"Cool."
Ranma had lowered himself into the abyss and found a cave entrance.
After some exploring in the soft glow of his coat, he had found what seemed to be a richly decorated underground palace. Though it had been stripped bare of any valuable objects, which meant someone had been there - and not long ago, as there was barely any dust around and it was well maintained with the exception of a few craters and gouges from a battle or fight of some kind.
There was still something wrong about the place, though ...
He felt like he was being watched.
Looking around, Ranma saw nothing out of place ... then inspiration struck, and he looked up.
There, hanging from the ceiling was something he had not expected to see in real life - a tentacle monster.
And its huge teeth were salivating as it stared directly at him with its glowing red eyes.
"Crap," was the only descriptive word for the situation.
Tentacles shot from the body of the beast, and Ranma had to jump back to avoid being skewered.
The rock of the cave responded to Ranma's wishes and constricted around the tentacles - and air sharpened to blades to sever the appendages from the body, but they were not sharp enough and barely made a scratch.
The monster roared in rage, and dropped from the ceiling, intending on crushing the intruder with its massive bulk.
To prevent a squishing, the ground beneath Ranma's feet dropped with him standing until he was below the surface and the monster crashed onto the ground just above him, one eye over the opening.
Ranma took the opening provided, and stuck the vulnerable area with all his might, and like with his fight against Saffron he fist was surrounded by a drill of sharpened air.
While he didn't do any permanent damage, Ranma was sure he had at least gained the monster's respect, and it retreated at a safer distance as Ranma was elevated back to floor level.
"Bad doggie," he chastised sternly. On the inside, he was shaken because this thing was tougher than anything he had ever faced before, but he had learned long ago not to show doubt while facing someone in a fight. "Don't make me use my full bag of tricks to bring you down."
Ranma was sure of one thing, and that was that with wind billowing his fiery coat, and swirling around his closed fists, he would make an intimidating sight, especially after having temporarily blinded the monster in its left eye.
"At least it's not a sex fiend, like those in manga," muttered the furry Martial Artist to himself.
As he focused his attention on the monster, something else caught his attention in the large chamber the two were in ... a strong sense of power emanating just below the floor.
"What the -"
Ranma's distraction was capitalised upon, and the man suddenly found himself surrounded by several sharp teeth closing in on him.
It was not a situation he was used to - after all, who trained for finding themselves in the closing maw of a huge monster?
So Ranma responded to his initial reactions instead of risking impalement by ducking and jumped into the throat of the beast.
Despite what he would have thought, the insides of the monster was surprisingly dry and comfortable - but it was still the insides of a monster and Ranma was not about to be eaten without a fight.
A ball of fire manifested itself in his hand, and grew in intensity until it resembled a small sun and the 'stomach' of the monster started evaporating.
A roar of pain was heard through the thick flesh and Ranma knew he had scored a decisive hit in this battle.
Turning the heat up a notch, Ranma started moving the ball around until he found the spot that made the monster express the most pain and then thrust forward.
With a grotesque splattering sound, Ranma found himself on the floor covered in the slimy 'blood' of the monster - rolling forward to avoid being squished by the collapsing being.
The crash of the heavily wounded monster slamming into the floor shook the cave system, and Ranma would have started running if not for the shimmering light emerging from the crevice created by the monster.
As the monster fell through the floor, Ranma saw a large blue ring made out of some kind of energy, hovering just below the floor, above the abyss below where the monster was still plummeting.
"What is this?" wondered Ranma.
An overwhelming urge overcame him to touch the ring ... and then he gave in.
Much like with how he managed to feel nature around him since killing Saffron, Ranma felt a connection establish with the ethereal ring. It wasn't exactly like it, in that he felt like the ring was a living being who didn't want him there, where nature seemed to welcome him with open arms. Not that Ranma bothered to take note of the attempts to push him away.
There was a source for the ring - Ranma knew it, he felt the radiation of power. If he could get to the source, then he might get some answers for what this place was, why someone put a monster there, and perhaps what had happened to make the people there leave. If he was lucky, maybe-
A tug had Ranma momentarily blind.
When he reopened his eyes, Ranma witnessed a dark, red world surrounding him - with no sign of any nature as he floated in space.
Something caught his eye in the distance.
It looked like a tooth-pick shrouded by a pinkish veil.
Much like flying, Ranma started moving towards the focus of his attention, and he wanted to know where he was and what that thing in the distance was. And he was also curious about why he was nude, but that was far from the worst thing he had ever been exposed to.
After some time, Ranma had pierced the veil and came within touching distance of a large tower, surrounded by countless rings of scribbles floating in the air.
