Dik$kl4m3r: l33t
Chapter 2: Magical Mystery Kitty Force
It had been a couple of days since Luna had joined the Saotomes on their training journey and she was already starting to regret it.
Ranma's fear of cats had not lessened and he still screamed and tried to get away when he saw her. The only time he didn't was when he forced himself to look at her crescent moon on her forehead. It was these times that he actually mustered up enough courage to go over and pat her. Of course he still hadn't mastered the art of petting a cat without pulling its hair out. Luckily, it happened the one time that Genma had gone into town to steal some food for them... himself instead of getting his son to do it. Ranma was sitting on the ground in their campsite abusing.. I mean petting Luna. On one of his strokes, he cringed and pulled just a little too hard.
"Ouch!" Complained Luna. She immediately covered her mouth realizing that she had said that out loud.
Ranma looked down at the cat in his lap. He shuddered a bit more.
"You can talk Luna?"
"Mrow." Luna said as she attempted to cover up her slip.
"I heard you talk now come on say something!" Ranma didn't think he was going crazy... well no more than he already was.
"Mrow." Luna said again.
"Alright you forced me to do this." He said as he grabbed Luna's tail in his right hand. He pulled hard.
"Yahhhhh!!! God damned son of a fucking whore that hurts you stupid cocksucker. What the fuck do you think you're doing you little shit!" - Luna.
"Oh wow you can talk!" Ranma was excited; he now had somebody to talk to.
Luna was busy nursing her tail. "Yes I can talk are you happy now?" She said sarcastically.
Of course Ranma couldn't understand what sarcastic meant so he replied. "Yup." With a huge smile on his face too.
Luna was so tempted to pull his tail and find out how he liked it. Wait a minute... tail?
Sure enough whipping around behind him was a little black tail.
Luna was starting to get disturbed by this. Already a few days after the pit and his eyes still hadn't returned to their human shape. The pupils were still slitted and cat like and there were a couple of other things happening but Luna had just dismissed them as optical illusions. The first was his incisors looked a bit longer and the second was that his fingernails looked a tad longer than they were a few days ago. Now with the tail, she was really wondering if the other two were illusions or if they had some meaning.
"Umm Ranma, since when did you have a tail?" Luna said while pointing behind him.
"Tail? Where?" He said as he tried to turn his head around enough to see the tail. Sure enough, there it was wiggling behind him. He reached around and grabbed it with his left hand. He gave it an experimental tug. Sure enough, it hurt like hell.
"Ow! Hey why do I have a tail!"
"I asked you first." Said Luna.
"How should I know? Wait a minute you can talk."
"We already went over this." Replied Luna as she narrowed her eyes at him.
"Yeah but now I've got somebody to talk to." He replied picking her up and putting her in his lap again. He unconsciously curled his tail around his waist like a belt. He started petting her again with his usual childish enthusiasm.
"Not so hard!" Luna yelled as she felt her fur start to give way.
Ranma stopped petting immediately. "What's wrong?"
"You're petting way too hard! Ok now put your hand at the top of my head." He did so. "Ok now gently stroke from the top of my head all the way down my back to the tip of my tail." He followed her instruction perfectly, his martial training allowing him the dexterity to put just the right movements into the act that Luna started purring. "Now don't forget to scratch behind my ears." He did so. Training this human was turning out to be a breeze. She guessed him knowing about her ability to talk wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.
As long as he didn't look directly at her, he wouldn't cringe. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was petting a skunk or a wolverine or some other cute and cuddly creature, anything but a vicious demon cat.
A while later the sun was going down and Ranma was still petting Luna. A small twig snapped off to his left. Both he and Luna swiveled their heads to look at where the sound came from.
It was Genma. He had a small sack and a much larger sack over his right shoulder.
"Get over here boy and bring the furball." He boomed.
Ranma got up and scurried over to where his father was putting down his loads.
"Alright boy it's time for some more training."
"What! But I haven't eaten today you old fart!" Whatever respect he had for his father had been severely diminished by the Neko ken incident.
"Stop whining like a little GIRL and get over here." He said while pulling out two steaks from the smaller bag and piles of lead weights and rope from the larger bag.
He had grabbed Ranma when he had gotten in range and started tying the weights to his torso, arms and legs. When he was done, he grabbed Luna. She tried to slash him but failed. He lashed a weight to her back and one to her stomach. He then took the steaks and lashed one to Ranma's back and the other to Luna's back. When he was done, he sat back and whistled.
"So what the hell is this about old man?" Ranma said.
"Its speed and endurance training. It's a big game of keep away. If you can keep the steak away from the wolves that are going to be chasing you, you get to eat it." He said with a smug grin.
"What wolves?" Ranma asked dreading the answer.
Genma just pointed at the snarling pack of wolves that were standing on the edge of the clearing.
