Ranma 1/2: Ranma No More Alternate History By: Dani Yanega yanega@mindspring.com (please respond to this e-mail address) Chapter Forty Two The days pass quickly for the Light Warriors, as they would leave early in the morning and stay at the training grounds for the entire day. Nodoka learns her lessons in sorcery quickly. The warriors are also becoming fairly good at their martial arts training; the novices are learning quite rapidly, while those with skill in the art are fast becoming the equals of their teachers. Part of the warrior's training is in being able to fight in their alter egos, for Alex and Samuel there was no problem but for the others they find it was not that easy. In this training Msu Tsu is returned to the ranks of student. It is also during this training that Ran Koh helps as it is she and Ryoga who developed the techniques to train animals, now they need to change them to fit the different type of animals. "Now understand your animal side will not be as powerful or as skilled as your human side, those shapes just don't have the dexterity, but if you are trapped in your alter state, you won't be defenseless, you will also learn the breaking point in your alter egos too." Ryoga tells his students while Ran Koh finishes the days training with her mother. Several of the warriors cringe at the thought of training in the Bakusai Teknetsu. It is going to be bad enough to have to go through the training as humans let alone as animals. Ryoga smiles as he sees the shivers. "Don't worry some of the endurance and invulnerability transfers to your alter egos, but not a lot. What does is supply enough to protect your animal shapes from serious damage." The warriors look at Ryoga with a great deal of skepticism. "You know I have been wondering something." Joshua asks while looking around him at the non martial artists and their progressing levels of skill. "What is it Joshua?" Msu Tsu asks him with some curiosity. "Well look around you, ok I will agree that those of us with martial arts training would probably progress as fast as they have, but the rest of us have never had any training and we are now at a level to start learning a..a..ah what did you call it? Oh, yeah chi attacks. How is that possible?" All the martial artists look at Joshua with a look of surprise. "Maybe _we_ can answer that question for you!" The warriors turn and face the intruders. /*\*/*\ Suka and Yuri drag Akane down the street toward a building she wants nothing to do with, but she did promise them she would go shopping with them. When they stop outside the 'Joketsuzoku Village' she groans in displeasure. "Come on Akane you were so lucky to be here on opening night of the Nekohanten, the least you can do is allow us to look around the Amazon Emporium." Her friend Yuri complains. "Yeah, I hear all the items are hand made by the Amazon's back in the real village in China. PPPLLLEEAAASSSEEE, Akane!" Suka gives her friend the big sad eyed puppy dog look and Akane couldn't help herself as she starts to laugh. "Ok, ok, I know when I am licked ok lets go in." She and her two friends enter the main complex. The three friends walk down the main hallway admiring the display of tables and vases that they hold. They notice that all the items are for sale. Akane particularly likes a small vanity table with matching bench. It is no more then three feet wide, and done in a dark colored cherry wood. It has an oval mirror framed with the same wood attach to the back of the vanity by two soft 'S' shaped bars to hold the mirror and allow it to tilt. The bench is just a very low back chair with the matching soft 's' and an upholstered seat of yellow satin. The vanity has two small drawers on each end and a larger one in the middle lined with the same yellow satin. Akane lightly touches the vanity looking to see if she possibly could afford it, but was disappointed when she saw the price, 20,000 yen. Yuri and Suka rejoin Akane as they have finished looking at what was in the hallway. They also admirer the vanity set. "Maybe your dad will get it for your birthday?" Yuri offers with a soft smile. "Yeah, maybe." Akane tells her sadly. "we do offer a lay away system here, something we learned from your sister." The girls turn to see an old woman balancing on a staff. Akane looks at the old woman with some displeasure then bows to her with a red face. This woman never did anything wrong to her. She then looks back at the vanity with another sad look. She turns to the old woman shaking her head. "I will have to check with my father, but I don't think he will." Akane whispers quietly. "Well have him contact me I am Ku Lon, and we can work out an arrangement. The maker of that particular piece is willing to barter for his work." Ku Lon tells the young Tendo. "I will and thank you Cologne-san." She tells her as she bows to her. The three girls watch Ku Lon hop away, with amazement as they see there is nothing holding the old woman to the staff. They then turn to enter the Emporium, all three happily exploring the store. Cy Sin and Che Ri watching them with slight smiles until the recognize the youngest Tendo. They start to