A Spider In Nerima
A Ranma ½ / Spider-man fusion
Chapter 36: The Reversible Demon
Neko-Ranma was surprised. The tab was far better than he'd expected. She was every bit as good as he, and just as determined to block as he was to advance. He feared his opportunity was slipping away.
Every opening in her defense was a feint -- a deception to draw him out. And she wasn't merely blocking his assault; she was carving him to ribbons, millimeters at a time. Somehow, she seemed faster than he. No blood stained the ice, though had he looked closely he would have detected the barest glimmer of golden light twinkling in the depths of the multitude of tiny cuts he suffered from tips of her glistening claws. But he didn't look. He just knew they stung unmercifully.
He redoubled his attack as a cry of alarm reverberated faintly through his awareness. To Neko-Ranma it was muffled and almost indiscernible. It seemed to slam the tab in the core of her being. She hesitated in her defense imperceptibly, and it was all the opening he needed. He stepped into the gap that opened for the barest of moments and struck -- struck for her heart. He would end this now! He knelt, ducking under her defenses. His fighting spirit flared, melting the frozen platform that supported them. His arm surged forward like a striking snake with yellow-green fangs of ki.
In hindsight, it seemed easy. Why hadn't he done this earlier? The necrosis-ridden victor stepped close to his victim, twisting his claws in her chest and gloating. He felt the soft flesh of her breast under the pads of his paw. Oh! If only the naked one had stayed to fight instead of this thick waisted tabby. The sensation thrilled him and he lifted her overhead, letting her own weight push her breast harder into his palm.
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She couldn't believe she'd been so careless. To be distracted so. She was better than that. Better than this grotesque mockery of herself -- of First One -- with his claws shoved through her heart, with his pawing hand on her breast.
Now it was a struggle to move. No. It was a struggle even to think -- to cling with her last ounce of tenacity to the hope of victory and escape and life. To keep the light within her from going out -- from giving in to the darkness.
But the cry of astounded surprise and horror coming from the two human-types made her falter in her defense. The shock was too much for them -- too alien. Their reaction sparked an involuntary second of inattention and she found herself skewered on the claws of his darkened soul.
That darkness poured into her now -- into her very heart, but she refused to bow. If she was alive, she would fight. The oblivion of death seemed preferable to an eternity trapped in a walking death such as now lifted her on high.
The words burrowed through the darkness -- the darkness trying to extinguish the light that still burned in her ravaged heart. "We have to die ..."
Voices in her head. She struggled to grasp the meaning of the words. A picture of emerging victorious after traveling a road fraught with peril. Part of her screamed against the plan flowing unbidden through her consciousness. It wanted to flee such a path. It made no sense at all.
Another part of her welcomed death rather than servitude. And part of her scrambled to grasp the slim hope the voices spoke of. She had nothing to lose.
She was suddenly grateful for the short lesson on manipulating her ki and emotions Onna had imparted. She concentrated on the light she had seen in Scarlet and Onna, that she also found deep within her own heart. She calmed herself into a soul-of-ice. She gave herself to it with the same absolute abandon with which she fought.
The deepening pockets of newly melted sea swirling around Neko-Ranma's feet and ankles flash froze. He was locked in an adamantine grip before he was even aware the battle wasn't over.
The air around her seemed to chill between breaths. A ragged plume billowed from her lips and drifted around the face of the laughing zombie who held her aloft. The claws in her chest began to twist again. He was lowering her. She summoned her strength, preparing to give this corrupted caricature of her male self what she hoped would be an unexpected reply.
The tell-tale sign of her breath, suddenly visible in the growing heat, was Neko-Ranma's first clue things were not completely as he thought. Shock stripped the gloating smile from his ghastly visage as he tried to turn and brandish his trophy before the remaining aspects of Ranma Saotome. His feet were cemented ankle-deep in the frozen surface.
A cruel smile grew on Neko-Onna's face. She opened her eyes to look upon a bewildered zombie. The soul-of-ice numbed her to the agony of darkness in her chest. The lamp of inner resolve steeled her determination.
"Thees hurrrts you know." She almost purred the words as she raised her arm. "Let's seeee howw you like eet."
Drawing on her last reserves, Neko-Onna struck like lightning, driving scimitars of spiritual energy through zombie-Ranma's heart in a mirror image of those piercing her own.
"Nowt soo much fun ees eet?" she rasped as she let the flame leap forth from the covert in her heart. It crackled, a bolt striking to the core of Neko-Ranma's withered soul. It drove back the darkness, flashing through the recesses of his being. In an instant it revealed the reality of his heart and mind in a kaleidoscope of black and gold.
