PANGEA: "The Land That Time Ignored"
Pangea01
PANGEA:
"The Land That Time Ignored"
(A side-story to
"A Tale of Two Wallets,"
by yours truly:
Jim Robert Bader)
(Inspired by the works of Rumiko Takahashi Kosuke Fujishima, Naoko Takeuchi & Others, with characters, ideas and situations created or suggested by my fellow fanfic writers DB Sommers, Ryan Anderson, T.H. Tiger (Peter Schell), Ted Hsu, Rann Aridorn, Bill Guiroff, Wade Tritschler, Mike Koos and Steve Thesken, take a bow, people!)
FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE...
(with apologies to Lee Falk...)
This is a side-story detailing the adventures of Ranma and Nabiki during the time they spent between their encounters in Nekonlon China and their eventual arrival back home in Nerima. This story has many adult themes and some seriously Hentai action, so please refrain from reading if you are easily offended by sexually explicit encounters between semi-mature teenagers with many borderline themes that might be a bit strong for the average reader. Some of this is "Over-the-top" and should not be taken more seriously than you would the average Edgar Rice Burroughs rip-off, so if Jungle themes set in a "Jurassic Park"-like setting are not your bag, consider yourself duly warned from this point onward...
To recap important elements of this story (since it's been a while since I wrote my last ATOTW chapter), Ranma and Nabiki are engaged to be married with Shampoo in an Amazon three-way arrangement. Ranma has just defeated Prince Kirin to win Nabiki back as his fiancée and has openly declared his intention to marry her, even as Shampoo is implicitly a part of the bargain (and since Shampoo is now confirmed as pregnant with his child, it would hardly be "manly" for him to refuse her at this point, ne?)...
Important changes from canon: Nabiki has been adopted into the Amazon tribe and has been apprenticed to become a Lore Master under the tutorage of the Elder Lotion. Already she has begun to develop unusual abilities of a not-easily defined nature, and while not a serious martial artist like Ranma, she is quite formidable in her own rights with the ability to "know" the strengths, weaknesses and hidden potential of a given opponent... Shampoo already considers Nabiki to be her wife and is sexually active with her, and her curse has been modified so that her Neko form has wings and is capable of gliding for limited distances. She acts in the capacity of self- appointed bodyguard to her Airen, and though she is nurturing Ranma's child she still remains quite fearsome as a fighter...
Ukyo, meanwhile, has a Jusenkyo curse of her own, having fallen into Nanniichuan during a personal trip to China. This has complicated her life somewhat since she is now being actively pursued by an amorous Akane, who herself has the Jusenkyo curse of sprouting a pair of fully functional wings whenever she gets wet. At the same time Ukyo is strongly attracted to her old middle-school flame, Makoto Kino, to whom she has made a serious commitment (much to the intense annoyance of Akane and a certain meddlesome goddess by the name of Peorth of the Roses)...
Peorth---who once was merged with her mortal template, Kimiko Tendo (and who considers Akane to be her spiritual daughter, owing to the fact that Kimiko was pregnant during their merger)---has taken an active interest in bringing Akane and Ukyo together (for the alleged happiness that she hopes this will bring to Akane), but---as tends to be the case with many of Peorth's best laid plans---her attempts have so far met with less than sterling success, the latest plot resulting in Akane unwittingly winding up spending the night in passionate whoopee with the wrong woman, Minako Aino (who herself has a serious crush upon Makoto and is jealous of Ukyo for that reason)...
{And yes, the Senshi are definitely involved here, Usagi and Ranma being cousins and all, which means lots of cute "Magical Girl" action can be expected, with the added side-note that Usagi and Rei are romantically involved here, while Ami's resemblance to Akane is a topic of serious contention...}
Prince Kirin---proving to be a remarkably good loser in his attempt to marry Nabiki---has graciously extended the use of his Royal Airship as a means for the happy couple to return home with the Martial Arts Immortal known as "Mon-Mon" acting as his diplomatic representative for Nekonlon interests...however, due to a series of unfortunate errors in judgement on the part of the ship's captain, the duty of navigator was accidentally assigned to Ryoga, who has---predictably---steered the airship somewhat off-course from its intended destination...
