Can It Get Any Worse?: Chapter 17
I was still puzzling over Ms. Mizuno's unusual behavior, she hadn't
even attacked me, when both my natural senses and those attuned to the
renewed wards I'd placed in the apartment started shrieking. It's
kinda like a loud siren that only I can hear, but has saved my life a
couple dozen times. I jumped to my feet and had layered myself in
barriers as strong as any diamond but as insubstantial as mist when
the threat to my life appeared.
The large creature held a staff of some kind and was dressed in the
parody of a Sailor Senshi uniform. Despite its appearance, the
creature did have access to power, as evidenced by the temporal
acceleration field that crackled on the end of the key shaped staff.
Those are nasty pieces of work, capable of aging or unaging matter at
something like a thousand times natural speed.
I activated three of the semi-sentient guardian spells that I'd put in
place encase Setsuna ever decided to pay me an unfriendly visit.
Around the creature, three fist-sized spheres of golden light
appeared. They moved at extreme speed, something I could barely keep
up with, and silently conferred with each other. When they agreed on
which preprogrammed capture and elimination pattern to use, the
spheres whirred around the still falling figure and before it could
come within striking distance of me, they had wrapped it in a web of
cohesive light, burning the creature and holding it immobile at the
same time. I should teach that spell to the senshi, encase they're
ever visited at home by their otherworldy enemies.
"Ranma!" it growled at me. Heh, it even sounded like Setsuna. I let
the guardian spell lapse into simple balls of incandescent light,
giving me a clearer view of the false senshi."I'll kill you!" it
shouted, struggling wildly in its bonds. The smell of burning flesh
wasn't going to do my carpet a bit of good.
Damn, now that I looked closer, the thing looked like Setsuna, too, in
a horribly obese fashion. Oh, cool. Hehehehehehehehe!"Is that you
Setsuna?" I asked. I know for a fact that I didn't curse her to be
overweight, since that would have been an direct threat to her life
and a violation of the pact."Shit, it really is you. What happened to
you?" Setsuna used to be hot, but now, now she was...well she probably
didn't weigh quite as much as me and all the senshi combined.
"I won't allow you to get away with this!" Setsuna exclaimed in
fury."The senshi will break free of your control!!! They will destroy
you!!!" I'd better get her out of that web, or she's going to start to
cook soon. I really don't want to try getting fat drippings out of
the upholstery.
I didn't use my own power, pulling directly from the Silver Imperium
Crystal and amplifing the energy through my crystal, to set up a
containment barrier as strong as I knew how to make. It should hold
her, temporal abilities and all. My little guardians faded back into
dormancy and I realesed the light web that had held Setsuna airborne.
The milkily transparent energy bubble that appeared almost as soon as
the web disappeared didn't allow the Senshi of Time(and pudding) a
chance to move so much as a sausage like finger.
"What am I supposed to do with you, now?" I asked. She was beating
against the barrier's side with her staff, to no effect. I couldn't
even hear her screams of rage. Maybe if I accidentally let it roll
out the window. Nah, better not. Oh well, it'll make a great
conversation piece.
****
Ami's mom decided to drag her now very sexually active daughter to the
drug store to pick up some condoms. She wasn't paying very much
attention to her daughter's protests.
"But Mom," Ami whined desperately,"we use protection. Honestly, Ranma
knows how to stop me from getting pregnant just by using a couple
shiatsu pressure points." Kami-sama, this was embarassing.
"I don't want to hear it, Ami. Ranma seems like a very nice sorceror,
and I'm sure he knows how to do all kinds of interesting things, but
I'm not taking any chances with my daughter." Noriko was leading her
daughter by the hand, a method unused since the girl had had to be
dragged to the dentist when she was seven.
"That's not all, Mom. I know this magic spell that stops me from
ovulating. If I'm not ovulating, I can't get pregnant, so don't you
see, this is a waste of time. Please, I might see someone I know in
there!" If Ami wasn't such a nice person, she would have blasted her
mother. Unfortunately, Ami was nice, and the thought never really got
past her subconscious mind.
