Ranma sighed as he looked at his—now her—shirt, noting the severe tears, massive burns, missing patches, and blood the color of which seemed to shift depending on the way the light struck it. “Okay, that was by far the oddest and worst quest you’ve ever sent me on.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” offered Bastet, both Avatars using their own power to dissolve the fluids of the strange beast off them.
“Only because this favor was brought by a male God and not a female one,” groused Sekhmet.
“Please, you make it sound like I would take missions for Goddesses like Venus or even Aphrodite.”
Ranma blinked. “Aren’t they the same person?”
“Common misconception,” said Bastet, “but different Pantheons.”
“I bet that is one hell of a story.”
“True,” offered Sekhmet, “but we do not discuss it with mortals.”
Ranma just shrugged. It didn’t really matter to her. “So, is there really something wrong with those two Goddesses you mentioned?”
“The fact my sister does not deal with them was not telling enough?” asked the Warrior Goddess.
Ranma just arched her eyebrow. “I didn’t know that God I was helping out was really a huge pervert until he saw me with my two assistants,” she said, hefting her breasts. “So, yeah, I’d like all the information possible before it comes back to bite me in the ass.”
“Told you he was smart,” said Sekhmet a few moments later, as Ranma retrieved another shirt from her backpack before she was busted for public indecency. A few spells on her t-shirts gave her some support of what a bra might—since she definitely didn’t want one of those in case she changed back to male before it could be removed or worse, caught wearing.
Sadly, the current t-shirt had faired barely better than her normal enchanted silk shirt. But it would last her until she could get a decent bath and remove the majority of the ichor from her form, perhaps even return to being a guy.
Next time, I ask if they have any bathing or instant-clean spells for payment.
Bastet just glared at the redhead. “I will only admit that those two are about as ‘free’ with their bodies and as likely to take ‘no’ for an answer as that God we assisted.”
“Ah,” mumbled Ranma.
“Depending on their mood or alcohol imbibed, that could apply to both your forms, Young Warrior.”
Ranma cringed. She may have … accepted her current form, even accepted that a cure for the curse might not come for years, if not decades, depending on her studies of Jusenkyo. It however did not mean she was comfortable with anyone—male or female—trying to have liberties with her female form—as one neo-high-pitched God could now attest to. “So, when do I get the newest bit of Nekoken training.”
“Oh, we finished with that last quest,” said Bastet.
Ranma’s eye twitched. “Then … what the hell was this quest for?”
“That vial we had you acquire as a side-trip,” was the answer from Sekhmet. “Without it, your body would quickly burn through your energy reserves using the Nekoken, even with as much as you have developed them, even if your body enhanced the flow with your mana.”
“And this gunk prevents that?” she asked.
“In theory,” replied Bastet. “Remember, all of those who learned our Nekoken were trained from the age they could barely walk and beyond. You have been training in it for less than four years. Therefore, your body simply isn’t ready to handle the additional stress its use would entail.”
“We had hoped to use the contents in that vial to correct it. Hopefully in a week, we will have contacted the necessary deities to confirm it would have no ill-effects on you, your body, your energy, and even this curse.” Sekhmet shooks lightly as the rest of the ichor vanished off her Avatar form.
Ranma nodded, slipping the vile back into his subspace pocket. Before the Book, he knew the old him would have downed it the moment they hinted it would help him.
Of course, the Old Him would probably now be on the ground slowly dying or forever female. So that was pretty much a moot point.
“Well, at least you didn’t have to swim back to Japan this time around,” offered Bastet.
“Oh yes, because that … whatever the hell that was, was so much easier,” Ranma replied, voice dripping sarcasm.
“Hey, we did bring you a present,” smirked the cat, as she pointed towards the sea.
Blinking, Ranma turned, spotting a strange dot on the approaching horizon. Reaching into her backpack, she pulled out a small binocular, and looking out towards it. “Is that…”
“Yep,” smirked Bastet.
Genma was not a very happy panda.
After Jusenkyo, the Amazons, and a little mixup with a ramen maker and a bowl of hair-growing ramen, Ranma had been on a hair trigger with launching painful spells at him. If he didn’t know any better, he thought perhaps his son was undergoing that ‘special female time’ that usually made Nodoka chase him with sharp knives.
Add to that the fact the boy had refused to help him cross the sea like those blasted cats were helping him, and he was in a foul mood. Blasted furballs were worse than the dreaded Master at the best of times.
So here he was, a panda—blasted boy still refused to use his hocus pocus to fix that, claiming he didn’t know a cure spell yet—swimming back to Japan, avoiding sharks, military forces, and such, because his worthless child wouldn’t use his magic or be man enough to demand that those evil felines would take him across as well. How could I have raised such a uncaring child?
So in the heat of his internal musings, Genma failed to notice as a wave slowly began to raise him higher and higher, speeding to the shore.
He did however, notice when his view went negative ninety degrees and sent him head-first into the sandy beach.
“Best day ever,” was the muffled sound that reached Genma’s ears as he slowly lost consciousness.
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(Posted Sun, 07 Jun 2009 21:49)
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