Walking along the hallway of the building that was the wing reserved for slaves, Ranma counted the numbers on the doors. He was looking for room 204. Just because he was staying for only the night, didn’t mean he wasn’t going to check up on his ‘slave’. He hadn’t seen the girl for nearly three weeks straight this last time, and he wanted to make sure she was all right.
“Two-oh-four, two-oh-four... where is it?”
Finally, reaching the end of the hallway, (and having to go up the stairwell), the pigtailed martial artist found the part of the wing with the rooms labeled as for the two-hundreds. The one he was searching for was the second door on the right. Once he finally stood before the door with the labeled number it was time to check on Br-err... ‘Cheetah’.
Placing his hand on the door-handle, Ranma gently gripped and turned it to the side. Fortunately, it was unlocked. Opening the door slightly, Ranma stuck his head in slowly as he tried to look around the darkened room. “Cheetah?”
The pigtailed teenager blinked his eyes as he could see her form laying on the bed. Stepping into the room completely, Ranma closed the door behind him before he walked further into the room. The lights from outside shone in through the window enough that it illuminated quite a bit without making the room bright; he could make things out easily enough.
And then he looked down and saw the woman was atop the covers, stripped down to panties and a bra. The martial artist couldn’t help but blush as this was the most he’d seen of the woman so far. But as he turned his head away, he blinked his eyes. He noticed now that the unconscious woman had an IV drip in her, the end of it going into a vein at the joint where her right arm bent, and covered with two pieces of medical tape to be held in place.
Leaning over, Ranma asked, “Cheetah?” He wasn’t sure if she was asleep. She didn’t seem awake, but she didn’t look comfortable either. Then again, how could one be comfortable in her position period? He didn’t know what the whole process of being ‘conditioned’ entailed, but from what he understood, it had to be far more extensive than normal for a Lycanthrope.
Ranma sighed as he called out to her again, using her true name this time. “Britanny?”
That time, both of her green eyes opened slowly. Ranma tried to give the woman a kind smile as she came to. “How do you feel?” He asked her gently. He was not only looking at her face to make eye-contact, but to hopefully keep him from looking down. He wasn’t the sort to ogle a woman, after all.
“Like hammer crap...” the Lycanthrope answered tiredly.
Ranma nodded his head. He could believe it. “Well, if it’s any consolation... they’re done doing stuff to you.”
An obvious look of relief came to the furry woman’s face. “Thank God...” she mumbled, mostly to herself.
Ranma nodded his head. “Yeah. You passed the minimum percentage mark of accepted conditioning. They don’t have to do anything else to you.”
The woman seemed to snort in annoyance. “Not that it did much...” she again mumbled to herself. “But at least their fine with it...”
Seeing the woman was obviously upset, Ranma frowned, worried for her. “If I may ask... what do they do to you anyway during this ‘conditioning’, anyway?” Honestly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he felt he should... he wanted to know what was done to his slave, to have her upset at them.
The werecheetah sighed. “Strip me naked to a metal chair, hook up medical equipment and pump all this chemical junk into my body and try to basically hypnotize and program me with audio machinery and all sorts of sensory deprivation equipment to get me to focus on certain things...”
To that, it was understandable that Ranma just gawked. “How can you talk about it so...” the pigtailed martial artist couldn’t find the words for it. There was no way he could bring himself to talk about that sort of thing if it happened to him!
Still, he had wanted to know... and was thankful Brit shared... but dear Kami, they did THAT to her?
“Eh...” Cheetah slowly lifted herself up enough so she was in a sitting position. “To be honest, I can say over half the chemicals got expelled from my body anyway, so mostly what they did was just to satisfy their critique...” the werecheetah smirked lightly. “Hell, why do you think I actually remember it? Some of those chemicals are meant to wipe the incident from mind so it seems like a dream-like state and effect the subconscious easier, but it’s harder to do it to a lycanthrope...”
Ranma wasn’t sure, but he could swear her words held some level of pride to that statement.
“But anyway,” the werecheetah started again as she fully sat up on the bed now, her legs crossed. “At least I can take some comfort in the fact you’re not some sick pervert, or some....douche-bag...”
Ranma shrugged his shoulders. “Well... I ain’t about to force you to do nothing you don’t want to...” he said honestly. Even if technically, she was to be his ‘full use’ slave ‘for life’ unless otherwise handled legally, he wasn’t going to try and go forcing her to do stuff.