(Set within the timeframe of Chapter 101 of ATOTW, with substantial borrowings of text to help the average reader in following the text from this point onward...)
Episode Oh-Point-One: Rude Landings
The Nekonlon Skyship---Somewhere over the Atlantic:
Akane stirred, awaken from a deep and intensive slumber by a slight movement at her side. Being a trained martial artist she naturally came alert, in spite of a sense of having come out of something highly pleasurable that was worth continually doing. She could not account for this extraordinary good feeling, or why there was that peculiar taste in her mouth (her memories being rather fogged at the moment), but there was one thing of which she was absolutely quite certain.
She needed to get up and use the little girl's room...real bad! Her bladder was full and severely protesting a need for relief that would brook no denials.
Climbing out of bed, she took no notice of the peculiar lump that was presently hogging one half of the sheets, stumbling half-asleep towards the privy with only one thought on her mind: finding the throne and making her deposit. (She just hoped what these Nekonlon people took for toilet paper wouldn't scrape her bottom too badly). The urgent need that was the call of nature distracted her sufficiently long enough from questioning the peculiar sense that she had not been alone the previous night, though some residual memories were starting to peek through the haze surrounding her awareness.
Thus unnoticed, her erstwhile nocturnal companion awoke with a slight intake of breath, feeling a twinge about her skull that spoke of the equivalent of a hangover, and with that a sense that something very significant had transpired in the hours before losing conscious awareness. A long and active career as a Senshi put her on the alert for the strange, bizarre and unusual, but all that greeted her when she opened her eyes was an empty, unlit room, one that seemed only vaguely familiar until she reached over to a nearby lamp and fumbled to turn on the electric mechanism.
Yellowish light flickered to life and revealed the room that she had commandeered for herself and Makoto, but naturally her fellow Senshi was no where to be seen, a fact which left Minako Aino more than slightly annoyed. Her next thought was to wonder where the big goof had gotten herself off to, and did she really want to know the answer? Almost instinctively she knew that Makoto had been with Kuonji, a fact that did little to improve her mood and if anything aggravated her budding headache.
Well, nothing to be done for it now but to find some aspirin and discover what these Nekonlon types did to cure a hangover. (Odd to think that she had one of those, for Minako was not normally a drinker) A shower or a good bath could wait until she had that little detail attended to, after which she intended to hunt Makoto down and skin her alive just for the principle of the thing. Imagine not coming by to wake her after spending all that time eating dinner. Minako had been looking forward to enjoying Makoto's home-cooked fare, which she had promised to everyone would taste a whole lot more satisfying than boiled rice and pickles!
Knowing she would look a mess, Makoto didn't bother to dress in anything fancy, just grabbed a nearby kimono that she found hanging from a handy coat hanger and slipping it on with a few quick motions. She did not even bother finding her shoes as the room felt fairly warm and she much preferred to walk barefoot in the morning. She was almost to the door when she discovered something peculiar in her wardrobe and paused long enough to fish the thing out, holding it up to the light and studying it with some confusion as she belatedly recognized it as a long white feather.
A white feather? But...how...?
Donning a peculiar expression that much befit the mood she was in, she opened the door and slipped out into the hall, closing it just in time as the door to the privy slid back to reveal a much-relieved Akane.
Akane was feeling grateful to know that the Nekonlon at least believed in the concept of indoor plumbing. Being somewhat fastidious by nature, cleaning her hands after using a stool was almost second nature, drummed into her with the force of habit by many chiding remarks from Kasumi. She was only slightly annoyed that it had been cold water that splashed her, which was why her wings were back in place, but having them gave Akane the idea of getting some flying time down to help release some of her pent up energy. The clean air was bound to clear her mind of lingering cobwebs.
The only problem was what to wear while flying, and it was a problem fortunately solved when she took notice of a pair of short pants with matching tank-top neatly folded onto a nearby chair, exactly in her size no less, which made her silently thank the room service people who worked this ship, always hovering in the background with their black-and-white outfits and hoods helping them to pass all but unnoticed by the ship's patrons. Slipping on these comfortable clothes felt so good that Akane resolved not even to bother with a bra or panties, considering this sufficient garb to obstruct the amorous views of any observant Hentai who might happen to be lingering about the decks (she sent another silent thanks to Hinako-Sensei and hoped her homeroom teacher was keeping the old pervert busy).
