“You’re going to defend the boys!?” a surprised voice said from over their heads, and a second later, Ranma-chan dropped from the tree above them.
Ranma was looking more than a little rumpled, her shirt was buttoned crookedly and her hair had dead leaves and twigs tangled in it. Her lips also looked suspiciously swollen and her complexion was more than a little flushed. All details Nabiki took in at a glance, and that Akane missed completely. “What are you doing here, Ranma? Like that?” she demanded, and an instant later said, “Don’t tell me. I don’t care. We have to get to the Amazon’s before they are run off or defeated by someone else. I have to fight one of them!”
Ranma grabbed hold of Akane’s arm, while doing her best not to look at Akane’s naked charms. “Fight an Amazon! Are you nuts? Why would you want to do that?”
“Am I nuts? Are you nuts!? Why wouldn’t I want to fight an Amazon? Can you think of a better way to get a free slave?”
“Free slave?” Nabiki suddenly asked, moving her glowering gaze away from Ranma-chan’s back, and the dirt and litter collected there, and toward her sister.
“Oh come on. I know you know about that,” Akane said in exasperation. “Why don’t you quit covering for the sex-changing dummy and just say ‘she’ doesn’t know?” Akane turned to face an indignant Ranma and explained. “Look, if you defeat an Amazon, you get her as a slave, free, just for beating her. And Amazon’s bring, or used to bring, top dollars at auction. Not that I’d ever dream of selling her.”
“Why not? Nabiki asked, her eyes showing yen signs.
Akane obviously found this question to be more in character for Nabiki and addressed her directly. “There is more in life than money, Nabiki. Besides, daddy would get most of it. Just think. If I can beat an Amazon, and take her as a slave for my family, all the top fighters will hear about it and want to challenge me. They’ll know I’m worth the effort, and there is the chance that the Amazon might get thrown in with me in the bargain if they win. I”ll have loads and loads of challenges,” she finished, her eyes starry. She directed a look at Ranma-chan and added. “So I won’t have to wait for some people to find their balls and give me a decent challenge.”
Akane trotted toward the gate, and this time Ranma made no effort to stop her. In truth, Ranma was finding the sight of Akane’s bare ass a bit distracting, and she couldn’t help but wonder what Ukyou’s bare rear would look like. Would it be as tanned as the rest of her? A sudden hard, and painful impact on the top of her head drove those thoughts out of her mind.
“Ouch, what the heck did you do that for?” she demanded, whirling to face Nabiki who was scowling at her. Akane stopped and scowled back at the two of them, torn between chasing after her battle, and watching a potential cat-fight. The fact that no one really knew where the Amazon’s were at the moment decided the matter. Defending the boys was just regulation, and had nothing to do with where the Amazon’s had been seen. In fact, seeing as how she could hear no alarm from the boy’s side, it was possible the Amazon’s were on the school ground somewhere. She was as likely at the moment to run into the Amazon here as anywhere.
Nabiki didn’t look the least little bit cowed by Ranma’s anger, she scowled at her and demanded, “You want to tell me how you got all mussed up, ‘Master.”
Ranma looked taken aback, and blushed heavily under Nabiki’s angry gaze. Nabiki’s eyes narrowed even further as it became obvious that Ranma was scrambling for an answer. A clear indication that there was nothing innocent in how she had gotten in that shape. And even as she thought that, her eyes flew wide. “You didn’t. Not with a boy!” she exclaimed in shock.
“No!” Ranma protested, at the top of her lungs. “That’s disgusting! I’d never do that!” She said with reduced volume, but equal venom.
Nabiki believed her, not so much because of Ranma’s words, as her body language, and her own experience with Ranma. But that left . . .”You bitch! You break that stupid bond, leaving me feeling like my guts are freezing, and get it on with some slut!”
“It ain’t like that,” Ranma protested. “Ukyou took me by surprise . . .”
“There you are, sugar.” Had me worried there for a while. See you escaped the silly twats,” Ukyou announced as she emerged silently out of the trees. She ran her eyes appreciatively up and down Nabiki’s body and asked, “who’s your friend?”
Nabiki bit her lip just in time. She couldn’t believe she had been about to say she wasn’t Ranma’s friend, but her slave, just as in her own world she would have said she was Ranma’s wife or girlfriend. This world was really starting to mess up her mind. Before she had a chance to think of some other reply, they were interrupted yet again.
“There she is, there’s the Amazon!” a shrill voice cried out. A crowd of girls, lead by a girl dressed in the tattered remains of an overly frilly dress burst from the trees. It was the leader who had yelled out, and who was now pointing directly at Ranma.
“You’re the Amazon?” Akane exclaimed.