Noriko looked at her daughter and snapped,"I want you to stop doing
that immediately. Who knows what long term effects that could have?
I want lots of grandchildren one day, and I won't have you sterilizing
yourself by accident!"
Ami gave up, hanging her head in misery. She should have just kept
her big mouth shut like Ranma had wanted and none of this would be
happening. They reached the drug store and Ami was led straight to
the contraceptives aisle.
"Now, just look around and see what kind you like and find the
appropriate size. I suppose I should make an appointment at my
gynecologist for you, too." Noriko sighed. She was happy for her
daughter, truly happy, proud too, but why couldn't the girl have kept
her mouth shut and not made her mother worry about all this crap.
Ami's face was bright red, and the color didn't show any sign of
lightening. She scanned through the brands, sizes, and varieties as
quickly as possible. Redder than ever, really closer to a bright
purple, Ami asked,"Mom, are there any besides these?"
Noriko looked puzzled."Couldn't you find at least one kind that was
okay?" Geeze, there were dozens of them."I've always liked the ones
witht he little bumps on them, myself, but that's up to you."
Ami's eyes bulged."Mom!" she shrieked in a whisper. What had she done
to deserve this?
Her mother patted her arm gently."Now that your all grown up, we can
talk about things like that. So, what is it going to be?"
Ami looked the wall over again and said,"There aren't any that will
fit Ranma." Noriko had to lean close to her daughter to hear the
barely whispered words.
Now it was Noriko's turn to blush."Well, I've always heard that it's
not the size that counts, but how you use it," she said awkwardly.
Poor girl. Maybe they could stop by that sex shop down the
street...No, it'd gotten blown up a couple days earlier.
Ami looked at her mother like she was crazy."No, Mom, all of these are
too small." Ami just wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Noriko's blush deepened. She reached out and pulled the largest size
available from the wall."Certainly he isn't bigger..." Ami nodded. The
silence stretched for almost a minute. Finally, Noriko said,"They
'do' stretch quite a bit."
Ami nodded, now almost blue in the face."They don't stretch 'that'
much," she told her mother.
Noriko replaced the package and said,"Ami, honey, walk to the end of
the aisle then back again, okay?"
Ami shrugged. This was all just too weird. She walked to the end of
the aisle, like her mother had asked, then returned. She couldn't
help the confused expression she gave her mother on the way back.
Ami didn't appear to be bo-legged, and she wasn't limping noticeably.
"You win, Ami. Just make sure to be extra careful with that spell."
Ami nodded in relief, feeling euphoric because of all the blood in her
head.
****
Shampoo and Mousse, now both in human form, stood atop the high rise
office building, surveying the open night sky that was brightly lit by
the lights of Tokyo. Neither of them had ever imagined such a sight,
and within their hearts, were sad that soon, all of this wonder would
be gone, dead or destroyed by the Jusendo Alliance. Though neither
one of them mentioned it to the other, they would each cherish the
memory until their dying day.(enough sappy shit)
"If the Orb is correct, Ranma should be in that building somewhere,"
Mousse said, breaking the long, drawn out silence that had grown
between the pair. The Orb was literally pointing at Ranma with a
glowing finger of light. No matter what direction they turned, it
continued to point towards that building.
Shampoo nodded."Yes, but the Orb does not tell us where, and the
structure is enormous. We could not possibly search for him without
alerting the inhabitants. It would be far wiser to wait for him to
come to us." The perch they had chosen looked directly down to the
entrance of Ranma's home. He would have to leave eventually.
"I agree. I'll take first watch while you get some rest. I'll wake
you in a few hours," replied Mousse. Shampoo agreed and went to where
they had set up their bedrolls. Mousse had no intention of waking his
beloved. She needed her sleep more than he did. He would watch over
her in this foreign and wonderful city and make sure that no harm came
to the young warrior woman.
****
I started to get a little tired a couple hours after catching Setsuna.
