Warning: I am writing this fic without a plan and without even a slightest idea where it would lead. Just for fun. There is noending planned, unlike my any other fics. The chance it just stalls and is never finished is 95percent.
The key events off-screen, beginning with Chapter 6, will be decided by rolling a d20 dice. The results of which will become known to the reader N chapters later, where N is a number equal to or greater than 1. With the sole exception of the first roll to determine if (yes), and how (sore wa himitsu desu), Nabiki Tendou gets isekaied along.
Chapter 1Unfamiliar ocean
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
The sea is unnaturally, deadly still. The rare cumulus clouds froze over the horizon under the scorching rays of the tropical sun. The mirror-like surface of the boundless sea is only broken by a dark-skinned girl in a striped bikini swimming somewhere tiredly. A long ponytail of purple hair streams along her back neraly reaching her calves. It is held up by a golden flute-like ornament at the back of her head. Her pointy ears are laden with golden rings.
The girl's movement becomes more and more anemic, her breast strokes turning into weak struggles. Her head dips, her arms and legs relax as she sags slowly in the water...
Only to jerk awake clawing her way back to the surface coughing and sputtering.
"Aw... I fell asleep again," comments Shantae, a half-Genie from the Sequin Land who got into yet another pickle because her skill of fulfilling people's wishes is abysmal and her understanding of the process is mostly guesswork. "How much further does this still zone go?"
She begins swimming on in anemic breast strokes keeping the sun to her left, snorting the bitingly salty ocean water out and then ducking her head again.
"Whose wish acted up to make me plop down amidst open sea...? Maybe someone wished me adventure...? But, one, this is not exciting at all, you can die from boredom here. Two, this begins looking less than an adventure and more like a survival endurance test. I'm swimming since morning and met nothing but water! Or is there some trick to this...? So confusing. Hmm, let me think—maybe I myself did something wrong?"
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
The time for a farewell came—bitter but necessary. She went through so much with her friends, saving the Sequin Land together, beating the most terrifying boss in the human memory. But the Nerima Wrecking Crew had their own home and relatives waiting for them...
But most importantly, feeding a crew that big was not possible anymore. The circus they had organized that helped them live in style at first, had puttered out coming the storm season. The surrounding dungeons were scraped clean, their bosses either on the run or underwent heel-face turns. The monsters grew scarce as well, some moving out, others running out of supplies for creating crowds of shikigami clones. There were no vacancies for unskilled labor in the surrounding areas. To top it all, Shantae herself was jobless, the rent for her lighthouse two months due.
"Is everyone concentrating?" Shantae asked them. "Are you ready? Do you remember you need to think of what you want to return to, not try thinking you are in the wrong place?"
The Nerimans confirmed, one after another, they were going to return home. Well, that or follow each other: wishes are treacherous things, even made from a honest heart and fulfilled by a light Genie.
Her friends stood around Shantae in a circle, her standing with her arms raised and her eyes closed.
Squeezed into the narrow space below the floorboards, her hat gathering dust, Risky Boots also crawled closer to her eternal nemesis. Her grin was threatening to split her face.
"And the two of us, half-Genie brat, are after a whole new world waiting for us, full of deadliest dangers and mind-boggling adventures. Come on, we both outgrew this kiddie pool. Enough stewing in the Sequin Land. Wider! Look wider! Dare to challenge a whole world, with new friends you'd surely make. Me, I'm going to make sure you are never bored."
"Hhhaaahhhh!" Shantae breathed a shout out making everyone lit up with brilliant outlines. Even if Ranma had time to notice a painfully familiar silhouette in a pirate hat outlined through the floorboards, he did not have time to do anything about it. Shantae snapped her fingers thunderously. The world was washed out in white light.
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
Shantae had been swimming for many hours now, taking a break at times, floating on her back squinting under the bright and hot tropical sun. Then swimming on again. The water surface was maddeningly monotone, flat like a mirror. There was not a smallest wind, no slightest swell. Are things like this real?
Having plopped down in the middle of a boundless water mirror she was stumped at first. Then made her peace with the fact: so, someone's wish acted up. It could not have been evil, only from pure heart. But wishes are treacherous little things... Maybe Nabiki wished her more adventures? Who could tell now. She could only swim, having put her clothing away into the Ki pocket to remain in only the striped bikini, to avoid the trousers slowing her down.
She was confused where to head, at first. But then she vaguely remembered something about calm belts in the ocean. Which, if she wasn't mistaken, stretch along the equator. So it was better to swim across, to leave this belt sooner. Because any sailing ship that gets into this sea would stay here forever until everyone onboard dies of thirst and it turns into a ghost ship. Brrrr...