"Those wolves. Now go boy!" He said as he pushed Ranma towards the wolves.
Ranma stumbled a bit, as he was unused to the weights. Luna was struggling to just stand upright. They both turned their heads to look over to where the wolves were snapping their teeth and slowly advancing.
We take a break now to look at our friend Adrenaline.
Adrenaline is a secretion of the adrenal gland. Millennia of evolution have given us this wonderful device, which is mostly used in the fight or flight mechanism. When we are frightened, the adrenal gland dumps loads of adrenaline into the bloodstream. Adrenaline's purpose is to enhance speed, strength, reflexes etc so that we are able to fight better or run away faster from the things that are trying to kill us.
Both Ranma and Luna's adrenal glands were working overtime as their burst of speed and strength was used to move themselves as quick as they could away from the wolves that were chasing them.
Adrenaline is our friend.
Ranma was busy dodging around trees with Luna and the wolves nipping on his heels. He heard a faint cry from behind him and took a quick look to see what it was. One of the weights on Luna's belly had been snagged by a root and had tripped her up. The wolves had taken advantage of this and jumped her.
"LUNA!" Ranma yelled as he spun around preparing to fight for his friend... even though she was a cat. His ki claws glowed faintly but he paid them no mind as he jumped into the fray.
Luna knew she was screwed the instant she saw the root. She knew that she didn't have time to jump it and she also knew that it would get caught in the weight. She saw the ground rushing up to greet her and knew that she was about to die. She just wished that she could have at least completed her mission... whatever it was.
She was down on the ground. She tried to get up but the first wolf had already reached her. He was a fairly young wolf maybe a year or so old. Just as he was going to bite her head off, she rolled out of the way and lashed out with her claws raking the side of his face. He quickly jumped back with a yelp. It wasn't over yet though as she had to dodge to the right to avoid the pounce of one of the females. Luna quickly kicked her in the nose before dodging again to avoid the swipe of one of the larger males. She quickly tensed and did a spinning uppercut to the bottom of his jaw. The big male was sent flying back.
As she landed, she was tackled from behind by another large male. She could smell his hot breath in the air and really wished she had a milk bone or something. His jaws were slowly lowering onto her head and she could see bits and pieces of something in between his teeth. She would have rather not known that little fact. She struggled to move but he outweighed her by a factor of five or so, maybe more.
Just as she was about to become a head shorter the weight that was pinning her down suddenly vanished and she was drenched in a shower of blood. She opened her eyes to see the head of the wolf lying beside her and the rest of his body laying a few feet away. Looking up she saw Ranma crouched over in the same stance that she saw when he was in the neko ken only the blank look wasn't completely there.
"You alright Luna?" He asked still keeping a wary eye on the rest of the wolves.
"Y.. yeah I think so." She replied as she shakily got to her feet.
The wolves having just seen one of their own killed by this strange newcomer decided that the smartest thing to do would be to run like hell. Contrary to popular belief running with your tail between your legs is very difficult to do so they just ran with their tails behind them like usual.
"Looks like we won doesn't it?" Commented Ranma as he looked around for any stragglers.
"Yes it does." Replied Luna. She then winced as the pain hit her.
Adrenaline is a wonderful thing but when it wears off you tend to crash.
Ranma turned to look at Luna. He winced at what he saw. She had scratches all over her body and there was quite a bit of blood matting down her fur. He had no idea how much was hers and how much was the wolves. The only damage that he could see that probably wouldn't heal was the notch cut out of her left ear where one of the wolves' claws must have snagged. Ranma shuddered and took a step back when he finally registered that he was looking at a cat.
"You look like hell." He commented looking away at one of the trees, rocks, bushes, anywhere but where Luna was.
"I feel like it too." She said in return. "Can you get these weights off me I'd like to try and clean up a bit."
"Yeah sure." He said as he walked over to where she was making sure that he kept his eyes on the crescent moon mark on her forehead. He bent over and removed the weights from around her torso.
Luna immediately went about cleaning herself with her tongue. She started with her back. It was tough going and she wasn't making any progress.
"This isn't working." She said with a sigh. "I need a river or something so I can get most of this out."
"There was a stream by the campsite." Said Ranma as he looked over at the dead wolf.
"I really don't want to go back there." Said Luna glaring at the small boys back. "At least we've got something to eat."
"What are you talking about you lost your steak." He said while pointing at where the steak was supposed to be on the weights.
"Nooooo! I was looking forward to eating that!" Yelled Luna as she wept for the loss of her supper. She looked at his back. "Well you lost yours as well!"
"What!" He yelled as his hands whipped behind his back trying to feel where the steak should have been. It wasn't there of course.
Back at the camp Genma gave out a loud belch. Bloody rare was the only way to eat a steak. His son would forgive him of course.
Back where Ranma and Luna were they were both sitting on the ground staring up at the sky. A loud rumble came from both their stomachs.
