When the world that would have one day become Crystal-Tokyo disintegrated, both Setsuna Meiou and Ami Mizuno had, due to problems of perspective and limited experience, incorrectly identified the cause of the catastrophic death of their reality as temporal flux, a massive universe eating Paradox of unimaginable scale. This was not the case.
The Heartless, instead, had found them. As entities wholly outside of not-Crystal-Tokyo, their eventual presence was not something Pluto could have predicted. Quite simply put, her powers over time, as long as she was bound within her native existence, ended at the borders of the Crystalverse.
Even had her powers extended beyond the borders of her world, however, Pluto would probably have been hard pressed to keep an eye on something she didn't even know existed.
Regardless, as the event had not been a temporal catastrophe as had been feared, the Senshi were not the only survivors. Many people with strong wills had escaped the apocalyptic storm. Some, perhaps most, fell to the heartless, and some of those unfortunates were reborn as the Nameless, but there were also those who slipped the nets of their tormentors. These souls drifted through the darkness, until they found a proverbial port in the stormy night.
*****
Consciousness returned, bearing with it the image of a ceiling that was somewhat less than familiar. Ranma blinked, taking in the rough hewn stone, arched vaults and the single gothic chandelier right above her, in which a number of guttering candles flickered uncertainly. The floor beneath her was immensely hard, except for where her head was propped up, which was only somewhat firm.
And breathing.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was laying on someone, so Ranma rubbed her eyes and sat up. And was almost immediately taken by the image of her reflection in a large, wall mounted mirror. She blinked, then blinked again and rubbed at her eyes. Her vividly red eyes.
As one might imagine, this did nothing to dismiss the stubby, triangular ears latched onto the side of her head. Or the tiny bat's wings on her back. Just to complete the look, she supposed, a long, spade tipped tail emerged from where one normally would expect a tail to emerge from. Aside from these modifications, however, she looked essentially normal, if you could count her being a girl as normal. And, she had to admit, the effect would have been devastatingly cute if those had been the only thing changed.
Unfortunately, it wasn't; her clothing had also undergone revision, and one far greater than that done to her body. She hadn't been wearing bracers, but she was now, each formed of black leather with a somewhat bewildering array of straps and buckles, replete with attached, fingerless gloves. On her legs was a set that, if not identical, was certainly designed to accompany the arm bands and similarly were conjoined with toeless boots. With a considerable quantity of heel, much to her annoyance.
Her favorite shirt had gone bye-bye, to be replaced with a very, very close fitting strapless minidress formed of a sturdy, heavy white cloth overlaid with yet more black, be-strapped and buckled leather running up the sides. It began just above her bust and stopped high on her thigh. Very high on her thigh, actually, nearly to the point of being indecently so.
It wouldn't necessarily have been a problem, but her pants had simply vanished, or perhaps had turned into the leg-guards, which was effectively the same difference anyway. The overall effect was far sexier than Ranma was normally comfortable with, but it wasn't the first time she'd been forced into something ridiculously feminine. And so, after getting over the shock, she pushed the problem aside and cased her surroundings.
It was a fairly large room, pretty much a perfect square, with two tiers, of which she was currently in the the lower. The higher tier formed a walkway that ran around half the rooms edge, terminating in two staircases beneath huge, arched doors. A series of candelabras ran around the higher level, their guttering lights filling the cavernous space with flickering shadows.
If Ranma weren't the master martial artist that she was, this may have unnerved her. Hell, it did unnerve her, but the red-head had no intention of letting that show. Surroundings cased and determined to be "really creepy," Ranma turned around to check on her companion but never quite got to it; she was halted by the sight of a large spear resting in the corner. A very large spear, with oh so very large, very stern looking eyes, each a depthless pool of black capped with an angrily slanted eyebrow that would have had Kitsurubami twitching.
Though Ranma had encountered semi-animate objects in past, one with a mouth and entirely too much sass, even, she was still caught flat-footed. "Uh?"
"Hi there!" Greeted the Spear, jovially, always prepared to be helpful and entirely at odds with it's appearance. Ranma blinked, but before she could formulate a response a booming, if rather youthful, voice rang out from above.
"WHO GOES THERE?"
Ranma spun, and looked up, for there, standing in one of the arched doorways was a shadowy, figure. A little too short to be really impressive in and of itself, but whoever it was had power like nothing she'd ever felt before. Still, Ranma was nothing if not defiant.
"Who's askin?!"
There was a pause as the figure seemed to consider it's response. Then he... or she, Ranma couldn't tell, crossed his arms regally, threw his head back and unleashed a howling, blood-curdling laugh.
"You don't know who I am? Fool! I... am the Overlord..."
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(Posted Sun, 30 Apr 2006 04:42)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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