Sheila watched with half hooded eyes as Ranma and Julia fought it out in the center of the Dojo in a way that could only be described as furious, with punches and kicks being exchanged at breakneck speeds between the two combatants. So fast that Sheila was having trouble tracking them so she just followed the general field of motion of the two fighters, to be truthful it was mostly their limbs that became blurred, but whenever Ranma could catch a break he tended to accelerate up to ludicrous speed.
The reflexes both Ranma and Julia were demonstrating was nothing sort of incredible, from her training with Raphiel, Sheila knew how fast werecheetah's could be and Ranma seemed to be using that very speed to his every advantage. Unfortunately for Ranma it seemed that was going to lose this fight, even Sheila's lesser training could tell her that. Whilst Ranma had admirable skill plus the much greater strength and speed of his hybrid werecheetah form, he was still unused to this form. This meant that he was making fundamental errors in balance and reach which...
SLAM!
Sheila winced.
.... which Julia punished harshly.
“Are you trying to embarrass yourself?” Julia asked frustrated as she dropped out of a fighting pose, she knew he was better than this!
Ranma growled, more angry at himself than at Julia for being slammed into the floor. He was not yet used to all the differences in height, weight, strength, speed and well... just about everything else to do with his hybrid form. The result: several rather humiliating impacts into the Dojo as he practically tripped over his own feet.
“No, Sensei,” Ranma answered her as he pushed himself up and off of the floor. It was obvious that she wasn't going to immediately drop right back into a fighting stance, so Ranma took those precious few seconds to put his arms behind his head to stretch the kinks out of his muscles. Inadvertently giving Sheila a show as he flexed his muscles and she let a quiet purr under her breath out in appreciation. Sheila's purr was quiet enough that none of the other inhabitants of the dojo could hear it, save one.
Gar noticed his sisters purr, hard not to when you are a Jagwere and can hear a heartbeat from fifty yards away. He glared over at Ranma and received a quarterstaff to the head for his troubles from Carla, whom he had previously been sparring with. Mentally, cursing he focused back on his own sparring session and barely managed to block Carla's next attack before going on the offensive himself. He didn't approve of the situation developing between him and his sister, he was positive that the one his 'brother' senses had been warning him about was Ranma. Hard to make a mistake what with the way his sister was purring and practically molesting him with her eyes.
Gar ducked under Carla's next attack, spinning as he did so and brought his own quarterstaff across the back of her legs, knocking her spectacularly off balance and down onto the floor. A quick follow up off preventing Carla from raising her staff and bringing his own across her throat, ended their sparring session.
Carla realizing that she was essentially outmatched, signaled her surrender and Gar graciously offered to help her back to her feet, which she accepted.
Carla brushed herself off and then turned a curious eye to Gar. “You doth be distracted. What be on your mind?” she asked with a poorly concealed interest.
She need not have asked the question as she followed his eyes to see Julia sparring with Ranma again and then beyond that his sister Sheila who was also watching that sparring session. From the way Sheila's tail was swaying, you could tell that she was enjoying it. Carla was a war-scout of Jade and therefore could be said to be fairly intelligent about the things she observed, Ranma was a hunk, she was easily able to put this piece of information together with Gar's previous comments to make a suitable conclusion.
“Gar, surely you doth jest? This is bound to end badly,” Carla begged him to reconsider, foreseeing where this was going and not liking it one iota.
Gar spared her a look before focusing his attention back towards Ranma. Ranma was an alright guy generally and he could admit, a very good fighter but he still didn't want him around his sister. Ranma had faults like anyone else, except every single one of his faults tended to make relationships a disastrous prospect, his total lack of commitment, the multiple finances, the numerous people that wanted him dead and would use his finances to achieve that goal. One could quickly see why Gar was unhappy about his sister fawning over Ranma, worse yet that wasn't even taking into account the pure unadulterated chaos and magical dangers that tended to follow the boy around.
He didn't want to tread on his sisters feet and rule her life, mainly because she'd Kapowie him into next year if she found out. However he couldn't help but feel that chasing after Ranma wasn't right for his sister, Ranma had a dozen or more women chasing after him already and he didn't his sister to get her heart broken again. That reminded him, he needed to kill Tigra next time he returned to Jade, assuming of course he'd gotten out of the healers by the time Gar returned. Sheila could be nasty when she wanted to be.
“Hey, whats wrong?” Luan questioned as she came up to the pair, she'd been watching them whilst doing her own exercises and then they'd both stopped sparring before standing around with Carla looking somewhat frustrated. Eventually curiosity had compelled her to stop her exercises to come over and see what was going on.
