The question made Ranma stop and think for a minute. “What’s wrong with Captain Marvel? The last guy had it.”
“How about your age for one thing. Captain Marvel was actually old enough to be a captain,” Green Lantern said from the front of the ship. “And there’s already been a Captain Marvel!”
You’re one to talk, Ranma thought as she frowned at the Green Lantern. “Fine. Just call me Marvel…Girl,” she relented with a sigh. It was dull, unoriginal, and… well, girly. But considering how young she looked, Ranma knew it was the best of the choice of names she could pull off. It was also interchangeable between languages, and considering the people who had hauled her off, Ranma was pretty sure having to switch between something like Miss Marvel and Marvel-san when she final get back to Japan; or worse, Marvel-chan.
“So you are related to the other Captain Marvel in some way then?” Kara asked.
“Sort of,” Ranma told her. “Me and him were given our powers by the same wizard.”
The entire ship did a quick jerk and all of the passengers onboard screamed for dear life before Green Lantern leveled it off, then looked back at Ranma. “What the hell you talking about girl? What does a wizard have to do with Captain Marvel?”
After retrieving his hat from under the seat, Green Arrow put it back on his head and frowned at Lantern. “Hey, would you please put some focus back into flying. As the only guy who’s going to go splat if we run into something, I’d like not getting into a plane crash! Just what the heck are you people saying that‘s so important that John over there things it‘s okay to be a hands-off pilot?”
Kara waved the question off. “Origin story, nothing you need to worry about.” Odds were it was better than hers of course. The whole last survivor of a dead world, which she technically was since she was from the Kryponian colony on Argos instead of Krypton, had been done to death what with Superman and Manhunter both being orphaned aliens. Unfortunately that was the only really spectacular thing about her past, what with Kara having to spend the first four years on a farm in Kansas.
Just the thought of that place made her want to nod off.
“So, you mentioned a wizard?” Kara asked in her best interested voice.
“Nobody knew Captain Marvel’s powers came from…oh never mind,” she mumbled before giving them a brief and highly edited version of how she got her powers.
“Well, me and my dad came to China on a business trip the day before yesterday, and he wanted me to take in some of the…um…scenery. So I took this tour of some caverns in the province where we met and…” Ranma explained how she heard someone calling to help and went to go check it out, only to get separated from the group. When she did find who was calling for help, it turned out to be from a child somewhere between six and eight years old that was clinging to a protruding rock above the run of the mill bottomless pit. Ranma had tried to save her and ended up falling down herself. After that it was just the usual stuff. She met a talking tiger, got led to a magic cave where the Seven Deadly Sins were imprisoned, and got empowered by one of those god look-alike wizards before being told she was this generations chosen one to defend humanity.
Of course Ranma never mentioned how she had been a guy the whole time, or the fact he and his dad were in China for martial arts training. The rest was mostly true, she just left out the part about screaming like a girl in front of the tiger and getting knocked out by running into the wall while trying to get away from it.
“As to why the wizard choose me…I’m still kind of working that one out. I’m hardly perfect,” Ranma reluctantly admitted. “Although, after what happened to the last guy who got the powers, the old man probably thought someone who’s had to deal with a little corruption could better resist being tainted by evil than some completely pure guy who has no experience dealing with temptation.”
“What do you mean? What happened to the original Captain Marvel? All the history books I’ve read say he just disappeared after the war,” Green Lantern said.
Thanks to the knowledge base that was in the Wisdom of Solomon, Ranma knew the answer to the question. Once the kid hit puberty, he pretty much acted just like someone with teenage hormones and a high level impulsiveness along with super powers would be expected to act. “He got fired after he…well…let’s just say he broke the rules.”
Ranma thought it best not to mention the night when Billy Batson broke into a liquor store to steal beer, swiped half a dozen cars throughout the night and crashing five of them, put several men in the hospital for looking at him the wrong way (all while drunk of course), and ended up sleeping with eight hookers at once in the wreckage of his old elementary school that he tore down. Shazam had shown up to hypnotize the town into thinking a tornado did the damage in order to preserve Captain Marvel’s good name before taking away Billy’s memories of ever having super powers.
“Wait a second. If I’m adding the timeline up right. You’ve only had your powers for a day?” Kara asked in stoic disbelief.
“No!” Ranma looked away and played with her thumbs. “It’s more like…two days. Well the better part of two days anyway,” she admitted as they came in for a landing.
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(Posted Thu, 05 Jan 2012 04:16)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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