[Ranma][FanFic] Bet- A Different Art 1-3 (expansion set)
Gregg Sharp
A Different Art, brief treatment given BY REQUEST Ranma 1/2
by R.Takahashi, other char by other people and i could see a
LOT of crossover possibilities with this one. Not only Gold
Digger (Ranma as the up-and- coming young mage investigated
by Dr Diggers on behalf of the wizard's council) but
traditional fantasy literature and even Chris Stasheff's
Warlock series.
NOTE: this is just meant to be amusing. Not Epic, not Great
Literature, not Canon, not Akanecentric. Can't deal with the
"nots" then save us both some frustration and read... well
"Hearts Of Ice" is mainly canon, sort of, and manages to at
least touch base with the other three.
-----------------------
chapter 1: Ill Met In Nerima
an Expansion Set betfic by gregg, metro...@mindspring.com
http://metroanime.home.mindspring.com
--------------------
"Arguing is what couples do best." - Genma Saotome.
---------------------
April 10, 1982...a mountain glade in Tibet.
A young father continued to look for his six year old son,
who had wandered off during the night (looking for a little
privacy.)
"Ranma!" The call echoed through the mountains.
Genma grimaced. In the kind of mountains there were around
here, a child wandering in the dark was likely to end up
with a rather painful landing at the very least. He had been
a bit rough on the child, even beyond normal standards.
Maybe he should have expected the boy to hide after that. If
Ranma HAD run away, it brought up another problem.
How was he going to explain this to Nodoka?
He missed entirely the odd runes flaring to life on the
inside of a nearby cave.
------------------
March 1, 1992, same place
The runes flared to life again, as they had done
sporadically over the ages. Then, as they had also done
before, the runes faded to become mere scratches on the
wall.
A young man wearing rough but serviceable clothing stepped
out of the cave and fixed his eyes on the landscape before
him. Nodding, he scuffed a circle into the ground. After
consulting a crude compass, he began scrawling sigils,
glyphs, and other odd markings around the circle, with the
largest symbol pointing due North.
Raising his hands over his head, the youth began to speak.
"Powers of light, hear as I ask,
Guide me on this simple task,
Where I must go, what I must do.
The fateward path, show me true,
This I ask as boon from you."
A beam of light seemed to rise out of the circle, and Ranma
carefully sighted along it.
Nodding again, he mumbled a word of thanks and scuffed his
foot along the circle. The beam went out abruptly.
He left the statuette in his pack, no point in waking him
up. A cloth was unfolded several times, and a few moments
later one of the local sheep observed the unusual sight of a
flying carpet heading due East could be seen.
Unfortunately, Ranma did not see the runes flaring to life
again behind him. It would have saved him some problems
later.
----------------------------
Ranma was frowning. The magic here was chaotic, rather like
the Mists Of Change in the Faerie Realm. He wasn't too
concerned until the carpet suddenly seemed to become so much
lifeless fabric.
Angling down towards one of the many pools, Ranma cast a
velocity damping spell and watched as his satchel sailed
past with the carpet. As soon as his velocity was down to a
gentle drift, he allowed himself to land on one of the
ridges of dirt seperating the pools.
The satchel waddled out of a pool, dripping water, and had
a distinctly unhappy air.
Ranma sighed, noting that the carpet was waterlogged in one
of the springs. He reached in for it. A moment later he was
using a few words he'd picked up in one of the seedier
taverns he'd visited. He really should have known better.
"Oh, young miss!" A rather large man in a Chinese uniform
came hurrying up. "You did not...oh you DID get wet."
Ranma nodded her head, not trusting herself to speak as
she'd probably say something quite nasty or throw a few
fireballs around.
"Ah, well that is 'Spring Of Drowned..."
"Girl?" Ranma guessed.
"Oh no, miss. That one over there. This Spring Of Drowned
Amazon. Very terrible tragic story of Amazon who fight Musk
warriors here 350 year ago. Now whoever fall in Spring take
body of young Amazon!"
"I would never have guessed," said Ranma drily. "What's the
cure?"
"No cure."
"There will be." Ranma promised.
"Hot water turn you back, but only until cold water change
you again." The Guide paused. "Where you come from, miss, I
no see you arrive..."
"Any planes ever lose power over these springs?"
"Yes, miss, most people know you no fly over Jusenkyo. Very
bad terrible tragic stories of people who try."
"Figures," Ranma squeezed what water she could out of her
carpet. It would have to dry, and then she'd have to check
the spells before she could risk flying it again.
Ranma blinked as a thought occured to her. "Do all of these
springs have similar effects? Oh, and I'm a guy. Present
appearance not withstanding."
"Yes sir. Why you ask..." The Guide looked at the coin that
Ranma handed him. It... was gold?!
Ranma opened the satchel and started pulling out large
containers and finally a long-handled ladle. "I want you to
tell me which one is which."
"But sir..." The Guide looked at the coin in his palm, then
bit on it. It was real and he estimated the heavy coin to be
worth more than he made in a year. "Okay, but why?"
Ranma didn't look at the Guide. If that coin was
insufficient, she had more. Though sometimes information was
even more valued than money, she didn't think the Guide was
very well off and could use the cash. "Simple. By having
various samples, I'm going to figure out how these things
work, then work on either eliminating the curse, or tricking
it into seeing my original form as the form I'm to transfer
to."
"Sir is very strange," the Guide looked at the coin again
and added that at least she was generous.
--------------------
"Fighting tournament here, you watch sir, is special honor
to win tournament."
Ranma nodded. He'd asked for someplace he could get some
food, then lay out the carpet so it would dry. It would take
him a few hours to do the check on the carpet's magic, and
he wanted to be away from Jusenkyo's influence as much as
possible. A quick heating spell on a cup of water changed
him back, but it was getting annoying having to do this
every couple of miles.
"Amazons..." Ranma smiled at a few pleasant memories.
"Well, well. Which of the nine Houses is competing?"
"Sir?" The Guide looked to where Ranma was quite openly
admiring the one Amazon fighting a much larger opponent."Sir
maybe has wrong group of Amazons?"
The satchel, feeling much abused, thunked into Ranma's leg,
then spotted the banquet.
"<YOU! WHAT YOU....what in the...>" The Champion had come
striding over to yell at Ranma, then her mind caught up to
what she was seeing. "<Excuse me, but your carpetbag over
there is eating my prize?!??>"
Ranma had just realized what those slurping and crunching
noises were. "Oh no... No! Bad Bag!"
"<Shampoo, claim the bag as your prize!>"
Shampoo was surprised. Mousse had a good idea? "<Since your
box-with-legs ate most of my prize, I claim it!>"
"Out of the question," Ranma said back, glad that his
translation ring was at least working. "How about if I pay
you for your prize?"
"<NO. Want bag... how come your lip synch is off?>"
Cologne hopped forward quickly. There was little that could
surprise her after all these years. This
looked...interesting.
"I'm using magic. Well...if you won't accept payment, and
this was your prize, how about if I challenge you for the
tournament?"
"<You dare!?>" Shampoo glared at the arrogance of this man.
Even though he DID look cute and seem interesting. To
challenge HER.
Cologne smirked. Oh, she was glad she'd attended the
Tournament today! She thought to herself that if what she
was suspected was true, she'd have to arrange something...
special.
Ranma landed lightly on one end of the Challenge Log,
Shampoo leapt to the other.
"Fight!" The referee brought her arm down in a slashing
motion.
Shampoo raised her bonbori, charging forward.
Ranma considered for less than a second. Fireball, no.
Lightning bolt? No, he didn't want to hurt her, just beat
her. Flesh to plush? No, she might consider that
humiliating. Running out of time, Ranma drove a finger
forward, and wove a pattern of Spirit.
The spell hit with a polychromatic sparkle quite visible to
the audience, most of whom now made the assumption that the
boy had unleashed a chi attack of some kind.
Cologne's eyes widened as Shampoo fell. He WAS a mage! The
value to the village of even a median level spellcaster
would be inestimable. As the boy was THIS young, he'd be
valuable as a member OR as an ally of the tribe later. She'd
marry him to half a dozen Amazons if that was what it took
to get him into the village, but maybe Shampoo would be
enough.
In the ensuing silence, a very kawaii voice started singing
from where Shampoo was lying on the ground. It broke off
into giggling a moment later.
Maybe not, concluded Cologne. It looked like Shampoo had
gone from completely sober to absolutely drunk in very short
order. Cologne doubted Shampoo could even get up to give the
Kiss Of Marriage. What a disgrace.
The giggling died down, only to be replaced with a light
snoring noise. Cologne's eyes met six others in the crowd,
then nodded.
"<Avenge Shampoo!>"
Cologne's eyes widened. THAT wasn't the signal she'd given.
It hadn't even come from one of her common agents. Mousse...
The mage, being a mage, did the sensible thing and fled.
Shampoo awoke, three hours later, and was in for the tongue
lashing of her life in front of the village. The disgrace
could only be repaired in one manner. She had to come back
with that man as her husband. She didn't have to PHYSICALLY
stay in the village, as marrying the mage would make him a
part of it no matter where they were.
The magical display, walking satchel, and odd lip-synch,
had not gone unnoticed. Even before Shampoo left, various
other Elders wanted to one-up the Matriarch and so sent
their own prodigies out on similar missions.
-------------------
Ranma was drying his carpet and checking over his spells
when he felt his wards go off. The spell, a full ritual
incantation, slammed into the intruder a moment later.
Two hours later, Ranma finished checking up on the carpet,
and inspected the campsite.
When he found the cute little plush doll with the purple
hair, Ranma sighed, put it in his satchel for the time
being, and decided to get some rest.(1)
After seeing Shampoo shrink down into a plush toy, none of
the other Amazons decided to bother him that night.
In the morning, there was the sight of the man on a flying
carpet, heading due East. If it weren't for Tigar they
wouldn't have been able to track him at all.
----------------------
March 6, 1992
Ranma checked the magic compass. It was pointing at the
young girl who was having so much trouble with the
groceries. A faint glamourie, he decided, just enough to
make him seem less of a stranger...
------------------
"Excuse me, miss. You look like you're having a little
problem there, may I help?"
Kasumi shifted the bags slightly, turned to politely
decline the offer, and abruptly forgot what she was going to
say. Her train of thought had not merely derailed, it had
gone through the station and was heading for the cliffs
beyond.
He was a few inches taller than her, built in a lean but
quite muscular manner, with hair bound back in a pony tail
that reached his mid back. Her eyes picked up the subtle
fabrics of his odd clothing. They looked durable, but were
as finely woven and looked as soft as silk. They showed off
his frame quite nicely.
"Eh, uh, ah," Kasumi managed, drawn instantly into those
eyes that seemed full of hidden wisdom and strength.
"I...yes."
There was a brief puzzled frown, but the man took the extra
bags from her effortlessly, and added them to the burden he
already carried. He spoke to her again, the same deep rich
baritone that sent a wave of weakness through her.
"Are you all right, miss...?"
"Ka-ka-Kasumi. Tendo. Yes, that's it, Kasumi Tendo." Kasumi
blushed, she was playing with her fingers and trying not to
look in that man's direction again. She hadn't even realized
at this point that she'd handed all of the groceries to this
stranger, and her purse.
The stranger just blinked a few times as if trying to
figure something out. "Well, my name is Ranma. If you don't
mind, why don't you show me where you'd like these taken."
---------------------
Watching the woman continue to dart looks his way and blush
(very prettily he couldn't help but notice) Ranma reviewed
the glamourie he'd cast but couldn't see how it would
produce anywhere near this level of effect. It had been a
simple low-power casting that should have just given him a
slightly familiar look.
Either he had gotten something wrong (possible but
unlikely), or this woman had been in just the right frame of
mind to leave her unusually receptive to such a thing. In
the former case, it would wear off shortly. If the latter,
there wasn't much he could do about it.
He caught her looking at him again, shyly. The slim smile,
the faint blush, the way she turned her head down and
started studying her hands as she walked into a utility
pole...
Sighing, Ranma the mage put everything down and rummaged in
his satchel for a healing potion.
-------------------
Akane stopped. There was her sister, laying on the ground.
Some strange man was putting a bunch of groceries down,then
reaching into some sort of suitcase and pulling out a vial.
She'd seen this last week on "City Hunter" - slavers who
took innocent girls to Hong Kong slave pens, never to be
seen again. Well, he'd just picked the wrong girl to attack!
"Hold it, you! Leave her alone!"
The man looked up and smiled at her. "Hello. I was helping
Tendo-san with the..."
He was interrupted by Akane's punch, which staggered the
man as if he wasn't expecting it.
"Get away from her!" Akane watched the man pick himself up
and launched herself at him again.
"Be ye grasped in Morpheus' grip,
Into peaceful slumber slip."
----------------
Ranma had no idea who this was, or why she was attacking
him. He did notice that she had a pretty good punch. He
caught her before she hit the pavement.
Now what? He decided he couldn't just leave her on the
street, but had no desire to get hit again. He summoned
magical forces again and wove a different pattern. (2)
She'd wake up soon enough, and Ranma had no intention of
being there when she did.
----------------
"Tadaima!" Kasumi brightly announced.
Ranma noted that she kicked her shoes off onto the concrete
area just before the wooden floor, and followed suit. He
vaguely remembered something like that but was wondering how
much he'd have to relearn.
She led him through into a kitchen and started putting
groceries away with the efficiency
of long practice.
"Yo, sis. HeLLLO!" (3)
Ranma found someone new scrutinizing him. He hadn't felt
like a piece of meat being graded to this extent since he'd
last visited one of the Delphins barracks...
"Oh, Nabiki, this nice man offered to take me. I mean, my
packages, home."
This penetrated Nabiki's assessment of the man and she took
a good look at her sister.
Slight flush: check.
Unconsciously nibbling on her lower lip as she stared at
her new "friend": check.
Kept constantly checking to see he was still there and
hadn't mysteriously vanished: check.
Fretting with her hair: check.
Just put the milk in the cupboard and the canned veggies in
the fridge: check.
Guy who looked like a male supermodel and was helping her
to put away groceries: check.
Nabiki always took pride in her math skills, her grades
were much higher than Akane's or even Kasumi's old grades in
the subject. She was quickly able to determine the equation
and carry it out.
With a sigh of disappointment, but a feeling of happiness
for her sister, Nabiki gracefully picked up the receipt, and
retreated back to her room.
A little hint of mischief showed as she turned back at the
last moment. "Oh, sis?"
"Yes, Nabiki," Kasumi's blush returned with a vengeance
when her fingers brushed Ranma's. She kept her knees from
buckling by sheer dint of will.
"Nice catch."
"Nabiki!" Kasumi frowned slightly at the curtain then
noticed the scrutiny from her new friend. "Oh...my."
---------------------
Soun passed his daughter, wondering why Nabiki was
snickering, and was about to ask when dinner would be ready
when he noticed the stranger.
Ki level: very high, but no hint of a battle aura
Overall build: strong, wiry frame.
Stance: relaxed, confident
Specifics: tightness at knuckles, evidence of quiet
strength, deep tanlines, hair bleached slightly by exposure
to outdoors conditions, moves with fluid graceful motions.
Assessment: median level martial artist with an unusually
high ki level. No evidence of hostility.(4)
"Well, well," Soun said aloud. "Who do we have here? A new
boyfriend, Kasumi?"
Nabiki chortling out in the hall would have been sufficient
answer even if he hadn't
caught Kasumi looking nervously at the young man trying to
gauge his reaction.
"I was just trying to find my way home when I noticed
Kasumi here having some difficulty,
that's all."
Soun noticed Kasumi's disappointed look. So did the
stranger. He turned a smile on Kasumi that seemed to
reassure her slightly.
"Lost, eh? Tokyo's gotten pretty crowded lately."
"Yes. Say, maybe you know where I can find the Saotome
residence?"
Soun Tendo twitched. No, it couldn't be. This young man was
too old, too weathered. "Sa-Saotome? What would be...your
father's name?"