The darkness in his mind writhed, searching for a place to hide, to escape the brilliant pain racing through him. But deep in the recesses of his heart; in the place linking him to the identity of Ranma Saotome an ember of light responded. It leapt up in joy and opened itself wide, coming out of its miserable hiding place to throw wide its arms in joyous abandon -- daring to join the assault on darkness.
The supernova of spiritual energy was over in an instant. The outside world slipped away from his awareness and as it did, his ki-claws retracted.
Neko-Ranma was in shock. He stood staring, eyes unfocused; consciousness turned inward. The invading darkness no longer held the field of his soul. His weak inner light drew strength from the infusion of hope, and ransacked the squalid beachhead of darkness. It flung open doors in his soul and lit the hidden rooms, both good and bad. He faced them all in a moment of time.
A battle of contrasting images, contrasting memories, contrasting values flared afresh in his consciousness as the light pursued each shadow it found, and the darkness tried to squirm into any crack of self-serving evasion it could find.
Neko-Onna sagged forward as the spiritual spikes supporting her disappeared. She was spent, but even in exhaustion, she felt her counterattack ravaging the darkness of Neko-Ranma's soul.
The cat princess found her forehead leaning against the now quivering and glassy-eyed zombie. With effort she turned to look for the help she knew was already there, and to find the alarm that distracted her.
She pushed herself erect with difficulty and looked over her shoulder. A somber Onna met her weary gaze. First One stood at Onna's side and Scarlet, once again a gigantic spider, towered above them, wreathed in a frigid aura that danced and shimmered with the beauty of an aurora borealis surrounding a golden sun.
"Like you better other way," the wounded cat-princess managed to joke between ragged gasps. She rubbed her chest. The wound was already sealing itself. An unexpected silence met her forced levity.
Onna stepped forward and laid her hand on Neko-Onna's shoulder. The cry of alarm that distracted her echoed through her awareness. Images and emotions filled her consciousness. Images of death and life, feelings of completion, and a long forgotten wholeness. And a glimpse of a grim and perilous escape from the demon's gut.
Comprehension struck her in a flash. The voices in her head; the ones who had given her the glimmer of hope; who sparked her desperate final attack. She recognized them and understood. Her eyes lifted and she looked at Onna. The girl-type's smile was wistful.
Turning to First One, Neko-Onna found the same sad resolve. They were committed to their course. Part of her wanted to flee. Part of her recognized the truth. She lifted her eyes to search Scarlet's unblinking arachnid eyes.
"Is thees thee only way?" the cat girl asked quietly. The zombie cat skewered on her claws seemed to shudder at the question.
"The only way that'll put things right." The answer throbbed in her mind.
"Weell eet work?" she asked. Again the images flowed. It would work if they stood together -- if they all chose alike. The choice was hers. The choice came to each of them. Their fate was in their hands and hearts.
"Are you surrrre?" Neko-Onna turned her gaze back on the quivering zombie cat still impaled on her claws.
"As sure as we can be," Onna said quietly. She turned her head to look closely at the shuddering form before them. "You may have provided our best hope there," she said, inclining her head slightly toward Neko-Ranma, pointedly looking at the shimmering lances penetrating his chest. "I don't know, but what this was the only way. Don't pull 'em until you make your choice."
Neko-Onna looked at her paw and the spikes of spiritual energy disappearing into Neko-Ranma's necrosis ridden flesh. She tightened her grip as she nodded her agreement. The zombie cat grunted in pain.
Onna nodded, a sad, almost reticent smile playing with the corners of her mouth. "Onna-Neko, I don't think I ... we ... Ranma Saotome will ever be 'right' if we don't do this. It's our only chance. We've got to try. If we don't ..." Onna's eyes gazed into a not-so-distant memory.
"Failure is not an option."
The original girl type turned her gaze on the shuddering form of Neko-Ranma before her. "Here's hoping he doesn't make any more bad choices."
Turning to Scarlet, Onna looked up at the ominous and silent spider. "I'm ready." She stepped toward the massive fangs.
"Wait." Ranma stepped forward and faced Onna. He bowed low to her, then straightening, reached out and clasped her right forearm with his right hand. "Failure is not an option. It's all or nothing."
Onna peered back into his eyes and nodded. She closed her own hand on his arm, completing the grasp. "I'm putting my money on all," she said quietly.
"It's a sure thing. Ranma Saotome never loses."
Onna and Ranma starred into each other's eyes for a second more. Onna broke the moment, moving toward Scarlet.
Ranma turned toward the two cat personas. He put his arm around the cat-girl. The words he spoke into her mind bore a raw-edged hurt. "No matter what happens, make sure this baka hears it -- feels it in his very core." He moved to stand behind Neko-Onna, putting his hands on her shoulders.