Akane was almost to the door when she paused, coughed a bit and discovered something lodged between her teeth, which forced her to spend a moment extricating it with her fingers. Holding it up to the light (and it only now belatedly occurred to her to wonder who had turned the light on during her time in the privy) she studied it with some slight amazement, wondering how such a thing could have gotten into her mouth, and was it really a yellowish hair, as fine as silk yet no longer than the joint of one finger?
Puzzled beyond imagining, she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
Once out on the deck she felt the pleasantly cool wafting breeze of early morning caress her skin and body, her wings automatically unfolding a bit as though they, too, caught the morning drafts and seemed quite restless to get airborne. Akane smiled as she wasted no time moving towards the rail so that she could lean forward and take in the spectacular view of the sun beating against the ocean far below them. There was a heavy cloudbank dead ahead of where the Nekonlon airship was gliding, but she took little notice of this, having her mind set on getting in some practice swoops so that she could work on her aerial combat skills and further refine them. She was getting rather good in the use of her wings and the feeling of soaring always gave her such a thrill that she ached to get started, anticipating that a few hours in the sky would help her work up quite an appetite for breakfast with Ucchan.
With this thought in mind she climbed over the rail and stood balanced on her bare feet as she unfolded her wings and took a long step into the airless nothing. Automatically she employed her newfound gift of levitation to help her catch her fall and turn it into lateral motion as she sailed away from the airship, spreading her wings to catch the first thermal updrafts of the morning and using these to carry her aloft as she floated into the air with her six meter long wingspan.
Unbeknownst to her, however, a certain pair of eyes were watching even as a lovely tattooed face of indeterminate age and unsurpassable beauty set itself into a wistful expression, and then the Goddess Peorth sighed, "Why don't things ever work out like they're supposed to?" as though beseeching an answer from the very heavens.
She turned a glance back over her shoulder towards the cabin that her "daughter" had just exited and frowned with annoyance. Her perfect plans to attempt to ensnare Ukyo Kuonji in bed with Akane had gone somewhat awry, but thankfully Akane did not seem to remember what had happened, or with whom she had just "done the nasty" on the previous evening. That blonde bimbo, Minako, was supposed to be Peorth's unwitting ally in her plot to get Ukyo separated from that Kino girl, the blonde being deeply in lust with her fellow Senshi, and it should have gone like clockwork. Peorth had supplied the drug that would enflame the desires of anyone who imbibed it with the sole express intent of getting Minako and Makoto together, all the better to clear the way for Akane to finally bed her "Ucchan." Instead Minako and Akane had wound up making out with each other all night long and never the wiser that the ones whom they had intended to bed were in the next room adjacent to their own, making out themselves like rabbits.
And---unlike with Akane and Minako---those two were very much aware of who it was whom they woke up with in bed, and---in spite of a very slight fog over the details---they were happily content to accept the consequences and implication, the cursed girl-turned-boy more than satisfied to declare her affections for an entirely satisfied Makoto. This was not at all what Peorth had wanted, and it was enough to make her grind her teeth together as she realized that the ties between Chef and Senshi were now stronger than ever. The task of getting Akane together with Ukyo was made that much more complicated, not that Peorth intended to accept defeat that grandly. Somehow she would just have to contrive to do better the next time, but for the sake of Akane's future happiness, Peorth was more than willing to go the distance.
"Just you wait, Kuonji," the Rose Goddess grumbled ominously, "I'm not done with you yet, not by a longshot..."
And with that declaration just made, Peorth vanished from the shadows, unaware that she herself had been observed by yet another party operation in the background.
"We will see about that, Divine One," remarked the wizened old elder named Lotion, "Even the best laid plans of the gods can have unforeseen consequences..."
