"Mind if I take a look?" Penny asked. Yuka nodded and
started to lift it off her neck. "No don't take it
off! It's magic, you don't know what'll happen if you
take it off!" Yuka froze and carefully let it fall
back around her neck.

"Ummm," Yuka said again. "This has been in my family
for a long time. I..it's never done anything like this
before."

"Hmm," looked over the amulet closely, intrigued. "I
might need Gina's help on this one. It's Japanese
hiragana, but the words aren't Japanese."

"Those are words?" Yuka asked. She glanced back and
forth for a moment before continuing in a whisper. "I
sort of thought they were just decoration. It was made
by gaijin ancestor of mine."

"Considering all of us are gaijin here," Penny said
harshly. "That's hardly something to be embarrassed
about. You wouldn't happen to know where in the world
that gaijin came from would you?"

"Ummm," she said calmly. "Africa." Penny considered
that and smirked.

"That cuts things down a bit," she said triumphantly.
She looked to Stripe and switched to English.
"Britanny said her family had been living on the
Serenghetti, right?"

"That's right," Stripe said curiously. "Why do you
need to know?"

"Well, let's start from there then," Penny said as she
continued to study the glowing amulet, marvelling that
the glow didn't seem to obscure any of the marks.

Nobody noticed the matching glow faintly emanating
from under Lydia's eyes.

********

"History is what the winners make of it," a voice
said.

Lydia turned about and almost felt herself frightened
into her human form as she saw the tawny figure
walking toward her.

The emotional response at seeing the lion-woman stride
forward seemed to just hit a brick wall and stop. It
was as if her there was something beside herself
telling her to be afraid. Lydia appeared confused at
the sensation and prepared for the woman to approach
her.

"No spells shall reach here," the lion-woman said.
"You won't have a problem with fearing cats any more
than you would normally."

"What %$^$# spells?" Lydia asked suspiciously. She
watched a stone circle form underneath her and the
woman. It was an old circle engraved with
heiroglyphics. "You mean the spells Iceron cast upon
you #$% cats to scare us."

"Iceron yes," the woman said as she started to
stretch. Her tufted tail whipped in a manner that
appeared to be slow and lazy, but actually involved a
great deal of control and endurance. "The cats no. No
this particular spell was cast on you specifically."

"What do you mean on me specifically?" Lydia asked.
"It's not like Iceron is still around to cast
spells."

"Iceron is around," the woman said. "Drastically
reduced in power since he underestimated a young
human, but still dangerous."

The woman stood up and stretched, suddenly Lydia noted
that she was dressed in something like the Egyptian
warrior chicks in the Mummy Returns had worn. Lydia
herself was dressed in her own full battle armor,
instinctively she could feel all her standard weapons
in place.

"What the #$%'s going on?" Lydia asked getting into
stance.

"I'm going to give you a test," the woman said. Lydia
tensed at the way the woman phrased test. Zero often
talked like that.

"What's your name?" Lydia demanded getting ready for
battle.

"I'm called Sehkmet," the woman said, a staff
appearing in her hand. "Let's begin."

********

"Any sign of Lydia McKracken?" Gothwrain asked.

"No Lord," the wererat in front of him said. "Moisha
Rich is in the custody of the cats and an apparent
traitor, however. We should be able to get her easy
enough."

"Miss Rich is of no consequence," Gothwrain snapped.
"Find, Lydia. Either alive or dead, it doesn't matter
as long as you find her."

"I don't understand," the wererat said perplexed. "She
is a child, what is her importance."

"You don't need to know her importance," Gothwrain
said icily. "She is important to me, that is all you
need to know." The wererat blinked and bowed, leaving
the room.

~I never thought that he'd turn sentimental about
anyone,~ the wererat thought in a confused manner.
Gothwrain looked out the window into the world and
frowned at the turn of events.

He had thought he had found the focus of the prophecy.
After all there had only been one werecheetah left.
Then these others began to pop up. He wasn't even
certain if the werecheetah in question had to be born
with the proper genes anymore. For all he knew, it
could have been an awakened werecheetah, or even an
infected one.

To make matters worse he had lost her. His precious
trophy. It was so pleasing to see her doing even minor
tasks of his will.