Ranma noticed the reaction and frowned. "Genma Saotome.
Don't tell me he stole food from you."
Soun fainted.
-----------------------
(1)- Yes, Ranma forgets entirely about her until much later.
No, this is not the end of Shampoo. Yes, she does get
turned back. It isn't that type, but can't you just
picture
pulling a string and getting "Airen!" "Shampoo no
like
this game." "Man who play with woman's heart go very
bad place." or "You no wants to mess with amazon
woman."
(2)- No, it wasn't that kind of spell you hentai! She wakes
up, feeling quite refreshed, and realizes that her
sister
and that man are gone! Oh no! Her sister is no doubt
chained up inside the hold of a ship bound for China,
disguised as a mannequin...but they left her?! How
dare
they! Hmmmph.
(3)- This Ranma didn't suffer from poor nutrition on that
training trip. What, you think Genma got Ranma well
balanced meals with all his vitamins? This Ranma ate
well, had magical healthcare, lots of training, etc.
He's
even had enchantments on him that not only increase
his ki, but have enhanced his development. Yes, some
of this DOES carry over to his other form. He's
taller,
filled out more, better built, and is practically
radiating
healthy sensuality, a calm and quiet strength, and
confidence. In other words, he didn't need the
glamourie
as far as Kasumi was concerned.
Nabiki, on the other hand, wouldn't exactly
turn him
down if Kasumi couldn't "land him" and she's not
exactly
sure how close the two are. If Kasumi catches him,
well
she figures it's about time Kasumi had someone.
(4)- While Soun Tendo is ridiculously manic-depressive, that
doesn't necessarily mean he's a total wimp or doesn't
know
anything about his Art.
-==========================
Different Art chapter 1, part B
---------------------------
"Revenge is a dish best served cold." - Genghis Khan
----------------
Ranma, Kasumi, and a moment later, Nabiki all looked down
at the passed out figure of Soun Tendo and wondered what
this meant.
Ranma snapped his fingers and his carpetbag immediately
waddled into the room.
This brought stares from both Kasumi and Nabiki, who were
understandably concerned about luggage moving around under
its own power.
"Uhm, Ranma?"
"Yes, Nabiki?"
"Your luggage has legs?"
"Yes, Nabiki. Don't worry. It's housebroken."
"Uh-huh." Nabiki flopped down in her chair and stared at
the man. "Is it robotics of some sort?"
"Hmmm?" Ranma opened the carpetbag and thrust the length of
his arm into it. That his arm was considerably longer than
the height of the bag was not lost on either of the Tendo
sisters present. "Oh, no. Nothing like that. It's just
magic."
"There's no such thing as magic," Nabiki said, though her
eyes weren't moving from the odd bag.
"Magic is just doing something that the other guy doesn't
know how to do. Does your father faint very often?"
"No," Kasumi said in a quiet voice, not entirely sure how
to handle that the nice young man she'd met earlier was now
doing the impossible and acting as if it were commonplace.
"He's very emotional, but he generally doesn't collapse like
that."
Nabiki conquered her fear enough to approach the bag.
"Bag, behave yourself. This is Nabiki, she's a friend."
Ranma turned back to waving a metal tube under Soun's nose,
and was rewarded with a groan.
Nabiki looked inside and was disappointed to see the
apparently empty interior of a normal carpetbag.
"Close your eyes," advised Ranma. "Think of what you want
to find and reach inside."
Nabiki blinked, drew in a deep breath, then closed her eyes
and shot her hand down into the bag. She felt something
settle into her hand and withdrew her arm.
"What is it, Nabiki?" Kasumi looked at the leather pouch
that Nabiki had in her hands.
Nabiki was puzzled too until she opened the pouch and
looked within. Her eyes shot to the size of dinner plates
and her knees nearly buckled.
"Oh, that's just some of my ready cash. You'd be surprised
how many times a little of that can make problems go away."
Ranma put the vial back in the bag.
Nabiki estimated that the little bag weighed about five
pounds. The coins inside were gold and about twice the
thickness and size of krugerands. "Uhm, you've got...
more... of this?"
"Yeah. A little. Why?"
Nabiki replayed earlier conversations she'd been listening
to. He was looking for his home, didn't have a place to
stay, eh? "Say, Ranma, you need a place to stay for awhile,
don't you? Why not give me one of these coins, and...we can
put you up here for a couple of weeks!"
"Well, I don't want to put you out. I *could* use a place,
though, I need to do some research and it would be a lot
easier with a semi-permanent address. After I've done that,
well, I'm supposed to clear my 'karmic backload' before I go
back home and try to take the Test for the next level of
spell mastery."
Kasumi watched the young man and decided to trust her
instincts. He was strange, and he was quite obviously used
to dealing with things she wasn't, but the young man she had
been speaking with had struck her as being kind and quite
honorable. If a bit tempramental and apt to not consider the
full repercussions of his actions. "It's no problem, Ranma.
We have a spare room you can use."
"Excuse me," Soun managed to get himself up. For once his
daughters and he were on the same page, the boy couldn't be
allowed to simply disappear again. "Did you say your name is
Ranma Saotome, and that your father's name is Genma?"
Ranma nodded. "Yes, and yes. Look, if he stole food from
you, I can pay for it."
Ranma abruptly found himself swept up and being crushed in
a hug.
"Oh my boy! Your father thought you were dead! The
engagement betwen families can take place! Now our two
houses can be united! How happy you have made me!" The
floodgates briefly opened.
"Excuse me?" Nabiki blinked. Where had THIS plot twist come
from?
"Oh goodness," Kasumi said with a blush. There was no doubt
in her mind who her father would pair up this tall stranger
with. (Maybe I ought to get Mother's wedding kimono and air
it out...)
"Huh?" Ranma managed, beginning to turn blue.
"Daddy, you might want to turn him loose before he goes
back to being dead."
"Oh, sorry." Soun released Ranma, who immediately started
gasping to get air back into his lungs.
-------------------------
A few minutes later, everyone was sitting around the dining
room table after a number of explanations had been given.
"So," summed up Soun, "we promised each other that the two
schools and our families would be united by marriage."
"I...see..." Ranma was more than a little shocked by this.
He caught the way the two girls were watching him and made
an effort to control his reaction. He couldn't help but
notice that Kasumi was back to studying her hands and Nabiki
was giving him a purely speculative look. He could almost
see the wheels turning in the younger girl's mind. "I'm
afraid that if you're looking to unite the two schools of
martial arts, that I'm not really that skilled at HTH
fighting. I know the basics, but most of my time has been
spent studying spellcraft."
"That's not as important as that you are here," Soun
declared firmly if a bit wetly. "So all you have to do is
pick which of my three daughters will be your new fiancee!"
"Oh my, that's right. Akane should have been home by now."
Kasumi spent a few moments worrying about Akane before
deciding it was just as well. Akane didn't like boys very
much, and might have given this young man the wrong
impression. Besides, Akane could take care of herself.
"Well, she's not, Kasumi. Her loss. Say, Ranma, you said
you know magic, right? Could you show us a little
something?" Nabiki was really hoping to spot potential
profit-making skills in her soon-to-be brother-in-law.
Ranma blinked. "Okay, I suppose. What would you like?"
"Say," Nabiki seemed to be in deep thought, "oh, something
like turning lead into gold? Producing money out of thin
air? How about using magic to influence the stock market?"
"No, sorry. Metal is always tricky to manipulate. The other
two are illegal and have serious repercussions." His
teachers had impressed upon him Ethical Spellcraft, and how
just changing base metals into precious ones could cause
widespread economic upheaval. Best to keep to simple stuff
when possible.
Nabiki blinked. He'd just admitted that he could do all
three.
Ranma thought about it. Their reaction to his carpetbag had
brought to his attention that they just weren't used to
things of a magical nature. Whatever he did had to be
completely nonthreatening.
Ranma brightened and stood up. "I know!" He brought his
left fist up to be cupped by his right hand, two fingers
pointing up. This might also have other uses.
"Spirits of magic, far and near,
Enlighten now, make choices clear,
Reveal within your shifting light,
The talent for magic burning bright!"
A brilliant plume of light erupted from Ranma, green/blue
flickering. He noted that Soun Tendo had only a fitful blue
radiance, while Kasumi had a brilliant white corona and
Nabiki had a fiercely burning golden light.
Their reactions were everything he had hoped for. Soun was
so overcome by the glowing daughters he didn't even notice
that his own power rating was poor.
"So," Nabiki said. "This means I can do magic? Or, no, that
I have the potential? Why is my coloration different from
yours, and Kasumi is different from both of us?" Nabiki
smiled at the golden aura swirling with patterns around her.
The glow made her skin and nails look as if they were cast
of gold, and Nabiki was finding it quite fascinating.
"Oh my." Kasumi was rather taken with the warm glow that
surrounded her.
"Inner nature shapes what forces you can tap into the
easiest. Kasumi looks to be best at healing and what is
generally referred to as 'white magic.' You, Nabiki, look to
be best at 'divination' or information-gathering magic. The
patterns shown indicate that you have no actual training in
the Art."
The sound of a door opening caused Ranma to make a gesture
and the brilliant colors stopped.
Akane walked in, and looked relieved when she saw Kasumi.
Then her gaze fell on Ranma and her expression became one
more suited to the appearance of a slave-ring procurer.
"YOU!"
Ranma readied a pattern of Chinese Sorcery(1) that would
cloak him in a shield. Whoever this girl was, she had proven
herself violent before and he wasn't at all fond of
indiscriminately violent people.
"Akane, do you know Ranma?" Kasumi smiled at her younger
sister. She had so much energy.
"Know him? I saw him trying to kidnap you earlier!" Akane's
glare softened slightly. He'd obviously used a shiatsu
attack to knock her out. When she'd come to in that tree,
she'd checked but found no evidence of his taking liberties
with her. Then had come the horrible realization that this
enslaver-of-women had taken her elder sister, but not
thought that SHE was worth taking! So Akane had run up a
full head of steam based on a set of assumptions and
deductions that had little place in reality.
It was just beginning to penetrate to Akane that Kasumi +
Being Safe At Home = Guy Isn't A Kidnapper.
Ranma snorted. "Kasumi fell down. I was just getting a
healing potion ready."
Nabiki twitched. Healing potions? Again the impression of
yen signs floating by, ready to be caught. She gazed at
Ranma across the table. She HAD to make sure he didn't
simply vanish. Just the one coin she'd gotten as rent money
would clear their bills for the month and put them in the
black for next month. And he'd treated fifteen pounds of
gold as not a big deal!
Nabiki prided herself as being a good judge of character.
It was a necessary skill when you made money extorting
people, being a bookie, or any number of other ways she went
about making sure the house stayed afloat. Ranma was a nice
guy, but not one you wanted to cross. Also, from what she
had seen so far, if he'd tried to kidnap Kasumi, Kasumi
wouldn't be here now.
"I really doubt that, sis," was Nabiki's only comment out
loud.
"So which of my daughters will be your new fiancee?" Soun
was refusing to be distracted.
"Fiancee? NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Akane glared. So this *was*
some sort of trick, she just wasn't sure whose trick or what
the end result was supposed to be. Still, she would not
allow some pervert boy at her!
"Hmmmm," hmmmed Kasumi, blushing. She had some friends from
High School she ought to invite. How to get ahold of them?
Traditional Shinto, Western, or one of the "hybrid"
ceremonies? Less neck strain out of the Western or a hybrid,
usually the bride's headpiece was one of the definite
"minuses" in the equation.
"Kasumi would seem the wisest choice," volunteered Nabiki.
Akane stopped. Not her? Kasumi the wisest choice?! That
meant Doctor Tofu would be available! "Couldn't agree more."
At least until she revealed whatever secret plot was going
on, then she could get it thrown out.
Ranma groaned. "Uhm, nothing personal, but why 'unite the
two schools' when I'm not a martial artist? I do A Different
Art."
Nabiki noted that Ranma wasn't ready for this. On the other
hand, Kasumi was quite obviously attracted to the boy and
was already nineteen with no prospects. To do this, without
putting too much pressure on the boy, that would take
careful management. Nabiki took a moment to consider this.
Kasumi might make a good match for Ranma. Ranma had a number
of talents and was able to pay his own way. If it had been
anyone besides Kasumi, Nabiki would have required
substantial monies to be paid out.
"Let me suggest a deal here," Nabiki said with a carefully
prepared smile.
-----------------
Nabiki intended only to awaken Ranma, that was all. A light
knock on the door producing no other reaction, she opened
said door with the full expectation of a sleeping Ranma in
the guest room. The camera was only present because she
thought it would be nice to get a photo of the guy. That was
all.
She didn't really expect that the Tendo household's guest
room now possessed a second doorway. More, that said doorway
wasn't the typical Japanese "slides into the wall" door as
was common for closets and the like. No, this was a front
door such as one would see on an old house. It would open on
the backyard, though from the second floor.
"Uhm, Ranma! Err..." Nabiki watched the door open on its
own. Stairs could clearly be seen on the other side.
"Be right there, Tendo-san. I've got a little more work to
do. I've disabled the traps and alarms if you want to come
on up."
Nabiki smiled a crooked grin. He knew her that well
already? Well, she didn't need an engraved invitation. The
smile faded slightly as the phrase "traps and alarms"
penetrated.
Nabiki slowly made her way up the stairway, arriving at a
second door. She estimated that she was halfway across the
backyard, and slightly higher than the peak of the roof. If
the first door was old-fashioned, this was practically
Victorian. Including the knocker, a brass ring held in the
mouth of a dragon. This door, as had the first, opened
without her touching it. Nabiki stilled the slightly shaky
feel in her knees, cursing herself for this sign of
weakness, and entered.
Inside, the shakiness of her knees returned. The circular
room looked to be of quarried stone, painstakingly fitted
together. The ceiling above was a dome, and the floor was
smooth rock. Six torches provided illumination, each also
marking the "point" of one end of the star inscribed on the
floor. Ranma was busy checking something on the floor. "Uhm,
how could..."
"Just a second, Tendo-san." Ranma looked up briefly. "I'm
checking my inscription to make sure the wards are
finished."
Nabiki nodded and continued to inspect the room. "This is
kinda like your suitcase being bigger on the inside than the
outside, right?"
"Yeah," Ranma answered in a distracted tone. "Dimensional
folding. Except Bag is a special case. This is just a
stabilized pocket."
"Uh huh. Think you can do my closet later?" Nabiki looked
over the torches and noted the lack of smoke.
"Doubling the size, yeah. Not much else. This room's a bit
different, it's based on the workshop of a wizard I studied
with. Except for the lack of lab equipment." Ranma finished
pacing the perimeter of the room. "It'll take a little while
but while I've got a forwarding address, I want to study a
curse I just picked up and see what it will take to fix it."
"Uhm," said Nabiki, not sure how to handle this. Her
weirdness meter had been pegged long ago.
"Anyway, I'm sure you didn't come here just to see me do a
set of warding runes."
"First, call me Nabiki." Nabiki had little doubt that Ranma
was a *much* better friend than an enemy. Normally she might
consider playing various games and proving her mental
superiority against a male. She wasn't sure how much of the
old stories about wizards were correct, and she didn't think
Ranma was a bad sort, but she had no intention of spending
ANY time on a lily pad if she could help it. "Second, Kasumi
has breakfast ready."
"Ah, good. I'll be right there." Ranma had to admit, he was
hungry enough to eat kivaris stew. (An idle moment was spent
wondering if there were any of the flying rodents here.) He
noted that Nabiki was still fidgeting over by the door. More
interesting was that Kasumi had just made her way up the
stairs and was standing just behind her sister. "What else
do you need, Ten.. I mean Nabiki?"
"How old are you, Ranma?"
Ranma straightened at the unexpected question. That Kasumi
had abruptly stopped inspecting the chamber and was now
paying close attention to him was also observed and filed.
