Ranma couldn't believe her luck. A cure! An actual cure! Just a few weeks ago she decided that hunting down cures was more trouble than it was worth. Her female side had forced her to mature a bit, and looking back, she decided that she liked who she was now (well, minus the chest appendages she was sporting) more than who she was before. But with a cure right hereshe couldn't just ignore it. Her curse wasn't a huge issue in need of resolution, but it was still a curse. Now she just needed to get it before Genma or Ryoga. Genma was out of the running, judging by the screams echoing from the potion room, but pig-boy was hot on her heels. And that…girl would catch up with them pretty fast. Ranma tried to lose the lost boy by dodging left into a small room. She also pulled a thermos of hot water from her shirt. This had happened often enough that she was ready for it this time.
Ryoga fell for it as only Ryoga could. "You won't get away from me that easily, Ranma!" he yelled. He turned exactly where Ranma did…to the right. Faced with the blank wall and totally oblivious to Ranma behind him (who was facepalming at how easy that was) Ryoga bellowed his rage. "Hiding the door won't save you! Bakusai tenketsu!"
Ranma's eyes widened and he dove for cover behind the doorframe in what appeared to be an ancient broom closet while Ryoga blew a hole in the wall.
"Now what are you blowing up!?" Akane yelled, trying to catch up. "Stop breaking things, Ranma!"
Ranma stuck his head into the hallway to glare at Akane. "I ain't doing nothing!"
"Likely story! You…what is that?" Akane asked weakly.
Ranma blinked at the sudden change of tone and turned to look at the hole Ryoga had created. He had unsealed a room, a room that seemed to have no doors, with a pillar of softly glowing light containing what looked to be a firework that kept exploding over and over again.
"I…don't know?" Ranma said. But he had an idea. That thing was clearly magical. And that might mean it was his long awaited cure!
"Alright you three," Britanny growled behind them. "Let's go back to Gina so she can translate for me and we can get this mess sorted…out?" Britanny looked at the pillar for a moment, then turned. "GINA!!"
Ranma had no idea what the catgirl was saying, but he knew that yelling for Gina meant she would come and try and take the cure for her research or something! "No!" he shouted, running for the pillar.
"Not without me you don't!" Ryoga snarled, hot on his heels.
"Stop!" Akane yelled, running after them. "We don't know what that is!"
"What the, hey!" Brit yelped as everyone ran towards the giant pillar of magic. This was very bad. She had to stop them! She targeted the leader, Ranma, ran up behind him, and swung to deliver a palm combination to his side. Ranma twisted to cover himself but trying to run and fight at such an angle was too much and one of her strikes clipped him and sent him spinning.
Right into the pillar.
Britanny had just enough time to say a very bad word before the magic contained in the room exploded.
Gothwrain grumbled. For over a day he'd been receiving that little buzz in his mind from the telepathic security alarm in his old lab. He'd built it in hopes of curing himself, before the lycanthropy took full hold on his soul and made such research impossible. For all that he could construct a werematrix without lycanthropy, actually removing the active enchantment from the thrall was apparently impossible…as he had designed it to be. All that was left in the lab were a bunch of reactant potions and a half-formed energy matrix from an experiment he could never finish, all certainly decayed by time and turned into useless magic by now.
Gothwrain got a new message that nearly gave him a heart attack.
Gina ran when Brit called but didn't arrive until after the explosion. The hidden room was filled with smoke and figures stumbling around. Gina spotted fur on the closest and pulled her out. Her eyes were screwed tight, and she fell to her knees in a fit of coughing. "Brit! You had me so worried! Are you…o…kay…you're…not Britanny."
Akane coughed again and looked blearily towards Gina. "Of course not," she coughed. "How could you mix us up?" She stood up and… "Did you get shorter?"
Gina winced. This was not going to go well. She went into her tools and pulled out a small mirror she used for seeing at angles where her head wouldn't fit. "Here."
"Huh?" Akane asked. She looked at the mirror and froze in shock.
Gina looked at the neophyte werecheetah with a mix of intrigue and sympathy.
Meanwhile, the dust had mostly cleared from the room. Gina tore her eyes from Akane and looked the scene over. Britanny's fur had puffed up from the power that ran through her, giving her pointed head of hair. She was still in her strike pose, looking like her brain had simply shut down and failed to restart as she contemplated what she was seeing.
Which, Gina noticed, was that she had apparently punched werecheetahism into Ranma. Who was looking at his fur covered hands in a shock entirely of his own. Gina also cataloged that the (YOUNG!!) hunk was a megahunk when werecat muscles and build were added to his impressive physical conditioning. Yum.
The boy, Ryoga, seemed to be unconscious. Which was good, because Gina didn't want to even start trying to figure out what was different about him that made him a werepig. Although that slight muzzle was kinda cute.
Ranma recovered enough to realize he really was covered in fur, but was still mostly human…like the catgirl! "You! What did you do to me!?" he yelled, attack Britanny afresh.
Britanny's mind went into overdrive. Ranma had been a match for her a few seconds ago. His new body was screwing up his moves, but she knew very well how much more power and speed he could bring to bear. And amazingly he was already adapting. His punches and kicks, thrown off by his extended reach, were smoothing out. She figured a minute, maybe two, and she wouldn't stand a chance. But, somehow, by whatever fluke of magic just happened, she'd infected him with lycanthropy, so he was under her control. She just had to figure out how to use that control. An image flitted through her mind and she put one hand on her hip, the other at her chin, and extended a finger. "Sit, boy!"
Ranma blinked and Britanny ducked another kick. "So much for that idea!"
"Try it in Japanese!" Gina yelled.
"Great idea! What the hell do I say then!?"
"Oh, right. 'Osuwari!'"