Suddenly his eyes widened.

"Wait!" he called out. "I have a better idea." The old
man smiled darkly as the wererat started walking back
to him.

********

"Lord Gothwrain will debrief you himself when he is
ready," the bodyguard said. "Until that time you stay
in the room."

"But I was hoping to know if there has been any word
of Lydia and Moisha," Romeo said.

"You let the cats get them," the man said, dripping
hostility. "What do you think happened to them?" Romeo
winced at that and by the time he recovered the door
was closed and he was locked in his room.

Romeo frowned as he considered that his ineptitude had
cost him his two closest friends. It was right that he
should die to make up for the failure.

He sighed and looked around himself at the comfortable
room they had put him in. A comfortable, escape proof
room. The ventilator in the ceiling above allowed some
air into the room and he took a deep breath in
preparation of a sigh.

His breath caught in his throat as he caught a scent
on the air. It smelled like soul char and...blood?
Familiar blood.

"But...she wasn't hurt when I brought her in," Romeo
said hesitantly. He stood up and looked at the
ventilator, and concentrated. He thought he could hear
something in the background.

********

"It hurts doesn't it, traitor?" the man asked her.

Nabiki blinked, breathing heavily.

"What are you talking about?" she asked wearily,
eyeing the silver bar the man held in his hand. "I
don't even kn...AAHHHH!!!" The man snapped the bar
into her back again.

"We saw that your sister speaking to those cats," he
said. "She even seemed to be telling them what to do."

"Akane?" Nabiki gasped. "She's on Jade." She cursed
herself for letting that slip out.

"Well the white-furred bitch is back!" the man
snapped, striking her again. Nabiki welcomed the
strike, as the scream hid her own gasp of surprise.

"Stop now," Gothwrain's voice said over the intercom.
"She might not be complicit in her sibiling's
behavior. This is plenty of punishment for the
accident of her birth."

Nabiki dropped as they untied her arms and she weakly
struggled to stand up. Her torturer kicked her in the
face as she started to rise and she fell back down,
crying out in pain. She was dimmly aware of the man
leaving her room and the door closing behind her.

"My apologies Miss Tendo," Gothwrain's disembodied
voice said sorrowfully. Nabiki bought it about as much
as she bought the idea that Akane had dyed her her
white. "There was an insistance among the elders that
at least a little punishment be levied towards you for
your involvement with the enemy."

"Go away," Nabiki snapped, crawling onto the bed and
lying on her stomach. She was in no mood to duel wits
with him, and would, if possible, just deny him the
sport.

"As you wish," Gothwrain said, and the intercom
switched off. Nabiki's breath almost caught in
surprise at that. Certainly he'd try to banter with
her more. She shivered...unless these were just the
preliminaries.

********

He shifted in his rest.

He blinked and realized something.

First he was thinking clearly for the first time in
centuries.

~What has happened,~ he thought. Then he remembered.

An amateur magician had enacted a binding ceremony to
force him into some human child. If the attempted
enslavement wasn't enough of an insult, he had used
some flawed ritual. It had almost destroyed him and
the child. Instead of an obediant and powerful
servant, the old fool had driven the both of them
insane.

"Am I free?" he asked.

A shiver ran through his world. An overwhelming rush
of fear washed over the realm, and he almost reverted
to an instinctual creature intent on fighting the
source of the fear. He was still in that child.

And that child was walking into a confrontation of the
demonic variety.

"Careful, human," he growled. "You'll destroy us both
if you're not careful."

********

"Oh my...." Ranma gasped quietly. Everyone turned
around to stare at him as they appeared at the sight
of the demon's death. He seemed pale even through the
fur, and just the look at how his fur was sticking on
end set Akane's teeth on edge.

"What's wrong, Ranma," Akane asked. Julia and Nodoka
were likewise confused, but Theo's face turned equally
pale as he looked at Ranma's aura.

"It's a spirit," he said, impressed.

"What's a spirit?" Nodoka asked nervously.

"You don't mean the Neko-Ken," Julia asked. "Do you?"

"He d...does," Ranma squeaked nervously.

"You mean...Ranma is possessed?" Akane demanded.

********

"You understand now what we're dealing with," Sheila
said as they reached the bottom of the cavern. "This
isn't something to treat with kid gloves and give a
second chance."

