She was one of the most powerful and trusted servants of the royal line Serenity, and she possessed everything that came with such a position - near limitless magical strength, her very own library for magical study, a multitude of assistants, access to one of the most powerful artifacts ever known (the Pool of Seeing), and all the wealth she could ever need. She lived with nary a care in the world, outside of her research, that is.
Yes, Mage Pluto had a truly happy and content existence.
...The operative term being "had."
Her day had started off like any other: Wake up, do some research, eat, more research, check on her family using the Pool, yet MORE research, and then check the course of Destiny through the Pool before breaking for lunch. And so it went, business as usual, until she Viewed Destiny before her luncheon, as per the usual order of things.
But Destiny had changed. Drastically.
The previous night, when she Viewed Destiny before her evening rest, all was well; everything pointed to the future her Queen and all her Queen's ancestors had been working towards for the past 200 years, ever since Serenity I, descendant of the great King Reginald, finally eliminated the wicked and powerful Keeper (Or so the stories went). Yes, everything was moving smoothly, and the utopia of Crystal Harmonia was destined to arise within the century.
But now, now it was different. Instead of Crystal Harmonia, she Saw a world that was half devastated by immense magical backlash, with the other half even worse off, for it was under the reign of a Keeper! Worst of all, none of the royal line Serenity were anywhere to be seen, and she herself--old and greying, of course--was dutifully serving the Keeper!
Obviously something unexpected had happened over the course of the night to raise this (obviously) evil Keeper, who, unless stopped, would ultimately destroy half of Harmonia, and enslave the remainder.
"The Queen's Council MUST hear about this," she muttered as she wandered off to warn the Queen.
--------------
"How much longer until she wakes?"
"Quit trying to change the subject while I'm gloating over you, Horny."
"You've been "gloating" for the past eight hours, spirit. And, as I've been saying for the past five, just because it CAN happen doesn't mean it WILL happen. So leave me alone before I annihilate you."
"Empty threats, beast. Empty threats."
Hotaru was not having a good day. Considering that she just died, this was entirely understandable. And now she was waking to the sound of her savior/killer arguing with somebody she'd never met. "Oh gods... I'm in Hael, aren't I?" She groaned, then blushed at her own language. Opening her eyes, she took in the view of both Horny-san and a strange translucent figure leaning against a wall, both looking equally bored.
"Ah, she wakes!" The figure exclaimed. "Now the entertainment can begin!"
Hotaru paled at these words, and at the grin she saw Horny-san sporting on his face. 'I'm in Hael. I'm in Hael, and they're going to rape me! Then eat me! Then they'll rape me again!' She thought to herself. With such thoughts running through her head, she did the only sensible thing she could: she screamed.
"Kyaaaaaa! Please don't hurt me! I don't deserve to be in Hael!" Hotaru quickly slid herself backwards and away from the demon and the spirit, until she hit a wall. No escape. Slapping her arms over her head, she pleaded, "Please don't rape me or eat me, I never did anything wrong! I-OW!" She flinched in pain as her arms slammed sharply onto her new horns, and started when she realized how she hurt herself. Pondering a scary thought, she checked behind herself, and paled even more than before at what she saw. "Oh no. Oh no oh no ohnonono.... No, I'm a DEMON! Kyaaaa! I must have been so evil in life they made me a demon, and now I'm going to have to torture and hurt millions of people and I'll like it and I'll be EVIL! Noooo!"
As Hotaru spiraled into a mindless panic, Horny began to snicker. Then he began to chuckle. Soon he was roaring in laughter, his deep guffaws drowning out all other sounds, bringing Hotaru out of her panic, and quickly irritating her.
"What are you laughing at, you damned great beast! Eep!" She quickly slapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide at its repeated betrayal and frequent use of profanity.
Horny merely roared louder, and wandered off, his shoulders shaking in mirth.
A stifled snort of laughter to Hotaru's right caught her attention, as the spirit beside her began to speak. "He was laughing, my dear Keeper, because your antics were truly humorous." He began chuckling again, but quickly regained his composure. "In any case, perhaps I should introduce myself: I am Lundar, advisor to the greatest keepers to ever live, and an extremely bored spirit. Provided you do not turn into a stick in the mud overnight, I shall be your advisor from now on."
"Huh?"
He sighed heavily. "It seems as though we have a dumb one, this time. Let me put it this way: I'll give you advice, tell you how to use your Dungeon Heart, and even teach you some tactics; but if you bore me, I will insult you mercilessly, and eventually leave. Clear enough, Keeper?"
Hotaru pouted. "No need to be mean, Lundar-san. And I have a name, you know: It's Hotaru."
Lundar waved her comments off. "Whatever. Now to business! The first thing you must learn as Keeper is how to summon an Imp..."
"Why?" Hotaru interjected.
"To get us out of this hole in the ground, that's why! Now shut up and pay attention, I'm only going to say this once..."
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:34)
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.