Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 13
"Amazing!" Ami exclaimed."This Newspaper goes back to the year 2098."
We had been rummaging through the lower floors of the Archives for
about half the day, finding all kinds of useless crap. Most of the
stuff was just books and magazines stored in the library that the
Archives had become and it was all in English. Ami and I were the
only ones who could read any of it. Telerin was stunned speechless
by that alone, saying that the language had been dead in Chicago for
millenia.
I hurried over to the girl, leaving behind Telerin and his crash
course in pokemon accustommization. Usagi was really getting a kick
out of showing the man all of the cute pokemon in her pokedex."What
have you found?" I'd found records at least three hundred years more
recent than Ami's paper and none of it had shed any light on the
changes that occured to Chicago to make it into it's present day city-
state.
Ami pointed to the headline of the yellowed piece of crumbling paper.
Everything down here was remarkably preserved, at least. The headline
read,'Self proclaimed Queen of Earth, Usagi Tsuniko, defeated at
last!'."Ami, whatever you do, don't tell the others about this," I
ordered. Ami would have known better than to do that, but I had said
it by reflex.
"I wasn't planning on it, Ranma. It just suprised me, that's all."
She laid the paper down and looked at me imploringly."Ranma, if some
form of senshi existed in this universe and they were deposed like
that, couldn't that happen to us when the times comes on our world?"
She didn't seem like she could accept the possibility.
I shrugged."Anything is possible, I guess, just look at this place, an
actual floating city, but I really doubt that will happen on our
Earth. Usagi and the rest of you senshi, along with the army of
pokemon that Usagi plans on breeding, will be more than powerful
enough to take over the Earth when the time comes. And besides,
you'll have me on your side." What better insurance could you ask for
than that?
Ami smiled at me, patting the bench beside her. Obviously, I sat
down, wrapping my arm around her waist in the process."I'm sure you're
right, dear, but that isn't supposed to happen. Usagi is supposed to
become ruler by complete consent of the people of Earth, not through a
long, bloody battle."
The 'dear' comment about made me do my little disappearing routine
again, Ami's arm around me and the warm emotions I felt coming from
her stopped me. I'm doomed, I know now. Absolutely doomed."That's a
long time away and in a completely different plane of existance. The
people of Earth may accept Usagi with open arms. If they don't, well,
maybe I can arrange for you to be in charge." DO NOT SAY A WORD!!!
The girl squeezed me around the waist and laid her head on my
shoulder. Oh well, might as well live with it as best as I can.
"Ranma..." Ami murmurred into my shirt warningly.
"Just being pessimistic, ignore me." Communication isn't going to be a
problem like I hear it is in a lot of other relationships.
****
"Now is the time, Master," Lady Kima said, bowing to Lord Saffron.
Her white and purple-speckled wings were folded tightly against her
back and a plain hilted sword hung at her hip.
"And the senshi?" Saffron asked, his voice rising and the light
emitted by his body darkening to red in anger. He hadn't forgotten
his ill treatment during the Silver Millenium by the Sailor Senshi and
their Bitch Queen. If anything, the ancient resentment had festered
and grown through each of Saffron's incarnations.
"Gone, my lord. We know not where. Only the temporal mage, Setsuna
Meiou, remains and she appears to be thoroughly preoccupied with more
pressing matters." Kima hadn't forgotten the old tales, stories told
by mothers to frighten newly hatched Phoenix People. Her race had
been visciously oppressed for a thousand years, and their lord and
master had been enslaved by their Fire Witch. Now, with their power
gone from the world, Lord Saffron's empire would know no bounds.
"Then, my loyal servant, send emissaries to the Musk and Amazon
nations. Tell them of our plans and invite them to join the cause,"
the Phoenix King ordered.
"As my lord commands," Kima stated before rising from her knee and
marching to the open window. Once there, she unfurled her wings and
stepped off of the railless balcony.
"The world shall be mine!"
****
Setsuna screamed a lot that day. Then came the overwhelming urge to
blow something up. After that she seriously contemplated suicide. If
only she had thought about her actions. If only she had considered
the consequences of those actions. Now though, she had perpetuated a
time loop and to attempt to change that loop after its initiation
would be very, very bad. What could she do? Any action she took
would cause a paradox that would change her memory along with everyone
else's. Ranma would still be in the picture as the Inner Senshi's
teacher and she would have no knowledge of his true intent.