"I guess not," Ranko said sullenly. She stopped for a
moment and considered.

Ranma would have been willing to kill by now. In fact
he had been quite ready to kill that oni long ago, and
he had basically killed Saffron's last incarnation.
Ranko was still looking for ways around it.

"Just..." Brianna paused worried at the sudden stop.
"Just keep on your toes and let Sheila and me handle
the actually finishing them off." Sheila's expression
clearly showed that Brianna's comment was quite a bit
beyond her power.

"I don't think I'm going to continue perfecting the
Art," Ranko said, looking down at her hands. She
started walking forward again.

********

"That way!" another spirit was declaring loudly. "That
way is the prey!!"

She really did feel bad about scaring the human she
was bound with, but she could smell the demons coming.
She wasn't free to fight as she choose, but this girl
seemed skilled enough to fight these demons. And she
could always kill them if they tried to take the
girl's soul.

Ranko suddenly froze and started shaking, looking as
if the most horrible thing in the world had been
placed before her. In a way, it had.

"I...i..i..it's t... way," Ranko said. Brianna
and Sheila both looked at her curiously and looked
down the cold, seemingly fireless tunnel she had just
pointed out.

"Are you sure?" Brianna asked.

"How can you possibly know?" Sheila asked.

"T...t...the Ne..kk...ko..ken...told me," she said
shivering almost uncontrolably.

********

Nabiki snapped awake with a headache. She'd been in
contact with enough magic to know an attempt to
rearrange her mind when she felt one. Maybe she had
fought this one off by instinct, but the next time.
She wasn't really trained for this, and the physical
threat wasn't helping her concentration.

She shivered as she realized that she would fall
eventually.

"I guess there's just the Mandarin approach then," she
whispered to herself. At least when she got out of
here they now knew some magicians who should be able
to remove whatever her captors did to her.

********

"Are you sure she's going to be fine?" Yuka asked,
indicating Lydia. "S...she hasn't woken up yet." Penny
glanced over at Lydia, but only gave her a cursory
glance.

"Looks like she's mostly healed," Penny said, turning
back to the notes she had taken on Yuka's amulet.

She thought she had it right, but was checking her
translations again to make sure. She was considering
asking Yuka to let her look directly at it again to
see if she had everything right.

"She's probably just sleeping it off now."

"Maybe she's making it glow," Charlotte said, pointing
to Lydia. Penny glanced at her confused.

"I seriously doubt that, Charlie," Penny said. Then
she paused. "Incidentally, why do you say that?"

"Well her eyes are glowing the same color and..."
Charlotte didn't get to finish as Penny sat up to
examine Lydia's eyes closely.

"Stripe," Penny called out. "Any of those artifacts
give you telepathy?"

"No, Penny," he said, coming over to look at the
wererat as well.

"Penny," Ace called back. "We're going to land pretty
soon, better get ready to move everybody for the trip
to Japan."

********

Lydia flipped over a strike and then ducked down into
the splits as Sehkmet flashed her staff back in an
attempt to catch her. Lydia rose up from the ground on
one hand, sending a dagger flying out of her other.
Sehkmet barely dodged to the side as the dagger
slashed past her feline face. The silver dagger didn't
burn her.

"If you're going to give me weapons for this fight
were-bitch," Lydia said flipping over Sehkmet's head
and landing on the staff as the cat tried to strike on
the landing. "At least make it real silver--omph!"

Her perch had whipped out from under her at a speed
that she would have thought impossible and then the
other end smacked into her. Lydia's next thoughts were
encompassed by the onrushing wall. She quickly adapted
Zero's soft fall technique and twisted around to
bounce off the wall, wondering just when that had
become part of the terrain.

"Who ever said I was a were-lion, Miss McKraken?"
Sehkmet asked, she lunged forward striking with her
staff in a series of precise attacks. Lydia shifted
into her rat form and flowed through them by virtue of
that, skittering under and past Sehkmet's reach.

Shifting into her hybrid from as she reached Sehkmet's
side. A swift strike with her sword followed, only
barely blocked to the side by a vertical spinning
block from the staff.

