Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 15
Hersh's brothers were in full battle armor when Demon dropped us off
at the rocky clearing at the mouth of their cave. They must have been
preparing to mount a rescue mission for Demon's latest catch. To
their credit, the demons didn't even run away as Demon came into view.
It was understandable, though, that they would draw their weapons and
spread out into a loose formation that wouldn't hamper their ability
to haul ass if the need arose.
Hersh sprinted to the pack leader, a tall black cat demon with shaggy
black fur and a blood red chain mail shirt. They exchanged several
hisses and growls, what passed for a language, I guess, then the big
black demon slowly approached me, his three inch claws fully withdrawn
in a show of peace.
He bowed his head slightly and said,"We are at your ssservice, Lord
Ranma." Well, this was just getting better and better. The guy was at
least seven feet tall and out massed me by a good fifty kilograms, but
he hadn't attempted to challenge my status as interim leader.
We exchanged pleasantries, a few old war stories, and finally got down
to business. I informed the leader of the coming escape attempt and
invited him and his brothers to join us. The same no harming the
girls policy was in effect, and they couldn't bother the pokemon, for
their own health.
"I'm going to have to go ahead of you and smooth things over with the
girls," I told Squirm, the pack leader. I won't even begin to
elaborate on how he got that nickname."They're the Sailor Senshi and
don't really like demons too much. I have a lot of influence over
them, though, so just behave and they'll leave you and your brothers
alone." The pack of demons had been getting their gear together while
we talked and they all waited at the cave mouth for further
instructions.
Squirm didn't like fraternizing with the enemy much at all. He was an
intelligent demon, though, and saw that there was little alternative,
and besides, he had to obey my every command."I'm gonna leave Slammer
behind. He's a sort of rock demon and will be able to lead you and
your packmates to my camp."
I unpacked my Golem and gave him his marching orders. He nodded, as
much as a semi-rigid boulder can nod, and walked over to look at the
demons. He'd never seen real ones before so he was curious. The cat
demons obviously respected, or at least feared Slammer, lowering their
eyes whenever his gaze met theirs.
****
No one was happy, especially Telerin, when I made my announcement.
Rei the most vocal of all, threatened to unlease Ratty on the demons
if they got within a mile of her. I had to laugh as that comment, I
couldn't help it, sending the temple maiden off in a huff of rage. I
ignored Telerin, his face a pale as a ghost. He would just have to
deal with it or he could go home.
"Ranma, it's too dangerous to bring that many demons here," insisted
Makoto. I knew otherwise. The demons were all weak and fading faster
by the day. Makoto's meager martial arts skill could probably have
allowed her to take out a half dozen of the felines before they
swarmed her. With the pokemon, no worries.
"Don't sweat it," I retorted."They're weak and we have all these
pokemon, including Demon," that's saying a lot,"and myself. If by
some freak occurence of nature, the demons did turn on us, they
wouldn't live to regret it. That's not a problem, though. These are
servants of a friend of mine. They sorta know of me by reputation and
will obey my every command." It took a little more insisting on the
girls' part, and a lot of begging to get Ami to have anything to do
with me that night, a man can get used to certain things after a
while, but they eventually conceded to give my 'friends' a chance.
Slammer, a long line of cat demons trailing behind, arrived at the
trampled down area of grass that I like to think of as home. The
giant rock had a little spring in his step and a twinkle in his
diamond coated eye. I decided to let him stay out in the open for a
while. Being out of his pokeball was doing him a lot of good. I'd
let Gyrados out later and let him have a few days to relax in the
river and gorge himself on fish.
Squirm sought me out immediately. He was most impressed by Slammer's
destructive abilities and wished to know where he could get one of his
own. I told him I didn't know the exact planar coordinates, but did
give him a general idea of where PokeWorld was. If they ever do run
across PokeWorld, the demons are probably going to have more trouble
not getting caught as pokemon than anything else.
I was going to have to have a talk with Slammer and find out how
Squirm knew of his pokemon powers."Get you brothers settled in and
I'll introduce you to the girls." They were waiting for an all clear
signal a couple kilometers into the grass. The precaution had been
mostly for Telerin's sake. The girls just went along to make sure the
guy didn't do anything stupid.
****
"This will help me to find Ranma?" Shampoo asked. In her hand she
held a large glass bead slightly larger than her thumb. From within
the trasparent bead, faint pulses of light, yellow and green, came
intermitently and it gave of an soft warmth.
"Yes, child. Once you leave the confines of this valley and its
various mystic wards, the Orb will guide your to Ranma Saotome. Trust
your instincts because they are what the Orb works with. You have a
month," finished Cologne. They both knew what happened in a month.
