Grocery shopping was one of Kasumi's favorite activities of the day. It was a chance for her to get out of the house, meet with some of her friends, and have fun looking for the best deals. Currently, Soun's eldest daughter was walking down the spice row when she noticed a young man with a shopping cart standing in the middle of the isle. Kasumi quickly noticed that the teenager was constantly glancing between a list in his hand and the shelves along the aisle. The eldest Tendo sister took pity on the young man and walked up to him. "Excuse me, but do you need any help?"
Ranma snapped his head around and was surprised to see a pretty older girl cheerfully standing in front of him. "Perhaps," Ranma quickly answered. "I just can't find this particular seasoning here and I promised Mom that I'd pick up everything on the list." The planetary champion thought it was ridiculous. He had the power to tear through supernatural enemies, but he couldn't find one stupid spice in a grocery store!
Kasumi quickly read the spice listed on the shopping list and then smiled. "Oh I know where they keep this one. You'll have to go to next row. This spice is kept by the boxed dinner's section."
The young warrior nodded his head grateful for the assistance. "Thank you for your help. I wouldn't know how I would have managed if you hadn't come along miss-"
"My name is Kasumi Tendo and I am please to be able to help you. It's not often I see young men like you willing to help out their folks. Your parents must be proud of you."
Ranma was surprised to here the comment about his parents. "I like to think they are. Well, thanks again for your assistance Miss. Tendo." With that, Ranma politely bowed his head and proceeded to push his cart down the lane.
Once in the correct lane, Ranma quickly picked up the spice and put it in his cart. His mind then started to wander and think about how much his life had changed over the past couple of months. He now had a job that was just about perfect for his life. Pops no longer forced him to do those crazy crack of dawn spars. Knocking the old man out with one punch did wonders in that regard. His mother, who he had honestly previously thought was dead, thought he was growing into a fine young man. Although, her obsession with 'manliness' was rather bizarre. Finally, he had grown up and matured in his outlook on life. There was nothing like constant life or death struggle to make one see how childish they were.
This quiet musing abruptly ended when a loud shriek cut above the usual buzz of people shopping. This shriek signaled the start of a panicked stamped for the exit on the part of the store's customers. Ranma quickly peaked around the corner of the aisle and saw the reason for the terror. Standing on the meat tray was a Youma with another one by the dairy section. A quick check with his chi senses told Ranma that there were two more youmas somewhere else in the store.
Ranma hurriedly looked around to see if there was anyone else nearby. Spotting no one, the young warrior crossed his arms over his chest preparing to transform. "Eris Planet Power," the young man's arms were now crackling with bluish-black energy as he uncrossed his arms, "Glamour On!" A bluish-black cloud of smoke burst from Ranma's feet and quickly engulfed him. Shortly thereafter the smoke dissipated to reveal Senshi Eris.
The red-headed warrior had a feral grin on his face as he thought about the fight ahead. Finally, his training would be put to the test! Senshi Eris rushed out of the aisle and dashed at the closest youma. When Senshi Eris was ten feet away from the Youma on the meat he yelled out, "Chaos Claws!" Each of the champion's hands was instantly covered in a bluish-black glow and from this glow came four energy claws for each hand. The Youma didn't have time to react as Senshi Eris closed the distance between the two in the blink of an eye and promptly gutted the monster.
A gasp/growl of shock came from youma by the dairy products. This wasn't how things were supposed to go! Humans were supposed to flee before them and any resistance was supposed to come from magical girls in indecent clothing. The youma snarled at its red-haired adversary. "I'll make you dead for what you've done. Now taste my FREEZE GUST!" With that, the youma's chest expanded like a balloon and then it let out a blast of magically chilled air.