"You're overcommitting, lady," Lydia sneered as she
backed off and sat into stance to wait for the woman
to come again. As long as she held her weapons she had
a chance against this...person. ~Wait...if this is a
dream. Zero says creativity is almost vital to
victory. In this case, I think it's just little
#$%# more important than that.~

Sehkmet's eyes narrowed angrily.

"You had better be who I think you are," Sehkmet
growled. "No one presumes to correct me."

Before Lydia could respond Sehkmet was charging
forward. The staff stabbed past Lydia, and the rat
slashed downward with her sword as her other hand
slashed up. Curiously, it contained the dagger she had
thrown into the darkness before the wall had risen.

Sehkmet gasped in surprise as her staff was snapped in
two and nearly allowed herself to be cut as Lydia
stabbed outward with her dagger. Sehkmet frantically
twisted the remainder of her staff about to force the
dagger to the side. She smirked in victory, though her
eyes seemed sad, as she met barely any resistance to
the push and Lydia rolled along with the block.

Then she noticed Lydia dipping low in what wasn't a
roll but a spin. In the next moment her feet were
taken out from under her. She rolled back to her feet
and looked with a considerate frown as she looked over
her opponent. Lydia's only angry and determined look
as she gracefully returned to standing was so
different than the cheerful face she rememebred,
but...

"You think to directly," Lydia said. "You got to #^&$
think outside the (##$ box." ~When did I learn a
sweep? Zero must have taught it to us sometime.~

Sehkmet almost facefaulted at the use of profanity.
She looked at Lydia with a massive sweatdrop. The rat
wasn't at all what she remembered.

"You're a few thousand years too young to beat me so
easily, mortal," Sehkmet said angrily. "You continue
to presume to correct a goddess."

"Goddess?" Lydia asked in surprise.

Then Sehkmet was charging forward with a pair of
golden axes. Lydia blinked and rolled out of the way
rather than parry. There was no way she was going to
win in contest of strength with the lion-woman.

~Need to keep her moving,~ Lydia decided. ~She doesn't
seem to %#%## change things around so much while
she's fighting.~

"Keep dodging, mortal," Sehkmet growled angrily.
"You'll tire, I won't."

Lydia dodged around a little more before lashing out
again with what were no longer a dagger and a sword
but a pair of sais. The axes were ripped from Sehkmets
hands, and then the bars of the sais were slammed into
her abdomen.

Sehkmet doubled over and then went flying as Lydia
kicked upward. Sehkmet started to roll in the air to
hit the wall as Lydia had done, by the time she had
turned around, however, holes had appeared in her
wall. Her arms and legs slipped through and she
slammed full into the wall slipping down to ground
with a dazed groan.

In an instant Lydia was ontop of her, claws to her
throat.

"You always forget it's a dream when you get into the
fight Sehkmet," Lydia said. "You've never managed to
fix that."

Lydia blinked as the angry, surprised look on
Sehkmet's face was replaced with one of near disbelief
and restrained relief and joy. And the woman seemed to
be familiar somehow, and she was getting more familiar
as the dream continued.

********

"Is...is she okay?" Yuka asked. Penny glanced to her
and looked nervous.

"I think so," Penny said. "But with magic...you can
never tell. But listen to this, and tell me what you
think. All I can make out from this amulet is that
it's meant to, quote "to seek and free" and seems to
be dedicated to some lion-goddess, probably Egyptian
originally.

"'To seek and free what?" Yuka asked nervously.

"Is there anything to be worried about?" Stripe asked
as the helicopter settled down.

"Keep an eye on her," Penny said to the kryn. "If she
wakes up as some sort of blood crazed demon, well
then, yes, there's something to worry about."

"Huh?" Charlotte said nervously. "B..b..blood crazed
demon?"

"It's a figure of speech, Charlie," Penny said. ~I
hope.~

********

"Sister is that you?" Sehkmet asked cautiously.

"My name is Lydia," the rat said confidently. "And I
ain't your %$&^# sister."

"It is you," Sehkmet said, revealing a radiant smile
that confused and distracted Lydia for a moment.

Then she was flying through dreamscape and her face
smashing into the ground as she suddenly realized that
while her opponent's weaknesses were real, she had
still been holding back.

