Nabiki Is Pretty Special
"I still don't get why you want to take all these videos and pictures," Ranma sighed as she glanced around the rocky hillside to make sure no one else was around. "It's not like you can sell these or spread them around."
"Not while you're the Avatar," Nabiki agreed while checking the charge on the camcorder, "but like I said before, years from now, that could change. And even if no one outside our families sees them, it'll be nice to have more than just our memories to go by; don't think for a moment we don't wish we'd made more videos of Mom."
"Yeah, ok, I can see that…" Ranma quietly said, lowering her gaze for a moment.
"Besides, if you ever stop being the Avatar, it'll be nice to be able to prove to ourselves that we didn't just imagine the whole thing. And hey, maybe being able to watch videos of your training sessions and fights will help you up your magical girl game."
"Huh. You may have something there. Some things are easier to notice by watching than by doing."
"There you go, and I assure you my rental rates are very competitive."
"Ha! I don't think so—without me there are no videos, so I get to watch them for free!"
"Well… I guess you have a point. Ok, fine, you can watch them for free. You drive a hard bargain, Saotome."
Ranma smiled briefly, then frowned. "I'm not sure whether I should feel good or worried about those words."
"That's entirely up to you, but you should get started; I'm sure we both have better things to do than stand around on a hill."
Ranma nodded, and as Nabiki raised the camcorder and started recording, quietly said, "I'm a guy."
Soft music filled the air as a pink aura surrounded Ranma and seemed to gently lift her off the ground. A flurry of pink and lavender ribbons danced around her as she spun in place for a moment before most of them melded together to form a short seifuku featuring large quantities of pink, lavender, and white. Smaller ribbons shot off to form elbow length gloves, thigh high lace-up boots with high heels, numerous bows, and various pieces of gold jewelry—including an ornate tiara set with a pink stone resting atop her now lavender hair that reached halfway down her back in a French braid held closed with a coil of gold. The music stopped as Ranma lightly touched down on the ground, lavender eyes calm and at peace.
"You know, someone could shoot you a half dozen times during all that."
"It doesn't take nearly as long as it seems; I've timed it. It also skips all of that crap if someone's actually attacking me."
"Handy. Avatar of Light practice session one," Nabiki added for the recording.
"Right, let's get started," the Avatar declared, briefly stretching before leaping into a series of fluid kicks, punches, and evasions against an imaginary opponent. After a few moments, her movements became more complex as she clearly added additional imaginary opponents. Gradually, her evasions became faster and more frequent and her attacks chosen more carefully, as she incorporated more aerial maneuvers combined with judicious Light Lances fired down toward the ground. Finally, after ten minutes, she stopped and gave a brief bow.
"Who were you bowing to?" Nabiki asked, still recording.
"No one, really," Ranma admitted, "it just feels appropriate after sparring, even if there isn't really anyone else."
"Hm. Hey, you should see if you can make actual sparring partners out of light. It sounds like something that could fit with your powers."
"You know… that's not a bad idea. Maybe you should've been chosen to be the magical girl," Ranma joked.
"Well, now I have to edit this recording before letting Akane see it, thank you very much."
"Er, yeah," Ranma awkwardly said while rubbing the back of her neck. "Let's get back to warming up." With that, she leapt back into action, once again fighting a horde of imaginary opponents, but this time leaping around the hill to strike small boulders with punches, kicks, and Light Lances.
Once Ranma came to stop again, Nabiki asked, "Does punching those boulders
hurt at all? You actually broke several of them. Also, why the focus on multiple opponents? Won't you be fighting single challengers?"
"Nah," Ranma replied, as she assessed the damage to the hillside, "punching rocks stings a bit normally, but I don't even feel that as the Avatar. As for the multiple opponents, it's a lot easier to imagine them than it is to imagine a single good opponent, and I can't discount the possibility I'll face challengers who can make helpers. I'll imagine a single opponent next and then try your idea about the light opponents."
Nabiki nodded, putting down the camcorder and stretching while Ranma sipped from a bottle of water. "So how much does fighting against imaginary opponents really help? It can't be as good as having an actual sparring partner."
"It isn't," Ranma admitted, "but it still helps, especially when I'm still getting used to how I move as the Avatar, and I don't really want to be using any special techniques against real people until I've got a damned good handle on exactly how they work and how powerful they are. On top of that, finding a partner who can keep up with form isn't going to be easy; I can tone things down, but I don't want to get used to fighting people who are a lot slower."