Thus Shantae was swimming north, her arms and legs pushing rhythmically in a frog-like manner.
Swimming was boring. She had surfaced, sputtering, about five times already because of simply falling asleep as she swam.
Hours stretched into hours. The sun to her left began dipping towards the horizon painting the water mirror in flashes of orange. The girl had long fallen into a mindless rhythm moving forward slowly, saving her strength. The sun set unhurriedly and darkness fell. Dead tired, Shantae kept swimming north. What else could she do? Not curl up and drown, for sure.
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
Mimic was sitting with Shantae's friends in his workshop wondering where could she have gotten whisked away to, again. And most importantly: why? The Nerimans didn't strike him as people who'd wish his niece spirited away. She could not fulfill her own wishes.
So who in the hells...?
But, maybe, that was for the best. Ammo Town has lost all semblance of Scuttle Town at this point. Ammo Baron wasn't going to renew Shantae's contract, he even stopped making dirty suggestions. The town simply had no need for a Guardian Genie anymore: the ammonian soldiers, the oafs they were, still managed getting rid of the dark scarecrows for good making the fields safe all day round.
Shantae had no income to pay for the rent of her lighthouse. Not with her habit of living in style. She was going to lose her home either way, this chapter of her life came to an end. A new road awaited her, and searching for a new place under the sun.
But should it happen so radically, with her being whisked away to parts unknown?
There was a knock at the door.
The old man opened it, and was taken aback: there was a... Tinkerbat shuffling awkwardly on the threshold, holding out a letter in a fancy envelope.
Mimic took the missive, aghast, and the tar-black midget skedaddled leaving a dust trail.
The expressions on the youngsters' muzzles were so impatient he had to open the envelope before reaching the table.
To Mimic and all those landlubbers thinking themselves friends of the half-Genie brat. Don't bother guessing where she is and what went wrong. When she was sending those bozos back home to Nerima, I was slinking nearby. The simpleton, without realizing it, fulfilled my wish as well! Oh yes! It was me wishing her to be sent away to an alien, dazzlingly dangerous world full of merciless pirates and titanic sea monsters. Oh-ho-ho, I wished her to land in their very nesting grounds! With only the open ocean for hundreds of miles in all directions, swarming with those things and never a ship in sight because it's always deadly still there!
Mimic's heart nearly had it, so the friends had to resuscitate him and lay him down on a couch with a cold compress on his head.
Rottytops continued reading:
Why, you ask? For the sake of pure evil, of course! Besides, I am curious how exactly would she escape drowning, alone in the middle of the ocean, without a foothold to dance her mermaid transformation. Well, the sea monsters would simply fail to notice her: she is so tiny!
"Ouch... That is too... Too brutal," Sky said, beside herself from worry. "Even for Risky. Is there anything we could do?"
"Another world," Mimic moaned clutching at his beard. "Other than Genie magic... There are no mentions of anything else. No way for us to reach her. Oh, Shantae..."
Rotty continued reading:
I, on my part, am too, going to leave this overcrowded kiddie pool you call Eucumene—but I will do it in style. Part of my wish was creating a link to that world, for me and my mobile fortress. I am going after her, to vie for that world's domination! Nothing more, nothing less! You have a week to join the ranks of my minions. Don't be late for the rise of the Clockwork Moon!
P.S. There will be no mercy. You botch up, you walk the plank. You try betraying me, well, your pathetic struggle would amuse me. But I'd gut you like a fish anyway.
Risky Boots, former Queen of Seven Seas, future Emperor of the sea.
"I... I can't." Sky wilted. "I can't abandon my friends of the feather, I am not strong enough, but most importantly... I can't work for this villain. We'd clash over something for sure, and off with my head."
"I... I'd better not," Bolo proclaimed, sounding depressed. "I thought I was strong, but those Ranma and Ryouga... They showed me how much farther I have to go. I think... I think she'll find new friends there, as strong as those folks from Nerima. I... I'd only get in the way."
"Nonsense," Rotty rebuffed. "Strength, you got it. There's a different problem. You won't survive long as Risky's minion because you will botch something up for sure. And they'll lop your head off!" She grinned merrily as she tore her head off with one hand by the hair.
Bolo's face soured: he wasn't as bad as the greeny was hinting. Right?
"What about you?" Sky asked Rotty.
The other girl just grinned instead of replying, her eyes sparkling with mischief.
"That's it?" Sky bristled. "You'd elope alone, leaving us to explain it to your brothers? No way! We don't abandon our friends!"
"Right-o!" Bolo shook off his stupor. "One for all and all for one!"
