Nali sat up, and realized she was on the floor, and Onoli was kneeled beside her, his hand resting behind her shoulders to help her sit up. "Hello, Nali. Are you all right? You had just fainted on us."
Without answering, Nali looked around the room quickly, noting all the Edge Guard were there, and pretty wounded. She then saw it, and pointed her finger at the fanged feline. "IT'S A SABRETOOTH! YOU ACTUALLY BROUGHT A SABRETOOTH HERE!?"
Ranma winced. Cologne had told him that people in this world would be accepting of him, but this woman was just freaking out at the mere sight of him.
Sheila frowned at seeing Ranma wince. He wasn't a bad man, and it was obvious that Nali's reaction to him was hurting the fanged werecheetah's feeling. But on that same note, WHY was Nali somewhat freaking out? That wasn't like her at all! She was about to ask what her problem was, but her brother had beaten her to the punch.
"Hey, Nali, no disrespect or anything..." Gar began, obviously puzzled by Nali's actions, if the expression of cofusion on his face was any indication. "But why the nine hells are you freaking out because of Ranma?"
Nali blinked her eyes. "R, Ranma?"
Ranma managed to smile, albeit nervously. "That's my name. Don't wear it out." Seeing Nali shiver, Ranma chuckled nervously.
Onoli sighed. "Nali, please, this is highly unlike you. What is wrong?"
Rubbing the temples of her head in frustration, Nali sighed. "You don't realize what he is, do you?"
"Actually, we were hoping you could answer that." Onoli said.
"From what I know, I'm some kind of werecheetah." Ranma commented.
"What?" Nali asked. "Some kind of werecheetah?" She looked Ranma over, and took more of his features into account. She realized that he has eye-stripes. And his fur, while not striped, or fully black had the gold and spots of a werecheetah. If anything, it was as he said. He did look more like a werecheetah than a weresmilodon.
Nali shivered slightly. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions. Your fangs kind of set me off balance."
"My fangs?" Ranma asked.
"Yes." Nali admitted. "I've only known of one breed of werecat to have a set of teeth like that. And they're not all that pleasent."
"What breed am I?" Ranma aske,d very curious.
Nali sighed. She stood up from the floor, with Onoli's help. She rubbed at the temples of her head again. This seemed to be a VERY uncomfortable subject for the Healing Mage to talk about. "There was a rare breed of werecat, that supposedly didn't survive past the Age of Magic. They were the Sabretooth Tiger Clan."
"Sabretooth Tiger Clan?" The Edge Guard, and Ranma repeated.
"Yes." Nali said. "It was known that Iceron experimented with MANY kinds of animals before settling on certain classes of Lycanthropes to produce. One class of werecat made were weresmilodon fatalis. Of, more commonly known as, the sabretooth weretiger." Nali sighed. "These brutes were the strongest of all the Lycanthrope, said to be even greater than the wereliones and werewolves... They were also known to be the most brutal."
Shrugging her shoulders, Nali continued. "Still, for all their ferociousness ajnd power, they were naturally a small clan, and were said to have eventually died off. The last known group was said to have been in China, before the Age of Magic came to a close."
"And you think Ranma is a sabretooth weretiger?" Sheila asked in surprise.
Nali nodded her head. "Yes, as besides the weresmilodons, NO species of werecats have 'fangs' like that!" Nali did relent a little. "However, you did bring up a point. He seems to appear to be just as much a werecheetah, as he does a weresmilodon."
"Well, Ranma can change into a full werecheetah." Sheila said in Ranma's defense.
"What? He can?" Nali asked in surprise.
"Really!" Raphiel said. "He looked like me!"
"Yeah. Show her, Ranma!" Sheila said.
Ranma shrugged, but did as asked. He changed once more to his werecheetah form, causing Nali's jaw to drop. "What do you think, Miss Nali?"
Nali blinked her eyes once, then twice. She shook her head in disbelief. "Another werecheetah... Hmm..." Nali narrowed her eyes. "Well, I'll say this... I have NEVER seen anything like this."
"Nali, do you think you can find out how it is that Ranma can change to such forms?" Gar asked, getting into the conversation.
"Yeah! I mean, even I have to admit it's pretty cool." Tirga complimented.
Nali blinked her eyes once, then twice. She looked Ranma over. He seemed pretty okay and innocent as a werecheetah. She didn't have to deal with looking at those ferociosu fangs, either. "All right. I'll see what I can do." Nali said. "This ability to mix forms sounds familiar to me. Give me time to search through my collection of books, and I'll see what I can come up with."
Ranma bowed politely. "Thank you, Nali-san." Ranma said honestly.
Sighing, nali said. "Don't mention it." She then smirked. "Now, I should get to my job. Who needs medical attention first?"
Raphiel raised his hand. "Me! I didn't get my lolipop!"
The rest of the Edge Guard, Ranma, and Nali sweat-dropped.
"Don't be a knuckle-head, knuckle-head!"
See other episodes by Red Priest of the 17th Order
(Posted Wed, 25 Jun 2003 00:57)
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