This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, Matt Bozon, Erin Bell Bozon and the creative teams of Kity Films and WayForward.
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
Chapter 15
An itsy-bitsy deviation from the plan
"Stand and fight me, you bastard!"
"Kyaaah, get it off, get it off, get it off!"
"How dare you, worm, touch my body!"
"Gah...! Risky, watch your aim!"
"The lamp! One is after it again!"
All of that accompanied with unending din of overlapping "Sweeto!", like a disturbed bird colony.
A total chaos war reigning the underground hall. The Nerima wrecking crew, Shantae, Risky, Mimic, Rotty, even Rotty's brothers were fighing the everpresent, cackling, pawing happoubats. Everyone kept missing and getting in each other's way. One could not even tell how many of these slippery things were there: the happoubats were swarming. The happoubats were everywhere.
"Paws off!" Ranma's fist zipped centimeters from Akane's nose but the obscene thing had already disappeared into the roiling crowd of fighters.
While the enraged Ranma was turning around to face the main mass, two parasites had already attached themselves to Akane's back doing their best to feel all her curves through her gi.
The dogfight started the moment Risky began unsealing the lamp, which was now hanging suspended in a large fireplace-like opening shining with magical energies. As Shantae had explained — before everything began — this was the same place as the last time, except they entered it through a hidden passage in a seaside hut instead of meandering through Hypno baron's dungeon. Obviously, all the preparations were already in place by the past Risky. Even captive Mimic dragged here by Abner and Poe because no one bothered telling them the change of plans.
And then happoubats began pouring from every crevice.
Now Mimic was guarding the lamp together with the stockier of the two Zombie brothers, the one in glasses and sweater. The old man was throwing flasks exploding into phenomenally stinky smoke. Poe was launching things resembling ugly ghosts. Both sorts of projectiles proved to be the most effective means of holding the rampaging happoubats back. In no small part thanks to a sea channel separating the rest of the hall from the wall with that opening.
Others weren't doing well.
Rottytops kept tearing her head off and throwing it across the hall, the happoubats dislodging from her body being dragged into the otherwordly dimension. Then new ones were coming at her.
Abner, the brutal Zombie brother in an open leather jacket over his lean and mean body, kept fading into shadows until only his menacing yellow eyes glowed then jumping out in unexpected places, his clawed hand already mid-swing. Or was climbing out of the solid stone floor, grabbing rapidly. Against someone less slippery such tactics would have been terrifyingly effective: he was hitting like a truck. Sadly, he kept missing.
Xian Pu who came thoughtlessly in only her red bikini, was twirling her scimitars like crazy, twisting and dodging: the things were attracted to the ties of her bottoms like magnetized. The left knot was barely holding.
Risky, in a state of barely restrained rage, was alternating between the scimitar dash — forcing everyone to jump from her path — or shooting akimbo in all directions, only by miracle missing her allies. All was for nothing: happoubats were avoiding the bomb bullets like startled flocks of especially ugly sparrows while the homing bullets weren't homing sharp enough. Still the best count was hers, the things that had tried pawing her bisected with lightning-fast purple flickers of her sword.
Ranma was not far behind her. Every one of his successful hits, felling the ersatz-lechers like flies, had been aimed at things sticking to Akane.
No one else could land a single hit.
Akane was windmilling her arms and legs, being pawed at constantly. She was rolling on the ground trying to shake the freaks off. She was swearing with amazing inventiveness, all without using a single cuss word.
Shantae was sliding this way and that while whipping her hair frantically and dodging. At times the parasites were piling all over her, she then writhed, kicked and tumbled shaking off the hands pawing all over her body, squealing in disgust.
"Kyaaah, getoff, getoff, getoff you stinky scum!" Akane thrashed. Ranma's fist zipped by her ear bringing momentary relief. "Shantae-chan, transform, stomp those scumbags!"
"I mustn't" the frantically dodging dancer shouted in reply. "We... Arg, disgusting! Get off! Get off...! We are buying time! We must endure until the lamp is unsealed!"
Ranma froze momentarily mid-swing. He then let out a groan of frustration mixed with an irritated growl before dashing towards the sea channel. A red-haired girl jumped back onto the shore, barely covered with a vest not designed to close in front. She was giggling with painfully fake sweetness. Only a madman would have taken her rictus for a smile.
The happoubats bought it.
Accompanied with a chorus of "Sweeto!" a horde jumped her, dogpiling her, burying her in a writhing mass of black lechers in red baggy trousers. For a moment the battle froze, everyone staring at the pile of things writhing like maggots in rotten meat. Ranma's fake laugh kept sounding from inside, more and more resembling hysterical shrieks. Then, a pink glow began shining through the cracks between the swarming things. Then...
"Maiden Roar Blast!" Ranma shouted, her voice catching. No less that three dozen things were swept away by a three-meter ball of pink Ki crushing them against the back wall. The rest were simply thrown away.
Akane stared at the redhead who was standing, heaving, in the finishing pose of the technique, her palms pointing forward. Her face had unhealthy coloration of red and white spots, her eye twitching. Ranma then pulled the vest lapels closed with great force as she emitted a long screech of disgust through her clenched teeth.
"It was... like Lion Roar Blast," Akane stated the obvious. "But... pink?"
