Ranma blinked and shook her head. Looks like she had to get up...
She tried, but couldn't move. In surprise, she realized that someone had bound her to the beam with some ropes.
"Hey... what the..." she muttered.
"Hey, calm down," a voice next to her said. "I just strapped you to the beam so you don't fall down when sleeping. I must say, you all were pretty careless when you climbed up here."
Ranma turned around. "Rei! You came after all?"
Rei sighed. "Well, what you said got me thinking... and maybe I just didn't want to be the only one left behind. And besides, if your plan works, all the better, huh?" She grinned.
Ranma grinned back. Together, they woke up the others, and they continued their climb.
"Say, Ranma, can I ask you something?" Rei said.
"Sure."
"Who's 'Phobos'?"
Ranma blinked. "A dog... a dog that belongs to my grandfather! Why?"
"Because you shouted his name several times during your sleep!"
Strange, Ranma thought. But even stranger was the fact that she almost forgot that Grandpa HAD dogs.
After climbing a little further, they noticed something strange. The beams and crossbars didn't seem to be as angular and straight as previously, and they actually bent into various and weird directions.
"What the heck is THAT?" Makoto murmured.
Ranma shrugged. "Dunno," she replied. "Maybe the architect lost his interest..."
But when she turned her head, she realized Makoto didn't really mean what she meant, as her gaze was fixated on something else standing on one of the crossbars.
It was Phobos.
"That's a dog..." Makoto murmured. And louder, she shouted: "Hey, look over there, everyone! There's a dog!"
"Yes," Ranma said. "The dog of my grandfather..."
Rei stared at her. "You mean... that Phobos?" Ranma nodded. "But... how did he get there?"
"That's not important now," Minako shouted. She seemed pretty excited. "If there's a dog over there, it means there must be an exit somewhere around here." She looked at Ranma. "She was right after all!"
Rei looked around. "We need to get over there somehow..."
"Why?" Hotaru asked curiously.
"That's a dog, isn't it?" Rei asked impatiently. "I don't think he did climb up here like we did. So the exit must be over there."
"But we have to be careful," Ranma said. "He can be dangerous."
"Hey, it's only a dog," Makoto said. "We can take him on, right?"
Ranma didn't respond to that. They climbed up the next crossbar and looked for a way to get over to the other one. Carefully, they balanced over to the next beam.
"Be careful," Rei shouted. "There's some sort of barrier in the way."
Ami blinked. "That's no barrier, that's just a spider web. Keep going!"
Ranma shuddered. If that was really a spider web, she certainly didn't want to meet the spider that made it... it was enormous!
They approached the web. Everything behind it looked like it was blurred.
Ranma stretched out her arms, and she went through the web, as if she was opening a curtain.
And stepped right into another world.
Well, at least it looked like it. When they crossed the spider web, everything behind it looked extremely different from what they saw before.
The beams and crossbars suddenly didn't look like they were made from wood, but from pale bones, and they were as slippery. Everything now really looked like it was grown, not constructed, and in-between the beams, some strange... THINGS were pulsating that looked like they were organic.
"Oh... my... god..." Rei could only say. "What in the world is this?"
Ranma was that baffled by the sudden change of scenery that she nearly didn't see the dark shape that came flying towards her.
The impact nearly threw her off the beam, and the slippery bone surface didn't make it easier. Only because Rei caught her, she didn't fall off into the abyss.
Then she realized her mistake. She assumed it had been Phobos who attacked her, but the dog was nowhere to be found.
Instead, the girls were suddenly being attacked by a horde of winged, vicious creatures that came swooping out of the dark, and their cries of panic echoed through the room.
The creatures were ugly. They looked like bats, but also like they came directly out of a nightmare. Their bodies were nearly as big as that of poodles, their wrinkled snouts were being filled with sharp teeth, and on their hind legs, blade-like claws were visible. Out of their backside, long, rope-like tails were growing, and their screeches sounded painfully high.
Ranma dodged one of the attacking beasts in panic, grabbed its tail and slammed it against another monster. She almost had no time of reacting when a third bat came out of nowhere, but suddenly, a much smaller shape appeared, attacked the monster and forced it to retreat.
"Swoop?" Ranma wondered. Then she smiled. "Hey, thank..."
"LOOK OUT!" Swoop screeched.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Shritistrang
(Posted Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:44)
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.