The "Spells 'R Us" Apprentice Makes a Bet
He was of medium height, slightly above average weight and was taking exquisite care to remain absolutely undetected. It was dark in the room, and a combination of a stone floor, soft shoes and decades of sneaking up behind unsuspecting customers allowed him to move with less than a whisper.
Gently, he knelt at the edge of the pool and concentrated. A ripple passed over the surface and softly glowing images of a young martial artist and his fairy companion danced in the water. Another moment saw their light sink into the depths as the man guided the pool to a different, but related, timeline. After a few moments he found what he'd been searching for, and let out the breath he'd been holding.
Then he carefully extracted a capillary tube from a pocket and with practiced care he lowered the glass toward the still waters. Pausing to insure accuracy, his hand dipped towards the surface of the liquid and √
"HEY!"
Let it not be said that Saotome Ranma (or, to the western manner of names, Ranma of the Saotome family) was less than a superb martial artist. He was a master of dozens of schools, undisputed victor of countless hard-fought challenges and possessed situational awareness such that he could evade lethal strikes in his sleep. Even at his present ten-inch size and residing in a birdcage, being awoken by a soft exhalation from halfway across a room was trivial.
"YOU BY THE WELL! Can ya get me outta here?"
Let it also not be said that Ranma possessed even the slightest shred of subtlety, discretion or the knowledge of how to bargain with an intruder who might be willing to trade freedom in exchange for not being exposed. Apparently, failing to intimidate a being who could play billiards with stars was no cure for the dreaded Open Mouth, Insert Foot maneuver of the Saotome School of Martial Arts.
A cat smirked from the shadows. Just as good as a watchdog, and much more amusing.
"The Bet is over, young one." The voice was soft as silk, smooth as warm honey and tinged with glee. That it came from a black-furred cat only mildly disturbing. That the cat was the incarnation of the Elder God of Mischief was moreso, but it was the grin wide enough to swallow a football that made the intruder start to sweat.
"Titania won and I do not believe she would be amused, were she to learn her prize were the victim of theft." There was a hard edge to the voice now, and the man nervously glanced towards the door, which had somehow closed. He swallowed. Stealing from the Queen of the Fairies was legendary if you got away with it, as were the punishments if you didn't.
Toltiir padded across the floor, brushing against the man's legs in the way that cats do when they want to leave black hair on white pants. Glancing down, the man could have sworn he'd been wearing a black stealth suit and not a white polyester Full Nanaimo leisure suit. With cat hair on the legs. He looked up at Toltiir, now sitting on the bartop. An enormous purple telephone floated in front of him, with Autodial #1 labeled as Titania. "Care to explain?"
"No! I mean yes! I can explain," The man started, stopped, started again and finally engaged his brain. "I'm apprenticed to a Spells R Us storekeeper and he told me to do my own Ranmaverse insertion and sent me here to swap one from a reality that was adjacent to Titania's bet and he said he'd distract you and I'm really sorry and I'll never do it again and can I go now?"
There was a pregnant pause into which Ranma took the opportunity to prove his flexibility, mainly by cramming a second foot into his mouth. "Aren't you the guy who sold the paper to Jared?"
Franticly motioning for Ranma to be quiet, the man stammered, "Um, no... that wasn't-"
"Yeah - I remember you! You started the whole Phoenix Mage thing! That was hilari-um, ya. You're not gonna get me outta here, are you?"
"No." The flat denial failed to silence the martial artist.
"So what were ya doing? It didn't look like a bet."
Preferring conversation instead of giving Toltiir time to get bored and actually call Titania, the apprentice started talking.
"It wasn't. I wanted to extract a soul from one of the observational timelines and insert it into a Ranma mainline." He snuck a look at Toltiir. "It would've been fun watching an otaku who thinks he knows all the answers make a fool of himself as his plans fall apart." Another glance at the Elder God who held his fate in a paw. "Anyway, you made me extract the wrong brother so it'd turn very different from what I'd planned." He sighed dramatically. "It's too bad that we'll never know how it might've turned out."
Toltiir cleared his throat. "I'll give you a B for trying to make me curious but a D-minus for the idea. Foreknowledge isn't as amusing as it sounds, and it's been done before. Many times. Perhaps Titania can come up with something more inventive."
Before the apprentice could panic and start pleading for his existence, Ranma interjected, "Ya know, since you've already got someone, could ya drop him into one of those E55RS232-HP lines? They have so many bad endings ya gotta be able to find something funny."
The apprentice and the Elder God stared. It wasn't so much what had been said – the E55 series was popular entertainment (cinema) with the HP tag indicating the latest Harry Potter movies – it was who had said it. Did the terminally clueless and incompetent-in-all-things-not-related-to-martial-arts teenager just made a reference to multidimensional notation that made sense?
Ranma shrugged at the attention. "I've nuthin' better to do in here, and I been watchin' an' listenin' to y'all doin' it for a while. Changin' the Well isn't much different from chi manipulation and while I ain't figured out how to alter anything, I can trace the branches pretty good."
Toltiir decided to let the martial artist's next escape attempt succeed, just to see what would happen. Reality manipulation from thirty feet away while in an enchanted prison wasn't easy, no matter how casual Ranma made it sound.
On the other hand, the apprentice grabbed hold of the idea as a lifeguard would a drowning man. This is not the recommended course of action as it tends to get the lifeguard into trouble and a wiser lifeguard would throw a rope or flotation device, but the apprentice was not in a state of mind to remember that sort of thing.
"That's a great idea! The HP lines always have Terminal Endings available for use, and dropping an otaku into a non-anime universe would be new, wouldn't it?"
Toltiir considered for a moment, then smiled. It would at least be better than watching Titania amuse herself. "I believe we can do that." Then he vanished the phone and with a paw and a casual wave an image of a rope appeared in the pool, worn and frayed with a multitude of faintly glowing strands branching off. While many of the lines were bright and wound their way out of sight, the majority terminated in dark red and purple lights.
"There!" The apprentice pointed to one of the shorter and darker strands. "The uncle's abuse leaves him with a compound fracture instead of a simple broken arm, and he bleeds out before his magic can heal him. Voldemort decimates the magical world, the war involves the mundanes, and a nuclear winter finishes off the survivors. Bleak enough?"
"Nothing funny about that. Go ahead and put in your hero."
The man paused and looked embarrassed. "I ah, missed."
A furry eyebrow elevated. "What?"
"I was aiming for a heroic otaku – my target was a Medal of Honor-winning Marine Corp captain and hand-to-hand expert with an extensive anime collection. I was going to pull his soul a fraction of a second before his Bradley was hit but somehow, " he glared at Ranma, "I got his brother instead – an overweight Air Force supply sergeant. I don't think he even watches anime."
The corner of cat's mouth wrinkled. "I'm sure everything will work out fine. Go ahead and throw him in."
As the apprentice leaned over the pool and emptied the glass tube, Toltiir continued, "Of course, the energy needed to do all this might drain any active magics on you, such as that anti-transformation amulet you're wearing."
The apprentice turned to Toltiir in horror, before looking down at his hand just in time to watch it start to sprout purple fur. Again.
"Wark!"
1) Well of Mimir and the entire Bet concept, by Gregg Sharp
2) Ranma in a birdcage, from A Fistful Of Omake Part 31: Spideromake at .net/s/557133/31/, by Gregg Sharp.
3) Apprentice at Spells R Us, and Jared Ornstead becomes Phoenix Mage, from Otaku Four Part 1, by Jared Ornstead