"That makes sense," Nabiki said, picking the camcorder back up and recording again as Ranma put down the bottle and resumed training. The difference when Ranma focused on a single, stronger imaginary opponent was obvious—not only was she only avoiding attacks from a single source, her counters and evasions were more complex, as if the attacks were more skilled or dangerous than the earlier ones. But there was something else, and after a moment, Nabiki frowned slightly as she realized the other girl's fight just didn't seem as genuine as the fight against multiple opponents; it seemed more like a dance, something choreographed. It must be the difference between immediately reacting to imaginary threats coming from various directions and having to think out a sequence of a strong opponent's attacks and your responses in advance, she realized.
As the fight progressed, it seemed to get a bit smoother, but it never reached the level of the earlier sparring sessions. Eventually, Ranma stopped, bowed to her imaginary opponent, and frowned. "Ok, that just isn't cutting it; I'm going to try working on your light opponents thing now. It probably won't be exciting to watch, but keep recording so I can look it over later."
Nabiki nodded and proceeded to record Ranma standing there for 15 minutes, with no obvious effect other than her sometimes switching between standing with her eyes closed and with them open. "Definitely need to bring a tripod next time," she muttered to herself.
"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Ranma agreed, showing that she'd remained completely aware of her surroundings, as she opened her eyes and stretched. "Sorry."
"No, it's something I should have thought of. Are we done?"
"Almost. One more bout against multiple opponents, and we'll go. I may not have made much progress on that technique, but just focusing on the Avatar power like that for a while is making me feel a bit more in tune with it."
"And what does being in tune with the power mean?"
"Dunno. That's what I want to find out. Ready?"
At Nabiki's nod, Ranma leapt into action, fighting against an ever growing horde of imaginary attackers. Almost immediately, she noticed that her power came more easily, as if instead of needing to call it forth for each Light Lance, it now pooled in her hands, just waiting to be used. Punching, kicking, dodging, and leaping, she felt the joy she always did at moving with such fluid grace and power, stronger than ever from the Light flowing through her body. As she punched a phantom opponent into the air, leaping after it and sending it even higher with a kick and another punch, she had an epiphany. Reaching the top of her jump, she called more Light into her body and dropped down toward the middle of the imaginary crowd below her, focusing the power into her fist as she slammed it into the ground, releasing it into a powerful shockwave that sent dirt and small rocks flying in all directions. For a moment, she knelt there, fist against the ground, before rising and giving a short bow.
Smiling in satisfaction, Ranma stood and turned. "How did that look, Nabiki? Nabiki!"
o0o
Nabiki sat in the grassy field, bookbag beside her, gazing at the fluffy clouds drifting across the blue sky. Sighing, she reached up to her forehead to gingerly touch the plaster sitting there and winced. "Stupid rock. Stupid Avatar." With a sigh, she decided she may as well do something productive and pulled a pen and notebook from her bag.
She made notes about her thoughts and plans for a few minutes, before abruptly looking up and scanning the grass; she thought she'd caught a flicker of motion. After a moment, she decided it'd either been a small animal or her imagination and started writing again. A minute later, she noticed movement again and looked up again, this time putting down her pen and warily eyeing what was clearly a brown teddy bear walking toward her. "Maybe I should pay Doctor Tofuu a visit…"
"Miss Tendou! I've finally found you!" the teddy bear exclaimed in a high pitched male voice as it reached her.
Nabiki studied the bear before her. It, or he, she supposed, looked like a pretty typical teddy bear, standing about two feet tall and appearing to be made of fabric coated with faux fur, and presumably, stuffing. He had a black triangular fabric nose, round fabric ears, and shiny black plastic eyes, and she'd say the mouth was just a black line of stitching, except it moved when he talked, somehow not looking disturbing. A blue bow tie adorned his neck. After a long moment of consideration, she realized what she had to say.
"Sorry, never heard of her."
"Ha ha, that's very funny, Miss Tendou," the bear laughed. "I'm Buddy, and you are needed to―Save The World!"
"Buddy," Nabiki repeated flatly.
"Yep! It means fierce warrior in bear!"
"Of course it does. And you need me to 'save the world'."
"That's right! It's absolutely doomed without you!"
