Ranma Saotome felt a shiver run down his spine.
He didn't know why, but he had the strange feeling that he was in trouble. Again.
"Master? Is something wrong?"
He looked up into the worried face of his primary combat summons, Ifurita.
He tried to give her a reassuring look.
"It's nothing."
But the battle gynoid/Weapon of Total Devastation had been with him too long to be fooled so easily.
She stared at him without blinking.
Ranma felt his brow start to sweat under that steady gaze.
His mouth opened.
"Ranma-sama, I can see the inn up ahead." said a seductive voice from behind him.
Relieved by this sudden save, the young man turned around. And then he froze.
"Caster, Rider.... what are you two DOING?!"
The two heroic spirits looked back at him with expressions of perfect innocence.
"Whatever do you mean, Ranma-sama," purred the blue haired Caster.
The frustrated summoner pointed exactly to what he meant.
"And you too, Neliel! We're supposed to be traveling incognito!"
The green haired Arrancar was in her centaur mode and was carrying both of the others on her back. Long haired Rider was in front while Caster sat behind behind her.
"But this way is more efficient, isn't it," said Neliel as she cocked her skull-capped head at him.
Ranma opened his mouth to retort, then closed it, then opened it again, then finally closed it again and hung his head in defeat. He just wasn't going to win this one.
"Fine, do what you want."
He supposed it was his fault in the end. After all, he was the one who had summoned them all in his
ignorance as a child.
Nobody had ever told the lonely boy that it was impossible to make so many contracts
and because he hadn't known
it was impossible, he'd figured out how to do it.
But contrary to popular belief, more didn't necessarily mean better.
Summons came in several different base types. There were the instant summons known as Incidents, called by the contract to perform a single spell or action such as Shiva's Ice attack or his own Siren's Mute Attack. Temporary Summons like Pixies were much weaker then Incidents, but could also remain longer to assist in tasks over several hours. For most people, these were the contracts that saw day to day use. For the types beyond this, you needed a large pool of prana to even attempt to call them, let alone form a contract with them.
The easiest and most common class were of course the 'Magical Girls', contracts formed with people who had their own supply of prana that could be transformed into special abilities with minimal drain to the contractor. Above them were the types known as 'Souls', that came as either a plus (Reaper) or a minus (Arrancar). Near the top were the Heroic Spirits, legendary heroes who possessed incredible power but required a large upkeep in Prana to support their presence. And at the pinnacle were the rare and coveted Permanent Summons, beings such as his own Ifurita who did not require prana to sustain them and could not be banished or nullified because they were actually a part of the real world, rather then being just a manifestation into it.
But just as important as the kind of summons was the Binding of the Contract. Pactios had to be made between two willing parties, it simply wouldn't work otherwise due to the intimate nature of the connection. That link between the Summoner and summoned meant that pain and pleasure flowed both ways. What one felt, both of them felt.
And that of course posed a greater danger to those with multiple active contracts. Experiencing the pain of several summons being attacked at the same time could lead to madness or even death in the most extreme cases. For practical purposes though it meant that those with fewer Summons tended to last longer then those with many.
And that was why Ranma made a point of having only a few of his Pactios activated at any one time.
It was also why he'd wanted to try and stay relatively unnoticed for now.
The last thing he needed was to have a bunch of hotshot summoners looking to be the first to beat him and make him waste his strength before the Great Game began.
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(Posted Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:50)
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