"Think about this, Lydia," Sehkmet said. "How was
Iceron 'killed' the first time?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Lydia asked
as again everything was plunged into darkness.

********

"Her eyes stopped glowing," Charlie said. Penny
nodded and looked to the amulet which was also fading
back to a seemingly normal piece of jewelry.

"So did her amulet," Penny said. "Whatever was meant
to happen has happened. All we can do now is get her
to Gina and deal with it when she wakes up."

"You're deferring to Gina on this?" Ace asked, with a
sly smirk on his face.

"Give me a break," Penny said. "This is magic, not
science, Gina has more connections in that field than
I have hairs on my head. She is hardly my superior in
the scientific field. It's not like she made the
world or anything."

********

Akane looked at Ranma cautiously as the revelation
about him being possessed began to raise a number of
questions.

"It ain't like I'm in the Neko-ken all the time you
know," Ranma said nervously in response to Akane's
look. "I ain't possessed right now."

"And it's not really possession," Dr Diggers said as
he looked closer. "It's more of a binding."

"Okay, main question," Julia interrupted. "Will it
affect our capability to deal with whatever is in this
tower?" When neither Theo nor Ranma answered she
continued. "Then let's deal with the other thing
first, and then see about this Neko-Ken."

********

"Are you sure about this?" Sheila asked as they
tramped through the natural stone caverns. The glow
of the volcanic cavern was fading behind them as they
walked.

"Yeah," Brianna said. "It's actually starting to get
cold down here."

"That's from Ranko," Genn said.

"Huh?" Sheila said, turning around to look at Reiko
carefully. Her breath was coming out as a mist,
though it certainly wasn't cold enough for that where
Sheila was standing.

"I...I didn't th...think I c...could do it without
th..that gyuseki th...thingie...b..but I can..." Ranko
said. She laughed, somewhat hysterically. "I wasn't
even trying."

"Stop a moment here," Brianna said, insistently,
pulling Ranko over to the side. She almost gasped on
contact with Ranko's skin. The girl almost seemed to
be frozen. "Is it still the Neko-Ken?" Brianna
glanced up at Genn, who nodded, before looking back to
Ranko. Sheila kept a watch on the corridors.

"Y..yes," Ranko said. "It won't go
away...it..it...she keeps saying the same thing!
S...she...won't stop...'that way' 'l...let me in'
'prey is that way'...meowing, hissing...meowing..."

"Come on," Brianna said. "You're a tough girl."

"No, I'm not," Ranko said, shaking her head.

"You seem to be handling things fine," Sheila said.
"Just a little stuttering." Sheila thought that if
her worst fear had taken up residence in her head and
kept talking to her she would be a basket case.

"Anything near, Genn," Sheila asked, moving near the
rakshasha.

"No," he said. Then she nodded and leaned in.

"Can't you do something about this problem?" she asked
quietly.

"There's something else in her," Genn answered. "I
felt it, and I'm not sure what it is. AND she has
psychic scars too."

"So you're just going to leave it there?" Sheila
asked.

"I wouldn't where to begin," Genn answered
exasperatedly. "It'd be like trying to do surgery on
the guidance of a random die roll!"

"The Soul a Ice don't g..g..get rid of stuff," Ranko
said, answering Sheila's original question without
noticing the conversation between her and Genn. "It
just lets ya...ig...ignore it. I...didn't th...think
about the b...Breath of Ice..."

"Is there a problem with the Breath of Ice?" Brianna
asked, concerned.

"I...it takes a lot..." Ranko said, eyes looking
somewhat faint though Brianna had to look closely to
see it. "Even with the staff...e..even f..for Ranma.
I...I'm getting tired."

"Then stop doing it," Brianna said, it really had to
be tiring for it to be affecting her even with
regeneration to consider. Though Brianna worried
about the "even for Ranma" comment.

"Wh..what if the S...soul of Ice goes too," Ranko
asked. "It...it's like s..someone banging on the door
right now..." She clutched at her head and closed her
eyes. "She wants inside."

~Damn it," Brianna thought. ~Whatever you are, back
off and give her some breathing space. You're just
going to get both of you killed this way.~

Of course it wasn't that simple, and Brianna knew
that.

"If this ice breath thing is making you tired, you've
got to shut it down," Brianna said.

