Episode Oh-Ten: HEART OF DARKNESS
Pangea10
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!)
HENTAI ALERT---LEMONY SCENES AHEAD! CONTAINS MATERIAL NOT SUITABLE FOR UNDERAGED VIEWERS AND THOSE WITH MORAL QUALMS ABOUT OVER-THE-TOP HENTAI LEMON SERIES! CONCERNS THEMES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE INVOLVING PRIMITIVE LIFE FORMS WHO PREY ON TASTY, TENDER HUMAN FEMALE MORSELS AND THE RAMNA-FICATIONS THAT COMES WITH DIVINE PAYBACK. ALSO INVOLVES PURELY CONSENSUAL SCENES OF TEENAGERS ON THE RUT WITHOUT THE USE OF PROPHELACTICS. YOU HAVE BEEN DULY WARNED!
Set within the timeframe of Chapter 101 of my fanfic series, "A Tale of Two Wallets," between the time when the gang parted from Nekonlon China and their eventual arrival one week later back in Nerima)
FOR THOSE WHO CAME IN LATE: (With apologies to Lee Falk)
Ranma is engaged to marry both Nabiki and Shampoo; Nabiki is an Apprenticed Lore Master and Shampoo is cursed to turn into a winged cat; Akane has wings and Ukyo turns into a boy and is engaged to Makoto (Sailor Jupiter), while Happosai is a handsome swain engaged to Miss Hinako; Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon) is romantically involved with Rei Hino (Sailor Mars) while Kodachi is carrying on a not-so-private affair with Kasumi, and Ryoga has just begun to get acquainted with Minako Aino. Everything else beyond that is purely coincidental.
Episode Oh-Ten:
HEART OF DARKNESS (Casting For A New Direction)
Shampoo's Diary Continues:
Although I may joke about it, what happened to my wife leaves me with a profound sense of intense rage and disgust over what almost became her final ending. Had Ranma and I been a bit less slow in coming to her rescue, or if she had failed to find the inner strength that allowed her to tap into her hidden power, then I would no longer have a wife and Ranma and I would be grieving for the rest of our lives. Such a shocking loss of human potential and all of the joys, plans and dreams that we share could have been gone like that, and all because of those stupid cannibal men who thought Nabiki was good for nothing else but eating.
Given how well she took matters after disposing of that stupid director I am quite proud of my wife and awed at the inner strength which she displayed in putting it all behind her. If it had been me wielding the sort of power that she displayed at the time then I assure you that I would not have left a single stone standing. They all deserved to die for what they had done to Nabiki, even more so for the other victims who had come and gone before her, those ghostly women I so briefly witnessed, whose bones filled that pit almost to overflowing. So many lives lost and the majority of them women...yes, truly these were not human beings but monsters who deserved extermination. I only regret that I did not contribute more to my wife's rescue, but in the end Ranma and I are only human and she is an Apprentice Lore Master.
That being said, I never want to see her look at me the way she did to that Akuma person, her eyes glowing brightly with a fire more intense than hate, and the words I heard someone muttering as we turned away from the battlefield, "The horror...the horror..."
At any rate, we retired to those hot springs where we obtained a warm bath to wash the lentils from Nabiki's hair while restoring Ranma to his masculinity and sanity once again, and I took advantage of the moment to lick the spicy flavor from Nabiki's body. I was quite delighted at having her restored to the Nabiki I well know and wanted to express physically my great joy at being reunited in her arms, and once Ranma had recovered enough to take part in our mutual pleasuring he gave us both great joy and helped to banish the last traces of the nightmare we had lived from our minds. It was a frenzied, intensely passionate moment, but once our lust was expended with lay satisfied in each others arms, at which point I heard Nabiki say in a teasing whisper, "So...where were you guys...and what took you?"
I was laying atop my wife's chest and had to crane my neck in order to look up at her, then I smiled and responded, "This one is very sorry, Airen, sorry to have worried you, and more sorry to be so late for your rescue."
"I wasn't holding it against you guys, Sham-chan," Nabiki smiled at us as I felt her run her fingers through my hair, "I just wanted to know what you were doing while I...ah..."
"While you what?" I heard Ranma murmur from close beside me, "What'd I miss while I was out of it back there? I remember that big saber-toothed tiger...but I don't remember...anything after that..." I could almost hear him frowning as he tried to recall things that he had seen and done while Neko.
Nabiki seemed quite genuinely embarrassed over all that had happened, as though it were somehow her fault or something, but what she said aloud was, "I just ran into some...rough characters, but you and Sham-chan chased them off, Ranma-kun."
"Rough characters, huh?" our husband grumbled, "Well, they'd better not try anything with you or they'll have to answer to me."
"Of course," I heard Nabiki say, and the two of us shared a look, silently agreeing to spare Ranma the details until much, much later.
That was when I heard the great cat yawn at the side of the pool, and I smiled while rising off of Nabiki to give him a nod as he purred in our direction.
"C-C-Cat!" Ranma gasped and moved off of me as though seeking to get away or possibly return to his Neko state, but I reached out to steady him so that I could compel him to hear my words and not move beyond my reach, gripping as I did his manly tool so that I knew I would hold his full and complete attention.
"It is all right, Husband," I tried to assure him, "Smiley is a friend and he will not try to eat you."
"Smiley?" Nabiki asked with a puzzled expression.
I nod, "It is short for Smiledon, which is a word that this one remembers hearing her mother say when she was very little. Smiley, say hello to the wife and husband of this one..."
My friend the saber-tooth made a noise of greeting that startled Ranma in spite of my grip tightening ever-so slightly around his manhood. Nabiki looked at me with a curious study before turning to glance at the great cat before saying in a low murmur, "You're sure he's friendly? He looks kind of hungry..."
"After what he ate back there?" I reasonably pointed back towards the cannibal village, "Believe me, Airen, he is full right now and won't eat again until he is hungry."
For some odd reason my wife and husband hardly seemed all that assured by my statement, but I can forgive them for being somewhat dubious about Smiley. In truth, it was a very curious thing which brought me and that great cat together in the first place since (only hours before) it had attempted to eat me, hence the reason I had been separated from Nabiki in the first place...
And so I it was that I related to her my story, how the great cat had pounced on me while I sought to divert it away from her and Ranma. It was unfortunate that the trail we were on proved so narrow, and when I sought to evade his attack I instead wound up bearing the both of us over the edge of a sheer drop leading into a gully. We fell for what seemed like a very long time but could not have been more than a few seconds, time enough for me to flip myself around and grip the beast by its neck, wrapping my legs around its muscular hide so that I wound up riding upon it all the way to the bottom. It was fortunate that we landed in that river at the base of a waterfall, which broke both of our fall else it is unlikely that I would be here to record these events for your pleasure. Even so it was a jarring crash that nearly jolted me loose though I gripped all the more tightly to its fur as we sank deep into the cold water, and I half expected to transform into my cursed shape long before we were able to regain the surface.
