-+- Standard Disclaimer -+-
The characters depicted in this story are not mine. Sue me and you get nada, cuz that's how much I own. Blah.
-+- End of Disclaimer -+-
Unlikely Companions
A fiction novella by Dave Zhang (dzhang@its.caltech.edu). Comments and criticisms welcomed. Copyright 2003.
[This text is in English.] "This text is spoken." 'This text is thought.'
Chapter 5: Cherry and the Genie
The companions tumbled out of the portal and into onto lands painfully as always. Standing up and collecting themselves took longer than usual due to their very drunken states.
"Oof," made out Yuu before he puked.
[I have had too much to drink,] muttered Lancelot. Then he realized that they were no longer in the feasting halls of Camelot, and that it was no longer night, but rather early morning. [Where am I!?]
"Oh hiya, Lancey," said Ranma. Then he blinked as he tried to shake himself from the effects of alcohol to determine where they were.
"We are... we're in Juuban again! There's Cherry Hill Temple!" yelled Ranma as he started to do a dance of celebration. That is, all five steps before he fell to the ground again.
"Hey!" said a new voice, distinctly feminine, and sounding somewhat upset. "You! It's really is Yuu! Come here, you!"
Yuu took off running in panic in uncertain directions when he recognized the feared voice of Rei Hino. Rei stormed after him.
Now, two months ago Rei would have definitely been able to catch up to him in such a drunken state, but because of his martial arts training with Ranma and Miroku, Yuu had gotten substantially faster. He learned also how to tap his full potential in times of desperation, and meeting the Harbinger of Bad Luck (who he had repeatedly offended, no less) definitely counted as a time of desperation in his mind. He ran off, screaming "Ah!!!!"
The four others watched dumbly for a bit before collapsing to the sidewalk, asleep.
***
Ranma woke up first on the sidewalk in the early afternoon. He woke up the others, before conversing with them.
"Hey ya guys, Yuu's still gone," said Ranma, rubbing his temples to try to relieve his hangover-induced headache. "Think maybe we should go look for him? That tomboy running after him looked pretty pissed."
[What did you say, good sir Ranma?]
Cherry sighed and translated, since he was the only bilingual of the group now. He then said to Ranma, "It's been hours, we'd have no idea where to look." Sighing, he continued, "Yuu is very unlucky."
"That reminds me, how did you get so tall?" asked Miroku.
[Miroku asked why I'm so tall now, because I used to be very short. It's because of a wish from a genie.] "By a wish granted by a genie."
The rest of the group collective stared at Cherry as he sighed and told the tale of how he spend the last two months in both Japanese and English.
*****
Well, after Ranma punted to into a marsh, I was fairly lost and disoriented. Of course, I had a vague idea where I was, because I was trying to summon a green giant, when Ranma disrupted the summoning procedure. So I figured I was probably going to be dumped in Arthurian Britain or somewhere similar, which meant I probably had to watch out for all sorts of nasties.
I wandered about the marsh until I saw the shape of a castle in the distance. Since I was by that time fairly hungry, and didn't have the proper charms and tools to summon something like a chicken or a pig, I decided I'd head over to the castle and ask for some food like a normal wandering traveller.
Now, a great priest such as myself should have been able to sense the evil of the place earlier than I had, but as it was a faraway land, and I was starving, I walked into the castle without a second thought.
Then there were the gate attendants. They looked somewhat... dead. Because they were. Of course, me being starved at the time, I thought they were just really tired from the monotonous task of gatekeeping.
Drawing upon my limited English skills, I asked one of the gatekeepers where the kitchen was. Again, the fact that his words emerged as a moan from some unknown location, and that his lips didn't move as the words were spoken, should have tipped me off that he was dead.
In any case, you can imagine my surprise upon reaching the kitchen, upon seeing the room devoid of food. So then I walked up to the giant animated human skeleton, and asked him where I can find some food in the castle. That old chap considered this a bit, and then drew a rather large and sharp butcher knife.