Senshi Eris instantly thrust out his right hand calling out his response to the youma's Freeze Gust, "Chaos Slash!" Bluish-Black energy shot out of Eris's hand in a vertical blade towards the youma. A smirk appeared on Senshi Eris's face as the Chaos Slash cut through the Freeze Gust. It had taken him hours of training to be able to launch the Chaos Slash like he hand instead of having to create a wide arc with his arm. The Chaos Slash quickly cut through the Freeze Gust and then sliced the youma in two.
Red eyes narrowed as Senshi Eris concentrated on finding the last two youma. He quickly located them on the other side of the store aisles and then rushed down the nearest aisle. "Oh Hell," Senshi Eris cursed as soon as he could see the remaining monsters. They were each holding a person and draining their energy. What really ticked the warrior off was that Kasumi was one of two hostages.
What was he supposed to do? The youmas were draining the humans growing stronger every second while hurting the humans. If he used Chaos Slash the humans could be turned into meat shields. Close quarters fighting also had a high chance of hurting the hostages. After a second of consideration, Senshi Eris decided he'd have to use one of his set moves.
Normal champions only had a set number of abilities to use that were created entirely by the spirit they were allied to. With such moves the caster merely decided to use them, say the activation phrase, and then let the magic take over. Eris didn't particularly like this setup and had mostly shaped Senshi Eris's powers so that most of his attacks were supercharged augmented variations of his normal abilities. However, she had gifted her champion two very powerful set abilities.
Senshi Eris slammed his fists together at chest level and began to chant. "You are in my Realm, the Realm of Confusion." A bluish-black sphere suddenly burst out from the champion's joined fists expanding to fill the entire store in less then a second. Everything inside the sphere gained a bluish-black tint. Senshi Eris paid this no heed as he continued to use his most powerful and exhausting technique. "Within this realm, my will is the will of god."
As soon as Senshi Eris said this, Kasumi and the other hostage faded through their captors' claws. The startled youma tried to grab the two people again. However, each time the monsters tried their claws just past harmlessly through the humans. One of the youma turned to Senshi Eris and yelled out. "What have you done?!"
Hiding the strain of the technique with a smirk, Senshi Eris shot back, "Weren't you paying attention? I'm god in this domain. It is my will that no human be able to be harmed by you and so it is." Inside his head, the young champion was running through what options he now had available. The Realm of Confusion allowed him to use chaos and rewrite the laws of reality according to his whims However, it had three serious drawbacks. He couldn't move once the realm was established or the realm ended. There was a proportional drain on his power reserves for how far the normal laws of reality were warped. Finally, there was a constant drain in the champion's power in order to keep the realm up.
The champion knew that if he didn't think of something soon he'd be right back where he started minus a serious chunk of his power. For a second he thought about erasing the youma's existence. However, Senshi Eris didn't have the power left for a change of that magnitude. He quickly extended his senses throughout his realm looking for something to use. Senshi Eris quickly took note of a gas stove in the deli that was still on and grinned. "You are within my Realm, the Realm of Confusion. Within this realm, my will is the will of god."
Without warning, two enormous pillars of fire burst out of the deli and raced towards the shocked youma. The shocked youma tried to get out of the way, but the columns of fire quickly caught up to the monsters. Each column wrapped itself around a youma and incinerated its prisoner. Once the monsters were finished, the fires disappeared.
Immediately after the fire disappeared, Senshi Eris let his hands separate ending the Realm of Confusion. He let out a sigh of relief and muttered, "Memo to me, train for hostage situations." That was the last time in a long while that Eris's champion would use that technique if he had anything to say about it. The young warrior quickly checked to make sure that Kasumi and her companion were okay before leaving to transform back to normal.
"Okay Ranma that was not exactly what I was hoping for with your first real battle as my champion."
"I know Eris"
"Seriously Ranma, you shouldn't have had to call up the Realm of Confusion for such weaklings. You've been trained to fight enemies without having to resort to using your ultimate attacks. Such things are permissible for those greenhorns the other Spirits have, but not for you."
"I get the idea Eris."