But then I belatedly recalled the magical amulet that I am wearing even now, the gift of Prince Kirin to block the effects of my curse during the time of my pregnancy. It kept me human even as the tiger swam with me on its back and pulled us both back to the shoreline, dripping wet and in no mood for either of us to fight. I coughed to get my lungs cleared then looked around to see how far we had fallen. It was likely that I would need to climb a long way to get back to Ranma and Nabiki, but first I had the great cat to deal with and without any of my weapons to even the odds in my favor.
But then a curious thing happened as the tiger carried me to dry land without hardly seeming to notice that I was clinging to his back...the creature lowered its head and made a sound quite unlike what I was expecting, and while I knew that letting go of him then would be folly indeed, I felt a strong urge to dismount and inspect him, which is what I did, heedless of the danger he posed since I could feel his agony as though it were an extension of my own body.
To my great surprise I discovered that he had apparently hurt himself sometime during our fall or upon his landing. One of his paws had a huge splinter sticking out of it...and by splinter I mean a piece of wood a good fifteen centimeters in length projecting out from the side of the leg, making movement difficult and setting his full weight on the thing acutely unpleasant.
I am, at heart, a girl of the mountains. I cannot bear to see a wild thing suffer like that, and so I made the Tiger lie down and used my knowledge of pressure-points to dull his pain, and then I set about to remove that splinter. It was strange that I seemed to instinctively know what he was going through, no doubt because of the nature of my curse, but even stranger to notice how he seemed to obey me when I urged him to be brave and not resist my efforts. Once I removed the splinter I made a poultice from some herbs and leaves I found and cleansed his wound as best I was able. This seemed to gratify him because he made no effort to eat me, even though I was quite naked at the time and could hardly have resisted him with even my martial arts skills serving as poor compensation when contrasted to his strength and natural endowments.
In fact, he seemed unusually docile once freed from his injury, and I worried that there might possibly be far worse damage done to him during the fall, perhaps even internal bleeding, though a quick check for symptoms proved that this was not the case. Rather it seemed to me as though he were submitting himself before me, as though I was an elder of his clan and not of an entirely different species.
But then inspiration came to me as I saw the light reflected off the waters and my pendant reflecting in his eyes, which were focused upon the cat-shaped Amulet of Bast. I recalled then what Prince Kirin had explained about its magical properties, that it was sacred to some Egyptian goddess who presided long ago in the land between the two rivers.
Bast, he explained, was the patron of Cats, but also a defender of motherhood, and as such her name could be invoked to ward off the effects of evil curses when applied to human mothers. All cats responded to the will of Bast, and since I am part cat (due to my curse) I naturally fall under her dominion. More to the point, Prince Kirin gave me this medallion because my Jusenkyo curse is a possible threat to my baby. It has been argued that my reverting to such a small shape when wet would mean my womb would have to expand to accommodate my child, and I think I do not need to elaborate on how messy that could be if it were to befall me during a later trimester. Perhaps my curse would cause my child to revert to Neko form, but this is far from a certainty since not all Jusenkyo curses are passed on to offspring, at least according to my great- grandmother and the Elder Lotion.
But while I wear this pendant the goddess of Cats protects me from Jusenkyo. I do not, as yet, know if there will be any side-effects that come from the use of this spell, but as long as I am pregnant I do not need to fear from cold water...or at least that is the theory, which is why I have to wear it constantly and never risk taking it off at any time for any reason.
Apparently, however, the pendant also has the means of protecting me against predatory cats, and so I was in no immediate danger from the tiger. If anything I had just earned his trust by helping to relieve him of that splinter, and so it seemed that I had turned him into a friend and an important ally whom I could rely upon while lost in the wilderness of that peculiar island.
I was pleased to know that I would not have to kill him to defend myself, nor would he kill me even though I could sense that he was still ravenously hungry. Seeing as I was the only tasty thing around for him to snack upon, it seemed that the next order of business would be finding him something else to eat to put that issue off the table. But then something else occurred to me if I was to call this creature my friend.
Friends have a name, and as yet he had no name that I was aware of, and so on the spot I decided to call him Smiley, short for Smiledon, a name that sprang to mind from one of my earliest memories, a word once expressed to me by my own dear mother.
It happened when I was very small, before I came to live at my great- grandmother's house, my mother took me on my one and only field trip outside of Amazon territories to the great city of Beijing, which to a four year old was as huge a place as anything in my very small existence. So many more people than I had ever dreamed could exist in the world beyond our tribal boundaries, and I think I clung all the more closely at my mother's side when she applied to the medical university there to obtain her degree as a licensed doctor, not quite the proud little warrior that I might otherwise have styled myself as being. I recall my mother taking me to a place that they called a museum and showing me the many curious displays of antiquities that were the legacy of our Chinese ancestors, and I---wide eyed innocent that I was---drank it all in with a sense that my world was truly insignificant, lacking in all these things, even though my mother tried to assure me that Amazon treasures were nothing to be dismissed by comparison.
I would not understand what she meant until a very long time later, after I had ventured into the outside world in pursuit of Ranma, and once again came face- to-face with how little I know about the world at large. Even though I have since adjusted to the marvels of modern day society, in my heart I still remain a simple country village girl of the Qing Hi mountains, quite easily awed when I find myself confronted by something well beyond the range of my experience. It is now one of the goals of my life that I continue to grow in knowledge and understanding, to be worthy of my husband and wife, to be a credit to my family and to pass on all that I have come to know to my as-yet unborn children, hoping that they will come to value having one foot in two worlds as much as I have now thanks to Ranma and Nabiki.
But then I recall my father pointing to a display of gigantic bones and informing me that these were creatures who had lived a long time ago before the time of civilization. Mother was just as fascinated by much of this as I was, but then I recalled seeing strange beasts who resembled a cross between a leopard and a tiger, spotless but with these huge knife-like fangs that projected out from its mouth an astonishing eight inches, many times the length of my tiny child's hands, and for a moment I was petrified at the sight of the creature, confused at how life-like it was, thanks to the Taxidermist's art in giving it such a lifelike quality. I found it hard to believe that the beast would not spring to life and devour me at any instant, and only when my father had laughed at my fears and lifted me up so that I would examine it more closely did I understand my own foolishness, that the beast had perished ages before even the birth of China, and that it was foolish to fear a ghost when there very real predators living inside our border who did not seem half so intimidating, and that Amazon warriors had little to fear so long as they held true to the traditions of our people.
The reason I mention this now is because of the name I heard my mother use when describing this extinct gigantic: "Smiledon," otherwise known as a "saber- toothed tiger." I thought the saber-toothed part was apt, but the foreign sounding name stuck with me somehow and I remembered it then, which is why I came to call my new friend Smiley the Saber-toothed Tiger. I thought it apt enough since his fangs did not permit him to close his mouth completely, which tended to make him appear as though he were smiling at me, and I do not think it was because he was considering me as the entrée for his dinner.
Yet even as I was contemplating this I heard a familiar voice call out, "Shampoo, are you there? Where are you?"
"Ranma?" I smiled as I turned to see my beloved husband-turned-wife appear from just around a bend in the river, swimming to keep up with the tide while calling out my name in obvious distress, which is so much like her.
"Shampoo?" she called out to me again, seeing that I was all right, which prompted her to rush out of the water to embrace me with an anxious, "Kami, you had me worried so! Do you know you scared Nabiki and me out of six weeks growth with that..."
