Trixie's in danger over here!" Trixie shouted in a panic. Several other zombies that had been converging on Ranma started stumbling toward Trixie instead, joining the first monster that was chasing after her.
"Yeah, okay! I'll be there in a-" Ranma ducked under the salamander's claws, and then bucked the zombie in the throat before jumping over another swipe. "-second! Geez, this thing was easier to stop when it was alive, even with the fire breath!"
The twang of crossbows firing came from above, and Ranma jumped into a somersault before another pair of bolts sailed under him. The missiles struck the salamander's side, cracking the outer layers of scales before bouncing off harmlessly.
"Do you guys think you could stop that?!" Ranma shouted at the griffons. "My boss is in danger, here! Do you want to get her killed?!" She jumped to the side again as the salamander barreled forward, snapping its jaws wildly and thrashing its tail.
"I could live with it," admitted one of the hybrids, snapping another bolt into his weapon.
"Kinda her fault for taking out the boss when he was keeping the creeps under control," reasoned the other one before taking aim at Ranma again.
"Calamity! We need an escape plan!" Trixie shouted while galloping away from the zombies.
"I REALLY wish you would stop calling me that!" Ranma shouted back. She jumped over another lunge by the salamander, landing on the monster's head and then kicking off onto its back. A pair of bolts rained down behind her, nailing the beast in the face.
"Now is NOT the time for that argument! Don't you have a crazy martial arts technique or something that can deal with this?!"
"Well... yes, actually." Ranma spread her wings as the salamander zombie started thrashing about, balancing herself while it tried to lose her. "Thing is, I need some heat for it to work. This lizard isn't spitting fire like it did when it was alive, all the zombies are ice cold, and the dumb half-cat freaks aren't close enough to help."
"Heat. You need heat. Okay..." Trixie glanced over to their campfire as she ran, wondering if the gently burning coals would be enough. Then a bright red spot on the ground caught her eye, and she got a much better idea. "You want heat? Trixie can give you heat!"
Her levitation magic scooped up the ruby that lay in the grass, sending it arching through the air to hover next to her. She skidded to a stop, turning sharply to face the lumbering undead that limped after her.
"Trixie was hoping for a chance to test this gem, too! Let's see what General Firebrand's favorite toy can do!" Her horn flashed, and a magic circle was drawn in the air out of glowing embers. "Oh, wow. That's new," the magician mumbled, frowning. With a shrug, Trixie aimed her horn at the nearest zombie and finished the spell.
With a loud whistle, a white-hot bolt shot out of Trixie's horn and struck the first of the undead, knocking it flat off its hooves. Before the creature even hit the ground the point of impact exploded, blasting it apart in a burst of sparkling pink light.
Trixie flinched away from the colorful explosions, and her ears flipped back from the chain of thunderous booms coming from dangerously close range. The effect of the spell was basically the same as her magic fireworks, and as a result more suited to dazzling crowds than slaying monsters. After the sparks faded, however, it seemed as if the Alchemist's Heart had done the trick; the closest zombies lay on the ground twitching, their bodies ablaze with festively prismatic flames.
Trixie turned to check on Ranma. The martial artist had made her way down the road, leading his opponents away from Trixie and the parked wagon. The griffons continued to fire on her from high above, hovering far outside even Ranma's jumping range and growing increasingly irritated as each volley was dodged or deflected. The zombies lumbered down the road after the pegasus, forming a small mob with the undead salamander at its core. Trixie didn't know what the martial artist intended, but now that she was relatively safe she felt a small, unfamiliar pang of concern for her bodyguard.
"Trixie has a fire spell available! Now what?!" the magician shouted.
Ranma slapped another bolt out of the air, and then kicked aside one of the zombies that trotted out ahead of the pack. "Okay! Shoot it at me!"
Trixie's horn flashed, and the magic circle appeared at the tip. The Alchemist's Heart trembled in the air next to her, flooding her spell pattern with power far beyond the unicorn's typical ability. "You mean, to catch the zombies chasing you?"