"OSUWARI!!"
Ranma blinked again…and this time kicked Britanny square in the face. "Is pop's stupidity contagious!?" he raged.
"I don't think this is lycanthropy," Britanny mumbled around Ranma's foot. "Owie."
"Wha…what happened to us!?" Akane yelled.
That was enough to wake Ryoga. "Ranma! How dare you let something happen to Akane!"
Ranma decked Ryoga as he tried to stand. "Can it, pork breath. We have more important things to worry about…wait." Ranma suddenly realized he was next to Ryoga instead of Britanny. Well, obviously. He walked over to deal with him. But how had he walked that quickly? He looked Britanny over and contemplated her speed. "Much more important," he repeated under his breath.
Ryoga fell on his muzzle and grunted in pain. Wait, muzzle?
Akane handed him Gina's mirror. Ryoga took it, puzzled, and stared at his reflection.
Gina waved her hand in front of the werepig's face. "How long does it usually take him to snap out of it?" she asked the other two.
Ranma was about to answer when Britanny came up behind him and put him in a judo shime-waza (a chokehold). "I dunno what you're saying," she grunted, "but you should take a nap so Gina and I can sort this out." She was pleased with herself; the fight would end quickly after all.
Ranma had other ideas. Britanny went over the fight several times in her head over the next week but was never able to explain how, exactly, she ended up flying over his shoulder as if she was light as a feather. There was certainly nothing light about how her back hit the floor. In a flash she was up and the werecatfight began anew, quickly devolving into a lightning-fast cloud of violent dust from which yells and roars echoed.
Akane sighed. "That fight is getting dumb," she muttered.
"Getting?" Gina asked. "Seems pretty pointless to me already."
"Try and visit Nerima sometime," Akane snorted.
"Right," Gina mumbled, putting Nerima on her personal avoid-at-all-costs list. She turned to Ryoga, who was still staring at his reflection. "Do you have any idea why you turned into a pig?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.
"Jusenkyo," Ryoga said numbly. "Spring of drowned piglet." It wasn't like it was an original question. If the strange American girl wanted the story, that was fine. It wasn't like she was-
"What?" Akane asked. "You have a curse, too?"
-Akane. Ryoga tore his gaze from the mirror to stare into Akane's confused eyes.
Akane looked back into the big, wide eyes of P-chan. Those same soulful eyes she went to bed with. That same cute bandana…although he was wearing it around his forehead instead of neck. And he was bigger. And person-shaped. And Ryoga.
Akane's brain took a few moments to reboot and process that again.
Ryoga. Had a curse. That turned him into P-chan.
Akane had taken P-chan to her bed.
Akane had taken Ryoga to her bed.
Ryoga had slept in Akane's bed, seen her naked, and heard her private thoughts.
Ryoga saw Akane twitch, a slight movement from her ears to her tail. This was going to be…bad.
Akane was an heir of Tendo-ryo Musabetsu Kakuto. She was trained in the art of many weapons, which she held in a ki pocket and called at need. Her aura manifested into the visible spectrum as she recklessly reached for her two favorites. Mallets, each twice as big as its twin, appeared in both of her hands. "Ryoga," she growled, low and angry, "no BAKA!"
Ryoga ran. He didn't pick a direction, he just chose to go away from the angry Akane and fled. He made it halfway to the door before a lovetap sent him sprawling. A second mallet strike to his legs drove his hardened flesh into the softer stone floor.
Akane was impressed with herself. She could outrun Ryoga. Not only that, but she wasn't even breathing hard. She was well aware that Ryoga not fighting back had a great deal to do with her success, but that didn't make it feel less good. She pulled back her mallets to deliver another round of punishment – it would take her a while to get him to feel a sufficient quantity of pain through that Bakusai Tenketsu trained hide. She was also dimly aware that she was yelling all of Ryoga's crimes at him, but that wasn't really important. She might need a lozenge later.
Gina stared as the formerly levelheaded catgirl became a violent maniac having a craving for werebacon.
Ranma forgot all about the fight with Britanny and just basked in the glory of Ryoga's comeuppance.
Britanny just stared. She had no idea what the girl was screaming, but from her tone she surmised that the werepig was some kind of lech or sex criminal, for which the Japanese word was apparently "puchan."
Ranma took his time strolling over to Akane and gently took her arms in his steel-hard grip and pulled the mallets from her hands.
Akane felt something break inside her and suddenly she wasn't feeling anger at all. She let Ranma turn her away from Ryoga, buried her face in Ranma's chest, and bawled her eyes out. "How…could…he…do…that…to…me?" she sobbed.
Ranma looked down at the still-conscious Ryoga, who had gone beyond depressed into ashamed and mortified. "He should tell you himself," Ranma said softly. "Later." Still looking at Ryoga he mouthed "Get lost."
Ryoga nodded dully. Since when did Ranma have a sensitive side? Didn't matter. He got up and quietly made for the exit.
"Um," Gina interrupted, looking embarrassed, "I realize that something huge and emotional just happened, but you three are still apparently werecreatures and have no idea what that means, and there are other problems with how that happened that we need to talk about."
Ranma looked over the American girl and her catgirl sister and considered Akane, who had stopped crying and had settled for dry coughs and gasps. "Give us a few minutes?"
"Of course. Just saying, Ryoga is it? Uncomfortable as this is, you really shouldn't leave yet."
Ryoga nodded dully. He didn't care about anything. At least for the moment. He lost Akane romantically back at Jusendo, maybe earlier, and he was at peace with that. Losing her as a friend was still a heavy blow.
Gina chewed her lip slightly. "We should finish this up in my camp. I think it would be more comfortable while we work out exactly what just happened."
(Posted Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:04)
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