A surge of strength coursed through her being at his touch. Twin stingers seemed to stab into the base of her neck. She heard the males in front and back of her grunt as they too felt Scarlet's fangs sink deep. And the venom of light flowed.
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Neko-Ranma found himself in a bleak landscape of starkest contrast. All was a brilliant golden light or inky black shadows. The light simply shone, casting its light on the barren landscape of his mind. He felt disembodied, as though he floated above a featureless plain, blasted boringly clean by the wash of golden light threatening to vanquish the dark conflict that gave his life texture, depth, intrigue, verve and potential to ... to ...
He couldn't quite seem to put his potential into words that satisfied him. All that came to him rang of a pointless, vain selfishness.
His thoughts ground to a stupefied halt as he took in his surroundings.
Shadow shapes interrupted the starkness of the plain on which he stood. They seemed to rise of their own volition from its horizontal emptiness. They seemed cast by nothing. The obsidian silhouettes called to him, urging him to return to their light -- to reject the annihilating void of darkness.
Neko-Ranma tried to clear his head of the confusion. How could the darkness be light and the light darkness? Part of him howled in rebellion against the reversal, but another part found solace in the shifting definitions of his perceptions. It made his desires just and reasonable. It comforted him in his confusion. It wanted to shift his perception of right and wrong to a more comfortable position. Deep inside his core, a tiny glimmer refused to move. Stubbornly it dug in its claws and refused to budge.
The shadows -- black cardboard cutouts of his greatest desires -- were few. They seemed the pinnacle of his aspirations, however.
The dojo was there, a monolithic onyx shadow. Cut out letters let glimmers of light through. They proclaimed it the. "Saotome School."
A mammoth outline of his human male-type stood triumphant, grinding its heel upon the buxom silhouette of his prostrate girl half. He felt assured she was gone for good.
Alongside the vanquished curse, a second silhouette of Ranma Saotome towered over three cowering forms: a withered stump of a man, a long-haired samurai and a panda. The panda held a sign begging mercy of the grand master over its head.
And Warm Lap was there -- a Warm Lap he had longed for -- cute, open and inviting, attentive -- amorous even. The curves of her body, void of details as they were, fanned a flame he ached to embrace. His growing desire sparked memories hidden from his human half -- memories of Warm Lap's luxurious aroma and its testimony of her repressed desire for him.
His thoughts stumbled. No. Her desire wasn't for him. It was for First One. But First One wasn't as strong as he! How could Warm Lap want First One?
The shadows beckoned to him with things he wanted desperately -- things the sea had sung of -- power, pleasure, and the right, the very right, to pursue his every whim without thought of consequence to himself or others. The right to be Ranma Saotome: Grand Master of Anything Goes. The darkness in his heart burgeoned anew.
The light simply shone, forcing him to choose between the harsh truth of right and the seductive deception of wrong.
There were no shades of gray in his consciousness -- no place in between. He had to choose. Turn to the light or turn to the dark. Which was which? He had to decide. Neko-Ranma held his head in his hands and whimpered. He had to decide.
Twin spikes of brilliant pain clamped either side of his neck, burrowing down his spine. When he opened his eyes again, things had changed.
The stark landscape was gone. In its place were Ranma Saotome's earliest memories, scrolling by at a dizzying speed.
His father, Genma lectured on the role of the noble martial artist. But while Genma's words painted one picture, his actions painted another. Child Ranma struggled to understand how his Otousan could be less than perfect.
There were occasional happy memories, but most were of arduous training and constant competition. He learned the world was a twisted and heartless place bent on forcing him -- or deceiving him -- to bow to its injustice. But he was a noble martial artist. He would not bow to the world or its minions.
Ukyo was there. A happy memory cut far too short in his mind. The flavor of her okonomiyaki burst with heavenly magnificence in his mouth. His accidental sabotage of her sauce marred the happy thought. A realization that he, like his Otousan -- his oyaji -- was not the perfect martial artist, began to grow. He had to hide that. No one could know.
He was falling into darkness. Below him a myriad of sparkling eyes glowed. The utterly delicious smell of fish sausage was suddenly disgusting in his nostrils. The eyes had claws. They raked at him. He fought back, trying to keep them at bay. The Devil Cat was there. He shivered at the memory and realization that Ranma Saotome's first encounter with the Devil Cat came before the boy summoned him for the first time. The realization he was summoned to fight the Devil Cat. It was his purpose: to save the boy. To save First One.
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Neko-Onna pulled her claws from Neko-Ranma's chest. Her choice was made. She would walk the valley of death. She turned to look into the shimmering blue eyes of First One.
"He iiis yours to deeal weeth noww," she said. "I wiill join my seester iiin the chooosen way." The young man nodded, his eyes never leaving hers as he bowed.
