1.3 Summon

Akane was really sad after we learned she had died in 1992, and that my power had 'resurrected' her. Attempting to call to her home proved fruitless. From what little information my dad and her could gather, the Nerima ward had been completely flooded. Everyone in the area had either died in 1999 or left for greener pastures.

My dad talked to some of his friends from city hall to assist in getting the Japanese government find out if Akane's father, sisters, or Ranma were alive and living somewhere else. Curiously enough, they found that someone that had lived in Nerima and had exactly the same name as Akane's mom was still alive somewhere in America, but dad stopped that line of investigation when Akane was very clear that her mother had died years before, back in 1990.

At least my dad's contacts weren't completely useless. They provided Akane with identification, with her date of birth listed as being born on 1994, which would have made her young enough to for her to have gotten 'lost' on the day Leviathan attacked Kyushu. The Japanese government apparently lost a lot of records in 1999 and they were still giving new identifications to refugees.

On another matter, my dad had a very heated argument with principal Blackwell. She not only outright refused to pay for my hospital stay, but she also demanded us pay the repair costs for the two lockers that Akane had wrecked. She commented that she had witness stating that I had joined or started a gang and that they had proof that I had been to the school at night. Of course she couldn't explain why my locker was a mess along with all my stuff.

My dad got a lawyer from the union to give us a hand. He assured us that the case was clear and cut. According to him everything the school had against us was circumstantial at best, while we had the report from the Hospital, and the police making their own investigation to back up our claims.

All in all, the whole thing left a very sour taste in my mouth.

At least I now had Akane as a friend. She visited every day, filling the silence with stories she and her friends had before it all ended in China.

She told me about how Ranma was cursed to become a woman when cold water hit him (What kind of cape power was that, I'm not sure), how he learned some martial arts technique that allowed him to punch faster than the eye can follow, how he could throw kinetic beams of concentrated confidence (What the hell does that mean anyway?), and how he could create hurricanes with a single punch.

All in all, Ranma sounded like he had been one of the strongest capes ever. Maybe Triumvirate level. The question remained then, why had I never heard of him?

It all went back to Leviathan's attack on Kyushuu. I knew for a fact that it had killed countless capes until Lung fought him to a stand-still. I still thought Ranma had died then. Maybe there was something in PHO that could lead us figure out what had happened to him. But since I was stuck in the hospital, I couldn't really go to the library and investigate.

"I miss the jerk." Akane said, on my fifth day of my hospital stay.

"I can understand how you might be feeling." I said, and nodded, trying to sound as emphatic as possible. "I miss my mom."

Akane raised her head to watch my eyes, "yes, I miss my mom as well." She started silently crying with that. I mentally kicked myself. I should be trying to make her feel better. Not worse.

I decided to change the subject, "so, my dad told me you are now an official citizen of Brockton Bay." That was a lie. I hadn't talked with my dad at all about this. I knew because I could see and hear everything Akane could. That aspect of my power hadn't turned off after I woke up, which was weird when I was in the same room as Akane. What was especially strange is that I didn't really feel overwhelmed by the sudden doubling of my senses.

Aken shifted on her seat, clearly uncomfortable. "Yes, your dad said it wouldn't work if I said I was born in 1975. I'm now officially sixteen again."

"Fifteen." I corrected her.

She blinks. "What? No, it says I was born on 1994, here, take a look." She said, passing me her ID.

I smiled at that. "I know, but it's January, and you were 'born' on April. Still, for someone in her mid-thirties, you can pass as a fifteen year old kid."

She softly laughed at that. "No. I can't." She paused looking herself over. "I guess I could." She was young after all. Just as tall as me, and her figure wasn't fully developed. Her breasts were barely bigger than mine.

I looked at the window and my smile softened. "Have you given thought about where you're going to stay? What you're going to do now?"

She blinked. "Well, I thought I could stay with you guys until I can get my own place." She sounded positively terrified at the concept of living on her own. "I hope I can help with the chores at least. My cooking isn't the best but I can clean just fine."

I raised an eyebrow at that. She was feeling particularly nervous when she mentioned her cooking. Almost like she wasn't confident in her own abilities.