draw their weapons when a gnarled staff crosses in front of them. "Leave her, she is here as a customer if she does not start trouble then we will not start trouble either. This is our home and business we will treat our customers with respect until the show they do not deserve it." Mas Cra tells the glaring Amazon warriors. The girls make their way around the store slowly, examining everything before them. They enjoy playing the unique tunes in the music boxes. Then move on to the ceramic sculptures. Akane picks up a statue of a winged woman that shows her to be in flight. She has white wings with dark tips, and short white hair. Her hands had fingers but with slight bird like claws to them and her feet where bird claws. The artisan shows every minute detail even down to the fine feather down that covers the bird woman's body. Her eyes were painted a deep rich brown, and hold an expression of pure exhilaration. Akane envies the bird woman her ability fly, she notices the price of the statue at 3500 yen, and mentally counts up the money she is carrying and decides she might just have enough. She takes the figurine to the register, seeing the two Amazons that escorted her sister from their home. Her anger begins to rise, but the hand of Yuri on her shoulder makes her pause. "You knew they were going to be here Akane, please relax we're here to have fun." She implores, as she watches Akane visibly fight to calm down. Akane nods and continues toward the cashier. She puts the figurine on the counter gently. The two Amazons are amazed at how gently she treats it. She then looks to the two woman, anger flashing in her eyes for the briefest of moments. "Could you please hold this for me here while I continue to look around?" She asks keeping her voice even. "Are you going to purchase it? We can start wrapping it and boxing it up for you so it won't get broken on your way home?" Cy Sin asks her trying to keep a business air about her. "Yes I am going to buy this and thank you I would like for you to start packing it up." Akane tells her, surprise written on her face at her polite manor. "AKANE COME HERE, YOU HAVE TO SEE THESE THEY'ER BEAUTIFUL!" Akane smiles at the two Amazons as her cheeks blush with embarrassment. She then turns to head to where her friends were. She weaves through the many products of leather, wood, ceramics, and finally finds her friends in the clothing. Yuri and Suka are busy going through racks of clothing. When Akane comes up behind them. Suka then turns to her friend holding a bright yellow silk Chinese style dress, with white lotus blossom embroidered down the right side of it. The dress would go to Akane's ankles and there is a slit on each side of the dress stopping at mid thigh. The sleeves are short to just below the shoulders with a small lotus blossom embroidered on each of them. The dress neckline was a high collar covering the neck to just below the chin. "This would be perfect for you!" Yuri tells her while holding the dress up to her. Akane's face lights up at the beautiful garment. Then decides she could not wear something like this, but oh, she wants it as much as the figurine. She looks to the dress being held in front of her then to her two friends. They see the hesitation on her face and smile. Yuri puts Akane's hand on the dress, then turns as she and Suka picks something up from the racks. They both turn to show her similar dresses. Yuri holds up a forest green silk dress of the same length but sleeveless, it also has a high collar like the yellow dress but there is a diamond shape cutout where the collar attaches to the dress, going to just where her cleavage would start. This dress also has slit sides but instead of white lotus this dress has a peacock with its tail closed starting with it head at the left breast and the tail ending down the front of the dress. Suka holds up a dress also the same length with the slits to mid thigh, but her choice like Akane and Yuri is in her favorite color, a beautiful sapphire blue. Her dress has a heart shape neckline that goes up to a high collar starting on each side of her neck going around to the back of the neck. Suka's dress also has long sleeves that come to a point on the back of her hands, with a small loop to keep the sleeves in place. Her dress is embroidered in gold with a dragon down the front on the right and the tail wrapping around to the back then down the left arm of the dress. "See we can each get one, oh come on Akane their only 4000 yen. You have enough don't you?" Both girls ask their friend. Akane looks at her dress then at the package she can see waiting for her by the register. She hands her dress to Suka then rummages through her purse. She pulls out her wallet counting to herself, she is amazed at how much money she did have now that she didn't have to pay off Nabiki all the time. She looks up to her friends with a broad smile. "I have enough to get the dress and the figurine!" She tells them excitedly. The girls squeal with happiness and head to pay for their purchases. Akane hands them enough to cover the statue and her dress, while Suka and Yuri hand over their money. Cy Sin