Though forgotten in the rush to escape from the mutated kendoist, one of the spectators of the Hinata Sou Improbably Powerful Girls Tournament was one Ryoga Hibiki, a.k.a. The Lost Boy, P-Chan, and He of the Cute Little Fangs. As this particular threat was clearly not Ranma’s fault entirely and may have been ever so slightly beyond his abilities (not to mention possessing cleavage that threatened explosive nasal hemorrhage,) Ryoga had run for it with the rest of the crowd. However, through the combination of higher dimensional ripples from youma transit, his own sense of direction, and blinking at the exact wrong moment, Ryoga managed to unstick himself from his local universe, thus achieving the dubious honor of becoming lost on the quantum level.
As he continued to head in what was technically a straight line on some axis, the cries of passersby seemed to vary from the usual:
“Another of Kakkerot’s whelps?”
“A ryoka? Using Flash Step!? Here?!?”
"Pika!?”
“Kage Bunshin no—Watch it, bub!”
“Hey Mike, did a Japanese kid just run through here?”
Hey, no interplanar transit in my bedroom!
Deciding that now was as good a time to stop as any, Ryoga came to a halt in what appeared to be a college campus, except everyone was wearing bathrobes for some reason.
“Not bad,” said someone he hadn’t noticed. The figure was in a shabby red robe and a rather sad pointy hat with “WIZZARD” stitched in fading gold thread. “Good stride, nice breath control, eyes ahead of you. The bit where you fade in and out of existence is especially nice, though it may encourage some people to try even harder.” The man sighed with the same experience that seemed to encumber his words. “Sometimes people just refuse to give up.”
Unfortunately, the man was speaking what appeared to be English. Ryoga was decent with most languages, but there were some eccentricities here and there he wasn’t sure about. “I’m sorry?”
“Ah, Agatean, is it? Been a while. Ahem: My certificates.” The expression on the wandering boy’s face told the alleged wizzard he’d made a slight mispronunciation. “Unused prophylactics. Apologies. (That’s the one.) Simply complementing you on your internal bleeding. Jackal teeth. Skill in running away. You’re quite good at it.”
“Er, thanks, I guess.” Obviously, being told he was good at fleeing wasn’t exactly a compliment to the martial artist, but this was clearly someone who had some experience with aimless wandering. Besides, actual knowledge as to his location was never something to be scoffed at. “I don’t suppose you could tell me where I am?”
“Unseen University,” said Rincewind. (Well, translated into the local analogue of Japanese, it came out as “Grand Academy Which Does Not Exist,” but you get the idea.) When he saw this didn’t help, he widened the scope of his description. “Ankh-Morpork.” (“Smelliest of the Cities of the Blood-Sucking Ghosts.”) Still no reaction. “The Discworld.” (“All That Is Beneath the Heavens.”)
“That doesn’t tell me much,” admitted Ryoga.
“Well, have a look duck’s end. Dumpling. Around. See if you recognize anything. Just look out for the small lumps of swallow’s vomit. Er, senior wizards.”
“Why? Will they try to attack me?”
“Worse,” said the Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography. “They’ll try to help.”
Back in the universe where our current story takes place, the Inner Planetary Senshi had continued to embarrass their blue-haired member, who had managed to bounce the humiliation to the spirtualist, (“Well Rei, we’re still waiting for you to pick between Yuuichiro and Usagi.”) which had in turn created a game of “Pass The Shame,” culminating in a fiveway vow to never speak to one another again. This lasted all of twelve seconds before Sailor Moon broke down, apologized to each of her retinue, and brought the situation back to the ground state of warm fuzzies.
This resolved, the warriors of love and justice were now faced with a dilemma: They had been invited to stay at the women’s dorm for a bit. Were they to remain transformed and seem intimidating and standoffish, or detransform and risk exposing their secret identities for the sake of politeness and the use of a hot spring?