"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Ranma said as he covered his stomach with his hands.
"I'm so hungry I could eat a dog." Replied Luna as she covered her stomach with her paws.
"Why not?" Said Ranma as he looked over at her taking care not to look directly at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Well they eat dog in some countries so why not?"
"What do you... Oh you mean him." She said looking over at the body of the wolf. "Well it'll be different I'll give you that." She started to chuckle. "Who would have thought cat eat dog." She broke down into hysterical gales of laughter.
"You're weird." He said as he went over to skin the wolf and cut it up.
Hours later Ranma and Luna returned to the campsite. Both were haggard and extremely tired. It had taken Ranma a while to butcher then cook the carcass especially since he didn't have a knife or anything with him to cut the meat. He had tried using his claws but for some reason he couldn't get them to come out. He had to resort to using a sharp rock. Then there was getting the fire started and then cooking it.
In the end he was more tired from trying to cook it than the energy it would have taken to get back to camp and have some of his rations.
That and wolf does not taste like chicken.
Back at camp Genma was snoring away in front of the fire. Ranma briefly entertained the thought of trying to set his father on fire with some of the embers but eventually gave up on that idea since it would be more work than it would be worth. That and his father was a petty bastard and would come up with some way to get back at him for it.
Ranma collapsed on his sleeping bag his head hitting the rock that his father had put in place of his pillow to 'toughen him up'. Deciding that he would have to get his father back for this he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Luna plopped herself down beside Ranma's unconscious form. She shuddered a bit as she remembered being chased exactly like that on the... moon? She looked up at the grey moon barren of all life. Nah couldn't be, she thought as she fell asleep.
The next day dawned way too bright and way too early. The birds were singing happily in the trees. Small forest creatures were scampering about trying to get their breakfast.
This was how Genma greeted the morning as a warm liquid suddenly squirted him on his face. He raised his hand to wipe his face and scared the squirrel that was doing its business on him. He blearily opened his eyes and winced, as the sun seemed to pierce to the back of his head. After a few minutes of blinking, he finally was able to tolerate the light.
He sat up and his arm came away wet when it brushed across his gi. He looked down and noted a white brownish goo all over his gi.
Damn diaretic owls.
Time to wake up the boy for sparring.
He walked over to where Ranma was still sleeping. He was shivering even though it wasn't cold out. His little black tail was whipping back and forth.
Of course Genma saw it, but chose to ignore it as it was obviously not there.
Ahh the power of self-delusion such a wonderful tool.
"Get up boy." He said as he booted his son off of his sleeping mat and into a nearby tree.
Ranma was awake the minute that his father's foot hit his side. He twisted in midair so that he would hit the tree feet first. He rebounded off the tree and shot straight at the old man. Genma had not been expecting this and as such got tagged with the haymaker that his son threw out. Of course since Ranma was only six he couldn't get much power in his punch and as such just staggered his father a bit. Once Genma had righted himself again, he attacked back. With his neko enhanced speed and agility Ranma was able to avoid a good number of his father's attacks. Unfortunately for him, his father was in a bad mood this morning and wasn't holding back as much as he usually did. The punches that did connect were going to leave deep bruises. Ranma dropped after a few minutes of this.
"Get your stuff ready we're moving on." He said gruffly as he went over to the stream to get the owl crap and squirrel piss off.
Ranma struggled to his feet and staggered over to where his stuff was still strewn out on the ground. He started folding and packing his stuff in his backpack. Since he didn't want to get near Luna he just rolled her off. She ended up lying on her back with her feet stuck up in the air. When he had finished packing, he grabbed a stick from the ground and started poking Luna with it.
"Hey Luna time to get up."
"Piss off Artemis let me sleep five more minutes."
"Who's Artemis?"
Luna sprang to her feet baring her claws and teeth. There was nobody around though. She looked around confused for a few seconds before she saw a leaf fall out of a tree. She looked up only to see Ranma clinging to a tree branch twenty feet off the ground. She turned her head to see where Genma was. He was currently on the other side of the clearing eating something out of his pack.
"Ranma what are you doing up there?" She hissed up at him.
"C...C...CAT!"
"Oh for sluggoth's sake get down here."
"I can't."
"Why not?
"Because there's a cat down there."
"You idiot I'm the cat! Just get down here." She said as she walked off towards where Genma was and started cleaning herself.
A short time later Ranma was out of the tree and walking slowly beside his father. Luna was trotting beside him. Both of them had the weights tied to them but this time they didn't have the added advantage of adrenaline to help them. After a few hours of this Genma finally decided to stop in the next town for some lunch. When Ranma looked into his pack for his food rations that he had, he found that they were all gone, replaced with more weights.
"POP!" He roared in his little squeaky kid voice.
"Why is it always my fault?"
"Because my food's gone!"