"Good, I know that you won't make such a mistake again. I will admit that I haven't prepared you very well to deal with enemies who have a hostage, but I will insure that this oversight will be corrected. Any questions Ranma?"
"I've got just one, when will you stop step dancing on my back?" Currently, Ranma was in Dysnomia Castle doing pushups over an open fire with 600 lbs of weights strapped onto his chest. Such a tame training exercise normally wouldn't have bothered Ranma. However, Eris's was currently on his back going through a dance routine that seemed like a tryout for Riverdance. Of course, Eris being Eris she had set it up so that her shoes shocked Ranma every time she put her foot down.
Without any warning, Eris jumped off of Ranma and twilled around in the air. She then promptly shifted her avatar's form so that it was lying on the ground in front of Ranma in the nude. Ranma's eyes bulged out in shock and he lost all concentration causing him to fall into the fire.
Eris rolled her eyes at her champion's antics and then took pity on him. With a mere thought, the planetary spirit snuffed out the flames and healed Ranma. She then shifted him to the baths of Dysnomia Castle and willed a modest one-piece bathing suit onto her avatar's form. The planetary spirit then started to give her champion a massage to sooth away the mental pain. "Seriously Ranma, you really need to stop reacting like that every time you see some skin. Your supposed peers are all young women who prance around in outfits that are more appropriate for bedroom role playing than actual fighting. Do you want to freeze up if by some bizarre chance you have to fight alongside them? What if you have to fight a female demon like a succubus if you react like this?"
There was a slight blush on Ranma's face as he listened to what Eris was saying as her magical hands worked on his back. "I don't know Eris. I guess I'd try to do my job despite the distractions." Ranma paused for a minute to think about something before he spoke again. "Couldn't you know, make it so that I can't get distracted while I'm Senshi Eris?"
Immediately after Ranma said this he came to regret it as Eris jabbed her fingernails into the young man's back and then hissed into his ear. "Never, ever suggest such a thing again! In order to do that, I'd have to alter your mind. Such a thing is totally unacceptable and morally repugnant. Besides, your reactions are simply normal for your age and development meaning that there is nothing to be ashamed of. My only real complaint with them is the potential for causing you or someone you may care about harm because you were distracted."
Ranma nodded his head accepting his lady's reasoning. "Understood Eris, but what are we going to do? You've got to have some ideas on how to handle this problem." The planetary spirit might act a little crazy at times, but Ranma knew that she was extremely smart and knowledgeable on ways to get stronger. Not that this was surprising since her powers were driven by the underlying principles of unpredictability and survival of the fittest.
Eris put her left hand to the side of her cheek and tapped her cheek for a few seconds to think about Ranma's situation. "Well Ranma, your problem is that you are nervous when exposed to the female body. We therefore need to make it so that you are comfortable with the female physique. I can think of three options available to you. The first is that use instant Jusenkyo packets to temporarily gain a girl curse. This would remove your nervousness by making you live as a girl for a few days and thus grow comfortable with girls. Next, you and I could do a rundown of the Karma Sutra. This would give you a great deal of knowledge about the female form and let you have a positive reaction to it. Finally, I could create sensuous golems for you to fight. This would force you to remove your nervousness as the golems would be trying to kill you."
A small frown appeared on Ranma's face as he listened to his options. "Aren't there any other options? I sure as hell don't want a curse like Pops; especially if it means being a girl. Don't take it the wrong way, but I don't think its right to just sleep with you because I have this problem Eris. As for the golems, wouldn't that be just what I am doing right now?"
Eris rolled her eyes at Ranma's hesitancy and then just shook her head. She had really been hoping that Ranma would have selected option 2, but either of the other options would have been okay. The planetary leaned in closer so that she could whisper into her champion's ear, "Understood. But, please think about what I told you. This problem isn't going to simply go away and I'll be happy to help you with whatever option you decide to go with."