[Oh, you're going to slaughter an animal just for me? I must thank you,] said I as I bowed in appreciation. I felt an air current from above, and when I finished bowing, I saw that the skeletal cook had accidentally swung his knife.
[You should be careful with that knife, you lacking muscles and tendons and all.]
The skeleton scratched his skull with his other hand, before leading me to another area of the castle. Upon nearing one room, the chap motioned for me to go first into the room.
No sooner after I had walked into the room before I noticed something. There was a copper coin on the ground! I ecstatically bent down to collect it, thinking that I might be able to pay for my meal if I find enough of them.
It was after I looked up that I noticed that a pig-type monster had been in the room. He had come up rushing to me, with a large mace in hand. Fortunately, I had been distracted at the exact right moment. Unfortunately, though the nice animated skeleton who had been my guide was not so lucky, and was shattered by the impact.
My host was true to me even until the very end though. He anticipated my bending down, and with the last of his strength he had slashed the pig monster in the gut and killed it. I am most impressed, for if he had mis-timed it by even a little bit, surely he would have hit my head instead. He sure was an awfully bright guy, despite lacking a brain and all that. Ah, poor valiant soul!
In any case, I prayed for his soul, before dragging the pig monster's corpse into the open to cook it. Roasted pig demon meat is most delicious when roasted over an open fire, by the way. In any case, I ate my fill, and then took a nap.
***
When I was awoken by the lash from a whip, I realized tied and bound in some sort of dungeon cell. Some type of goat demon was there holding a whip; I suppose he was to be my torturer or something.
Since I was in a slightly less advantageous position, I figured I might as well try diplomacy. [Is there any way we can talk about this?]
At this, the goat demon started laughing maniacally, so I took that to mean he wanted me to offer him something.
[If you release me and get me supplies, I'll try to summon a female goat demon for you...]
Unfortunately, that didn't work either, and the goat demon only laughed harder, tossing his head back and merrily guffawing. The poor guy's horns caught one of the strange metallic torture devices, and when he tried to return his head into normal position, the snapping motion threw the weapon off the rack and straight into his brain.
Kinda funny, actually--I thought demons were supposed to have tough skulls. Maybe the blade was enchanted or something.
In any case, the dying goat demon took a couple steps forward, before he collapsed on me, lifeless. I used my mouth to bite onto the handle of the weapon that killed my torturer, and used it to cut the ropes binding my hands to the cross.
As I exited the dungeon, I entered a large dining hall of sorts. A red dragon was in there, so I greeted it. [Hiya! How are you doing?]
That caught it's attention, and it turned to me. It must have thought I was the goat demon or something though, because it started breathing fire at me. Not wanting to be well done, I started running around the room, while trying to clear up the misunderstanding.
[Hey, look! I'm a prisoner here, not one of the goat-demon torturer-types! You don't have to fight me!]
It didn't seem to want to listen though, because it kept chasing after me while breathing fire and all. In my running I think I accidentally bumped a secret switch in the wall or something.
[Hey, Mr. Dragon! Look there! Move, quickly!]
The dragon paused a moment, snorting, as if not believing me, before the chandelier crashed down on his head. Oops. I tried to warn him though.
The dragon was somewhat stunned from that, so I thought maybe I'd try to clear up the misunderstanding by talking to it again.
It still seemed to be angry at me though, as it the chandelier was my fault or something, and so it shook loose the chandelier before starting to chase me again.
Again, I had to run. I saw a staircase up, and figured that the dragon can't run up stairs while breathing fire very well, and decided to run up it.
When I got to the top, quite out of breath, there seemed a sorceror in a black robe there. Glad to see a human again at least, who I could possibly reason with, I was about to greet him, when he started speaking.
[Fool! You dare challenge the great wizard Malleon? Die!]
I was about to reply that I wasn't challenging him when I remembered that the red dragon was still running up the stairs, so I dodged sideways out of the doorway. Apparently, the wizard was trying to cast some sort of spell, because a black ball of energy formed in his hand, and he threw it to where I was.
