Black Cat, part 1
Ellen Kuhfeld

As Ranma screamed and fell to the ground, Akane and Shampoo shook off their surprise and attacked – Akane to the right, Shampoo to the left. From behind there was another scream, a very angry one, and Ranma-neko leaped forward as well. Suddenly the strange Postal creature was surrounded, with bonbori coming from one side, a mallet from another, and sharp, sharp claws from the front.

Postal leaned to one side and avoided the mallet; but moved into Shampoo's range and was struck high and low with bonbori. Since they were coming from opposite directions, this flipped her legs from beneath her, and she fell hard on her left side. Ranma's claws raked across her side, gouging pieces out of her hip. Even as Postal landed, the pieces of hip were slithering across the street towards her; once they got close, they jumped through the air and rejoined their mistress. Shampoo's bonbori had broken Postal's right arm – but even before she landed, it straightened out, and was good again. Postal leaped into the air and counterattacked, throwing razor-sharp postcards, trying to break past Shampoo to claim the crystal floating in midair. This time, Ranma's claws took the lower portion of a leg off, and both Shampoo and Akane missed their strikes; but they dodged the postcards, having had experience with Ryoga's bandannas.

"Monster not alive!" Shampoo shouted. "Just mailbox somebody use alchemy on! No ki at all!" And she drove back in, throwing one bonbori at the creature's stomach, then when it doubled over, getting its head with a two-handed swipe of the other. Postal's head was ripped off, hit the wall of a drugstore above the display window, and bounced into the street – then flew up, rejoined the neck, and healed back in place.

Postal had somehow managed to avoid every strike of the mallet. A blue-green aura shimmered around Akane. "Postal no baka!" she howled, and swung again. She missed, but drove the transformed postbox towards Ranma-neko. Ranma took off Postal's left hand, and it bounced on the street – but this time, Akane was ready. "Try this then!" she bellowed as her mallet came down on the returning hand.

The creature screamed. "Aaiiiii – postal postal POSTAL!" and the 'hand' turned into a carved-off slice of postbox. It stopped scuttling back to its mistress, and lay motionless in the street. Akane and Shampoo looked at it. Ranma kept on attacking.

Now that they knew the trick, Shampoo concentrated on driving the creature towards Ranma-neko while Akane played whack-a-mole with the severed bits. In less than ten seconds, Postal lay on the ground whimpering "postal postal postal …" with no arms and legs at all. Shampoo smashed her bonbori into its face, and while its vision was obscured, Akane delivered a tremendous blow to the black star on its bosom. And the 'woman' transformed into a tattered remnant of a postbox, lying silent and leaking letters. The crystal hovered in the air. Ranma-neko prowled around the box, looking for her enemy, hoping for more of a fight. Akane stood panting, then sat with a loud "whoooff" on the curb, going slack as a berserk often does after the fight. Her mallet disappeared.

Ranma-neko looked around. Enemy gone – and that lap looked familiar. She trotted over, butted her shoulder up against Akane's side, and curled on her lap, purring. Akane put her arms around Ranma and slumped against her. Shampoo stowed away her bonbori with a look of fierce satisfaction, then looked about. Not much property damage, and all the bystanders had gotten out of range as quickly as they could. A good, swift battle.

In the street, a withered seed-pod emerged from the side of the postbox, fell to the ground, and broke open. A dark mist emerged, took spectral form for a moment, then dissipated.

"Quickly!" said a woman's voice. "Put the crystal gently against her chest. It's the only way to save her."

Nobody was there, but the voice came from the direction of a nearby Toyota; and Shampoo saw the glint of eyes beneath. She leaped into the air, twisted as she flew over the car, and came down nearly horizontal, toes and left hand taking the impact while her right hand swept beneath the car. There was a startled yowl, and Shampoo found herself holding a black cat by the scruff of its neck – a black cat with a golden crescent moon on its forehead.

"Aiyah," Shampoo said. "Moon on forehead? Amazon legend say Moon Cat belong to Goddess, able talk. You talk, tell me use crystal? Tell more!" She shook the cat gently. The cat sweatdropped.

Quickly, the black cat decided. "Take the crystal, hold it against your friend's chest over her heart, and she'll re-absorb it. Those creatures capture people's soul essences and take them to their master for use in evil spells. If your friend doesn't get hers back, she'll die!"