"No! Straight at me! Or just above me might be better! I'm not COMPLETELY sure this will work!" Ranma shouted back.
"Hey, are you trying to cheat us out of a bounty or something? We can still collect if you’re dead!" shouted one of the griffons. "What the hay is wrong with you?!"
Trixie agreed in principle with the bounty hunter's complaint, but didn't waste time questioning Ranma. "Get ready for some Great and Powerful pyrotechnics!" the unicorn shouted. Then she fired a series of three fireworks straight down the road at her companion.
Ranma paused, skidding to a stop in the dirt. Then she reared up onto her hind legs, her wings spread wide. She spun once in place, and a pulse of shining blue light broke around the pegasus and spread outward.
The griffons paused, surprised by the sight. Then each of them shuddered as an inexplicable, icy wind whipped through their feathers.
"What? What is this? Did she do that?"
"I kind of have a bad feeling about this..."
The magical fireworks met the wave of wind, and each rocket curved sharply against the cold air, spinning wildly and trailing multicolored sparks behind it. Ranma spun again, and another coil of freezing cold lashed out from her wings. The magic projectiles started circling Ranma in a spiral, caught in the vortex, while the nearest zombies started to collect frost on their bodies.
"HIRYUU... SHOUTEN..." Ranma took one step back, chambering her foreleg. "HAAAAAAAAAAA!!"
Trixie arched an eyebrow as a tornado blasted upward from the road, surging into the sky around a pillar of brilliant blue light. "... That's also new. Lots of interesting elemental catastrophes happening today," the magician mumbled. She had been quite impressed with herself for turning her usual illusionist tricks into dangerous combat spells with the aid of Firebrand’s ruby. It was slightly humbling (and more than a little annoying) to see her bodyguard somehow turn those incendiaries into a full-blown natural disaster.
The griffons were the first to be hit, of course, as they were holding position immediately above Ranma. They were lifted upward by the initial wind surge and sucked into the vortex, flailing in a panic, and then blasted away by several waves of compressed air. The zombies, lacking any particular motivation other than an instinctual need to assault the living, walked straight into the cyclone and were sucked into it one by one. Only the salamander offered any kind of brief resistance to the buffeting wind, but after a few seconds it too lifted off into the sky.
Trixie watched the bodies circle the outer edge of the cyclone for a while, and then she started in surprise once she recognized one of them. She had lost sight of Ranma when the tornado appeared around her, but she had assumed that the martial artist would be somehow protected from her own ability. That didn't seem to be case, and Ranma was being carried along and flung away just like all the other bodies.
"Well... Ranma's gotten halfway decent at flying," Trixie mumbled, watching the little gray dot vanish into the sky, "I'm sure he'll be fine."
"This wasn't worth iiiiiiiiit!!" Ranma shouted as she flailed through the air.
Ranma remembered what had happened the last time she had used the hiryuu shouten haa, and had tried harder to remain in the (obnoxiously narrow) safe zone in the eye of the cyclone. Unfortunately, the last time she had been an earth pony. Pegasi were lighter and had an extra pair of limbs specifically designed to catch wind. Despite Ranma's initial interest at the prospect of having wings, he was generally finding them more of a hindrance than an advantage.
The cursed pony tucked into a somersault as she was launched from the edge of the tornado and up higher into the sky. The cyclone waned rapidly as it lost the mix of cold and hot air, and collapsed into a series of cold snaps. The zombies instantly plummeted to the ground, but Ranma spread her wings and tried to plot her descent. She was moving far faster than before, and not under her own power, but the cursed pegasus figured she could still control her fall and avoid a crash.
"Okay, I think I see Trix. Plenty of open road down there for a landing. This is fine." She tilted slightly to the side, aiming her long dive toward a low-lying cloud bank. "Wow, I got tossed a long way. I hope those griffons are going to survive the crash." The cloud rushed up to meet the transformed pony. "I mean, sure they were trying to capture me, but it's not like OOMPH!"