Smiley chose that moment to snarl, catching Ranma by surprise as she turned and did a double-take then started to back away with her pigtail curling upward and her face a mask of absolute terror.
"A-A-A---C-C-CAAATTT!!!" she exclaimed in abject dread as I marked the early stages of her Nekoken manifesting.
Smiley did not like being interrupted either and started to voice his displeasure with a snarl, but I immediately sprang into the space between these two and put a halt to such nonsense.
"Smiley, Airen, behave yourselves!" I declared sternly, "Smiley, Ranma is not for eating, Ranma, Smiley is a friend and I won't have you upsetting him..."
"Upsetting HIM?!?" Ranma gasped while attempting to back away as far as where the river was running too deep for remaining upright.
"He will not attack, Husband," I assured her, "We are both friends now, and this one has even done him a favor to earn his good graces."
"What did you do, pull a thorn out of his paw or something?" she asked, surprising me with her perceptiveness. Of course she was also dangerously on the edge of meowing, so I knew it would be for the best to keep her and Smiley apart for as long as I could, at least until she had gotten used to being around him, and that meant finding something to distract my husband from her mortal fear of cats, even the harmless kind that I usually turn into.
So I proposed that we go hunting for wild game while seeking a path to carry us back up to where we though Nabiki was still waiting for us. How little did we suspect that she had fallen prey to savage tribes people and was about to be boiled alive as food, else we would have rushed to her aid immediately instead of wasting time finding food for Smiley.
Nabiki listened as I related this, then calmly looked at me and said, "You mean you were out hunting what those guys were cooking me alive?" I think she meant to ask this calmly, but her tone was as brittle as glass and I could sense the flaring of her newly gained power curling her hair around the edges.
I nodded to her and conceded the point that we might have made better time if we had not been taking care of Smiley, but then again, I asked, what would she have done in our place, having to satisfy his hunger in other ways than becoming HIS dinner? Nabiki conceded the point but nonetheless fumed for a minute, but then she surprised us by asking, "So...where did you get the leopard skins?"
"Oh, we found them in a trunk next to some junk left by the river," Ranma answered for me, "Buncha costumes and fake jewelry there, like they were thrown away or abandoned or something. The seemed to fit a lot better than the other stuff, and it beat running around in the buff while coming to your rescue."
Nabiki seemed to take that in for a moment then said, "Must've belonged to the film crew from their old movie set, before they went totally native. Yeah, they kind of suit you two, might as well keep them."
"Um, thanks," Ranma glanced down uncertainly at his artificial fur breaches, but I thought he looked rather darling in a loin cloth, and Nabiki certainly would back me up on my assertion.
"Ah...by the way," Nabiki glanced down at herself, "Any chance you might have found something in my size?"
I smiled, fully prepared for this, and held up a cute outfit that I'd selected for her for precisely this reason. For some odd reason Nabiki blanched at the sight of this and said, "You've got to be kidding..."
"What is wrong, Airen?" I asked innocently, indicating the curiously impractical outfit that I heard described as a "chain-mail harem-style bikini," but which I thought very nice since it would display a great deal of my wife's beautiful body for all to see and admire.
"Ah, nothing," Nabiki replied, "Just...wearing that thing I'd feel even more naked than I am now..."
"Indeed, I quite agree on that," said Elder Lotion, who surprised us all by putting in her appearance at this point, standing along the side of the hot springs and regarding us sagely.
"Where have you been, Old Woman?" Nabiki snapped, though I could that she was both vexed and relieved upon seeing her mentor returned from wherever she had gone off to.
"I ran into a bit of difficulty, couldn't get back to you right away, sorry," the Elder replied, giving the most sincere look of apology that I can ever recall seeing in the expression of an Elder, "I sensed that you were in some distress, Child, but I am glad to see that you came through your crisis with flying colors."
"Oh yeah, boiled lobster red," Nabiki frowned, "And just what was so important to you that you couldn't even come to my rescue?"
Elder Lotion actually hesitated before glancing down and coughing before saying, "I...fell down a rabbit hole..."
Nabiki was not the only one to evidence surprise as Ranma and I joined her with a, "What?" spoken in chorus.
"A rabbit hole," Lotion repeated, "I...failed to perceive it when it was directly in my path, took a wrong step and fell right in. Quite embarrassing, truly...haven't been that careless in decades..."
"Are you telling me..." Nabiki began slowly, her tone arching, "...that the reason you left me in the lurch was because you fell into a hole dug by a rabbit?"
The Elder did not immediately reply, merely reached to her side and began pulling something out from shadow-space, holding it up by the rears so that we could see that it was indeed a rabbit that she had confronted...albeit this rabbit was over a meter-and-a-half long and had three inch fangs in place of buck-teeth. Even stunned as it was it looked both dangerous and nasty.
"Oh," Nabiki said in noticeably subdued tone, which suited how the rest of us were feeling as we considered just how dangerous the thing might have been if we had confronted it in a dark, cramped space with nothing but a staff to serve as a weapon.
Smiley made a noise and Elder Lotion turned to smile at him, then offered him the giant rabbit, "Here you go, with my compliments. Eat well."
Smiley really was not all that hungry, but there is a principle to the thing, and I suspect that he and the rabbit were longtime rivals, which made it personal from his vantage. We respectfully looked away while he did his business, then Elder Lotion bade us to get dressed once again so that she could walk with us to find the others, whom she seemed to think were close nearby, and in fact this proved to be the case since we almost immediately stumbled upon Kodachi and Kasumi, who were bathing together quite nearby at another corner of these hot springs.
"Oneechan?" Nabiki gasped as she halted in mid-step, staring to see where the crazy rose-girl's hands were positioned while she and Kasumi were soaking up to their hips in the refreshing mineral water.
"Oh, Nabiki-chan, Ranma-kun, Shampoo-san," Kasumi greeted us as casually as if she were not caught in the middle of a clench doing things to one another that would have seemed perfectly normal if we were back home in Joketsuzoku, "Elder Lotion...how nice of you to find us."
"Yes," Kodachi said with somewhat less gratitude at our sudden appearance, "A pity you could not have found us just a little bit later than this..."
"Timing is everything in life," Elder Lotion remarked before turning to see a figure that was wading out at the edge of the warm pool, at which point she said, "Oh my...you have been busy."
Nabiki gave out a terse gasp and said, "What the heck is that?"
"Oh, you like him?" Kasumi detached herself from the embrace of her companion and knelt down to put up the creature by its small clawed feet, easily lifting it up to shoulder level while stroking its neck affectionately and saying, "We found him in his nest after his mother tried to eat me."
"Eat you?" Nabiki squeaked, and I wondered if she were feeling especially sensitive on this point considering her recent ordeal.
"Yes," Kasumi smiled as she continued to stroke the neck of the miniature Pterodactyl, "Kodachi was magnificent, she came to my rescue and helped drive off the creature. Unfortunately this seems to have left her baby as an orphan, so I've decided to adopt him, and I've giving him the name of Birdie."