For most people, going home from work is a simple and normal routine. You simply leave the office, get in a car or prepare to walk, and then head home. This was not so for Ranma. Going home for him involved teleporting under a bridge, running towards his house on roofs and fences, and seeing his father get chased around town by blade wielding babes.
Eris's young champion immediately paused as his mind fully registered what his eyes were seeing. There in the street was his father in panda form being chased by 7 women. Each of the women had outlandish colored hair, wore rather provocative cloths, and seemed to be screaming bloody murder towards Genma. There was a wake of passed out men and irate women as the bizarre chase scene made its way down the street.
Ranma, who had been standing on a fence post, sat on his haunches and thought about what he should do. Should he jump down there and help out his old man or should he let those women chase the fool? On the one hand, those women looked like they were out to kill Pops. But on the other hand, the old man had probably done something to piss the women off. All the kami knew that the old man had done that to Ranma more times than he could count.
In the end Ranma simply shrugged his shoulders and decided to head somewhere else for the time being. "No skin off my nose if Pops caused someone a hard time. Now what can I do to kill some time?" Training in the wilderness of Eris had taught Ranma one very important lesson: never go looking for trouble!
The young champion decided to do something new and exciting while he waited for Genma's situation to blow over: being an average teenager. Ranma hit the arcade, he watched a movie, grabbed some fast food at the food court, and finally he bought a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition magazine. The last item on his list of things to do was purely for work, seriously.
Ranma arrived home well after the sun had set fairly confident that his father's mess had blown over by now. If it wasn't, well, he could always grab his mother and run for Kyoto. Ranma opened the front door and was instantly grabbed into a crushing hug by his mother. "Oh son, it's so great that you're finally home from work. I have such wonderful news! Your oh so manly father has procured a mistress for himself! Come, you simply must see the beauty that will be sharing your father's and my bed."
Nodoka dragged Ranma into the house and didn't let go as she rushed to show her son just how 'manly' his father was. During all of this Ranma was wondering what was going on with his mother. Seriously, most women would go on the warpath or break down into tears if they found out their husband had another woman. His mother acted like she had just won the lottery.
Mother and child entered the family room where Genma and the seven women from earlier were waiting for the duo. Nodoka quickly brought Ranma over to where a purple haired young woman about his age was sitting. Ranma quickly noticed that the young woman looked like she was on death row and that two of her companions were holding her in her seat. Nodoka didn't seem to notice this as she ecstatically introduced the girl. "Son, I want you to meet your father's new mistress Shampoo. Oh I can't wait for your future half-brothers and half-sisters to be running through the house."
Ranma managed to break out of his mother's grip, quickly backed away into the center of the room, and motioned for a time-out. "Alright everyone, what's going on? A few hours ago I saw everyone else in this room minus Mom chasing Pops through the streets ready to kill him and now one of these women is his mistress? Furthermore, she's like 16 years old. Am I the only one who finds it odd for my old man to be taking a lover young enough to be his daughter?" He didn't mention that he found it bizarre and slightly sickening that his father was going to be having a lover period. Who knew what his mother would say if he said that out loud?
One of the women in the room snorted at Ranma's outburst. "Learn the facts first boy before you open your mouth. We are Chinese Amazons. Some time ago your father came to our village in his cursed form and consumed a great deal of our food stores. The seven of us are the hunting party that was sent out to catch and kill what we thought was a dumb beast. Your father's cursed form was to be the main course a banquet to redeem the shame that loosing the food he ate had caused our warriors."
Ranma nodded his head following along so far. "Okay, I get what you're saying so far. But, how does hunting a moron lead to my mother getting excited over a mistress for my father?"
The Amazon keeping Shampoo in place on the purple-haired girl's right answered Ranma's question. "Little cousin here was defeated in combat by your father. Under Amazonian law, he is now her husband. Furthermore, Amazonian law now makes you Shampoo's son in the eyes of the village and your mother, since she has not protested the union, is now Shampoo's sister. Sadly your barbaric Japanese laws don't recognize this and so your birth mother has stated that your claim mother is to be known in these lands as your father's mistress."
