Fuu Lao, if you would demonstrate the Dragon Meditation for Ranma, I will place you in the world in a spot of your choosing. Choose a flying form as I will be dropping your both off in the sky.
Closing her eyes as if to consider the situation, the white haired girl gave no indication she had agreed. Instead her aura sprang to life, made of pale blue wisps that seemed to blend into the surrounding darkness. As her hair lifted upwards, the aura became intense, moving now like rushing water as it rose up into the darkness.
With a flash the aura exploded outwards, leaving behind a much larger blue and white creature. Possessing a tail, legs, wings and a draconic head on a long neck, it was much closer to what Ranma thought a western dragon should be. Like Bahumut it was very stylistic, except instead of the fancy protrusions of Bahumut, this one had simple clean lines.
Ranma's study of the creature was cut short however when it simply faded out of existence.
Did you learn the technique?
Blinking, Ranma wished the girl hadn't left simply because it gave him somewhere to look in the now featureless darkness. "Sure, just an aura focus right?"
Indeed, I will show you the basics now of your new bloodline.
At that point, illusions of various creatures appeared around Ranma, giving him something to orient on once again.
This is what I term the 'Wyrven'. This is your version of it, you just saw Fuu Lao's.
Looking at the creature, Ranma was finally happy, as it looked pretty spot on for a western dragon. The coloration of the hide was a fiery orange, and the head possessed two straight black horns pointing backwards at slight angles. As it only had wings and legs, Ranma could see it would be good for flying, but maybe not so good at hand to hand. Each wing did have a large black talon at the thumb joint however, which gave him some idea of how to use the wings.
This is the Aura Dragon, not as much raw power as the others, but it takes little energy and has some uses.
This one was a bit odd to Ranma. Despite it having a draconic head and tail, the forelegs were very long, giving it the look of a salamander with limbs like a gorilla. With the way it was built it naturally sat on it's haunches like a dog, though the forelegs looked useful as arms. Two flaps on the back popped up like insect shells to reveal what seemed to be dragonfly wings made of orange energy. Also for some reason this one was blue in coloration.
This is the Kaiser form, also called the Dragon Berserker. In this form, simply controlling your actions can cause a severe strain. If that strain grows too much you can lose complete control. Controlling this form is dangerous, so using it is also quite dangerous.
Looking at the form, Ranma could actually see that. It was mostly human except the skin seemed to be made of smooth black rock with little spikes sticking up. This was broken up by glowing orange lines as if it were composed of cooling magma. That look carried through the entire body, even the face which had two glowing red eyes and horns that seemed to be extruded from still glowing magma. Most importantly though, it just looked malevolent.
This I call the Avatar.
Blinking, Ranma noticed there was little difference. His hair came undone, and floated upwards while glowing. Other than that the expression just seemed to be serene.
There are more forms, and they may go by different names. Also, you will be supernaturally hard to kill. As long as you still have aura, your chi, you can survive attacks and even transform.
Following that explanation, the images before Ranma changed into a visual demonstration.
First there was some shadowy figure getting stabbed in the gut and comically dying.
Second there was Ranma being stabbed in the gut. Then grinning and grabbing his attacker as his eyes glowed. Apparently the PO'd dragon transformation that followed discouraged the attacker.
Finally there was a new attacker using a palm strike against him that blew his glowing aura out of him like a gust of wind. Then he was stabbed through the stomach and did the comical death scene.
Ranma pretty much got the point then.
Even if you seem totally tapped, you may still be able to survive an attack or even transform. However, should you be weakened or lose control of yourself, it is more likely you might turn into the Berserk Kaiser form without wishing to. Sadly under those conditions you would be even less likely to control the form.
Nodding to himself, Ranma got that. Nifty power that would kinda make him as tough to kill as Saffron, but he shouldn't let it go to his head or anything. Saffron had been a very good example of what not to do.
Now for your preparations. First your new human form.
Blinking, Ranma was surprised as he started to shrink among other things. As a convenient reflection appeared, he noticed he looked like he was about eight again. Other than that, his hair was now a dark blue that was fairly spiky and wild. "Huh? Why am I a kid?"
You are still the same age, just think of this as a 'small' form. You are weaker in this form, but you regenerate energy better, learn faster and most people will treat you kinder as you look like a child. It will be a good form to explore this new world in. You can assume adult form in much the same manner as a dragon form. There are also stages in between of different apparent ages that may have different capabilities.