"Remember ... "
"Yesss," she smiled. "Ranma Sssaotome never loseees. But reemeemberrr a feww times eet wass daamn clossse. Weee," she cut her eyes toward the staggered zombie before her, "were your viiictory."
He bowed again and clasped her forearm as he had Onna's before she embraced the spider living in the depths of Ranma Saotome's being. He stepped around the tabby-cat version of himself and stationed himself behind the quaking catamount.
"Hope this works in the spirit world," he whispered as he quickly pressed a pattern on the cat-zombie's neck. The palsy-shudder shaking the necrosis-ridden Neko-Ranma ceased and Ranma smiled.
"Domo arigato, Tofu-sensei."
He placed his hands on Neko-Ranma's shoulders and waited. The blacked flesh began to liquefy under the warmth of his hands, and the corrupted cat-warrior began to moan pitifully.
Their minds melded. Ranma finally experienced the temptations of the sea surrounding them. It staggered him, but left him unmoved. He could see the truth before him in the half-digested, half-transformed version of himself. He shuddered to think he -- any part of him -- was capable of sinking to such depravity. He wanted to deny it, but it was there before him.
Neko-Onna shuddered as she turned to the giant spider overshadowing them. She saw the discarded shell of Onna's being slip from the icy platform and disappear into the black sea. Such was her own fate.
A whisper of unfamiliar poetry comforted her, drifting up from within. Another Reilly memory. It spoke of comfort for courage in the valley of death's shadow and ultimate victory over the darkness. She seized its solace and stepped forward to meet the waiting fangs.
Demon-deceived as Neko-Ranma was, Neko-Onna knew her feline counterpart as she knew herself. She smiled grimly as she looked up into the emotionless eyes dotting Scarlet's arachnid face. Neko-Onna drew a deep breath, then slowly released it, calming herself. Deep within those obsidian orbs a light flashed. A strange memory blossomed -- a memory of a little boy kneeling in a large room, then standing with heart unburdened and clean. "Eeet iiis the teacher-man's light," she thought. "No way weee lose."
Scarlet's fangs sank deep.
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Again twin lances of white-hot pain stabbed the base of Neko-Ranma's neck. Again the scroll of memories unwound.
He was wet. It wasn't unexpected. The unexpected part was the strange tingling that seemed to sink into his body. His feet found the bottom of the shallow pool and he stood. The pool was deeper than he'd first thought. And something else was different. His center of balance seemed off.
"Now whoever fall into that spring ..." The words seemed to come from a distance, "... take body of young girl. You see what I mean?"
He ripped at his gi. Breasts. Girls had breasts, but he was a guy. He reached lower. Gone.
Her smile. Her words: "You want to be friends?" In the midst of the humiliation, his heart warmed. She was reaching out to him. She wanted to spar? How could he spar with a girl? He sandbagged, trying to gauge her skill. She was decent, but easily evaded. Easily angered. No real challenge.
His heart stopped when the furo door slid open. He froze. She froze. Their eyes met. Her eyes dropped. The shoji slid closed, leaving a deafening silence.
She really was cute; he had to admit. Too bad, she liked the doctor. Damn, that softball stung.
It mattered to him. He'd never admit it to her, but how Akane felt did matter. Akane? Yes, that was Warm Lap's name. He had to be a guy again for Akane. He couldn't stay locked like this. Damn Herb!
No! She couldn't die! He had to tell her! He had to tell her how he felt! Something brushed his cheek. Her hand! She's alive!
"Ranma. I'm sorry I couldn't make my body respond, but I heard everything." She was smiling again. At him.
Stupid. So stupid. Why'd he freak out then? Why didn't he just admit it? So stupid.
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Ranma shook himself. He turned toward Scarlet. She seemed even bigger now. Her soul-of-ice was deeper. It was hard even to fathom her thoughts.
A hot wind blew in his face. It lifted the ephemeral rind at Scarlet's feet and pushed it almost maliciously over the edge of the island of ice on which they stood. Island? Rather a raft. Ranma suddenly realized their platform now rocked to and fro with the motion of the agitated waves surrounding them. The tongue of ice anchoring them to the wall of the gullet was gone. They were adrift on a wafer barely larger than the span of Scarlet's eight legs.
And a storm was blowing in. An austral wind tugged at his hair and clothes with increasingly insistent fingers. Its heat licked at their dwindling raft with the eagerness of a flame at candle wax. He didn't like the feel of this. It seemed the demon who'd eaten them wasn't going to let them execute Scarlet's desperate plan unopposed. His eyes searched the surface of the sea. Nothing. He couldn't find the clue he'd left himself. His eyes leapt to the now featureless wall. Nothing. But somehow the arching vault, so distant in the memories he now shared with the others, seemed closer.