"Of course you can stay with us." I assured her.

She nodded, and sighed in relief. "Thanks, you don't know how much I needed that."

I smirked, but didn't say anything.

She followed my gaze to the window, a tree blocked the view. "You're leaving home later today, right?"

"That's what the doctors are telling me, at least. But I won't be back to school for a few more days."

"Oh, I was looking forward to you showing me around. I don't know anyone else here."

I grimaced at that. Since Akane was now officially fifteen, she had to go to school. Of course since she wasn't in the system she had to subject herself to countless tests so they could figure out where to place her. If all went well she would be a sophomore.

"Have you thought what you are going to do after school?"

"Do?" she said, not really understanding.

"With your powers, I mean. You could be a hero."

She blinked, and tilted her head. "To tell you the truth, I'm not used to be the hero. Last time I tried to save someone, I ended up dying myself. I'm more used to be the damsel in distress."

"I know you are a brute, strong enough to beat the crap out of grown men in a few seconds. That should count for something, right?"

She closed her hand into a fist and looked at it. "Brute? I'm not a brute. I can control my strength I-"

"Brute is just a term for super strength."

"Oh. I guess, I would qualify. I trained my whole life to be as strong as I am. I just used to hang around people much more capable."

Like Ranma. I thought, but didn't say it out loud. I studied how her expression felt. She didn't sound happy to admit that.

I shook my head and decided to change my angle. "Ok, but you're still pretty strong. How strong by the way?"

She blinked. "I'm not sure. I could probably use a telephone pole as a weapon if I wanted."

"That's pretty strong. We should test later your limits." I paused and added, "and what about resistance? How much damage can you take without hurting yourself too much?" I know I heard about some capes who where Alexandria-level strong, but couldn't take a hit, and their bones shattered the moment they tried to hit something with their full strength.

She paused, deep in thought for a while before she replied, "well, me and my friends used to think that getting knocked out by being hit by a 3 ton boulder made you a wimp."

"You can take that much damage?" I asked, not really believing it.

She scratched the back of her head. "Well, yeah. I wouldn't go unscratched after the fact or anything. But sure. I could." She grimaced, before adding. "I think that after my encounter with Saffron, I'm now pretty much immune to fire. I wouldn't test it, but it's there."

I made a mental note to check on PHO her ratings. If I was going to push her into becoming a hero, I'd have to be a cape geek myself.

"What about speed? How fast can you move?"

"Huh, I can run as fast as a car. Not a race car or anything like that. My limit is probably 80 Kilometers per hour. I can hit about 100 times in a single second."

"That's excellent. You could really make a difference."

She didn't sound convinced. "What kind of difference?"

"The city is a shit-hole thanks to the gangs. You met Empire Eighty Eight members the other day, right?" When she nodded, I continued, "they're just one gang, the biggest with the most capes, but there's also the ABB, which is composed of Asian refugees and has a couple of capes as well. Then there's the Merchants, they also have some capes, and they force kids to become drug addicts. They're all scum."

"You keep using that word. 'Cape'. Is that something to describe people with 'powers'?"

I nodded slowly. Surely in 1992 the term was existed? I mean, the first super-hero, Scion, showed up in 1982. "I'm also a cape, but with my powers I'm probably more limited to support. But if we team-up we could clean this city."

"A team? Like the Zyurangers, from TV?"

Zyuurangers? That was Super Sentai. Right? The 'rangers' thing made me think of that. "Sure. Just like that."

She smirked. "If I don't have to go around making stupid poses, I'm in."

"Excellent! I'm glad you're in. We will need a cape-name for you. What else can you do?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Well, as the heir of the Tendo School of Anything Goes, I am dan level at Kenpo, Karate, Kendo, Aikido, and black belt or lower in few other styles."

"Kendo is the one with the sword, right? We could try getting a sword for you and go with a Samurai theme."

She slowly nodded. "I can use a sword just fine. But a Samurai theme sounds too much to an moron I used to know." She paused and looked up, like just remembering something. "If I have a katana, or even a bokken for that matter, I could use it for ranged attacks."