Another Amazon chose to add her two cents at this time, "Enough with the explanations Conditioner! We've waited long enough for Shampoo's new son to arrive so that we can finish with the wedding. Who's going to be the witness to the consummation?"
Nodoka quickly jumped in. "I'll take care of that. Conditioner, would you mind telling my son what he needs to know about the Amazons while I make sure that his father is manly with his mistress?"
Conditioner nodded her head and motioned for another Amazon to take her place. She then watched as Nodoka cheerfully lead Genma and Shampoo to the master bedroom. The Amazon thanked the goddesses that it was Genma and not Ranma who was her cousin's husband. Both Saotome men were obviously very strong fighters and Genma didn't run the risk of contaminating the Amazonian gene pool with whatever madness Nodoka had.
Camping out in the basement was not Ranma's idea of a good night's rest. The young champion wondered for a moment why he was using his old camping futon in the basement instead of in his comfortable bed. That wonder abruptly ended when he recalled what had happened last night. This was the furthest place he could get to from his parents' room without leaving the house.
"Why didn't you come over last night Ranma?" The young man in question quickly looked around the basement and saw Eris in a cowgirl outfit sitting on a stack of boxes. "Your chambers in Dysnomia Castle, or even the wild plains of my true body, would be far better conditions to spend the night then this place. Besides," at this point Eris paused to scrunch up her nose, "It would put you several hundred AUs away from the horror story upstairs. If I knew that your father was in store for Shampoo I would have struck her dead when she left the competition as an act of kindness."
Ranma got out of bed and started folding his futon. "Thought about it Eris, but I figured there would be too many questions about where I went if I didn't stay here. So, what brings you here at this hour?" Immediately after Ranma asked this he turned around to see his lady sipping a pina colata.
The planetary spirit smirked and then put her drink down. "Calm down stallion, I just wanted to give you a little heads up about that youma attack you snuffed out two days ago. It turns out that when your 'peers' took care of the Dark Kingdom they forgot to clean up the mess. A great deal of the youmas that made up the Dark Kingdom's army were left alive and they're trying to escape to Earth for survival. Turns out that without their 'Dark Queen' these lowlifes have to either eat each other or flee to Earth to survive. Most of the monsters have destroyed themselves, but now the remainder is coming here."
Ranma folded his arms across his chest and considered the situation. "What are the other spirits' champions going to do about this situation? I know that I'll do my best to keep people safe; it's my duty as a martial artist and a fighter. But, the other champions need to be part of this as they are already involved."
A scowl crossed Eris's face when she heard what Ranma said. She then replied, "They're not going to do anything. Luna's champion messed things up by wishing everything would go back to normal with a powerful magical crystal. A newbie mage should never be given control over such a powerful artifact like she was. The creampuff brained ninny didn't know how to properly handle the crystal's power and only set things up so that the former Dark Kingdom's minions won't appear around her, her friends, or anyone she has ever met. The other champions won't be able to hear about the attacks since monster attacks are not normal. This spell only affects monsters from the former Dark Kingdom, but that's bad enough."
The young champion's eyes narrowed as he heard the news. "So in other words, I'm on my own?"
Eris cheerfully chirped, "Got it in one Ranma. Of course, knowing fate, you probably won't be on your own too long. Heroes just can't seem to resist forming Nakamas. However, you're going to need a way to hunt down these youmas. It will be good practice for you and I really don't want you distracted from protecting me because your neighborhood has been trash. So," Eris paused for a second to pull out a cell phone, "I got you this! This little device will give you directions to the nearest monster whenever you dial 1-800-KICKDEMONASS. It also pages you whenever there is a monster attack in progress and can be used a regular phone."
Without warning, though Ranma had come to expect such things, Eris tossed the phone at her champion. He quickly pocketed it in a hammerspace pocket. "Hey Eris, you got any other things you want to throw at me?"
