"... You know, that is one hell of a good question" Ryan muttered to himself, trying to sort out what had actually happened. The naga's glaring continued unabated.
Nabiki restrained her hostility for several minutes while the combative Pokegirl handler leafed through pages on his handheld 'Pokedex' (whatever that was) and mumbled to himself. As she continued to comfort the sleeping bat-chimera Ranma was currently trapped as, she fumed and fretted until she finally burst out with a snarled "Look, you bastard, I've got to ..." 'take my sister's MALE fiance home' was what she had intended to say until Ryan snapped back at her.
"Alright, that is ENOUGH" he barked. "We're going to get precisely nowhere until you grant me at least the provisional status of something other than the asshole of the universe."
"Give me a reassson to," her hissed snarl only added to her rage and frustration.
Ryan clamped his eyes shut with his palms and groaned into them for a few seconds. Possibly the only thing that could have short-stopped Nabiki's growing horror and frustration was the visible pain and remorse in his eyes when he finally dropped his hands. Ranma stirred, fretting and muttering in her sleep in Nabiki's lap, and as the naga soothed her companion back into a less restive state, her own calculating nature began to assert more control. She desperately needed more information to work with.
"Look," Ryan started, begging. "Will you at least hear me out before you rip my heart out of my chest?" Nabiki visibly gritted her teeth and, reluctantly, nodded. She was careful to maintain the heat of her glare, though.
"Guess I have to be happy with that." Ryan swept his hair back and began. "First, it's almost gruesomely apparent this is NOT the world I ate breakfast in this morning. I've heard of this sort of thing, 'dimensional travel', but never in my worst nightmares did I ever think I would get dragged into it. In my defense, until we spoke, I didn't have any solid evidence of it. When I came to, the first thing I saw looked to me like the aftereffects of a very bad Threshold event, and I simply reacted to it in the only way I had with the intent of minimising the damage. Pokegirls, even the kindest and gentlest of them, are at heart bio-engineered weapons of mass destruction. How many Ferals have I put down? One is too many, 'cause here's the rest of the tale, sweetheart ... for something between one and three CENTURIES, there was NO human society." Ryan's glare had almost matched Nabiki's by this point.
"Keep talking" was the naga's only response.
"No one knows exactly what happened when the first Pokegirls showed up," Ryan continued. "Other than a few enclaves which figured out how to Tame at least a few of them and turn them on their sisters, or some hole-in-the-wall outposts simply too remote to reach, every major country was hit almost simultaneously. We literally do not know how long it took to start stitching things back together, and by the time we did manage it, Sukebe's 'backup plan' was in full effect. First, Pokegirls ARE fertile with humans, and their genetics are dominant in the "X" gene-lines; second, something about eigther Pokegirls themselves, or their initial delivery method could, and did, make otherwise normal human females, girls and women both, go through what we came to call Threshold, where a Pokegirl's genetics suddenly burst into full expression, if they didn't slowly manifest as she grew up. Could they have simply eliminated Pokegirls from the start? Maybe ... if enough of human society had been able to hold together to realise the true danger they were in. But by the time we had enough data to spot that trend, it was already too late. These were our sisters, our lovers, our mothers and daughters ..." Ryan choked up at that point, tears beginning to stream down his own face. Nabiki kept up the Ice Queen mask ... but she had to admit to herself, it took work. Sensing, perhaps, a slight thaw in her manner, Ryan got himself back under control and continued.
"What I did, what Tamers do, is the 'boots-on-the-ground' response level. An Amazonchan can bench-press between five and eight tonnes, an Amazonlee's fists and feet regularily exceed the sound barrier at ground level ... something like what THAT looked like to me is a five-alarm emergency, if it isn't handled right, and right now, euthanasia is the least of our worries." Ryan trailed off, seeing Nabiki about to hit rolling boil.
The naga had never more passionately wished she had trained in the Art than she did right at that moment. The only thing that kept her from leaping at Talbot with homicidal intent was Ranma in her lap, and the knowledge that she didn't have a clue just how strong a fighter the Tamer was on his own, or what other resources he could bring into play. Her voice was hard enough to cut glass as she hissed out "But we WEREN'T Pokegirls, were we?"
Ryan hung his head in shame. "And that is the problem here. What I did, the techniques I used, are, like, basic First Aid. I deliberately stayed away from the mental disciplines, and only went so far as to try and take the edge off, give her a reason to continue that didn't involve mayhem. A Pokeball's training circuits, in a situation like that, are set to effect a superhuman biological weapons system trapped in a hormonal overload. What they did to a basically human girl, whatever her combat level ... frankly, I'm ecstatic she came out alive." Between his visible remorse and the trembling of his hands, Nabiki decided he'd earned a pass.
"Provisional status as human being ... granted," she said, frost still in her voice, but concern for the bat-girl bleeding through. Ryan simply nodded his gratitude. "I still think you should have taken a couple minutes to assess the situation, but I don't have your cultural baggage, and maybe," and here she amped her glare all the way back up to 'I want to eat your lungs, liver and kidneys' level, "MAYBE ... you did the best you could think of." After pouring on the burn for a full minute, during which the Tamer sweated a few well-deserved bullets, and backed down again. "But if you do anything to make me change my mind ... I'm telling her mother." Ryan blanched, trying to think of something that could intimidate the extremely formidable (in appearance) naga. What he doesn't know can't hurt ... me, Nabiki thought to herself as she continued to soothe Ranma's dreams with slow strokes on her hair. "Which still begs the question ... exactly how do you intend to turn her, or him, loose?"
Talbot straightened his back and tried to step on his growing unease. "I honestly don't know, Ms. Tendo. If she actually were a Pokegirl, it would be very easy. Like I said, I didn't even try for the full psychic bond, and without a solid anchor with me, just offering her to you while she was listening, and your acceptance, should be enough. But that isn't what we are dealing with here at all. From what you've told me, this is more of a situation where she's bound HERSELF to the first kind hand she's ever known. How to deal with that? I don't have a clue"
(Posted Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:50)
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