Haruka and Michiru had arrived from their little trip minutes after
their departure. The couple had a nice bronze tan and several bags of
cloths. Retro seemed to be in style again. They'd found their less
than illustrious leader ranting and raving like a madwoman. Before
they could help her, though, she'd teleported herself back to the
Gates of Time and continued her breakdown.
(Note that time does not pass in the Gates of Time as it does in the
rest of the universe)
Several months later:
Setsuna sat on a badly soiled sofa, watching an episode of Welcome
Back Cotter. In her left hand a two-liter coke bottle rested, ready
to be poured at a moments notice, and her right hand sported the
leading end of a three mile long fruit roll up fruit snack. Her
Sailor Pluto uniform hadn't been changed since she'd planted herself
on the couch and her growing bulk was threatening to burst it at its
seems.
****
I'd quickly changed my planned approach to the whole Chicago
problem. The people just wouldn't cooperate. And they were idiots.
I don't mean ignorant, but with the ability to learn, these people
were just idiots. Telerin appeared to be about the most intelligent
person in the whole city and look how life had treated him.
Caretakers were expected to provide their own lodgings with the money
they drew as a weekly stipend. Telerin's stipend barely allowed him
to maintain a closet-sized room and leave him enough food to survive
on. We certainly wouldn't be staying with him, and since we needed
his help, he had to stay with us.
He didn't much like the idea, but he didn't really have a choice.
Stinkey was out for our blood, Telerin's included. So, with each of
us burdened with bundles of ancient documents and books that I hoped
could shed some light on a way to transfer energy from the constructs,
we snuck from the Archive building after night fell and the attendent
guards went home. Why have guards in the day time if you're not going
to have them at night? Idiotic people.
Telerin took a lot of convincing, but I finally managed to persuade
him to climb into Demon's hand. I stepped up onto the other one and
the giant pokemon gently closed his hands until we were each held
snugly in his grip. Telerin managed not to scream during the whole
flight, another point in his favor.
Usagi's Dragonites flew up from the dark sea of grass below to greet
us. Telerin did scream then, but stopped himself before I had to get
involved.
"So this is what true ground feels like," the Caretaker mused out loud
after we'd set up camp for the night."From all the stories I hear from
foragers, it's supposed to be like being stuck in a pit of tar. Not
that I know what that feels like, but they described that too..." He
walked off into the gloom, muttering to himself.
A couple hours later, when I had nearly convinced Ami to slip off into
the grass with me, Minako said,"Guys, come look at this one." Why the
girl hadn't volunteered her knowledge of English to me earlier I don't
know, but Usagi's explanation of her friend's stay in England as a
fighter for love and justice had got boring fast, so I couldn't be
blamed for that.
I cursed and detached from Ami. Minako was reading by the fire. The
sheet of plastic she read from was the standard replacement for paper
after about 2100. The material was tough, resistant to heat, and gave
one hell of a paper-plastic cut, whatever. I scanned through the
document she handed up to me, reading the first few lines to
myself.'Wide scale nuclear bombardment over majority of Africa and
Asia. Experts expect fallout to cover much of the globe, concentrated
mostly in southern Europe and the desert regions of Australia'.
No wonder magic started being more commonplace here. Planet sized
disturbances like that can cause all kinds of nasty side effects.
Just look at the invention of the television. Do you think that half
the world used to sit on its collective ass before the little moving
piture box was invented. The prevalence of magically gifted children
coming into the world would lead to a more indepth study of magic, and
a revival of much of the old knowledge.
The fact that the world was going straight down the toilet probably
prompted a lot of people to start looking for into alternatives
lifestyles, too.
"Sucks, don't it?" I asked, handing the plastic sheet back to
Minako."I can't believe they actually nuked more than half the world's
population over fishing rights. But if you look at it from a certain
perspective, that could have been nature's way of saying that you're
all too stupid to live. Seems to me like something should have
happened to all the old people in charge of everything, though, and
not the normal people. Oh well, not my problem."
"How could you say that?" Usagi almost shouted. Leave it to her to
feel compassion for people who'd been dust for so many freakin years.
I shrugged."Don't whine, Usagi, it'll give you wrinkles." 'That' shut
the future queen up faster than if I'd stapled her lips together.
