Meanwhile, in a highly luxurious and classy office in the heart of Shibuya, an old-looking man dressed in an impeccable business suit was cursing loudly at his subordinates with language unbefitting his dignified appearance. This scene could have been pretty ordinary in a modern city like Tokyo if not for the identity of said man, high elder Gothwrain of the wererat clan. The three individuals who had incurred his wrath were Lydia MacKraken, Moisha Rich and Romeo Ellis, a trio of young wererats better known as a recurring annoyance to a certain american family.
"IDIOTS ! INCOMPETENT FOOLS ! WORTHLESS IMBECILES ! %$%@&#$§ !!! WHY AM I CURSED WITH SUCH PATHETIC GOOD-FOR-NOTHING UNDERLINGS !?! WHY !!?" The wererat trio winced and tried to sink in the floor. Gothwrain was cussing even worse than Lydia ! *KABOOM !* No such luck since they were struck with a nasty fireball, courtesy of their elder, in the middle of his ranting. The result : Three fried wererats. Their supernatural healing kicked in but it worked slowly since it was magical damage... And Gothwrain had had a long time to perfect his spells for maximum efficiency against lycanthropes.
"Like... Owie..."
"No %#&, Sherlock ! Fucking §$£#& !!!"
"The pain... Make it stop..."
"AND NOW...!!!" Gothwrain towered over his charbroiled servants with a look of absolute anger, a fireball at the ready in each hand "Would you kindly explain to me HOW YOU MANAGED TO LOSE THE ORB !?!"
Lydia gulped. She had never seen Gothwrain this mad about one of their (numerous) failures "It's not our $@&# fault, boss ! We stole the orb from this §%$£#&@ nekomusume secret cult in Hokkaido, easy !"
Romeo spoke next "We managed to escape with it, no problem. But during our way back, we passed through Nerima when we... ahem... Lydia and Moisha were attacked..."
"Yeah !" piped up Moisha "This ugly little gnome did, like, fondle our boobs and filched our bras and panties. That was so, uncool... Would you, like, believe it ?"
"Damn &#@%$£ bastard ! If I get my hands on him, I'll %#&£$ him !!!" No one did that to Lydia MacKraken and lived to tell about it !
"We were trampled by some kind of mob shortly after he left. I suppose we lost the box with the orb in the confusion" Romeo finished, hoping he and the girls would get out of the room alive.
"What's so %£$&#§$ important about that piece of %#&@ anyway ?" asked Lydia.
Gothwrain's burning (literally) glare froze the three wererats on the spot. The high elder's voice was strained by all the repressed anger and irritation he felt toward them "This piece of %#&@, as you call it, is Iceron's last work before his disappearance... The Orb of Felbast is a transformative matrix for a new form of lycanthropy. Potentially, it can be used to create a new race of werecats !"
"That would, like, be bad..."
"Bad ? Bad !? BAD, she says !!! From what I've gathered by reading Iceron's surviving notes, it would be beyond mere BAD, you brainless bimbo !" Moisha looked offended but Gothwrain didn't care "If it was just another werecat breed but NOOOO... Iceron wanted the ultimate werecat, designed to keep the others in check. Do I need to point out that to be up to this task, it had to be SUPERIOR in every way to the other werecats, even in their specialties !?"
"You mean... Faster than a werecheetah or stronger than a weretiger... That sort of things ?" Romeo was nervous at the idea of a werecat WORSE than Brittany Diggers.
"YES !" Gothwrain sat down behind his desk, seemingly emptied of the worst of his anger. You could see the embers ready to flare again in his eyes however... "Somehow the Orb ended on Earth. The cult you stole it from is a lost tribe of ainu who managed to create a ritual allowing them to leech off its energies to impart catlike traits to humans"
"And they never made it work right ?"
"Fortunately, no... For the Orb to truly activate, the subject would need to be a human of great physical prowess, charged with enough magic to kick start the process and with werecat blood" Or... Naaah, no one would be insane or stupid enough to train someone in THAT. As if a human child would survive training designed for lycanthropes in the first place ! "Chances that such an individual got his hands on the Orb and shed blood at the right spot are astronomical..."
*****
Back at the Nekohanten...
"Ranma, stop flirting with Shampoo !" Akane fumed. Shampoo was all over that jerk and he did nearly nothing to push her away. She threw her glass of water at them, triggering their jusenkyo curses. The results were predictable.
"Nyaow !?"
"AHHH ! C... C... CAT !!!
Ranma-chan ran in circles, neko-shampoo clinging at her head for dear life, the box in her hands. Genma bashed his son over the head to stop him and get the precious box, it wasn't as if the boy needed it or the money he would get from pawning it off after all.
Cologne saw that Ranma had fallen head first on the box and had injured herself, blood was flowing from a minor wound on her forehead. Her eyes narrowed as it opened and started to glow. A circle of power appeared beneath the pig-tailed girl while runes appeared in thin air. The magic was almost palpable in its strength.
Ranma half-stood and screamed in agony. She felt her body and her mind be changed by the shining jewel that came out of the box. The ones who tried to get her out of the circle were thrown into the walls by an invisible force.
Finally, the jewel darkened and its power died. Ranma Saotome stood up, back in male form. The others were staring at him with boggled expressions for he was now a werecat, but not an ordinary one.
See other episodes by Jamil Nate
(Posted Wed, 19 Mar 2003 23:20)
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