“One.”
In the area of Tokyo known as Juuban, there existed a small warehouse. It appeared somewhat dilapidated and most casual passers-by assumed it was abandoned, but those most familiar with the area knew otherwise. It was a location that even the criminal element had learned to give a wide berth. Too many would-be thieves ended up in the hospital whenever they tried to break in. Just who owned it remained a mystery, as the few who tried to determine its ownership found themselves lost in a maze of dummy corporations and proxy holdings. Certainly the only person ever seen entering and leaving it was far too young to afford the place, especially given the price of land in the city.
Yes, the only person ever seen entering or leaving the building was a young schoolgirl. The criminal element had also learned to give her an equally wide berth. The first thug to attempt to take advantage of her seeming vulnerability had barely laid a hand on the girl before making acquaintance with enough volts to light a small town. He had awakened much later still smoldering and had quickly moved to safer territory. He was the lucky one. The second (and last) time the young schoolgirl was attacked was at the orders of a young up-and-coming yakuza boss who just knew that the girl must be the key to quick riches from whoever owned the mysterious warehouse. He and his men had surprised her from behind and knocked her out with a quick blow to the head.
Exactly what happened after that, the local criminal element didn’t know. What was known was that the girl was later seen going about her business entirely unharmed. The ambitious yakuza boss and his henchmen were later located here and there down by the docks. Well, it was thought that all the bits had been located.
“Two.”
Had anyone managed to get inside the warehouse, they would have been amazed. True, the front part still remained mostly unaltered, providing bulk storage space for the owner. Some of this storage space was clearly laid out for storing vehicles, although no vehicles were yet present. The small apartment attached to the rear of the warehouse also wouldn’t have raised too many eyebrows. Although small, it provided the basic amenities of life.
No, what would have surprised the observer would have been the middle part. Filling over half of the former warehouse was a gleaming workshop filled with all manner of electronic and mechanical apparatuses. Had the hypothetical observer possessed enough scientific background to recognize the equipment, he would have been even more amazed. Much of the equipment was of such advanced design that even major research labs would have been hard put to acquire them!
Within this room, looking vastly out of place, was a young girl in a school uniform.
“Three.”
Ami was intent on her current project. One of the things she liked about her school was that the teachers were flexible. Even at the accelerated pace of her current curriculum, she still needed less than three hours of class time (on average) to finish her assignments. In most schools, she knew that she would have still had to remain in class, bored to tears. But the teachers at Juuban not only allowed, but encouraged her to spend the remaining time pursuing her own experiments. All she had to do was keep a detailed log and turn it in to her science teacher each week.
Ami was so pleased with this unusual arrangement that she didn’t even fudge her log. At least not too much. (there were a few experiments that she didn’t think that even her teachers would approve of. Grown-ups could be so protective at times!)
So, whenever she finished her day’s assignments, Ami hurried down to her lab. Her secret lab. Well, it was sort-of a secret. Her mother didn’t know about it at any rate. Ami loved her, but her mother would have worried too much had she known.
“Four.”
Her mother didn’t know about her extremely large bank account either. Both it and the lab had been acquired during those unpleasant few months when Ami had been possessed.
Ami still shuddered in horror at the memory of that
repulsive mentality taking over her body. It resided in the ten rings her
father had sent her for her birthday. One day she had been playing with
investigating them and had placed all of them on her fingers. Before she knew
it, she had been shoved intro one corner of her brain and could only watch as
someone else controlled her body.
“Five.”
The intelligence had been aware of her, although it at first was surprised she still existed. It reveled in her helplessness, hating her with a passion because of her father.
Yes, Ami now knew she was the daughter of Fu Manchu. The mentality that called itself the Mandarin had delighted in relating to her every story of her father’s misdeeds that it knew, enjoying the shame Ami felt at learning of her father’s criminal actions.
“Six.”
But worse was when the Mandarin started taunting her with its plans for her mother. The Mandarin’s hatred of Fu Manchu was so great that even she would be caught up in its revenge. The horrors the mandarin contemplated before a helpless Ami had nearly driven the young girl to despair.
“Seven.”
And so Ami existed, helpless and despairing, able to do no more than watch as the Mandarin used her body to regain control over its hidden funds and create a base to begin its revenge.
And yet, although all she could do was watch, she watched intently, storing every code and password deep in her mind in case an opportunity came to act.
“Eight.”
Finally, a miracle happened. The Mandarin had been using Ami’s small home lab for research, but once the hidden lab was finished, it started gathering up the things it needed to transfer over. As it rummaged though the drawers checking to see if it missed anything, it ran across an unfamiliar sack. A sack apparently filled with gem encrusted jewelry.
The Mandarin reached into the sack and was just about to taunt Ami about finding her secret stash, when it closed its hand on one of the lenses.