Ami and I slipped back into the grass, leaving Minako with
instructions to keep any more discoveries to herself until morning.
****
"Ranma, I think you may need to do something about Demon," Makoto said
a couple days later. We were steadily moving through the material
from the Archives, our fourth load, and Telerin was almost adjusted to
being around pokemon."He's still growing and I noticed him looking at
Fluffums," an ugly little Snubull,"like she was a snack. If this
keeps up, Demon may actually eat one of our pokemon."
This had been coming for a while. Demon was maybe a third the size of
Gojiro now and eating huge swathes of grass daily."I'll take him back
to the forest and let him hunt himself stupid, how's that?" I asked.
"That's fine with me," Makoto answered, turning back to her breakfast
of rabbit stew.
I told Ami about my little side trip and she insisted that she go
along. I didn't really mind, but I went through the motions of
refusal anyway."But this is supposed to be one of those male-bonding
things, between Demon and me," I protested.
Ami looked at me, her eyes flat, but a tiny smile gracing her small
mouth."Ranma, don't even waste your breath. Demon can carry me
without any trouble and it wouldn't hurt him to become more aquainted
with me. We are going to know each other for a while. Besides, I can
be reached on my communicator if there is any trouble here at the
camp."
I gave up, abandoning my last few arguments. Ami didn't need any
verbal confirmation, reaching up and giving me a quick hug when she
felt my capitulation.
****
Hunting hismself stupid turned out to take Demon longer than I had
imagined. Ami and I mostly had the days to ourselves and used them
for lots and lots of cardiovascular exercise. I was starting to get a
little sore, when after two and a half weeks, Ami's communicator
started buzzing.
Ami held the watch-like device at an angle so whoever was on the other
end couldn't see her unclad body and asked,"What's wrong?"
I peaked over her shoulder and saw Minako in the little screen."I just
thought you and Ranma would want to know that the stuff we picked up
last night has begun to use some Japanese. I think we're getting
pretty close to the actual cause for Chicago to go airborn."
I sighed. The vacation and countless hours of wild sex were at an
end, at least temporarily."We'll be there as soon as I can round Demon
up."
Minako nodded, blushing as Ami turned the screen at an angle that
showed way too much of me to be decent. The screen went blank.
"That wasn't very nice," I chided."I feel so violated. And think
about poor Minako, she'll never be able to find anyone even close to
my standards." I didn't really mind, but this had 'I've been naughty,
please spank me' written all over it.
****
"I just discovered the most amazing thing," Kasumi said excitedly to
her sisters."If you turn Ryoga into a pig them change him back, 'Little
Ryoga' is fully recovered and ready for more." She held a weakly
struggling P-chan under one arm.
Soun banged his head on the coffe table really hard, rendering himself
unconscious.
Nabiki waved Kasumi's discovery off."Old news, big sister. I've known
that for weeks," she confessed.
Kasumi looked at her middle sister in a heartbroken sort of way and
her lower lip began to tremble. With pearly tears in her eyes, she
asked,"A-all this time, a-and you didn't tell me?" She turned her gaze
to Akane who was in the process of slipping a home movie of her and
Ryoga into the VCR."Not you too, Akane."
"Sorry, big sister. I just didn't think about telling you." Akane
actually hadn't felt much like sharing.
Kasumi sniffed."Well fine, I'm going to go lock myself in my room with
Ryoga and I'm not coming down to cook for anyone for a week. See how
you like that!" The eldest Tendo, P-chan now squirming desperately
under her arm, stomped upstairs and slammed her door.
"Geeze, who unplugged her vibrator?" Nabiki asked caustically.
Akane shrugged and made herself comfortable just as the screen began
to display her movie. The Tendos, with the exception of Soun, had
never been happier and they didn't plan on ever letting Ryoga escape
their grasp. Who knew how many days he would be gone if that
happened? The thought was unbearable.
****
"Are the advanced parties armed and fully supplied?" asked General
Marthalus. His iron-grey wings were still powerful, despite his
advanced age, and the glint of steel that could occassionally be seen
between his feathers indicated him as a master of the Raging Storm
school of Phoenix Combat.