Ranma struck the cloud face-first, and was quite surprised to find that it was like diving into a pile of soft pillows. Meaning it wasn’t physically painful, but she was plenty shocked that there WAS an impact. She bounced, flailing wildly, and then rolled off the edge of the cloud. Gravity promptly took charge once again, and the martial artist plummeted straight downward without the control of her wings.
She blinked repeatedly, staring up at the offending cloud as it grew smaller in the distance. "What the HELL was that?!" she complained, looking at her hooves. Bits of the cloud seemed to be stuck to it, like little balls of sticky cotton, and those bits slowly peeled away and dissipated in the air as she fell.
Ranma was still staring at the bizarre cloud-stuff when her back hit the first branch on her way down.
"Agh! Ow! Oof! Damn it! Gack!" Ranma gracelessly broke through tree branch after tree branch, unable to find her footing in time to get upright or properly slow her descent. Then she slammed into the ground hard, offering a pained yelp as leaves and dust jumped into the air around her.
"Uuuuugh..." the martial artist groaned. Luckily she hadn't landed on either of her wings, as the impact would have probably broken them, but they had taken a severe beating from the tree branches anyway.
Ranma continued lying on the forest floor on her side and groaning in pain until she heard hoofsteps approaching.
"So. You create tornados now," Trixie said evenly as she approached her bodyguard.
"I can, yeah. Not always a good idea, though, so I try not to overuse that technique," Ranma explained.
"Trixie could see that, yes," the magician drawled. She had the MacGuffin Stone and the Alchemist's Heart with her, and the former artifact pulsed with a strange green energy when she held it up. "Well, Trixie has good news, goodish news, and bad news. The good news is that Trixie was able to test both of the magic gems you stole and make use of them. The goodish news is that none of the zombies survived the fall, and are now splattered all over the road."
"What's the bad news?" Ranma asked before she rolled onto her belly.
"You don't seem to have broken anything important, so you still have to tow Trixie's wagon."
Ranma groaned as she stood up, her legs aching and her wings twitching. "Can I at least eat before we set out again?"
"If you can maintain an appetite with pony corpses pasted around the camp fire, Trixie has no objections." The unicorn turned away and trotted back toward the road.
Ranma followed, forcing herself to match the magician's pace against her creaking limbs. "Hey, Trix?"
"Yes?"
"Are the clouds on this planet... uh... how to put this...... solid?"
"No. Unless you're a pegasus. Then yes."
They walked in silence for some time after that.
"... What? That... I mean... you can't just... how does... WHAT?"
Trixie stopped in place, rolling her eyes. "Right. Trixie keeps forgetting that you're new to this equine thing. Trixie doesn't really have time to explain all the basics, but in a nutshell: pegasi and griffons can walk on clouds."
"HOW?" Ranma asked incredulously.
"Magic."
"I thought only unicorns could use magic!"
"That's practically true, but technically inaccurate. If you'd like, Trixie can lecture you on the difference as we make our way to Fillydelphia."
They reached the abandoned camp fire, and Trixie immediately levitated the pot of hot water into the air and dumped it on Ranma. The pigtailed pony shuddered as two of his aching limbs vanished, and then shook himself to rid his fur of the excess water.
"Okay, so if unicorns can use magic, and pegasi can fly and touch clouds, what can earth ponies do?" Ranma asked, looking down at his hooves.
"Form a rural pony underclass that makes unicorns and pegasi look better, mostly," Trixie replied. Ranma shot her an annoyed look. "What? Most of them are farmers and laborers. It's not Trixie's fault!"
"Whatever, Trix." Ranma started in on the oat sack, quickly gulping down several mouthfuls before pulling his head out again and licking his lips. "That should hold me. Let's get back on the road before the bounty hunters wake up."
"Oh! That reminds Trixie!" Trixie glanced over at the MacGuffin Stone, and then floated it over in front of her. "Let's see... if Trixie recalls correctly - and Trixie always does - the discharge pattern should be...... Got it."