The fleeting breather ended. The happoubats attacked again, depleted but still numerous.
"A team! Act as a team!" Shantae shouted, kicking again. "One lures, two hit!"
And with those words the tide of the battle was turned.
Xian Pu dropped her scimitars grabbing the ties of her bikini bottom with both hands, shouting something angrily in Chinese when half a dozen disgusting things attached themselves to her. Carried away with panties pulling, the happoubats failed to dodge when Ranma displayed passable skill with the blade she picked up.
Akane and Shantae weren't just struggling now but keeping next to each other aiming at the things grabbing at the other girl. Not counting a couple friendly fire accidents - Akane got hit with the hair while Shantae with Akane's foot - they were now slowly but steadily thinning their enemies out. For nine misses there was one hit making yet another thing dissolve into black jello smoke.
Rotty moved closer to Abner and stood still, not dodging anymore, just swearing at the things pawing at her. The enraged big brother began flickering with tripled energy, fading and jumping out from nowhere like a vengeful spectre of darkness. Now far from all his strikes were meeting air. Here a swing of his clawed hand was tearing a head off, there another was ripping a disgusting creature in two.
Risky Boots, too, stopped paying attention to things pawing at her, grabbed a second scimitar from the ground... And stopped holding back. Completely. Ranma had to admit to herself her hair was crawling. The redhead still could see the motion of Risky herself — though words "greased lightning" were coming to mind. But the fleeting purple flickers of her blades weaving barely perceptible patters of a cutting song through the air... Were beyond Ranma. Risky was circling the girls, happoubats were dying in droves, Ranma was shuddering when new holes were opening in her vest from the slashes she hadn't even noticed.
Still the redhead was returning the favor knocking off and smashing those of the things sticking to the pirate queen.
And then... Suddenly, there were no more enemies.
For a few seconds the martial artists kept glancing around, ready to strike but only finding black splotches littering the floor, evaporating slowly into heavy black smoke. Then...
"Victory!" Shantae shouted bouncing like a merry bunny with such energy she had to straighten her top afterwards.
Everyone relaxed smiling and sighing in relief — or hovering protectively over their little sister, in case of Abner and Poe.
The glow in the opening faded. Risky Boots was standing here, the lamp in hand, witch such a smirk on her lips that Shantae' heart skipped a beat, cold shiver crawling across her spine.
Ranma shuddered too, pulling closed the shredded rag her "accidentally" cut vest turned into.
"Well, half-Genie brat?" the pirate lady asked, exuding menace, playing with the lamp in her hands.
Shantae gasped starting and backing a step involuntarily.
Xian Pu cast a sidelong glance at Ranma — and began shuffling to the side unobtrusively. She could not understand the interplay but the redhead's reaction was making her very concerned.
The Zombie brothers were glaring at everyone with equal animosity while hovering over Rotty who was crying fake tears.
"Catch!" Risky Boots shouted with strangely furious joy as she threw...
Startled, Shantae barely kept presence of mind to catch the lamp arching towards her.
The tense Nerimans relaxed their combat stances a bit.
"Good luck collecting the dark magic!" the pirate queen said patronizingly as she was leaving with dignity, her hips swaying.
"Phewww, so scary," Shantae breathed out with relief as she inspected the magic item in her hands. "She was always difficult, but this one, from the future... She's a disaster!" Aiming, she began sucking the dark puffs of happoubat residue into the lamp.
"It's like being teamed up with a friendly cobra," Ranma agreed, still covering herself with her hands. "Akane, where did you put my bikini top? This is no vest, it's more a sieve."
"Stay still, don't squirm," the youngest Tendou commanded pulling a set of red fabric triangles with straps from her gi jacket. "How did you manage tearing it like that, you fool? Honestly!"
Ranma just smiled at her antics.
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
Leaving Rotty explain the tangled matter of time travel to her relatives the company returned to the town.
Only to see a column of radically blue tanks entering it.
"How.. Wh.. Why?！" the dancer girl was taken aback, following the rattling tracked monsters with her eyes. The machines were kicking up clouds of dust, bristling with rivets and guns, jagged jaw-like rams on their fronts.
There was a back of a huge man sticking from the turret hatch of the receding lead machine, blue overcoat strained by his bulging muscles.
"Hey, it's the same commander me and Ryouga saw in the ammonian camp yesterday!" Ranma pointed with her finger.
"Ammo Baron himself," Shantae explained distractedly. "But why...? I was sure the mayor hadn't sold the town for a box of chocolates yet...! Maybe they are just took their tanks for a walk...?"
"Those guys," the redhead pointed at soldiers in blue overcoats marching in double column after the tanks, "tell otherwise."
"We should figure things out, quickly!" Shantae dashed after the tanks.
By taking a shortcut they gained so much ground they managed to lose the tanks. How could one lose such prominent things? After zig-zagging a bit, they saw the column crossing the stone bridge towards the wharf. Obviously the leader decided to make a detour not trusting the first bridge, which was wooden.
"Hey!" Shantae planted herself in the path of the column, her arms crossed indignantly. "What are you thinking? Have you no shame at all?"
"Don't panic, citizens of Ammo Town," Ammo Baron rumbled condescendingly. Unexpectedly to those who hadn't seen him yet, he was a cyclops, with a single huge eye in the center. "The changes in management will be announced shortly!"