"Birdie?" Nabiki repeated, turning to give me the most peculiar glance before turning back and saying, "Are you insane, Oneechan? That thing's mother tried to EAT you...!"
"No need to belabor the obvious, Nabiki-san," Kodachi replied, "We are fully aware that it is a wild creature from an untamed primitive wilderness setting, but it seems to have been imprinted upon Kasumi-chan, and I just haven't got the heart to see them parted, so I'm going to give it a good home among my pets at the Kuno mansion."
"You...nani?" I heard Nabiki gasp, even as I thought about the crazy girl's collection, which included the crocodile that she affectionately has named "Mister Green Turtle."
I think I can skip over the point where my Airen tried to dissuade her older sister from her chosen course of action, but Kasumi is quite a difficult person to say no to, and when she makes her mind up about something it is usually for the best to go along and not ask too many questions. At least the creature that she has since adopted as her pet seems well behaved around her, but we learned early on that it does not like Nabiki, which tends to work both ways, and it is for the best to keep them separated from one another rather than to risk trouble by bringing them too close together.
At least Kodachi still had her leotard and Kasumi had her robe, so they were better clothed than the rest of us with Nabiki looking somewhat disgruntled over being the one who had nothing to wear (not that I had any objections to having her parade around naked, but Japanese girls can be very strange on that peculiar subject). I prevailed on her once again and this time received a nod of assent, after which I took great pleasure in dressing her in the "harem costume," after which I enjoyed stealing many fond looks as she did indeed fill the thing out very nicely, enough so that I felt tempted again to pick up where we had left off before being interrupted by Smiley.
Once we were ready to go Elder Lotion led the way as we left the hot springs and retraced our steps into the dinosaur area, at which point I had to say farewell to Smiley since he seemed to object to crossing the line there, and I could faintly perceive a sort of high-pitched noise that he obviously did not find too pleasant. Parting company made he feel curiously sad for some reason, but I knew that he would fare well for himself and was at home in his jungle, while my place is always at the side of my beloved Airen.
We did not have a very far distance to travel while Nabiki spoke in low tones with Lotion about things for which I had only a passing interest, being a Warrior born and not a Lore Master by inclination. Instead I studied our surroundings as the vegetation noticeably and I detected that odd flower-like scent that before had caused me to lose control around my Airen. I steeled myself to keep firm grip over my amorous inclinations, but before any of us could begin to act like drunken monks at an orgy we stumbled upon the missing members of our party.
Quite literally, that is, only in my case the ones I nearly stepped upon turned out to be Ukyo and Akane.
I blinked as I glanced down to see those two cuddled up together, Ukyo in male state (and quite noticeably well endowed, though I would hardly compare him to my own husband) while Akane had her wings and seemed utterly at peace with her surroundings. A glance to the side showed me that the others were making similar discoveries of amorous couplings of a surprising variety of combinations. Ryoga was curled up with Ranma's cousin, Usagi, and Usagi's shrine priestess girlfriend, Rei, and from the expression on his face I could not determine whether or not he had died and gone to heaven or was merely too numb to do anything but smile. Further off to the side I saw Makoto with the blonde Minako in a VERY incriminating position, and this confirmed for me the danger posed from breathing in those pollen spores since it was obvious enough that, while under the influence of their narcotic scent, grabbing the nearest party to you for making pleasures is a pretty indiscriminate process. No telling what might happen if my Airen or I got too big a whiff of that stuff, and I---for one---did not relish the idea of waking up to find myself embraced by Kodachi.
We were only just starting to sort things out, however, when a number of figures stirred from along the edge of the flower-strewn clearing. Almost at once I fell into a crouch and stood at the ready while Ranma, Nabiki and the others became even more alarmed, only to be deterred from any rash action by the Elder thrusting her staff forward to get our attention.
"Hold, do not attack," she instructed, "I believe that these fellows mean us no harm, though by their appearance alone you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise."
"<Spot-on, that,>" one of the two-legged reptiles spoke up, surprising us all since he appeared to be addressing us in English, "<Quite a bit of a drag having to constantly assure people that we're not all out to make trouble on this island.>"
"They can talk?" Ranma asked, his knowledge of American even more faulty than my own, and I have recently started taking lessons.
"Apparently so," Nabiki said in faintly numb tones, "Talking lizards...what next?"
Lotion spoke some words in fluent English that I---of course---had trouble following, then she made a gesture with her staff and murmured some words in Chinese that I did not catch, and then she spoke in Japanese again, "Now can you understand us?"
"Crikey!" the lead of the multi-hued dinosaur men reacted, "Now that's a good parlor trick if ever heard of one before. Bit of a relief not having to rely all the time on subtitles."
"Yes, quite," the lizard on his left nodded, "Been a bit blimey having to depend on T'shalkri for most of the dialogue here."
"Speaking of which," the first creature glanced around, "Where is our fearless leader at the moment?"
"Where do you think?" the second one gave an almost human sigh and turned to nod towards a patch of ground that even then was shifting to reveal yet another of these creature, only this one popping up with a human in his arms...who turned out to be none other than Ami Mizuno.
"Dear me, do we have more guests already?" the creature asked, "Dreadfully sorry, didn't expect to be interrupted. I was just having a little interspecies communication with this charming lady here or I might have heard you coming."
I caught the delirious smile on the face of Ami, noticed the way she was leaning against the scaly creature grinning rather foolishly with a blade of grass clenched between her teeth and her whole body flushed as though she were the one who had been cumming up to that moment.
"Ah," Nabiki hesitated before speaking again, "You're...Velociraptors, am I right?"
"Good call, my dear human," a third of the six creatures smiled at her (at least I think that expression was smiling), "Though we prefer to be known as the Velari. Raptors for short if you must, but by all means call us often."
"Oh my," Kasumi said, "What handsome beings you are, and you have such very good manners."
"Yes, and your command of human language..." Kodachi noted with somewhat more reluctance.
"Why, thank you for noticing," the one named T'shalkri said as he got back to his feet and offered a hand to Ami, who seemed reluctant to break contact, "We do try to stay in practice like any other civilized and reasonably intelligent beings."
"Jolly so that," said one of the other creatures, "We even hold annual Shakespeare performances...you have no idea how fine the Bard is when spoken in native Velari."
"But...ah...I don't quite understand..." Nabiki started to say when three more figures appeared from the edge of the woods, the first one being Mon-Mon yet bearing a dusky-skinned woman slung across her shoulder in what I have heard described as a "Fireman's Carry." Next to her was yet another woman in the most unusual sort of outfit who bore a strange resemblance to Nabiki yet was obviously much older and seemed to radiate a presence that I cannot truly describe.
"We are here," the Nekonlon priestess announced, "Did we miss anything of significance?"
"Mother?" Nabiki reacted, surprising me as I caught her staring at the more exotic of the two women.
"Where have you been off to...and who is this?" Ranma asked, staring at the same strange woman with the odd facial markings.
"Ah, Cheri?" the woman in question replied nervously, "Ah...it has been...most unusual a day, non? Ah...has everyone else been kept busy by the events of this strange island?"
Nabiki's strangely unfocused gaze went from the stranger to the dusky skinned woman slung over Mon-Mon's shoulder, and in an even more peculiar tone she asked, "Who is that?"
