"B-but…" Shampoo said, "I… I can't be… That means I can't be an Amazon anymore…"
Shampoo and Ryoga's wounds were easily fixed. Brittany's wasn't because of it being internal, and the whole fact that the silver would be hard to get out.
"No one foresaw this, Shampoo," Rhys said, "It's not your fault."
"But everyone at home will hate me," Shampoo said, starting to cry, "I can't ever go back."
"No," Cologne said, "I believe that one day you shall. The Amazons nearly worship Ranma… I'm sorry, Rhys. He killed Saffron. They are bound by our traditions to honor and respect him. As a hero of the Joketsozuko, he cannot be attacked without enormous repercussions, even if he is a werecreature."
"I'll help you through this, Shampoo," Rhys said, "Don't worry. It's not so bad."
Shampoo looked up at his furry face. She smiled slightly. In the back of her mind, she was happy and giddy, but she was still rather surprised that she had spontaneously changed species.
"I…" Shampoo said, she was wearing some of Brittany's clothes, "Wow…"
Shampoo was looking over her now larger and furry body. Most of her was white, but she had small purple highlights going all over her body in the places where Ranma had blonde fur and spots. She was very lithe and, like Ranma and Brittany, seemed built for speed. Ranma had to admit that she was very cute.
"Ra… Rhys?" Shampoo said, "Why were those weapons glowing blue?"
She was looking at the large pile of silver that the non-werecreatures had gotten off of Mousse.
"You can see silver," Rhys said, "Any werecreature that sees anything that contains silver sees a blue aura surrounding it. You need to keep aware of it so you don't accidentally touch something that has silver in it when you're out in public."
"I feel so… strong," Shampoo said.
"I see that you like it," Rhys noted.
"Hell, yeah," Shampoo said.
Brittany's eyes fluttered open. The light hurt her eyes. Her cat like pupils shrank until she could handle the light.
"You okay?" Rhys' voice called.
"Yeah," Brittany asked, "What happened to me?"
"Kodachi sprayed you with a chemical that had silver in it," Rhys said, "It tore up your lungs. You've been asleep for three days."
"I'm starving," Brittany said.
"Well, get dressed," Rhys said, "Kasumi's making dinner."
"Kasumi?" Brittany asked, "Wasn't she from Nerima? What's she doing here?"
"When the rest of her family suddenly came here, she somehow came as well," Rhys said, "The people that we had to fight were under that midgets control. Gina's trying to reverse some of the effects he did to them. She's pretty sure she can stop them from being controlled again."
"Damn Pee-wee," Brittany said, "He's never gone that far."
"His name is Pee-wee?" Rhys started to chuckling, "That's the stupidest name I've e…"
Brittany and Ranma both froze. A smell was wafting into the room. With two flashes of movement, Brittany got dressed in less that a second, Rhys picked her up, and darted out of the room at 1080mph. Genn and Séance would later wonder how foot prints appeared on the walls and ceiling.
Brittany and Rhys were soon joined by Brianna and, surprisingly, Shampoo. They raced off towards the kitchen, blowing past Theo and Julia on the way.
"I'm surprised that Shampoo can keep up with them," Theo said.
"Well," Julia said, "Kasumi IS cooking several tuna dishes."
Brittany, Rhys, Brianna, and Shampoo were currently destroying everything that had tuna in it. Ryoga was the only one that seemed effected by the sight. Not because Rhys was eating that fast, but because there were three girls eating just as fast. Cologne and Happosai were affected for a half second, before they chalked it up to a werecat thing and ignored it.
Pretty soon, the werecats had successfully eaten about 95 of the tuna dishes. The rest may have gotten a few bites, but they mainly had to eat the other dishes, such as the chicken or the noodle soup.
"Rhys," Brittany said, "Shampoo, can I ask you two a question?"
"Sure," Rhys said.
"In private?" Brittany asked.
Rhys saw a twinkle in Brittany's eyes, and smiled.
"What?" Shampoo asked, getting a little bit scared, her tail fizzed out.
About thirty minutes later, two blonde girls were dragging a purple haired girl towards the mall.
Gina looked up as movement caught her eye. Inside a nearby healing tank, one of the patients was moving.