Akane, of course, was oblivious to all of this and instead had her mind and body focused upon the simple joys that came with flying. More than just the wings on her back, she had aileron pin feathers that extended out from her legs which assisted her in stabilizing her flight path, and with her gift for levitation she found the sky was her playground and the distant ocean below her held no threat to her whatsoever. It was becoming difficult to sea the ocean itself, yet somehow she instinctively knew the directions for up and down and had the sun rising up over the horizon to further guide her. Unlike her former boyfriend, Ryoga, she seemed to be endowed with an internal guidance system so that there was no danger in becoming lost or disoriented while airborne, and since she did not intend to stray far from the Nekonlon airship she had relatively little trouble keeping pace with it and even surpassing it for airspeed.
The thin air that prevailed at this altitude was only a mild problem for breathing, and she somehow was able to resist both wind pressure and the temperature of the air as though her "cursed" form (and what a novel idea it was to consider THIS for a curse!) was somehow naturally adapted for this environment. It almost felt as though she were born to fly, like she was reclaiming her natural birthright. This made her wonder if there might be other aspects to her curse that she had yet to fully explore (besides the ones her mother had been showing her in dream form), and she intended to discover what else she might be able to do even as she arched her wings and glided along on a warm draft that she had somehow intuitively sensed was about to reach her.
Now this was an experience to exhilarate any martial artist's heart and fancy, to move through the air with the ease of a practiced swimmer would glide through water (and never mind that Akane sucked at swimming, having all the natural buoyancy of a stone prior to gaining her cursed form). Nothing to impede you distract you from the simple joy that flight bestowed upon the winged Tendo sister, only freedom and the open space that extended all around you in every direction. The sky was truly her limit at this moment, and as such it was easy to forget her growing list of personal complaints that the mundane world had to offer. Her frustrations over Ukyo, her qualms about the current activities of her two older sisters, even the thought that she would soon have Ranma as her brother-in-law, all of this failed to damper her good mood and the exuberant joy of being in her true element for the first time in her life. No wonder she had always found simple walking awkward...this was where she was intended to be, even as she took belated notice of the large grayish-brown object that was looming up in her path and...
"EEEK!" Akane shrieked and hastily dodged out of the way as something huge passed through the space where she had been gliding, swooping directly into her path even as she pulled up short and banked her wings to alter the direction of her glide, thus saving her from a certain mid-air collision. She fought hard to regain her bearings after stalling for a few seconds, but then she turned about and saw what it was that had so narrowly missed her, and when she made it out her mind almost locked up with a "hard drive" seizure.
"Huh?" she exclaimed in dismay, "You've gotta be kidding me...!"
A shrill cry nearly shattered the air, doing much to throw Akane off even as the backwash of the thing buffeted her and threatened to send her into a vortex. Once she had recovered from that she turned and stared in disbelief as other brownish-gray **things** became visible within her sharpened range of vision, and then Akane felt a curious sense of unreality as she mentally classified the type of creature which she was observing, even knowing it was impossible, that there was no way for such a creature to exist, let alone in such numbers.
"Nabiki!" Akane cried out, at once thinking of her clever Lore Master sister and how she always seemed to provide the answers where none was forthcoming. That thought made her come around in search of the airship...only to see the thing was drifting off towards a curious formation amid the cloud banks, and then she really felt the panic begin to surge through her as she recognized that some of those supposed "clouds" were unusually craggy and covered in a snow-cap, like natural camouflage, only portending a certain disaster.
"No!" she cried, even as she sped up her momentum and beat her wings against the air in a desperate attempt to catch up with the airship...
Nabiki's Journal Resumes:
I awoke with a start to the sudden sense that Akane was in danger...only the feelings changed from a sense of personal danger to a different note of panic. I glanced around and immediately recalled where I was and what it was that I had been doing, and then I felt a gentle urgency to rise up and attend to some serious personal business.
But the sense of impending menace would not go away, so I reluctantly pried myself out from under the warm blanket that was Shampoo and Ranma and gently awoke my two loves with a thought, murmuring something to the effect of, "Akane's in trouble."
To that Ranma only grunted back, "So what else is new?" as if the thought barely justified even opening his eyes, let alone a more serious reaction.
Shampoo was a bit more affected by saying, "This one's apprentice is like magnet that suck in trouble, yes, but no reason we no see what she up to this time, Airen."
"I second the motion," I said, even as I felt other urges making themselves be steadily known since laying in the arms of my two favorite people was far too pleasant a sensation for me to want to interrupt for the sake of my clueless younger sister.