"And just how am I supposed to do that?" Nabiki asked, even though she already knew the answer, the signs being obvious to someone who'd grown up with Akane.
"You must become Pretty Special, magical girl extraordinaire and defender of all that's good and right!" exclaimed Buddy, jumping up and down in excitement.
"Can't someone else do it?"
Buddy stopped mid-jump, hovering in the air for a second before dropping to the ground and shaking his head solemnly. "No, it has to be you. No one else could do as good a job, and choosing the wrong person would doom everyone."
Nabiki sighed. She really didn't want to be a magical girl—that honestly seemed more Ranma's or Akane's thing. It also sounded like work, and not the kind of work that anyone ever really appreciated. On the other hand, the end of the world was almost guaranteed to be even more annoying and disruptive than becoming a magical girl.
"Fiiine," she sighed, "What do I have to do?"
"Yes!" cried Buddy, giving a little fist pump before his eyes glowed with the colors of the rainbow. "Just say, I'm Pretty Special to accept the mantle."
"I'm pretty special," Nabiki droned in a monotone.
A gentle breeze bearing the faint sound of tinkling bells and a faint smell of vanilla and cherry blossoms swept across the field and danced around Nabiki, lifting her to her feet, and gently spinning her around a few inches off the ground. For a moment the breeze seemed to caress her hair before condensing into a rust bodice with laces of different colors of the rainbow in an X pattern over a cream blouse and black pants. A moment later, an unfastened blue jacket decorated with numerous opal buttons manifested atop the blouse and bodice, and a pair of brown suede low boots formed around her feet.
Immediately after the jacket formed, her hair quickly grew longer, as each strand shifted from its usual brown to a muted color of the rainbow; once her hair reached its full length at the small of her back, it swept upwards and wove itself into a perfect halo braid atop her head. At the same time, her already perfectly trimmed short fingernails turned pearly white but remained the same size. To complete the transformation, on the back of each hand, a pendant of moonstone set in white gold appeared, connected by white gold chains to bands of white gold with a thin line of rose gold running along the middle, that formed on each middle finger and wrist.
"Not bad," Nabiki commented, looking herself over once her boots touched ground.
"Yes!" cried Buddy as enthusiastically danced around, "together, we're going to Save The World, Kasumi!"
"Hmm? I'm Nabiki."
Buddy froze mid-step with a nervous smile on his face. "T-that's really funny, Kasumi, but you really shouldn't joke about things like that."
"Why would I joke about that?" Nabiki asked, admiring her nails.
"But you can't be! I have files on you and your sisters—with pictures and everything!" Buddy exclaimed, pulling a manila folder out of thin air and thrusting it in her direction.
Nabiki took it and leafed through the papers within. "Oh, I see the problem," she said as she pulled out a sheet of paper. "The picture on my sheet came off and got stuck on top of Kasumi's."
Buddy stared as Nabiki peeled off her picture to reveal Kasumi's beneath. He looked from the sheet to Nabiki and back again a few times. He took a deep breath and then another. After a moment, he seemed to come to a decision. "Doomed!" he cried, throwing his little paws up into the air and running off.
"Heeey," Nabiki called after the fleeing bear, "how much does this magical girl gig pay, anyway?"
o0o
Pretty Special gazed across the grassy field, taking in the various burnt, frozen, shocked, and irradiated patches that now dotted it. After a moment's thought, she pointed her left index finger at a still-burning spot. One perfect fingernail glowed ice blue for an instant, and a twisting line of blue energy streaked from her fingertip, instantly freezing over the spot and extinguishing the flame. Movement at the other end of the field caught the magical girl's eye, and her pearly white fingernails flickered in various colors for an instant before she recognized the teddy bear approaching her, dragging something behind him. She crossed her arms and waited.
"I'm really sorry about running off, N-Nabiki," he said sheepishly as he set down the briefcase he'd been dragging. "I was surprised and afraid, but that was no excuse for running off or treating you so disrespectfully." He stood straight and gave her a formal bow. "I apologize for my unprofessional behavior."
"I suppose I can let it slide this time."
"Thank you for giving me a second chance!" Buddy cried, beaming at his charge. "And don't worry, because I've figured out a solution for our problem! You can give up the mantle of Pretty Special and pass it on to Kasumi! This way the world will be Saved!"
"I don't know…" Nabiki mused, "this uniform looks a lot better than I thought it would, and it is kind of nice having magical powers."