"Uhm, that depends."
"Depends?" Nabiki was expecting an answer, not an
indication of lack of knowledge.
"I *think* I was born March 21, 1976. That would make me
sixteen as far as my records and such go. When I went to
Aramar initially, I was six years old. I spent quite a few
Aramarian years learning magic, so I'd be about twenty-two
if you went by how many years I've lived. Biologically,
though, I'm only about eighteen." Ranma shrugged while
trying to read their expressions. "One of the things about
some of the training I've done is that your lifespan tends
to get extended quite a bit, side effect of channelling
large amounts of life energy. And as an Aramarian year is
different from what we've got here, it may be even further
off."
Kasumi started working this out. He was both younger and
older than her. Still...
"Well, I'm done here," Ranma made a final gesture with an
engraving tool and the lines of runes briefly erupted in
emerald light. "This place is sealed against intruders. Only
you two and myself can get in here, or we'd have to bring
someone here. Just knock if I'm in the lab."
"Oh," said Kasumi as she turned to lead the way back to the
dining area. "What will happen if someone else tries to
enter?"
Nabiki left off her own thoughts to pay full attention to
this.
"Depends on their intent," Ranma said, his own thoughts
mainly on how to properly equip this lab. "Someone who's
just trying to sneak in will find that stairway doesn't ever
end. They'll be trapped in the loop until one of us frees
them. If they're evil or intending me harm, it gets worse.
If it's supernatural evil, well, the barriers *should* keep
it out."
"There's not much 'supernatural evil' in Nerima, Ranma, I
don't think you have anything to worry about." Nabiki proved
that one didn't have to be Ranma to be wrong.
Ranma got to the dining area and immediately wondered where
the meat was. No bread? No sliced fruit? A pot of green tea
(THAT at least was familiar, the Amazons of House Rising Sun
swore by the stuff) was simmering. Some sort of soup that
had chunks of white stuff in it. And rice, lots of rice. He
blinked, noting that Akane and Tendo-san were already
sitting there. Akane went to Glare Of Doom mode, while
Tendo-san seemed happy about something.
"Not a word, Daddy," cautioned Nabiki. "You know the deal.
No pressure, THEY decide."
Soun subsided.
Ranma watched Nabiki eat and started copying her gestures.
It had been so long, and the food tasted rather... bland by
comparison to what he was used to.
"So, Ranma, if you're registered here as a sixteen year
old, I suppose that means you'll have to attend school."
Nabiki was thinking about this, once registered and
enrolled, he'd be tied to the area for the remainder of the
year. "I'll start the paperwork going."
Akane turned a suspicious eye on Nabiki when her sister
failed to mention a price.
"Must I?" Ranma hung his head at the thought. Back to
school? It might be easier to use spells to falsify a paper
trail, though he wasn't even sure what sort of papers he
needed at this point.
"So what can you tell us about this place you were staying,
Ranma? Where did you learn magic?" Nabiki would transfer the
info to paper later.
Kasumi made note of the uncertain look Ranma was giving the
food, and wondered if there was something wrong with it.
"The world, or plane if you prefer, is known as Aramar. An
ancient word meaning 'nexus'in some language that only
survives in fragments." Ranma considered using an
enchantment to transform the rice into something which would
sit a little longer. No, that would probably be considered
impolite. "It's an old world, and quite a bit different from
Japan."
"How so?" Kasumi wondered if maybe the eating standards
were different.
Ranma considered. "Uhm, easiest to just show you, I
suppose.
"Illusion of past memory,
Weave the image that they may see.
The past revealed, show the scene,
Bring forth What Was to vision keen."
In the circle of Ranma's hands appeared a sphere of light.
Images appeared across the surface.
A spiral tower of ivory and brass, standing upon a lone
mountain surrounded by thick forest. The forest had an
unmistakable sense of age about it.
Elaborate ships, flying through the sky without visible
propulsion systems. Some lacked wings, but most resembled
animals in their overall design.
Western dragons, one a deep blue and the other a metallic
bronze locked in a savage combat that had Kasumi wince from
the level of violence. The battle ended with the bronze
burying its fangs deep within the neck of the blue.
Western dragons again, this group being shades of bronze,
brass, gold, silver, and copper. This group was in some
aerial ballet in the skies over an island with some
sprawling castle.
A sneering bishonen fellow, dressed in what were obviously
wealthy clothes that had bits of lace at the collar and
cuffs. In his hands was a bastard sword of dark metal
engraved with runes the color of fresh-drawn blood.
Ships, this time on an ocean, huge wooden Western-looking
vessels not too different from the ships that had visited
Japan a little over one hundred years previously. The
viewpoint showed silvery wings as if one was riding some
fabulous beast while flying over the fleet.
A short red-bearded fellow, standing with his hands resting
on an axe nearly as large as he was. The scowl shifted
slightly as he seemed to wink at them before shifting back
into the previous mask.
A tall, thin, fellow, dressed entirely in black. He had a
smirk that Nabiki found engaging. At his hip, a thin sword
that seemed vaguely similar to a European rapier. He brushed
his long hair back away from his face as he leaned against a
stone column, also revealing delicately pointed ears, then
sketched a quick two finger salute towards them before
disappearing in a swirl of his cloak.
One of the elaborate ships, this one resembling some
fantastic hawk, that was entirely crewed by warrior women.
There seemed to be some battle going on involving hulking
oni of some kind.
A black armored figure, making its way through the broken
and bleeding forms of some of these same warrior women, the
dwarf from before racing forward with axe raised to meet
him.
A busy marketplace, looking somewhat like a farmer's market
with elements of a more modern shopping mall. Nabiki idly
commented that other than some of the warrior women, none of
those present were human. Many looked near-human, if you
could overlook the size or pointed ears or wings or some odd
other set of features. Some couldn't pass for human in a
deep fog at night.
Ranma drew his hands apart and took a couple of deep
breaths as the image-sphere broke apart. "Actually, they
aren't precisely human either. No more than the dwarves, or
the elves, or the Tarakne, at least. Then there are the
halfling races: burrowers, kenku, ottari, caivehi, ogrii,
sareni, nymphs, kirani, talf..." Ranma stopped as he noted
that he'd lost them.
"Halflings are the ones that look mainly human but have
some... odd qualities?" Nabiki postulated as she waited for
her hair to settle down from its currently "toinged out"
state. Maybe, potential source of income or not, this
"Ranma" was too weird for Kasumi?
Kasumi didn't say a thing, still staring at the space that
had held all the images. Or was that Ranma's chest since it
was in her line of sight?
Akane grumbled. (What a weirdo! What secrets is he hiding?)
"That's right," agreed Ranma to the previous comment. "The
burrowers are the short guys with the spiky fur and heavy
foreclaws, for example."
Kasumi thought back. Oh yes, those were those cute little
hedgehog-people in the marketplace.
Ranma finished eating finally, having lost practice with
such odd implements as chopsticks, not to mention the odd
foodstuffs. Well, maybe he ought to go along to this school
and start the paperwork anyway. It wouldn't do to have the
local authorities getting on his case for something that
trivial.
-----------------------------
Ranma had watched the crowd gather, had watched Akane wade
into her attackers, and had summed up his opinion of the
whole thing in a single phrase.
"What kinda idiot came up with this kinda combat training?"
There went a large number of idiots, each getting in each
others way (quite deliberately from the look of it), and
attempting to subdue Akane with the least amount of force
necessary. Because of this, and because they were working
against each other, they looked rather pathetic to Ranma.
He'd seen tavern brawls that were more graceful and elegant.
Then came out the main villain, or someone who entered in
the manner of such. He started in on what Ranma vaguely
classified as the usual Villain Rant. (the Ranting villains
he liked slightly more than the ones who snuck up on you and
stuck a knife in your ribs - the former having at least a
veneer of civility.)
Ranma walked past the yelling Akane, the pontificating
Kuno, and entered the school. Maybe he could go to a better
school if he had to do this school schtick.
-------------------
Ranma sighed, sitting back at the table, and surveyed the
lunchroom. He could sum up his opinion of the school, the
gossip, the classwork, and the general competency level of
the staff in a single word.
Pathetic.
A few minutes into the placement tests, he'd simply
triggered a few subtle spells he'd worked out while waiting.
He was now (as far as the school administration was
concerned), nineteen years old and applying for a job.
Having a base of operations would be good, and having access
to capital while trying to fix everything sounded good for
now.
He couldn't teach most subjects, obviously, but the fight
in the morning had given him an idea of a job that needed
doing. There *were* classes he could teach. Math was the
same, physics were the same, and the mage he'd studied under
had not undervalued science.
So, as a teacher's aide (as soon as he could produce the
paperwork) and disciplinarian, Ranma Saotome Gallowglass was
quite prepared to earn his keep.
"HOLD!" The bokken-wielding maniac from earlier stood in
front of Ranma and glared at him.
"Tatewaki Kuno, Junior, Group E, Captain of the Kendo Club,
ain't it?"
Kuno blinked. "Yes. Errr. DON'T TRY TO TRICK ME!"
"Wouldn't think of it, you're the son of the absent
Principal, the guy who declared that in order to date that
Tendo girl, the dater has to beat the crap out of the
datee."
"NO! YES! I mean..." Kuno trailed off as he figured the
crude language out. "YES!"
"It's disrupting class, Kuno-san. That will no longer be
tolerated." Ranma noted that everyone was quiet and paying
attention. Good. "I'm up for a teacher's aide position, and
may be helping out with a few other odd jobs here. Fighting
on the school grounds, outside of school sanctioned
activities and one-on-one challenges will cease
immediately."
"WHO ARE YOU TO DICTATE TERMS TO THE GREAT TATEWAKI KUNO?!"
"Lose the attitude, dude. Personally, I don't care if you
ALL date Akane Tendo. If you challenge her, do it OFF school
grounds and AFTER school."
Akane began to growl at the presumption of this boy.
"I see, you are staying under the same roof as Akane Tendo,
and are now attempting to steal her away from her one true
love."
"No," said Ranma as he waited for it.
"I SHALL NOT TOLERATE THIS!" Kuno drew and struck forward
with his bokken.
"Glacial Grip," replied Ranma.
There were screams and squeaks at first. Then, slowly and
starting with some of the girls, the applause began.
"Tatewaki Kuno will be in detention today," announced Ranma
after the applause had died down. "Miss Tendo, put the table
down."
"Do you realize what you've done?!" Akane glowered.
"I've stopped the morning attacks and taken the first step
towards making the school an institution of learning and not
a battleground," replied Ranma, perfectly composed. "If you
want to indulge in some sadomasochistic dating practice, do
it after school."
"I DO NOT WANT TO..." Akane stopped as that penetrated.
"You're not interfering in my fights?"
"No, knock yourself out if you like. Not during school
hours or on school property." Ranma jerked a thumb at the
ice pillar. "It may disappoint you, but Kuno-san will not be
joining you today."
Akane blinked, then slowly began to smile. "Actually...
actually, that sounds rather nice."
--------------------------
"How could you become a TEACHER?!" Akane had waited until
they were relatively alone (the dinner table) before getting
confrontational. It hadn't taken that long before she
realized that being late for school wasn't nearly the
problem it had lately become.
That didn't mean she was happy.
"Teacher's aide and a glorified hall monitor. Since I know
how to brew healing potions (nothing really powerful but
they do the job), I'll also be helping out the school nurse.
Did you know the last three left due to the violence level
at Furinkan?"
"Actually," Nabiki said drily, still going through the
possible repercussions of Ranma working for the school, "one
left because she was using prescription drugs without a
prescription, one left because Kuno had been latching onto
her before he started getting obsessive about Akane, and the
third nurse left because of a nervous breakdown."
"Ah," said Ranma after a few minutes.
"Where's Kuno-baby, anyway?"
"He was... uncooperative," Ranma said sadly. "Attacked me
during detention. I had to get rough with him."
"What did you do, turn him into a toad?" Akane chuckled at
the absurdity, then froze as she considered the idea
seriously.
"Nah, too cliche," countered Ranma, "besides he was ready
for that sort of thing. I used a 'Power Word Stun' followed
by a transformation spell - temporary but it ought to cause
him to reconsider his current methods."
------------------------
Tatewaki Kuno stared into the mirror, tugging at the soft
firm flesh of his face.
In the mirror, Akane Tendo tugged at her face in exactly
the same manner.
Swallowing, Kuno opened the front of his kendo outfit,
looked down, and screamed. A moment later, and he had
confirmed that his bokken was the only sword he had at the
moment.
-------------------------
"You did WHAT?!" Akane twitched.
Nabiki, on the other hand, was rolling on the floor
laughing. It took her several seconds to get under control
again.
"Took the physical pattern of the girl he's obsessing on,
and superimposed it over his own with a specialized
transformation spell. It only lasts a few hours. I've worked
out a mass way of doing it, so if Akane-san has to face the
mob again, they'll ALL get Akanied." His research into his
curse was having *some* benefits, besides having this "repel
water" spell going all the time.
"How nice," said Kasumi with a nod. Giving all those boys
an Akane of their own, this would be their dream come true.
"Yeah, I was trying to work out a way that the spell would
remain in place until they stopped thinking about her,"
Ranma continued, oblivious to the increasing anger level of
the youngest Tendo sister, "but it'll take more work. If I
prepare everything beforehand, then all I have to do is hit
the trigger phrase when ready."
"MY FACE?!" Akane looked a little sick as she pictured what
Kuno could well be doing at that very moment. "*MY* BODY?!"
Nabiki smirked, certain that SOMEONE would get hit with
that tomorrow. Then she could sell the former boys details
on the spell, as well as proper attire and booklets on "how
to". Heh. After a few hours walking (literally) in her
sister's shoes, they'd likely be a lot more respectful of
women in general. Nabiki's smirk intensified as she
considered the pecuinary possibilities inherent in such a
setup.
"That's *disgusting*," said Akane, still focussed on what
she suspected was happening in Tatewaki Kuno's bedroom at
the moment. "DIE PERVERT!"
Ranma didn't understand that, but noted that the spellward
he'd placed earlier went off as he had planned. He'd been
expecting it to be used against the "Horde Of Hentai"
however. He was just grateful he hadn't switched it to the
"Akane-itis" spell.
"Wan? Wan? WAN! WAN!" The puppy dog was (literally) hopping
mad now. At least she was once she got out of the pile of
clothing.
"It's temporary, Akane-san, just don't go near any Chinese
restaurants for the next couple of hours." Ah, he could
remember the times in his Master's tower when he'd gotten
transformed into something for falling asleep during one of
the Master's lectures.
"WANWAN! WANWANWAN!"
"Oh how cute!" Kasumi swept the little puppy dog up into
her arms.
The puppy (a reddish Akita) whined a little at the thought
of being a cuddle toy for the next two hours.
Nabiki snickered briefly, then got a truly mischievous
gleam in her eyes that caused the puppy a little panic.
"Well, now, Akane. You want to go for a walk? Play ball?"
"Maybe I could find a squeak toy," said Kasumi
thoughtfully. "I may have a soup bone."
Akane growled at Nabiki, followed by a betrayed look at
Kasumi.
"Like I said, Akane-san, the spell will run its course in
two hours." A bit of mischief showed itself as he seemed to
think about something. "Unless, of course, you think impure
thoughts."
Akane let out a questioning whine.
"Oh, you know, get angry or plot revenge. In that case,
it'll get longer."
The puppy fainted. Kasumi tucked the cute little puppy in
Akane's bed. Nabiki took a number of photographs.
Two hours later, Kasumi checked in to find Akane was human
again, though whimpering in her sleep and one of her legs
was twitching.
------------------
Akane woke, scratched herself behind the ear, and grumbled
about the weird dreams she had been having. Well, she was
back to being human again, and she'd get even with that damn
Ranma. She ran downstairs, ready to confront him when she
noticed her father and Kasumi staring.
"Akane! Your clothes!"
Akane eeeped and went off to find her clothing. And who had
tied a little pink ribbon around her neck?