Still, family is family, and even while my sisters seem intent on driving me to distraction on occasions like this, I still felt obligated to attend to Akane's sense of growing alarm and panic. I reached for a robe even as Shampoo did the same with her cheosang and Ranma for his pants and top...but then I felt something like an edge of alarm run down my spine, and belatedly I realized that Akane's fear was for us and not herself on this occasion.
Even as that thought registered in my mind I sensed the door to our cabin unlock itself and open of its own accord, and then there stood Lotion the Elder, my Sensei, giving me an impatient look, and flanking her to the side were none other than Kasumi and Kodachi, already dressed and appearing quite anxious (and never mind what they had been doing prior to being rudely awakened, a subject I prefer not to dwell upon if at all possible, thank you very much...).
At this point I didn't know what had everyone in such a state of disquiet, but when we emerge outside we found Ranma's cousin, Usagi, and her friends Rei and Ami, all equally confused looking, with Mon-Mon (our resident Nekonlon "Immortal" Lucky God Martial Artist) having that sense that we foreigners were getting ourselves all worked up over nothing. Me, I hate leaving things to chance, that's how the worst problems in my life always get started, and if Lotion herself is worried enough to pay me a visit in my "Honeymoon" suite, then that's cause enough to be alarmed about, even as I head unwittingly off to face one of the strangest adventures I have ever yet encountered.
On the way, however, Ranma chances to ask the question that I myself had been wondering since counting heads and noticing some significant absences from out jolly list of players, "Hey, where's Ucchan and Ryoga about?"
"You got me, Cousin," Usagi replied, "We're wondering the same thing about Minako and Makoto."
"Some of us are anyway," the dark purple haired Rei rolls her eyes as though the question barely warrants an explanation, and as I turn my budding Lore Master senses to the subject, I suddenly begin to glean why the shrine maiden Senshi seems to think the answer is self-explanatory...
Meanwhile, a short distance away (but a world away for all that it really mattered), a male Ukyo was smiling contentedly as he rested his head on the softly rising and falling breasts of his beloved Makoto. Makoto was idly strumming fingers through Ukyo's unbound hair while relishing the afterglow of a long and intense session between them. At some point during their first session they had each drifted off to sleep together, but upon awakening they had wasted little time going at it with renewed vigor, and now that they had finally exhausted themselves with lovemaking all that was left was their second favorite part, the cuddle.
"So," Makoto finally spoke after the longest time of enjoying the silence, "How did that rate on your meter? Was it better doing it as a guy this time?"
"Sugar," Ukyo softly chuckled, "I wouldn't even know where to draw a comparison. It's different as a guy, but I like it either way...and at least as a woman I don't tucker out after a couple of shots."
"You won't hear me complaining," Makoto said in earnest appreciation, "That was my first time doing it with a guy, and my second time ever, and you know what? I like you just much either way. You really rang my chimes with that last time, Ucchan. Having you inside me...I can't begin to describe it. You made my world spin around and I'm still dizzy."
"Careful," Ukyo laughed, "Talk like that'll go to my head..."
"Which one?" Makoto's voice took on a predatory aspect, "If you wanna get it started up again..."
"You're insatiable, you know that?" Ukyo countered, then in mock-exasperation cried, "Women, what do they want? I'm only made of flesh and blood you know..."
"Faker," Makoto chuckled at her boy/girlfriend's feigned distress and she hugged Ukyo closer to her bosoms, "Maybe I oughta see what your limits really are, Buster. I can hold out as long as you..."
"Then maybe I'd better change back to a girl, just in case," Ukyo replied in a teasing voice, "That way I've at least got a fighting chance of holding out against you. I just know I'm gonna walk bow-legged as it is if I try getting it up again..."
"Poor baby," Makoto chided, "Why not let Doctor Kino have a look at it and maybe kiss it to make it all better..."
"You would too," Ukyo could not keep from chuckling, though his mind was fresh with the delirious sensation of what it had been like to feel Makoto's mouth closing upon his most prominent male member, providing him with a sense of what a velvety tongue she had, which licked him like a Popsicle and got him hard enough to plunge that organ into her hot and moist vulva a few moments later.