The first attacks would begin in a few days, but they would be night
raids, carried out in secret and designed to destroy supply and ammo
dumps so that when Saffron's artifact was put into use, its effects
would be magnified by the internal chaos already present within the
Chinese Republican Army. A month and the crystal egg would be
shattered, throwing the Earth into an artificial, century long dark
age.
"I won't fail, great-grandmother," assured Shampoo. Across her back,
its pommel covered to conceal the burning light within the giant ruby
and the ruby itself, rested Ranma's sword. Shampoo's status had
increased enormously thanks to her prowess with the magical blade and
her ability to summon and control winds greater than even her great-
grandmother.
"Be well then and return safely," Cologne said in parting. She took
to her staff and was gone from Shampoo's sensory range within moments.
"Well Shampoo old girl, your finally out on your own," the young
warrior commented to herself. The narrow mountain pass that led into
China proper, wasn't far ahead and if she pushed herself, she would be
able to reach it before nightfall.
****
Shampoo found Mousse waiting for her as she reached the almost
unnoticeable crevice formed by a fault in the surrounding mountains
that led into China. The Hidden Weapons Master had always been more
of a nuisance than a friend, especially during the short time that
Ranma had stayed with the tribe. Ranma had done something to the boy,
though, fixed his eyes with magic. From then on, Mousse had been like
love starved puppy, following Ranma around the village constantly. He
hadn't even taken offense when it became public knowledge that Shampoo
had been bedding the foreign sorceror.
Once Ranma left, though, Mousse had returned his full attention to
Shampoo. She couldn't even deny forming a relationship with him
because of his poor eye sight, not since Ranma fixed it. Not only was
he persistent, Mousse was also a skilled warrior, a very skilled
warrior when his eye sight improved. Shampoo had worried that Mousse
would challenge her for marriage and quite possibly win the fight.
That hadn't happened. Now what was the young man doing?
"Shampoo, is it true that you leave to seek Ranma?" Mousse asked, his
voice was oddly serious, none of its normal obsequiousness present.
"Yes. Great-grandmother and Council of Elders wish to bring Ranma to
our side before the war starts. He is a powerful sorceror and warrior
who would give the Amazon Nation several advantages." Shampoo feared
that Mousse may have chosen this time to challenge her, thereby
delaying her mission to find Ranma to the point where to attempt it
would be useless.
Mousse nodded and stood, taking his weight off the rock wall."I shall
accompany you, then." The former blind boy had a canvas travelling
pack at his side. The only reason he wouldn't keep it in the warped
space within his robes where he stored his weapons was if it contained
food, something which spoiled quickly in the unstable space.
"Mousse," Shampoo warned,"Ranma is a powerful warrior-"
Mousse interrupted,"And nearly invincible as a sorceror. I know that,
Shampoo, and I have no wish to harm him. I owe Ranma more than you
can imagine and if my aide will bring him to the safety of the village
before the war throws the world into chaos, then I would risk my life
to see it through." He spoke as a warrior, one of the greatest in the
village, not as a love starved freak. Shampoo nodded, and silently,
they passed from Jusendo, a tiny refuge of magic and martial arts, to
China, the sprawling and overcrowded nation that would soon learn to
fear the Amazons of old.
****
Haruka and Michiru, lesbian senshi extraordinaire, were shopping at an
adult book store, very discreetly, when something exploded outside,
throwing chunks of shrapnel and asphault through the blacked-out
windows of the store. Haruka threw down the double dildo she had been
examining and reflexively dived for Michiru, knocking the girl out of
the path of a burning rubber women.
"We've got to transform!" Michiru shouted over the clamour. Haruka
nodded her agreement and they pulled out their henshin rods. A few
seconds later, Sailor Neptune and Uranus were in the street. The
pedestrians of Juuban, by now well aware of the daily threat posed by
exploding objects and energy hungry creatures from other dimensions,
had cleared the area in record time.
Warily, the duo approached the large crater that had formed in the
center of the four-lane street. The flying debris had stopped flying
by now, and they could easily see the metallic sphere that rested
within the crater. What was it? An invader from beyond? Martians?
The sphere split in half like an egg and the two senshi gasped at what
they saw. Another senshi. Her fuku was silver, to match her shiny
silver hair, and the bows and body suit were a mixture of blue and
black. The woman stood up, stretching regally, and her face became
clear to the senshi. Wow, she was hot! And she sorta looked like
Setsuna.
"You two," the new senshi snapped, finally opening her eyes,"what has
my bratty little sister screwed up now?" She rose from the crater,
floated over the bubbling asphault at the edge of the crater, and
landed lightly beside Uranus and Neptune.