He took his hands off Neko-Ranma's shoulders. A quick tap on the cat warrior's neck unlocked the paralyzing Shiatsu point he'd learned from Dr. Tofu during the nightmare at Ueno Park. The zombie cat slumped slightly before howling in pain. He remained frozen ankle-deep in the black ice.
Ranma circled his cat persona to stand between the cat and the spider. He looked back and forth between the two. He couldn't read the spider's eyes. He could almost feel their anticipatory gaze upon him. The vertical irises in Neko-Ranma's eyes flashed with momentary anger, when Ranma turned from Scarlet to look at his rival self.
And Neko-Ranma was privy to their plan -- to their point of view. He saw himself through First One's eyes. He felt the grim resolve in First One's heart to see it through. And he saw that he held the key to its success or failure. The fate of Ranma Saotome was his decision. The choice was ultimately his. He had to decide.
Ranma turned his back on the linchpin of their collective fate to face the slavering fangs of the scarlet spider hulking over them.
He stepped forward. "All right. Let's do this," he said.
The spider leaned forward, its venomous mandibles closing as they neared his neck. Ranma stood flinty faced and unblinking. He invoked his own soul-of-ice, burying the urge to flinch and close his eyes to the moment of contact.
The golden light surrounding Scarlet brightened. The hoary outlines of her carapace softened and wavered in the sight of both Ranmas. The fangs closed around his neck. Ranma felt contact at the base of his neck, but the twin spikes of pain he expected didn't come. Instead her spider outlines collapsed and he found Scarlet's human form draped around his neck, squeezing him in a powerful hug.
She leaned back to look into his eyes. Shaken, he looked back and saw his reflection in the azure depths of her eyes. A grim sadness, mixed with a wild joy, barely held in check, danced there. He took in her face -- his female face. His hands came up to rest on her hips -- his hips. He held her there at arm's length, and they stood, almost a couple studying the face of their beloved.
Scarlet broke the silence. "Ranma Saotome, for all our failings, we are a good man. Never doubt it," Scarlet said. She smiled as she stepped back from him, breaking the almost-embrace.
"Wha-wha?" he managed to stammer. He'd been prepared to die.
"No," Scarlet said. "We," she cut her eyes at Neko-Ranma while motioning to herself, " have to die." The cat-man struggled against his icy bonds.
Scarlet bowed her head, cupping her hands over her heart.
"This belongs to you First One. It's the light that gave me life and it belongs to you. It gave me awareness and it gave me purpose. I don't understand how I got here, inside your heart and soul. I don't think I should exist, but I do," Scarlet said, looking imploringly into his eyes.
"The first thing I remember was having to complete a mission. I was supposed to reprogram something, to make it conform to a new pattern, but I couldn't remember what the pattern was," Scarlet continued.
"It's like I was a different ..." She paused, searching for the right word. "Person ... no that's not right. I wasn't even a person at all. I was a robot -- a tool designed for a special task."
"The next thing I remember was the light -- this light," she continued. "I think that's when I became aware I was different from my task -- from everything around me," she laughed.
"And there was a another light. Somehow I knew it was searching for me. It scared me. I wanted to hide, but I couldn't."
"You knew I was there before I knew where I was, or even what I was. You could feel me, but you didn't know what I was, just that something was different."
Scarlet paused. Ranma realized a light was shining through her fingers. Its brilliance passed through her cupped hands, painting them the warm red of blood. Slowly she lifted her hands from her chest. Carefully she cradled the source of the light, before opening her hands to show him what she held.
In the palm of her right hand was a single smooth heart-shaped stone that glowed with a light both soothing and hard to behold for too long. It was white with veins of gold ribboning its milky surface. In its depths, the brilliant alabaster stone seemed to flicker with a crimson flame -- a hint of blood at the heart of purest white.
Neko-Ranma quivered in his icy restraint. This little stone -- it reminded him of the little chocolate heart Warm Lap gave First One. The voices in his head clamored in fear and excitement. Was this the true heart of Ranma Saotome? If he could seize it would he become the master personality? He struggled to move his feet; to lift himself from his prison, but the icy auras swirling around the pair ... No. The chill was diminishing. The girl wasn't putting out the same temperature dropping power she had as a giant spider. If only he could take that stone ...
"This is yours. You need to take it back to be whole, and I give the part I have willingly," Scarlet continued. "Spider, Onna and Miss Kitty chose well when they gave their parts to me. Now I'm giving what I have back to you. Take the light Ranma Saotome. Make it your own. Hide it in the hidden man of your heart and let it drive out the darkness." Scarlet's eyes left the azure pools of Ranma's eyes and scanned the eyes of the intense cat-warrior behind him. His dark blue eyes stared back with an intensity missing moments before. Did she detect a flicker of crimson in those vertical irises?
