Shampoo double-checked that she was alone in the Nekohanten; consciously, she knew that she was, Cologne having taken Mousse to go and run some errand on the outskirts of the ward, but she didn’t dare risk being caught at what she was about to do. She knew that Cologne would not look favorably on anyone, least of all her great-granddaughter; she discovered had taken the copies of the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan that the Joketsuzoku matriarch owned from her chest of occultic artifacts. And worse still on one who had also taken Cologne’s copy of the R’lyeh Text.
Shampoo knew that this was going far beyond the few pitiful enchantments she had dabbled in before now, but things had happened that had strengthened her resolve and steeled her will enough to go to this extent. For the fifth time, she went over the pages of arcane knowledge, painstakingly transcribed from their original blasphemous homes in secret, and began to prepare for the ritual.
Once she had ascertained she had all of the necessary ingredients, she took up the flint athame she had taken from Cologne’s chest and, gritting her teeth against the pain, sliced a series of cuts into her palm and forearm. Following the instructions, laid out in the most minute detail, she began to mix her blood, ink and a series of alchemical reagents into a bowl, until at last she had a sufficient quantity. Pausing only to bind her wounds, lest they drip and distort the pattern, she took up a brush made from the hair of human corpses and began to painstakingly use her vile mixture to paint a symbol of conjuration upon the floor, after which she encircled it with a two-way warding seal and then painted a smaller warding circle for herself to stand in.
Standing upright within the warding circle, she took a moment to steel herself and began. Dark incantations spilled from her lips, blasphemous intonations that predated the birth of humanity and echoed with the undertone of cold, dark aeons. The lights dimmed and a foul, fetid stench began to fill the air, ghastly, half-formed shapes rippling and seething in the darkness as Shampoo’s invocation built upwards to her climax, aethyrical winds raging and lashing around her as she screamed the final words and space/time tore itself apart as Something forced its way through the gap.
Shampoo covered her eyes and shrieked in terror; it was monstrous! It was hideous! It was an abomination against mortal sanity! It was…
A three-foot tall and quite obviously stuffed toy penguin. Shampoo uncovered her eyes and stared at it in dumbstruck disbelief. Apparently either unnoticing or uncaring, the penguin waved a patchwork flipper in friendly greeting.
“Hey dood. What’s up?”
Once Shampoo had prized her face free of the floorboards, she stared at the thing she had summoned incredulously.
“Who… are you?” She finally asked, speaking in her native tongue for ease of communication. The thing looked up at her, a smile evident in the contortions of its plastic beak.
“Me? Why, am I he who you summoned- Gryn’dlktch, Destroyer of Worlds, Shatterer of Psyches, Unmaker of Men!”
“…You’re a toy penguin.” Shampoo pointed out. The penguin’s eyes suddenly glowed blood red and when it spoke its voice was like thunder, rattling Shampoo’s very bones.
“Impudent mortal! To see me in my true guise is something for which you are neither prepared nor worthy! Now speak! Hearken to mine ears the reason for which you have called me forth from the dark voids of space, or I shall rend thee asunder and depart!”
Though she knew that the wards she had invoked should contain the demon’s fury, Shampoo hastened to reply all the same, chilled to her very soul with fear of the beast.
“I ask of you a boon, oh great and terrible Gryn’dlktch, a boon that will enable me to win the heart of the man that I love, yet who refuses my love.”
“You summoned me here for a petty love spell?” The demon’s voice was louder than before, and Shampoo hastened to explain herself, unconsciously thinking back a week ago to the event that had started her along this path…
She had come to Furinkan, aiming to deliver some of her handmade ramen to her beloved groom- yet had been unable to find him. Asking around had gotten her, eventually and after several date requests (those had stopped after the crudest would-be Romeo promptly had his teeth knocked out), the information that Ranma had been seen heading to some out-of-the-way part of the school grounds, accompanied by a new transfer to Furinkan- a boy, fortunately for Shampoo’s paranoia. She had tracked them down, but upon seeing the two in deep discussion about something, she had decided to sneak up on them and see what they were talking about rather than announcing her presence.
To her curiosity, she had found them to be discussing pictures, apparently drawn by the newcomer, that depicted… human animal things. Like, humanoid animals- women with animal heads and features and fur. Furries, she had heard the two of them call the creatures. They had been rather well drawn too- in fact, from what she could tell, the new boy had been asking Ranma to assess them for him. From the conversation she had eavesdropped on, Ranma had apparently gotten membership in a club that the new boy had also belonged to, and that he had became something of an unofficial ‘art assessor’ before he had left. However, it was the reason he had given for being so secretive that had stuck with her, that had driven her to this course of events…
“Look, man, I gotta keep this whole thing a secret from everyone, okay? The girl my old man hitched me to? She already thinks I’m a freaky pervert- I don’t wanna know what’ll happen if she finds out I’ve got a genuine fetish.”
As Shampoo finished relating this to the demon, its eyes ceased to burn and its voice, when it spoke next, returned to normal.
“Fancy story, dood. But what’s it gotta do with me?”
“I suffer from a Jusenkyo curse that causes me to turn into a cat.” Shampoo explained. “My husband is terrified of cats, thanks to a failed training exercise. I want you to change my Jusenkyo curse so that, instead of turning into a cat, I’ll turn into one of his ‘furries’.”
Gryn’dlktch stared at her, cocking his head to the side curiously before speaking.
“So… you want me to fix it so that you stop turning into a cat… and turn into a cat-girl instead? How’s that gonna help you, dood?”
“Ranma doesn’t seem to mind cat-girls so much as he does cats… besides, I want you to turn me into a different furry.” Shampoo explained.
“Like what?”
“I don’t really care. Ranma said something about skunks being his favorite though…” Shampoo trailed off as she remembered the various pictures she had looked at. She could actually understand why her husband liked them so; she didn’t swing towards her own sex (her behavior towards Ranma’s girl-side was an expression of her Ranmasexuality), but they hadn’t been bad looking to her.
“So, you wanna turn yourself into a freak… just so some guy will look at you? You gotta be the most lovesick bimbo I’ve ever seen, dood.” Gryn’dlktch commented.
“Who are you calling a bimbo!?” Shampoo snapped, instinctively stepping forward with the intention of teaching him a lesson- but managed to arrest her progress before she actually breached the ward. That had been too close; if she had broken the seal, she would have been at the demon’s mercy. The abomination in the form of a toy penguin grinned at her Brushing herself off indignantly, Shampoo set about trying to reclaim her dignity.
“I didn’t think that a being like you would understand. If I prove how willing I am to accommodate my beloved Ranma’s quirks, I prove to him how much better a wife I will make than that wretched Akane Tendo. Besides, I’m sick of scaring him away whenever someone splashes me with cold water. So, can you do it, or can’t you?”
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(Posted Tue, 26 Aug 2008 10:51)
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