"Wonder what those scribbles mean," Ranma wondered, and touched one section as it floated by.
Nothing happened.
"Damn, wish this stuff was as easy to get as nature manipulation is," sighed the man wistfully.
As though someone heard him, a set of rings appeared at the palm of his hand, with scribbles along the edge, and in the middle was an image of more scribbles.
It dissolved, and the fragments were absorbed into his hand.
From there, a stream of energy visibly shot through his body from his hand to his head and Ranma recoiled in pain as a bunch of information was crammed into his head.
"Whoa," Ranma remarked in awe as he opened his eyes and suddenly understood the words written in the rings. Realising that this place did respond in a similar way to his nature manipulation power, Ranma decided to experiment. "Okay, I wish I knew who used to live here."
A ring of words in the new language he had somehow learned appeared, with the unmistakable image of a dragon in the middle.
"Cool, it works almost like those computer things Nabiki used to work with," realised Ranma. "Okay, can you tell me how I became what I am now?"
A set of rings suddenly surrounded him, and the words 'scanning' and 'found implanted data' were written.
Another ring with the words 'projecting relevant data' appeared before him.
"Hello, my child," a figure very similar to himself stated cordially, dressed in a black body-suit and every few seconds the rat-man looked around nervously. From what Ranma could tell, the man was in the bathroom, and was looking into a mirror. "If you are viewing this, then you have unlocked your heritage, and for that I am proud. But perhaps an introduction is in order. My name is Bosola Ramone, I am a wererat elemental mage.
"I am certain you must be very surprised by this news, and I cannot apologise enough for what I have done, but it was all for the greater good.
"Let me explain. I work under an Aura Mage wererat by the name of Gothwrain, a scheming old coot who is constantly attempting to usurper the power of the Mistress, who is the leader of the wererat nation. My job involves deciphering scrolls of an elemental nature and cataloguing that information and the scrolls in their proper place.
"One day, while filing a few scrolls, it came to my attention that Gothwrain was planning something involving the demise of the werecheetah clans, who are among the only clans of werecreatures to remain on Earth after the great magical exodus. A year later, I heard that all werecheetah but one had been eliminated ... I thought of reporting this to the Mistress, but I have heard rumours that Gothwrain has eliminated similar informants in the past, and decided to make myself a form of insurance.
"To that end, I have gathered a large quantity of scrolls pertaining to elemental magic, and some concerning the conception of an heir, and the sealing of information and heritage until the proper parameters were met, which they must have as you are reviewing this implanted memory.
"I have spent a long time narrowing down my choices of human women to someone for whom getting pregnant will not be an oddity, and in my immediate area, there is only one such woman, whose husband is constantly going on training trips for Martial Arts or on week-long drinking binges. Her name is Saotome Nodoka, or as we westerners say, Nodoka Saotome.
"While I have not carried through with the last part of plan yet, it must have worked for you to see this, so I will detail it for you.
"The first steps have already been done, gathering scrolls and information. The second part involved waiting for the last day of the drinking binge of the man you must have thought to be your father, and assume his appearance through the use of another scroll - then I must most regrettably have physical congress with the woman who is your mother. And let me make sure you understand that the regrettable part is not the physical congress, but rather that it had to be under those conditions ... I must admit I rather like the redheaded woman after having observed her for as long as I have ...
"The next step is to make sure we conceive an heir - you - and repress your true heritage until such time that it might be vital for them to emerge.
"The last step will be to blur your mother's memory of the evening and place your foster father in bed with her so they will both assume they have done the deed and not be surprised when your presence is felt.
"Now, I am certain you must feel a wide range of conflicting emotions right now, but if I have not revealed this to you in person, then I can only assume I am dead, destroyed in trying to inform the Mistress of Gothwrain's masterful manipulations of the werewolves and werecheetah. I can only apologise for everything, and wish you a happy life - though I would appreciate it greatly if you would see your way towards letting the Mistress know about this so my death was not completely fruitless.
"Good bye, and please note that it will probably be safer for everyone if you studied the spells I have implanted along with this memory. Mild instinctive control of your environments is all well and good, but without proper training you could hurt someone."
'End sequence' the writing flashed across the now frozen image. Ranma could not help but gape like a fish.
Genma wasn't his father?
He didn't know whether he wanted to strangle the wererat for raping his mother or hug him for revealing that he had nothing of Genma's DNA in him.
The revelation he had just gotten was quite a whopper ... if it didn't match some of what he had already lived through, he might not have been able to handle it as well as he was.
Whatever was he supposed to do next?
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(Posted Thu, 08 Jan 2009 09:26)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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