"But—but! The world! Doomed! Dooomed!" the teddy bear cried, jumping up and down and waving his arms.
Nabiki sighed. She supposed that the end of the world, along with the hassle of having to go out and fight evil, was still the more troublesome option. "Fine… What do I have to do now?"
"Just hold still and I'll do everything."
Nabiki sighed again and gave her Pretty Special outfit another look, wondering if Kasumi's uniform would look the same. She smiled faintly as she glanced at the destruction she'd caused in her brief tenure as a magical girl. Then she looked back at Buddy and her smile vanished as she took in the empty briefcase and the large revolver the magical teddy bear was raising to aim at her head. Twisting to the side, she caught Buddy with a perfect low front kick, launching the little bear and his gun into the air at high speed.
"It's for the good of the wor—" he cried before his form and his words faded in the distance.
o0o
"Pass the soy sauce, please," Akane asked from her place at the dinner table, thanking Velgri when it floated over to her.
Kasumi smiled at the lavender fox for a moment before turning to look at Nabiki with concern. "Are you sure you're all right, Nabiki? You haven't had a headache or any dizziness, have you? That was a nasty bump you got."
"I'm fine, thanks. It hasn't bothered me at all," Nabiki replied, briefly wondering if her new status as a magical girl had caused her injury to heal unusually quickly.
"You know," Ranma said, finally deciding to speak up in favor of the frowning and fidgeting he'd been doing throughout the meal, "it really isn't safe for someone untrained to be so close to a martial artist's fights, or even high level training. And that goes double for the Avatar; you never should have been at that session."
Nabiki gave him a cool look. "I'm quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you. If anyone's responsible for that rock, it's the magical girl who suddenly decided to try a new area technique without bothering to warn anyone. But don't worry, now that I know to expect that sort of thing, I'll be watching for it."
Ranma flushed briefly. "I don't know about that… Ok, maybe I should have said something first, but there are still a lot of things that can happen really fast. Maybe I should find a martial artist to do the filming."
Nabiki gave a small sniff. "They won't do nearly as good a job, and you need every advantage you can get as the Avatar. Besides, excluding me would actually make things more dangerous."
"What? How would that make things more dangerous for you?"
"I didn't say it'd make things more dangerous for me," she replied, staring him down.
o0o
Nabiki opened the door to her bedroom, trying to ignore the shouts, crashes, and sounds of flesh striking flesh and fur coming from the dojo. "How they can fight right after eating, I'll never—oh, it's you." She walked into her room and closed the door.
"I'm really, really sorry for before," Buddy said as he prostrated himself on Nabiki's bed, "I was confused, afraid, and panicking, but I understand nowthat we have to deal with the situation and make the best of things." He straightened and gave Nabiki a look of resolve. "I promise I'll train you how to use Pretty Special's powers to destroy evil."
Nabiki drummed her fingers on her arm as she gave the bear a hard look. "I suppose we can give it a shot. But no more guns."
"No more guns, I swear—I'll teach you to be the best magical girl you can be!" He nodded firmly. "And when you inevitably get killed because you're a horrible choice for Pretty Special's powers, it'll be Kasumi's turn to be the best magical she can be and save the world!"
0
"I was just trying to be supportive," the waterlogged teddy bear pouted as he struggled to make his way to the edge of the Tendou koi pond. "Who's the one whose sole purpose is to guide and support Pretty Special, anyway? Not her, that's who! No, it's Buddy, fierce warrior and expert advis…" He trailed off as a shadow fell upon him, and looked up in confusion. Buddy froze, his button eyes somehow going wide, right before a large panda's backside slammed into him at high speed.
o0o
"Nabiki…"
"No."
"Please, at least hear me out," Buddy begged as he followed Nabiki down the sidewalk on her way home from school.
"I really don't see why I should bother. And aren't you worried people are going to notice a walking teddy bear and carry him off, either to take him apart or lock him away and give him a cute French name?"
"French … name? No, that's not important. Most people won't even notice me. But please, Nabiki, let me help you. I was serious about what I said yesterday, and I'm sorry if I upset you. My duty is to assist Pretty Special, and you may not be the girl who was meant to get her powers, but that doesn't matter now. You are Pretty Special and I will aid you."