“What are we supposed to say?” asked Sailor Moon, “ ‘Sorry, we saved your lives but we can’t trust you as far as we can throw you?’ ”
“As opposed to ‘Oh, we’re not the Senshi, but they said we could stay here instead of them’?” countered Mars.
“One of them is a Senshi. She at least deserves our confidence.” Asserted the future queen.
“We can’t put our families at risk!” noted Mercury.
Jupiter shot this down. “We’re miles from home. It’s not like anyone here knows us.”
“See, this is why I wore a mask when I was Sailor V.”
“Besides,” continued the Senshi of plants and lightning, “We’ll get a lot of funny looks if we try taking a bath in our uniforms.”
“We’ll get more than that,” muttered Venus, imagining all to easily the “wet T-shirt” pics that would inevitably find their way to tabloids and that wondrous catalogue of fetish, the Internet.
Mercury was about to suggest something relating to the inner workings of the disguise field when a battle cry suddenly rang out:
“Heralding a new age, Sailor Uranus!”
“Arriving elegantly, Sailor Neptune!”
“Cute herald of destruction, Sailor Saturn!”
“Insert cheesy catchphrase here, Sailor Pluto.”
Uranus glared at the warrior of timespace. “We need to work on your battle cry.”
“I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em,” replied Pluto, smirking inscrutably.
“Was mine OK, Neptune-mama?”
Sailor Neptune smiled and patted her adopted daughter on the head. “Quite nice, Saturn-chan.”
“You guys are kinda late,” noted Jupiter, amused by the novelty of Sailor Pluto being late for something.
The smirk widened. “I’d have been here on time if it weren’t for Little Miss ‘teleportation makes me sick’ here.”
Uranus scowled. “Not my fault violating the laws of physics makes me a little queasy.” In fact, any Garnet Orb-powered transport of more than a few hundred meters left the blonde tomboy heaving her guts out.
“I know the feeling,” confided Mercury. It was more on a mental level for her, but it was the thought that counted.
“We got here kind of late too,” admitted Sailor Moon. “We were invited for a brief stay, though. We’re deciding whether or not to drop our transformations.”
“No way,” said Uranus immediately.
“Absolutely not,” Neptune proclaimed.
“I don’t think we’re really supposed to…” Saturn murmured uncertainly.
“Why bother?” Everyone turned to Pluto in confusion. “You’ll see.” Three seconds later, there was the feeling that the universe had skipped a frame. It took the minds of the assembled Senshi a moment to restart after the lost split second. Then they realized that their transformations had deactivated.
Su’s voice rang out. “I can fix that!”
“Right on schedule,” said Setsuna, checking her watch. “Still, I had hoped I’d arrive in time to warn everyone.”
“Crap!” Haruka cried, searching for her henshin pen. “Crap crap shit crap fu—”
Her mouth was quickly covered by her more elegant half, who had been probing somewhat more demurely for her own transformation device. “Setsuna,” began Michiru, with an unnerving calm, “why exactly can’t I find my pen?”
“Our latest Senshi accidentally created a magical shockwave that negated our powers for roughly…” she did a bit of quick mental calculation, “three hours. For that time, henshin pens and accessory magical items will be inaccessible.” That Ami was nearly in tears as she continued to try to pull out the Mercury Computer underscored this. “On the bright side, the Zodiac Herald should be able to access the various artifacts left for the Zodiac Senshi.”
“Zodiac Herald?” asked Hotaru.
“He is to the Zodiac Senshi as the mooncats are to the Inners: Senshi locator, advisor, magical item supplier, and so forth. There are two important differences: He is human, and he’s responsible for twelve girls rather than one or four. Fortunately, he’s much more help in a fight.”
“Ranma Saotome, yes?” Ami had largely composed herself.
“Precisely. Where is he, anyway?”
“Said something about hot water and a girl who looks a little like Hotaru took her to the hot spring,” explained Rei.
The smirk returned. “Is it that time already?” Before the others could reply, there was a piercing scream. “That would answer my question.”
“C sharp,” commented Michiru absently.
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(Posted Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:23)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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