Tsubasa interpreted Akane’s expression of disappointment and annoyance as disgust at finding a viper in her midst. “That’s right. She attacked me in the forest.”
“You did it with that?” Nabiki asked in incredulity. Looking Tsubasa up and down.
“Are you kidding me, she’d give me diabetes,” Ranma exclaimed. Drawing blank looks from everyone but Nabiki.
“Don’t be an idiot, Ranma isn’t an Amazon,” Akane said.
Nabiki, feeling vindictive, and seeing a chance to direct a little payback toward Ranma, said, “I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Akane. What do we know about her? She was in China. We know that. Maybe the real Ranma was replaced by an Amazon? We only have her word and her father’s for how the curse works. What if it works the opposite of the way she says.” Nabiki cheerfully ignored Ranma’s frantic hand gestures to shut up about the curse.
Akane’s eyes widened at that. “You’re right.” She directed a penetrating look at Ranma who stopped waving her hands in the air and gave Akane an incredulous look.
“What curse would that be?” A young voice asked.
“Conan . . . I mean, whatever do you mean little boy,” Ranma said, stumbling over her words.
“Oh, real smooth, Saotome,” Nabiki said, rolling her eyes.
“Well, you’re not exactly helping,” Ranma snapped at her.
“Enough talk, let’s get the Amazon,” Tsubasa shouted as she tried to goad her followers into attacking. Her followers didn’t move. Tsubasa was a known hysteric, and Ranma was not really all that impressive looking at the moment, and wasn’t doing anything Amazon like.
“Lets not,” Ukyou said, a dangerous tone in her voice as she stepped next to Ranma and wrapped the startled girl in a protective embrace.
For a fraction of a second Ranma felt pleasure at Ukyou’s move, and comfort in her defense, and then old reflexes shoved aside new inclinations and she shoved herself free of Ukyou’s arm. “I don’t need no protection from anything, least of all them,” she said in a firm voice.
For a second Ukyou looked hurt, but then a rather predatory look appeared on her face, and she smoothly said. “Sorry, sugar. You’re right. You don’t need anyone . . . to fight for you.” left unsaid, but implied strongly by posture and tone, was that Ranma needed someone for something else, and that Ukyou had every intention of being that someone.
Having good instincts, but sucking at reading sub-text, Ranma rather nervously regarded Ukyou before saying. “Damn right.”
Nabiki on the other hand was very, very, good at hearing unspoken words, and she narrowed her gaze venomously as she stared at Ukyou. The taller more muscular girl ignored her daggers gaze. She had eyes only for Ranma.
Akane, in the meantime, was still mulling over Nabiki’s teasing words of earlier. Akane wasn’t stupid, but she tended to focus her thoughts along a very narrow path. That could be good in some circumstances, but downright disastrous when lateral thought was required. How did they know Ranma wasn’t an Amazon? They only had her word that she was who she said she was. If it was possible to turn a boy into a girl, why wouldn’t it be possible to turn a girl into a boy? And why not some specific boy? Now that she thought about it, Ranma was freakishly good at the martial arts. Everyone knew that boys had a natural talent for fighting, but lacked the discipline to gain proficiency at an early age. Akane had always expected to be beat by some man twice or three times her age with lots of practical experience. On the other hand, if she was really an Amazon, that would explain her talent. First, she could be much older than she claimed, and even if she as old as she said, everyone knew that Amazon’s made a fetish out of fighting. Only warriors were full citizens in their culture.
All this while, Conan had been standing quietly in the background, observing. Ranma’s ability to change gender was indisputable. He’s seen it with his own eyes. In the last year he had researched transformation magic exhaustively. To do what Ranma did took major magic. Conan glanced at his jacket collar, where a special magical emblem was embroidered. Designed to react in the presence of demonic magic. It was not reacting in the least, meaning that Ranma’s change was not demonic in origin. A glance at the other side of his collar showed no evidence of sacred magic. So that left mortal magic. And Conan had never heard or read of a spell that could do what Ranma did. And that meant the magic that was doing it was not native to Japan.
Conan had heard Nabiki mention that Ranma had been in China, confirming something Ranma had himself had mentioned. Everyone knew that the Amazon’s were highly advanced in the magical arts. Was Ranma really an Amazon? Casually he pulled a large pocket watch out of his jacket pocket and held it so the small knock-out dart inside it was pointed at Ranma.
Ranma was sweating nervously in the middle of a ring of people who were all looking at her calculating looks. She felt like the last sale item in a bargain bin. A reference culled from her one and only time shopping with Kasumi.
The tableau held for a few seconds, and then.
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(Posted Sun, 31 Oct 2004 19:28)
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