Shampoo knew cats. This animal was speaking truth. She brought the crystal to Ranma and Akane. Akane scratched Ranma-neko's shoulder; she purred, and rolled to show her tummy and chest. Shampoo put the crystal over her heart. It sank slowly into Ranma, who stilled and stretched, and spoke. "Akane? I'm so tired …" and fell asleep.

"She'll be fine after a couple hours' rest," the cat said. "Now could you put me down?"

"Only if Cat-san promise not run away. We need talk."

"Let's talk somewhere else. People are already coming back to see what happened. Pretty soon the police will be here. Would you enjoy telling policemen why you were beating up a mailbox?" The cat smirked. This issue had come up in her life before.

Shampoo set the cat down. "Akane tired. Put Ranma on Shampoo's back, you take cat. We get moving." Akane lifted Ranma onto Shampoo; Ranma wriggled a bit closer, then went thoroughly back to sleep with her arms snugged around Shampoo's shoulders. Akane took the cat and they headed away, dodging around gawkers and pedestrians, avoiding a line towards Nerima just in case somebody was paying notice. After ten minutes and several kilometers of jinking down side-streets and leaping the occasional wall or roof, they found a small park and settled on a bench. Shampoo set Ranma down, then she and Akane sat either side of her. Ranma leaned against Akane and gave a delicate snore. The black cat jumped into Shampoo's lap.

"You know this monster, Cat-san?" Shampoo asked. "This first time we meet one."

"The monster is called a daimohn. They've been showing up for a week or two now in Juuban – I'm advisor to a group that's battling them. I must say, I've never seen one taken down as fast as you three did."

"Monster stupid, get in fight with Amazons. Amazon womens too, too good fighters."

"The red-haired girl," the cat said. "How could she keep fighting? Once a daimohn takes somebody's heart crystal, they collapse."

"Ranma has two souls," Akane said, "human and cat. The monster got her human soul. That upset the cat soul, and it's a deadly fighter." A pleased and surprised expression crossed the cat's face.

"Look," said the cat, "I think we should try working together. My name is Luna, but I'm only an advisor. I have to check with my Princess first. Is there some way I can get in touch with you?"

"Visit Cat Café in Nerima – is one place we meet. Can make at 9 in evening tomorrow?"

"I'll be there. Even if we don't team up, there are things you should know."

"Is good. Shampoo will be seeing you then, Shampoo my name. This Akane, and sleeping one is Ranma. We shield-sisters."

The cat bowed to each in turn, as much as a cat could bow, and jumped lightly to the ground. She looked back over her shoulder. "Until tomorrow," she said as she walked off at a dignified pace.

As Luna headed towards a street-corner, Shampoo spoke quietly to Akane. "Take care of Ranma, and Shampoo clothes," she said. Once the black cat was out of sight, Shampoo darted to a water-fountain, splashed herself, and shrank into her cursed form. She scampered towards the corner Luna had gone around.

Akane gathered the clothes, settled herself and Ranma a bit more comfortably, and relaxed. This wasn't how she'd visualized a quiet afternoon in the park with Ranma, but it wasn't bad, not bad at all. Then her eyes widened a bit, and a grin started up. "Whoa! This time, I saved Ranma! Yatta!" Not bad? Her day was complete!

She looked around. It was a small park – a couple benches, a flowerbed, and several trees. This late in the year only the chrysanthemums were blooming, but they made a bright display. The trees had leaves of yellow, bronze, and red. A few early-fallen leaves rattled across the pavement in the breeze. The air was brisk, and Luna had said "a couple hours". Akane sorted out Shampoo's clothes, and draped them unobtrusively over Ranma and herself to keep that little extra bit of warmth. Then she smiled down at the smaller girl whose head was in her lap.

I guess I've come to terms with the curse, she thought. I love Ranma either way. But I can hardly wait until we're married, and Ranma can be a man for me. On the bench, Ranma's nostrils twitched. But in girl form, the message wasn't urgent enough to rouse her.

oOo

"Amazons?" Rei said. "Where do we get Amazons in Japan?"

"The girl who said it was the tallest one, the one with purple hair," Luna replied. "She looked Chinese, and had a Mandarin accent."