Slamming open the bedroom door, Akane stalked into Ranma's
room and noted the doorway on the far wall. Opening that,
she started stomping up the stairs, completely focussed on
letting Ranma know how displeased she was with spending the
night as a dog. Dreaming about getting groomed, about Nabiki
taking her to dog shows, about chasing rabbits, about Kasumi
feeding her "Kibbles and Bits" and scratching her behind the
ears, about sleeping all warm and cozy in someone else's
bed - as a cuddle toy!
"AKANE TENDO! MY LOVE!"
Feeling a shiver, Akane looked behind her. Rushing forward,
flowers in their hands, had to be at least fifty amorous
looking Kunos.
Shrieking in horror, Akane started running up the stairs.
---------------------
Kasumi stuck her head through the open doorway but could
not see Akane anywhere on the stairway. A little timidly,
she went up the stairs and knocked on the door.
"Hang on," came Ranma's voice. "I've got some delicate
setup to do."
"When you're done, breakfast is ready." Kasumi paused, how
to put this delicately? "Also, Akane is missing, have you
seen her?"
"Hmmmm. No. I'll be down in a minute." Ranma's voice was
distracted. "Bag is being stubborn."
-----------------------
Nabiki waited patiently for her time to strike. Kasumi
left, followed by Ranma. Now it was *her* chance.
Stealth was a skill Nabiki Tendo had in plenty, and she
utilized it to her full extent. Sneaking up the stairs
without a sound she was able to enter the room, as promised,
without any problems she could perceive.
The room had changed slightly, as Nabiki had hoped. Now
there was some sort of lab apparatus set up against one side
of the room, and another held the very sort of treasure
she'd most hoped for.
Books. Books, Nabiki knew, held information. Not only was
the information within them valuable, just the sort of books
Ranma had would indicate what he was up to. Had, as Akane
had suggested, Ranma thrown some sort of spell over them?
Could he in fact be some sort of manipulative monster out
for nefarious purpose? (Nabiki was almost hoping he was,
just to get back in control of life. Also, if he *was* some
sort of Svengali, then she could steal from him without so
much as a twinge of conscience.)
Upon seeing the books up close, Nabiki cursed her own
stupidity. OF COURSE they wouldn't be in Japanese! Though
the longer she stared at them, the more the odd lettering
seemed to make an odd sort of sense.
Turning her eyes from the books, she found a small circle
drawn in chalk around an oddly designed bottle. Upon seeing
this, she knew her answers were at last at hand.
"Do Not Open Until Armaggedon" proclaimed one sign. The
engraved words on the bottle itself were "Bottled Demon."
Thin silver chains bound the stopper to the bottle. The room
itself was a Seal Of Solomon, and here this bottle was in
the center of ANOTHER Seal.
"Subtle, Saotome. Real subtle." Nabiki looked over the
bottle and noticed the wax seal had runes of some sort
engraved upon it. (The bottle is harmless. The bottle
contains the answers. The bottle contains treasure. You want
to open the bottle.)
Nabiki shook her head. Why had she referred to herself as
'you' in her thinking? Nabiki picked up the bottle, noting
that it was sufficiently opaque that she couldn't tell what
was in it. (Surely just a little peek wouldn't hurt?)
Nabiki's hand grasped the bottle's stopper and again she
stopped momentarily. Shrugging, she removed the stopper,
after all, what could it hurt?
----------------------
The door slamming shut wasn't the only alarm.
The loud clanging as of some great watchbell being struck
was a further clue.
Ranma yelling an obscenity (in Hobgoblin, a language built
for obscenities) and diving away from the breakfast table
was another. There was still food on the table, after all,
and Ranma voluntarily leaving a meal before finishing was
another Sign Of The Apocalypse.
Kasumi and Soun, curious, followed.
---------------
Akane screamed inside her head. Her face however smiled and
gazed lovingly at the boy in the tuxedo next to her. The
priest began to pour the sake, and within a few minutes,
Akane Tendo would cease to be. Akane Kuno would be the
loving and dutiful wife of her husband Tatewaki. Forever
after. Tatewaki whispered to her about his plans for the
night, when she would fully become a woman.
The sake cup was raised to her lips.
A hand grabbed her and pulled her out of the scene.
"What were you doing in there?" Ranma demanded of Akane.
Akane blinked, realizing that she was in the guest room.
Her father was weeping, and Kasumi looked somewhat
concerned. "I... I..."
"That was the Room Of Greatest Personal Horror," noted
Ranma as he closed the door again. "You must have intended
me harm. Well, we don't have time for this now."
"I... I..." Akane staggered to the window and managed to
open it before getting ill.
"What's going on, Ranma? Please tell me."
Iron conviction melted before brown eyes. "Aw crap. Okay. I
picked up a curse in China. I had a spell worked out that
should have transferred the curse to a demon."
"A DEMON!? IN MY HOUSE?!"
"Keep your shirt on, Tendo-san. I figured if anyone
deserved a curse, it was a demon. So I'm trying to figure
out how to transfer the curse, so I pull the demon's bottle
out and set it up in a protection circle. This particular
demon is one that's caused me trouble in the past, so I've
held his prison until I find a way to crush the little
bugger once and for all."
"Have you?"
"Yeah, I think so. Problem is, there's a fifty-fifty chance
it'll just smash the prison so I ain't done it." Ranma
frowned as he contemplated the door. "There's no way it
could have broken free on its own, I used a Level Three
binding on a Level Seven demon. So Ratsfahr had help, but
from whom?"
Kasumi blinked. "Where's Nabiki?"
-----------------------
Nabiki watched IT start to come shooting out of the bottle
and did her best to shove the stopper back in. The pain in
her hands and the pressure forcing itself out were
sufficient to keep her from doing so until after a solid
hand belted her halfway across the room.
"Free. Free at last to ravage and pillage and kill." The
voice was deep and had an odd echo quality to it.
Nabiki scrambled back to her feet to behold... a
middle-aged Japanese businessman, well off from the look of
him.
"Free to conquer the mortal worms of this world and to glut
myself on their fear and suffering," the businessman said
with a chuckle. "Now, where to start?"
"You're a demon?" Nabiki cleared her throat and repeated
the question after the first attempt had come out as a
squeak.
"Hmmm? Oh, you were expecting the horns and batwings?" The
businessman seemed to shrug and was now a four-armed
nine-foot-tall batwinged monstrosity who was anatomically
correct but had thorn-shaped barbs in all sorts of odd
places. "Better? I use a near human form when working
undercover, and it took up less space in that damn bottle.
Hmmm. A bedslave, I think."
"Excuse me?!" Nabiki looked at the thing, and attempted to
merge with the stone behind her. Maybe she could just
casually edge her way to the stairwell.
"You'd make a fair bedslave, I think," the demon said, a
thin trail of greenish yellow drool extending from his
snout. "And it HAS been awhile."
"Uhm, I'll pass, actually. You're not my type."
"Who said anything about giving you a choice?" The demon's
tongue, a long ropy thing that split into three tentacles,
caught the trail of drool. "But I suppose I can give you a
wish as repayment for freeing me and dooming your world.
It's just too amusing to play these games."
"I wish you'd go back into that bottle." Nabiki edged a
little closer to the door.
"Not likely, my pretty little bedslave. Try again."
"I wish that bottle had been the kind holding a genie slave
like in the stories."
"Hmmmm. Well, there are other bedslaves to be taken.
Ratsfahrt, Demon Seventh Class of Magical Mishaps, grants
your wish."
Nabiki screamed, feeling herself turning to mist and drawn
within the bottle. The stopper, altered slightly now, fitted
itself into place.
Ratsfahrt picked the bottle up, now noting that the label
had changed. "In there, you can see and here what's going on
outside even if you can't affect or communicate anything
outside your prison. This is a sort of 'genie slave' deal,
though you won't have any great magical powers. No, you'll
simply become the magical bedslave of whoever opens the
bottle. I'll just go out and conquer your world, then come
back and open your bottle. You ought to be done by then."
Putting the "Bottled Bedslave" bottle on the shelf,
Ratsfahrt got a better look at the room he was in.
"Seal Of Solomon? Hmmmm. It'll take me awhile to beat
through that. Maybe if I..."
"Hello, Rattie."
"RANMA!" The demon growled and flexed his wings. "At last.
I shall flay your flesh, devour your soul, and make
windchimes out of your bones."
Ranma closed the door behind him, only to be pushed aside
as someone shoved her way through.
"I can help! I'm a martial artist, you know!" Akane
glowered at the boy who apparently thought she was weak or
fragile and needed protecting. Then her eyes caught the
demon. "EEEEP!" Akane especially caught the lack of clothing
and long twitching tentacle of the beast.
"You brought me a snack?" The demon licked its lips as he
looked over the wench in front of him. "How nice, I was just
wondering where I'd get a new bedslave, and here one is
delivered."
"HENTAI!"
The demon looked puzzled. Where had that mallet come from?
"PERVERT!" <WHACK!> "HENTAI!" <THUD!> "ETCHI!" <WHAM!>
Ranma's jaw dropped slightly but he recovered and broke
into a grin. He hadn't expected Tendo-san to be effective
against a demon.
"Ouch, hey! Watch it! How dare you strike... Cut it out!
eeeEEEEEEP!"
Ranma conjured a baseball bat, handing it off to Akane
after she tried unsuccessfully to free her mallet from where
it had gotten lodged.
"DIE, PERVERT!" <WHAM! THUD! SLAM! HIT! CRUNCH! WHACK!
BAM!>
"Nice form," said Ranma as he watched the demon getting
beaten on. "Looks like the Seal Of Solomon's weakening him
enough that normal attacks can damage him."
"Hmmm?"
"Oh, don't let me distract you, Tendo-san. Carry on."
"HEY!"
"Thank you, Saotome-kun!" <CRASH! BATTER! BEAT! WHACK-UM!>
"Mercy... Owie..."
"Like you showed mercy to those girls from Delin's Village?
How many girls have you raped and killed, Rattie?" Ranma
started the spell as subtly as he could.
"Ouch! Hey, a demon's gotta do OW! what a demon's gotta do.
Besides, they loved every minute of it!"
"HENTAI!" Akane found her outrage pushing her power levels
up to new heights. "You... ENEMY OF ALL WOMEN!"
"You know me?" Ratsfahrt was slightly flattered. Then
flattened.
Throwing the useless halves of the baseball bat aside,
Akane was in her element. "It is a martial artist's DUTY to
pummel perverts!"
"EEEEEEEK!"
<STOMP! KICK! PUNCH! SNAP!>
"ENOUGH!" The demon slammed out with a taloned hand and
knocked Akane across the floor. "Damn stupid creature! Acid
Spray!"
Ranma finished the preparations, and held the sphere of
white energy in his hands. "Excuse me, Tendo-san!" The
sphere shot across the room, struck the demon, and both
began disintegrating. "I'll bring a healing potion in a
moment."
Akane clenched her teeth against the pain, her arm and side
smouldering from the demon's counterattack. She felt her
mouth forced open, then liquid that tasted of mint being
forced into her mouth. She tried to gag, only her mouth was
now being held closed and her throat stroked until she
swallowed. Immediately the pain receded.
"That..." Akane's eyes widened slightly as the burns
receded.
"Healing potion. Thank you, Tendo-san, that was quite
impressive."
It began to penetrate. She'd fought a monster. Not a
pervert boy like those fools who tried to mug her, not an
idiot like Kuno, not a white slaver. A real live monster.
And she'd been kicking its butt! Akane fainted but she had a
grin on her face that would have required surgery to remove.
Ranma carried Akane down the stairs. Where was Nabiki,
anyway?
-----------------
"Maybe she's just already at school?"
"I dunno, Kasumi. I'll look more once I get back. I gotta
help out Mister Kunakida at the school library today. Oh,
and I'll be helping Tatsuya-san with some kinda test today
too, so I might be a little late."
Akane glared over at Ranma. "We will discuss this later,
Ranma."
Soun merely nodded and continued reading his newspaper.
"Hmmm. Rice futures are up."
"Well, I'm gone. Dimension Door." Ranma bamfed and was
gone.
Akane blinked. "That BAKA! The least he could have done is
take me. It's HIS fault I'm going to be late."
"Akane, 'you catch more flies with honey than vinegar', you
know."
Akane gave her sister a puzzled look. "Why would I want to
catch flies, Kasumi?"
Kasumi sighed and noted that Bag was eating Soun's
discarded newspapers. Well, at least the little carpetbag
was clean. "Shouldn't you be going to school, Akane?"
"AAAH! I'm *really* late now!"
The carpetbag coughed as an article went down the wrong
way, eventually spitting up a small plush doll.
Kasumi smiled and picked the cute little doll up. How nice,
no doubt some souvenier from Ranma's travels. She'd just
clean it up a little bit and give it to him around supper.
----------------------
Several things occurred while Ranma was discovering the joys
of grading papers and demonstrated the use of a Ray Of
Enfeeblement upon one Tatewaki Kuno:
In a bottle upon a bookshelf, Nabiki slumped against the
glass wall of her enclosure and wondered what the heck she'd
do if she were stuck here for any length of time. Other than
go crazy from sheer boredom. And why was she getting so
turned on?
A number of Amazons got on a ship that was supposedly
heading for Japan. After the Captain announced that they
were all about to be sent to slave pens in Thailand, there
was a sudden and violent change of personnel on the ship.
Unfortunately, with all of those actually able to sail the
ship ejected into the Sea Of Japan, the little vessel
proceeded to get thoroughly lost.
Kasumi set the little plushie down as she worked in the
kitchen, and found herself talking to the doll. There had
been a little tear in the doll's clothes, quickly mended,
and bits of grass in the silky purple hair. It was odd, but
Kasumi almost felt as if the doll were grateful.
Akane arrived late at school, but found that Ranma had
already arranged an excuse. Fighting demonic entities bent
on world domination was a bit odd, but deemed suitable
reason to be a little late in arriving for homeroom. As long
as she made up the time later, that is.
The Amazon Village, Nichieju, was repairing the damage from
the foppish figure that had come through. Said person,
finding himself challenged, had gone to the children's
playground and cast a spell stating that if they surrendered
his mortal enemy to him, he would turn all the cute little
kitties and puppies and itty bitty monsters back into kids.
Upon being told that Ranma was not there, the mage conjured
up a stampede of elephants and left. WITHOUT undoing the
spell he'd cast earlier. So the village currently had a lot
of kitties, puppies, alien critters, and elephants. Most of
the damage was from, unsurprisingly, the elephants. The
Amazons had plans on what to do if this male returned to the
village, marriage not being on the list. The ones who had to
clean up over twelve tons of elephant "poop" were only
slightly more vulgar in their suggestions than the ones
whose children were now requiring flea powder.
A seller of okonomiyaki, planning a move to Tokyo, looked
out the school window. Genma had related how his son had
died in the mountains when she had run across him in Azabu
Juuban. How could she have missed such an obvious tactic
like dialing Information and asking for Genma Saotome?
(There were only three in all of Japan.) Genma had finally
confessed to his wife about the loss of his son, and had
still been recovering from her displeasure at that to be
confronted with the dowry theft. They'd replaced the dowry,
but it just felt as if there was something missing from her
life. (Maybe Nerima. The Furinkan district has low rent...)
Some students learned that annoying the new Teacher's Aide
at Furinkan was not a particularly good idea as the boy had
a bit of a temper. Forty seven Akane Tendos were running
around school that day, not counting the six baka hentai who
had been found getting quite etchi and had been promptly hit
with a Curse Of Compulsive Tidiness.
Ryoga Hibiki got lost, but he wasn't that unhappy with it.
What *did* bother him was that boy Ukyo Kuonji. How dare the
boy ignore his requests for food! He'd pay for the previous
meals as soon as he got some money. Maybe what was needed
was a challenge, a duel! Yes, that would do it, for the
insult of the bad credit - Ukyo Kuonji would pay!