The rattling iron monstrosity did not even slow making the dancer girl jump aside hastily.
"What now?" Akane asked worriedly as she eyed the tanks passing by. At closer inspection, there were only four.
"We have to find the mayor!" Shantae started running again making her friends catch up with her. "And have a few choice words with him! How did everything turn so upside down?"
After some running around, the mayor was found in a small plaza in the center of the main district. The ammonians were already there, as well as crowds of townsfolk.
In Ranma's opinion the overall air was too upbeat for someone being conquered. People came with kids, the local beauties with jugs on their heads, sailors from the wharf - everyone had the look of gawkers.
Having parked his tank in the shade of a tall building, Ammo Baron was standing on top of its turret flexing his impressive muscles under a tight orange undershirt, his overcoat threatening to burst on his biceps. He was going to make a speech, by the look of it.
Some savvy peddler was already selling nuts and... What was this "oyran" of theirs? A sort of milk?
"Here you are!" Shantae exclaimed pushing through the crowd towards the turban top barely visible above the heads. "Get talking, what nonsense are you up to this time!"
"Forgive me," the rotund old man sniffed exuding despondency. "When I learned that the Pirate Master is wakening... I can't. Dark times are coming, this burden is too much for me."
"And me? Who do you think I am, chopped liver?" Shantae hollered at him. "I beat him once, I will beat him again if the need arises! I got experience, I got— We got a team! Maybe we won't let him awake at all, this time! And you...! How could you, behind our backs...!"
Akane was seriously worried her friend would snap and pummel the city administrator.
"You don't understand..." he whispered, his voice crestfallen. "The Pirate Master... He is terrifying..."
"I, don't understand?" the half-Genie exploded. "I don't understand?！ I was hitting him in his ugly mug! With this very hair!" She swished her primary weapon. "In his true form, when he was taller than Sultana's palace!"
"Forgive me," the mayor apologized again. "I wanted to... I tried believing... But each time, remembering..."
With a heavy sigh he drudged away, stooping and stumbling into people.
"No appreciation at all," Shantae fumed. "Like I am not a guardian genie but some decorative ornament!"
"To think of it," girl-Ranma butted in, "The last time is distant history for us. But all middle-aged folks..."
"Remember the foeman at the pinnacle of his dreadful might," Xian Pu finished for him. "And many of the townsfolk mayhaps be from among those unlucky to have beheld him in person."
"Yeah, that," girl-Ranma agreed. The Chinese girl's flowery speech reminded her again how much some people could... Wear their mask so well you forget there's a mask to begin with. He himself, of course, haven't bought it... Well, not completely... But this gal was good at playing the "Shampoo smash" bimbo.
Shantae, meanwhile, was focusing on the question of who had brought Ammo Baron the town deed. It was painfully obvious her fists were itching and she was searching for someone to scratch them against.
"Whew, that was one sweaty trip." Bolo trudged in wiping his forehead. "Guys, what's going on here...? How did those polite blue men get there before me? I was jogging all the way through the desert from their camp.
"Boloooo..." Shantae sang with menacing sweetness. "Did you, by chance, bring them papers from the mayor?"
"Well, yeah, it was sort of a sealed envelope. Why—"
"Bolo, you are so dead," Shantae growled. Immediately going from words to assault and battery.
Akane, while sharing her friend's feelings — the nerve, selling her homeland behind her back — still began dragging her away after a tenth or so whack, arguing that a second shiner would be too much even if it would be good for symmetry.
"Phat didj I tho?" the hapless boy pouted after being subjected to the half-Genie's irate reproach. "Wphy? Owww—"
His lumps had lumps, his shiner filling with lilac fullness. Her hand was really heavy.
"Sold the town to those... polite men," Ranma hinted.
"And now Shantae is at risk of losing her job," Xian Pu emphasized mercilessly. "Because her employer is over, folded like cheap paper."
"I fouled up again!" the bruised guy shouted clutching at his hair. "What's wrong with me? Would this stretch of bad luck ever end?"
Ranma wanted to comment that one should think before acting. But she kept silent. He was a grown up boy, he could figure that out himself.
People around began hushing them. It turns out, Ammo Baron was already making his "meet your new overlord" speech.
At his ill conceived words of "And in place of that shoddy shack — howzit, nursing home or what — we will erect a mortar battery! Boosh-wah!" Shantae's patience snapped almost audibly and she stomped to give him a piece of her mind.
"And here our plans for his super-cannon bid us farewell," Xian Pu commented.
"Don't sweat it," Ranma waved her concerns aside. "The timeline was already all the way off the rails."
Ammo Baron, meanwhile, said something along the lines "An invited dancer, already? Guys, you shouldn't have!"
The Nerimans thought that was it, the last straw, Shantae going to beat him up. They prepared to fight his entire army.
But the half-Genie just growled: "We went over this already! Yes, I like this outfit, I like to feel beautiful and desirable! So what? Should I stop being a girl?" before beginning a dance.
The ammonians didn't have time to react inappropriately — well, they thought it was appropriately, they just didn't know yet this was not what they thought — as she turned into a harpy, soared above the plaza, turned back into a girl in the air and landed springily on top of the turret right in front of the buff cyclops. Where she stood, her arms crossed, glaring up at him with such challenge like she was looking down.