I altered the barrier spell so that it would periodically refresh the
enormous senshi's air and placed her in front of the wide screen tv
she had so generously provided so many months earlier. I turned that
tv to the raunchiest porno I could find, a really nasty one with a
woman screwing dogs."Have fun," I told Setsuna.
I was about to step through the doorway into my room when an image of
a beautiful silver-haired woman, dressed in a black body-suit/armor
ensemble appeared in the air before me. It was an illusion, I knew,
or the wards and my senses would have alerted me. If Ami and I hadn't
been an item, I could easily see myself going after this one.
"That's not really much of a punishment for her," the illusion
commented."When we were younger, she used to sneak off with father's
hounds every chance she got." The woman grinned evilly and attempted
to look over my shoulder at the imprisoned senshi.
"I'll go find something else, then. After I find out who you are?" If
she was even remotely who her clues hinted at, Setsuna even had
problems not pissing her family off. Hmm, maybe that's why the Senshi
of Time doesn't get along with people very well. She's into dogs.
Heh, I know a few canine demons I could introduce her to that she
would just love.
"Katya Meiou, Sailor Pluto, Senshi of Space, and older sister of
Setsuna Meiou. And you would be Ranma. Setsy has told me about you.
Thankfully, for both of us, I like to make my own judgements about
people." It was obvious who got all the manners, brains, and pretty
much everything else worth having in this family.
"So, you don't plan on doing anything stupid, like trying to kill me?"
I asked. If this Katya's power was actual Space manipulation like
Setsuna's was Time, then I felt much safer around her. True, I can't
create my own spatial pocket, and I'm still working on that
teleportation spell, but as far as offensive and defensive uses of
spatial manipulation, I'm much better than average.
Katya shook her head."No, I just came to ask for my sister. She's
suffering from a bit of a psychotic episode, I fear, and I need to get
her some treatment before the condition becomes permanent. Not that
she is really worth the effort, but you wouldn't believe how tedious
it is to find a replacement temporal mage. Just between you and me,
the last time Setsuna had to take a century off, she was raising a
litter of human/Plutonian hunting hound hybrid puppies."
I had to lean against the wall so I wouldn't fall over, so hard was I
laughing. Oh wow, that was so, so good!"Are you serious?" I asked.
Setsuna may be bad, but that last one seemed a little below even her
standards.
Katya nodded."Oh yes, quite serious. It caused the biggest scandal
throughout the kingdom. Pluto was even attacked by a militant animal
rights organization. They said she had taken advantage of the
hounds."
This was a Sailor Pluto I could get along with.
****
Along with thirty experienced Amazon warriors, Cologne journeyed to
Jusekyou. No one in their right mind would fully trust Saffron, and
the Amazons were making as many contingencies as they could. Today
they would be gathering as much water from the more valuable pools as
safely possible, especially the pools that gave extraordinary
abilities to their victims. Some of the water would be boiled down
and processed by the village sorceresses, creating the temporary
curses, but much of it would be placed within sealed urns where it
would not lose its potency.
Plans had been made to continue doing this right up until the end of
the coming war. That way a sizable stockpile of the mystical water
would be in Amazon hands in both South America and Africa encase they
either needed it to help fight off attacks by the Musk or Phoenix
People, or if they were denied further access to their home valley.
"I want double loads of the giant prehistoric sea turtle water." No
one knew how a turtle the size of their main village had ever managed
to drown in a pool large enough to hop across, but no one really cared
either. They would change the marker to that spring and gather as
much of it on each trip as possible. There would be no ocean
tranportation more advanced than a sailboat once Saffron's artifact
was activated, and the Amazons needed to be able to communicate
quickly and efficiently between their promised continents when the
time came.
As Cologne supervised the work effort, she mentally sought out the
pool of drowned girl. This part of the plan was an absolute secret,
but the elders had decided, quite unanimously, that they would be able
to better lead their forces if they were in younger, more resilient
bodies. Herb had already promised the use of the locking kettle,
though he didn't know what the Amazons planned for it. It would be
good to be young again. Maybe she could even get Ranma into the sack.
Shampoo sure had enjoyed the experience.