Well, instead of hitting me, it hit the red dragon that was chasing after me, and I think it upset the dragon a little bit, because the dragon then forgot about me and started charging Mr. Malleon.
The wizard was trying to throw another ball of energy to me when he got tackled by the dragon, and that upset him, so the two went at it. The two fought and fought, completely forgetting about me, and I was silently lamenting my lack of equipment to summon up a bag of popcorn. About an hour later, it looked like the wizard was definitely winning, so I decided to move on before the crazy wizard killed the dragon and turned to me.
Inside in the next room was a young woman who was encased an ice-like solid crystal. At that point a very haggardly looking Malleon walked into the room, and threw one huge fireball at me before collapsing from exhaustion. I quickly dodged out of the way, so the fireball hit the woman's ice prison, melting away most of it.
The young woman came to, and blinked, before looking down at me. [You saved me!?]
I was going to point out how it was really the crazy wizard's doing, but then I decided that was too long to explain, so I just nodded.
[You managed to defeat the evil wizard Malleon and his pet dragon Vicinus!?]
I pointed to the unconscious figure of Malleon.
She paced about in deep thought for a bit before speaking again, [Er... normally the deal in these situations is that the princess has to marry her savior, but I don't really want to marry you. No offense, but you're a bit shorter and uglier than I imagined my knight in shining armor to be. And you have no armor. Is there a way we can work out a deal?]
Well, I wasn't particularly interested in her either. [Let's hear what you've got to offer.]
[Gold?]
[No thanks, I have little need for it.]
[One of my handmaids?]
[I can't see why anyone would want to trade a princess for one of her handmaids.]
[All of my handmaids?]
[No thanks. Asking for multiple women is just asking for disaster. Believe me; I know.]
[How about a suit of enchanted armor? You won't be harmed at all by the elements while wearing it.]
[Is it my size?]
[Er... I suppose not. An enchanted sword then?]
[Plenty of those in the dungeon downstairs.]
By now, the princess seemed truly desperate, as she realized that she'd have to go through with marriage to me if she couldn't come up with a tempting offer.
[I've got it! My father has a legendary bottle of the genie that will grant you three wishes.]
[Sounds too good to be true. Any catches?]
[Ah... I dunno... Probably not... I heard maybe... thepersonisdamnedtoHell] She spoke the last part very quickly and quietly, but I heard her.
Well, I figured since I'm a Shinto priest, matters such as the Christian Hell would probably not affect me very much, so I agreed to it. I figured it would probably be a normal bottle with no powers, but since I didn't do the actual saving, I'm not really losing out on the deal. We travelled to her father's kingdom, where I delivered her, and she delivered the magical bottle.
***
I waited until after I left her castle before trying the bottle. To my surprise, a genie did emerge from the bottle when I rubbed it.
"Greetings, mortal. I shall grant you wishes three before your soul is condemned to Hell."
"You speak Japanese?"
The ethereal figured nodded. "I speak in your most familiar language to avoid confusions in wishes."
"I see. Very clever." said I. "Now, about these wishes. What restrictions do you have on them?"
"You cannot wish for more wishes. Other than that, none, for I am all-powerful. Name anything, and it shall be."
I smirked at the genie. "I don't believe you."
"Believe me! For it is the truth."
"What if I wish for something that you can't do?"
The genie considered this, and replied, "I have served over six thousand masters, and not once out of all their wishes was one that I could not grant."
"But still, humor me. What *if* I just happen to stumble upon a wish that you can't grant, either because you don't want to, or you don't have sufficient power for?"
"I... what do you propose, mortal?"
"How about a full refund of that wish, plus one extra wish as a penalty? On my part, I'm never allowed to wish the same thing twice."
The genie nodded, "That sounds fair, so I agree. Though I doubt if there will be need for that."
"Let's shake on that." And so we shook hands to seal the deal.
"Now then, mortal, what is your first wish?"
"I wish for an identical bottle to yours, down to the genie granting three wishes part."