"Oh! You are the Ammo Town's guardian genie!" he figured it out, upbeat. "Welcome aboard, then! You can get your passport—"
"Did I, ever, give my consent, m?" she barked, glaring. "And who begins renovation from demolishing civic buildings? Even if they are half a century out of repair?"
"With my effort, this town is going to turn from a rat hole into a bastion military might!" Ammo Baron retorted, offended. "Now that I am your official Lordship, would not it be natural to join my personal army? We have glorious conquest ahead of us and we need all sorts of specialists!"
An awkward pause followed.
"If you start inventing uniforms for me again, I will pummel you," Shantae promised dangerously. "I won't see that you're the lordship. Suggest the army open-air shower and I will double pummel you."
An awkward pause again. Both stood there glaring at each other.
Ammo Baron was clearly undecided: such a useful resource suddenly has its own opinion and pushes back. He was loathe both losing his face and spoiling his relationship with her. Because a whole guardian genie is something else.
One of the soldiers climbed up the tank and began whispering something in his ear.
"What...? The Pirate Master...?！" Ammo Baron hollered in terror grabbing at his head, his eye bulging out. "Aaah! Conned! Framed! Played like a bumpkin rube...!" Dropping from the tank he began dashing to and fro, not knowing what to do.
Shantae was left on the turret alone.
She surveyed the crowd from overhead.
The townsfolk were mixing with the ammonians discussing something lively, trading, paying no mind to the antics of their new boss.
"Am I the only one here who thinks putting a self-proclaimed feudal in charge of a town is just plain wrong?" the half-Genie mumbled. Jumping down to the ground she headed to her friends.
The Ammo baron was now tip-toeing, stooped, trying to look inconspicuous — which looked hilariously ridiculous with his outstanding size. "Psst, boys, pack up quietly and—"
He was interrupted by someone clearing their throat behind him.
The muscleman in blue overcoat turned slowly, painfully, against internal resistance, dreading what he'd see there.
There were two huge knights in blue and gold armor standing behind him. Only their eyes were visible through the slits of their bell-shaped helmets.
"Ammo Baron?" one rumbled like an empty iron barrel.
"Uh... Where did you—" Realizing the `never seen him` trick would not work on these, he gave up: "Well, that's me."
"Here is your yerlik of the town ownership," the other knight rumbled handing him a wax-sealed scroll in one hand and a clipboard in the other. "Sign the reception form."
"Aaaah!" Ammo Baron howled in despair tearing his hair out. Then, with the look of someone walking up the gallows, he pulled a ball-point pen out of his pocket and wrote his signature in the clipboard. "I am so deeep..."
"The second copy as well," the unyielding knight reminded him flipping a sheet on the clipboard.
"Sultana's guard," Shantae explained. "They uphold law and order. If only they ever bothered doing that further than half a mile radius from the palace...! But no, towns survive on their own as they could."
"In other words," Xian Pu clarified watching Ammo Baron run around in quiet panic, "he just went into official possession of the town?"
"Yes. Failed to flee in time, so he went," the half-Genie replied with mixed frustration and schadenfreude. "And, in return, it is his duty now to protect the town."
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
To unwind while doing something useful Shantae ran to collect single happoubats, by memory in the same places cacklebats were found the last time. Assuming reasonably Risky kept tinkerbats spying there and they just mutated where they were. Not reassuring considering one was found right next to the lighthouse. And that was the past Risky, before she became truly terrifying.
They did not find anyone there. Not near the lighthouse, nor further along the shore beyond the mayor's favorite resting spot, nor in a dark corner of the forest on the other side of the town. All their running around was for naught.
The only conclusion was the entire population, for whatever reason, got attracted to the lamp being unsealed where it perished in its entirety.
When returning to the town with the feeling of a job well done they were unpleasantly surprised to hear a din of noise and swearing. Panicking women were running out of the bathhouse, wrapped in towels. There was a town guard lying in the doors, in that red half-shirt of theirs, all covered in footprints. Each woman running out added more.
"So that's why none of them were in the forest!" Ranma exclaimed.
"Hold on, I'm coming!" Shantae shouted rushing into the bathhouse.
Inside there was a total pandemonium. Two more knocked out guards in the central common hall crowded with angry men with towels across their waists, unsure what to do. A din of shrieks and "Sweeto"s coming from the womens side.
Shantae barged in there side to side with Ranma and Shhampoo, Akane a bit behind.
"Um, I can't..." Bolo began awkwardly.
"Drag the guards aside!" Akane turned to him stopping in the door. "While they aren't trampled completely!"
A chaotic dogfight followed, full of women fighting back with bath implements, flying copper jugs, slippery happoubats and martial artists chasing them. Akane was flailing like a gi-clad windmill, never hitting anyone. Xian Pu dropped her bikini, lathered up and pretended one of the bath-goers, luring the parasites with her body and wringing their necks when they were falling for it expecting another untrained girl. Ranma was whittling them out the best until she slipped on a bar of soap and fell into the through with hot water. After which the bath-goers switched to beating Ranma.
The last vile thing, attached to Shantae, was finished off by Akane. The half-Genie maneuvered herself masterfully into her punch, the parasite crunched, she doubled over with air exploding out of her lungs and was sent flying into a wall.