places garment bags over the dresses so that they don't get dirty and then hands them to each of the girls. Che Ri hands Akane the wrapped bundle in a carry bag and the two Amazons watch as a different girl from what they know, leaves the Emporium. /*\*/*\ Deep below the city of Tokyo, in a natural underground cavern, that is roughly three hundred feet square and one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high at different areas of the cavern. The cavern is loaded with hundreds of stalagmites and stalactites. They all start to dimly glow black, as the glow darkens around them a low hum can be heard coming from the center of cavern. In the shadows of the stalagmites and stalactites movement can be seen. The movement flows in and around the stony protrusions. They seem to be drawn toward the center and a growing, glowing black dome. The dome slowly grows and darkens as it sucks in the shadows from around it. The caverns _jagged teeth_ darken as the shadows are pulled to the caves center. The black glow around them starts to pulse, it begins to speed up until it strobes to a tempo matching the hum coming from inside the black dome. The hum gets louder and more distinct, it is not a hum but chanting, in a language even older than the language used by the gray monks. The chanting has no words that can be understood, they do not sound like words at all but strange musical notes. From the dome flashes of black darker then any black known to exist glow within the domes confines. The six glowing black shapes move slowly in a clockwise motion, then another set of six deep black glows and can be seen through the dome moving counter clockwise to the first set. The twelve distinct glows can be observed growing brighter as the _chanting_ gains strength. The glowing stalagmites and stalactites grow brighter, then shards of light start flying from them coursing through the cavern linking the rock formations together with electric shards of light. Once all the stalagmites and stalactites are connected they all send the shards of light to the dome, piercing it to its core. The dome shatters revealing the twelve, grotesque misshapen figures in black robes. They circle an ominous glowing black orb of perfect spherical shape. It is resting on a pedestal made of human skulls. The orb is a black nothingness, void of any light, of any hope. The black figures shuffle, limp and hobble around the orb chanting faster, and drawing the black light shards into them. The light shards bore into each of the black monks and they then direct it toward the orb, which greedily absorbs each of the black shards that hits it. The orb slowly begins to vibrate sending the power it is receiving down through the skulls holding it, the power travels deep below the island of Japan and into the deep abyss below it. The power flows through the reef of coral turning it from salmon pink to blackest night. The power flows into the water around it corrupting the life that is there, pulling the ocean life in and draining its life force to supply its own. The evil surges along the reef following of for miles through the bottom of the ocean toward a destination miles into the middle of the ocean off the coast of Japan. The power travels taking the life force of the living creatures around it, draining the hunted and changing the hunter. They become abhorrent reflections of what they use to be. Larger with arms and jaws with sharper larger teeth. These are the mindless guards, their only task will be to protect the rising black mountain until it is ready to rise into the light to squash it. The blackness bores itself into a large pile of sediment on the bottom of the ocean. The soot and ocean floor begins to shine with a black glowing light, the sand starts to crystallize and take shape as the outer walls of a fortress. In the deep fathoms the hum has come with the black power giving it more strength more power to take what it needs from around it causing the mutating black crystal sand to grow and spread, in height and size. Inside the black growing walls twisted spirals of black shoot from the sea floor begins reaching for the surface above. The power then turns and heads back the way it has come leaving devastation in its wake as the growing citadel begins to absorb all that the power has touched. The blacken reef begins to move toward the growing structure becoming a part of it. When the power passes through a piece of reef, it is then pulled into the growing fort. The power slowly makes it way back, back to its origin back to the skulls back to orb. The black energy surges up from beneath the pedestal and back into the orb. The orb bursts into black glowing nothingness pulsing with life, pulsing with the beat of an evil heart. The monks continue their chanting, their siphoning of the power and feeding it to the orb in their mists. The power from the orb grows and begins to encompass the black monks. Their screams fill the cavern but no one is there to hear them. The energy swells and pulses and glows with hatred, anger, revenge. In the center of the black glowing mass a pinprick of blood red starts to grow, brighter.