Shampoo had awoken to find herself lying, still a helpless
doll, in some odd living room. Then some gigantic Japanese
woman picked her up, repaired a rip in her clothing, brushed
her hair out, and set her in the kitchen where she could
watch someone doing something. Fears swept through the
Amazon. What if dogs or children found her while she was
like this? She couldn't move or blink, much less defend
herself! She found herself enormously grateful for the
giant, though she couldn't understand most of what this
woman was saying. It beat all that time she'd been lying out
on the grass, or even the short time she had been in that
room.
----------------
Soun finally thought about it, got the number from
Information, and called an old friend.
"Hai, moshi moshi. Saotome-ke."
"Genma Saotome, please." Soun grinned as he thought about
the engagement. Soon the houses would be joined!
There was a sigh, as of someone long suffering. "Genma is
out on a training journey with his daughter. What did he do
*now*?"
"A 'daughter?' Well, he hasn't done anything LATELY."
"Let me guess. He engaged his daughter to your son? You've
had cats turn up missing? There's some bills you need to
take care of? Engaged his son to your daughter? Engaged his
daughter to your daughter?"
"Uhm, no..." Soun wondered exactly what Saotome had been up
to over the years since he had reported his son's death. "I
just wanted to report that his son had turned up. Not dead."
There was a long pause. "What is the name of this 'son'?"
"Ranma Saotome, he indicated that he got lost and not
killed."
The woman's voice went from suffering to eager. "Who is
this? Where is he? Is he... manly? Is he well?"
"I take it this is Mrs Saotome?" Upon hearing an assent, he
continued. "This is Soun Tendo. Ranma is currently at
Furinkan High School, though he is staying here at the Tendo
dojo. Yes, I think...."
"Give the address, please. I'll be right there."
---------------------
Ranma pulled a hat out of his pocket and cast "Monster
Summoning" with a gesture. "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a
rabbit out of my hat."
Mists formed, and a creature stepped out to regard Tatewaki
Kuno with cold eyes.
"Hah! Summon all the allies you want, they shall all fall
before the might of the Blue Thunder!"
The little furry fellow just waited, breathing deeply as he
regarded Kuno. "A-ni-mal." (1)
"Yes, you are a pathetic little beast. I shall smite thee
and then the sorceror that summoned thee, then go on to date
with the tidy and pure Akane Tendo!"
"Urrr?"
"HAVE AT THEE, FOUL GAIJIN BEAST!"
"Urk? SMITE! Hahahahaha." <GRAB, FOLD, SPINDLE, MUTILATE,
STUFF>
Ranma went back to grading papers. Animal vanished.
Tatewaki Kuno's feet twitched and he pondered how a six foot
tall samurai had been stuffed into a three foot tall waste
basket. Surely this was the Darkest of Sorceries!
-----------------------
Ranma's first task was to find Nabiki. Under Akane and
Kasumi's watchful eye, he used the same sort of Pathfinder
enchantment he'd used to find his way here.
"Powers of light, hear as I ask,
Guide me on this simple task,
Where I must go, what I must do.
Nabiki's location show me true,
This I ask as boon from you."
The light touched his bookshelf. The light touched a bottle
on his bookshelf. Akane was the first to the bottle, but the
label caused her to look sickened. "What kind of sicko are
you, Ranma?"
"It's not mine," Ranma replied. "Rattie must have conjured
it. The spell indicates that's where she is, though. Odd
that he didn't put any misdirection spells on it, that's
pretty par for magical prisons."
"Well, I'll just free..." Akane started pulling the stopper
from the bottle.
"NO! Tendo-san, that was created by a demon. I'd expect
traps on it. Let's take the bottle downstairs, I'll research
it, and you can draw the stopper as soon as I've made sure
it's safe."
Akane considered drawing the stopper anyway, but allowed
that there might be something to all this.
end chapter 1
(1) Animal appears courtesy of Jim Henson and the Muppet
Show. The humiliation of being defeated by a muppet furthers
the Kuno hatred of Ranma beyond even canon levels.
==========================================
Chapter Two: "Home Is Where The Heart Is"
see disclaimers at beginning of chapter 1
"Don't try to drink a dwarf under the table,
Ya don't wanna share a meal with a burrower,
Don't trust an elf to keep his word,
and if ya cross a dragon, well my best to yer next of kin."
- Halfling drinking song, "Next Of Kin"
---Tendo-ke, Japan, 1992-------
Ranma pulled the cork from the bottle, double checking his
wards. Smoke gradually coalesced into the figure of Nabiki
as Akane and Kasumi watched.
"Oh, how pretty!" Kasumi looked at Nabiki's raiment and
thought about how impractical the garment was.
"Eeeep!" Akane exclaimed and ran up to Nabiki's room to see
if she could find some clothes to give her sister a bit more
coverage.
"Well, the wards held. Any hostile spells were neutralized.
There was some kind of transformation going on, but I can't
see any differences. How do you feel, Nabiki-san?" Ranma
tried NOT to look too closely, though certainly if there had
been any physical changes her "clothing" wouldn't conceal
them.
"A bit chilly, actually." Nabiki had always been a bit of
an exhibitionist but her current lack of clothing was not
quite what she would prefer to wear outside. Though she DID
like the gems. She was hoping that everyone would excuse the
obvious signs of arousal from her as being from the retail
value of her costume, or from the cold. Instead of that it
was taking an iron control to keep from pouncing on Ranma
and doing something terribly ecchi right there before
Kasumi.
Tiny gems twinkled and winked at the thin chainlink belt
around her waist. From the belt hung a thin sheet of nearly
sheer golden silk, which hung from waist to knee level but
was only about six inches wide. More gems glittered at the
earcuffs, the golden manacles and leg cuffs, the collar
around her neck, and the bands of lacy-looking metal
encircling upper arms and lower thighs. Thin chains that
also appeared made of gold linked a ring on her middle
finger to the manacle on each hand. A similar set was on her
feet. Her breasts were barely restrained by a single length
of the thin chain attatched halter-fashion to pair of gemmed
cups.
"This costume appeared on me about three hours ago, while
you were doing up the Circles," Nabiki said, trying to
appear nonchalant and in control.
Akane burst into the room. "Hey, what are all MY clothes
doing in your closet?!"
"Maybe I could turn the clothing back," mused Ranma.
"DON'T YOU DARE!" Nabiki composed herself again. "I mean,
don't bother, Ranma-kun. It's hardly that concerning.
Besides, I'm sure that I can find a use for some of the...
ornamentation."
"Well, if you feel all right, Nabiki-san..." Ranma let his
voice trail off, still trying not to look too close.
"Fine, Ranma-kun, I just need to go change clothes."
"Well, then, I'll clean the circles from the dojo later.
Kasumi, could you come to my room?"
Kasumi's eyes widened. Hers weren't the only ones.
---Beggar's Pass, Shadar, Aramar 7th Age---
They called themselves, when speaking among themselves, the
Dvaerren (or in the regional dialects of two varieties, the
Dvarren.) Everybody else called them dwarves.
There were six varieties of them, and what was true of one
variety was not necessarily true about another. The things
all of them had in common was that they were short by human
standards, tended to be really good artificiers and
engineers, preferred living underground, generally despised
elves, and were sturdy folk. They all also tended to sink
due to a problem with tissue density and insufficient
flotation. Which is why there were no Sea Dwarves. (The Sea
Of Steel being a desert of reddish sand rather than
something with water.)
Some had beards that they would elaborately tie and trim,
like the rugged vaguely Nordic culture dwarves of the
Hegemony. Some shaved all available hair like the dwarves of
the Sea Of Steel. Some dwarves were like those of the
Starfall Mountains, and lived underground but worked above
the surface. Some dwarves were like those of Amberlake and
mastered the powers of mind as they forged Items Of Power.
Some dwarves, like those of Emeraldis, preferred working
with wood and brass to steel and magic.
Thurin Kaille was a dwarf of Shadar, and a Shadarian
Marine, which meant that he trimmed beard and hair, bathed
frequently, and didn't care that much for what others
considered "typical dwarf standards." Currently he was on a
zard, a scaley-feathered herbivorous "reptile" that wasn't
too quick (physically or mentally) but had the benefits of
enormous strength and stamina.
Being a Shadarian Marine, and therefore part of a chain of
command, Thurin was not particularly surprised when the
image of a tall humanoid faded into view. He spent a few
moments getting the zard to behave before addressing the
image.
"Captain? I assume there is a reason you're interrupting my
patrol." Thurin reined the zard in. He didn't like zards, he
didn't like border patrol, he didn't like his Captain, and
he especially didn't like the cloud of gnats attracted to
the damn zard.
"Kaille." The dislike was proven mutual just from the way
the name was said. "Your patrol is to be cut short, and you
are to proceed to Port Shadar at best speed. Your
destination is the Southern Cross base, drydock nine, an
Osprey class ship named Wildhorse. There you will find
further orders."
"Excuse me, 'Wildhorse'?" Thurin glared at the figure.
"This isn't some more crap dealing with that damn useless
mage Ranma, is it? I thought I was finally done with playing
nursemaid."
"I am not at liberty to say," Captain Ashwraith said,
returning the glare.
"Where did these orders originate, then?"
The Captain was clearly reluctant, but dropped a name
before cutting the connection.
Thurin scratched his beard as he considered. "Imperial
Palace, eh? So, it looks like Ranma's in trouble AGAIN." The
dwarf grinned as soon as he was sure that he wasn't being
monitored. "Well, move, you damn beast. The kid's so wet
behind the ears he'd drown if he didn't have ol' Thurin
Kaille to pull him out of his messes."
------Tendo-ke, Japan-------
After all the preparations and excitement of getting Nabiki
out of the bottle, it was almost just another morning at the
Tendo dojo. There *was* a break in the usual routine,
however, as Kasumi was not currently involved in cleaning.
Instead, she was in the guest room.
Akane was doing something unusual too. She had a glass in
one hand and was listening through the wall.
"I'm sorry Ranma, but... can I touch that?"
"Actually, Kasumi, I was hoping you would."
"Oh. I've never handled one of these before. I've seen
pictures, of course. It feels warm..."
Akane made a noise. It was somewhere between "glek" and
"geeble."
"Warm? Ah, you've got the grip perfectly, Kasumi. Keep it
up. Nice even strokes."
"Ah, this is easy. I thought it would be more difficult."
"Well, easy for you. You have such a gentle touch and a
natural talent, I think."
"Hmmm. Why thank you, Ranma!" Kasumi sounded relieved.
"After watching the way you pick at the meals, I was afraid
you were unhappy with me."
"Oh no, not at all. The fault is entirely mine. I'm used to
a *very* different diet. I thought you could use some
reassurance, though, which is why I'm sharing this with
you."
Akane twitched, what was obviously occurring in the next
room sufficient horror that she couldn't seem to move.
"Hmmm. This juice here... OH! It's good!"
"It gratifies me to hear you say that, Kasumi." Ranma
chuckled at something. "Try gently squeezing here as you
suck on it."
"MMMMMmmmmm. Oh MY."
Akane slammed the door to Ranma's room open. "CUT IT OUT!
KASUMI, I'll... save you..."
Kasumi and Ranma looked up from the table had been set up
in his bedroom, thin slices of some unidentifiable fruit and
chunks of dark black bread visible. The oddly shaped knife
and cutting board in front of Kasumi, as well as the sliced
melon, seemed to indicate what the 'nice even strokes' had
been.
"Akane?" Kasumi seemed puzzled by her sister's outburst.
Akane thought quickly, trying to find a way to make her
sudden entry sound logical.
"Oh, Akane, why don't you try some of this," Kasumi
exclaimed, holding a purple fruit about the size of a fist
out. "It's really quite good."
"Errr. No, I think I'll stick with the traditional
breakfast. Really." Akane smiled while she mentally kicked
herself. Even if this Ranma were using a spell to control
Kasumi, her sweetly oblivious sister wouldn't do anything
like *that*.
Ranma actually chuckled. "I understand and empathize,
Tendo-san."
Akane blinked. (He knows that I thought he was using a
spell to rape Kasumi?!)
"Yeah," Ranma said. "I'm having a lot of trouble adapting
to a Japanese diet, particularly in the morning. There's
just something about not wanting to get too inventive first
thing in the morning, ne?"
(Whew!) Akane relaxed marginally. "Yeah, I guess."
Nabiki stuck her head in, saw the fruit, and didn't wait
for an invitation. After the first bite, her eyes popped
open and she began inhaling slices of bread and pieces of
the other fruits.
Kasumi and Ranma were amused. Akane was alarmed but hid it.
Nabiki used the distractions to palm seeds of the exotic
otherworldly plants.
"Anyway," Ranma said after a few moments, "Kasumi, would
you like to go for a ride later? I was curious about the
area."
Kasumi brightened slightly but pointed out that they did
not have a car.
"No problem." Ranma snapped his fingers, causing the bag to
waddle over and open. He reached into Bag, drawing forth a
rolled up carpet that he snapped out as if it were a sheet.
That the carpet flattened out and hung in midair was duly
noted by all concerned. Their reactions, however, were not
quite identical.
Kasumi's eyes widened and got a focussed look to them that
her sisters would not have recognized had they been paying
attention. An image of herself, flying along on a carpet,
danced before her eyes. She could look down at the house and
watch her responsibilities and duties dwindle off into the
distance as she soared amongst the heavens...
Nabiki saw the potential for profit among other things. A
trip to anywhere she wanted that didn't cost her anything.
Up to the Gero Spa or down to Kansai for a quick trip. No
crowded commuter trains, to ride with style wherever she
wanted to go...
Akane thought about how Ranma might go zipping off forever
with her naive sister on one of those things. On the other
hand, it'd be nice to go somewhere without getting groped by
some pervert on the train... Maybe she ought to demand a
flight first, just to make sure it was safe.
"So, since this is Sunday, y'know," Ranma began, cursing
himself for being flustered. There was no way, even if this
girl actually turned out to like him, that she'd want to go
back home with him. And what was this bit with taking over a
dojo that Tendo-san kept harping about during dinner? He was
a mage, getting up there among the higher ranks, though he
couldn't quite pull off a MIRV or Dragon Storm. What kind
of... well, she *might* make a good Healer cleric. Hmmm.
Soun opened his mouth, ready to charge into the room from
where he was eavesdropping and make sure they knew that this
was an ideal opportunity to unite the two Houses.
"I will need this room clear, though. Those casks of water
are cursed and part of my research. I'll transport them
myself upstairs." Ranma gestured towards the small barrels.
"Oh dear, I forgot breakfast for father!" Kasumi said this
in the sort of voice one would expect for someone saying
that they'd forgotten to set the parking brake and that
massive collision was THEIR fault.
"I'll handle it, Kasumi!" Akane winked and made a show of
rolling up her sleeves.
Soun fled, thoughts of joining the two houses momentarily
tabled.
Kasumi waited until Akane had left the room. "Uhm,
Ranma-kun. You..." This had been bothering her for some
time, and she was finally just going to come out and ask.
"Yes, Kasumi-chan?"
Kasumi took a deep breath. "It's just that I..."
"FOUL SORCERER! WHERE ARE YOU?"
Nabiki, listening from nearby, winced. Akane dropped the
bottle of vegetable oil and flung her apron aside. Soun
growled. Kasumi politely excused herself as she made a
comment about how they apparently had a guest.
"What's Kuno doing here?" Ranma sighed and shook his head.
"This is my day off, fer cryin' out loud." Maybe he ought to
use something simple. Mostly Harmless might work.
Soun frowned further. Here the schools were about to be
joined and some MORON had to go butting in!
Akane went out the front door, intent on beating some sense
into Kuno. How dare he attack her home!
Kasumi noticed the smoke and flames from the kitchen first,
rescuing the doll just before it caught.
"Quench," cast Ranma a moment later.
"So where's Kuno, anyway?" Akane walked back in. "Hey, what
happened here?"
