Ukyou sighed wearily as she took another trip up the stairs with a cart load of hot, damp towels. She half-wanted to call a doctor, after all, she wasn't feeling too great herself, but Konatsu looked like he'd caught some sort of hyper-Jusenkyo curse bug or something. She didn't particularly want to see how the hospitals resonded to what was happening.
Ukyou didn't feel all that hot herself, or rather, she felt a bit too hot and her head felt like a parade ground, but it was nothing compared to what Konatsu-chan was going through. As Ukyou topped the stairs and came into her room she hesitantly looked toward her long time friend to see what was going on.
What she saw looked like a combination of Ranma, Principal Kuno and a giraffe. Swallowing hard she moved forward, flinching as another seizure overtook Konatsu, changing her form as it passed. Now the ninja had her own head back, but it was a more busty body with a pair of wings instead of arms.
The wings did not match, with the right looking something like a bat wing and the left like an owl's.
The legs were a bit lopsided as well. One was about a foot longer than the other, and their feet seemed to be switched as well.
Ukyou put the weirdness out of her head as she started to grab the random limbs and wrap towels around them, not really knowing what else to do.
When she was finished with that, she paused a moment to sit back against her wall and rest for a moment.
Just a moment.
Her head felt so...swollen. Maybe just a couple of seconds of sleep.
She pressed one extra towel to her forehead and leaned against her dresser.
****
Animal control officers circled the animals nervously as the larger one paced jaggedly back and forth across the street. The black-furred creature shook its head frantically from side to side, occasionally howling in pain. The smaller one, meanwhile rolled about on the ground whining and yelping.
They didn't seem to be paying attention to the humans around them, save when someone approached too closely. So far nobody had been seriously hurt, but several minor injuries were already being looked at in a local emergency room. It was obvious there was something wrong with the canine creatures, and obvious they were a danger somehow.
Suddenly, the smaller animal climbed unsteadily to her feet and began to savagely beat her own head against a nearby tree. The larger wolf reacted, not swiftly considering its own distraction, but it reacted, pushing the smaller away from the tree and then burying her under a mass of fur and muscle, immobilizing her.
The smaller yelped and struggled helplessly under the weight, unable to push her way out, even by snapping at the larger one's legs.
Watching this, the animal control officers, inched forward, tranquilizer rifles in hand. This would be the second time they tried to tranq the wolves. The first time had slowed the smaller, but really angered the bigger one.
Now, they had more rifles, and a near firing line. When the darts stuck into the animals, there was a brief reaction before eyes closed. And then the really strange thing happened.
The two wolves were replaced by a pair of naked teenaged girls.
****
Ryouga should probably been dead a long time ago.
She was probably the only person nearby for the trails of spell-plague to be drawn to. Many of the animals nearby took the evil-breath in, but several individual trails snuck into Ryouga's lungs.
Each time, the strength in her body seemed to be sucked out. Had not each also strenghtened her ogre heritage, she probably would have been dead hours ago.
Now, however, she could just barely breathe and her heart fluttered in and out. Pretty much all she could do was roll over on her blue-skinned back and stare at the sky, hoping for her strength to come back to her.
****
Cologne grew concerned as she stepped away from her scrolls and tomes to return to the phoenix and her great-granddaughter. At least, from what she could tell, the severe symptoms meant her charges were successfully fighting off the evil that infected them.
The elder Amazon was reasonably certain she could support them well enough to get them past the symptoms, at least the physical ones.
"Niao?" Shampoo mewed blankly.
Cologne grimaced, noting that the younger amazon was slowly losing even her feline intellect. She quickly moved to the cat-girl's side and practically shoved the mind-enhancing tea down her throat.
She had to keep at least a fraction of Shampoo's mind intact through this, or else the girl wouldn't recover. Fortunately, she was one of the few people equipped to dose the cat-girl.
Mousse, meanwhile was another issue, her wings had lost most of their feathers already, and the chills seemed to be getting worse, but that was why Cologne had the other girl in the hot water.
She'd get both of them through this plague, and then she'd find out just what and who had cast it.
****
Meanwhile, other people with less magical power and potential were experiencing much milder physical symptoms, but...
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(Posted Tue, 11 Apr 2006 08:13)
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