The pail-haired priestess just smiled then unslung her burden then cast her onto the ground like a sack of potatoes. We all looked down to see yet another woman with odd facial markings, albeit that she had short dark hair neatly trimmed to just below shoulder length and her exotic skin complexion seemed to suggest that she hailed from a warm and sunny climate. Other than this she was quite naked and had her hands bound behind her back, her feet similarly tied by odd yellow ropes of unusual manufacture. She seemed to be only semi-coherent as she started to wake up right there and then, and I saw a pair of luminous eyes the color of emeralds yet diamond-slitted like those of a serpent.
"This," the Priestess announced, "Is the cause of much unpleasantness that we have experienced while on this island. Her name is Neferti, daughter of the serpent-god Set, and one of the Stygian lot from out of Egypt, and I believe that around here she is known commonly as the Snake Woman, self-designated patroness of the Island."
"My word," one of the lizard men reacted, "Are you saying this is our liege lady goddess?"
"A bit too human looking to be a Serpent, don't you think?" a second lizard man asked.
"Quite," a third agreed, "Bit of a downer if she should prove to be our Lady made flesh, though I'm certain T'shalkri here would find her most attractive."
"Oh, very droll," the leader of these lizard men snorted, "I assume this is merely a guise our lady might adopt on such occasions as she has to interact with the humans, and these two charming ladies quite clearly have some dispute with her, hence the rude treatment that she is receiving."
"You could put it that was, ma Cher," the stranger (whom I later learned is called Peorth) said as she eyed the dusky skinned woman with a snort, then gave an even more dubious look towards the lizard men themselves as if just then realizing that she was talking with intelligent dinosaurs, a thing even I must confess to finding most unusual.
Nabiki glanced at this Peorth, then at the one named Neferti and said, "You mean...she is the one whom those guys back there worship as their goddess? The one they make sacrifices to, including serving guests up as their dinner?"
"What?" Ranma reacted, as if only just now figuring out the sort of peril our wife had gotten herself into.
"That is not all," Mon-Mon revealed, "A short while ago your mother and I caught her in the act of attempting to digest two of your friends, and when your mother objected and demanded a face-down, she lost the fight and wound up being swallowed whole. I had to trick the goddess into swallowing me as well so that I could rescue your heavenly mother..."
I was just trying to sort out what was meant by the words "heavenly mother" when a low, malevolent laugh escaped from the prisoner at our feet, who was clearly now quite fully awake and glaring up at her with her serpentine eyes full of malevolent intentions.
"You deceived me, I will give you that much," she growled, "But holding me, that is another matter entirely!"
There was a sudden flaring of power that caused my nape hairs to stand on end and at once I fell into a crouch as the ropes binding the woman's ankles and wrists burst into flame, then she slipped through them and was on her feet in a flash, crackling with might that set off all of my alarm bells.
I sensed a similar rise in power levels from Peorth as she seemed prepared to attack the other woman and the rest of us went immediately on the offensive...all save for Nabiki, who alone stood her ground without a change in either posture or expression.
"You fools!" the dusky skinned woman declared haughtily, "Did you think to take me down that easily? You may have gained no more than a temporary advantage, but once I had time to recover my strength your fate was sealed. Now I'm going to finish you all then finish the job of having you for my dinner!"
"Big talk from a renegade!" Peorth shot back as her energy level increased three fold and the peculiar markings on her face began glowing, "But you're going to pay for what you've done, just as soon as I haul your sorry ass up to a heavenly court, mes serpent devil!"
"In your weakened state? I very much doubt it!" Neferti sneered, "I absorbed too much of your strength while I was digesting you, and besides...this is my island, I rule here! I am Queen over all that I survey, and my subjects here adore me and do my every bidding. They have given me a constant, steady supply of offerings that has made me powerful and---URK!?!?!"
I must confess that I was no less amazed than any other...even I did not see Nabiki move before she went into action, her hand closing about the throat of the dusky serpent-woman with the force of a vice grip, and like that the snake- woman's spell sputtered out as my wife held the demoness at arms length the way I might accost an enemy whom I intended to strangle.
"You mean..." Nabiki asked with deceptive calm, "...That you're the one whose behind what that maniac was doing to me and all of the other women he slaughtered?"
Neferti tried to pry my Airen's arm away, but her efforts were no more effective than those of a small child to an adult, and I heard the snake woman gasp out the words, "Gak---Lore Master?---Guh...?!?"
"Cheri?" Peorth asked in puzzlement, her tone reflecting my own amazed confusion as Ranma and I stared in mutual disbelief at the way our wife was behaving.
"I was asking you a question," Nabiki calmly stated to the struggling Neferti, "Are you to blame for what happened to Pai Takura and the others?"
"Nabiki?" Kasumi asked in equal surprise to match our amazement.
"I do believe that your sister has some issues with yon miscreant," Kodachi observed...and rather prophetically as it happened to turn out.
There was a silent locking of eyes and then I heard Nabiki say, "I see...you played on his mind and fed his growing paranoia...you turned him into your acolyte and he, in turn, did your bidding, supplying you with the victims you needed so that you could devour their energies and leave them as desiccated ghosts...unable to migrate to the next level of existence. Even the dead could not escape your emerald hell as you turned a peaceful tribe of primitives into those savage...things that tried just now to eat me..."
"Say what?" Ranma reacted in belated outrage.
Another dramatic pause then Nabiki said, "You are a vicious thing. If I let you go you'll just keep on doing what you want with whoever falls prey to you or your minions."
Neferti tried to rally herself but her efforts were almost laughable as she tried gasping out, "What...what do you...can't we talk about this? I'm sure--- COUGH---that we could work something out...?"
The look that I saw in my wife's expression was almost one more of curiosity than of malice, then she brought her free hand forward and said, "I don't make deals with killers." And then a very curious thing happened...to my eyes it almost seemed as through she picked a stray hair from the shoulder of the other woman...only what she pulled away was more like an electrified wire that crackled in the air and caused an electrostatic discharge to play around their bodies with unearthly colored light distorting their mutual profiles.
Nabiki stood back pulling the wire away from the evil goddess, and then before our eyes it almost seemed as though Neferti came unraveled, as if the incredible energies which she contained had come undone and she was falling apart before our very eyes, a woven tapestry that came undone to the sound of a very loud scream that made the tortures of the damned in the 999 hells sound like a calm refrain by contrast.
For several seconds there was nothing else for us but the play of rainbow colored light and crackling lightning filling the space formerly occupied by Neferti, and then a massive boom, followed by an equally deafening silence, and like that the glade was cleared with the goddess totally missing from the picture, leaving all of us to look on in wonder.
Nabiki's expression hardly changed from that curiously unearthly calm that had fallen over her while confronting the evil goddess. While the rest of us were just then trying to recover from what had happened, my wife turned to her "heavenly mother" and presented her with the thread that she had been holding, saying, "Keep this in a safe place, Mother, and give it to whoever might care. It's the code file for your friend, and I'm sure you'll know what to do with her once you get back home."