A screech came from the gem as it discharged a bolt of searing green energy angled into the ground. The emerald fireball dug a glowing furrow in the dirt, and then the luminous magic quickly receded. Ghastly lay at the end of the trench, his eyes wide and blinking in shock.
"Wh-What? What just... Where did I...?" He mumbled half-questions while he lay in the dirt, his mind trying and failing to assemble his recent and current circumstances.
He felt a hoof tap his back, and the necromancer twisted his head up. Ghastly found himself staring into the face of his bounty: the earth pony Havoc. Numerous memories crashed into place regarding the recent past, but Ghastly still wasn't clear on how he had ended up lying in a ditch within leg's reach of an infamously dangerous brawler.
"Hey, did you happen to see my clothes while you were in the stone? Red shirt, black pants? Shoes, shorts? Anything?" Ranma asked. He frowned as he looked over the other stallion's cloak and pack. "It let you keep YOUR stuff. What's with that? Is there a trick to it?"
Ghastly didn't understand the earth pony's rambling, and so he didn't bother replying. His horn glowed with eerie light, summoning the magical strength necessary to strip decades from a pony's life in the blink of an eye. Ancient and vile powers surged to the horn's tip, weaving disparate energies into a corrupted web of pure entropy.
Then Ranma slugged him in the cheek. Ghastly's spell fizzled and his head sunk into the dirt.
"Eh. Worth a shot," Ranma mumbled.
"Stop messing around with that loser and help Trixie pack! We don't know if there are any zombie stragglers or other bounty hunting companies on our tails!" Trixie levitated the scattered items into her wagon, hurling blankets and research notes on arcs of blazing pink. Ranma wasted no time helping despite his injuries, tossing the feedbags into the carriage along with the camp's cookware.
Trixie started climbing into the wagon herself, and then a small leather sack flew through the air and nearly brushed her ear. The sack landed atop her blankets with a metallic jingle, and the drawstring loosened enough for the magician to see the glitter of gold bits piled within. Apparently Ranma had found a spare moment to loot their attacker.
"Trixie thought you only took from those who were trying to kill you? These bounty hunters clearly wanted you alive," the unicorn noted while continuing her climb.
A pair of smaller coin bags arched over her head and landed in the corner of the wagon. "They nearly hurt you. That more than qualifies, if you ask me," Ranma grumbled, stepping away from the unconscious pegasi.
Trixie arched an eyebrow and sat down on the blankets. "It is a supreme irony that Trixie earns more money being an accessory to your crimes than Trixie does plying her actual trade nowadays. Trixie never imagined that evading arrest could be so lucrative."
Ranma paused in fitting himself into the wagon harness. "... Is that a compliment?"
"It's not an insult."
"I'll take it." Ranma let the wagon harness fall onto his back, and a painful shudder rolled down up his spine and into his shoulders. He hissed through his teeth, and his left hoof flinched up from the ground. Ranma's ability to suffer deadly impacts and stay mobile was legendary, but those were normally brief, high-adrenaline situations. Having to haul a heavy load while injured was a misery of his younger training days that Ranma had been glad to leave behind.
Training... yeah, okay. Think of this as training. I mean, I have a little blue horse yelling at me instead of a fat old man, but it really isn't all that different from back then, the martial artist thought to himself. He settled against the harness, tensing his muscles against the daggers of pain sure to come.
"Wait a minute," Trixie said suddenly, "hold still."
Ranma froze on command, perplexed. Was she still getting comfortable in the wagon? Did she spot something she'd left behind?
Then he felt a warm fluid touch his back at the base of his tail. He remained still as requested, and the fluid continued dribbling slowly up over his back. Eventually it was passed over his shoulders, and then he felt a towel start to rub over him.
"Trix?"