"Ranged attacks as in, throwing the sword around?" That didn't seem practical.

Akane shook her head, and took the plastic knife from my hospital meal. "Like this." She said, and stood up, opened the window and pointed at the tree that was blocking our view. She flicked her wrist and suddenly one of the tree's branches was cut in two.

"Ok, that's badass."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really? It's not really the most advanced thing I can do. Even that moron I mentioned could do it, and Kuno is easily the weakest of my- huh- 'friends'."

"It's definitely useful. Could you break weapons with this?" I asked as she handed me back my plastic knife.

"Like guns? Or swords?"

"Guns."

"Maybe. Can't say I ever tried." She sighed. "But if you think going around looking for fights with these 'capes' is a good idea, I'll probably have to learn some of Ranma's techniques." She didn't sound convinced that she could learn these 'techniques', but I got the feeling that she was willing to give it a try.

"Wait, you can do that?" That was strange. How could she even copy an ability from another cape. How did that work? Was she a Trump? If she could copy any cape's powers then she's beyond broken. I could already see the nerds at PHO asking for a 'nerf'.

"Well, yes. They're just techniques. For example, the Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken allowed Ranma to go from around five hundred punches per second to fast enough that I couldn't follow with my eyes. He punched so fast it looked like a single punch."

I guess her power isn't super-strength. It's the ability to get stronger with training and not really have a normal human cap. Ranma had the same power? Maybe they were cousins or something. I heard that capes from the same family have similar powers. If they were cousins and Akane was planning on marrying him that would be… ugh, I better stay away from that. Too much information.

"But you said you can throw one hundred punches per second. Isn't that fast enough?"

"Sure, for dealing with street punks. If the bad guys have people with powers, I'm not sure that's really all that impressive."

"Ok…" I said, unconvinced. One hundred punches a second would qualify her as a speedster.

"Or I could go for Ryouga's Bakusai Tenketsu. I know exactly how to train for that. Like the Amaguriken, it gives a constant boost. But instead in speed, in endurance." When I gave her a quizzing look, she explained, "Ranma could hit so hard he could destroy mountains. Ryouga was tough enough he could take Ranma's punches and keep fighting."

This Ryouga person sounds like another Triunvirate level cape if he could take that kind of hits. I don't think even Alexandria would be able to take that kind of damage.

"What about those hard-light kinetic blasts you talked about before?"

"Shi Shi Hoko Dan and Moko Takabisha." She said, and made a face. "Shi Shi Hoko Dan is fueled by depression. Sure, I feel sad right now that I lost everything. But I don't think my blasts could be stronger than my punches. Being sad is not the same thing as being depressed."

"What about the other one, Moko Takabisha?"

"Not much better. In fact, probably worse. It's fueled by confidence."

"How do these even work anyway?" The whole 'confidence' and 'depression' fueled blasts of death made no sense. Sure there was a ward that did something similar, but I don't think his blasts could level a building like Akane claimed Ranma's blasts could.

"Focus on the emotion, shape it into a sphere between your hands, throw it as a blast to the nearest opponent. If I could do something like that, it would make the long-ranged sword-slash redundant." She smiled my way, "but I really can't. I don't have the right emotions, and I don't have good enough control over my Ki to do it anyway."

Ki. She explained that before, but it all sounded too much like magic to me. Powers aren't magic. But if she believed her abilities were powered by this 'Ki', then to her that's how it was. I hope I can convince her to not go around saying that. I don't want her to be the laughing stock of local cape community.

I shook my head when an idea popped into my mind. "What would happen if you used some other emotion?"

She blinked. "I guess I could work with anger. I-" She stopped herself, and looked like she was thinking about it. "In theory I could do it. I am, huh," she blushed. "I am easily enraged."

Huh. She didn't show. I guess we have something else in common. "Ok, we are a team, then?"

"We are a team."

I smiled, giddy. "Ok, we will have to figure out what your cape name will be, and I can make you a costume. It will be great!"

She massaged her eyes, "just- just don't make me quote Shakespeare or dress like a Samurai."

"I won't." I promised.