"Count on it," Makoto let a hand drift down to find and play with Ukyo's fanny, squeezing it possessively in such a way that the cursed girl/boy shivered with anticipation.
Before things got any further along, though, the felt the ship lurch sharply to one side, and then a screeching sound, almost like the hull being scraped against something hard and unyielding caused both Ukyo and Makoto to sit up in alarm, listening to panicked cries and shouts from outside their cabin.
"What the heck was that?" Makoto asked.
"Sounded like we hit something," Ukyo responded.
"What, you mean like in the Titanic?" Makoto blinked, "But we're on a boat that sails through the air, not the water!"
"Either way, I think we'd better go have a look, just in case," Ukyo said, and with some reluctance the two lovers got dressed and left their cabin, heading for the top deck even as they started bumping into the other passengers upon the vessel...
Just moments before this had happened...
Ryoga was glad that someone had finally come and relieved him from having to man the steering wheel. He had tried very hard not to turn it either to the right or the left or to in any way deviate from the course that it had been left at, but when the Navigator told him to turn six degrees to the right he naturally had tried to comply with those instructions. A short while later the man had ordered a twelve-degree turn to the left, and this too Ryoga had obeyed to the letter...or had thought he did at any extent. Given all that, he wondered why the man had been so upset with him near the end, having taken another course reading and arrived at conclusions that frankly disagreed with his calculations.
Ryoga had sweated it out and tried not to be upset with anything the man said to him, even when the comments took on a personal character and left Ryoga shaking with anger, and in the end Ryoga had managed to hold his temper in so that when he was relieved of his post by the lieutenant that had given him the task in the first place he only mildly clapped the Navigator on the arm and left him screaming in pain about a dislocated shoulder. It served him right anyway, saying things like that about his mother!
Ryoga frankly did not know why the man should be so upset about his calculations being a little bit off. If the man couldn't do math, then why had they given him the job of Navigating in the first place?
Convinced that he had done all that anyone could reasonably have asked of him, Ryoga resumed his search for his room and wound up shortly thereafter in the kitchen. This by itself was not so remarkable a thing, but he was surprised to almost bump shoulders with the pretty blonde girl named Aino Minako, who was having a difficult time explaining to one of the cooks her desire to be cured of a hangover. Obviously she did not speak good Mandarin because the fellow thought she was asking for boiled squid and was receiving a lecture about the impossibility of pickling squid meat given their propensity for squirting you with ink, which is why Ryoga decided to step in and provide a much-needed translator.
"<Excuse me, honorable Chef, but my friend wishes to know if you have something that can relieve her of a severe headache,>" he explained in careful terms, not wanting a repeat of the incident from the previous day when he had found himself in the laundry room of the ship.
"<Sure thing,>" the cook promptly responded, "<Just tell her to lay her head down on the chopping block there and I'll take care of it, no problem," he hefted a sizeable meat cleaver for emphasis.
Ryoga paled and said, "<I can't tell her that!>"
"<Relax, I'm just fooling,>" the Chef adopted an easy smile as he set the cleaver aside then turned to the confused looking Blonde and said, "<Now then...let's see where that spot is that my Mother always used on Father when he'd been out drinking.>"
The Chef turned the confused Minako around and partially exposed her back, and before either the blonde or Ryoga could protest his taking liberties the man jabbed a finger at a spot and said, "<How's this, young lady?>"
Minako gasped, then flexed her shoulders and shook her head, rotating it in a circle so as to unkink her neck muscles, and then she smiled and said, "It's gone! How did he do it?"
"<Pshaw,>" the Chef replied, "<You foreigners must not know all that much about medicine if you don't know about the Pressure Points that can cure most common ailments. Tell you what, I'll even whip up one of the Prince's special remedies for official holiday cures...pickled onions with pickled carrots and pickled radishes on rice. It'll give you all the nourishment you need to keep the DTs at bay, put a smile on your face and everything.>"
"What did he say?" Minako asked.