"This is an herbal balm Trixie keeps in case of sprains or other muscle injuries," the unicorn said curtly. "Trixie doesn't really want to waste it like this since you seem to recover from mortal injuries with little more than quick nap, but it would be bad if your condition got worse and then we got ambushed again." The bottle of balm drizzled the last drops of oily medicine onto the stallion's coat, and Trixie flung it back into the wagon with a gentle pulse of telekinesis. Her magic directed the towel over Ranma's shoulders, and he released a gentle sigh as she kneaded the balm into his joints. "And, of course, the chances of us being ambushed again are something like fifty-fifty so long as Trixie keeps you around. Go figure."
Ranma felt a sudden conflict of impulses. Macho dismissals, sarcastic rebuttals, and abrasive defenses all rushed ahead of his thoughts only to wither away on his tongue. As the pain in his bones ebbed and Trixie completed her ministrations, only one clear response bubbled to the surface.
"Thanks, Trix," the martial artist mumbled. Maybe this is a LITTLE different after all.
"You're welcome." Trixie folded up the towel and levitated it into a convenient gap in her things. "Now let's get going. If we can avoid being held up by vigilantes, lawponies, or random monsters, we should be able to get to Fillydelphia by tomorrow morning."
And so Ranma started forward, towing the stage magician down the road. The path weaved around the broken bodies of twitching undead creatures and the crater left by the sudden tornado, but neither pony paid it much attention. They had left behind much greater displays of devastation and tragedy in the past, and fully expected to encounter worse in the future. Such fatalistic presumption was no longer even a matter of pessimism or fretting about the cruel whims of fate. This was their reality now: a constant, disjointed journey across the Equestrian countryside, pursued by ponies of the state and predators of the wilds as the stewards of an ancient power capable of shattering worlds.
Was this destiny? Some grand confluence of coincidence or manipulation of events from beyond equine comprehension?
Trixie doubted it. She'd never felt so completely detached from her true destiny and profession as she did now. The ever-present pull of her cutie mark was weak and baffled, and her talents had found new purpose in acts of improvised violence and clever diversion that had before been firmly restricted to the realm of "embellished" storytelling. Even her general loyalty to her country and the sovereign Princesses of Equestria had become surprisingly flexible and transitory now that she had come to regularly view Equestrian soldiers as enemies or obstacles. Trixie felt like a mariner on the open ocean, possessing a rudder and full sails but no charts or compass.
It wasn't a bad feeling.
I'm not too proud to admit that much of this chapter was designed around the cover art. Bakki is the best, and it annoys me that I commission great art from him and then struggle to actually use it in-story.
And speaking of art that I commissioned but was finished at awkward and inconvenient times:
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Yes!!! My one true crack ship returns! I have noticed that "Havoc" is now wanted dead while "Calamity" is wanted alive. I wonder how long it will take before everyone realizes that they are somehow the same pony?
Whoot! Update! Will read with vigor later.
Great to see the continuation of this great story, I can't wait to see what will happen next. Did Ranma actually killed ponies or did he miss the salamander's earlier victims? I am glade that I had notice the mistake on the bounty when it first cam out on DA.
Oh sweet, sequel is finally out. Lovely first chapter as once more Ranma wrecks an entire crew of ponies (and gryphons) and zombie ponies and a zombie salamander. Eventually you figure Trixie is going to ask for a tip or two in fighting since she can't always rely on him to be there. Then you get the events of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Hooves.
At the rate of which the bandits and bounty hunters continue to attack Ranma as implied in this chapter, if he takes gold from each pony he defeats then sooner or later Havoc's bounty is going to be hiked to insane amounts of money, yet bounty hunters won't want to go after him anymore if he keeps taking their money. All good for bluehorse
. Hopefully some more actual romance in the romcom action too 
I haven't read the chapter yet, but that cover art. *Drool*
7988050
Ranma didn't kill any ponies, no. He might have even spotted the dead ponies who were later turned into zombies, but figured it wasn't that big a deal to see bodies around creepy abandoned shacks in the woods.
7988225
You're either going to love the first chapter (should be out tonight or tomorrow) or be completely horrified!
Woo! Back in the saddle again.
...Please don't put Ranma in a saddle. I think it might break his eggshell mind.
