Ranko hummed gently in what many would call a tuneless but pleasant tone. However the 'tunelessness' was due to her rehearsing spells under her breath and without actually wording them. A lot of Black Mages did this so that they could quickly get their spells out, the better you could mentally rehearse the spell the less you actually needed to say or do. Hence why Hlel had been able to fry Happosai with a simple call of 'bolt' and aiming the thing with his weaker arm. The side effect of this though was that if she ran into an enemy that could hear her thoughts she might as well be screaming out her attacks.
"Moon Tiara Magic!" a voice shouted.
Kinda like that. Ranko raised an eyebrow and walked over to see a bunch of girls in sailor fuku fighting some sort of... She didn't really have a name for it. It was strange... dark purple thing that looked like a cross between an ape, and a lizard with a bulldog's face. Suddenly a faster one shot out at one of the girls and Ranko was on the spot. "Fire!" she shouted and a ball of flame hurdled into the creature and knocked it down like a bowling pin. She half giggled half chuckled at this as the small creature ran around yelping as it was on fire. Then was surprised as it turned to dust at about the same time as the girls turned the larger version to dust.
"You! How did you do that!? You're not from the Negaverse are you?" The one with brown hair accused marching up to her.
"From the what? It was just a basic attack spell, nothing to get into a huff over." Ranko said meeting her glare inch per inch.
"Then why are you dressed like that?" she asked tightly.
"Because it's comfortable, looks good, and I can scam off so much ice-cream with this it's already paid for itself." Ranko said and she backed down.
"So... just how do you scam ice-cream with an outfit like that?" The one with blond pigtails asked after walking up to her seriously and Ranko had to resist falling to the ground as the one with long black hair did so and the one with blue hair was right behind her in that regard. The other blond facepalmed and the brunette sighed.
"So just who are you girls anyways? What kind of magic were you using?" Ranko asked.
"We're the pretty defender's of Love and Justice the Sailor Senshi!" the one with pigtails announced striking a pose and Ranko sweatdropped.
"That's nice, now if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way." Ranko said a little hurriedly and walked off. 'Only I could find the local magic dingbats after being in a district for all of two freaking minutes.'
"Excuse me madam." a woman's voice said and Ranko looked around but was mostly alone on the street. "Down here." she said with a bit of an exasperated huff.
"EeP! Catcatcatcatcatcat!" Ranko stuttered backing up quickly and knocking over the girl behind her. "I hate Cats!" she shouted in fear before trying to scurry back.
"Oh dear goodness. Just my luck, the only possible modern ally for them I find and she's ailurophobic." the cat said in a huff. "Madam I am not here to hurt you I only want to talk." she said as Ranko grabbed onto the blond girl she had run into screaming.
"Catsdontalk! Catsdontalk! Catsdontalk!" she shouted hugging hard as she could and the woman started to shout at her.
"I don't freaking swing that way damnit!" she said trying to pry Ranko off. The Cat ran off so as not to cause her any more stress and it took ten minutes to calm the redhead down.
"Jeez! You jerk! It was just a cat what gives!?" she half shouted at her.
"I'm sorry... I had a very very bad experience as a kid and I can feel them clawing at me, yowling, biting, screeching, hissing!" Ranko said starting to panic again then calmed down. "I'm very sorry I just... can't be near cats and go through that hell again every time."
"What happened?" She asked sounding worried now.
"I... I can't talk about, but it was bad, very bad." Ranko said shivering. An unfortunate side effect to the moxibustion was that she felt even more vulnerable when around cats so the Neko-ken fear was even worse now.
"All right, all right. Calm down. My name's Makoto. You are?" she asked holding out her hand.
"Ranko." she said taking the slightly taller girl's hand with a smile. Then she was nudged by her battle doll and blushed. "Oh dear I forgot I have to go to my mothers. I'm sorry about all that again. Bye!" Ranko said before rushing off blushing in embarrassment.
Five minutes later.
"Okay Ranko deep breaths you can do this. If she pulls that sword ice it and bail. There is no honor in killing someone, let's hope mom knows this." she said and knocked on the door to the respectable two story house complete with basement and attic.
"Ah! Ranko-chan! My, my it looks like my lessons in femininity have finally sunk in! You look stunning!" Nodoka complimented her right away her eyes alight with pleasure.
"Um... Auntie can I come in? There I some things I have to tell you." Ranko asked and was led inside.
One long and very awkward conversation later with several magic demonstrations.
"Uh... um... Ranma... chan... that Seppeku contract was solely for your father not you. The finger painting was an accident where he dropped it while you were playing." Nodoka said slowly looking very confused but some of that swept away at the look of intense relief on Ranko's face. Resolve then crept into her features.
"Well, if you're stuck as a girl now as well as being a mistress of Black Magic I can hardly let your father a martial artist take care of you, and your childhood room is no longer appropriate for a young lady. You are moving into the guestroom and we are getting you more then just that dress... lovely as it is. I do commend you on your taste Ranko-chan." Nodoka said standing up and Ranko stood up at the same time and gave her a hug that she returned.
Unseen to both of them a black cat with a crescent moon on it's forehead had watched the whole thing and heard it all as well. "Well then, that will be useful." she said before jumping off the window sill and walking off. There had been curtains that she sat mostly behind and had peered around the side and kept one ear to the glass.
Quick Author Note: To any confused about how Ranko looks in the sorceress outfit she's dressed like Lulu off of Final Fantasy 10 but without makeup.
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(Posted Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:11)
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