"You are the First One of us," Scarlet continued. "It was your life to begin with and it should be your life to live. We have chosen not to fight you for it nor fight among ourselves to claim it. One remains who must choose his course and in his choosing, decide for us all. Take it now and make us whole."
The scarlet-clad girl-type fell silent, her hands extended. Her eyes searched the eyes in the two faces before her.
Hesitantly, Ranma lifted his hand to take the shimmering crystal. Opalescent sparkles seemed to swim across its milky surface. The crimson flame at its heart softly pulsed with the peaceful rest of absolute assurance. Scarlet took his hand and placed the stone in his uncertain fingers.
A low rumble escaped the lips of the cat-man behind Ranma. He now openly struggled to free himself from the frozen shackles holding him in place.
Ranma almost pulled away at the touch of the glowing stone on his flesh. Despite the light beaming from it, the stone was cool. A euphoric thrill rushed through his being as it rested in his palm, and Ranma Saotome suddenly knew this was right. The stone held the path to rightness; to wholeness. He had only to accept the gift. The rightness of what Scarlet offered -- what the others had given their very existence for sizzled through the fabric of his being.
His eyes wide with astonishment; his heart leaping with an unanticipated joy, his fingers encircled the gift.
"Wha-what do I do now?" He stammered.
"Get him to choose wisely," Scarlet whispered.
Ranma looked back at his one-time savior. The cat-man's battle aura was whipping the air around him with a cool green light. A foot came free from the pit holding it with a sucking report.
"How?"
"Remind him of who he really is," came her reply.
"Now, hold it to your heart and follow the light. He's about to decide," she continued, guiding the hand clutching the stone to a place over his own heart. Carefully she coaxed him into opening his hand and holding the crystal against his skin.
The stone, cool seconds before, began to warm under his palm. He could feel its bulk and the heat coming from it. Looking up he realized he was having trouble focusing on Scarlet. He felt her arms encircle his neck again. One of her hands rested lightly over his hand holding the stone.
"Wha-what's happening?" Ranma stammered. His head was swimming.
"Don't worry, It'll be Ok," Scarlet's voice was his own. A second sucking "pop" registered absently on his consciousness. The Neko was free and was behind him. He couldn't seem to turn and face the threat.
"Follow the light," the voice that was his and at the same time Scarlet's echoed in his mind. He was vaguely aware that he couldn't feel the stone on his skin anymore. Scarlet's hand seemed to slide from where it covered his own, and Ranma Saotome felt himself slip into a surreal dream.
"How can I dream inside a dream? What's the Neko doing?" he wondered and the wisp of thought swept him away.
He was a young man. She was a young woman, strangely uncomfortable with her femininity. He was both male and female, and at the same time neither one. The being who was Ranma Saotome realized it didn't matter. Male and female were of the body, not of the spirit. It didn't matter.
He was Ben Reilly. A cascade of alien memories marched through his head, ending with being hoisted onto the shoulders of Ranma Saotome in the middle of Ueno Park. And suddenly the memories weren't alien.
He was the Scarlet Spider, swinging though the concrete canyons of a city Ranma Saotome had never seen, except on TV. He was Spider-man. She was Scarlet, and he was Spider; fighting for the soul Ranma Saotome in the labyrinth of the dreamlands.
He was a cat. She was a tab, full of ferocious determination to defend herself and hers. He was a tom staking out his territory, ready to challenge the alpha of the pride. Alarm surged through him. He was being challenged!
Ranma Saotome's eyes snapped open. The Neko stood before him. In his hand, the cat-warrior held the little stone Scarlet had given him moments before. It no longer gave off its light. Neko-Ranma held the stone up before his eyes, trying to plumb the milky quartz to no avail.
He turned to the dazed young man before him. Their eyes locked. Again their consciousness seemed to blend. Their mental traffic was completed in the blink of an eye. In Neko-Ranma's still raised hand, the tiny stone heart began to glow faintly. The inner light sprang up anew.
Their ice raft lurched. Ranma found himself sliding backwards over the rapidly melting surface. Neko-Ranma steadied himself with ki-claws. Ranma suddenly found purchase underfoot. He looked down to find he had claws of his own dug in at the very edge of the dwindling floe.
His eyes snapped up. The feline version of his own face smirked at him from only three meters away.
The cat-zombie crouched. He clenched the gently glowing stone in his paw and began to circle. Ki-claws shimmered into view on Neko-Ranma's free hand. His battle aura flared in a maelstrom of furious heat.
Ranma nodded and broke into a familiar relaxed stance. He calmed himself, conserving every vestige of spiritual energy. He would need it soon.
The pair began to circle each other.