<CRASH!><SPLASH!>
"Offhand," said Ranma looking up, "I'd say Kuno's in my
room."
An inhuman cry echoed through the house. "Squuuueeeeee!"
"And I'd say he found the cursed water," appended Ranma.
"I'll get him," Akane declared, running up the stairs.
"She isn't..." Ranma said, unable to believe she was doing
that. "Just great, I'll have to shift my Repel Water to
HER!" <dimension door>
"I wonder why..." Kasumi wondered about that. Ranma had
mentioned several times that he had a curse, but always
changed the subject when questioned about specifics. What
kind of curse could he have?
----------------------
"Squeeee Squeeee!"
Akane looked in the room but didn't see any sign of Kuno.
"Here, Tendo-san!" Ranma appeared in midair and caused a
globe of light to form around the youngest Tendo. "That'll
keep you from getting cursed."
"Yeah right," Akane said, looking for her usual target.
There was his blue kendo outfit. There was his bokken. There
was a smashed open wall and a shattered keg of water. Akane
stiffened as the implication hit her. Tatewaki Kuno,
greatest pervert of the school, was in HER home - WITHOUT
his clothes! "That, that, that PERVERT!"
"Hmmm?" Ranma asked, not seeing the connection. Stupid he
was willing to admit, pathetic to be certain,
egomaniacal -definitely, needlessly violent - relatively.
Pervert?
The doorbell rang, giving Ranma something ELSE to think
about.
----------------------
Shampoo was bored. Bored, bored, bored. Life as a plush
doll was *not* something she particularly fancied. She could
see, she could hear, she could feel. Moving or even blinking
didn't seem to be options. Sleeping she could do. Oddly
enough she felt calmer and more at peace than she had in her
memory.
Shampoo was assuming that this was because she apparently
didn't have blood or hormones going through her system, a
side effect of being a warm and fuzzy sort of toy. The
initial panic had worn away and was now down to a sort of
amused largely-detached observation.
So Shampoo had spent considerable time doing something
she'd never had time to do before. She was getting rather
introspective. Previously, time training had consumed her
life. One of the things she'd hoped would be different when
tracking down this mage was that the world wouldn't rely on
her to be Shampoo anymore. Her great grandmother could find
someone else to train, the other village girls could stop
with all the comments and gossip, Mousse could find someone
else to annoy, and Shampoo could find an Outsider male!
She'd known since she was fourteen that this was the way to
go. Not merely annoying to the point of near-homicidal
tendencies like Mousse. Nor like Razor, who was a very nice
weaponsmith with some healing training, but in a marriage
he'd be the properly deferential Amazon male. NOT what
Shampoo fancied in a lifemate.
So an Outsider had defeated her, he was male, he was
valuable to the tribe by her own great grandmother's
admission, and...
And apparently he'd set a trap up so that as she snuck into
his camp, it went off and Shampoo the Amazon Champion was
now the 7"tall plush doll. Her dignity was the first
casualty, quite obviously.
Then there was this girl. Not a proper Amazon at all. Nice,
though. Pleasant. The girl chatted to the doll about a great
many things while she was cooking. Shampoo had puzzled it
all out gradually, but her command of the Japanese language
was a few odd words she'd picked up listening to Sash talk
about that anime stuff. Still, it made this less intolerable
than it would have been.
And then some different girl had come in, started cooking,
and left. Shampoo had watched with horror as the oil caught
fire. As the flames spread closer, Shampoo would have been
screaming if she could. She could feel the heat, and knew
that she was a few seconds from burning to death.
Then the first girl came in and set everything aright. The
mage stuck his head in, casting a spell that caused the
flames to die, but it was the first girl who had SAVED her!
Not saving the village elder's great granddaughter, not some
odd fantasy of Mousse's creation, and certainly not the
Village Champion weighed down by responsibilities and
constantly having to meet OTHER people's expectations.
Shampoo's eyes got misty as the First Girl took her to the
door. She wasn't being left alone again. She was being
clutched to the girl's chest and just felt so... warm and
fuzzy.
Now if SOMEONE would just turn her back to normal.
-----EYECATCH----------
Ranma is in tuxedo with top hat. He sets the hat on a small
table.
"Hey, Kasumi, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!"
"But, Ranma, the last time you tried that..." Kasumi is in
an evening dress and looks concerned.
"Nothing up my sleeve. PRESTO!"
Akane, dressed in a bunny suit, has just been pulled out of
the hat and is hanging by her ears from Ranma's hand.
"You're a dead man, Saotome."
"Uhm, we'll be right back after these messages." <dimension
door>
---Shadar, Aramar 7th Age Of Man----
Thurin left the hated beast behind at the first chance,
then made his way through the Amazon Base.
He grumbled, he glared, and he generally acted royally
pissed. It kept most of them away. He was a Marine and
therefore had served on the old-fashioned spelljammers,
skyjammers, etherjammers, and other craft. This meant that
he was well acquainted with the race known as the Delphins
Amazons.
He was a dwarf, he was a warrior, he was a damn MARINE! He
was NOT cute!
(That had been one good thing about having the Kid around.
All the girls went after HIM and left ME alone.) Thurin
almost smiled. (Let's see Southern Cross Amazons tend to
follow the pie-slice design on their bases, so the drydocks
should be there. Yup. Now let's see... Dock Nine...)
Thurin grimaced at the sight of the ship. Osprey class
skyjammer, as promised. (There's an old saying among the
shipwrights. Manueverability, Versatility, Firepower,
Livability. Choose any two. Hmmph.)
The dwarf looked at the ship, looking vaguely like a
stylized hawk, and wondered how many battles this ship had
been through. "What a piece of junk!"
"HEY!" A silver skinned woman looked down from one wing.
"The Wildhorse has been through a few fights, but she'll
still d-hop capable and will do 75 kph in normal skyjamming
operations."
"Pfeh. An oriad? Besides, I've worked on Osprey class ships
before. The Stargazer, for one. One light ballista,
manueverability sucks, and it wallows in the water."
The oriad frowned. "Mage cannon, missile type. You're still
as grumpy as ever, are you, Thurin Kaille?"
"Do I know you?" The dwarf regarded the oriad. Problem was,
all nymphs tended to look alike. Oriads all looked either
like they were sculpted from stone or liquid silver. Well,
at least if they had a mage cannon they weren't *completely*
defenseless.
"Silvara, Engineer of the Wildhorse," the oriad proclaimed.
"Rank designate is sergeant, Captain."
"I ain't no officer, I work for a living," the dwarven
marine grumbled. "I'm also no mage so I can't operate the
cannon."
"You're the captain now," Silvara informed him. "Orders are
in your desk. We're going to go rescue some friend of yours
by order of the Empress."
That *did* surprise Thurin. "The Empress? Me, a Captain?
I'm a warrior, not an administrator."
A familiar voice broke into the conversation. "True, and I
thought that *I* would have been a much better choice, but
some people thought otherwise."
"Stormshadow?!" Thurin couldn't help but look around,
though he knew the elf would only show up when *he* wanted
to been seen. "Turn over a ship command to a rogue like you?
HAH! If you were the only other choice, no wonder they'd
make me Captain."
Shadows seemed to solidify as the elf stepped forward.
"Still stubborn as a rock and twice as harsh? I guess some
things don't improve with age. Still, you've hit on it. My
'talents' are more often employed in the field of special
operations."
Thurin considered the lanky form of the elf. He knew the
mage was overall a good person, if overly concerned with
uncovering the secrets of ancient magic. "So what are *you*
doing here? Are we expected to steal something?"
Stormshadow lost his customary smirk. "You'll see. We've
still got to wait for two more crewmen, so you'd better take
the time to read those orders."
-----Jusenkyo, China-------
"Ah sir," the Jusenkyo Guide said, guessing. He *thought*
this was a sir, but wasn't entirely sure. "You not want to
go there. Is over one hundred spring here, each with own
terrible tragic stor...urk!"
The Jusenkyo Guide clawed at the invisible fingers around
his neck as he was lifted into the air.
"Silence wretch. I want to know where Ranma Emeraldrank is.
Have you seen him?"
"Urk!"
"Never mind," the foppish looking figure drew a glowing
pattern in midair. "Ho ho. So he WAS here. And was
transformed into a girl by the magic of these pools? Let's
see what happens if I toss YOU in one!" <SPLASH>
The Guide crawled out of the pool. "Sir cannot curse me. I
already cursed by springs to act as Jusenkyo Guide and
Caretaker of this place."
"Whatever, you are of no use to me." The hunter adjusted
his lace collar briefly. "Hmmm. So he went from here to that
village of obnoxious women, then from there on. But to
where?"
"I not know."
"Of course you don't, vermin," the hunter said disdainfully
and cast a spell at the Guide. "Now, that should hold you
while I siphon off the magic of this site, then use the
power to get a lock on that boy's position."
"Kaw! Kaw!" The raven flew away before this crazy tourist
did anything else.
----Tendo-ke, Japan------
"Yes, can I help you?" Kasumi answered the door to find a
woman she didn't recognize standing there. She was a little
distracted though, as she had just noticed that the plush
doll she was carrying was CRYING?!
"Hello there," the woman said with a bow. "I received a
call from Soun Tendo stating my son was here. I'm Nodoka
Saotome."
"Oh," said Kasumi. "How nice. Won't you come in? My name is
Kasumi Tendo, and I'm Ranma's fiancee." (Oh dear, did I say
that?)
"Geez, Akane, all I did was..." Ranma came down the stairs
and stared at the doll in Kasumi's hands. "Oh heck. I forgot
entirely about her."
"Oh, Ranma, this is Nodoka Saotome."
"Oh hello." Ranma scratched his head. "Uhm, Kasumi, about
that doll you've got there..."
"You're Ranma? You're too old to be my son, he'd be only
sixteen."
"Son?!" Ranma blinked, this being enough to derail his
concentration rather adequately. "Uhm, actually, I think if
you go objectively chronologically in THIS universe I *am*
sixteen. It's just a few more years have passed for me
subjectively. You're my... mom?!"
"Who is your father?"
"Genma Saotome. Errrr. This isn't about a food bill is it?"
Nodoka blinked this time. "Why?"
Ranma sighed. "Well, it's like this. I used a seekerspell
to track his progress, tricky when the trail's that old so I
used a spirit-magic invocation. The spirits don't forget
that easily." Ranma grimaced. "Apparently neither do
storekeepers, gamblers, or a few dojo owners. Every town I
went into for provisions seemed to have someone ELSE trying
to get me for repaying HIS debts. I went through half my
gold stash just paying them off."
Nodoka blinked again. "That DOES sound like Genma. Oh,
Ranma, you're back!" <glomp!>
"Uhm, let me change the doll back to human before we get
too involved in this," Ranma requested.
-----------------
Akane entered her room, glad that she'd convinced Ranma to
drop the spell he'd cast on her earlier. It had felt
uncomfortable, like an extra layer of skin that didn't quite
fit. Something registered and she went into a defensive
posture immediately.
"Bweeeee!" (Akane Tendo, you have come to rescue me!)
A small black pig launched itself at her, dripping water.
Naturally, being a trained martial artist, Akane blocked the
attack.
"Bweeee! Bweee! Bweee!" (Ah, Akane, my love! Throw off the
chains of the spell that bind you to that foul sorcerer!)
"Ohhhh!" Akane got a good look at her attacker. "A piglet?
You look cold. C'mere. Don't be afraid."
The piglet slowly eased forward, looking very uncertain.
"Bweee? Bquiii squee squee snort skiii kwee." (This room?
Ah, so I have found the bedchambers of Akane Tendo!)
"You're all wet, poor thing." Akane held the little black
pig to her bosom, feeling his heart beat rapidly against
her. "Well, I guess I just need to warm you up. How's a hot
bath sound?"
"BWEeEE!" (That sounds most wonderful!)
--------------------
Nodoka watched as her son put the doll on a cushion, stood
well back, and put a hand up.
"Uhm, you two might want to get clear. Last I saw, this
girl was attacking me. If she doesn't go away quietly, I'll
have to use another spell, and right now my manna ain't that
high." Ranma looked over his shoulder at where his newly
acquired mother and Kasumi stood. They were joined a moment
later by Nabiki, dressed now in a pullover.
"Bag," said Ranma after a moment's consideration.
Kasumi and Nabiki got out of the carpetbag's way as it
waddled in. Nodoka merely stared, her normally immaculate
hair toinging out slightly.
Apparently rummaging in the interior, Ranma explained. "I
had just returned to this dimension when I ran into this
village of Amazons. Bag here started eating the first prize,
and I got challenged to a fight by one of the Amazons
present. When I defeated her, a whole bunch of other Amazons
tried to attack me. I escaped, but naturally I put up a set
of anti-sneak wards when I made camp for the night.
"This girl is the one who challenged me, and tried to sneak
into my camp. Hence her current status as a plush toy."
Ranma found what he was looking for and pulled an orb out of
his pack. "Since it might take me a few moments to get off a
binding spell if she's violent, I'll have to awaken one of
my travelling companions.
"Kyor," Ranma said to the orb after placing it on the
floor.
The orb shimmered and expanded, finally bursting and
revealing a non-orb shape.
"Oh, how," Kasumi was going to say cute but that would be a
blatant lie, "distinguished."
"That is one UGLY dog." Nabiki was not mincing words. Then
she frowned as some details of the anatomy registered. "What
the...?!"
The dog looked over each of them, golden eyes regarding
Nabiki and Nodoka's wrapped bundle briefly before deciding
that nobody in the room was an immediate candidate for
lunchmeat.
"You have a dog, son?"
"Aramar in the Seventh Age Of Man can be a dangerous
place," explained Ranma. "You're looking at one of the few
things that can eat a troll without being either poisoned or
killed by the regenerating properties. Kyor is an askanar.
Say hello, Kyor."
*"Hello Kyor."*
"Very funny."
*"Kyor think so."* The dog's golden eyes searched the room
again. *"No threat."*
"A telepathic dog, or no, that isn't quite a dog is it?"
Nabiki's eyes narrowed. The eyes looked more feline, and the
creature had a mix of feline and canine features in the body
structure as well. It was also huge and thickly built,
Nabiki was guessing about one hundred eighty pounds or so.
*"Kyor not like cities. Smelly. No room to run. Not fun. We
go back now?"*
"Actually, Kyor, I need you to guard. I'm going to
transform this doll back."
Kyor sniffed the doll, then trotted back. *"Put back in bag
when done. Not like it here."*
Ranma cast the dispel. The doll shimmered and changed.
"AIREN!" The Amazon Glomp was stopped in midpounce by a dog
knocking her out of the air and locking jaws around her
neck.
Everyone else, except Ranma, blinked. They hadn't seen the
dog move from a seated position near Ranma's feet, and then
it just suddenly was there with the girl in a compromising
grip.
*"She not intend harm. She try grab. Kyor stop. Kyor
kill?"*
"No, Kyor, just keep her away for now."
The dog backed off slightly, resuming his position near
Ranma.
"Did he just teleport?!" Nabiki grabbed the first
explanation that made sense.
Shampoo rubbed her neck to check for blood. "No, Shampoo
see. Dog move very fast."
"Askari Hounds can move *very* quickly when they want to,"
agreed Ranma. "Now, will you grant me a promise that you
won't hurt anyone here? Otherwise I'll just turn you into a
statue until I get a long distance teleport ready."
Shampoo winced at having her options cut down like that,
but when dealing with a wizard. She was about ready to flee
back to China anyway. "Shampoo promise."
"So, why did you pursue me Shampoo? I left your village and
had no intention of coming back. I never intended harm to
you or your village."
Shampoo considered *very* carefully. Spending an unknown
amount of time as a doll had taught her something that her
great-grandmother had despaired of teaching Shampoo:
caution.
"Shampoo no speak Japanese goodly. Is OK say Chinese?"
"Not speak goodly is an understatement," said Nabiki in a
tone that indicated amusement.