But still, curiosity over what Britanny explained did pester Ranma’s conscious, and it did get the better of him. “Mind if I ask... did anything take? Not that I’m saying it had to, but I want to know if they did something to the Cheetah I know...”
Though, deep down, he wouldn’t have minded if any of the hypno-training instilled any sort of cooking skills within her.
“Nothing I couldn’t overcome,” the werecheetah told her master as she tried to find a comfortable position. “And they couldn’t do surgical implants, since my body heals faster than they can insert... and rejects if they do.”
Ranma smiled, obviously relieved to hear that. Although it did pain him that he was owning an actual person, he was also honestly happy... happy she would still be herself. “I’m glad to hear...” he said truthfully, a tone of relief evident in his voice as he gently leaned over and gave her a hug, un-minding of the fact of how she was dressed... although he was being as careful as he could as to not hurt her.
Britanny blinked her eyes at the hug, but returned it. “Uh... thanks...”
“You’re welcome,” Ranma said before letting the woman go. Looking down at her, he asked, “Anything I can do for you, Cheetah?”
“Some water would be nice...” the cat-like woman admitted. “I’m feeling a little dry in the mouth.”
Nodding his head, Ranma went to a door in the room he was sure was a bathroom. Finding that indeed it was, he went to the sink and took a hold of a small plastic cup by the basin as he used his other hand to turn on the sink. He let the water run for a moment, giving it a chance to cool in temperature before placing the glass under it.
Turning the water off when he glass was nearly filled to the top, Ranma left the bathroom and walked over to Britanny’s bed. “Here...” he said as he brought the glass down to her lips gently for her.
Opening her mouth, Britanny sipped the water gratefully. She then gently took hold of the glass from him before guzzling the rest down. “Ahh... thanks...” she said, before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Yer welcome...” Ranma told her as he gently brought his other hand to her head, gently stroking fingers through her hair. The staff or technicians had taken it out of the ponytail, leaving the strands loose.
Feeling her master stroke her hair, the woman closed her eyes as she let off a sigh. “So when do we vamoose?”
“Tomorrow morning...” Ranma told her as he continued to stroke her hair. “Hopefully you feel better then.”
“Good...” Britanny said, glad she’d be putting this place behind her.
Ranma nodded his head. “No more ‘treatments’ for you...” while technically, he could if he wanted to, but he wasn’t going to put her through that.
“That’s a relief...” the werecheetah told her owner. “They hurt and then they don’t even work anyway...”
Ranma frowned lightly. “You better not be cocky, Cheetah... they just might...” he had been told how sometimes it took well over year, if not more, of constant conditioning for mental adjustments of a Lycanthrope to truly make them a slave. “Fortunately for you, I’m guessing you held it off and made them think it took.”
“Ah...” the werecheetah replied, wondering when her master had gotten something of a brain. Maybe he’d been looking into being a slave owner now that he had her?
“Yeah...” Ranma said as he continued to gently stroke the woman’s hair. “Hey, Cheetah? You want me to leave you alone so you can sleep, or should I stay a bit? I’m curious as to how you’re doing, but if you need sleep, I’ll understand... we can talk more tomorrow.”
“Actually you can stay,” the feline Lycanthrope told the younger man. “I haven’t been able to talk to anyone normally for over a week.” The werecheetah frowned. "Mostly technicians asking questions about how I feel at the time or what I think, treating me like a science project instead of a person...”
That made Ranma’s shoulders slump as he felt a little guilty. “Sorry, Cheetah...”
“Don’t apologize,” the werecheetah told the pigtailed teen as she waved it off. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah it is...” Ranma said. “I chose ya... because you became my slave, they had to take you away to do this stuff to you...”
Blinking her eyes at that for a moment, the werecheetah then smiled gently. “I appreciate it Ranma. More than you know.”
Ranma blinked his eyes, feeling confused. “You appreciate me choosing you as a slave?” He couldn’t see how she’d feel that way. Granted, he was trying to care for her, but he didn’t feel he was doing enough for her.
“I appreciate it, ‘cause of why your chose me, so you could get me out of there.” The werecheetah then looked into his eyes as she added, “And that you feel bad because they did that crap to me.”
“Well, how can I not feel bad?” Ranma asked. “You’re human...” he blinked his eyes at the look Britanny gave him. “Okay, you’re larger, stronger, faster, and furrier, but you’re a real person...”