"Ah..." Ryoga considered the point then replied, "<Thank you for your kind thoughts, Sir, but my friend needs to refresh herself. Perhaps later when she is dressed for dinner.>"
"<Better have Mistress Mon Mon look her over,>" the Chef recommended, "<She'll know what's best for a cute young thing like her. Reminds me a bit of my youngest daughter...god rest her mother...>"
Ryoga thanked the Chef then took Minako by the arm and gently guided her out from the kitchen. Once they were out in the hall he said, "I can show you to your room if you want...if you could do me a little favor."
"Sure thing," Minako gave the cute boy a pleasant smile and said, "What do you need?"
"Could you...um..." Ryoga hesitated, not wanting to look like a complete idiot before this friendly girl whom he'd only noticed on the periphery before, one of the friends of Usagi, who was Ranma's cousin, and thus probably somehow related to Ryoga (he really had to sit down and figure this one out one of these days...).
Minako found the boy's shy hesitation actually quite charming in someone who could be such a fierce terror in a fight and tried to encourage him by saying, "Don't worry, you can ask me, I won't bite."
"Ah...right," Ryoga cleared his throat and said, "Could you...show me where my cabin is? I'm having trouble finding it, and...ah..."
"Oh?" Minako cocked one blonde eyebrow at this, "Can't find your way, huh? Well, it is a pretty big ship, at least on the inside, so I don't really blame you for that. No problem then, I'll show you to your room and you can show me to mine."
"Ah...?" Ryoga wondered why the exact wording this cute girl used worried him so much.
"Relax, it's just a joke," Minako grinned all the more, liking this boy the longer she got to know him, and how typically male that he felt embarrassed about having to ask for directions. Nice to see he wasn't some kind of sex- crazed pervert out to shag a cute girl like her on the flimsiest pretext (not that she would have minded being asked by someone as hunky as him...which was not to say that she actually intended to let him take her to bed, although if he did ask she would certainly consider it...).
"HEY!" someone called out to the two of them, "Ryoga, get your butt up here this minute!"
"Huh?" Ryoga found himself rather annoyed about being distracted from having a pleasant chat with the cute blonde who was smiling at him in such a nice manner, "What do you want, Ranma?"
"Come out on deck and see for yourself," Ranma called out before pivoting on one heel and grumbling about "Clueless Morons."
Ryoga was surprised at the behavior of his alleged half brother, so much so that he was distracted from his normal impulse to be angry. At his side Minako said, "I guess we'd better go see what's up," which left him with no margin to contradict her.
Seeing nothing to be gained by refusing, Ryoga and Minako found their way out onto the top deck, at which point they saw a panoramic scenery that took their breaths away, almost picture-postcard perfect in the dwindling light of a setting sun, which as much surprised Minako as she had not realized it was that late at evening.
"What happened?" Minako asked, "Where are we?"
"That is the question," said Kodachi as she turned a curious look in Ryoga's direction, "Hibiki-san, by any chance you were no where near the bridge of this fair vessel within the past few hours...were you?"
"Ah...well..." Ryoga hesitated.
"That's what we figured," Nabiki groaned, "Don't ask us how you did it, Ryoga- kun, but you just put us a few thousand miles off course in the southern hemisphere, and this Island dead ahead of us is named Pangea, which is supposedly also known as 'The Land That Time Ignored.'"
"Forgot," Ami corrected.
"Whatever," Nabiki groused.
"Oh my," Kasumi remarked, "Then that means we'll be a bit late getting home..."
"By about a week at least," Rei added.
"A week?" Usagi blurted, "No way! We have a mid-term exam to take by this Friday!"
"It will have to be postponed, I fear," Mon Mon said, "I don't understand how such a thing could happen. Our Navigator is usually so very precise in charting our directions..."
"Ah...well..." Ryoga winced all the more.
"Ryoga," Ranma eyed him suspiciously, "You didn't do anything to him, did ya? 'Cause that'd be real bad about now..."
"Stupid pig boy really do this one big time," Shampoo agreed, joining the chorus.
"Look out!" Minako cried, having been the only one to notice at that moment how close a certain volcanic hilltop was coming to their position...or rather how close to it their blimp was sailing.
"Oh no," Nabiki groaned, "This is just perfect..."
"Everyone, BRACE FOR IMPACT!" cried Kodachi, just seconds before their ship began a slow turn that almost managed to avoid scraping their bottom against said volcano...
