"Well, I guess I'll go with human then. Because there ain't no way in hell I'm gonna be on the same team as that freak, Happosai!" declared Ranma, deciding what he wanted. However, most present didn't hear this decision due to the rather loud complaints of the other Jusenkyo victims. Most of them were too busy blaming Ranma for ruining things for them for anyone else around them to hear Ranma's decision.
Most of those who were close enough to here him though were pleased; Ranma was, after all, one of the best fighters around. Oddly enough, this group included Akane, who despite herself was just happy not to lose another constant from her old life in Nerima.
Kasumi was also happy to know that Ranma would be an ally in her new life. However, she did manage to be a little less obvious about her feelings than Akane was being. Ranma was a little like a younger brother to her at times. Still, now that Kasumi wasn't a simple homemaker anymore that might change, or not, only time would tell.
Happosai, on the other hand, was indignant at the insult. "Hey, what did I ever do to you, you ungrateful little whelp?!" snapped the lecherous troll. The newly made troll suddenly standing toe to toe with Ranma as he called him out. Incidentally, Happosai was now noticeably taller than Ranma now, even in male form.
"You want me to make you a list, freak?! I could go all day if that's what you want!" Ranma countered without missing a beat. Happosai might not be pint-sized anymore, but Ranma still wasn't about to back down to him no matter what the reason.
He would have said more, but he was cut short unexpectedly though as Happosai threw some water into his face. The redheaded girl that Ranma turned into was typical, familiar, and expected. But even Athena didn't know where or how Happosai managed to produce the water to trigger Ranma's curse. The ruckus that followed was so familiar though that no one from Nerima even questioned it as the ex-shrimp latched onto Ranma's bosom. "Can't a master just enjoy the simple pleasures of his pupil's company?! Is that so wrong?!" Happosai the troll wailed out as he nuzzled female Ranma's chest.
"Ack! Get off me, you freak!" Ranma protested as she tried to pry Happosai from her body. Unfortunately, the longer arms of Happosai's new body were giving him a lot more to hold on to her with. There was also the problem that her blows weren't nearly as strong as they should have been, even for her girl form.
Fortunately for Ranma, Happosai's body couldn't to soak up the kind of damage his old one used to either. After a few moments of trying to beat Happosai off, the troll finally let go of her. Only to fall down dead at Ranma's feet as he did, a ghostly copy of Happosai's new form standing in its wake. "Ah! No! I can't be dead yet; I haven't even finished being reborn yet! Ranma! How could you be so cruel to your old master?!" Happosai's ghost cried, pounding ineffectively on Ranma's more solid body as he threw his tantrum.
Ranma snorted in contempt at the dead troll's tantrum. "Well then maybe next time you'll let go, freak," she taunted Happosai's ghostly form, giving his corps a swift kick for good measure. She then turned her back on him and tried to ignore the ongoing tantrum.
Athena, although she'd been briefed beforehand, could only stare in disturbed awe as the debacle played itself out. But now that one of the pair was 'dead', she'd come back to her senses. "Well, that was unexpected," she muttered under her breath before finally intervening. "Alright you two, break it up. There are other people waiting in line you know."
The pair looked suitably embarrassed by the reprimand. "Okay then, I was expecting to leave this up to the Spirit healer to explain this to all of you. However, since these two got a little carried away, I might as well explain it to you now," Athena began, addressing the entire crowd this time.
"Now, when you fall in battle, not if, you'll be here entirely too long for it to never happen; so when you eventually die you will take on a ghostly form like our troll friend here. You'll have roughly a few minutes for one of your companions to resurrect you, enabling you to rejoin the fray that killed you. That's assuming anyone in your party has the proper spell or item to do so," the goddess told them, pausing to make sure she had everyone's attention.
"However, if you are still dead when the time limit is up; you will find yourself in the nearest graveyard before you can blink. When you arrive, the Spirit Healer will appear and offer to retrieve your corpse and resurrect you. But be warned, the Spirit Healer's services do not come without consequences. The Spirit Healer is known to cause minor damage to a corpse's gear, and continued use of her aid will lead to Resurrection sickness. She will explain this to you in more detail when you finally meet her, but that is the general gist of what she does." Athena paused once more for effect, the souls around her listening raptly hanging on her every word. Not that she could blame them, what she was telling them would be very important in their pseudo lives.
"Your other alternative after going to the grave yard is to walk back to your corpse in ghost form and resurrect yourself there. This can only be done after you've been to the grave yard and turned down the Spirit Healer's offer. However, once you leave the graveyard and find your body again you can resurrect yourself without aid. That way you can avoid both resurrection sickness and any damage being done to your gear. Just remember that you'll be at half strength when you do this. You'll most likely still be surrounded by the same monsters that killed too, so I suggest that you choose your options wisely. Understood?" The goddess finally finished. A cacophony of affirmatives assaulted the goddess, causing her to smile a bit.
"Good! Now back to business," Athena declared happily, snapping her fingers to resurrect the dead troll. It was almost comical how Happosai patted himself down to confirm that he had a solid body again.
"Oh, happy day! I'm alive again! How can I ever show you my appreciation, Athena-chan!" declared a revived Happosai, leaping toward the goddess with open arms. Alas, his forward momentum was stopped cold by a solid wall of nothing mere feet away from the armored goddess. The collision didn't damage him any, but Happosai's pride was definitely a bit bruised by the event.