"Ah...certainly, Cheri," Peorth glanced down at the wire in question, then closed her palm about it and took on a look that seemed almost anticipatory, about the way I would feel if I had a longtime enemy at my mercy.
Elder Lotion greeted Nabiki as she turned away from her own handiwork and asked, "Feeling better?"
"Almost," my wife replied, running a hand through her hair as she blinked her eyes, and then I saw the Nabiki I knew return, along with a confused look of uncertainty at her own actions, "Did I just...?"
"She's not completely dead, if that is what you are concerned about," Elder Lotion answered, "But she might as well be that for what you have caused her to suffer. Fair payback for a wrong done towards you I would say. Thinking more about it for now...we will discuss the particulars later."
I heard one of the lizard men turn to his companions and say, "Looks to me like we're going to be in the market for a new goddess. Any objections if we elect her?" he pointed towards Nabiki.
There was no dissent as the other five lizards consented to granted Nabiki official Demi-Goddess status.
Just then I heard several yawns, groans and low moans from our sleeping lovebirds, and as Ami saw her fellow Moon Warriors recover their wits she could not help but smile and ask, "Pleasant nap?"
"Huh?" Ranma's cousin Usagi blinked her eyes then glanced towards Ryoga, then push herself abruptly off of him with a gasped, "You're not Mammo-chan!"
"Huh?" Ryoga reacted, glancing from one girl to the next before grabbing his face to head off a pending nosebleed.
"Who the---what the heck were you doing?" Rei seemed equally shocked to find herself beside the clueless lost boy, but then memories flooded back and her face took on an even more stunned expression as she gasped out the word, "Nani...?"
Ami could not resist chiming in, "What are you so worried about, Rei-chan? I think you three make an absolutely darling couple."
"Ucchan?" I heard Akane say, and smiled as I saw the disquieted expression on the face of the sex-swapping chef as she realized just who it was whom she was holding so tightly.
"Hey, get away from him, you witch!" Makoto declared as she and the one named Minako sat upright.
"Witch?" Akane pried herself up to glare back at the tall girl, "Don't call me names, you flirt! And who are you to be pointing any fingers, hey?"
"Huh?" Makoto only just then seemed to take notice of who it was that she had been sleeping with, and when that realization dawned on her she became very quite, even as Minako grinned broadly like the cat who had just swallowed the canary (an old saying that I can identify with quite well).
"Well, well," Peorth smiled as she glanced towards this odd assembly, "Looks to me as if everything is exactly as it should be here, so why fight the obvious, Cheri? Go with it."
Again I heard one of the lizard men say, "Interesting mating habits these humans have."
"Yes indeed," another lizard said as he held up a pen and a note pad, "I've been making a fascinating study of their mating habits here and I've got enough material here to write a dozen term papers. Just wait until my friends on the Internet learn about my findings..."
"Indeed, quite an amazing display of bisexual interaction within the species," a third agreed before turning a sour look towards their designated leader, "Except for some of us who do not seem willing to confine themselves to interplay within our species, that is."
"Oh please," the one named T'shalkri demurred, "It so happens that the lady Mizuno-chan is an unusually well bred specimen of the human sub-tight, and I found her company quite stimulating and she has a very beautiful mind..."
"Yes, I'm sure it would taste good with buttersauce and some cream cheese," yet another lizard man remarked, "But I still think that you should give our own females a break. Human tail chasing...even as interesting as it might be...is no substitute to breeding within your own species."
"Eh...better table this discussion, Brothers," the last remaining of the six lizard-men present spoke up while he inclined his head, "I think the Admiral has finally arrived, and he will want to have words with our friends here just as soon as can be managed."
"Eh?" Ranma asked in understandable confusion, "What...are you guys talking about?"
I became aware just then of a curious low humming noise filling the air, just barely within the threshold of human hearing. A moment later a shadow fell over us all and we glanced up to see a strange black object hovering over our heads, ovular in shape yet moving like a cloud in almost total silence.
"What the hell is that?" I heard Ukyo inquire slowly.
"Looks...kind of like a UFO," Akane answered.
"It's called the Invincible," T'shalkri declared proudly, "Flagship of his grace, the Admiral, and I assure you it is entirely of terrestrial manufacture."
"Rather advanced for earth technology," Kodachi murmured.
"Yes, the Admiral is quite proud of it," T'shalkri replied, "But you can tell him yourself in another few minutes...I believe that I see them launching a skiff to come and fetch you."
"Aiyaa," I murmured aloud, seeing what looked like some peculiar form of aircraft lowering from a hole in the bottom of the hovering shape and heading our way with a clear and purposeful intention...
* * *
Nabiki's Journal Resumes:
Later on that day I stood at the rail on the observation deck of the Invincible still wearing that ridiculous costume that Shampoo made me wear, taking in the breathtaking sight of a stratospheric sunset while seeking to make sense of the days events at the side of my mentor and the rest of our odd extended family group.
To my other side stood our rescuer, the "Admiral" who commanded this technological marvel, a mysterious man with dark-dark eyes who had introduced himself to us as "Challenger," though I've since learned that he has many other names and most often answers to the one called Magnus. He was our host on this flight as we left the island of Pangea far behind us and he seemed pleasant enough company even while I had the strangest sense around him that was almost like an opaqueness in contrast to the bright sensations that I was feeling from all around me.
"I do wish to apologize again to you and your loved ones for being so tardy in our arrival," Challenger Magnus said with his distinctly continental-accented (but otherwise flawless) Japanese, "Had we not received T'shalkri's message alerting us to your distress...it might not have ended quite so well. As it is I am pleased that no one was seriously hurt from among your party."
"Quite all right, Magnus," my mentor said as though she and the guy were old friends and knew each other from the old days (a fact I very strongly suspect, though I've yet to question either of them on that particular subject), "We know what a busy sort you are and we're quite pleased that you could take the time and go to all the trouble to assist us...is that not so, Apprentice?"
"Ah...right," I reluctantly responded, wondering what it was about the old guy in the odd uniform that bore no distinctive nationality I could recognize, his very presence making me feel like I was standing next to a stone obelisk. In fact the aura I could feel surrounding him was strongly polarizing like a bar magnet. Age and gravity hung about this gaijin like a stone around his neck, but there was also something curiously soothing about standing right near him, as though he was not opposed to nature but rather defined it by his very presence.
"Kinda convenient you showing up like you did," Ukyo pointed out, echoing my own thoughts that his sudden arrival had been a little too "dues ex machina" to be a mere coincidence, as if his being in the area was more than just the result of being summoned to the island by the Raptors
"Not hardly so convenient," Challenger revealed, "I regularly commute to and from Pangea to supervise various scientific projects that my organization has maintained over the years."
"So you built this thing...and you've got a lab facility operating on that island?" Ranma asked, beating me to the punch.
"The Morpheus Project is affiliated with my own organization, but I do not supervise the place directly," Admiral "Challenger" answered, "But I do get regular reports upon their research programs and the various dangerous life forms which reside there, but my interest is spread a bit thin these days with many other issues clamoring for my attention. Were it not that the Invincible was in the neighborhood when we got news of your crash landing..."