Ami fiddled with the Mercury computer. She read a bit, then looked up. "The original Amazons were nomads on the steppes of Asia. We get the stories from the Greeks, but horse nomads could have made it to western China easily enough. There are mountains, so they probably wouldn't have gone further east. And there are still rumors coming out of Qinghai province."

"That might account for one Amazon," Luna said. "But the middle girl was pure Japanese. And the small girl had red hair. I don't have the faintest idea where she came from."

Usagi snagged another cookie from the diminishing pile. "They took out a daimohn," she said through a mouthful of crumbs. "Worry about the details later."

"That was the fastest daimohn I've seen," Luna noted. "It had the redhead's heart crystal five seconds after the seed activated. And it was jumping around and throwing razor-sharp postcards."

"I wish we could have been there, but we had a daimohn of our own," Minako said. "It's a good thing the Mercury computer said there might be trouble in Shinjuku ward. That way we at least had Luna there as an observer."

"We weren't needed. Those three girls said they'd never seen a daimohn before, but they'd figured out how to fight it in ten seconds, and beaten it in another ten. I've never seen anything like it. Those girls were fast."

"Were they powerful?" Makoto asked with raised eyebrow. "Did they have special attacks?"

"It all happened so fast … I don't know. I'd guess they don't have as much power as we do, but they're a lot faster. The tall one with purple hair, her name was Shampoo, was using a pair of Chinese maces. The second had black hair and looked kind of like Ami, and she had a glowing mallet. They said her name was Akane. And the redhead, she was barehanded. But she was slicing off pieces of daimohn like she had razor claws a foot long."

"Wait a minute," Ami said as she continued taking notes. "The redhead was fighting? But I thought the daimohn had her heart crystal?"

"The redhead's name was Ranma, and Akane said she had two souls – Cat, and Human. And maybe the daimohn took the human soul, but that just got the Cat mad. When we returned the heart crystal she started talking, then went to sleep. While she was fighting, she was just hissing and snarling."

"Cat soul?" asked Artemis.

"I didn't get many details," admitted Luna. "I wanted to check with the Princess before I said too much. So I set up a meeting tomorrow. It's in Nerima. Guess where."

"Ano?" Artemis said.

"The Cat Café."

"I approve," Artemis said.

"And I approve too," Usagi agreed, showing a hint of Princess Serenity. "Luna and Artemis, go meet with these Amazons. Give them communicators so they can get in touch with you. But they're awfully free with information, so don't tell them about the Senshi."

"I've already mentioned Juuban. They'll probably guess. The Chinese girl took one look at me and knew I was a moon cat."

"They can guess. Just don't let them know."

"Yes, my liege."

Serenity added, "Could you do a fire-reading on them, Rei?" Then Usagi took the last cookie. "I'll read your manga while you're doing it."

"Just one minute there, odango atama!" Rei flared.

"Awww, Rei …."

Outside the window, a small pink cat turned to leave. It would be a long walk back to Nerima.

oOo

When Ranma awoke, she didn't remember the fight. "It was great!" Akane enthused. "Shampoo drove it towards you, you sliced it in chunks, and I finished off the chunks with my mallet. It was over in half a minute."

"I hope I was wrong about it bein' Tsubasa …"

"A talking moon cat named Luna told us it was something called a daimohn, and daimohns steal souls. But when it got your human soul, the cat took over."

"Talkin' moon cats? Akane, that's weird even for Nerima. And this's Shinjuku. Where do we get talkin' moon cats in Japan?"

"Juuban, apparently."

Ranma sat up, looked around. It was coming on towards sunset, and the lights were lit. "Hey, it's just the two of us. Not that I'm complainin', mind you, but where'd Shampoo go? It's evening. How long have I been out?"

"Notice the extra layer of clothing helping keep us warm? She's in her cursed form, following the moon cat. She left me to take care of you and her clothing. The moon cat said you'd need a few hours sleep. You've been out of it maybe two and a half hours, so she was right."

Ranma kissed Akane on the cheek. "Thanks for watchin' over me. It's gettin' late, we'd better head for the Cat Café and then on home." They gathered up Shampoo's clothing into a neat bundle, and jogged off towards Nerima.

oOo