"Maybe Luna ate it."
"Luna has problems with her two weights! How the hell could she eat all of my food then put the weights in there?"
"She's a smart cat" Ranma winced at that. "Go into town and get your own food like I showed you." He then laid down on the ground for a quick nap.
"Stupid old man." Ranma muttered as he dropped the weights on the ground and trudged off towards town, Luna tagging along at his heels.
The town was fairly small only 500 or so people. Luckily for Ranma and Luna, it was by the ocean so fresh fish was to be had at the local market.
"But Luna isn't this stealing, and isn't stealing wrong?"
"Usually yes but we're starving so it's more like forced charity." Luna said as she hunkered down waiting for the fishmonger to turn his back for a second. "Get down and follow my lead." She hissed.
The fishmonger turned around to go over to another part of his stand. That was when Luna struck. Faster than Ranma could reliably track she shot out jumping over the stand, snagging a nice big piece of yellow fin on her way over. She was then off like a shot into the next alley. The poor sap never even knew that he'd been taken.
Ranma duplicated her actions even going so far as to run on all fours and snag a piece for himself with his mouth. Of course since he was much larger than Luna the owner heard him coming and turned around just in time to see a boy running on all fours swipe a piece of tuna off his stand and take off. He hesitated a moment before he shrugged and turned back to his work.
He'd have to listen to his wife and stop doing so much LSD before coming to work.
Ranma scrambled into the alleyway that Luna was currently in eating her own catch. He took the fish out of his mouth with his left hand.
"Hey you're right that was fun!" He said as he looked at the black cat that was chewing on some fish bones.
"Mrrrow?" Went the black tom.
"Ahh CAT!!!"
Luna who was in the next alley over.
"Idiot."
The year's pass and Ranma grows up. Luna is trained just as hard as Ranma in the martial arts and becomes quite proficient. Ranma doesn't make friends with Ukyo as she's allergic to cats and can't stand to be around the strange boy and his weird cat. Luna remembers a bit of what she's about to do and tells Ranma to see if he knows anything about it. They search through some of the libraries but they don't find anything on magical kingdoms on the moon or magical warriors for the planets etc. Ranma concludes that Luna is smoking something really good and demands that she share. When she does, they have a good old time that night. In his last year of junior high Ranma makes 'friends' with Ryoga. Ranma has gained a bit of control over the neko ken but he is still deathly afraid of cats and still tends to slip into full neko mode if he's around a real cat for too long. The only one he'll let near him is Luna and even then it's a touch and go situation.
A few days before Ranma and Ryoga were to have their showdown in the lot behind Ryoga's house, Genma came up behind Luna using the Umi Sen Ken. He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up.
"All right furball it's time that you and the boy parted ways. The old woman was crazy after all, stupid boy's still afraid of cats." He turned her around so that he could look at her face. "It has something to do with that crescent mark on your forehead, so if the boy can't see it he won't know it's you and run for the hills." He chuckled evilly as he pulled out two bandages from his pack. "Don't worry this won't hurt a bit." As he covered Luna's crescent moon symbol she felt her intelligence leaving her.
She hissed at him like a cat and took a swipe at his arm. He tossed her away. She growled at him and then took off at top speed away from the fat smelly human.
Smiling to himself, he decided to let his son sit in the lot for a couple of days waiting for that moron to show up. That would give him time to find another cat that looked like Luna and his plan would finally work and he could get his son away from that troublesome feline.
Oh yes, this was going to be fun.
A few weeks after the Saotome's had left for China Luna found herself cornered against a wall. A bunch of little kids were throwing rocks at her. She let out a yowl of pain as a particularly big rock hit her in the leg.
"What are you doing?! Get out of here you little brats!" Yelled a girl about thirteen or fourteen with long blond hair done up into two buns with hair trailing out behind her.
The kids scrambled but not before some of them pulled their eyelids down and stuck out their tongues or patted their butts at her.
"Bunch of brats." She scowled. "Are you ok?" She said as she picked up the cat. Luna was too hurt to really move much.
When the girl took the bandage off her head her crescent moon symbol flared to life. She kicked out of the girls hold and flipped over her to look at her. The last thing she remembered clearly was Genma covering her crescent moon symbol. Everything after that was just a hazy blur. She shook her head to clear out the last cobwebs. She had to get away from this girl for now. She decided to keep an eye on her.
Because no matter how much she wanted to find Ranma, she knew in the depths of her soul that she had just found Sailor Moon the leader of the Sailor Scouts.
Authors Notes:
Alright another chapter of Lunocracy out. I'll admit that I'm currently stuck on Cat's Tale. When I get unstuck, I'll work on it some more. I may have to write a new chapter of Lunocracy or Fast Tracks or start another short story. (I've got a couple of ideas in the works.)