“Nothing,” Gar muttered distracted, barely looking at her before turning back to watch Ranma with a thoughtful frown on his face.
Luan rolled her eyes at the response, she'd have to be blind not to notice that something was bothering him and looked to her blue haired companion for a real explanation.
“Gar's about to go into over protective brother mood,” Carla stated flatly and unimpressed as she jerked her thumb in said persons direction.
Sighing in disbelief Luan grabbed Gar's shoulders and turned him to face her, getting his attention in doing so. “Now listen to me Gar Silvear!” She demanded jabbing her finger into his sternum ,”if you go out there all 'I know best' you will get your cute ass kicked. Not only by Ranma, Sheila but probably Julia as well for being stupid,” Luan explained ticking each person off her fingers.
She stood back and put her hands on her hips, “Now if you want an embarrassing ass kicking like that, be my guest. Just be warned your sister is likely to hold this against you forever.”
Gar winced at the thought of that, predominately the fight with his sister although getting his ass kicked by Julia was never the most pleasant of experiences especially when she gave him that 'I'm so disappointed in you' look whilst kicking his ass.
Gar turned to watch Ranma and Julia duke it out at full pelt again before pursing his lips. “Fine,” He finally dragged out, “I won't do anything.”
Luan looked at him cautiously for a moment before smiling, “Good,” She exclaimed as she readied herself in a fighting position, “I believe its my turn for you to spar against.”
Gar gave a brief smile, “Trying to knock some sense into me?” he asked amused as he dropped into his own ready position after tossing his quarterstaff to Carla who stepped off the sparring mat.
Luan smirked, “I don't attempt the impossible,” she stated before rushing forward with a punch that was easily dodged and then a feigned kick.
Gar avoided the feign and the punch that followed, using the sudden gap to shoot a quick look over at Ranma, 'You better watch you step around my sister. And if you hurt her...' he thought before engaging Luan in full.
***
Theo opened the door to the Dojo. “Honey, we need to tal...”
Ranma smashed into Theo with the force and speed of a runaway freight train, predictably causing the pair to crash to the ground and tumble. They came to a stop a few feet away in a multicolour pile, the oddity of the incident enough to ground all the sparring in the room down to a slow crawl and then a stop as they turned to look what happened.
“Uh...” Ranma groaned as he tried to clear his vision of the little circling canaries, they weren't helping and were in fact making him a bit hungry. The last thing he needed whilst fighting Julia was distractions from his own stomach.
“Sorry Theo!” Julia apologized to her husband as she walked up to the tangled pile of limbs.
“Ugh...” Ranma shook his head to clear it and then looked down at Theo whom he'd just crashed into, “sorry Dr. Diggers,” he apologized as he tried to get off the Arch-Mage. He was left standing over Dr Diggers with his hand behind his head feeling rather awkward and wondering what etiquette there was in this kind of situation, he'd never been in a compromising position like this with someone not female. Usually he'd brace for mallet time but this was just an odd situation.
“Don't worry about it Ranma... I'm more than used to being crashed into by werecheetahs traveling at significant speeds,” Theo assured the new werecheetah as he himself got to his feet and brushed himself off. He hadn't been lying about being used to being crashed into by werecheetahs, Britanny when she was younger had a habit of misjudging her stopping distances when racing around at high speeds and quite a few times he'd been tripped by a six year old Britanny crashing into his legs.
He shook himself out of reminiscence and turned to face his wife with a rather serious look on his face, “Julia, I need to talk to you privately,” he stated, his body language signaling that this was going to take a while.
Julia looked over husband curiously, but turned her head towards her students. “Alright, you've got the rest of the day off. Gar and Luan do some routines. Carla I saw you earlier, practice you defense. Get the other two to help if you need too. Ranma, keep working on your acclimatising yourself to that body, you really need it. Get Gar to help if you need to.”
“Yes, Sensei,” Gar, Carla, Luan and Ranma replied, putting away the few bits of equipment they had out before heading out of the Dojo doors.
Just before they reached the door, Dr Digger coughed. “If you could assemble in the front room, I need to speak to you all. I'll be over in a moment,” he called out to them, they paused in the door before nodding in their understanding.
Julia placed her hands on her hips and turned to face her husband, “Whats this about Theo? Are the girls in trouble?” Julia questioned him, knowing such a serious face meant something big had happened.
Theo sighed tiredly, sometimes he really wished things would calm down so he could get some proper gardening done. “No, the girls are not trouble,” he answered the question he knew she would be most anxious about. He paused, “Well maybe Brianna,” he admitted but raised his hands in a placating gesture so Julia wouldn't get worked up, “she's fine,” he reassured her.