The genie frowned. "You are not allowed to do that, because that's wishing for more wishes."
"No, that's not wishing for more wishes. I'm wishing for another bottle, and it just happens that the bottle will also have a genie to grant three wishes. I'm still only receiving three wishes from you, it's just that I'm also receiving three wishes from the other genie."
"Sorry, clause XLVI of the Genie Unions contract clearly states that one genie cannot coerce the presence of another genie."
"But I'm not asking for another genie, I'm asking for a bottle with a genie in it."
"But that's still netting you more wishes!"
"But you said anything!"
The genie considered this, and then said, "Fine, you've wished for something I can't grant. You're up to four wishes. So, now, seriously, what is your next wish?"
"Okay. I wish that this wish won't be granted."
"Don... wait a second."
"Hm...?"
"That's not logically possible to fulfill."
"Ah, so you can't do it. Up to five for me."
"But... that's not fair!"
"I don't recall you saying you can only grant fair wishes. In fact, I recall you saying you can grant any wish as long as it's not a wish for more wishes."
The genie sighed. "Fine, you're up to five wishes. What's your next wish?"
"I wish I didn't wish this wish."
The genie narrowed his eyes and started rubbing his temples. "Six. Go on."
***
"Three hundred and seventy-six. Go on."
I was running out of ideas for creating impossbilities. Oh well. I figured at that point, that after I made my three hundred odd wishes, and I come up with more impossibilities if I still saw the need for more.
"Ok, that's enough for now. Hm... what should I wish for? I do have some room to play around with, so that's good." Then, remembering stories such as the monkey's paw, I shuddered for a bit. "Actually that gives me an idea. Okay, genie, here's my first wish that I expect to be granted: I wish that for all of my future wishes, I can see the results of that wish before finalizing my decision to wish that wish or not. You get it?"
"I see," said the genie, nodding. "Very clever, mortal. In fact, even if you only had two wishes total, it would wise to use one like this. Very well, it is granted. Note, however, that there exists an infinitum of possible outcomes, which depend, among other things, on your other wishes. I will show you the possibilites one at a time chosen randomly, until you are either satisfied or dissatisfied enough to confirm or change the wish. You have three hundred and seventy-five left. What is your next wish?"
"I wish I was twenty Earth years old again."
The genie waved his hands, and a large mirror appeared before me. "How far into the future would you like to view?"
"Uh..." Now that I hadn't thought about. Too far, and the likelihood of each individual future decreases, so that I'd have to view more of them to get a feel of the general positivity/negativity of each wish. "Ten years?" Then I remembered I was in a different time-hopping zone. "Ten years, from my perspective, from now."
My image in the mirror faded away, and an image formed of me handsome and six-feet tall, chained and bound in what I can only assume to be Hell. Demons periodically came by to whip me, and otherwise I seemed to be powering some sort of energy plant by pushing a rock back and forth. Not exact ideal.
I didn't give up hope yet... surely I'm smarter than to have been actually dragged to Hell because of this? If nothing else I could just not ever use up my last wish... "Show me an alternate."
The previous image in the mirror faded away, and new image appeared, of me, again six feet tall and relatively handsome, lying on a bed next to a beautiful woman. From the background I gathered I was in the twenty-first century again. As I continued watching, the alarm clock beside the bed rang, and the future me and the woman I assumed to be my future wife arose. She headed downstairs to start boiling water, while I showered. In a little bit, another alarm went off in another room in the house, and a pair of children came out, sleepy-eyed. A daughter that looked to be maybe six, and a son that was maybe three. In general, the future me, and my future family, looked happy.
As pleasing as that peaceful future was to watch, I shook myself free of the reverie, reminding myself that it was only one of countless billions of different possible future. And this was still only my first wish. Time is of the essence if I didn't want to spend an eternity watching possible futures.
"Another please."
This time, I saw myself in an army, at that moment engaged in a medieval battle against another army. Beside me were Miroku and Lancelot, while on the opposing side were Ranma and Yuu.