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Any comments etc go to nealharris@otakumail.com
Chapter 2: Magical Mystery Kitty Force
It had been a couple of days since Luna had joined the Saotomes on their training journey and she was already starting to regret it.
Ranma's fear of cats had not lessened and he still screamed and tried to get away when he saw her. The only time he didn't was when he forced himself to look at her crescent moon on her forehead. It was these times that he actually mustered up enough courage to go over and pat her. Of course he still hadn't mastered the art of petting a cat without pulling its hair out. Luckily, it happened the one time that Genma had gone into town to steal some food for them... himself instead of getting his son to do it. Ranma was sitting on the ground in their campsite abusing.. I mean petting Luna. On one of his strokes, he cringed and pulled just a little too hard.
"Ouch!" Complained Luna. She immediately covered her mouth realizing that she had said that out loud.
Ranma looked down at the cat in his lap. He shuddered a bit more.
"You can talk Luna?"
"Mrow." Luna said as she attempted to cover up her slip.
"I heard you talk now come on say something!" Ranma didn't think he was going crazy... well no more than he already was.
"Mrow." Luna said again.
"Alright you forced me to do this." He said as he grabbed Luna's tail in his right hand. He pulled hard.
"Yahhhhh!!! God damned son of a fucking whore that hurts you stupid cocksucker. What the fuck do you think you're doing you little shit!" - Luna.
"Oh wow you can talk!" Ranma was excited; he now had somebody to talk to.
Luna was busy nursing her tail. "Yes I can talk are you happy now?" She said sarcastically.
Of course Ranma couldn't understand what sarcastic meant so he replied. "Yup." With a huge smile on his face too.
Luna was so tempted to pull his tail and find out how he liked it. Wait a minute... tail?
Sure enough whipping around behind him was a little black tail.
Luna was starting to get disturbed by this. Already a few days after the pit and his eyes still hadn't returned to their human shape. The pupils were still slitted and cat like and there were a couple of other things happening but Luna had just dismissed them as optical illusions. The first was his incisors looked a bit longer and the second was that his fingernails looked a tad longer than they were a few days ago. Now with the tail, she was really wondering if the other two were illusions or if they had some meaning.
"Umm Ranma, since when did you have a tail?" Luna said while pointing behind him.
"Tail? Where?" He said as he tried to turn his head around enough to see the tail. Sure enough, there it was wiggling behind him. He reached around and grabbed it with his left hand. He gave it an experimental tug. Sure enough, it hurt like hell.
"Ow! Hey why do I have a tail!"
"I asked you first." Said Luna.
"How should I know? Wait a minute you can talk."
"We already went over this." Replied Luna as she narrowed her eyes at him.
"Yeah but now I've got somebody to talk to." He replied picking her up and putting her in his lap again. He unconsciously curled his tail around his waist like a belt. He started petting her again with his usual childish enthusiasm.
"Not so hard!" Luna yelled as she felt her fur start to give way.
Ranma stopped petting immediately. "What's wrong?"
"You're petting way too hard! Ok now put your hand at the top of my head." He did so. "Ok now gently stroke from the top of my head all the way down my back to the tip of my tail." He followed her instruction perfectly, his martial training allowing him the dexterity to put just the right movements into the act that Luna started purring. "Now don't forget to scratch behind my ears." He did so. Training this human was turning out to be a breeze. She guessed him knowing about her ability to talk wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.
As long as he didn't look directly at her, he wouldn't cringe. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine he was petting a skunk or a wolverine or some other cute and cuddly creature, anything but a vicious demon cat.
A while later the sun was going down and Ranma was still petting Luna. A small twig snapped off to his left. Both he and Luna swiveled their heads to look at where the sound came from.
It was Genma. He had a small sack and a much larger sack over his right shoulder.
"Get over here boy and bring the furball." He boomed.
Ranma got up and scurried over to where his father was putting down his loads.
"Alright boy it's time for some more training."
"What! But I haven't eaten today you old fart!" Whatever respect he had for his father had been severely diminished by the Neko ken incident.
"Stop whining like a little GIRL and get over here." He said while pulling out two steaks from the smaller bag and piles of lead weights and rope from the larger bag.
He had grabbed Ranma when he had gotten in range and started tying the weights to his torso, arms and legs. When he was done, he grabbed Luna. She tried to slash him but failed. He lashed a weight to her back and one to her stomach. He then took the steaks and lashed one to Ranma's back and the other to Luna's back. When he was done, he sat back and whistled.
"So what the hell is this about old man?" Ranma said.
"Its speed and endurance training. It's a big game of keep away. If you can keep the steak away from the wolves that are going to be chasing you, you get to eat it." He said with a smug grin.
"What wolves?" Ranma asked dreading the answer.
Genma just pointed at the snarling pack of wolves that were standing on the edge of the clearing.