"It's kh-ot w-khat you think!" Ranma wheezed, being strangled by the bikini top, as he ran out of the womens side into the common hall. "Kh-old—"
Akane hurried after him: judging by the sounds, now the men were beating him.
Only the local women remained, full of indignation, Shantae vacuuming the dark magic up and Xian Pu putting her bikini back on.
"I failed you so badly!" Shantae was voicing her guilt not stopping her work. "I was searching for them in the woods instead of realizing those vile things would swarm in here!"
The women, though, cared little for whose fault it was. Wrapping themselves in the traditional modesty sheets they went to the common hall where they all laid into the men blaming them for inaction. Phrases like "decency is important but what if we were killed there", "look at the town guards, hapless bunglers they may be, but they at least tried" and many other accusations were thrown around, just and not.
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
"What a horrible day," Shantae sighed as she walked out of the bathhouse to the round pond square where Akane and guy Ranma were waiting for her. "It's like everything that could go wrong got crammed into it."
"Now we, at least, can be sure there are no more happoubats left," Xian Pu reassured her walking out after her.
"There should be some on the surrounding islands," Shantae reminded. "We'd better collect them all. Breathing fresh air at the same time. I don't want to stay in the town and watch them rebuilding it... But maybe I should pack first...? What if this overgrown lover of toy tanks developed a grudge and decides to evict me today."
"Oh, there you are!" the former mayor exclaimed emerging from a building to the left along the circle. "Pheww..." He scurried towards the half-Genie and friends. "I admit, we weren't always on the best of terms but... You always protected the town from monsters, saved our agriculture from the... former advisors' lapses in judgment..."
"And all of that quite cheaply." The heroine smiled sincerely. "Don't worry. Everything will be all right. We will win, you'll see!"
"I..." sighing the rotund shorty digged around in his turban producing a golden tiara with pale green inlays. "Here, take this. I was saving this for the arts contest winner. I hope it would be of use to you: there is some sort of magic in it."
"This..." Shantae received the gift with both hands. "Thank you very much. This tiara quadruples my magic power. Not the Genie magic, that is special, but any spells that consume mana. Fire, lightning, puffs, mirror. It gifts me with the ability to use them without end." She was holding the magical item carefully, almost reverently. Then she replaced it in her ki pocket.
"You won't wear it?" Xian Pu inquired, intrigued why she remained in her purple bandanna with a white skull.
"It's too powerful," Shantae explained when Scuttlebutt moved out of earshot, not cheered up but at least less gloomy. "It makes my mana bubble like soda. A funny feeling — for the first hour or so, then it just tickles and distracts. But most importantly, it doesn't really replenish my mana, It just forces it out of myself. After a couple hours of such restoration you feel like you were sucked dry through a straw. I just recovered from magical exhaustion and I can now tell that's exactly it."
"So this tiara is a stimulant like anabolics?" Xian Pu clarified. "Well, there is such alchemy, lets you fight not feeling tired at all but the next day your muscles avenge themselves terribly."
"An amazingly apt description," Shantae replied. "And thus, it's only for epic battles and very complex dungeons you have to go through in one go for a worthy goal. Otherewise it's like hunting sparrows with a cannon."
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
They almost offed the messenger tinkerbat taking him for a cacklebat. Only noticed this was a normal one in the last possible moment. The pitch-black bony midget in red baggy pants was windmilling his arms and pantomiming "follow me". They followed the jumpy creature startled by every local lady. Those were glaring, disinclined to pay attention to difference in sorts of crap. One massive woman with a roller pin even made the entire procession speed up as their guide fled from her in panic.
He led them to a warehouse on the wharf where something was brewing: tinkerbats, ammonians and local dock workers were dragging some boxes in various directions, someone was squabbling with gusto, Barracuda Joe was trying to reconcile them, a coveralls-clad alligator was screwing some thingamabob with a wrench...
The tinkerbat guide disappeared into this chaos.
"What are they doing?" Ranma inquired.
"Never seen anything like this," Shantae admitted. "Them, working together like that..."
Inside the warehouse there was even bigger chaos. It took them awhile to notice a blueprint-laden table in the corner, surrounded by Ammo Baron, Risky Boots and some sort of small biped alligator in a tall tinker helmet with headlight eyes. Mimic was loitering nearby, at times advising them wisely. The bosses then either waved him away "don't butt in with your amateurish opinion" or admitted "the old man knows his stuff". Hypno Baron was floating under the ceiling grumbling something with displeasure.
"Here comes the guardian genie!" the dark sorcerer noticed the new arrivals.
The group of movers and shakers lifted their eyes from the blueprints to stare at the half-Genie.
"She's the one who will bring them to us!" the pirate queen declared triumphantly.
"Excuse me...?" Shantae was taken aback.
"Who, the dancer girl?" the gator asked, disbelieving.
"Go there, I don't know where, and bring us all the four elemental stones!" Risky commanded. "Or woe betide you."
"Why is she thinking she can boss you around?" Xian Pu asked with suspicion.
"Right, why of a sudden?" Shantae came to her senses.
"Well, you want a mighty bore behind you, don't you," Risky asked in a smooth, suggestive voice as she leaned forward with a smile.