Blinking, Ranma looked up as three similar reflections appeared to his left, getting progressively taller until he looked to be about twenty. "Oh, I get it. I think. Is this anything like Washu in that cartoon?"
That seems correct. It may be a good idea to not change excessively, or at least appear to age normally.
Blinking, Ukyou was faced with a few choices.
First she'd had to choose her race from among quite a diversity, though the images of what she would look like in each helped her make her decision. Eventually she'd gone for a cute dog-girl with floppy ears and a curly dog tail. Otherwise she was still human and pretty darn cute, an important consideration for her.
Learning that her and Ranma would basically be kids again for pretty much as long as they wanted made her really happy.
Then to her surprise, she was shown the extremes of two different builds and told she could choose something in between.
On the left, she had a tall lean strong looking version of herself with only modest curves. On the right was a petite version of herself with very large breasts that was overall extremely cute. If she was reading the 'stat' summaries of the extremes correctly, while the big one would offer strength and durability, the petite stacked form got a significant amount of magic yet wasn't anywhere near as weak as she looked.
Still, she didn't understand what the dragon was suggesting with this choice, but it seemed kind of perverted. "What the hell is this thing with the big boobs?"
I thought it might be appropriate if you're starting over to choose a form you would be comfortable with. In your last life with Ranma, there seemed to be some friction with him mistaking you for a boy, though you also seemed to have a desire to pretend to be a boy.
Blinking, Ukyou looked between the forms again. While still a girl, the big strong one was kinda masculine and intimidating. The petite one however was just ridiculous. "Yeah, but isn't that going too far, I mean I couldn't even hide boobs that big, not to mention a face that cute."
Pausing for a moment, Ukyou realized the method behind the madness. "There's no way in hell Ranchan could mistake me for a boy and see me as just another buddy like that, right?"
Indeed, though something in between is possible. Just step away from the middle towards one extreme to see your future self progress that way.
Grinning, Ukyou started checking out the various forms.
Blinking in the sudden light, Ranma realized it was bright outside.
As he was in the sky among the clouds, it was a particularly good view that greeted him as the land spread out below him. Adjusting his wings, he caught the currents and began gliding, happy that his wyrven form was working out as well as he'd hoped. Rolling to the right to check out how flying was working, he unfortunately didn't notice what was on his back until it was too late.
Hearing the scream of a very terrified girl, he craned his head to the left to spot two falling girls. Wondering briefly how he'd wound up with two girls on his back, he dove to the left, trying to catch up with the falling figures.
Hey it's okay, just reach out and grab onto my back. I didn't know you guys were there.
The screaming girl suddenly stopped screaming as she stared at the approaching back of the orange wyrven. "Ranchan?!"
Ucchan?
To Ranma's surprise, the second girl helped by grabbing onto both so that he could start pulling out of the dive with both safely on his back again. "That was fun Ranma-kun!"
Startled for a moment, Ranma had a brief brain fart as he didn't actually want to believe the girl was who she sounded like.
Kasumi?!
"Let's do it again!"
Sighing as he leveled off just in time to skim a lake, Ranma was beginning to worry.
While his worries had something to do with the girl's on his back, it was mostly how they prevented him from taking his time to learn how to fly.
Uhm, we got other problems right now. I'm not too sure I know how to land.
A overly exuberant voice cried out, "Just put down your landing gear Ranma-kun! All passengers, please put your seats back and your tray tables in their upright positions!"
Rolling his eyes, Ranma decided to have a chat with Kasumi later about proper dragon riding etiquette.
Girls, we're getting close to shore, you'd better bail while we're still over water. Those trees look painful.
Dipping his feet into the water to slow down a little more, Ranma was beginning to worry that they weren't going to jump in time.
Fine fine, I'll splash down. Gotta be better than smacking into the tree-line.
Judging his speed and how much lake he had left, he started dipping more and more of his legs into the water. At a certain point however he instinctually reared up and flapped his wings to air-brake to a stop. As he'd been expecting, that action dumped both girls into the lake, with him following with his own splashdown not far away.
Sighing, Ranma began dragon paddling to the shoreline with two wet girls hanging onto his back once again.
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(Posted Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:34)
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