Hmm. Ranma *can* burst out of most binds given half a chance, the ones from his manacle included, but he usually doesn't consider it worth the effort.
Ranma's abilities include anti-gravity fields, either on himself, enemies, or objects, miniature black holes, and combinations of the two ala his grav bomb. Anything else would require finer control over his magics than he has right now, as evidenced by the fact that he can't even produce a low enough anti-grav aura for true flight. These things will change, of course, mostly after FH, with whom he can manage far more devastating manuevers.
---
Ranma hissed. "What?"
Yuuno nodded miserably. "That's what I said." He'd just gotten done introducing Ranma to Jed and telling Ranma about his last 'day' (ommiting the time travel for safety's sake) and just what would happen if the Viahtaa was used to its full potential. It wasn't a good thought.
"Well," Ranma grimaced, "we can't just leave that sort of thing hanging around. I know you're trying not to upset the locals too much û say nothing of your wife-"
"See," Interrupted Jed, "You totally should have dragged her into the woods while you had the chance. She was practically begging you for it."
Yuuno's eye twitched. Ranma hadn't let up on messing with him over that one. It was getting more than a little annoying, but the worst part of it was that every time Ranma said something, Jed would complain about how he hadn't slept with her.
"Yes, yes," Ranma interrupted, "but that's neither here nor there. We have to figure out some way to get the Viahtaa out of the palace vault. Preferably without upsetting the locals too much." He paused. "Well, too much more anyway."
Yuuno nodded. "Thank you. Now, we can't just go in magic blazing and cutting down everything in sight, so we'll have to sneak in."
Ranma looked at his friend doubtfully. "Are you sure you're up for that? You don't exactly strike me as the sneaky type."
"I'm not," Yuuno shrugged, "not usually, anyway. But in my ferret form I'm small and quiet as a matter of course."
"Ferret... Ferret... Why does that sound so familiar?" The pig-tailed boy scratched his head as he pondered.
"It was probably all over in the temple you were held in," Yuuno guessed. "The Hellig believe that their god, Lider, takes the form of a blue ferret."
Ranma arched an eyebrow. "What? None of the other ferrets on this planet are blue?"
Yuuno shook his head. "There are no ferrets on the planet at all. One more example of outside interference, I guess."
Ranma nodded absently, staring at Yuuno intensly as he did so. "Right. Well, even if we can sneak in, it's not like we can just politely ask them to open the vualt. We need to get them to do it for us."
Getting a bit nervous, Yuuno asked the obvious question. "And how do we do that?"
Ranma's face developed the kind of grin that would have made Happosai wet himself. "Relax. I have a plan."
"Oh god."
---
"That will be all, captain." With a sigh, Anya Vonalzo dismissed her friend, and turned to her daughter. "Your thoughts?" It was a question asked in vain, but one she kept asking as a mother û in the hopes that her offspring would one day grow a brain. The issue with the Helig was turning into a nightmare. No û it had been one the entire time, even before the Bishop had been brought in that morning.
Herce sniffed. "Obviously the good captain is blinded. Be it her libido, or genuine false information, this is an outrage. Vaalea û The Bishop, I mean, would never do these things. Clearly it was the foreigners who placed the palace under that spell."
"Hey! I take offense to that!"
Doing a double take, queen and princess stopped in shock at seeing the boy lounging by the doors out of the room, one arm behind his back. How had they missed him? How had anyone?
Seeing the shocked gazes on their faces, Ranma decided to act before they could get their acts together and call for the guards. "Heya. Listen. Yuuno and I just wanted to say how sorry we are about this whole mess. We didn't mean for it to spiral out of control like that."
The Queen smiled sweetly at him. "I assume you are his young friend that was taken by the Helig. I'mà pleasedà to see you're unharmed."
"Uh, yeah." Ranma shrugged and continued. "Sure. Anyway, Yuuno and I were wondering if maybe there was anything you could do about that blasphemy-slash-infidel charge the Bishop chick has hanging over our heads. We'd kind of like to not be forced to hide out in the woods for the rest of our stay here."
"You poor thing!" The queen was looking at him with genuine concern now. "Did you have to stay there last night?"
Ranma shook his head, but didn't know why it would matter. "Nah, last night I was on some guy's roof."
"And where is Yuuno?" Herce cut in with a gleam in her eyes.
"He can't sneak as well as I can, so he's still out there. Anyway, we brought this as a piece offering." With that, Ranma brought out his hidden arm, to reveal a ferret. A bright blue ferret. It chirruped.
Anya and Herce's eyes bugged out. Finally, the queen recovered. "My, my. Mr. Scrya does seem to have a handle on finding things the church would want, doesn't he." She smiled at Ranma. "This is a most spectacular find. With it I'm sure we could convince the Bishop to do almost anything we wanted, right, daughter?"
Herce's eyes never left the ferret, a strange gleam in them. "Indeed, mother."
Rising from her throne, Anya moved down to accept the ferret from Ranma, but when she got close, she sniffed carefully, and arched a brow. "Herce, be a dear and take the ferret. I'm sure our dear Bishop would be delighted to know we have recovered the avatar of Lider himself."
As the princess took the disguised Yuuno off his hands, Ranma looked up into the Queen's smile. "As for you, young man, I must insist you stay for dinner. But before that, you must clean yourself. Let me show you the way."
There was something really strange, Ranma thought, about the way her hands played over his shoulders as she led him along.
---
And finally we start the most heavily hinted at part of Ferrets and Pigtails.
Appologies for the delay, but between snow, work, snow, two other writing projects, snow, some FFXIII, snow, a slight sickness relapse, and some snow, things got a little crazy down in Neverwhere Town.