"Those wolves. Now go boy!" He said as he pushed Ranma towards the wolves.
Ranma stumbled a bit, as he was unused to the weights. Luna was struggling to just stand upright. They both turned their heads to look over to where the wolves were snapping their teeth and slowly advancing.
We take a break now to look at our friend Adrenaline.
Adrenaline is a secretion of the adrenal gland. Millennia of evolution have given us this wonderful device, which is mostly used in the fight or flight mechanism. When we are frightened, the adrenal gland dumps loads of adrenaline into the bloodstream. Adrenaline's purpose is to enhance speed, strength, reflexes etc so that we are able to fight better or run away faster from the things that are trying to kill us.
Both Ranma and Luna's adrenal glands were working overtime as their burst of speed and strength was used to move themselves as quick as they could away from the wolves that were chasing them.
Adrenaline is our friend.
Ranma was busy dodging around trees with Luna and the wolves nipping on his heels. He heard a faint cry from behind him and took a quick look to see what it was. One of the weights on Luna's belly had been snagged by a root and had tripped her up. The wolves had taken advantage of this and jumped her.
"LUNA!" Ranma yelled as he spun around preparing to fight for his friend... even though she was a cat. His ki claws glowed faintly but he paid them no mind as he jumped into the fray.
Luna knew she was screwed the instant she saw the root. She knew that she didn't have time to jump it and she also knew that it would get caught in the weight. She saw the ground rushing up to greet her and knew that she was about to die. She just wished that she could have at least completed her mission... whatever it was.
She was down on the ground. She tried to get up but the first wolf had already reached her. He was a fairly young wolf maybe a year or so old. Just as he was going to bite her head off, she rolled out of the way and lashed out with her claws raking the side of his face. He quickly jumped back with a yelp. It wasn't over yet though as she had to dodge to the right to avoid the pounce of one of the females. Luna quickly kicked her in the nose before dodging again to avoid the swipe of one of the larger males. She quickly tensed and did a spinning uppercut to the bottom of his jaw. The big male was sent flying back.
As she landed, she was tackled from behind by another large male. She could smell his hot breath in the air and really wished she had a milk bone or something. His jaws were slowly lowering onto her head and she could see bits and pieces of something in between his teeth. She would have rather not known that little fact. She struggled to move but he outweighed her by a factor of five or so, maybe more.
Just as she was about to become a head shorter the weight that was pinning her down suddenly vanished and she was drenched in a shower of blood. She opened her eyes to see the head of the wolf lying beside her and the rest of his body laying a few feet away. Looking up she saw Ranma crouched over in the same stance that she saw when he was in the neko ken only the blank look wasn't completely there.
"You alright Luna?" He asked still keeping a wary eye on the rest of the wolves.
"Y.. yeah I think so." She replied as she shakily got to her feet.
The wolves having just seen one of their own killed by this strange newcomer decided that the smartest thing to do would be to run like hell. Contrary to popular belief running with your tail between your legs is very difficult to do so they just ran with their tails behind them like usual.
"Looks like we won doesn't it?" Commented Ranma as he looked around for any stragglers.
"Yes it does." Replied Luna. She then winced as the pain hit her.
Adrenaline is a wonderful thing but when it wears off you tend to crash.
Ranma turned to look at Luna. He winced at what he saw. She had scratches all over her body and there was quite a bit of blood matting down her fur. He had no idea how much was hers and how much was the wolves. The only damage that he could see that probably wouldn't heal was the notch cut out of her left ear where one of the wolves' claws must have snagged. Ranma shuddered and took a step back when he finally registered that he was looking at a cat.
"You look like hell." He commented looking away at one of the trees, rocks, bushes, anywhere but where Luna was.
"I feel like it too." She said in return. "Can you get these weights off me I'd like to try and clean up a bit."
"Yeah sure." He said as he walked over to where she was making sure that he kept his eyes on the crescent moon mark on her forehead. He bent over and removed the weights from around her torso.
Luna immediately went about cleaning herself with her tongue. She started with her back. It was tough going and she wasn't making any progress.
"This isn't working." She said with a sigh. "I need a river or something so I can get most of this out."
"There was a stream by the campsite." Said Ranma as he looked over at the dead wolf.
"I really don't want to go back there." Said Luna glaring at the small boys back. "At least we've got something to eat."
"What are you talking about you lost your steak." He said while pointing at where the steak was supposed to be on the weights.
"Nooooo! I was looking forward to eating that!" Yelled Luna as she wept for the loss of her supper. She looked at his back. "Well you lost yours as well!"
"What!" He yelled as his hands whipped behind his back trying to feel where the steak should have been. It wasn't there of course.
Back at the camp Genma gave out a loud belch. Bloody rare was the only way to eat a steak. His son would forgive him of course.
Back where Ranma and Luna were they were both sitting on the ground staring up at the sky. A loud rumble came from both their stomachs.