Considering that, the werecheetah looked up at her owner. “Thanks. Nice to know someone sees me as a person.”
“You are...” Ranma said seriously. “And a very beautiful person too...” he still couldn’t believe it. How could her sister sell her off into slavery? What could have been so bad about taxes that she had to sell her sister into such a practice to pay it off?
Seeing the look on her owner’s face, Britanny sighed slightly. “...You’re wondering again, aren’t you?”
To that question, Ranma was silent for a moment. Finally, he responded with a question of his own. “How did you know?”
“I know that look...” Britanny replied, far used to seeing her owner take that distant gaze whenever he was contemplating on something he just heard of mentioned himself. “Do you want to know something?”
Looking down at the werecheetah, Ranma nodded his head. “All right... what it is?”
The wecrecheetah was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts as if trying to deal with her own feelings on the subject matter. Finally, after a long pause, she began to speak. “....I wasn’t actually sold. I... I volunteered for this....” Britanny took a deep breathe and sighed before she continued. “The Tax thing happened, but a friend of my Dad’s revealed that someone was intentionally draining the family’s bank accounts. They messed up somewhere along the line, and their actions were discovered, but they covered their tracks.”
Ranma was rather surprised to hear that. The reason she was a slave because someone was attacking her family in an un-honorable way? “So... why’re ya a slave then, if things were fixed up?”
“Well, my sisters and I thought up this stupid slave ring thing so I could go undercover and crap, since the ringleaders supposedly had a tie to the jerks attacking my family...” the werecheetah looked down a bit. “However, after I’d been ‘sold’... someone literally blew the shit out of my house and my parents’ home.”
Ranma winced. He might not have ever had a true home, but he could imagine the blow that must have been dealt to the woman. All her comfort and security, taken away from her like that.
After allowing her master a moment to mentally digest what she’d told him so far, Britanny finally continued. “After my home was lost, I was then given to another set of slavers, and thus, here I am. Unable to contact anyone from my old life...” Lowering her gaze, the woman sighed sadly. “I hate to have to keep demonizing my sister by saying she sold me, but... changing my story would raise eyebrows...”
“Oh Brit... I’m sorry...” Ranma said softly. He leaned down to give the woman a hug again, his arms wrapping tightly. He really didn’t know what else to say. This just sounded awful.
Lowering her head a little, Britanny just sighed. “...It’s why I’ve been so... subdued... still dealing with everything...”
Ranma sighed along with the werecheetah. “I’m really sorry about that...” he told her. He couldn’t believe all this crap had happened to her.
Finally, after a few minutes of her master just holding her, the werecheetah looked up into the pigtailed teen’s eyes. “...So where too after I’m discharged?”
“Well, Pops and I are going to continue training... only now you’ll be coming with us...” Ranma told the woman. “If you want, you can train with us too...” he said seriously.
“...Sounds nice...” the werecheetah offered neutrally.
Ranma smiled lightly. “Pops may be a bit of an idiot, but he does have some good ideas with training. I’m sure you could get stronger, and it’ll help the time pass.”
A smile coming to her lips, the werecheetah couldn’t help but let off a little laugh. “Heh...”
Blinking his eyes at the woman’s chuckling, Ranma asked, “What’s so funny?”
“Just listening to you talk about your father,” the lycanthrope slave responded, answering her owner truthfully. “I can tell you don’t think much of him.”
Ranma managed to smirk at that. “He really isn’t the best guy, but when his plans blow up in only his face, it is fun to watch.”
That made Britanny chuckle again. “If you say so...”
Ranma let out a small sigh of relief. Leaning back down, he gently gave the woman another hug. He might not have been the most keen on giving comfort, not having gotten much in his youth, but he understood hugs made women feel better. “You may be my slave, but I promise I’ll treat you as well as I can.”
“Thanks, Ranma...” the werecheetah said honestly. “That means a lot...”
“You’re welcome... Brit...” Ranma looked into the woman’s eyes. “I can call you that, right?” He would prefer to show her some dignity by calling her by her real name than just ‘Cheetah’.
Britanny scrunched her features as she thought about it, unsure of HOW to feel about it. But she did realize he was only trying to be kind to her. “Sure.”
“Thanks... Brit...” Ranma said softly as he tightened the hug. He made a small vow to himself that he was going to try and do his best to be a master.
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(Posted Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:07)
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