Ranma paused as he checked his loot, wondering what was going on.
"Dark Kingdom Generals should not protect innocent school... Waitaminute. That doesn't sound right," said Sailor Moon, losing her pose as she lost her groove.
Ranma scratched his head. "Huh?"
"Let me try," offered Mars. "Evil Generals shouldn't rescue... I mean that villains should act like villains!"
"Excuse me? Are you talking to me?" asked Ranma, making a big show of looking around.
"You're too cute to NOT be a Dark General, though a fairly noble one," tried Venus.
"Oh," said Ranma. He didn't read manga that often, though he'd read a few American comic books a few years ago as English practice. Heroes meet, mistake each other for the enemy or something, and fight. Seemed quite the cliche. Maybe if he used the conventions of the genre? "What if I'm actually a good guy who's only fallen into bad company?"
Three sets of eyes blinked at that.
"You know I think I read a situation like that in 'Wedding Peach'," said Sailor Moon in a stage whisper to her friends.
"Or I could be the mysterious dark warrior who has his own agenda and is a sometimes ally of the good guys, and sometimes their honorable and dashing but somewhat roguish opponent," said Ranma, trying to look thoughtful.
Mars lost her threatening posture to look more confused. "But, hey, wait a minute..." She read a lot of manga too and that sounded awfully familiar.
"Maybe he's the evil Dark General who falls in love with one of the heroes and ends up betraying his dark masters at the end of the season in order to save her?" tried Venus hopefully.
"Hmmmmm," said all three girls, somewhat perplexed in that the villain was not acting at all in a manner they'd expected. He wasn't even using the normal heavily cliched villain speech.
"So why did you loot those muggers?" asked Moon, plainly confused.
"Even mysterious spellcasters gotta eat," said Ranma. "Besides, it has a certain ironic justice, don't you think?"
"Hmmmm," considered the three Senshi.
Ranma shrugged, renewed his levitation spell, and quietly drifted away to hide behind a chimney. After all, in some comics this situation led to a battle between the various forces involved and he wanted a lot more practice before that happened. Besides, he kinda liked being the mysterious sorcerer who could be friend or foe.
"HEY! HE VANISHED!" Moon realized.
"He must have turned invincible!" exclaimed Venus.
"That's 'invisible'," corrected Mars.
"Whatever," said Venus. "Damn. I didn't get the name of the early season villain who turns hero due to his love for the graceful and elegant heroine."
"That's in genre too," pointed out Mars. "It's usually midseason before the character's name is known."
"So... we have to have a Sailor meeting!" realized Moon. "I saw this in 'Magical Team Yamabushi' except that's a bishonen team and the mysterious warrior was some ninja-girl. That means a new villain is going to show up soon!"
Elsewhere, a new villain got a chill and wondered if their cover had been blown somehow.
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(Posted Wed, 12 Jan 2005 20:10)
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