Ami had long ago learned how painful it was to touch one of Uncle Blackie’s lenses. Their construction had eluded her for years, and she had tossed the entire sack in a drawer in a fit of frustration. (Not for the first time. Ami was too tenacious to completely give up and had always pulled them out to try again within a few months.)
So Ami was ready for the pain. What she was not expecting was a massive spike of pain and the sudden complete absence of the Mandarin’s controlling intellect. But even caught by surprise, she lost no time. Biting down against the pain, she first pulled off two of the rings before dropping the lens. Almost before the lens hit the floor, she pulled off all eight of the remaining rings.
“Nine.”
When she had recovered from the ordeal, Ami was able to piece together what had happened.
She had figured out long ago that the pain one felt on grasping a lens was due to the fact that the lens was not tuned to your mentality. Obviously, the Mandarin would have felt the same pain.
But Ami’s mentality was tied to her physical body. The Mandarin’s was tied to the rings. Perhaps one’s instinctive response to the mental conflict produced was a withdrawal as far from the lens as possible.
But… that first, massive spike of pain hadn’t been normal. And… it had faded back to the normal (intense) agony as soon as the Mandarin’s presence had vanished.
Perhaps, being mostly a creature of the mind, the Mandarin was more susceptible to the lenses than a human would be?
This required some thought.
Ami carefully gathered and hid the rings and the lenses and went and found her mother. Her mother didn’t know why Ami was suddenly so emotional, but she was glad her daughter had finally broken out of that strange, cold shell she had retreated to these past months. Mother and daughter spent an enjoyable time reacquainting themselves with each other,
“Ten!”
Ami’s concentration never wavered as she carefully maneuvered the tongs to place the last of the rings in contact with the now-pulsating lens.
As it made contact, the lens exploded in a near-blinding display of polychromatic effulgence. The rings answered with a slight hum as they drew upon their own power in answer. The very air within the room grew thick as two objects of inconceivable power battled for dominance.
Ami adjusted the polarization of her goggles to a setting that best filtered out the visual display and allowed her to observe the results. She smiled as she saw her theories upheld.
For a seemingly endless time the two forces fought each other to a standstill. Then, ever so slowly, the intensity of the conflict almost imperceptibly lessened.
Ami noted this and refocused her observations. Yes, the pattern of gems that made up the lens was simplifying, all of the complex twists and whirls smoothing to simple lines and circles. Additionally, while the total power of the rings never wavered, the application of that power being used against the lens was now rapidly losing its complex and subtle patterns, going more and more to a simple brute force defense than a reasoned, tactical application of the available power.
For a while, Ami wasn’t certain which power would prevail. The last few times the rings had won (not too surprising since they had a mentality actively controlling them while the lens was unguided), but their performance this time was notably weakened. Still, she had most of the sack Uncle Blackie had sent her left to go, plenty more if needed.
The rings’ power briefly spiked and, with what almost seemed to be a silent scream, the rings’ defenses failed and their hum died. Almost immediately the lens’ polychromatic display faded as it returned to dormancy.
Ami inspected the gems of the lens and was pleased at what she saw. A faint shadow of the previously complex pattern remained. If the ring had won, no pattern at all would have remained. Still, she would place the rings on one more ‘fresh’ lens, just to be sure.
If her theories were correct, that pattern reflected the mind to which the lens was tuned. When a mind touched the lens, the lens automatically attempted to match that person’s thoughts to its current pattern. If the person’s brain had a different pattern, then both the lens and the brain were damaged as one pattern cancelled out the other.
(Actually, her experiments indicated that the lenses were so much more powerful than the average mind that most people would have died without doing hardly any damage to the lens. The mentality that had possessed the rings must have been powerful indeed to resist for as long as it had.)
Removal of that pattern should have effectively ‘detuned’ the lens. If her theory was right, it should now be possible for her to attune one of these newly blank lenses to her own mind.
--------------------------------
It had taken all of her courage, but Ami again wore all ten rings. She could detect no remaining trace of the Mandarin’s mentality.
Unfortunately, also missing were the ‘software’ that gave each of the rings their characteristic powers. Like the lens before her, the rings had been wiped clean. All that remained (if you could refer to such an immensity that way) was raw power, waiting to be tapped.
Ami took her time, learning how to call on that power. Various instruments in the lab came to life as she mentally directed wisps of power to them. Then they all went silent as Ami gathered the power to herself and turned her attention to the task before her.
With firm resolve, she reached out and grasped the lens before her. A shadow of pain threatened, but it was a ghost of what it once was. Quick as thought, Ami directed a barrier of power to hold it back. Then, she gathered up the remaining power and concentrated on the lens.
Polychromatic light filled the room, pulsing until the very air seemed to respond in kind. And then, slowly, patterns started appearing among the gems filling the lens. Patterns that, just as slowly, took up a unique and complex arrangement.
--------------------------------
Many hours later an utterly exhausted Ami crawled into bed. On her wrist was a bracelet holding a faintly glowing lens.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Sat, 01 Jan 2005 02:46)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.