"I'm good, thanks," Nabiki said, not even slowing down. "I'm sure I can pick up what I need to on my own, and I really don't need an assistant who goes around announcing my secret identity, even if most people won't notice him."
"You do need an assis―advisor, and you can't just pick things up on your own!" screeched Buddy as he hopped up and down in rage. "You need to be taught how to sense evil and how to perform your special attacks!"
Nabiki stopped with a sigh and turned around, her bookbag managing to smack into the teddy bear who'd run to catch up with her after his brief outburst, knocking him to the ground. "I suppose I can spare some time, if you're going to make such a big deal about it… But you owe me one."
"Of course, Nabiki! Whatever you say," cried Buddy as he picked himself up. "You won't regret this! Follow me, I know the perfect place to train." As Buddy hurried to the training spot he'd found before his charge could change her mind, he frowned and wondered why, exactly, he owed her for the training but decided rocking the boat would be a bad idea.
A few minutes later, the two of them stood in a large bowl of bare dirt strewn with tire tracks, small patches of grass and weeds, mud puddles, and various pieces of trash. The area was surrounded by small hills of dirt and gravel, aside from a single dirt road that passed between two of the hills.
"You really know the best places to take a girl," Nabiki idly commented as she looked around. "Still, it is a good place to blow things up without people noticing easily. I remember this place. They were going to put up apartments here years ago, or maybe a strip mall… probably both, actually. Shortly after they started work, costs went up and they decided the other places they expected to pop up between here and existing businesses weren't going to arrive soon enough, so they pulled out and left us with this."
"That's sad," Buddy said as he gazed around the stricken area.
"It's business," Nabiki replied with a shrug. "Well, let's get this show on the road—I'm pretty special." And with the tinkling of bells and a breeze laden with the fragrance of vanilla and cherry blossoms, she was once again a magical girl.
"All right!" Buddy exclaimed, clapping his paws together, not seeming to mind that no sound was produced, "Now, it's going to take a lot of time and effort before you can actually do it, but the basic offensive manifestation of your power is the ability to shoot threads of energy from your finger—" Buddy yelped and jumped into the air as a thread of fire struck the ground between his legs.
"I already know how to do that."
"Oh… um, well, I bet you didn't know that you can change the type of energy…" Buddy trailed off as a puddle was flash frozen and electricity arced between two pieces of metal atop a trash pile.
"I already figured all that out when you ran off that first afternoon. You haven't been any help at all, so far. You're not a very good assistant, are you?"
"How-how dare you!" sputtered Buddy. "I am the advisor of Pretty Special and I know more about her powers than you ever will, little girl!"
"Ok, good luck with that," Nabiki said with a shrug as she turned and started walking toward the road.
"You want me to teach you something?" Buddy snarled. "Fine! Focus your power into your hand, like you're going to fire an attack, but let it build up. When it feels like you can't gather more, shout Special Delivery and throw the power at your target. Let's see you pull that off, Ms. I Don't Need An Advisor!"
Nabiki stopped and turned around, leveling a hooded gaze on the teddy bear for a moment. "All right." She held her right hand before her, fingers slightly curled, and focused. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, but then each fingernail, in rapid succession from pinky to thumb, glowed a different color. A second after that, a swirling translucent ball of multicolored energy formed around her hand. Nabiki's gaze snapped to a large mound of trash thirty feet away, and with a flick of her hand, she cried, "Special Delivery!" The ball of energy streaked to the mound and exploded, leaving nothing more than small pieces of trash, some smoldering, some frozen solid, and others that were simply torn to shreds.
Nabiki gazed at the destruction and then down at her hand. "Ok, I'll admit I hadn't thought of that. It should come in handy, though; I can think of lots of things to do with it…"
Buddy frowned and wondered if he'd made a terrible mistake teaching that technique in his moment of anger. "Yes, it should be very helpful in smiting evil…"
"Hm? Oh right, it should be good for that too."
Buddy whimpered softly, no longer wondering if he'd made a mistake. "R-right, we should work on dodging now. It doesn't matter how hard you can hit if you can't avoid the enemy's attacks too."
"Unless you can hit so hard you wipe them out before they even know you're there. Or you can get someone else to take their attacks, I suppose."
"Pretty Special doesn't normally resort to such tactics, Nabiki."
"Uh huh… and just out of curiosity, why were you looking for a replacement magical girl yesterday?"