"But..." Ranko said.

"The Neko-ken thing is talking to you right?" Brianna
said. "Talk to it, make a deal."

"And offer it what?" Ranko asked angrily. "My eyes on
a nice juicy platter?"

"Did it try to kill you before?" Brianna asked.

"No," Ranko admitted reluctantly.

"It killed the demon thing right?" Brianna asked.
Ranko nodded. "Then it saved you right?" Ranko
nodded again, slowly.

"I'll...try," Ranko said.

"Okay," Sheila muttered. "Next time I pay the extra
ten gold for the longer duration. I don't see or
smell anything coming, what's happening with her?"

"I don't really know," Brianna said to Sheila as Ranko
sat down and seemed to meditate. "Something like when
you hit me on the head that one time."

"Ehh?" Sheila said nervously glancing at Ranko.
Brianna blinked and looked down at the concentratiing
Ranko.

"It has to do with her fear of cats," Brianna said.
"Something her father did to her and Ranma when they
were kids." It was sort of true, as far as it went.

"Not your place to say?" Sheila asked. "Any chance
it's dangerous to us?"

"Don't think so," Brianna said...after a pause. She
picked her gun back up and set a watch on her end of
the corridor while Ranko apparently lost all contact
with them. A fact emphasized by the sweat that seemed
to be freezing to her face.

********

It was easy to drop within her mind. The continual
demands of the neko-ken acted as a beacon that made it
easy to follow, even as she was terrified to do so.

"Sss..stop it!" Ranko shouted past the frozen shell of
ice surrounding her conscious mind.

"Let me in!" the feline voice demanded. Ranko could
see it's shape but not the awful details she
remembered when it killed the demon.

"Leave me alone," Ranko said. "I have to go to a
fight and I can't do that with you..."

"But you don't want to fight," the cat noted. Ranko
was silent. "Let me in, and I'll fight for you...I'll
kill for you."

"No!" Ranko shouted, her heart skipping a beat as she
saw her carefully constructed shell shiver with the
force of the yell.

"You're get tired," the Neko-Ken said. "Why fight me,
I just want to help you."

"You want to eat me!!!" Ranko countered.

"I am bound to you," it said hissingly. "You die, I
die. My existence is tied to yours."

"And if you die?" Ranko asked nervously, following the
vague form of the neko-ken through the sheet of glass,
thinning as she grew more tired and control became
difficult. The cat hesitated and seemed uncertain for
a moment.

"Do you want to try to kill me girl?" it asked
finally. "Why? I've always protected you. I can
remember...faintly...the old woman, the shark, your
father...that pervert that seeks to mate with you...I
have always...." The neko-ken stopped as Ranko started
laughing and dropped to the dark ground of her
mindscape.

********

"She's laughing," Sheila said, adjusting her frame of
vision to include Ranko. "Is that a good sign or bad
one?"

"Listen for purring," Brianna said. "Or meowing...and
then run. I saw her and Ranma fighting in that state
earlier...we don't have what we need to fight her
here. Not without killing her anyway." Sheila looked
to Genn.

"She's not having the break down we're worried about,"
Genn said vaguely.

********

"Your sister is this way," Ranma's neko-ken said. He
added something as it felt the tremor through Ranma's
soul. "I'm not trying to scare you."

********

"Ranko's that way," Ranma said impatiently, then
winced as the neko-ken spoke again. "I can smell her,
an the others." He hadn't needed the information from
the neko-ken anyway.

"So can I Ranma," Akane said, eyes narrowed. "So can
your mother, and I think Diggers-san found some
tracks, and as for Diggers-sensei..." she turned to
look at the white-haired man concentrating hard.

"Get ready," Dr. Diggers said. "They've been
noticed."

********

"Just a copy," Ranko whispered. "Just a copy neko-ken
for a copy Ranma." The neko-ken paused to consider
that.

"You're brother is near," it said finally, not
understanding the comment, and defaulting to the
nearest comment it could consider as likely. "I feel
the other raiju. Unless there's more fools who would
subject people to that accursed and flawed ritual."

"Ranma is here?" Ranko said, looking up, and blinking,
missing everything else.

