Ranma yelled and waved his arms a lot as the… the thing purred happily and rubbed up against his chin.
“Excellent, Ash,” the Professor congratulated. “It’s marking its territory with scent. You’re making splendiferous process!”
“Honestly, Ash,” Brock’s voice demanded. “Its a sickeningly cute fuzzy animal, but what are you so worked up about?”
“I yiyi yi y– I… don’t know,” Ranma admitted with some surprise. The cat thing didn’t seem so bad now he wasn’t panicking mindlessly from force of habit. The best he could figure was that a life time removed from the cat-fist training left him with a few issues, but no lasting mental scars.
“What ever,” the Professor’s bored voice demanded. “Just go ahead and absorb it so we can get on with more important things!”
“Right, so how do I do that already?” Ranma asked. “What is this thing anyway?”
“Mmm, oh, it looks to a cheetah cub,” the Professor replied. “Let me see. Wait a moment. The machine is doing… fancy computer stuff. Ah! I see. Fascinating. Speed magic! Who would have guessed?”
“Really?” Brock exclaimed with interest. “You know, that would be very useful for a courier delivery service, dating two girls at once, chasing down Thomson’s gazelles, or escaping from the women’s showers. That kind of thing.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Ranma demanded hotly.
“Because venison is absolutely delicious,” the Professor replied. “Now, stop wasting time and get on with it.”
“Get on with what?”
With a whir and a click and a judder, the door slid open; revealing a rather peeved Professor. “Honestly, Ash, how did you ever get your license approved? Don’t they test applicants these days?”
“Oh, like you’re one to talk,” Ranma muttered as he picked himself off the floor and carried the creature out of the chamber. “Hey? Isn’t this dangerous?”
“Of course not,” the Professor assured him. “It hasn’t killed you yet, has it? Come along, I’ll talk you through it. We haven’t got all day to fix this. There’s a documentary I really want to catch on the swimsuit channel. Oh, plus you’ll probably die soon if we don’t.”
“Hey, Professor?” Brock asked. “Should I start while you’re doing that?”
“What? Oh, sure, just a moment.” The Professor turned to adjust a control panel.
Whoop-ah! Buzz-app! Ka-chicka!
“Was that really necessary?” Ash asked flatly. “He actually wanted to go in.”
“Details, details. Let’s get this over with. Follow me, Ash.”
Patting the cub curled up contentedly in his arms, Ranma plodded after the mad scientist. “Hey! Wait a minute. What was that about me dying?”
“The bond with a Spirit Animal allows the Host to use magic.” Nanako explained. “Contrawise, the bond allows the Familiar to draw life force from the Host and manifest physically. The health and emotional state of one has an direct effect on the other.”
“That’s why I bleed when that thing is cut?” the Misties asked. “And it bleeds when I am pricked? And would you stop doing that already? Ow!”
Nanako released a flap of one of the Misty’s skin, and noted that a pinch hickey was forming on the other’s arm as expected. “Actually, I’ve never heard of the sympathetic bond causing a psychosomatic reaction quite this strong. Perhaps it’s because you are too similar.”
“Well, can’t you just turn it back into a blob?” the Misties demanded in unison, then glared at each other.
“I suspect that the original amoeboid state was just an embryonic stage,” Nanako theorized. “Now that it has been adopted the Spirit Animal will most likely continue to manifest as your duplicate until orphaned.”
“Crap!” the Misties echoed and quoted, “‘a Spirit Animal is for life.’”
“Exactly,” Nanako agreed, holding up a reflexological hammer. “Now, as I was saying, a Spirit Animal draws energy from the Host when it Manifests fully. This allows it’s magic to be used at a distance, but is extremely draining. The longer and further you remain apart, the weaker you will both get, until there’s not enough life force to support you both.”
“That’s bad,” the Misties observed and looked at each other thoughtfully. Then both yelped as Nanako tapped one knee after another and watched the mirrored reflexes kick in.
“That’s why you both have to start working together,” Nanako agreed, “and pull yourselves together. Your lives are on the line.”
“Well, we’d better do this. I’m the real Misty,” the Misties insisted, “so you will have to… stop doing that!”
Nanako sighed.
“There are three states of manifestation,” the Professor explained, sounding for once competent. “Absorbed, Fully Manifested, and Partially Manifested. You are in the second stage, Fully Manifested, more commonly known as Summoned, where your Spirit Animal roams more or less free. However, it’s still leeching off your life force.”
The cheetah cub in Ranma”s lap looked innocently, and disgustingly, cute. It also seemed to be paying more attention than Ranma.
“Right now the little parasite is more or less useless, but with time and exercise it can become a useful messenger, able to cover great distances quite quickly. Using its Speed Magic will use a lot of your energy, though, so much like a real cheetah it will only be able to sprint for a short amount of time before draining you into a soulless husk.”
Ranma hugged the cub as he barely listened to the lecture. Stoking the fur seemed remarkably comforting. He’d never have expected something like that.
“However, even without using magic, it remains a constant drain on your essence while Summoned. In order to let you recover your life force, the Spirit Animal needs to enter the Absorbed, Unmanifested, or as it is more commonly known, the Possessed state. In this mode it resides as a pure spirit attached to your aura.”
Lowering his pointy stick from the chalkboard, with it’s diagrams of cute cubs a playing, older cheetahs a running, and Ash a dying, he glared. “Once you’ve mastered Summoning and Possessing your Spirit Animal, we can move on to the third state.”
Ranma nodded in sudden understanding. “Right, Partial Manifestation, or Channeling. I’m starting to remember. That’s where I can use Hypre’s magic myself, right?”
“Oh, now you remember? You’re a remarkably slow learner for an Ace cram student, Ash. But yes. In the third state, the host and the symbionte merge into one. You, the host, take on some physical characteristics of your beastie—”
“Hypre,” Ranma stated proudly, “because she’s fast.”
“Whatevah! As I was saying, because you Channel part of the parasite’s material form, you also gain access to its magic. Of course, there are downsides and so most Magic Users limit the amount they Channel their Spirit Animal, for good reason. The more of it you Channel into your body, the more magic you can use, but if you Channel too much the Spirit Animal can take over, displacing your spirit. You become Possessed, rather than the other way around.”
“Okay,” Ranma said. “I got it. But how exactly do I Possess Hypre?”
“Honestly, Ash,” the Professor excplained, “I have no idea.”
“Oh, good,” Ranma sighed in mock relief. “For a moment I thought you had been kidnapped and replaced by somebody competent.”
“You’re pretty fresh for a kid on death row.”
“Manifest!” Brock cried. The pattern on his arm glowed hesitantly. “Uhm. I Summon You, Scarlet! … By the compact that exists between us come forth? … Oly, oly, oxenfree, come out come out wherever you are? Awe, come on out, Scarlet.” The pattern flared suddenly.
A scarlet-coloured creature, with crimson highlights, the size of a small dog formed in front of him. It was somewhat the shape of a scorpion but with a bit of ankylosaur in the shape of the carapace and tail. It held it’s large pincers ready like boxing gloves, and the heavily clubbed head of its long tail curved menacingly over its chome armored body.
“Alright!” Brock exclaimed happily at the sight of the little monster. “You’re the greatest Scarlet. Now… Return!”
The Spirit Animal shrugged, then obediently dissolved back into his aura. A delighted Brock remarked, “that was easy. I wonder why the other two had such trouble? Oh, well, you can let me out now, Professor.”
…
“Professor!”
…
“Ash? Nurse Nanako? Misty? Other Misty? Anybody?”
…
“Bummer.”
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(Posted Sat, 02 Jun 2007 09:51)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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