Haruka and Michiru didn't answer immediately, too busy oggling the new
arrival. Finally, Michiru got enough sense back to ask,"W-who's your
sister?" She knew the question was a waste of breath. This woman's
sister absolutely had to Setsuna.
The senshi rolled her eyes."Setsuna Meiou, Sailor Pluto, Guardian of
the Time portion of the Gates of Time and Space(um, hey Carrot, got
that idea from Insertion, just now catching up on it and hope you
don't mind)," she answered. Setsuna's sister gestured with her left
hand and a smooth shaft of unadorned metal appeared in the air above
her. She snatched the object from the air and said,"Nevermind. Since
you two halfwits can't stop staring at my breasts, I'll just have to
see for myself." The Senshi of Space rapped the end of her staff on
the ground and a hole of the purest black appeared beneath the three
senshi.
****
Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus clung to each other in gibbering
terror as they slowly rose from the floor, alongside the Senshi of
Space. They were in the general vicinity of the Time Gates, as
indicated by the eerie lack of natural light and the perpetual
waterless mist that covered everything.
"She never was very original," Setsuna's sister said. With a wave of
her arm the mists parted and the three senshi got an eyeful of
Setsuna, now about three hundred and fifty pounds heavier than the
last time they had seen her, shooting up a hit of heroine. The
garbage surrounding the Senshi of Time's sofa, if that's what the
thing was, had reached near mountainous proportions and absolutely
reeked.
"By the All Mighty's Sacred Jewels!" the new senshi roared."Setsuna,
what in Hell happened to you?!" She began pointing her staff at
garbage heaps, causing each one to disappear into nothingness,
followed shortly by the tv, refridgerator, and the sofa that sumo-
Setsuna had been occupying.
Setsuna fell to the floor with a squeal not unlike that of a stuck
pig, and looked at her three guests in illdisguised horror. She
stared at her sister for about three seconds, then covered her grimy
face with equally grimy hands and began crying softly.
"Ah geeze, little sister, you know how long it took you to lose all
the weight last time," sighed the Senshi of Space. She turned to the
other two senshi and said,"Here, have fun." She waved her staff and
another hole opened beneath the girls, swallowing them into the void.
"Oh, Katya, it's so horrible, I..." And Setsuna launched into a full
recounting of everything that had happened since she'd contacted
Ranma, leaving out only some of the more embarassing curses."And now
they're gone, gone from the time stream as if they never existed!" she
wailed as a closing to the story.
Katya shook her head and chuckled."Little sister, leave it to you to
never consider the obvious." Setsuna had always been a brilliant
child, and so Temporally grounded that the Time currents couldn't even
hope to effect her, but she was stubborn, short-sighted, and as
arrogant as any ten queens.
"How can you laugh about this?" Setsuna whined."The senshi and the
Princess are gone! Crystal Tokyo will never be! All is lost!!!
Wah!!!!" Katya patted her distressed sibling on her back, lightly so
as not to get anything of questionable sanitary origin on her gloves.
"If the girls are not within your domain, then they are within mine,"
Katya answered."Ranma, from your description, could likely open a
dimensional portal. If he was as powerful as you say, and was
attempting to close a breached tomb, he could easily have misdirected
some of that energy and unwittingly opened a portal to another plane."
The fact that her sister hadn't even considered this possibility was a
good enough reason for Katya to believe Setsuna was in serious need of
a vacation. The roundabout attempt on Ranma's life while he was
nothing but a child said that her little sister needed psychiatric
help.
What was really bad about the situation, though, was that Ranma was
probably innocent of trying to corrupt the senshi. He might have been
a little rough around the edges, thanks to his demonic upbringing, but
he'd been relatively civil and his instruction of the senshi had been
top rate, even going so far as finding the princess's mindblock and
having it removed. The curses may have been a little over the top,
but Setsuna had deserved it, sorta. You just don't manipulate someone
into a situation where they have to change genders to fulfill a blood
pact.
Setsuna looked up, hope lighting her eyes from within. The tears she
had shed made oily tracks in the dirt and bits of food that covered
her face.
****
"Okay, you and your brothers can have the guards," I told Squirm.
"Just don't let the senshi hear them scream, okay?" Squirm nodded
eagerly."They get kinda offended by that kind of thing." Not that I
liked the idea, but some of the cat demons were at the point of
starvation, and when a being has to eat, it has to eat. There were no
alternatives.
Ami and the other senshi were turning the enormous combination lock
into a position that would free up enough energy for us to escape to
our home. The hundred and forty-nine metal disks had to be perfectly
aligned and it was taking time. Telerin, careful not to look directly
at any of the demons that were now quietly streaming into the streets
of Chicago to feast on the incapacitated guards, walked over to me and
said,"There are only three disks left to align. Ami says that you
should be able to begin gathering energy in less than a minute."