"So! Dodging!" Buddy quickly exclaimed, silently clapping his stuffed paws together before hurrying about twenty feet away and producing from thin air a machine that looked like a miniature howitzer wearing a bin of tennis balls as a hat. "Once I start the machine, you just dodge the tennis balls." Buddy started to reach for the machine's switch before suddenly remembering who he was talking to. "Don't leave its field of fire or attack the machine!" As he reached for the switch again, he quickly added, "Or its operator!"
"Fine… just take all the strategy out of it, why don't you. Hey, how do you do that pulling things out from nowhere trick? That could be really handy."
"Uh, it's something each magical girl has to figure out on her own!" Buddy cried as he imagined just what sort of handy uses his charge would find for such an ability. "I'm going to start the machine. Once we get an idea how well you can dodge, I'll give direction, to practice for when I'm acting as an overwatch."
"Wait, you actually do something in fights?" Nabiki asked before quickly hopping to the left as a tennis ball rocketed at her.
"Of course! I'd hardly deserve the name Buddy if I didn't!"
Three hours later, after a grueling session of dodging insanely fast tennis balls, dodging while blasting a target, and dodging in response to Buddy's directions while wearing dark glasses, Pretty Special caught her breath and drank a cold glass of lemonade her assistant had provided. She wasn't surprised that the drink was overly sweet; it seemed to fit the whole theme this magical girl gig had going.
"You did great, Nabiki! We'll have you out looking for dang—" Seeing a flicker of color race across Pretty Special's fingernails, Buddy quickly amended his statement. "—evil to smite in no time!"
o0o
"Well, it's your own fault, Ranma, you should have known any cinematography martial artist you found would likely be a long lost fiancee," Nabiki called back over her shoulder as she headed to her room after school a few days later. Once she stepped inside and saw the teddy bear pacing on her bed, she closed the door.
"You know, I'm pretty sure other magical girls will be able to see you just fine," Nabiki remarked as she put her bookbag down beside her desk.
"You're probably right, but what are the odds we'll run into another magical girl in your house?"
Nabiki just stared at the bear for a long moment before sighing. "You really are a terrible assistant, you know."
"I'm your advisor, not your assistant!" Buddy cried before taking a deep breath and visibly reining in his temper. "But that's not important right now. I've decided you're ready for your first real patrol tonight."
"Patrolling? You didn't say this involved spending my valuable nights patrolling. Where do I turn in my logged hours afterwards? And we never did go over my hourly rate, for that matter."
"You don't have an hourly rate!" Buddy screamed, "This is a non-paying job!"
"Well, that's not very motivating," Nabiki observed as she sat down at her desk and pulled out a textbook and a sheet of paper. "What sort of benefits and perks does it have, then?"
"Magical powers and a world that isn't overrun with monsters or destroyed…?" Buddy offered slowly.
"Those are the basic job description, not perks."
"I … can bake you cookies?"
"It's a start, I suppose…"
Buddy gave a soft whine of frustration. He just knew he wouldn't be having this conversation if he'd picked either of his current charge's sisters.
o0o
Pretty Special casually walked down the moonlit street, idly looking around for anything unusual as she took a bite out of a homemade chocolate chip cookie. She decided that it was a very good cookie and wondered if she could get her personal magical girl assistant reassigned as her personal baker. Or maybe half and half, if he managed to become a better assistant.
"Nabiki," her assistant/baker's voice sounded in her ear, "I've found a salt troll under the bridge 4 blocks north and 2 east of your current location."
"Roger. Does it need help?"
"Does it need—?! No, you stu… er, no, Nabiki, we need to eliminate it."
Nabiki stretched and nibbled on her cookie. "Why?"
"Well, I thought it might be nice if we made sure it doesn't eat any pets. Or people. They're known to do both."
"Oh, I guess that makes sense. I suppose I would have known that if I had a proper guide."
"Just get over here!"
"Fine," Nabiki sighed as she finished her cookie and headed toward the bridge at a light jog.
"I'll provide an overwatch from the arch under the bridge. Salt trolls aren't too tough, but they can shoot deadly corrosive crystalline spikes. Fortunately, their aim isn't great. Okay, I see you. Approach quietly and hit it with your basic attacks when you're in range."
"Why not just blast it with a Special Delivery?"