Mimic just groaned weakly into his beard. Foreseeing having to nurse the unhatched eggs, to explain things to the brutal bros duo and to finish whatever subcontracts Bolo had going for the Ammo Baron—all by himself.
Also, worrying about Shantae in an alien, terrible world and about those three young fools minioneering for a dangerous, unpredictable pirate.
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
Resting yet again, floating spread-eagled on her back, Shantae saw the stars here were entirely unfamiliar. Even the moon looked different. Notably, also different from those in Ranma's world.
She woke up an umpteenth time from water going up her nose. She began stroking forward tiredly, hoping she haven't lost the direction to the north.
The tropical night passed under starlight in a monotonous rhythm of stroking. The girl fell into a trance of sorts, not even recognizing at first that the sun was above the horizon. Of course she lost her direction—thankfully, just a little.
Stopping, Shantae took a jug with fresh water from her ki pocket, took a good gulp and put it back. There was no threat of thirst yet, she had enough water. The exhaustion and the lack of sleep, on the other hand, were bothering her. She also felt quite chilly: water along the surface grew cool through the night. She had a constant urge to dive and warm herself: water was pleasantly warm just a bit deeper. She took out a bento box but had to set it floating in front of her and eating with her hands: the fork fell from her fingers numb from the cold and sank with a farewell silvery flash, like a little fish.
And forth again, across the mirror of the ocean blazing with sunrise. Catch the rhythm and zone out trying to warm herself with motion. Because her only alternative was going nuts from sheer boredom. Swim, swim, swim—there was nothing else to do here.
The sun was hanging in the zenith and the warmed up Shantae was floating lazily on her back, having lost her direction until the luminary goes down a bit marking the west. Wait. There was something wrong with the horizon.
The watery mirror was distorting, bulging up in a flat hill. Shantae eeped turning belly down to swim desperately against the current. A maelstrom! An eruption! All hands on deck!
Then water flowed away streaming around her, leaving her on mossy rocks of a bluff that rose from the sea suddenly. Shantae froze crouching on her hands and knees, looking around wildly.
A part of the cliff face in front of her began splitting apart, opening, yawning... Revealing an eye that was ten times as wide as she was tall!
"Yikes," the half-Genie squeaked looking around. Turns out, she was on the muzzle of a beast of unbelievable proportions that surfaced right under her! Compared to this one, even Giga Lummox was a gnat!
The eye shifted scanning the horizon, not noticing a speck right in front of it.
Calmly now, don't panic! A giant sea monster wasn't just a terror and a risk to be swallowed of crushed without being noticed. It was a firm surface as well, a chance to dance!
The giant eye began shifting around, perceiving that something was there, trying to focus.
Here, a dark-skinned girl in a striped bikini with incredibly long purple hair gathered int a ponytail at the back of her head with a golden flute-like ornament, her flexible body swaying and undulating in a dance, her eyes closed and her features reflecting concentration.
Poof! A powder-blue harpy appears in her place in a cloud of lavender sparks, half girl, half bird, feathered entirely from her back but only below her waist from her front. The feathers on her head form something to a hairdo licked back. Taking an awkward running start mincing her scaly chicken feet, she flaps her wings that are her arms, pushes off and flies away doing her best to take cover behind the back of the sea monster's head. Her flight is uneven, she has to flap incessantly not to lose her attitude: human proportions aren't the best for a flying creature.
Phew. Now it won't notice her for sure. Shantae kept climbing until her arms screamed at her. The monstrosity turned out to be a real sea serpent that poked its neck out of the water—and it was scary to even think how long was its body stretching down below. Flying away in a random direction she kept glancing back at the Lord of these seas, but it only stood in place passively for awhile, like a bobber, before sinking back into the depths.
What should she do now? Fear has many eyes, her only thoughts had been of not wanting to be eaten at the moment. But, in hindsight, tigers don't prey on houseflies. She could not cross the sea as a harpy, her arms wouldn't last that long. Sooner or later she would plop down and revert to her human form. Then it would be swimming again without knowing. Why, just why haven't she transformed into a mermaid! That would have allowed her checking the bottom, and having a good long sleep just hanging still in the water, and avoid worrying about fresh water. But most importantly, the mermaid swims how many times faster? She was soo angry at herself.
But regret doesn't help make things better. Shantae started examining the sea below, having decided to get at least some use out of her wrong transformation choice.
There was nothing but water, still as a mirror creased with a barely perceptible swell. She couldn't even asses her attitude, there was nothing for the eye to catch on. But she should see for tens of miles from such a height!
This survival exercise was coming out harsh.
She was exhausted, more gliding than flapping her arms—the harpy wasn't much better at gliding than a chicken—when she noticed some sort of speck on the boundless mirror of the still sea.