Akane looked on in horror as the Nekonlon airship attempted to change its direction at the last possible moment, only to scrape the side of the icy mountaintop with the sound of splintering wood and canvas loud in her ears even at a hundred meters distance. As hard as she had been pumping her wings to gain momentum she had been too late to reach them in time to help them avert a disaster, and now she could only watch in helpless dismay as the airship veered widely to one side and began an inclined descent that would carry it through the clouds and into their all-engulfing embrace.
Akane hurried to catch up with the stricken airship, banking her wings and gaining momentum in a dive that would surely allow her to overtake the massive object, but even as she looked she saw tiny forms begin to plummet over the sides as the jarring collision shook them loose, like so many fleas off the hide of an animal. It was all that she could do to pick one tumbling form at random and to aim herself in order to catch them, fearing that she would have only one chance to save their life from certain disaster. She tried not to think about those others whom she could not save, staying focused on her goal as she stretched out her arms and prepared to slow her descent to match that of the plummeting body. Only when she was within the last fifty feet did she make out the form of Kasumi, and then this discovery leant a sense of urgency as she sought to save her eldest sister.
But as she started to close to within a few meters of where Kasumi was plummeting a red ribbon snaked out and caught itself around the older Tendo sister's waist, yanking her up and out of the way of a much-surprised Akane, who reflexively caught yet another body that was falling fast towards her, this one easily around Kasumi's basic size and dimensions. However, it only took an instant following her startled, "OOFFF!" at the shock of the sudden weight in her arms to recognize the woman whom she was grasping as none other than the Lucky Gods Martial Artist named "Bon-Bon."
The added weight bore Akane down even faster than before, so she banked her wings to angle her flight path into a rising swoop, but---though she strained her levitation skills to the max---she could not fend off the eventual stall that resulted when her momentum ran out, leaving them both hanging in a stall as Bon-Bon looked at Akane, who looked back with an equally non-plussed expression.
"Tendo-san...you saved me?" Bon-Bon asked, "But...why?"
Akane did not get the chance to answer that when something else came swooping down on them from above, and then the leathery beat of massive wings rendered the whole matter entirely academic...
Nabiki's Journal Continues:
I don't remember too much of what happened after we collided with that mountain, but---needless to say---the crash took us all by surprise and did some serious damage to the airship's ability to hold in gas, so before we knew it we were headed for the ground with everyone scrambling to hold onto something while the rest of us went over the railing. I felt a hand grip my wrist almost immediately and without having to look I knew that it was Ranma, but then I felt a pair of hands snag me by one ankle and realized that it was Shampoo holding onto me, and that suddenly I was being stretched like a cord between one of my lovers and the other.
Of course I hardly blame Shampoo for that, nor can I fault Ranma that he was hanging on practically by his fingernails with the both of us dragging him down with a less than firm grip at the ship's railing. Nor did it help matters all that much that the ship he was holding onto was veering wildly down through a cloud bank next to a sheer cliff drop that looked ready to tear its hull wide open at any minute, and here I suddenly flash onto what it must have felt like to be a passenger on the Titanic (not that I watched that sappy gaijin movie, of course, or will admit to it under cross-examination).
All I know is that a sudden jolt was all it took for Ranma to lose his precarious hold upon our sole means of support, and then there was nothing between us and a couple hundred meters of open air with a craggy jungle laid out before us, and me the only one of us present who isn't trained to take a fall from near-earth orbit. To say the least this day was not looking up for me, and I had a sneaking hunch that our troubles were only just beginning.
Boy, was that ever an understatement...!
Continued.
Comments/Criticisms/Paleolithic Rhapsody Harmonics: shadowmane@ridgenet.net
After a two year hiatus I am finally back on the case of this side-story, (one hinted at and referred to in numerous journalistic references by Nabiki) where many significant character studies were intended by me, and which I have long intended to get back to. Now, at last, I am finally tackling the matter of the Nerima gang having an E.R Burroughs-like encounter of the "too-close" kind, and if you don't mind a romp through the jungles with primitive life forms (oh yeah, and there's Dinosaurs here too), then please stay tuned for: "Bungle in the Jungle," or, "The Lost and Found World!" Be there!