"It's better not to use that unless you know you need to. It takes more energy and is much more noticeable by any other enemies we may have missed in the area. Also, your attacks are designed to minimize collateral damage, but they'll still hurt a bystander if we didn't notice someone in the area."
"Got it. Going in."
Pretty Special carefully approached the wide gully the bridge spanned and hopped over the guardrail, dropping down nearly fifty feet to land lightly and quietly at the bottom. Pausing briefly to look up at how far she'd jumped and grin, she quickly and quietly made her way toward the bridge, using the scattered brush and odd abandoned item for cover.
"I see it," she quietly said as she passed a large safe, of all things, that was missing a door and studied the large creature. It stood about 10 feet tall and appeared to be made of milky and jagged stone. It was holding a large truck tire, and when it took a bite out of the thing, she could barely make out teeth that looked more like little stalactites and stalagmites, illuminated by an eerie green glow spilling from the back of its gullet. Glancing upwards, she could barely make out the form of a tiny bear clinging to the arch above it. "Opening fire…"
Whipping her hand in the direction of the troll, she fired a thread of fire, quickly followed by a thread of lightning, at the troll. As the attacks streaked across the gully at it, the troll bellowed in surprise and hurled the half-eaten tire, which exploded a few feet away as it was struck by the two threads. With a roar of fury, the monster conjured crystal spikes from thin air and started hurling them at its attacker.
Nabiki jumped over the first, knocked the second out of the air with a thread of ice from her right hand, and clipped her opponent's shoulder with a thread of compressed wind when Buddy's voice urgently cried, "Left!" in her ears.
Nabiki instantly started to dodge left, only to feel a thrill of cold fear as her feet slipped on some loose pebbles and she ended up dropping to one knee with a grunt instead, only able to watch in sick fascination as a crystal shard with a slight green glow shot by, a few feet above and to the left of her. In what felt like slow motion, she turned her head and gazed at the smoking hole in the safe at head height, about three feet away in the direction she'd been told to dodge. Time snapped back to full speed as she whipped her head the other way and locked furious eyes with the wide and fearful ones of her ursine assistant. As Nabiki jumped back to her feet with a roar of her own, light of every color exploding from her body, Buddy gave a little shriek and fell from the bridge.
The salt troll paused in its attack, a feeling of dread filling it, then suddenly looked down in confusion when a teddy bear dropped into its arms. The bear stared back for a moment before a shout from across the gully had them both turn their heads back to the glowing magical girl.
"Pretty!" cried the magical girl as a multicolored ball of energy formed around her right hand. "Special!" she cried, as another ball formed around her left hand. "Delivery!" she shouted, bringing her hands together, and the two balls joined together into a giant, crackling sphere. The troll and teddy bear clutched each other in terror…
o0o
"Say, Nabiki, did you hear about that huge explosion by the bridge downtown last night?" her classmate Tomiko asked as they ate lunch on the grass outside Furinkan. "They have no idea what caused it, but apparently, there was surprisingly little damage outside of one spot on the ground."
"That's really strange," Hana remarked thoughtfully, "Maybe it was a crazy martial artist. Their attacks can be weird like that."
"It's not like there's a shortage of them around here," Nabiki agreed, then frowned as she noticed a small, oddly shaped shadow cast from around the nearby building's corner. "Excuse me a moment," she said, getting up and walking around the corner.
"Come on…" muttered Buddy as he tugged at the pull cord of the large chainsaw that sat on the ground before him.
"Let me help you with that."
"Oh, thank yo—" he said, the small hockey mask that was perched atop his head falling down to cover his face as he looked up, "o-oh, Nabiki! This i-isn't what…"
Nabiki silently pointed a finger, its nail flickering electric blue for an instant before a tiny lightning bolt shot into the chainsaw, which immediately started up with a loud snarl and started bouncing around uncontrollably. Ignoring the screaming bear, she walked back to her classmates. Huh. I didn't know I could do that…
"Nabiki…" Tomiko asked, staring past her, "What is that?"
Nabiki glanced back at the bits of stuffing and fabric flying past the corner. "Oh, a maintenance man was mowing the lawn and ran over one of those talking plushies someone left there."
"Oh, that makes sense."
"I guess…" Hana said. "I didn't think they were usually programmed to scream and cry for help, though."
"It was made by a shop in Nerima."