She flew in that direction with redoubled effort ignoring the pain in her aching arms through clenched teeth. The speck turned into a chip, the chip turned into a broken off mast, a leftover from a shipwreck long ago overgrown with barnacles and bleached by the sun.
Too tired to brake, Shantae simply dropped her transformation and dropped ramrod straight from about ten fathoms high. To swim back towards the surface lazily from the cool depth, watching the shade of her find against the sky that was distorted like though a lens.
The first twenty minutes she was lazing blissfully sprawled on hard wood, scorched by sun. Nearly fell asleep regardless. Don't sleep, concentrate! She wasn't at risk of a sunburn because she sunned so much not long ago that she gained chocolate complexion. But sleeping here could still ruin her suntan's uniformity! Which would be horrible!
Yawning, Shantae grabbed a jug of olive oil from her ki-pocked to oil herself again. It must have worn off in two days of swimming. But the oil wasn't enough to sleep for several hours in direct sunlight! That required real sunscreen, horrifyingly expensive so Shantae ran out of it long ago: her finances were on a record low as of lately. She didn't even have any healing potions left.
No, in order to sleep she'd have to wait for the night... Or should she sleep underwater, in the mast's shadow?
One quick dance later Shantae became a mermaid. Giving out a satisfied gurgle—the half girl, half fish was unable to speak outside of water—she crawled off the hot mast and submerged. She nearly fell asleep right then, lulled by the quiet calm. But the memory of the sea serpent was itching, disturbing. What if one swallows her off-hand, without noticing? Besides, curiosity demanded she checks the bottom.
Her webbed arms flat against her sides—unlike the traditional mermaids her mermaid form was covered in scales all over, the tail was only differing in color—she began working her tail giving rest to her arms, heading down into the depth pleasantly cool on her gills. Shantae haven't really figured out why her hair, dark blue in this form, was gathered into a complex hairdo crowning the back of her head. Maybe, from a subconscious desire for it not to get in her face the first time she transformed?
There was no bottom. She kept swimming down until it was pitch dark and suspicious motion from all around began registering on her fish senses, the pressure-perceiving lateral lines. Deciding it wasn't worth it she swam back towards the surface.
The sun, meanwhile, got already high in the sky. She thought of taking the mast with her to always have a means of transforming. Well, to fly away from another gigamaw, for starters. Or to transform again if she drops her transformation absently. But the mast was so huge the mermaid would turn into a snail. While she already knew she had dozens of miles to cross. Break a piece off with an elephant stomp? Wouldn't work, this salty piece of flotsam endured worse.
With a final resigned glarg Shantae abandoned it to head swiftly north, working her tail, keeping a couple fathoms below the surface and only surfacing from time to time to check her direction by the sun. In a couple hours she made, most likely, more headway than in the whole previous day!
On one her surfacing, her weary eyes nearly missed something interesting. Namely, a small white ship stranded amidst the still mirror of the ocean, its sails hanging limp!
The only thing that held her from crying for attention was the skull-and-bones sign. The black flag was hanging limply, but it was also drawn on the main sail, from side to side.
On one hand, pirates. On the other hand, she felt like banging her head against a wall from boredom and loneliness.
Wait... Was that a copse of trees on the ship? So uncharacteristic for pirates.
Her further musing was interrupted in the most painful way when someone on the ship cast a fishing line with a shout of joy. The hook and the bobber flew far from a powerful swing, and of course, this contraption whipped Shantae around her ribs, the hook biting her right in a gill slit.
She panicked trying to pull the stuck hook out, which made the line taut and the bobber sink.
So those on the other end pulled with incredible might!
Gargling with bugged eyes, disoriented completely, she was being whipped around clutching the line with both her hands. Then flying, the sea and the sky spinning around her dazzlingly.
"A huge one‼！" a boyish voice exclaimed in the Sun language.
"Dumbass, էտჵ mermaid!" an older guy snapped at him.
Then there was a crash and a pile-up of bodies and she failed to hold her transformation reverting back into a girl.
"Boys, վյ ნე ᛎაբյლი, ღდѧմյ жափჵդիმռა?" a doubling, blurring girl with short orange hair inquired hanging upside down under an upturned balcony, leaning on the rail.
Judging by her tone reminiscent of a blade coated in honey, someone would get their just desserts now. But why were her words sounding like gibberish to Shantae?"
She could blame the sun baking her head. But more likely it was an unfamiliar language. Again.
Why are things never easy...
( ｡ シーンブレイク ｡)
January 2019. Last correction March 14, 2025. Translated to English Jan 2025.
d20 dice rolls in this chapter:
(6). Nabiki Tendou (redacted).