Athena scowled at the troll for moment for even attempting to grope her. "Not wasting any more of my time would be a good start, mortal. Now why don't you finish making your character so that everyone else can have a turn?" The goddess dead panned while pointedly ignoring the default troll body laying on the ground.
Ranma never saw what kind of options Happosai was given to pick from, mostly because six copies of the human female archetype were blocking his view. Each of these images represented a class that Ranma could pick for his new life. "Hmm, it'd help if I knew something about these chicks. I want to branch out a little bit since I won't be losing my martial arts. But I want something that'll work with what I already know . . . something that proves that brute strength isn't everything," she muttered to herself.
"Well . . . considering your style of martial arts, Ranma, you could try the Rouge. They're fast, sneaky, and can deal loads of damage once you get used to playing them. And while I don't personally condone thievery, there are other ways of putting their abilities to use. Working as a spy is a perfectly respectable profession that few but a rogue could excel at, just to give an example," supplied Athena as Ranma looked her choices over. Her advice surprised Ranma a little bit, but that was mostly because she'd assumed that Athena would be more concerned with the others than herself. Apparently though the goddess was leaving them to pick through their image options on their own.
Ranma folded her arms and thought the suggestion over for a moment. She didn't really like the idea of being a thief, not after living with Genma all of her last life. But spies on the other hand were pretty cool, especially in the movies. Besides, since she wouldn't be losing her martial arts Ranma could easily play as if she were a warrior instead if she changed her mind. "Eh, why not. It's not like I got anything to lose, right," she consented, almost casually making her decision.
Athena shrugged as she replied, "just a few millennia of boredom and sensory deprivation. Other than that, I can't really think of anything you'd be missing out on. By the time you're ready to be reincarnated for real, sixty years is going to seem like a drop in the ocean to you, trust me on that."
Ranma shrugged helplessly back at Athena's logic. "Er, right. I guess that settles it then. I just walk through her to choose, right?" the redhead responded, slightly unnerved by how long they would be participating in this 'virtual life' thing.
"Yup, that's right, Ranma," Athena confirmed with another nod. "Although, unless you want your clothes on backwards, I'd recommend walking through from behind the archetype," she amended as Ranma prepared to walk through the front of the image.
Looking a bit sheepish, Ranma circled to the back of the taller image and quickly walked through it. As she stepped through the blond woman's image, Ranma's clothes instantly altered themselves to fit her where they'd been loose before. Also, instead of the Chines shirt and black pants, Ranma was wearing a black, feminine, body suit that reminded her vaguely of a ninja's uniform. In her right hand was a plain, ordinary looking dagger.
The moment she stepped through the archetype, Ranma could feel her body conforming to a stance that felt oddly natural to her, yet alien too. In that moment, Ranma instinctively knew that her body had a set of muscle memory all its own. She'd literally have to retrain herself almost from scratch for Ranma to get back all of her old skills. She still remembered everything she knew before, yet Ranma could tell that without training this body would resist any attempt at using them.
Ranma also noticed that she was still just as weak as when she'd tried to beat Happosai off her earlier. She'd assumed it was because she didn't have a 'proper' body yet, but apparently that hadn't been the only reason for Ranma's weakness. "Hey! What gives? Why am I so weak in this body? It's like that Moxobustion thing of Happosai's all over again!" she complained after throwing a few test punches to test her body's speed and strength.
Athena simply raised an eyebrow in surprise, "what? Everyone else is starting out at level one. You didn't honestly think I was going to play favorites did you?" she quipped back. She also gave Ranma an incredulous look as she responded to her complaint.
Ranma hadn't really been expecting any favoritism, heck she was usually lucky to get an even break. What she had been expecting was to at least start off as strong as she had been before. To Athena these thoughts were reflected almost perfectly in the girl's expression. "Look, kid. Why don't you just look at it as incentive to level up faster? I mean, come on, you've already got an advantage over everyone else by still knowing what you do about martial arts. This just levels out the playing field a little," the goddess told her, with just a hint of sympathy showing in her voice.
Ranma still wanted to protest, but couldn't come up with a valid argument. "Hey, consider yourself lucky kid. Rumor has it that Belldandy's group is going to be stuck with some version of 'The Sim's' until everything gets put back on track. Now, that would be boring!" the goddess added in mild annoyance. Ranma didn't know why, but her entire being convulsed physically at the mere mention of 'The Sim's', not that she even knew what it was the goddess was talking about.
"I . . . I think I can live with that," Ranma responded meekly, intimidated without really understanding why she felt that way. "So, um, exactly how do I level up?" She asked, having never played this type of game before. Ranma had played a few fighting games on occasion, and once or twice she'd tried a space shooter. However, she'd never played anything like this kind of game before.
Athena sighed heavily at the question, but answered it anyway. "By doing quests and by killing monster's, Ranma, take your pick. The stronger the monster the more experience you'll get. The same thing goes for quests the tougher the Quest the more you get out of it, of course it'll be tougher because it has stronger opponents but then that's just how it goes," she explained.
"Oh. Um, that makes sense . . . I guess . . ." responded Ranma, only just now realizing just how foolish her question actually sounded. Fortunately, Kuno, Happosai, and Tofu all pronounced themselves as ready to pick their classes and move on, saving Ranma from any further embarrassment for a while.
Once the three of them had chosen their classes, they were all set and the seven of them prepared to enter the world of Azeroth.
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(Posted Wed, 03 May 2006 20:34)
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