"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse." Ranma said as he covered his stomach with his hands.
"I'm so hungry I could eat a dog." Replied Luna as she covered her stomach with her paws.
"Why not?" Said Ranma as he looked over at her taking care not to look directly at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Well they eat dog in some countries so why not?"
"What do you... Oh you mean him." She said looking over at the body of the wolf. "Well it'll be different I'll give you that." She started to chuckle. "Who would have thought cat eat dog." She broke down into hysterical gales of laughter.
"You're weird." He said as he went over to skin the wolf and cut it up.
Hours later Ranma and Luna returned to the campsite. Both were haggard and extremely tired. It had taken Ranma a while to butcher then cook the carcass especially since he didn't have a knife or anything with him to cut the meat. He had tried using his claws but for some reason he couldn't get them to come out. He had to resort to using a sharp rock. Then there was getting the fire started and then cooking it.
In the end he was more tired from trying to cook it than the energy it would have taken to get back to camp and have some of his rations.
That and wolf does not taste like chicken.
Back at camp Genma was snoring away in front of the fire. Ranma briefly entertained the thought of trying to set his father on fire with some of the embers but eventually gave up on that idea since it would be more work than it would be worth. That and his father was a petty bastard and would come up with some way to get back at him for it.
Ranma collapsed on his sleeping bag his head hitting the rock that his father had put in place of his pillow to 'toughen him up'. Deciding that he would have to get his father back for this he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Luna plopped herself down beside Ranma's unconscious form. She shuddered a bit as she remembered being chased exactly like that on the... moon? She looked up at the grey moon barren of all life. Nah couldn't be, she thought as she fell asleep.
The next day dawned way too bright and way too early. The birds were singing happily in the trees. Small forest creatures were scampering about trying to get their breakfast.
This was how Genma greeted the morning as a warm liquid suddenly squirted him on his face. He raised his hand to wipe his face and scared the squirrel that was doing its business on him. He blearily opened his eyes and winced, as the sun seemed to pierce to the back of his head. After a few minutes of blinking, he finally was able to tolerate the light.
He sat up and his arm came away wet when it brushed across his gi. He looked down and noted a white brownish goo all over his gi.
Damn diaretic owls.
Time to wake up the boy for sparring.
He walked over to where Ranma was still sleeping. He was shivering even though it wasn't cold out. His little black tail was whipping back and forth.
Of course Genma saw it, but chose to ignore it as it was obviously not there.
Ahh the power of self-delusion such a wonderful tool.
"Get up boy." He said as he booted his son off of his sleeping mat and into a nearby tree.
Ranma was awake the minute that his father's foot hit his side. He twisted in midair so that he would hit the tree feet first. He rebounded off the tree and shot straight at the old man. Genma had not been expecting this and as such got tagged with the haymaker that his son threw out. Of course since Ranma was only six he couldn't get much power in his punch and as such just staggered his father a bit. Once Genma had righted himself again, he attacked back. With his neko enhanced speed and agility Ranma was able to avoid a good number of his father's attacks. Unfortunately for him, his father was in a bad mood this morning and wasn't holding back as much as he usually did. The punches that did connect were going to leave deep bruises. Ranma dropped after a few minutes of this.
"Get your stuff ready we're moving on." He said gruffly as he went over to the stream to get the owl crap and squirrel piss off.
Ranma struggled to his feet and staggered over to where his stuff was still strewn out on the ground. He started folding and packing his stuff in his backpack. Since he didn't want to get near Luna he just rolled her off. She ended up lying on her back with her feet stuck up in the air. When he had finished packing, he grabbed a stick from the ground and started poking Luna with it.
"Hey Luna time to get up."
"Piss off Artemis let me sleep five more minutes."
"Who's Artemis?"
Luna sprang to her feet baring her claws and teeth. There was nobody around though. She looked around confused for a few seconds before she saw a leaf fall out of a tree. She looked up only to see Ranma clinging to a tree branch twenty feet off the ground. She turned her head to see where Genma was. He was currently on the other side of the clearing eating something out of his pack.
"Ranma what are you doing up there?" She hissed up at him.
"C...C...CAT!"
"Oh for sluggoth's sake get down here."
"I can't."
"Why not?
"Because there's a cat down there."
"You idiot I'm the cat! Just get down here." She said as she walked off towards where Genma was and started cleaning herself.
A short time later Ranma was out of the tree and walking slowly beside his father. Luna was trotting beside him. Both of them had the weights tied to them but this time they didn't have the added advantage of adrenaline to help them. After a few hours of this Genma finally decided to stop in the next town for some lunch. When Ranma looked into his pack for his food rations that he had, he found that they were all gone, replaced with more weights.
"POP!" He roared in his little squeaky kid voice.
"Why is it always my fault?"
"Because my food's gone!"