“You know Brianna has been grounded and the fact that I placed a few spells on her room to ensure you actually fulfilled her punishment?” Theo asked, moving on with his explanation.
Julia nodded, not quite sure where this was going and it showed on her face.
“Well, Brianna decided to take it upon herself to get around those spells. Now those spells were designed to alert me if she was no longer in her room and she knew this, so she decided to use some of those temporary Jusenkyo packets she acquired to make a duplicate of herself. That way she could go outside of the room whilst technically still being inside and not setting off my spell, or at least that's how it should have worked if there weren't ... side effects,” Theo explained the situation carefully to his wife, getting into lecturing mode, “the problem is magical creatures have to be very careful about the magic they use in case it interacts with the magic that exists within them. Being partially lycanthrope Brianna is technically a magical creature and she decided to use Jusenkyo water, which isn't the most stable magic in the first place. Now Brianna's fine, fortunately and luckily untouched, but the 'spring of drowned twins' water reacted with her inner magic and made itself more permanent than desired.”
Julia rubbed her forehead with her hand, “Husband, please tell me that Brianna has not just made a clone of herself?” Julia asked in the tone of someone who knew something was coming and dreaded it.
Theo winced, this was going to be the fun bit to explain. “Not precisely...” he answered slowly.
Julia raised an eyebrow, body language demanding him to explain.
“Remember, the Grave Digger incident on Jade?” Theo questioned, “how Brianna and Grave existed in two separate bodies?”
Julia frowned, not only because of how those arch-mages had handled the Grave Digger things and how Brianna had gotten herself thrown in jail but also because she wasn't liking where Theo was leading too. “Yes...” She answered slowly and carefully before locking her husband with a piecing gaze, “do you mean to tell me husband that my youngest daughter has split herself in half again and now has her 'evil twin' running around again?”
Theo fidgeted slightly, “....yes...” he muttered distinctly feeling like it was his fault.
Julia twitched, why was it always Brianna.... escaped convict and now this! She was going to get the grounding of a century, perhaps it was time to ask her mother about some of those punishments she always talked about. Julia mind tracked to the next important thing, “I suppose because we're not engaged in some battle, that this 'Grave Digger' has changed somehow?” She asked, she wasn't happy with anyone who tried to kill her children twice.
“Significantly, our initial belief's about Grave digger were wrong. She's not so much an evil curse driven aspect of Brianna but actually Brianna's twin, a separate soul in her own right, albeit one deeply entwined with magic. With the evil of Tyranthrax's curse gone this is much easier to see,” Theo explained with a hint of guilt tinting his voice, he always tried so hard to be always in the right. He had misjudged and misjudged badly, there was some sick comfort in the fact he wasn't the only one that made the mistake. In hindsight it seemed almost baby simple, two bodies, two minds and two souls put into that machine of Gina's only producing one person composed of half of each of the originals? Rather than two separate individuals composed of half the originals each?
Interestingly, Grave's soul was still deeply entwined with a curse, it had no direct power over her but it could still influence her behavior. The curse was no longer Tyranthrax's curse as Jusenkyo had dug its claws deep into this girl. Theo had not seen such a thing in..... well never actually, it was difficult to tell where the curse stopped and the girl's soul started, if there was even a division between the two. Jusenkyo’s chaos infected everything and made any meaningful scans almost impossible, one thing certain was that the curse was beginning to merge with her lycanthropy and soul.
“Is she dangerous?” Julia demanded, concern about her family still forefront of her mind.
Theo sighed as his mind was diverted from deeper concerns, “I sense no evil in her. Just…”
“Just?” Julia pressed.
“I’ve never seen an aura that chaotic in a mage. It’s unrivaled except by Ranma’s aura, perhaps it even exceeds Ranma;'s,” Theo explained in a long suffering tone. “There goes any hope of a peaceful retirement…”
Julia smirked despite herself at that, “Sounds like she'll fit in around her.”
“Julia, I've meet the girl and I'm happy to accept her into our family as my daughter. Just.... give her the chance she deserves?” Theodore asked his wife, looking into her eyes.
Julia looked at her husband and sighed, “I've been acting a bit over zealous haven't I?” She asked rhetorically, “Don't worry, I won't come down on her. I made that mistake with Brianna.”
Theo nodded his approval. “Julia... theres is one more thing about Grave that you need to know,” he spoke in a tone that told her he'd saved this until after she'd agreed.
Julia settled into a guarded look, “What is it?”
“She's a Magend.”
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(Posted Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:28)
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