Akane, Soun, Nabiki, and Mousse had been captured before Daishi had somehow gotten everyone else out.
Gina was afraid that Akane, Nabiki, and Mousse had had werecreature DNA spliced in with their own. Seeing how they had reacted when Ran… Rhys had come clean, they would most definitely freak.
Nabiki was slightly awake, and looking around. She saw Gina, and just stared at her for a while. Gina arched her eyebrow, before checking Nabiki's health on her computer. She was physically fine, but mentally Gina suspected the gene splicing was wreaking havoc on her.
Gina pressed a button, and Nabiki's tube started to drain.
"Shh…" Brittany said, "Come on."
"No, no, wait, wait," Rhys said, "Follow me."
Rhys then disappeared from view.
"Where'd he go?" Brittany asked, looking around.
"I'm still here," Rhys said.
"You're… invisible?" Brittany asked.
"Yup," Rhys said.
"It's one of the Saotome sealed techniques," Shampoo said, "The Sneaky Thief."
"R-Ranma?" A voice asked as Rhys was walking with Shampoo and Brittany after sneakily hiding their stashes away. Rhys (female form still) turned to look at Nabiki.
They were all in hybrid form. Shampoo had taken a shine to it quickly after obtaining it.
"It's Rhys," She said, "Ranma was Genma's son. I'm in no was related to that man, please call me by my true name."
"O-okay," Nabiki said, "I… I'm sorry."
"What?" Rhys asked.
"I was the one that got everyone involved with that little prick," Nabiki said, "I'm the reason why your sister got hurt and…"
"Hey," Rhys said, "You didn't know what he would do, and you were pissed at me. I don't blame you, I sort of blame Happosai."
"Why?" Nabiki asked.
"Because he taught your father that lame style of martial arts," Rhys said. She saw Nabiki get slightly angry, "No, wait, listen to me. Happosai taught your father a lame martial arts not because it's fighting is bad, but because it focuses on one singular emotion. That's why Akane is always mad, she can't NOT be mad. You, Kasumi, and Soun are the same way."
Nabiki nodded, and decided to 'ask' Happosai later. She stared at the floor for a while, before looking up at Rhys and the two girls. Nabiki had to admit; Rhys did look like his hybrid form was natural. The other cheetah girl must be Rhys' sister. And…
"Shampoo?" Nabiki asked, "You're one too?"
"Um…" Shampoo said, "Has she had the spell on her?"
"Doesn't matter," Gina said, "You've been talking in Japanese and English for days now. You didn't notice, did you?"
"Wh…" Shampoo said, "Wow. I thought I was speaking Mandarin."
"That's what the spell does," Brittany smiled, "It allows someone to learn languages extremely quickly."
"To answer your question," Shampoo said, nervously, in Japanese, "Yeah, I'm a werecat now. I wasn't before."
"How'd you get to be one?" Nabiki asked, "Did this lug bite you or something?"
"No, I didn't," Rhys said, "And it isn't biting, it's the claws that infect people, and my power to infect was sealed when I was three, I can't infect people."
"Then… how?" Nabiki asked.
"She's been learning the same type of teachings as Rhys and I have," Brittany said, "She, almost accidentally, mixed her Jusenkyo curse with her human form. Daddy thinks that's how werecreatures came to exist in the first place."
"Okay, well," Nabiki said, "Just don't turn me into one. I'd rather stay human."
The entire room (which was in Gina's Lab) went quiet. Nabiki noticed that everyone was looking at her.
"What?" She asked.
"You don't remember what Pee-wee did to you, do you?" Brittany asked.
"No, not really?" Nabiki asked, "The last thing I remember was giving Pee-wee some of R… Rhys and Ryoga's DNA. Wait… you're not saying…"
"That Pee-wee spliced their DNA into yours?" Gina said, "Yep, he did."
"What…?" Nabiki said, "No way."
"You didn't notice that you have a tail and blonde hair now, did you?" Rhys asked.
Nabiki glanced behind her to see her cheetah like tail. She then looked all over her.
"But…" Nabiki said, "I'm not furry or anything."
"You're not a werecheetah," Rhys said, "He probably didn't have enough of my DNA to do that. He just augmented you with my DNA to make you faster and more agile."