"Wh... Ahem..." The half-Genie was taken aback. "Uh... How do I voice my agreement without making it sound like some vulgar double-entendre?"
"Wait, are you going to work for her?" Akane was outraged. "As a delivery girl?"
"Last time Risky got her hands on all four stones, she built a giant robot," Shantae explained heading outside at a brisk pace. "Which I barely managed to wreck, only because I crawled inside as a monkey and plucked all four stones out. Together, those four... I dread to even think what sort of mechanical monstrosity they'd build, invincible and with infinite power reserves!"
"Why then?" Akane couldn't understand while running after her friend.
"Because against the Pirate Master any help could make difference between victory and death. The future had changed irrevocably, the cannon that allowed me to win the last time will not be there."
"Against the end of the world there are no enemies, only allies?" Xian Pu clarified. "Wise."
"And if they turn on us later," Shantae continued pragmatically as she headed towards the town gate, "then the worst that could happen would be an invincible mechanical monstrosity with infinite power reserves. After the Pirate Master — ha. Meh."
Beyond the city gate they turned right, following the tracks of tank tracks. Leaving the fields on their left, headed into a wasteland abundant with brambles and pumpkins. There were no monsters around put piles of trash and bones were frequent. Take three guesses. When Akane got all sweaty and Xian Pu regretted she didn't oil herself again, a real desert began, with sand dunes and rare cacti. Shantae was running forward through the scorching haze paying the heat no mind. Ranma was doing his best to pretend it was nothing. Both the fiancees were feeling the sand burning their bare feet. Xian Pu tried scattering her full hair across her shoulders to cover from the hot sun. Akane was sweating but pushing forward.
The tracks turned to the left and disappeared in the distance while Shantae turned a bit to the right and kept going deeper into the desert. Any hints of green had long disappeared in the wavering heat haze beyond the wavy horizon.
They went around ruins crumbling from age. Ran by a huge red scorpion centaur in a turban who was walking around with his muscled arms crosed contemptively.
"Where are we hurrying to?" Ranma inquired.
"But to the Spy Scope!" Shantae "explained".
And went further through the scorching sands.
When Akane began feeling like her brain was beginning to boil and her tongue had mummified into sandpaper and Xian Pu's movements lost their catlike grace, her stumbling ponderously and jerking her foot from the hot sand with each step, the half-Genie finally stopped. After a short dance she turned into a harpy.
"I'm sorry," the blue bird girl turned to her friends. "I only can get there myself." She pointed at somewhere in the sky. "Someone else, I won't be even able to lift off the ground."
"This is so much like you," Xian Pu stated in an exaggeratedly neutral voice.
"Don't worry, we believe in you!" Akane supported to spite her rival.
The harpy aimed to take off.
"Wait, wait!" Ranma stopped her. "Got any water?"
Snatching the offered flask he poured it over his head to Akane's vehement protest. Donning the bikini top she pulled out of her pocket, girl Ranma... Began one of Shantae's dances!
"What are you doing?" Akane asked with disbelif.
"Drats, this is wrong," the redhead grumbled starting the dance anew.
"Your hip sway is too smooth," the harpy began correcting her. "Sharper. The bounce from your right foot to your left too. Springier and sharper. That's no swan swimming, that's monkey jumping around. Small and springy!"
After about four repeat Ranma got the dance down almost perfectly.
"You are learning amazingly quick," Shantae commended when the redhead finished her fourth time and began her fifth. "But we have to—"
There was no flash or other special effects, Ranma simply collapsed into a pile of clothing just like Xian Pu when transforming into a cat.
"Eeeeh?" Akane boggled.
"Kiki!" the red monkey twisted herself out of the pants.
"Gimme two!" Xian Pu flared with enthusiasm. "That's because of the curse, right? I could too?"
"How did you—" Shantae was taken aback. "You have to be a... No, wait. Your cursed form is a magical creature, then...?"
"Ranma!" Akane panicked recalling certain facts about the naked simian.
"Hmm?" Xian Pu drawled with unhealthy interest as she walked up to the pile of clothing and ruffled it with her foot. "Although... No panties, no top. Did you manage transforming part of your clothing with you?"
"Ki, ki, ki," the monkey reprlied with an air of superiority, before latching onto Shantae's scaly ankle. "Ki?"
"No, definitely gimme two!" Xian Pu breathed in envy. "I'd do anything but I will learn at least this one!"
Shantae jumped and began flapping vigorously, climbing towards a small square wavering in the blinding haze above.
Akane left out a frustrated sigh. This foreign bimbo was ahead of her again. Now she and Ranma will be jumping across trees like two macacas.
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Drowsing in her beach chair, Nabiki was awakened by the sounds of hammers. Lifting the sunglasses up, she surveyed soldiers in blue overcoats building some sort of lattice tower at the beach end.
"It seems I have overslept and missed something attention worthy."
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The small square slowly grew into an upside down pyramid of red adobe brick hanging in the air. Shantae's flapping was slowing down, she was breathing hard. Harpy's breathing was very fast, accompanied with rapid pitter-patter, like a moped motor. But finally they were level with the pyramid. It turned to be small, merely five meters across. In the center of this square platform, inside a brick gazebo, there was a massive copper telescope on a stepped dais.
Shantae turned into a girl to land heavily on the platform edge, bent over with hands on her knees, breathing noisily.