Ranma really needed to learn to keep his mouth shut as Eris got that gleam in her eyes. The planetary spirit shifted to being right in front of Ranma and gave his a firm kiss on the lips. She then returned to her original position. "How's that for throwing something your way? Bye for now Ranma." With that, Eris faded from sight.
Two days after Eris gave Ranma the cell phone he got a call telling him that a pack of youma were going to emerge at an abandoned warehouse at 11:34 PM. How Eris knew exactly when and where the youma would appear Ranma couldn't figure out. He simply accepted it as within her power.
Currently, Senshi Eris was standing on the roof near where the youma were supposed to appear using his phantom form to stay out of sight. Phantom form allowed Senshi Eris to become completely invisible on all spectrums, but it prevented him from attacking as a trade-off. The blue-faced champion pulled out his cell phone and looked at the clock. To any outside observer it would have seemed like the phone was floating in mid-air. The time on the clock read 11:33. Senshi Eris quickly put the phone away and got ready to fight.
Just as the call had said, a black vortex appeared exactly on time. Anyone looking into the vortex would have soon seen a pack of enraged youma rushing for the entrance. The champion of Eris wished he could simply attack the vortex itself or attack into it. Unfortunately, the properties of the vortex protected it from his attacks and thus he'd have to wait until the youma had crossed over to attack them.
As soon as the first youma cross over, Senshi Eris dropped his phantom form and launched a Chaos Slash. The attack quickly flew at its target striking true while Senshi Eris leaped down to the ground. Senshi Eris immediately noticed that three youmas had crossed over while he had jumped and were quickly trying to leave the area. The red-haired warrior wasted no time and launched another volley of Chaos Slashes at the two farthest monsters.
Unfortunately, the third youma took this time to launch its own attack at Eris's champion. This youma was able to rapidly fire off its attack enabling it to keep Senshi Eris on the defensive while more and more youmas stampeded out of the vortex. These other youmas quickly added their own attacks forcing Senshi Eris further on the defensive.
The Champion of Chaos and Evolution was really starting to get annoyed as he wasn't able to get a second to return fire. His enemies were attacking too strongly for him to aim an attack, they were too spread out for a randomly thrown attack to work, and they had promptly destroyed all the cover in the area. Senshi Eris started muttering just after getting his hair clipped by an attack of buzz saw leaves, "Okay Murphy. I get that your pissed off I dodged the Amazons. Now that you've made you point, could you give me a break?!"
Without warning a voice cried out, "NIGHTWIND!" Both Senshi Eris and the youma were surprised when violent black cloud of dust appeared out of no where quickly reducing visibility to zero. The last thing Senshi Eris saw before he wasn't able to see anymore was three of the youma's attacks apparently get worn down to nothing. Senshi Eris quickly took this unexpected opportunity to leap back up onto the roof. Landing was a little difficult for the champion as his eyesight didn't return when he left the dust cloud. This caused him to mess up his landing and fall belly first onto the metal roof.
A sensuous voice quickly spoke, "Careful, my attack blinds all who are caught in it. Let me correct that." Without warning, Senshi Eris felt something cover his eyes and heard that voice state, "Hand of Hecate." There was a warm strange feeling for a second and then the voice called out again, "Open your eyes."
Senshi Eris did as he was instructed and was shocked at what he saw. Standing before him was the most alluring woman he had ever seen. The woman before him was dressed very provocatively in what looked like a risqué harem girl outfit. The outfit was off-white/faded lavender and hid nothing about her body. She had a silver belt around her waist and silver bracelets on her wrists. The only thing about this enchantress that was hidden was her face. The lower half of her face was covered by a dark piece of cloth that was attached to a combined hood and cloak.
Senshi Eris gulped for a second and then asked, "Who are you?"
The figure smiled back with her eyes and replied, "I am Lilith."