"Well, I'm running low on manna, but I suppose," Ranma said
reluctantly. It wasn't that he disliked Amazons, far from
it. He had some very good friends in House Rising Sun of the
Delphins Amazons. (They'd wanted to be much better friends,
that touch of alienness about them had always put him off.)
Shampoo waited until the glow of the spell appeared.
"<Okay. Here's the deal. In my tribe tradition and personal
honor count for a lot. When an Outsider male defeats an
Amazon, they must give the Kiss Of Life and marry the man in
question.>"
Ranma nodded. "Oh, I see."
Nabiki and Kasumi blinked. "WHAT?!"
Nodoka smiled and turned to Kasumi. "Best get the tea
things out, dear, this sounds like it will take awhile."
--------------------
"AAAAAAAAAA!"
"Ah, Akane Tendo, my love!"
"Where did you...? And where's P-chan?!"
Kuno smirked as he stepped from the bath. "Ah, Akane, this
must be fate itself that you should appear before me as
magnificently..."
Akane panicked. Kuno appearing out of nowhere, obviously
being HENTAI and then some. In fact, she KNEW he was glad to
see her. It was rather obvious. "AAAAAAAA!" Akane repeated
for good measure.
----------------------
"aaaaaAAAAAAAAAA!!" <ZOOM!> <ZOOM!>
The small crowd around the table did an eerie synchronous
blink.
"Uhm, the stress must be getting to me," Nabiki confessed.
"I could have sworn I saw something that was flagrantly
impossible."
"Oh dear, Akane really should wait until after she's
married before doing such things!" Kasumi made a mental note
to talk to Akane about this, and likely to schedule the
wedding SOON.
Ranma finally blinked. "Uhm, Nabiki, if it was your
youngest sister, nude, being pursued by an equally nude
Tatewaki Kuno across the dining room and out into your
backyard... that wasn't an optical illusion."
Nabiki blinked again. "MY CAMERA!" <Zoom!>
Nodoka waited calmly for Kasumi to fill her teacup. "My
goodness, is it always like this here?"
"aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa!"
"Akane Tendo, my love, come to me! Your invitation to bathe
with you is quite accepted!"
"<I never knew that the Japanese had such... bizarre
courtship rites.>"
*"Kyor think girl just genuinely repulsed."*
"So, Shampoo," Nodoka began, ignoring the still audible
wail of the running couple. "Can you explain what's going
on?"
"<With regard to myself, yes. I have NO idea what's going
on with those two. And who's that older man who just got
trampled?>"
"Oh, father father father."
"So, Shampoo, why don't you explain why you've got to marry
my son?" Nodoka ignored the chaos as best she could and just
concentrated on the first problem at hand.
---------------------
Nabiki went to Ranma's room, stepped over the puddle, and
took a position atop one of the casks. These pictures would
be worth a FORTUNE!
Nabiki eagerly snapped a set of photos. Some shots of
Akane. Some shots of Kuno. Some shots of Kuno and Akane!
Yes, this would sell for big yen. Not that she needed the
money, but it could go into her college fund.
<SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! CREAK! CRACK! SPLASH!>
"Aaaaa! Meow! Meow! Meow!" <CRACK! SPLASH!> "whoooo!
whooo!"
-------------------------
"I see," said Ranma, sipping his tea.
"<So you'll marry me?>"
"There's several problems with your proposal," noted Ranma.
"One, I will not stay in this world but will return to my
own as soon as I've cured this curse, determined what needs
to be done to clear my karma, and gotten THAT taken care
of."
"WHAT?!" Nodoka's aura of calm evaporated.
"I'm sorry, Mother," Ranma said with a sad smile, "but
Shadar is my home. I've friends and an adopted family,
responsibilities and duties. I'm a mage, but I also work for
the Imperial Palace itself."
"And what of your honor to your family? What of your honor
to your country? What of your duties as our firstborn?"
Ranma merely cocked an eyebrow at this. "Up until a few
minutes ago, the only family I knew of was my father. Unless
you count my adopted mother Lijra Diamondrank. As to my
country, Shadar *is* my country now. And to its defense and
well-being I am sworn."
Kasumi gathered her courage to do something that no one who
knew her would expect. At least no one who saw her as a meek
little hausfrau. "Ranma? When you leave, would you..."
Nodoka and Ranma watched Kasumi briefly stammer and shake.
"...would you take me with you..."
"<WHAT?! Don't tell me that YOU are my rival here?>"
Shampoo was upset.
Ranma blinked. "What do you mean rival?"
"Son, we *really* need to discuss this."
"<You can't be my rival. You're not even a warrior!>"
*"Loud. Wanna go home."*
"aaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaaa!"
"Akane! My <huff> fragile and <puff> delicate <gasp>
flower!"
"WAAAAAAA! Now my youngest daughter is getting married! Oh
happy day!" (And maybe this will give Kasumi and Ranma some
ideas!)
"whooo who whooooo!"
Ranma considered briefly the joy of a Silence 15' Radius
cast upon himself.
============================
A Different Art, chapter 3 "It's a nice day for a white
wedding..."
Ranma 1/2 by R.Takahashi, other char by other people and i
could see a LOT of crossover possibilities with this one.
NOTE: this is just meant to be amusing. Not Epic, not Great
Literature, not Canon, not Akanecentric. Can't deal with the
"nots" then save us both some frustration and read... well
"Hearts Of Ice" is mainly canon, sort of, and manages to at
least touch base with the other three.
"Don't go to the dwarves for answer, for they will tell you
they don't know, don't care, and will likely throw a party
to celebrate this attitude. On second thought, maybe you
*do* want to go to the dwarves..." -Selman the Halfling, "An
Adventurer's Guide To Shadar" 851 6th Age.
---------------------
"So, Ranma, explain," Nodoka said while looking askance at
her son.
Akane was upstairs, recovering from her ordeal. Where she'd
gotten the pet pig from, nobody was quite sure. There were a
few suspicions, but after a hesitant attempt to tell Akane
that her newly acquired pet might actually be the pervert in
question, and Akane's rather vicious response (flattening
Ranma) - nobody else was going to bring it up.
That left Nabiki (currently a pygmy owl that was
impatiently waiting for the water to be heated up) perched
on Kasumi's shoulder. Kasumi was looking a little "out of
it" due to the events of earlier this morning, as well as
having one sister sitting on her shoulder and another sister
having decked her fiancee less than fifteen minutes ago.
Shampoo wasn't sure WHERE she fit into all this, but had
noted that in a HTH fight she could take Akane. Akane could
take out Ranma. Therefore, Ranma in a strictly physical
battle would fall to Shampoo fairly quickly. Various
possibilities occurred to her. Using Formula 110, or just
dragging Ranma off to receive the Kiss Of Life (followed by
some more kisses and some quite etchi activity to consummate
the marriage), or a number of other scenarios kept coming
back to the same problem. When he could get to spellcasting
again, she might find a worse fate than being a plush toy in
store for her. Indecision racked the Amazon, so she was just
listening for now.
"Unnngh," said Ranma, holding an ice pack to his head.
*"Are you sure I can't eat her or the pig?"* The huge dog
asked politely of everyone before seeming to go back to
sleep.
Kasumi replied no. Eating Akane or her pet was not an
option.
"Son?"
"Yeah," Ranma took a deep breath and held up one finger on
the hand that wasn't holding the icepack. "Okay. I gotta go
back because the 'mother' who raised me and taught me magic
is there."
"Mother?" Nodoka frowned. It was logical that someone
raised Ranma, but she was less than thrilled with the
concept of someone else having that title in Ranma's life.
Ranma gestured, and a translucent image formed. Everyone
else stared. Ranma's gaze was more wistful.
"She's... not human, is she?" Nodoka said hesitantly.
"No. In fact, the only humans I'd heard of in the Seventh
Age were other people who'd been lost in time or across
dimensions like myself. Never met any of 'em," Ranma said.
He'd seen the Emperor but only at a distance. "Elves,
dwarves, orahm, tor, ogrii, halflings, burrowers, nymphs,
dragons, Amazons..."
"Amazons?!" Shampoo naturally seized on the opening.
"Delphins Amazons, I don't think you're related. They're
taller for one thing." Ranma shrugged. "Anyway, humans are
viewed as mythic creatures for the most part. Lijra's the
one who raised me, and she's what they call an ardrow. One
of a group of religiously persecuted elves from offplane,
who settled in Aramar where some evil goddess of spiders
couldn't reach 'em."
Nodoka looked over the lean woman with the black skin,
white hair, amber eyes, tapered pointed ears, and wondered
exactly what kind of mother this elf would have made.
"Second," said Ranma adding a second finger to the first,
"is duty. I'm currently an Emeraldrank mage working for the
Imperial Palace, part of a Company of troubleshooters.
Sapphirerank, the next official ranking among mages, is
*real* important. You're getting into raw power there.Then
there's Diamondrank, and beyond that's Namerank. Lijra's at
that level. Ya get to that level and you're mentioned by
name in treaties between kingdoms, things like that. So I'm
on leave now 'cause the diviners said that I had things to
get tied up back here before I take the next Ordeal.
"Third," Ranma indicated with another finger joining the
first two, "is that THERE is home now. I've spent quite a
few years learning magic with Lijra, then with Kharon, then
finally at the Lonely Tower. I've spent years perfecting my
skills with the Art serving first among spelljammers and
going to places like Waterdeep on Toril or the Rock Of Bral.
Then dimension hopping to places like Rehaven and Sigil. But
I've always come back to Aramar and the empire of Shadar
because it's *home.* It's all a part of me, now.
"The Festival Of Life, the Amazons' Sadie Hawkins race
(Imperial dispensation not to be a participant helps one
enjoy it!), the Flight Of Dragons, Dwarven Summerend, the
mouseling Party Of Fine. All the temples and priests and
magic." Ranma set the icepack aside and they could see the
longing in his eyes. "It's where I belong now."
Nabiki hopped down as Kasumi pulled the teakettle off a
burner. A moment later, and a restored to human Nabiki was
quickly dressing.
"What about your family here?" Nodoka asked with apparent
calm. "What of your fiancee?"
"That's Mister Tendo's idea," replied Ranma. "I didn't hear
anything about it before I got here. Kasumi-chan is nice,
and I really like her, but when I return home could you see
her coming along?"
Kasumi blushed and studied her hands. (He thinks I'm nice?
He really likes me? But, could I leave Japan? What about my
family? Who will clean up after Father? Who will cook for
them or fix Akane's messes? What kind of kitchen would there
be in that tower?)
Nodoka noted Kasumi's reaction, also that Nabiki was
blushing slightly, and the pensive look that Shampoo was
giving. (Interesting. Perhaps my son is manly to have so
many girls interested.)
Nabiki had no trouble with the "bedslave" curse while an
owl, but had almost slipped her iron control and glomped
Ranma. Regaining control and trying to concentrate on
something else, she wondered if the customs of this other
world were significantly different from Japan.
"Fourth," indicated Ranma, apparently not noticing other
people's discomfort, "there's so much I have *to do*!"
"This 'Lonely Tower' that you mentioned," Nabiki said as
she tried to focus on something besides how much she wanted
to pounce on Ranma, rip his clothes off, and make mad
passionate love right there on the dining room table. Other
than fast breathing, a slight flush, and that she was
staring at the table as if it had personally offended her,
there weren't any clues to the others. "Uhm, that's your
home?"
"Oh yes." Ranma nodded and changed the image to the tower
he had shown the two sisters earlier. The spiraling tower,
looking vaguely Arabic, thrusting up from the peak of the
mountain that seemed an island among the sea of forest
surrounding it. "I was granted the land of the tower by the
Emperor for services done. Me and a few friends had to clean
it out first, but it's a nice little place."
"Clean it out?" Kasumi asked curiously, thinking about
thick dust and cobwebs being attacked by a number of maids
with feather dusters.
"Yeah, there were kuei and ghouls in the lower levels,"
Ranma chuckled. "Giant spiders and other vermin in the top
levels. Then there's the dwarven caverns underneath, and
THEY had to be cleared. Goblins, y'know. Anyway, the White
Temple should be done purifying the site by the time I get
done here."
"Kuei?" Nabiki said, images of hungry ghosts managing to
cool her ardor momentarily.
"Giant spiders?" Kasumi said, turning pale as her image of
a group of maids dusting out cobwebs was replaced with huge
bloodsucking spiders being held at bay by spear-carrying
housemaids.
"White Temple?" Nodoka said with a frown. Hopefully he
hadn't gotten too much religious instruction, it could have
stunted his manliness.
"Yeah, some good folk there. Not good warriors, but good
folk." Ranma smiled at a private joke. "Anyway, the White
Temple are batting clean up. By the time they're done, that
tower will be safer from evil influences than most places."
"Oh," Kasumi thought about it, and decided if it were
safe... it probably needed a woman's touch though.
"I don't get an idea of the scale from this, it's kind of
fuzzy," observed Nabiki.
"The mountain's only eight hundred feet tall. The forest
isn't much, some old trees but the tallest ones are sixty
feet tall tops. The tower itself is only five floors, about
seventy feet across." Ranma looked apologetic. "I'm only an
Emeraldrank, after all."
"..." Nabiki considered the worth of such land and space in
terms of the real estate she was used to: Tokyo Japan.
Kasumi wondered how difficult such a place was to clean,
and how big the kitchen was.
Nodoka wondered if her son was sufficiently manly, and
should she mention the contract that Genma had signed?
"So, anyway, I've still got to cure this curse. Once I've
got that fixed I can cure Nabiki's since they're both
Jusenkyo curses." Ranma pointedly looked up at the ceiling
in the direction of Akane's room. "AND someone else's if
Akane will let me."
"Ranma," Kasumi steeled herself again. "What kind of curse
are you referring to?"
"Hmmm? Oh, I've got a couple of curses. Comes with the
territory mainly. The one me and Nabiki share is a Jusenkyo
curse. Transformation curse, water aligned, old faerie
magic. Doesn't look like spirit-magic will be effective, so
the next thing to try is air or wood."
There was much blinking.
"So, you turn into an owl too?" Nabiki held her cooling tea
and tried not to look suspicious.
"Uhm, no. It's worse than that. I originally thought it was
Spring Of Drowned Girl, because it looked like I just
changed genders, but the Guide told me that it was Spring Of
Drowned Amazon. Okay, I thought that wasn't a big deal. It
turned out it WAS a big deal, though."
Nabiki was tired of waiting. She threw the tea.
Ranma changed, as he had indicated, into a girl. What
nobody had expected was that the transformation was from
embarassed boy to damn-near-hysterically panicked girl. "Hot
water, hot water, hot water! Quick!"
Nodoka had serious doubts about the manliness of her son.
"What's the big deal, Ranma-kun, at least you stay
*human.*" After spending time as a pygmy owl, Nabiki was
much less impressed with Ranma changing into a busty
redheaded girl.
"You don't understand. This body is magically unstable! If
I even accidently rhyme, a spell will go off. If I so much
as sneeze, I could trigger a wild surge! I think it's
possible to spellsing in this form, but I'd rather try and
juggle fireballs. It'd be safer!"
Shampoo asked why everyone was back to speaking Japanese.
As she was asking this in her native tongue, nobody else
quite understood.
"Also the spells near me tend to either dispel or twist."
Ranma was passing her previous state of panic and
approaching apoplectic.
Soun had finally recovered enough to rush in. "Well, that
isn't so bad, and now that your mother is here we can hold
the wedding immediately!"
"Quick! Hot water before something happens." Ranma shook
her head at Soun. "Mister Tendo, I never agreed to this
marriage thing, what of your daughter's happiness?"
<FLAM!> Purple flames gouted in midair.
"That didn't rhyme," noted Nabiki as dozens of big yellow
rodents appeared out of the purple flames and went racing
off across the backyard.
"Wild surge," said Ranma with a wince. "Looks like a
crossdimensional tear. Well, it could be worse, like if it
affected your Jusenkyo curse."
