“Your house is by far the coolest looking house in Lawndale.”
“Thanks.”
Jane frowned and looked up and down the street before going back to staring at the three-story structure. “I jogged down this street a couple of weeks ago, and there’s no way I could have missed it. How did they build it so damn quickly?”
Ranma shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I can’t even remember what I was doing last week.”
The brunette of the group arched an eyebrow. “I swear; it was like this when I got here.”
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter however it got here, it’s still the coolest house around.” Jane glanced at her fellow ‘self-esteem deficient teen’. “Is there anything cool about your house?”
“My bedroom used to belong to a schizophrenic shut-in. It has padded walls, hand rails, bars on the windows, and rambling poetry scrawled on the inside of the closet.”
Jane hummed in thought before turning back to Ranma. “Care to try and raise the bar of coolness?”
“I have a couple of dozen exotic oriental weapons on display.”
The crazy eccentric avant-garde artist perked up. “Hey, have you got one of those things; it’s like a chain with a little scythe on the end?”
It took a second for Ranma to figure out what she was talking about. “…a kusari-gama? Sure.”
The youngest Lane child turned to the oldest Morgendorffer child. “Anything you’d like to add?”
Daria smirked. “He has the largest television I have ever seen in person, and a walk-in fridge.”
Daria and Jane sat side-by-side on Ranma’s back porch, watching with barely concealed awe as he moved through a kusari-gama kata, his body and weapon flowing with a grace and power they had never before seen.
“FREEZE!”
Ranma froze in place, his left leg bent with it’s foot near his right knee, his left hand low, guarding his stomach, while the blade-wielding right hand was crossed across his chest in preparation for a back-handed slash. “What?”
Jane rummaged through her backpack before pulling out an art book and a charcoal pencil. “Just hold that pose for a little while, ok?” She started sketching rapidly, her hand scribbling across the page and her eyes flicking up every now and then before dropping down to the page.
Her mind coming back on-line, Daria decided to take advantage of the lull in the action to learn more about her artistically inclined comrade-in-class. “We’ve told you all we know about Ranma, so why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?”
The madly sketching teen didn’t look up from her work as she answered absently. “You first, amiga.”
“I’m afraid we have you at the disadvantage, Lane; you are both outnumbered and outgunned. I insist that you answer first.”
“Bah, you consider me weak!? Just try something, and I’ll have humorous caricatures of yourself plastered throughout the school by noon tomorrow!”
Daria shook her fist half-heartedly. “Curse you, Lane. Fine. My Father, Jake, is an ex-hippy, self-employed marketing consultant with a lot of unresolved issues from his childhood. My Mother, Helen, also an ex-hippy, is a high-powered corporate lawyer workaholic.”
Jane cut in. “High-powered? Does she shoot lasers from her eyes?”
“No, but when she slams her briefcase into the floor, she turns into Thor, Norse God of Thunder. I also have a younger sister, Quinn, who is my exact opposite personality-wise.”
“Wow, you two must get along like a house on fire.”
Daria took a sip of her coke before answering. “Yeah, lots of screaming and property damage. Now it’s your turn; tell us of your kin, and we may be lenient.”
Jane snorted. “I have no fear of death, Morgendorffer, but I shall assuage your curiosity. My parents have a very relaxed, hands-off approach to parenting; my mother spends most of the time out of the state, and my father spends most of the time out of the country.”
“Gypsies, Carnies?”
“Close. Artists. My Dad, Vincent, is a photographer, and last I heard he was taking snapshots of aboriginal cave-paintings around Alice Springs, Down Under. My Mum is a mixed bag of an artist; she’ll work with any medium she finds interesting at the time. She has a fondness for clay, though. As for siblings, from oldest to youngest, there is Summer, Wind, Penny, Trent, then yours truly.”
“Penny Lane? Are your parents cruel, or just rabid Beatles fans?”
The sketching Lane chuckled. “A little from column A, a little from Column B. Anyway, Summer is into her second marriage, and spends a lot of her time chasing down her four runaway kids. Wind is into his third marriage, but with no kids. Penny is backpacking around South America, selling handmade trinkets along the way. Trent is the only family I have in Lawndale, and he’s the guitar player slash song writer for his band, Mystik Spiral.”
Daria was about to make a sarcastic comment involving brew pubs and Doors covers, but blinked in surprise as Ranma began moving…
‘…Mystik Spiral…’ Something about that name struck a chord in Ranma. His kata started up again, more intense, his fists, feet and kusari-gama blurring. As his mind searched for answers, his body began the familiar dance, the fighting retreat that had lured many an unsuspecting opponent into a crushing defeat. Faces flickered into his mind for an instant, only to be lost once more…
…A Fanged Berserker…
…A Crazed Samurai…
…A Bespectacled Amazon…
…An Old Freak…
…A Fat Panda…
…A Lucky Prince…
…A Dragon Prince…
…A Phoenix God…
With each face, the air around him grew that little bit cooler. There was something else…another enemy…another face, hovering on the edge of his thoughts. Ignoring it for the time being, his mind slipped smoothly back in control of his body, the spiral shrinking slowly but steadily. Subconsciously, the dance shifted. Daria and Jane wouldn’t know the difference, but Ranma vaguely noted the change in his imaginary opponent; where earlier he was blocking, dodging and countering punches and kicks, now he was purely on the defensive, dodging and parrying the strikes of a Mistress of the Sword.
‘So, how many people have you had slaughtered to feed your ego?’
Ranma almost stumbled at the unfamiliar thought, but easily regained his momentum.
‘It must be your mum you take after.’
Not so surprised this time, his pace was not slowed, but the burning, rage filled red eyes in his mind made him uneasy.
‘You have her eyes.’
A feminine scream of rage echoed in his ears, and the kata reached a new intensity. As the spiral closed in, Ranma’s breath condensed in the chilly air and his muscles burned with the effort of trying to keep up with the pace his soul demanded. When he reached the centre of the spiral a soft, dark, voice whispered to him, and blinding pain drove through his chest.
“You lose, mortal.”
Daria and Jane were more than a little worried. Ranma’s moves had taken on furious pace and a kind of subtle viciousness that neither of them had expected from the carefree teen, and his face was set in a mask of grim determination. As the seconds ticked by Jane, then Daria, realised the path he was following, but before either of them could contemplate it he had reached the centre, flinched, then roared, the blade of his weapon slashing towards the heavens…
“HIRYU SHOTEN HA!”
A tornado erupted around the martial artist, the savage winds pulling loose matter towards it before hurling the debris into the air. Jane was barely able to pull her book to her chest and hold it there for the brief seconds that the winds raged. As the tornado dissipated its creator seemed to lose all strength, dropping to his knees, and the female duo of the triad rushed to his side, both of them concerned by the hand reflexively clutching his chest.
“Ranma, are you alright!?”
The pig-tailed martial artist grunted and hauled himself back onto his feet, his head still bowed and his hair blocking the view of his eyes. “I’ll be fine, Jane. Are you two ok?” He was visibly relieved when they both nodded.
“Ranma, what was that? What happened to you?”
“That was the Hiryu Shoten Ha…” His voice tapered off as an ebony-skinned face flashed through his mind, a look of horror and loathing on the graceful features. He finally looked up, and for a moment Daria could have sworn his pupils were slitted, but when she double-checked they were completely normal. “…and I have no idea as to what’s going on.”
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(Posted Sun, 08 May 2005 19:29)
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