"Maybe Luna ate it."
"Luna has problems with her two weights! How the hell could she eat all of my food then put the weights in there?"
"She's a smart cat" Ranma winced at that. "Go into town and get your own food like I showed you." He then laid down on the ground for a quick nap.
"Stupid old man." Ranma muttered as he dropped the weights on the ground and trudged off towards town, Luna tagging along at his heels.
The town was fairly small only 500 or so people. Luckily for Ranma and Luna, it was by the ocean so fresh fish was to be had at the local market.
"But Luna isn't this stealing, and isn't stealing wrong?"
"Usually yes but we're starving so it's more like forced charity." Luna said as she hunkered down waiting for the fishmonger to turn his back for a second. "Get down and follow my lead." She hissed.
The fishmonger turned around to go over to another part of his stand. That was when Luna struck. Faster than Ranma could reliably track she shot out jumping over the stand, snagging a nice big piece of yellow fin on her way over. She was then off like a shot into the next alley. The poor sap never even knew that he'd been taken.
Ranma duplicated her actions even going so far as to run on all fours and snag a piece for himself with his mouth. Of course since he was much larger than Luna the owner heard him coming and turned around just in time to see a boy running on all fours swipe a piece of tuna off his stand and take off. He hesitated a moment before he shrugged and turned back to his work.
He'd have to listen to his wife and stop doing so much LSD before coming to work.
Ranma scrambled into the alleyway that Luna was currently in eating her own catch. He took the fish out of his mouth with his left hand.
"Hey you're right that was fun!" He said as he looked at the black cat that was chewing on some fish bones.
"Mrrrow?" Went the black tom.
"Ahh CAT!!!"
Luna who was in the next alley over.
"Idiot."
The year's pass and Ranma grows up. Luna is trained just as hard as Ranma in the martial arts and becomes quite proficient. Ranma doesn't make friends with Ukyo as she's allergic to cats and can't stand to be around the strange boy and his weird cat. Luna remembers a bit of what she's about to do and tells Ranma to see if he knows anything about it. They search through some of the libraries but they don't find anything on magical kingdoms on the moon or magical warriors for the planets etc. Ranma concludes that Luna is smoking something really good and demands that she share. When she does, they have a good old time that night. In his last year of junior high Ranma makes 'friends' with Ryoga. Ranma has gained a bit of control over the neko ken but he is still deathly afraid of cats and still tends to slip into full neko mode if he's around a real cat for too long. The only one he'll let near him is Luna and even then it's a touch and go situation.
A few days before Ranma and Ryoga were to have their showdown in the lot behind Ryoga's house, Genma came up behind Luna using the Umi Sen Ken. He grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up.
"All right furball it's time that you and the boy parted ways. The old woman was crazy after all, stupid boy's still afraid of cats." He turned her around so that he could look at her face. "It has something to do with that crescent mark on your forehead, so if the boy can't see it he won't know it's you and run for the hills." He chuckled evilly as he pulled out two bandages from his pack. "Don't worry this won't hurt a bit." As he covered Luna's crescent moon symbol she felt her intelligence leaving her.
She hissed at him like a cat and took a swipe at his arm. He tossed her away. She growled at him and then took off at top speed away from the fat smelly human.
Smiling to himself, he decided to let his son sit in the lot for a couple of days waiting for that moron to show up. That would give him time to find another cat that looked like Luna and his plan would finally work and he could get his son away from that troublesome feline.
Oh yes, this was going to be fun.
A few weeks after the Saotome's had left for China Luna found herself cornered against a wall. A bunch of little kids were throwing rocks at her. She let out a yowl of pain as a particularly big rock hit her in the leg.
"What are you doing?! Get out of here you little brats!" Yelled a girl about thirteen or fourteen with long blond hair done up into two buns with hair trailing out behind her.
The kids scrambled but not before some of them pulled their eyelids down and stuck out their tongues or patted their butts at her.
"Bunch of brats." She scowled. "Are you ok?" She said as she picked up the cat. Luna was too hurt to really move much.
When the girl took the bandage off her head her crescent moon symbol flared to life. She kicked out of the girls hold and flipped over her to look at her. The last thing she remembered clearly was Genma covering her crescent moon symbol. Everything after that was just a hazy blur. She shook her head to clear out the last cobwebs. She had to get away from this girl for now. She decided to keep an eye on her.
Because no matter how much she wanted to find Ranma, she knew in the depths of her soul that she had just found Sailor Moon the leader of the Sailor Scouts.
Authors Notes:
Alright another chapter of Lunocracy out. I'll admit that I'm currently stuck on Cat's Tale. When I get unstuck, I'll work on it some more. I may have to write a new chapter of Lunocracy or Fast Tracks or start another short story. (I've got a couple of ideas in the works.)
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Any comments etc go to nealharris@otakumail.com