"Tell me something," I turned and looked at the man directly, risking staring into those black eyes of his, which seemed to reflect all of eternity, "Did you know about director Akuma and what was going on in the ape-man zone?"
We maintained eye contact for a long several seconds, then he blinked first, glancing down and conceding to me a very important issue.
"I had heard...rumors and reports concerning his activities, but nothing more specific than second and third hand information," he admitted, "You are correct, however...I ought to have made inquiries and probed the matter more deeply. But...there were...complicating factors that prevented me from getting at the truth concerning Akuma Zaisatsu. You are right to find me at fault for such a shocking discrepancy, however..."
"You had a problem named Neferti blocking the way," Lotion supplied to him by way of insinuation, "A renegade Goddess taking exile upon Pangea and claiming it as her own personal fief, and threatening to cause trouble if you interfered at all with her playthings."
"Precisely," Challenger answered, "She was dangerous and clever and she knew exactly where to stir up the worst sort of trouble if she had a mind to. We had something of a tentative agreement to stay apart from one another and mind our own boundaries..."
"Why, what would she have done if you'd gone after her?" Kodachi asked.
"The Morpheus project," Lotion answered.
"Precisely, the Morpheus project," Challenger affirmed, "If I had marshaled my forces my forces to oppose her then she would have destroyed it and brought down the gates holding in the creatures inhabiting the monster portion of the island."
"Oh my," Kasumi remarked, "Would that have been a problem?"
"Only if you wish another visit to your island nation by such illustrious celebrities as has made Japan famous the world over," Challenger said dryly, "It would have been most...unfortunate, I assure you."
I had a sudden mental image of giant monsters running amok, tearing apart Tokyo and its surrounding precincts, and I realized at that moment that he was not referring to any Toho-studios rubber monster movie project.
"Aiyaa," Shampoo spoke up just then, glancing around at the sleek interior of the massive craft before adding, "Is secret project of Americans, this ship you own?"
"No," Challenger said rather firmly, "Not the Americans, nor any other nation on the Earth. No flag and no nation, that is the motto of my organization."
"And why is that?" Akane asked.
"For lots of different reasons," Challenger replied, gazing off into the sunrise, "My organization is in possession of advanced technological secrets that would potentially destabilize world peace if such knowledge were too widely disseminated. As such we operate like a government unto ourselves, but with no ties to any one nation. Our allegiance is to humankind, not to governing institutions that have yet to unite under a common purpose."
"In other words you are apolitical?" Kodachi asked.
"Not as such, but we do keep an interest in what is going on in the world," Challenger replied, "But our interests also transcend traditional boundaries to incorporate much that goes on that is not reported in the public media, such as the existence of a protected zone such as Pangea."
"You hold yourself above international law like a secret shadow government?" Makoto asked.
"Not at all," Challenger replied, "You might say I hold a rather...unique position, but this not about me or my organization. You were unfortunate victims of a set of circumstances, but since I was able to offer you a lift out of that situation, it is my privilege to transport you back to civilization with no one the worse for the matter, save only a slight inconvenience for those of you who had perilous encounters with the native life there."
I thought about making an issue of my own "slight inconvenience" from encountering the native life, but just then Kasumi's pet squawked for attention, diverting our focus back to the winged little pest in that cage that Challenger had provided to contain him.
"Speaking of which," I groused uneasily, "Why are you letting my big sis to transport that dangerous critter? Isn't that, like, violating the local ecology or something?"
"Perhaps it is," and by the way he said that I could tell that Challenger had his own qualms about the matter, "But imprinting is not so light a thing that even I could dismiss the ties between that baby and its adopted mother...and, to be quite blunt about it," he added in a low voice for my immediate benefit, "Your sister can be...quite persuasive on the subject."
I had to concede the point to this guy, even if I was confident by his tone that he was a man who was not easily blunted by the opinions of another. Given the way Kasumi fawns over that pesky thing---which to me looks like a cross between a rat and a featherless parrot---I'd seven the gods would think twice about parting them. At least Peorth was able to shrink it down to a manageable size, though what it'll look like when it's full grown is anybody's estimation.
"So what's the deal then?" Ranma asked, conveniently changing the subject, "Are you gonna let us go after what we just went through?"
"Yeah," Usagi added in, "Don you secret types worry about us blabbing about what we know once we get back to Japan?"
"In your case that's almost a given," Rei teased her companion, though I could tell from the cross look Usagi gave her that it was mostly just a habit they had of playfully needling one another, and beneath it there was deep eroticism and affection.
"And what would you tell others in your homeland?" Challenger asked, "Who would you tell, and who else would believe you?"
"Huh?" Ryoga scratched the back of his head and looked as clueless as always.
"You know, that is a very good point," Ami noted, "Very few people would seriously credit a group of young people claiming to just come back from a primitive setting populated by dinosaurs and the like. They would tend to call it a mass hysteria or the product of a joke that we were all perpetrating."
"Good point that," Minako spoke up on behalf of her friends, "I know that if I heard a story like this I sure wouldn't believe it."
To what we all shared a somewhat nervous chuckle, the kind you get when relieving pent-up tension with a kind of wistful hope that we could pretend it was all imaginary and get on with our lives again once it was over, but in my case I knew that could never be the case, and I suspect that would also be so for Ukyo, Makoto and Peorth, given the story I've since heard about them and the snake that ate them. (The curious thing there is Mon-Mon, and how she overcame Neferti, though I've been suspecting all along that our resident Nekonlon spokesperson was hiding more than her share of personal secrets).
The question is not what you will be allowed to retain in memory of your adventure," Challenger announced, "The only real is what can be done for your all since the captain of your vessel has graciously accepted my offer to transport his vessel to a repair facility in Paris, France, where it will be restored to a fully operational condition."
"France?" I asked, "Why there?"
"Because of the antique nature of the vessel," Challenger explained, "They really don't manufacture spare parts for that type and model of airship in this modern jet era. However, since I am something of an expert upon the subject of airships, it so happens that I know exactly how the parts that are needed can be crafted as ordered. That way the Nekonlon can have their airship back with my blessings, and at no cost to Prince Kirin, with whom I would prefer to maintain favorable relations."
"Paris you say?" Kodachi mused, linking hands with Kasumi, "How very interesting. Is there any chance we might tag along for a bit? I've always fancied a visit to the City of Lights, and I would dearly love to show Kasumi- chan the view from the Eiffel Tower."
"If you wish it, Miss Kuno, I would be greatly honored to indulge you in this fancy," Challenger nodded with a gracious smile, "In fact, you are all welcome to...tag along, as you say...at my expense for the duration of time that it takes to repair the airship. Then you can be on your way once again back to your native country."
"That's awfully generous of you, Sugar," Ukyo grinned, hugging Makoto on impulse, much to my little sister's annoyance, "I'd love a chance to sample some French cuisine...not that it'll ever beat the taste of okonomiyaki."
"You took the words right out of my mouth, Sempai," Makoto hugged her back, and I caught a look from Minako's vantage that showed her irritation, even though she was holding hands with Ryoga of all people.
"Paris you say?" Ami asked, "But won't this ship kind of stand out if you take it over a major European city?"