When she found the pool in question, she formed a chi image of herself
and left it in her place as she sprinted for the pool. She returned,
a sack of cursed, or blessed water, depending on how you look at it,
hidden within her robe before the image had even begun to fray.
****
That night, the combined Council of Elders for the entire Amazon
nation threw a slumber party. They brought their favorite young men
from the surrounding villages and had their way with them all night,
repeatedly.
****
"There he is!" Shampoo exclaimed happily. She pointed over the side
of the building. Mousse followed the gesture and sure enough, there
was Ranma, walking out of the entrance to his apartment building.
Shampoo wasn't very happy with Mousse, it had been her duty to keep
watch, too, but she gave him a little hug of gratitude nonetheless.
She would have been asleep then if Mousse had obeyed her order.
"Hurry, Mousse," Shampoo said as she leapt over the side of the
building. It was only about ten stories above the pavement, something
she could possibly have handled without assistance, but using Ranma's
sword to call up an undraft left that question unanswered. She slowly
floated to the sidewalk, unseen by the few pedestrians in the street,
and closely observed by Ranma.
Mousse settled to the ground beside her, a length of chain he had used
as a repelling line disappearing back into his robes.
"Shampoo, Mousse, what are you two doing here?" Ranma asked in
Japenase.
****
"Shampoo, Mousse, what are you two doing here?" I asked, grinning at
the pair of Amazons. Shampoo had handled the sword with ease and
skill. I'd sorta traded it to the Amazons for instruction in their
advanced martial arts techniques. I'd gotten the better of the deal,
in my opinion. What is one little enchanted sword when compared to
the physical conditioning and chi focus I had gained in return? Not
much.
Shampoo rushed forward and threw her arms around me, kissing me
soundly on the mouth with lots of aggresive tongue action. When she
pulled away, she said in her native dialect of Chinese,/I'm glad to
see that you're well, Ranma./
Mousse stepped forward and extended his hand, I accepted it and the
Amazon said,"It has been too long."
I exchanged greetings then asked,"Not that I'm not glad to see you
two, but why are you here? A journey all the way from Jusendo is no
small undertaking." I could already tell that something major was up.
The Elders would never have let these two, the most promising young
Amazon warriors in the entire tribe, travel all the way to Japan to
see me unless the matter was urgent.
"Perhaps somewhere more private would be best," suggested Mousse.
Once I'd fixed this guys eyes, he'd really gotten his head on
straight. Of course I may have accidentally fixed that too. I've
refined my healing spells a lot since then.
I led the Amazons back to my apartment. This was important. Katya
could keep the senshi entertained for a while. Shit, how am I going
to explain Shampoo to Ami? Sigh. I'll think of something.
Once they were seated, Shampoo said,/Ranma, we need you back home,
badly./ My Chinese isn't bad, but it isn't anything special either.
I held up my hand and said,"Sorry, Shampoo, but could Mousse explain?
If this is important, it'd be better for me to precisely understand
the situation." She didn't look like she liked the idea, she was an
Amazon female being told what to do by me, a guy.
"Ranma, Jusendo is about to go to war with the world. Lord Saffron, a
living phoneix and leader of the Phoenix People, has negotiated an
alliance between himself, Prince Herb of the Musk Dynasty, and the
Council of Elders. He has in his possession a magical artifact that
will render all modern technology and weaponry completely useless. We
were sent to invite you to return to the village with us and to use
your power to aide in the coming struggle. The main reason, though,
is that the Elders fear that Saffron and the Musk will turn on us when
the war is over. Your abilities as a sorceror would prove invaluable
to the tribe, especially in crafting weapons of power for our warriors
to use," Mousse finished, taking a deep breath.
What can you say when you've just been invited to participate first
hand in World War III? The idea was appealling. Very, very
appealling. With Demon and the other pokemon, maybe a few powerful
demons, and the Sailor Senshi, we could pull the rug right out from
under this Saffron guy. Yeah, that would be good, kinda like
liberators of the world. That way Usagi could come into power as the
new ruler of Earth, like Ami had said she was supposed to, with the
public's consent.