"Yes, sir. We have also recieved a shipment of herbs from the Amazons
that will give out warriors extended stamina and endurance during
battle. I took the liberty of having it rationed among the men, after
proper testing, of course," Commander Berhid answered. Most of his
body was covered by intricately worked armor fashioned from minute
metal scales and the only weapons he wore came in the form of metal
gauntlets that lent strength and power to his natural talons.
"Excellent. If at all possible, I would like to speak with the Musk
and Amazon Commanders. I'm sure they would appreciate a chance to
send their people along with ours. Their skills would greatly
compliment our warriors. That is all," finished the general.
"Right away, sir."
****
"It has been decided," Cologne said to her heir."You will accompany
the first squad of Amazon warriors that will travel with the Phoenix
People." The Matriarch of the Joketsozuko Amazons led her great-
granddaughter to the building adjacent to the armory. This one held
the magical artifacts and enchanted weapons collected over the
millenia by the tribe.
Shampoo glanced across the room. Along the walls hung items of power
that she couldn't even begin to control. Iron bound trunks and strong
boxes held within them smaller, more valuable items and some even
contained martial arts scrolls, the most valued treasure of the
Amazons. Her eyes alighted on a particularly deadly looking sword.
The light reflected from its razor sharp blade in a cascade of bright
colors and an inner fire burnt within the hen egg-sized ruby attached
to its hilt.
"Ah, I see you've noticed the contribution your young friend Ranma
made to the tribe." The boy had been a powerful sorceror and martial
artist and many of the tribe had set their sights on him almost as
soon as he'd walked through the gates. Cologne had put a stop to
those notions almost immediately. Ranma felt pure evil to her senses,
and when attention was called to that fact, so to did the other elders
notice. Cologne saw deeper though, as her three centuries of training
allowed. Ranma's heart was pure, if slightly shadowed, and his evil
prescence was nothing more than some kind of curse he wasn't even
aware of.
"Aiyah, Ranma made this?" Shampoo asked in wonder. She'd sparred with
the foreign boy a number of times and had hoped their relationship
would go further, but the few times she had lured him to her bed
hadn't been enough to keep him in the village.
"Yes, dear child. Ranma made that sword. It was part of a deal to
instruct him in our deepest arts. I believe we came out the betters
in the deal, but Ranma appeared satisfied." Cologne cackled. Not many
within the tribe had any of the Gift for sorcery, and none of them
could create an object nearly as powerful as the one before them.
Trading it for a few advanced martial arts techniques that would go to
the grave with their owner was a small price to pay.
"What does it do, great-grandmother?" She reached out to touch it,
running her hand along the silver wire wrapped hilt.
"At it's user's command, the sword begins to give off enormous heat or
equally massive amounts of chill. It only lasts for an hour before
needing to recharge for a full day, but you can see the advantage a
sword like this would be in battle, especially to a weilder versed in
the Hiryu Shoten Ha and Soul of Ice." Cologne had tried the weapon out
for herself, and with a little practice, had been able to create the
cyclone without moving from where she stood.
"But that's not why we're here," she reminded the much younger woman.
She walked over to a large trunk and opened it with a tap of her
staff. It contained the more useful temporary curses that could be
derived from boiled down Jusenkyo water. She grabbed a handful of the
packets and moved on to another trunk. From this one she retrieved a
wax encrusted bar of waterproofing soap.
"What am I to do with these, great-grandmother?" Shampoo asked in
confusion as the ancient woman passed the materials up to her.
"Those will allow you to temporarily take the form of Phoenix People.
Combined with the waterproofing soap, you and your fellow Amazons will
be able to travel with our allies without slowing them down." Shampoo
nodded her understanding."Good. Now on the way out, grab Ranma's
sword. Tomorrow morning I will teach you how to properly harness its
power."
Shampoo grinned in anticipation. Finally she would be going into
battle.
****
Author's Notes: I know that Demon is getting big, and he's going to
be levelling off in size now, I think. Anyone remember that episode
of Pokemon with the giant Dragonite? That's about how big Demon is
gonna be. Ranma and Ami are pretty much irrevocably linked now, so
that's a done deal. Does anyone think I'm taking the Ryoga/Tendo girl
bit a little to far? In the next few chapters the valley of Jusendo
is going to be taking the world by storm, obviously aided by magic to
some way avoid all the nasty technological weapons we have. C&C
welcom at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com