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Aku-Mo-Lin licked its chops. It purred and waited for the familiar process of converting its victims to vassals to take place. Ah, how it enjoyed spicy foods, and this meal promised to be spicier than any it had ever consumed before. The cat demon resumed its jet black mimicry of Mao-Mo-Lin. It lay down and rolled in the dust of the chamber floor, sloshing the contents of its belly about, just to stir things up a bit.
It felt the familiar rumble and grumble from its gut. Yes. Soon another little kitty would join the host. Or would it be six kitties? The self-satisfied demon surveyed the chamber of its conquest. It looked at the destroyed shaft of the well, and wondered if the Lesser Dog Demon would try to extend his power down the well and into the realm of the dreamlands.
The demon smirked. It didn't care. With this newest acquisition, Sesshomaru might get more than the arrogant canine bastard ever bargained for. That possibility would be dealt with only if it arose. That was a whole different world anyway. The feline travesty licked its paws, and combed the jet black fur between its ears.
Its stomach suddenly tightened in an unfamiliar sensation. Aku passed its paw over its distended midsection, wondering if this new feeling was painful. It stretched, lifting both forelimbs and hind from the floor in an exaggerated extension as it balanced on its distended tummy. The maneuver applied added pressure to its sbulging gut. The demon felt another unexpected jolt; as though something inside had kicked. The demon rolled over and yawned, not overly concerned. Past meals had attempted to fight their way out before. None had succeeded.
The gut grumbled again. This time there was no wondering. The sensation was definitely painful. It was as though something had grabbed hold and was twisting; trying to rip the internal imp factory from the framework of bones. The cat demon stood up and began to pace about the room, looking to find some comfort. Unnatural as the distress was, Aku was certain it was only a matter of time before the source or sources of the discomfort would, quite literally, pass.
The sensation of turmoil grew. It was as though something was twisting and gouging at him from the inside; a frustrated Alien nymph attempting repeatedly to burst forth from the belly of its host.
Deep inside Aku-Mo-Lin felt something give. The demon stumbled in its pacing. Its body suddenly began to jerk in a supernatural version of St. Vitus' Dance. The erratically lurching demon began to gag uncontrollably. The demon's jaw muscles quivered as it clamped its mouth shut and strained to retain the contents of its gullet. Forepaws covered its muzzle as its eyes distended to the size of beach balls.
Suddenly the mammoth cat surrendered to the gastric emergency attacking it from within. It planted its paws in the dust in front of it and heaved. Nothing came out, but a bilious miasma that poured from its maw and wafted along the floor of the chamber like a low-lying fog. The stench of it nearly gagged the devil himself. "Heh," the demon cat wheezed."No matter how big a fight you put up, once you go in, you never come out the same way."
Aku-Mo-Lin's confidence collapsed under a second wave of nausea. The demon's gut and throat burned with a volcanic eructation that seemed to alternate between the heat of the sun and the absolute cold of deepest space. It rose violently, burning its way upward and then freezing what remained behind and pulling it after.
Again the demon struggled to keep its unruly meal down and again it surrendered. Its jaws opened and it retched. The pain was like nothing it had ever experienced. Hot and cold, caustic and acid all at the same time. A swirling tornado of pain, rising from its interior. It was as though a high speed plumber's snake was reaming a clear passage straight through from hind end to ...
Aku-Mo-Lin's awareness lit up anew. The pain wasn't only in throat and stomach. It now extended to the fecal orifice under its tail. It felt its anus puckering as though desperately trying to retain a new minion for just a bit longer. The demon felt infernal tissues tear as the sphincter failed and sank inside the collapsing body.
The demon felt its jaws forced open from inside. A slurry of black ice, caustic sea, and matted black hair burst from between its jaws. The flood swamped the room, turning the carpet of dust into sticky mud. The flow ebbed momentarily, before the wildly gyrating head of a Hiryu Shoten Ha burst from between Aku's jaws. In the midst of its escape, the ascending dragon deposited two massive hairballs on the muddy floor underneath the fractured remains of the well shaft.
Ki-claws pierced the surface of the hairball, rending it from within. The matted fibers fell away as Ranma Saotome stepped out to survey the room. The second hairball quivered as swords of spiritual energy ripped it open, and a fresh scrubbed, raw-fleshed Neko-Ranma stepped forth to face his alpha.
The winds of the Hiryu Shoten Ha circled the chamber before swirling past the warriors and fleeing into the world above.
The torrent of putrid ice and sea continued to boil from Aku-Mo-Lin's jaws. It seemed as though it would never end to the two Ranmas.
Aku-Mo-Lin's eyes bulged in pain, but still managed to focus on the pair as the flood began to ebb. Pure hatred was easy for both to see in those eyes. Both Ranma's stared back, unfazed by the threat displayed there.
