Ranma had ended up elsewhere. Very elsewhere.
"Where the heck am I?" Ranma asked the heavens.
A raven looked him over. "Pillow Creek, Michigan, USA. Are you supposed to be a tiger-girl?"
"I'm a c-c-c-c-cat?!" Ranma said, beginning to panic.
The raven blurred and became a woman. "Be Thou Still In Mind And Body!"
Ranma froze.
The woman looked the redfurred tiger girl over. "Well, I was getting bored lately anyway. This could be interesting."
In some worlds, it was in Virginia and it was known as Pungo near the city of Virginia Beach. In others it was a forgotten city in Tibet. Or a small and unremarkable town along the Texas coast. In some it was all of these, and it just depended on which road you used to get into the place.
In other worlds, it was Pillow Creek, MI. Population 437. Out of that population, 436 were magically active.
Some were powerful sorceresses, wizards, nobody particularly cared for the term 'witches' anymore - partly because of the religious connotations, and partly because a lot of the wicca who now reveled in the title were nut-cases. Of the 437:
* 249 were considered Adepts. High level Sorcerers, Sorceresses, Wizards, or whatever.
* 184 were considered at least Journeyman rank. Powerful enough for their own purposes, but lacking either the talent or the drive to become a generalist. Most of these were specialists and quite talented in a narrow field.
* 8 were oddballs. Demigods or high powered faerie or otherwise magically potent but not quite human.
* 1 was Earl. Not magical, completely human, but thoroughly ornery when crossed and the owner/manager of the grocery/feed/supply store in town.
In the versions where this was Pungo, there was also a Spawn Of Cthulhu who called himself the Great Kachoo and plotted to take over the world but everyone in town knew quite well that Kachoo would have trouble taking over a hippie commune or even a 7-11.
The reasons for this laid-back community of the most powerful magic-users on Earth were fairly simple and varied, but it all came down to having attained some measure of Cosmic Enlightenment and deciding that having phenomenal magical powers kind of took care of any desire to go about doing things that threatened the Cosmic Balance.
Why rule the world when so little of it actually mattered? It wasn't even fun as far as that went.
Curiosity, though, remained.
Ranma slowly came back to consciousness, aware on some level that he was male again.
"Yes, that was a somewhat interesting curse, pity that you got so little use of it. Ah well."
Ranma tried to place the woman's voice and failed.
"The name, Ranma Saotome, is Morgana Le Fey. I've altered a couple of your curses while I was researching. Fascinating stuff. I may have to nip on over to this Jusenkyo place and get some samples."
THAT brought Ranma to full wakefulness. He was cured?
"Not quite. I modified the trigger condition. As for the transformation spell, modified. That Catfist thing was similarly modified. Oh, and the demons of stupidity were driven out too. Can't abide the things."
Ranma glanced around at the lab to see a woman in a business suit, wearing a labcoat, and regarding him from behind glasses.
SOMETHING about this frail-looking girl was whispering DANGER, DO NOT PISS OFF to him.
"Uhm, watcha do?" Ranma blinked. "Hey, I'm speaking English?!"
"Yes, Japanese is such an... imprecise language," said Morgana. "Easier to lay a spell on you allowing you to speak and read English. Especially when you're in America."
"Oh mannnnnnn," whined Ranma, then perked up. "So you modified my curse? How?"
"Well, the whole hot water/cold water thing seemed silly, so I modified it so that your transformation is:"
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Wed, 26 Mar 2003 11:43)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.