<PHOOM!> Nabiki was limned in sparkles. "KASUMI! Get that
hot water!" It was Nabiki who was now in Full Panic mode.
"What did you do?!"
"I don't know!" The redhaired girl looked exasperated AND
scared now.
"SAOTOME, WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY LITTLE GIRL?!" Soun began
to manifest his demonic head attack.
"I don't know! Something about her owl curse! All I know,
it's probably, oh thanks Kasumi." <SPLASH>
Nabiki twitched. (I'm really batting 100 here. First I go
poking around in a magical lab, and get hit with a curse of
raging libido, then I try to get a few photos, and get
cursed to turn into an owl, then I get impatient and now...)
"Uhm, Ranma, how do I find out what's happened to me?"
Kasumi splashed Nabiki.
"Whooo?!"
"All it did was change your coloration, Nabiki." Kasumi
smiled at her sister, making a mental note to research what
pygmy owls ate and try to stock some of it. Maybe a nice
travel cage for long trips...
"Whewwwwww!" Nabiki-owl looked relieved, then held up one
of her wings so that she could inspect it. "Whoo-whoo!"
(Hmmm. No color vision in this form. I hope I don't moult.
Hmmm. I could use a nice mouse right about now, wonder if
Kasumi could stock a few.)
"Well, son, I have some bad news," Nodoka said, pulling a
piece of paper out of her sleeve and handing it to Ranma.
"Hmmm?" Ranma looked it over. "What does a 'man among men'
mean in this context?"
---Shadar, 7th Age---
Multitask vessels like Osprey class ships were rather a
jack-of-all-trades approach. IE: it did a number of things
fairly well, but none of them exceptionally.
Osprey class ships were rated 25 tons in the "Djinn's Guide
To Ships" and had a single sail vertically, plus a set of
wing-sails to the side. They could land in water, though
they wallowed, and it was normal for them to be set down on
the ground. Their cargo capacity was quite limited, compared
to the huge Albatross or Dragonsclaw class ships
particularly. Smugglers and couriers tended to favor the
smaller and more manueverable designs like the Peregrine or
the Ferret. Warships ranged from the nimble Dragonfly II to
the fearsome Kraken.
Thurin Kaille had served aboard a Ferret once, a Kraken on
another occasion, but tended to favor ships like the Sword
class. Ships that were built sturdily, had a number of
weapons, and could be used to ram when needed. You couldn't
ram in an Osprey and there was only one weapons turret.
The dwarf stared at the orders, cursed briefly, then called
Stormshadow in. If ANYONE knew more about what was going on,
it would be that damn sneaky elf. Or Yusef the Short, but
the Bazaar was quite a ways off and the information
specialist/barber was likely to require details of the
finished mission as part of his payment.
"You've read it?"
Thurin jumped and turned around. "Don't DO that!"
The elf smirked from where he was sitting. In the Captain's
chair, naturally. "So what did you want, Captain? The
mission objective is pretty clear."
"Who are we waiting for?"
The elf raised an eyebrow. "A cleric, healer I think, and
an Amazon - probably from House Rising Sun."
"A pacifist and an Amazon," Thurin groaned. "Do you know
WHY we're going after Ranma? And get your boots off my
desk."
Stormshadow shrugged, but took his feet off the desk.
"Officially, I don't know. Unofficially, one of the
Emperor's espers had a 'seeming' that Ranma needed to get
back and go through his Ordeal and soon. That's the rumor at
least."
"Let me guess, one of the ninjas from China Grove?"
Stormshadow nodded and relaxed a little into his chair.
"Yup. Got it one. So likely the Amazon's either from the
espers or is a ninja."
"I thought YOU were one of the Emperor's ninja."
"Who, lil' old me?" Stormshadow did his best to look
innocent. "Do I *look* like a Delphins?"
"True, if you WERE a male Delphins, you'd be surrounded by
a half dozen wives and likely not allowed to step outside
for danger of something happening to you." Thurin actually
chuckled at the thought. All the sentient races had
different ratios of male to female, and that affected their
marriage customs. He himself hadn't seen his wife in five
years, but doubted that with the other four husbands that
she missed him. Elves had a four-one female to male ratio,
dwarves were one to six, most of the halflings were
one-to-one or two-to-one, but the Delphins were
twenty-to-one even using magic to encourage male births. As
for nymphs, they never aged and lacked males of their own
species.
Silvara knocked hesitantly on the door. "Sir, the Delphins
has just come aboard."
Thurin and Stormshadow exchanged a glance. Silvara
sounded... amused? It had taken Thurin awhile to place the
chrome-colored nymph, he'd actually served aboard a ship
with her and Ranma about three years ago.
Stormshadow was deep in thought when an idea forced itself
through. "Oh no. Don't tell me it's Garr."
"Ah, Stormshadow, you're already there? Yes, it is."
Silvara's voice indicated further amusement.
"Get him belowdecks before we get mobbed," Thurin said,
covering his eyes with one hand. "If the Southern Cross
finds out HE'S aboard..."
"We'll have Amazons trying to sneak aboard and hide to the
extent that our weight allowance will be overwhelmed,"
Stormshadow lost his smirk. "And don't YOU go doing
anything, Silvara, you know how easily spooked the boy is."
"Awww, that's no fun."
"So we've got a Tracker, that'll make some of this easier."
Thurin admitted after a moment. "With his ability to 'find'
things, it might not take long. Providing the cleric shows
up before word gets out that Garr of Rising Sun is aboard."
Stormshadow groaned at another thought, the customary smirk
quite absent. "I think I know what the hurry is on this
mission."
"Huh? Well, enlighten me."
"Garr is the same age as Ranma, right?" Stormshadow shook
his head, not believing he had missed this. "Both are at the
marriageable age for the Delphins, right? And Delphins are
the closest match for human in general makeup, right? Want
to bet that the Amazons petitioned the Emperor for Ranma to
be included in a certain Coming-Of-Age rite?"
Thurin blanched. "Not the Race? Oh, by the Seal. I actually
feel sorry for the boy."
------Tendo-ke, Nerima------
Akane flumphed back onto the bed. "Honestly, P-chan, where
did Kuno come from?"
"Bwee!" (Clearly we are meant to be together, as soon as I
vanquish the foul sorcerer who has done such a thing!)
"I was just taking you in to warm you up, then he appears
and tries to MOLEST me!" Akane shuddered. "At least he
didn't hurt you!"
"Buqiii! Snort!" (Ah, to worry about me so. Your love for
me seeps out behind the vile spell that the sorcerer Saotome
has cast upon you! Do not fear, for I am with you!)
"And trying to tell me that Kuno was right here! Honestly,
I don't see what Kasumi sees in that creep. I don't see
Kuno, do you, P-chan?"
"Bwee?" (Alas, my poor Akane, how terrible that both of us
have been laid low by the demon's spells. You with this
bewitchment that has you denying your love for me. Myself
with this horrible shape. How can the Heavens not weep or
resound in anger at this injustice?)
"I don't either." Akane sighed and stroked P-chan as he
crawled into her lap. "I've got to do something, P-chan! If
I don't, he might marry Kasumi! She has no clue about him!"
"Biii?! Buu... Biii!" (You mean he really isn't secretly
pursuing you? How dare he ignore the grace and tidy beauty
of my love! How... dare... he? Oh, Akane, how strong and
soft your fingers are as they stroke me. I cannot wait to
return to human form that you may do so properly!)
"You like being scratched there, P-chan? That's my baby."
Akane continued to rub along the mid spine of the pig
snuggling into her lap. She had to save Kasumi! (He may not
be a 'foul sorcerer' but he's *completely* wrong for Kasumi.
I KNOW! I'll tell Doctor Tofu, he'll beat Ranma up, and
we'll be rid of him!)
-----------------------------
"So, because I'm cursed to turn into a girl, and I'm not
'sufficiently manly' by these Japanese standards, I'm
supposed to put a knife in my own gut, swirl it around some,
and then act stoic while you cut my head off?" Ranma
blinked. "You know, I thought that the DWARVES had some
weird customs but this just blows them out of the water."
Kasumi noted that Ranma's mother was quite serious, and
looked at first as if she would faint. Then, in accordance
with samurai ancestry, the steel began to show. (Mother or
not, she is *not* going to kill my iinazuke on a snap
judgement!)
Nabiki-owl merely sped off to find some hot water. She
REALLY needed to be able to talk.
Nodoka nodded, unwrapping her katana. "Honestly, I cannot
see how you could be sufficiently manly..." <CLONG>
Lest anyone think differently, that last was the sound of a
bonbori "slipping" out of the hand of a certain Amazon and
knocking the woman in question unconscious. "Oops, Shampoo
clumsy today. Very sad. Maybe make up for lapse with ancient
Amazon custom of washing hair of prospective mother-in-law?"
"No, Shampoo," Ranma said with a certain distracted air.
(This makes absolutely no sense. Is this really my
homeland?) "I'll have to admit that 'manliness' isn't
something that I gave much thought to. The standards of each
race and subculture is a bit different, but acting like a
Southern Cross Amazon on shore leave after a five year
mission doesn't fit into any sort of plan on MY agenda."
Shampoo looked disappointed as she tucked the bottle of
Formula 110 away.
"What's going on?" Akane came down, looking askance at the
group. Introductions had been made when Ranma had been
trying to explain something about P-chan.
Kasumi swallowed. "Errr. Ranma's mother says that because
he isn't sufficiently 'manly' she's got to kill him."
Akane blinked. "Well, admittedly, he ain't much..."
"HEY!" Kasumi and Shampoo protested this assessment.
"...but that seems a bit harsh." Akane pondered for a brief
moment whether she ought to support this action anyway, as
it would at least save her sister.
"Shampoo ask that Airen put spell back in place that let
everyone speak Amazon dialect. Shampoo having trouble
following conversation."
"Not enough manna for me to cast much, Shampoo." Ranma
looked at his unconscious "mother" (still trying to get used
to the idea he had one) and at all the girls, finally
focussing on the pig rubbing his head against Akane's
breast. "You know, she's really gonna be ticked when she
figures that out."
"Why do you keep picking on P-chan?" Akane grumbled at the
boy. She liked the vaguely exotic pet, and P-chan seemed
cleaner than most housepets.
"Bwee!" (The foul sorcerer cannot cast spells currently?
Alas that I am stuck in this foul shape, though held tightly
between the soft white mounds of my True Love. Ah, what an
interesting contrast, that I experience the hell of
frustration and the heaven of my love's affection at the
same time!)
"Well, I'd better go replenish my manna. There's a couple
of tricks for that." Ranma winced as there was *always* a
tradeoff, but things were going too quickly to take his time
with any of it.
-----the Wildhorse-------
"The first thing is to report at the Imperial Palace," Garr
informed his Captain.
Thurin grunted. He hated court appearances.
"I'm to stay on the ship, for obvious reasons."
Thurin grunted again. They'd barely escaped the dock after
a horde had been sighted heading their way. Damn
overprotective Amazons. Especially the young ones. Garr was
an okay kid, but once the rumor had gotten out that there
was a MALE of their species possibly going into danger...
"Frosty will also stay behind."
Thurin frowned at this. "He could go. He's able to
shapeshift again."
"He's even less comfortable in the Imperial Court than you
are."
"Not possible." Thurin couldn't believe anyone hated all
that crap more than he did. Even a Healer priest.
"After that, I expect we're going after Ranma."
Thurin smirked. "Nope."
Garr blinked and sat back. "OK. Why not?"
Thurin's smirk turned into a grin. "Because, this didn't
come from the Emperor. That elf has come up with three
rumors he's overheard since we got aboard this ship. That
we're going after Ranma because he's needed for a prophesy,
because of the Race, or we're going to go rescue him from
Wyndlace. No. This bears the markings of being of the work
of the Third Empress."
"In which case, anything obvious is not going to be
correct." Garr cocked his head. "Actually I was hoping the
bit about the Race was true. He'd take some of the heat off
me."
"Wishful thinking."
The main reason i did this was because Red Death, he of the
Ranma 1/2 Superhighway, has a continuation of "A Different
Art" listed on his "wishlist page." i really didn't have any
intent of picking this one back up, but encouraging words
tend to have an effect.
OK, this Ranma's cocky and arrogant, but a bit more subtle
about it. He's a powerful mage (in AD&D terms he can cast
7th level spells), but only a fair martial artist. No
Nekoken, though he would turn out to have a lycanthropic
"curse" if he ever gets rid of the Jusenkyo curse. He also
tends to over-rely on magic and overdo the magic when he
uses it. He's far less open, having many hidden plots and
secrets. Nothing nasty or evil, but much more introverted.
He also looks older, and attends Furinkan as Staff- not a
student.
Akane doesn't trust Ranma. There's some hostility there but
nothing like the open antagonism of the manga. She's FAR
superior in hand-to-hand fighting over Ranma if it comes to
that. Or she could be cursed to do the Macarena if she
doesn't catch him by surprise.
Nabiki isn't as inclined to push around Ranma. She also
vacillates between seeing him as an exploitable source of
wealth, and someone so potentially dangerous that she'd
prefer he moved elsewhere. Of course, depending on who draws
her forth from the bottle, this may change until Ranma
figures out the spellkey and can cancel the effect.
Kasumi sees Ranma's bad points, his good points, and finds
him quite attractive. To her, he is the fairytale prince
come to sweep her off her feet and take her to his castle
far away. Therefore she's putting a mainly positive spin on
anything he does.
Soun sees Ranma as the Heir to Anything Goes, but as Kasumi
and Ranma seem to be getting on so well (as opposed to open
confrontation and mutual insults) and because Genma isn't
there to back him up, isn't as pushy.
Shampoo's transformed back early in Chapter Two mainly
because of Kasumi bringing the doll to Ranma's attention.
Shampoo gives Kiss Of Life to the person who saves her life
after Akane fixes lunches and starts a grease fire. Kasumi.
This also causes a quandary as Shampoo tries to figure out
how she can repay a life-debt to her main competition.
Nodoka would arrive in Chapter Two. Genma and his daughter
are out on a training mission, so they wouldn't arrive until
much later.
Ranma starts figuring out how to cure a Jusenkyo curse,
when Tatewaki Kuno manages to smash open a keg of the cursed
waters and suffer the usual consequences. Now Kuno is
*really* out to make Ranma suffer. Ranma does cure his
curse, or at least the Jusenkyo one.
Nodoka will likely think her son is very manly, and finds
out that as soon as he's cleared a major segment of his
"karmic backload" he plans on returning home. Home is in the
fantasy realm he's spent most of his life in. NOT Japan.
Very different culture in many respects. Polygamy, for
example, isn't unheard of. Considering Nodoka's views on
manliness, this might produce a *very* different take on the
fiancee mess in her eyes. Ranma has *no* interest in
continuing the Anything Goes school or the dojo, but is
grateful to be reunited with his mother. It isn't enough to
make him want to stay in Japan though.
Ukyo would be overjoyed to find out that her childhood
friend is still alive. Ryoga would be overjoyed at a chance
to wreck Ukyo's happiness. Ukyo is more feminine, but still
enjoys crossdressing. In this case it is more of a thing she
does to get respect instead of the whole "deny your
femininity" schtick. Ryoga thinks of Ukyo as a boy who
crossdresses though.
Eventually, as early as Chapter Three, Ranma *does* return
home to go live a life of Epic Fantasy. Who goes with him,
*that* would be the question.
Oh well, maybe i'll write more eventually, or someone who
has a feel for this sort of thing (suggest using a well
known commercial mileau such as the Forgotten Realms if so
(Ranma as a Chosen of Mystra?) may take it over. Or even
someone may take a number of the ideas here and run with
them.
have fun,
gregg
--
-----------------------------------------
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mail: metro...@mindspring.com
"The real art of conversation is not only to say
the right thing in the right place, but to leave
unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
-Dorothy Nevill