"You can also expect to see a LOT of side effects," Gina said, "That werecreature DNA in you is gonna start acting up real soon, and your body will probably start killing itself. Pee-wee could have kept you alive with more gene therapy."
"I don't want to go back to that freak," Nabiki said.
"There are only two ways to stop your body from going haywire," Gina said, "Either go back to Pee-wee and be his guinea pig, or…"
"…Or what?" Nabiki asked.
"For Rhys or Brittany have their ability to infect unsealed and they scratch you," Gina said.
"What?" Brittany said, "No way. I'm not going to force her to be my slave."
"Me neither," Rhys noted.
"Slave?" Nabiki asked.
"When a werecreature infects a human, the human turns into a werecreature over the course of about two weeks," Rhys told her, "And the infected werecreature has to follow every single command that the werecreature that infected them gives. If the master doesn't give any commands, the infected werecreature goes on living like they would have. Mentally, they don't change at all."
"I don't think you should worry about that," Gina said, "I talked to Daddy about it, and I'm pretty sure that that won't happen. It'll just add a catalyst to their system that brings the DNA that's already there out to the surface."
"You're 'pretty sure'?" Rhys said.
"If it turns out that she would be under your control, Daddy can stop the transformation, and we can try something else," Gina said, "But it's the best lead we have at the moment."
"Was… was anyone else hurt by Pee-wee?" Nabiki asked.
"Well…" Rhys said, "Only three of you have werecreature DNA now. The rest WERE experimented on, just not with werecreature DNA. Kuno, Kodachi, Taro, and Genma got away from us. Akane, Soun, and Mousse we managed to get before Pee-wee retreated."
"Who was experimented on with the DNA?" Nabiki asked.
"Akane, Mousse, and you," Gina said, "We're lucky it turned out that way. Pee-wee doesn't have any more fresh DNA sources, so he can't play around with it as much as he would like. We can still expect them to attack again and again, but not with werecreature super soldiers."
"A-Akane?" Nabiki said.
"Both Ryoga and my DNA," Rhys said, "She's part werewolf, part werecheetah, and Mousse has werewolf DNA in him."
"Oh god," Nabiki started to cry, "I'm… I'm so incredibly stupid."
"Don't worry," Brittany said, "My family is here for you. We'll be glad to help."
"Th-thanks," Nabiki said, she started chuckling weakly, "Akane's gonna flip when she finds out."
"Leave her to me," Rhys said.
"Ready?" Rhys asked. Nabiki, who was sitting on the couch nodded.
She flinched heavily when Rhys' 6-inch long claws ripped from her fingertips with an appropriate SHING sound. They were long and sharp, and almost pearly white. There was a small bit of yellow in them though.
"Ugh," Rhys said, picking at his claws, "I hate that my claws are so brittle."
"Well, where do you suggest we get Zebra?" Brittany asked.
"I could list a few places," Rhys said, "Most of them it would be illegal, but…"
"Zebra?" Nabiki asked.
"Werecheetahs need to eat Zebra meat every once in a while, or their claws get brittle," Rhys waved her brittle claws around, "Can't use em very well when they're brittle."
Rhys placed her claws lightly on Nabiki's arm. She could definitely feel that, although they were brittle, they were very sharp.
"Do it," Nabiki said.
Rhys lightly dragged her claws across her arm. It bit into the skin, causing a small amount of blood to come out. She pulled away.
Nabiki felt the wounds tingle for a moment, before she suddenly went something along the lines of 'poof'.
Poof.
Rhys stumbled backwards (to fall on her ass) as Nabiki almost instant grew at least a foot and a half, and was covered in the same light fur as Rhys and Brittany.
Nabiki blinked a few times, before looking at her arms. The cuts were still there, but her arm was also a lot bigger, so they looked smaller. Also, she was furry.
"That was fast," Nabiki said.
"Nabiki," Rhys called.
"What?"
"DANCE FOR ME!" Rhys commanded, pointing at her.
Nabiki just backed away from him slightly and stared at him, confused.
"Okay, it looks like you don't obey me," Rhys said, "Alls well that ends well."
"Why do I have a sudden craving for tuna?" Nabiki asked.
Rhys and Brittany smirked.