The demon's body shook violently. A bloody red mass took the place of the black slurry issuing from the demon's jaws. As Ranma and Neko-Ranma watched, the demon's hindquarters folded under its tail, disappearing up the wrong end of Aku's alimentary passage. The tail soon followed.
At the demon's head, a grotesque snake of mangled red tissue and blood surged between the ivory fangs of the demon's open mouth. A vitriolic hissing reverberated through the chamber.
As the last bit of the demon folded inside out, the chamber echoed with a thunderous, "pop" and the inverted tissue was gone. In its place, a rather cartoonish large white cat searched its surroundings frantically. Its oversized eyes fastened on Ranma and his cat-warrior persona.
"Whaat haave you done?" it wailed. "Maiy bride. Maiy wedding. What have you done?"
"Mao-Mo-Lin?" Ranma stammered.
"Don't just stand there, you idiot," the ghost-cat hissed, "go to sleep!"
"Go to sleep?" Ranma echoed in bewilderment.
"To escape the dreamlands," Neko-Ranma said quietly at his side.
"Yes, yes," Mao-Mo-Lin said as its pulled a pillow and futon from thin air, fluffed it and spread it at Ranma's feet.
"But I'm not sleepy," the pig-tailed martial artist responded.
"Neyow, don't you know what you've done," the large white cat whined. "I'm here! I'm here. Oh shit, I'm here."
"Yeah, so?"
"That means he's there."
"He? There?"
"Aku, and he won't be happy." The ghost cat fell silent. A look of horror filled its face.
"I've got to get back," the ghost-cat squalled. "You've got to go back and defeat him -- send him back here, before he ruins everything."
Mao-Mo-Lin stopped. He looked into the bewildered faces of the two souls before him.
"Don't you get it? He's going to kill your body. He could kill Fiona," the ghost cat wailed. "He couldn't eat you here, but now he's in the real world. If he can kill your body while you're awake here, he'll get your soul and spirit. And he'll probably kill everyone else too. Oh, Fiona! You've got to go to sleeep!"
"Who's Fiona?" Ranma asked.
"Maiy briiide," Mao-Mo-Lin moaned. "My sweeet briiide."
The battle with the demon cat wasn't over, and it sounded as though their friends might be in danger. Ranma and Neko-Ranma locked eyes. They had one bit of unfinished business to tend before either one could go to sleep.
"You ready?" Ranma asked.
The cat warrior broke Ranma's gaze. He lifted his hand and opened it. In his palm lay the gently glowing alabaster heart. The last flecks of dead flesh fell away from his hand. In his heart the last faint call of darkness faded away. He would die, but he would still be alive. He would be with Warm Lap -- and Warm Lap would love him.
"Yesss," Neko-Ranma responded. He extended the stone toward Ranma. "This is yours, First One."
"You hold it," the young martial artist replied. His outlines began to shimmer and expand. A giant red spider soon stood over Neko-Ranma.
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He was a spider wrapping a silken shroud around his latest meal, and she was a spider slurping the nutrient rich life from her latest prey. The dream scape slipped away from him.
Something was wrapped around him. He couldn't seem to break free no matter how much he fought. His personas -- his companions in the gut of Aku-Mo-Lin fought at his side. Mao-Mo-Lin's words rang in his ears: "If he can kill your body while you're awake here, he'll get your soul and spirit. And he'll probably kill everyone else too." He sensed the evil aura of Aku-Mo-Lin swelling in power and proximity. Akane was nearby. So was Reilly-san, and Kasumi. He could feel their auras. He could smell their individual scents. He had to get free!
Aku-Mo-Lin's face seemed to hover above him, disembodied as though floating through a dream. His dream was suddenly a nightmare as a razor sharp claw slashed through his gut, pinning him to the polished wood floor of his room at the Tendo home.
He felt his life slipping away. He seemed to see Akane looking down into his face. For some reason he couldn't move. She was crying. Her tears fell on his face. He wanted to call out to her, to stroke her cheek, to tell her how much he loved her. Her tears splashed his face. They rolled into his eyes and stung. He could taste their sweet saltiness as they flowed down his cheeks and into his mouth. His sight was fading. Akane's face receded from him. It seemed he was falling down a spiraling well as darkness pinched Warm Lap's face from view.
(EoC36r2)
A/N : I almost had this finished when I posted the last chapter, so it was just a matter of polish (2K words worth) to finish this chapter. Hope you enjoy. The next installment is, or will be the first part of "Awakenings." I think it's one chapter right now, but when I think that, it never seems to work that way. Could grow to three or five. I can't tell yet. And unfortunately, don't look for it within a week. There are only about 1k words in the bank yet and a lot of ideas to knit together. At least a month. Hopefully no longer than two, but I'm not making any promises.
-JW