Heh, really funny how Havoc's list of criminal activities runs off the page.
Would Ranma be proud or annoyed that his bounty is way higher than anypony else?
Ranma learns the drawbacks and advantages of pegasi physiology. You got me wondering if he'll bring a cloud down to sleep on. Better than rocks!
Also nice to see that Trixie is finding ways to help out, even if it isn't her job. She's growing quite a collection of baubles and they don't even cause her to go crazy!
Oh, one last thing, is the title of this new story a reference to another well known Ranma 1/2 fanfic? Seems to be. Or could be a coincidence. Maybe...
As always, love the work and looking forward to more!
The madness continues, Yay
If you really start to think about it, wings are overrated. If you really want to fly, gravity or magnetism powers are the way to go. Plus you get all kinds of bonus abilities with gravity or magnetism. Maybe Ranma could develop one or the other to fly as an Earth pony. Both magnetism and gravity have a ( at least modern) mystical connection to the earth element.
By the way, any chance of you going back and continuing some of your old Ranma stories?
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He'd be proud. Like being a girl, he takes the attitude that if he's going to be a criminal insurgent, at least he's really good at it.
This title is not a reference to anything except the general plot of the story.
7989439
I think Ranma's got enough going on without turning him into an X-man (X-mare?) too.
As for the old Ranma fics, I'm afraid not. I'm done. I just want to get my current projects to an acceptable end point before I lose interest in them, too.
One notes (in reference to RanmaChaos's comment) that Ranma doesn't need to manipulate magnetism to improve-- once he gets a hang of the whole Earth Pony thing.
All he really needs to do is used the Earth magic to anchor himself to the ground, and the Hiryuu Shoten HA becomes easy for ponies. Well, one pony. Specifically one pony who has problems with water, and wings and bounty hunters, and love-struck princesses, and...
Good new start.
.... why I have the feeling that sooner or later Trixie will join the Fianceé Brigade (even if all the rest are dead and buried under the sands of time)?
At long last. I have been waiting for this sequel story since your finished the old one.
I can proudly say it was worth the wait.
Okay, not necessarily a complaint, but Blood Rite Looks like half his muzzle was lobbed off... was the image commissioned based on what he looked like after Ranma cow-punched him in the face? Also, not suggesting something akin to lenticular posters exist in Equestria or wherever but I would have thought a animated ephemeral poster of Trixie used as a flier in the middle would really sell the image.
I Also kind of pictured a wanted poster of Ranma looking more like Sombra without the horn and a Dick Dastardly or Fu Manchu 'stache. Otherwise he cannot be cleverly disguised with glasses.
too bad Trixie isn't a traveling executioner
button sales ponyormarshallprosecutor like in Turnabout Storm...I swear Ghastly is Gosunkugi reincarnated...and even if he isn't, both of them deserved to be slugged.
Finally started reading this!
Ranma is still in character, among the best versions of him in any story. Great to see his reputation spreading and attracting more trouble. His names continue to be a good source of amusement.
Haha, his bathing conditioned response.
Note on style: try to avoid helping verbs, especially was, were, and had. These are all passive voice and usually exemplify telling rather than showing. It looks like you have already made progress on this from the last book as it seems to only appear a bit in the descriptions. Replacing them even there though could leave more of an impact with the reader.
Try to use simple, clear, concrete, precise, and active verbs instead. So instead of "the ponies had blades on their legs" one could write "the ponies wore blades on their legs." Or from "the unicorn was a rather gaunt stallion with..." one could use an active verb that characterizes like limped or strode, e.g. "the unicorn stallion limped/strode behind/forth, gaunt with discolored..."
Your Trixie continues to be amazing. Good to see she learned some caution from the amulet incident. Even with her pessimistic attitude it's still not enough around Ranma =) Nice to see her acceptance of her new circumstances and the constant fighting, danger, and chaos.
Overall, good action and good opening chapter, setting the tone of the story.
Huh… I guess I understand what Ranma’s Cutiemark is… freedom, and chaos. I like it.