Ranma at that instant had reverted into a girl as well, awkwardly hugging the half-Genie's leg. She jumped away so hastily she almost fell of the platform.
Lucky, in hindsight. He hadn't thought at all how to transform back.
"Who goes here?" a voice thundered, coming from seemingly everywhere.
"It's me," Shantae said in a friendly voice as she straightened with effort, struggling to slow her breath. "Remember me?"
"Of course I do, guardian genie," the voice rumbled. "Died and returned to life by the Genie magic...? This world is truly full of wonders. But is your intent pure this time around?"
"Umm..." Shantae stuttered, unsure. "Well... This time me and the villains are working together, but that's because of the Pirate Master. He—"
"Say no more," the voice interrupted her excuses grimly. "The Pirate Master is a primal evil, there are no heroes able to defeat him alone."
A bright light shone on the half-Genie making her see-through. As if there was perky lavender mist billowing inside her.
"You may look into me," the voice allowed.
She leaned to the eye-piece: "First, the Dribble stone..."
The dais turned with her while the tube bent in a strange way.
"Oh! A familiar factory!" Shantae exclaimed with indignation. "And it is already working...! Ranma, start memorizing. The Dribble Stone is at the Mermaid Falls, the farthest production line. Hidden in the third barrel of the rightmost stack."
"Third barrel of the rightmost one," the redhead repeated. "Does it see inside?"
"Don't distract me. The Spy Scope sees everywhere." The dais rotated left, the tube bending more. "Right. The Golem Stone is in the Golem Mines, of all places. Basically, the same place...! All right, I'll tell you later. Twinkle Stone..." The dais rotated the other way, the tube stretching a bit. "Oh! Lucky again. Memorize this: Frostbite Island, stuck frozen to the tail of the Steel Maggot. Now, for the Sizzle Stone..."
The dais was rotating here and there for a long time until it finally stopped. The tube twisted in a way that hurt Ranma's eyes to look at.
"Ah..." Shantae's voice trembled. "This is... Very inconvenient. Ranma, memorize carefully: The Sizzle Stone is in the Oubilette of Suffering, the second turn left before Dagron's lair. On a collapsing rock in the middle of a boiling resin lake. Did you get it...? A collapsing one! And the distance to the shore is so much that only the two of us could reach, me as a harpy while you jump that far. Anyone else would just get broiled for nothing. Also, you have to grab it on the first try. Otherwise it'd sink and that would be it."
"Second left turn before the lair, a collapsing rock amidst boiling resin, only one try," Ranma repeated. "And what is oubilette? This word sounds strange..."
"It's an archaic word," Shantae explained as she turned away from the eyepice. "It means "Hell". Which, in turn, is a euphemism for "Hell".
It seems some wordplay fell in line of translation.(note 1)
"A real hell?" Ranma was shocked. "No joking?"
"Can you transfer us there?" the half-Genie asked the Spy Scope.
"Alas, I can only do that across the mortal world," the woice rumbled with frustration. "Spiritual realms are off limits to me. Especially the afterlife."
"Now I know it's real one," Shantae said with trepidation. "Before... I had my suspicions but I did not want to believe. Considering there's Rotty's soul loitering in the anteroom, along with those three gamblers... Who are, technically, terrible sinners..."
"Rotty's soul?" Ranma asked, bewildered.
"Hush, don't tell anyone!" Shantae whispered, horrified. "I shouldn't have said that out loud!"
"I'm silent like a fish, I swear on my honor," Ranma promised.
"I'm mostly worried for her," Shantae explained. "If she learned about the fact, she could possibly do something phenomenally ill advised."
"That... green one you wrote in your diary about a lot?" the redhead said. "I get then what sorta person she is. Well, let's go..." She glanced at the Spy Scope. "No, wait, I got an idea..."
"You, too, could look into me if your intent is pure," the artifact proclaimed. "But first, I must look into you."
"I hope you meant my heart or soul or something like that?" Ranma bristled.
Shantae snorted trying not to laugh. Unable to contain herself, she exploded in giggles.
"What?" the redhead turned towards her, frowning.
"Nothing, nothing. Just... You repeated what I had said, word by word. Well, when it asked me the same."
"Of course that was what I meant," the voice sounded offended. "I'm tired of your insinuations. Every time the hero is a maiden the same thing repeats itself."
"Just change the pitch," the redhead advised. "Be straightforward: I need to look into your heart. Otherwise that won't ever end. Maidens are shy, jumpy creatures inured to everyone around itching to do this and that."
Shantae knew she shouldn't look, that this was personal, but couldn't help herself. It turned out there were merry hedgehogs crowding inside Ranma. Jumping, sparring, bristling, performing complex kata, throwing each other up in feats of group acrobatics. Some were sporting a square jaw blue from aftershave screaming "a real man". Some others had crudely applied lipstick and gaudy bows. Some had both of those at once. Shudder.
"A rare rascal, but your intent is pure. You may look into me," the Spy Scope rumbled.
The redhead leaned to the eyepiece. The dais tidn't even twitch, the tube began stretching instead. Longer, and longer and longer, already much longer that could fit inside the gazebo and still kept stretching. Shantae's eyes hurt looking at such impossible sight.