The other two girls nodded; that explained things.
o0o
Nabiki sat down on her bed with a sigh. Her murderous, annoying little assistant was gone, which was good. She was still Pretty Special, though, and now had no one to point her at things to kill, which was bad. Oh sure, she could totally slack off and ignore her Special abilities, like she'd made a show of doing in front of Buddy, but if the whole doom of the world thing was real, that would likely cause problems down the road. Was she actually going to have to run around in the middle of night actively searching for trouble? That sounded much more annoying than strolling around munching on home baked cookies while someone else scoured the area.
A soft noise caught Nabiki's attention, and she looked up to see a heavily stitched teddy bear stiffly and awkwardly trying to climb through her bedroom window. The tiny white flag clutched in one paw wasn't helping his pained movements. When he looked up and noticed her watching, he gave a little squawk of alarm and tumbled onto her desk, lying on his back for several seconds before slowly making his way to his hind paws and waving his white flag.
"I know you have no good reason to trust me at this point, Nabiki, but I give. I surrender unconditionally and will do my best to help you. Choosing you instead of Kasumi may have doomed the world, but it's been made painfully clear to me that doesn't matter. You're Pretty Special and I'm just a dumb bear; no matter how sneaky and how determined I get, there is no way I'll ever be able to beat you, and trying to will just make everything worse. So I'm going to do what I'm meant to do, future doom be damned, and help Pretty Special however I can, even if she understandably doesn't want me anywhere near her.
"I know I've said things like that before, and to my shame, then tried to kill you, but I never did this…" Buddy painfully dropped to one knee and bowed his head. "I swear to you, Nabiki, on my honor, my existence, and my soul, that I will do my best to help you so long as you bear the title of Pretty Special and will never attempt to do you harm unless you deliberately and willingly tell me to."
Nabiki eyed the teddy bear for a long moment as he knelt there, head bowed, and waited for her answer. "Why the part about me telling you to harm me?"
"Sometimes sacrifices need be made," Buddy whispered hoarsely into the quiet room.
"All right…" she sighed, "but if you try anything again, I really will end you."
Buddy straightened and met her gaze. "You won't have to. If I break this oath, it will end me." His serious mood faded and he beamed happily. "Oh, this feels so good! You don't know how much of a relief giving up is! No more stress worrying about the end of the world! I just have to do my job and help Pretty Special! Ooh, I have something for you!"
"Oh?
"Yeah, it's the Pretty Brooch, an item that will seriously boost your defensive abilities. I didn't give it to you before because I wanted you dead, of course, but that's not a problem anymore! Let me just limber up a bit…"
Buddy did a few stretches and carefully twisted his torso a bit, then experimentally raised and lowered each leg. Apparently deciding everything checked out, he flashed Nabiki a smile and gave her what she supposed was the teddy bear equivalent of a thumbs up before crouching then jumping into the air and performing a clumsy backflip. In the middle of his flip, a rose gold brooch appeared beneath him and shot across the room at high speed. Nabiki saw a flash of gold, then stars, and as everything went black, heard a worried, "Oops!"
oOo
Nabiki groaned and gingerly touched her aching forehead, feeling a damp cloth resting atop it. Wincing slightly, she opened her eyes, and seeing she was stretched out on her bed in her dimly lit room, sat up.
"Oh, you're awake," Kasumi said as walked carrying a tray with a pitcher of water, a glass, and a fresh damp cloth. "How are you feeling? Ranma said that rock hit you pretty hard."
"Rock?"
"Apparently a rock hit you in the forehead when you were recording her this morning. She was very worried; she rushed you right over to Doctor Tofuu's clinic and then brought you here to rest."
"This morning…? Yeah, I remember that. What did Tofuu say?"
"He said you just needed to rest. Would you like some water, or maybe some tea?"
"Tea, please, and I'm feeling ok. A bit of a headache, though."
"Here," Kasumi said, pouring a glass of water and giving it to Nabiki along with a couple of aspirin. "I'll go get the tea."
Nabiki took the aspirin then walked over to her desk and put down the empty glass before staring out into the night. "A dream… but it felt so real." She looked down at her fingernails and concentrated, but nothing happened. "I'm pretty special," she whispered, feeling that, somehow, something should happen, but nothing did. "I'm pretty special," she repeated a bit louder, willing a change to occur.
Slender arms slipped over her shoulders and lightly squeezed her. "And don't you forget it."
"Thanks, Kasumi…"