"Not to worry there," Challenger replied, "The Invincible has stealth capabilities that will allow it to slip in under the radar without detection. I do this sort of thing all the time, you see, and you won't even have to concern yourselves with such trivialities as passports and immigration. All will be taken care of quietly through back-door channels."
"Cool," Usagi grinned, hugging her own immediate companion, "So what do you say, Rei? Wanna go to Paris?"
"That's a trick question, right?" Rei smiled as she hugged Ranma's blonde cousin back, even as I saw Minako steal a glance and a grin at the nervous Ryoga.
I turned to my own iinazuke and said, "What about it, Ranchan? Sham-chan? They say Paris is a very romantic city for young lovers..."
"Is so?" Shampoo grinned back, turning a coy look Ranma's way, "What you say, Airen?"
"You mean spend more time with the both of you?" he grinned, "You bet. I just hope Miss Hinako doesn't give us demerits for playing a week load of hooky."
"Aiyaa," Shampoo nodded, "Is good question, where is teacher?"
"Yeah, and the old freak she hangs around with," Ranma scowled, "Where were they while we were out getting chased down by dinosaurs and cannibals and stuff?"
"Speak of the devil and he will appear," Lotion murmured, directing our attention to the "young couple" putting in an appearance, Miss Hinako in child form while holding onto the arm of Happosai's handsome "cursed" form.
"Well now, this is quite a snazzy little coup you've got here, Magnus old buddy," Happosai remarked while glancing around at the panoramic observation room, whose entire right wall was one huge Plexiglas-type picture window, "Beats cruising around in that sub of yours all day..."
I saw Challenger lift an eyebrow to this, but he took the comment in stride, even though I found it curious that Happosai obviously knew him.
"Where were you two all this time?" Usagi asked.
"Yeah, you have any idea what we just went through while you guys were...whatever?" Rei scowled down at the pervert and teacher.
"Oh, you were having troubles?" Hinako-sensei asked, "We didn't notice."
"We left our cabin to find some room service and found ourselves in a cargo hold on board this ship," Happosai added, "Imagine my surprise when I hear the word Invincible tossed about. Obviously this is the latest incarnation of a long line of air-powered ships in your arsenal, old bean, and if I'm not too mistaken it's got to have an anti-gravity system."
"Um...quite," Challenger said, "And your name is again?"
"Hah, don't tell me you forgotten me?" Happosai said, "You know better than to judge a book by its cover, but maybe a little reminder will help out..." and with that he launched himself at Mon-Mon, who quite naturally pounded him face- first into the deck.
"Happy-chan!" Hinako declared in concern, then her eyes flashed and she produced her trademark coin, only to have it snatched away by Lotion, who moved fast enough to prevent an attempted draining of the priestess.
"Play nice, Hinako-san," my mentor cautioned the teacher, "My uncle only got what was due to him, and he will recover soon enough to once more become your plaything."
There was a brief pause before recognition crossed the face of Challenger, who then stared at the fallen pervert and said, "Happosai? Is that you? You've...changed..." and even he showed surprise for a change.
"That's a matter of opinion," Ranma grumbled, and I had to concede that the old boy's changes on the surface were largely as superficial as they were meaningless to Hinako's pearl-induced love of the Jusenkyo cursed old freak.
I felt a shift in the air beside me and turned to see Peorth materializing just to the right of me, and I raised my eyebrow to this as I spoke to her with a softly murmured, "Mother?"
"I delivered the goods as you requested, Nabiki-chan," she informed me, "Neferti's essence...what you left of her to be reconstructed through a recovery program...has been given a lowered designation and she's been punished with a downgrade to a class four life form as punishment for her actions."
I read Peorth's expression then murmured back, "I take it that's a pretty stiff sentence by your standards?"
"Oh yes," Peorth replied with a nod, "You came very close to permanently discorporating her completely. There was some concern upstairs about how you were able to do this, but I did my best to explain that you were acting under extreme conditions and could not be held responsible for your actions."
"And did they buy it?" I asked, more than slightly disturbed myself about what I had done, even though I knew full well that I did it willingly if without premeditation.
"More or less," Peorth informed me, "They accept the fact that you are...inexperienced in the use of your abilities, but I'd recommend against making it a habit to do that to every evil god that you encounter."
"I don't plan to," I replied with a shrug, "But if somebody pulls that stunt around me again...then all bets are off."
"I thought as much," Peorth leaned closer and added, "For what it's worth, and strictly off the record, I am very proud of what you did, Cheri. Neferti had that coming to her for a very long time, and I'm glad somebody finally found a way of taking her down a peg or two, or---in this case---devolved her to her primal essence."
I tried to smile at that but the truth is that I was not all that comfortable with my own actions. I glanced across the room at Lotion and saw her nod to me with complete understanding of my situation. I had just endured one of the worst days of my life and had come through my ordeal much stronger than when I had started. My powers were now such that I could literally feel the energy patterns flowing throughout the room and could tap into them with a mere thought, much like flexing a muscle. I could tell, for example, the way those elemental force lines were bending around the aura that Challenger manifested, even as I could feel the strength of the various people all around me, from Ranma's fierce Ki levels to Shampoo's own potent life force. The Senshi each read like a different color of the rainbow and manifested a different elemental nature, while Hinako's aura seemed curiously flexible, and Happosai's aura was nearly off the charts in spite of his currently recumbent position.
And Kasumi? I could feel my mentor radiating a confident and calming presence that filled the room with her essence, and not for the first time I wondered if there were more to my older sister than the humble housewife I had long taken her to be. Mon-Mon similarly had a life force that was strong enough to complete with Peorth's quite potent aura, but the one who most surprised me was Lotion. My mentor's Ki levels were high, to be quite certain, but she was also tempered by a sense of great age and wisdom, of infinitely deep reserves that had barely even been tapped into, and I wondered if this were the result of her training or possibly some gift that she possessed, much like Cologne's Juraian heritage. It definitely bode further study and presented me with yet another mystery for the future.
Yet still it was good to be contemplating a trip to Paris that might portend a relaxing change of pace for us and could even give us a genuine sense of this being like an extended vacation. I had never been to Europe before and could expect to see wonders of a mundane sort that would make a nice change of pace after Nekonlon and Pangea. I was looking forward to spending time with Shampoo and Ranma since we were only a week or two away from the date of our pending marriage, and what better place in which to celebrate a pre-Honeymoon Bachelor/Bachelorette party? Especially with Challenger offering to foot the bill, and I could not see a downside to his offer.
Of course I had no idea at the time that I was about to meet a fellow named Picolet, or that I'd shortly discover that Ranma's father was not the only idiot parent in the fair town of Nerima, but that's getting a bit ahead of myself again, and let me instead explain what happened when we finally did arrive in Paris...
Continued.
Comments/Criticisms/Parisian Delicacies: shadowmane@ridgenet.net
Think the adventure is over here? Guess again as the Pangea adventure heads to a warmer Parisian climate with a pending encounter with the dreaded Picolet Chardin whose classic meeting sets a tone of gastronomic proportions in: "Dining on Whine, Woman and Sarong," or, "Into the Mouths of Fools and Perverts..." Be there!