"Aha, I see it!" Ranma explained. "Why so murky, like a TV in a rural village with an antenna made of tin cans?"
"Your home is very, very far away," the Spy Scope explained. "Usually other realities are closed off from me, but that one happened to be entangled with ours with their fairy tales."
"Entangled with fairy tales?" Shantae grew intrigued while Ranma was snickering at something looking through the eyepiece. "How is that?"
"Realities usually have no ties to each other and even the passage of time in them is independent," Spy Scope explained. "But sometimes their fairy tales become entangled... Fairy tales are metaphysical links born when a tale teller from some other reality grasps the nature of a hero or a villain and realizes it into a book which is then read by thousands of thousands. Sometimes fairy tales of two realities written in a third one can touch and entangle creating a link between them, tying their time flows to each other. Then denizens of one reality — usually it is the protagonist of the fairy thale — could then step into another. Such situations are called `crossover`. A different sort of casus could also happen, where a reader from the tale teller's reality gets sucked into the reality of the fairy tale. Such situations are called `self-insert`."
"Wow! So I could be the heroine of a fairy tale!" the half-Genie was amazed.
"What?" Ranma pulled away from the eye-piece. "So I'm an epic hero?"
"Not just one, but of a whole series," the Spy Scope corrected. "`Shantae`, `Shantae and Risky's Revenge`, `Shantae and the Pirate's Curse`, `Shantae, half-Genie Hero` authored by the spouses Matt and Erin Bozon. There should be more but I cannot see them due to unexpected divergence at the end of the last one... What's for you, oh sticking out one, you are the protagonist of only one fairy tale that was publishing for twelve years straight: `Ranma One Half` by tale teller Rumiko Takahashi, or Takahasi Rumiko in your spelling."
"The universe is full of amazing secrets." The half-Genie smiled shaking her head in awe. "It exhilarates and terrifies at the same time." She threw her arms wide, lifted her face to the sky and shouted for the whole world to hear: "I love this world! Thank you, Maker, for creating it with all its light and darkness, with all his beauty and ugliness, shining with weave of countless fates like precious filigree, like... Oooooh!" Unable to express her overflowing feelings in words she began a dance, swift and smooth, so complex it made Ranma grunt awed by her Art.
She was dancing for good ten minutes until she finally stopped with a smile.
The world was stretching below, from horizon to horizon, in light and haze. Beyond the ripples of sand dunes and wavering blur of desert air one could glimpse the blue of the sea to the south and the blue of the lake to the north and sprawling forests to the west, bluish-gray from distance. Further away, peaks of mountains and islands.
"Let's jump down?" Shantae suggested looking down over the edge. Her voice was bubbling with energy.
"Isn't this too high for you?" Ranma grew worried. In her understanding, to jump safely from great heights one had to be at least as strong as her, to not hurt themselves landing.
"Nuh-huh, I did that a thousand times over," the dancer girl waved her concerns aside. "So would you object?"
"Naw, go on," the redhead agreed."
With a short running start the half-Genie jumped into the void with a battle cry. Tumbled a couple times and dropped away, her arms and legs splayed wide. Her merry squeal faded quickly in the distance.
Ranma shrugged and jumped after her. How far was there to the ground? A kilometer?
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
"I suggest this:" Shantae was telling her friends gathered at the round pond. "I'm going to the Oubilette of Suffering for the Sizzle Stone, Ranma goes to the Golem Mines for the Golem Stone..."
"And me?" Bolo butted in. "I too want to be doing something useful!"
"Then go to the Mermaid Falls for the Dribble Stone. It's the easiest one, sneak and snatch, the stone is almost in the open."
"What about the fourth one?" Nabiki asked, already in her work clothes of an archaeologist.
"That one is a bit complicated. The Twinkle Stone is on the Frosbite Island, stuck to the local boss inside an underground abandoned factory. But I got inside the last time through a hole made by the cannon. This time around we have to find a proper entrance. It got to be somewhere...! Sky, can you do that with Wrench?"
"Well... I think so..." the blonde replied, sounding unsure. "But a Frostbite Island...? I have to take a couple shawls with me. I hope it's not too cold for Wrench there."
The war parrot replied with a proud caw conveying he wasn't afraid of some cold.
The half-Genie then made to dash towards the wharf with spirited "I'm ret-2-go!" but Nabiki grabbed her by her hair and made her perform a normal planning session with writing details down, drawing schemes and placing a cross on the map — so that Ranma could find those Golem Mines and not, say, head to the Cackler Mound instead.
But after that, there was no force able to hold the heroes from rushing towards adventure.
Xian Pu, who still remained in only the red bikini - it was her long play, no doubt - invited herself to go with guy Ranma who had put some effort into getting hot water. Akane detonated instantly and went with them. One could only hope there would be no water obstacles on the way.
Bolo ran towards those waterfalls on foot.
The remaining ones began preparing to depart as well.
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Author's note: Here. We are finally at the obligatory series of fetch quests precluding the final boss.
(note 1): she said "earth prison". But in Japanese "hell" is literally "earth prison".
( ｡◕ シーンブレイク ◕｡)
Published in Russian: November 28, 2020. Translated to English: December 29, 2020. At the moment: Chapter 16 is being written, Chapter 17 is completed since April 19, 2020, waiting for the prior chapters to be released.