"Saffron, you say he is an actual 'Phoenix'?" I asked to stall for
time while I thought. Setsuna certainly wouldn't like it if the
senshi and I took this little shortcut to global power, making all her
plans for Crystal Tokyo useless. The world would be in absolute chaos
if technology just stopped working, and I for one don't want to be on
the losing side of a battle just as civilization slips back into the
dark ages.
"Saffron is a Phoenix, like those of legend. I saw him working out
once. He turned a large mountain into slag in less than a minute,"
Mousse answered, his voice edged with fear. I nodded to that. This
Saffron sounded like an overgrown fire elemental. Well, I could
handle that easily enough.
I remained silent, sending urgent thoughts across my bond to Ami.
With luck, she would pick them up and mention it to Katya. The
spatial mage would be able to teleport the girls to my apartment and
save me the trip to them and back. Once I was sure I had sent as
strong a message as possible, I said,"I just invited some friends of
mine, powerful sorceresses actually, to join us. They all have
powerful friends themselves and I would rather they fight with us than
against us."
Mousse nodded, realizing that I had all but agreed to join them, then
translated to Shampoo what I had said encase she hadn't understood it
all.
In my best Chinese, I said,/Shampoo, one of girls coming here my
fiance. I love very much. You understand what happened between us
was only one time thing?/ Shampoo nodded glumly./Cheer up. If they
join us, Amazons be unstoppable./ That did seem to brighten the girl's
mood a bit.
A few seconds later, a hole in space opened up in my ceiling and five
senshi, all in full battle armor, along with Katya in her original
uniform, floated to the floor. They were ready to fight, with energy
blades drawn and fully primed spells ready. Ami in particular had a
nasty one ready, a modified ice flame that burnt the heat from
someone's body, leaving them as living statues of ice.
Before Shampoo or Mousse could get vaporized, I stood up and waved the
senshi off."Sorry about that, guys. I didn't mean to worry you." They
resheathed their swords and all the spells except for Ami's went dead.
I looked at her and grinned and she, too, killed her spell."These are
friends of mine. Mousse, Shampoo, meet the Sailor Senshi, my
students."
The Amazons waved in a kind of numb shock.
Ami stomped over to me and began beating me over the head with a
lamp."Don't you ever do that again unless your in major, major
trouble, you hear me, mister!?" she shouted."I was worried sick!" The
power of guilt is considerable. Nervously, aware that I was being
stared at angrily by lots of powerful sorceresses, I reached out and
pulled Ami into a hug. She collapsed against me and started crying.
Damnit, extreme guilt is even worse. I bent down and whispered all
kinds of assurances and promises in her ear. Finally, when she was
calm and merely clinging to me, I relaxed and began to rub my aching
head. That lamp had been one of those new age, solid steel deals with
the sharp edges.
Katya, trying to snap us out of an embarassing scene, asked,"Ranma, if
you're not in trouble, why did you call so urgently?" Katya and I were
going to get along really well.
I grinned lopsidedly at her and the senshi."Who wants to help take
over the world?" I asked. 3...2...1...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wasn't disappointed."WHAT!?!?!?!?" The exclamation came from all the
senshi, including Ami who was pressed against my chest and Katya who I
had thought was too grounded to react so strongly. Three of the
windows in my apartment exploded.
****
Author's Notes: How will the senshi react to Ranma's question? Will
Rei remember her pet fire elemental Saffy-chan from the Silver
Millenium? Just what did Ranma promise Ami to get her calm? These
questions may be answered in the next chapter, but they may not. Ah,
screw it, yes, they will be answered. I'm not good at being
suspenseful or dramatic so I shouldn't even try. This, with maybe one
more chapter released later tonight will be the last of this fic for a
few days while I go to visit my grandma before I go back to college.
She's pretty cool, the only member of my family that isn't somehow
disfunctional, and likes to give me money, so I don't really mind
being cut off from the internet or cable to see her. C&C me at
dark_phoneix@hotmail.com