I nodded and stepped into the ring of light generated by one of the
spell constructs that hung from enormous chains embedded in the
temple's ceiling. I wasn't taking any chances. I had the Silver
Imperium Crystal in my pocket and was going to use the first of the
energy I absorbed to key the crystal into my aura. If I'd done that
sooner, we wouldn't have been in this mess.
"All right, Ranma!" Makoto shouted. I felt as much as heard the
metallic click emitted by the key structure. The crystal above me,
glowing blue and white, suddenly began to pulse and the energy began
to flow. I sucked the energy from the air as fast as it was produced,
all the while keying Usagi's crystal for my use.
My energy capacitance is vast, and with it completely drained, I took
almost two minutes to reach my storage limit. I signalled to the
senshi and stepped out of the beam of raw, concentrated energy. Usagi
was the next to bathe in the flow. I didn't see who came after her,
since I ran out to Squirm and said,"Get your spell-casters cleaned up
and I'll take them to recharge."
The three demons that followed me into the temple were old for their
species and one of them had the mange, I think. Ami was just stepping
out of the beam of energy as we entered. I had the demon sorcerors to
wait for Rei once Ami was finished then gave them the go ahead.
They didn't take but a few seconds each, not because any of them were
particularly weak, but because all demons naturally learn spells as
they age and such natural magic is very efficient. For these three to
be able to travel dimensionally, they had to be 'old'.
****
"Tell Xochial that I may pay him a visit sometime soon, now that I've
got this planar travel thing worked out," I said to Squirm. He and
his fellow demons were travelling back to their master's realm and I
didn't think the girls, or myself, much cared to see the ritual that
would open the protal they would use.
"Squirm owess hisss life and that of his packmatess to Ranma and hisss
femalesss. If you ever need my help, the Master'sss blade will call
me. Farewell." I shook the demon's hand and jogged over to Demon. My
enormous pokemon was lazily chewing on a car sized boulder when I
arrived. He swallowed his midday snack hurriedly, and held his hand
out to me.
****
"You sure?" I asked. Telerin was dead set on coming with us. I
didn't mind really, but I had some concerns about his ability to adapt
to a culture so unlike that of Chicago.
Telerin nodded."My life here is not anything special. I would much
rather travel to your world and learn of my ancestors." I had to agree
with him. His life really had sucked here on this backward Earth.
"You'll have to get a job," I told him. He shrugged."Well, I guess
you can stay with me, if the apartment is still mine." I really
doubted that one. Then again, time flows differently between
universes. We could arrive at home and find that three seconds has
gone by, or just as likely have missed three thousand years. Oh well,
anything was better than this shit hole.
The preparations had been made and I'd gotten a serviceable mirror
from one of Squirm's sorcerors, so we would be leaving soon. I'd
absorbed and magically linked my crystal and Usagi's(it mine now, ha
ha ha) and absorbed them into my body. Hey, it may be paranoid, but
Setsuna's abilities aren't fully known to me and she could have
figured out when we would be returning. I was just making sure I was
prepared to defend against anything she could possibly throw at me.
"I just know Mom will love you," Ami said as she came up behind
me."She may try to claw your eyes out for a few minutes, but once
she's calmed down, we'll be able to explain things to her and
everything will be fine" Oh great, very reassuring.
"That's nice," I lied. I knew she knew it. It's not like I had ever
expected to have to meet the parents of the girl I'd been screwing for
the last few months. I felt Ami's ire rise and began thinking happy
thoughts and some more naughty ones. Whew, disaster averted.
"And I arranged this one special, just for Shingo," Usagi was saying
to Minako."It's a Charmander egg. Won't he just love that?" Oh crap.
She was already making plans. Her brother would probably blow up
their house or something if he had a fire pokemon. You can't expect a
child to act responsibly when he has access to a living weapon of
destruction.
"Shingo is a good kid," Ami commented after reading my thought."He
might burn the carpet a little, but that's about it." We shared a
laugh and went about gathering senshi for the trip home.
****
Author's Notes: I said they would be going home this chapter, sorry,
plans sorta changed. They'll be arriving back on Earth at the
beginning of the next, though, and that's when the shit's gonna hit
tha fan. What side will Ranma and the senshi take in the coming war?
I'm not sure yet. Will Setsuna regain her figure? Maybe in a decade
or three. Anyway, C&C on how to proceed from here on would be nice.
E-mails that just tell me that you like the story and hope I write
more of it are cool, and they do fuel my ego just a bit, everybody
likes to be praised, but real input is what I need now.
C&C me at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com
Later!