"Another."
In this one, I seemed to be in yet another time/space. I was a farmer in a small village. There seemed to be two main love interests for me, and the future me vacillated between the two. Life was peaceful, if a bit rough.
"Another."
I was piloting a spaceship, a fighter of some kind. On my dashboard, communication links were open to Ranma, Yuu, and a dozen other names, most likely pilots of fighters beside me. We were fighting, but I seemed to be enjoying myself.
"That's enough. Confirm that wish."
"Done! You have three hundred and seventy-four left."
***
And so I wished on. Most of my wishes, I tested by watching five futures of. If at least four were decent, I accepted it, otherwise I rejected it. The things I wished for were vastly varied, since I had so many wishes.
Some of the wishes I accepted were: being a great mage skilled in spells of various schools, a suit of red armor that fits me and a matching charger, limited precognition, a nice unpoisoned dinner and drinks, that I would meet certain ones of my old friends again within two years, as well as a lot of other things.
Wishes that I rejected after seeing their consequences included: immortality, that the princess I saved would fall madly in love with me (just out of curiosity. The results were about as bad as I imagined), becoming a god, becoming God, and ability to control dimensional travel, among other things.
Oh yeah, I did accidentally pick up an additional wish. I wished that I could be even luckier, but the genie said that my luck rating was already at 30, the maximum, and so it was not possible to improve it any more. Not quite sure what he meant, but hey, he did give me an extra wish for that.
***
"Nineteen. Next wish?"
Since I was starting to run low on wishes, I decided I'd start the impossibility game again. Not that I had much more in mind to wish for, but playing around with wishes that gave me power-ups and watching the repercussions was kind of fun. The problem was, I had forgotten which impossibilities I had already used.
"Say, what was our agreement again? What happens if I wish the same wish twice?"
"You didn't specify, so I took the liberty of assuming that the remainder of the wishes would be negated, and you'd be sent straight to Hell."
I cursed under my breath for not nailing down that point, but then I remembered something. "Okay, I wish for a written transcript of everything we've said to each other."
The genie's face looked pained as he realized as I was going to start conniving more wishes off him, when he suddenly remembered something and said, "No. Twenty."
"Huh? But you can do that though! It's easy!"
"Yes, but the conditions we agreed to states that I can refuse to do something as long as I grant you an extra wish."
"But..." I cursed again, before I remembered something. Before, I had mostly been playing with logical impossibilities and the like. I was pretty sure I didn't exploit things the genie wouldn't want to do, but since the genie is being annoying, I decided to return the favor. "I wish all genies would die one hour from now, and never be alive again!"
The genie frowned, and said, "Twenty-one."
"I wish that the time you spend in your bottle is pure torture!"
The frown deepened. "Twenty-two."
Then a horrific thought suddenly came over me. If the genie just refused to do everything for me, and any number of wishes would be totally useless. What's a wish that won't be granted, even if you had millions of them?
"Say, Genie. I'll make you a deal. How about we scrap the agreement about extra wishes and saying no like this: You must try to the best of your ability to fulfill all of my remaining wishes, but if you do fail, then there no longer is the extra wish penalty. However, I still get the wish refunded. How's that?"
The genie considered this for a while before agreeing, but put up an additional term. "Throw in that you won't affect super-natural beings such as myself, and you have a deal."
I hesitated. That would greatly limit the usefulness of wishes, but if I didn't do this, then the rest of my wishes are useless. Finally I agreed, and returned to wishing.
***
"Three. You're almost out."
"Yargh... Me's already got just about anything me can think of. What to do now? Yargh... me don'ts wanna be stuck in this damn Arthurian universe forever," I shook my head and consciously improved my grammar. The last wish for experience with sailing sea-based ships apparently left me with a pirate's slangs. "I wish Ranma, Yuu, Miroku and I go back to the last universe we were, in five days."
After quickly verifying that this didn't cause Armageddon or anything similar, I confirmed that wish. By the way, that's what brought us back, though I'm not sure about Sir Lancelot. I didn't specifically ask to bring him along, but I didn't specifically say only us either.
"Two."
I'd taken care of most things, but something else found its way to the foreground of my attention. Certainly I wouldn't be the only one to be smart enough to figure out how to confuse this or a similar genie enough to get himself countless wishes. And if the next person who comes along has enough wishes, it just might be enough to destroy the happiness I've built up for myself. So, I figured, why take that risk? "I wish that no other mortal on any plane of existance would ever find this bottle, or any other device that causes wishes to be granted."
"The agreement was that you cannot affect supernatural being. You're still at two."
"But I'm affecting all the the bottles, lamps, and so forth that causes wishes to be granted. The bottles and lamps themselves are not supernatural. Thus, you have to try to the best of your ability."
The genie seethed, but really that I was right. "Fine! Wish granted! Last wish, mortal. Prepare to burn in hell!"
"Oh, thanks for reminding me to take care of that."
"You cannot effect the supernaturals, fool, and Hell counts as that. Let's see you try to get out of this!"
I pondered this for a bit, before saying, "I wish that if ever I'm sent to Hell..." Then I figured, why take chances with Purgatory and Heaven and all the other possible dead ends? "or any other place of afterlife, I will to taken to the place I last was at in healthy corporeal form of age twenty human years, after exactly one millisecond in that place, and that I cannot be sent to Hell or any other place of afterlife more than once per week."
I asked the Mirror to show me the image of one year from now, and saw that I was indeed not in Hell, and finalized the wish.
Heaving a great sigh of agony in defeat, the Genie granted my last wish, before disappearing.
Immediately after he disappeared, I felt chains wrap around my arms and legs, and they pulled me into Hell. As per the conditions of the last wish, I materialized right back one millisecond after I entered Hell, and I had been smart enough to close my eyes, and stuff my fingers into my ears.
Still though, my skin was covered with severe burns, and despite the covered ears and eyes, screams of pain and images of agony still seeped through, and for the remainder of that night I was severely uncomfortable.
One of my wishes was for extraordinary regenerative abilities though, so my burns quickly healed, and after a good nights rest and meditation, plus some magic spells, I was able to bury the audial and visual memories of my brief time in the underworld.
Well, the rest of the story isn't that interesting. I saw a flier for King Arthur's tournament, and so I came.
Lancelot was better than me in actual skill, of course, and that was reflected in all but the last round. In the last round though, I figured I could try one of the spells, and casted True Aim, and that's why I emerged victor.
Sorry to steal your moment of glory like that, Lancey.
*****
['Tis quite all right,] said Lancelot generously. [Tournaments are more for entertainment than actual combat, and I am overjoyed to have met a friend such as thou.]
"I could have gotten a cure for my curse..."
"Say," said Miroku, "why didn't you also use a wish for a more attractive face? No offense, but your face looks just like before, and it's not the prettiest thing in the world."
The now six-foot tall Cherry took off his face-mask to reveal a young looking face that was decently attractive, but not inordinately so. "Actually, I've been wearing this mask for quite some time now. Originally it was to avoid enemies, but after three hundred years, I guess they're all gone by now, huh? Not to mention we're in another time-space now." Seeing Lancelot still looking awed and confused, Cherry repeated the last statements in English. [Lancey, you also really have to learn Japanese. Our language, that is. We're in our world now.]
Lancelot looked around him at the streets and signs and architecture, with awe much akin to Miroku's own two months ago when the group first gathered here. [Indeed I will, good sir Cherry. Your kingdom is certainly advanced.]
Ranma, in the meantime, was still chanting, stunned. "I could have gotten a cure for my curse..."
"Well, Ranma," smirked Miroku, "It *was* you who said that it'd be much more fun to go to Camelot to watch the tournament instead of searching for Cherry."
"AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!"
--End of Chapter 5--
// I've always wanted to write something like this, about conniving genies in various ways to gain more wishes even if there was a specific clause precluding wishing for more wishes.