"Let me fight," the neko-ken demanded, returning to
the original line of thought. "I thought you could
handle it, but you're distracted, and now you won't
let me in as easily as you used to."

"You can't have my body," Ranko said.

"I don't see any other option unless you can create
one for me," she said. Ranko blinked for a moment.

"I could do that," Ranko said.

"Excuse me?" the neko-ken said.

"I think, I can," Ranko added. She wasn't really
sure, but if it got the thing to leave her alone,
she'd try. She was always of the habit of thinking
through theory more than Ranma, mostly because she was
always lax in physical training and had to make for
it, on the fly, in finesse. Not that Ranma wasn't
especially accomplished in that skill, she just tended
to make more of a habit out of it.

"This I have to see," the neko-ken's shape stopped
pacing around her shell and settled down to watch her,
making Ranko rather nervous.

~Let me think this through,~ Ranko thought. ~Chi is
life-force an' I can sorta put it out, right, but it
dissipates real quick cause I stop focusing on it an'
it gets harder to keep it up the further out it is.
But if...if....SHE goes with it...then she can can
keep it up...an'....it'll still be part a me
though...I'll...I'll feeel her all the time....but
maybe she'll leave me alone an not talk to me...at
least she REALLY can't kill me without killin' herself
then though...no lie...its my chi after all.~

"Get ready to go," Ranko said hesitantly.

"A real body after all this time," the neko-ken said.
Ranko could almost see the grin.

********

"Is it just me or did it just get hot?" Sheila asked.
They looked to Ranko.

Sheila and Brianna flinched as Ranko's hands came
together and a soft white ball of radiance appeared in
her hands. Then Ranko pushed it away from her quickly
and snapped her eyes open, backpedalling from the ball
of light as it took shape. Into a small, blue cat.

"Oh, how cute," Sheila said.

"This is a slightly small body," the cat said in
Japanese.

"What did it say?" she asked.

"Small body," Brianna said, a little hesitant.

"I said I'd getcha a body," Ranko said, plastered
against the wall. "Didn't say how big. Now could you
just...go over there where I can't see you...or
somethin?"

"Most familiars are small," Sheila said. "Though I
get the feeling that this isn't quite a normal
familiar."

"Familiar?" Brianna said. "Huh, well....maybe that
works."

"GET DOWN!!!" Ranma shouted from further back in the
tunnel. the three girls glanced toward him in time to
see him fire a blast of chi there way. All of the
them ducked, the blast rolling under them to collide
with a stream of fire that had seemingly come from
nowhere.

"Stay down!" Ranko shouted as she realized, from the
suddenly blast of cold air, what sort of chi Ranma had
used.

Sheila, not understanding Ranko's instructions tried
to stand up after the energy had passed them,
expecting to get into stance and ready for the fight
before the explosion died down.

He had jumped right to the technique he'd killed
Saffron with. As the cold chi hit the fire, the hiryu
shoten ha was made and the small, spear shaped tornado
ripped down the corridor. The backlash threw Sheila
backward toward the coming reinforcements.

Three demonic forms of rock and smoke crumbled to dust
as the tornado pierced them. Several others lost
limbs or had their artificial bodies cracked as the
tornado clipped them. Invisibly demonic spirits
rushed down the corridor seeking the pools of magma
further ahead to form a new body from. They found Dr.
Diggers waiting for them.

The shock of the released souls slowed down the demons
enough for Akane, Sheila and Nodoka to recover from
the jagwere's impromptu flight. Brianna and Ranko,
meanwhile stood up as Julia Diggers past them in a
blur, Ranma not far behind her. The little blue cat
was no where in sight.

"Where did...?" Ranko started, then felt around for
her chi.

There, she felt it. The thing had RIDDEN Ranma's
hiryu shoten ha further back into the cavern.

It had hurt.

Ranko smiled.

~Wait a minute,~ Ranko thought. ~What is that?~ She
got a feeling of something, important being in the
area. And reluctantly, squinting her eyes closed,
concentrated on that small piece of her chi.

"DIE DIE!!!!" Brianna shouted next to her, laughing
manically and fire burst after burst from her gun.

It was a comparatively pleasant counterpoint to the
feline noises going on in her head.

********

The neko-ken muttered irritably as it shook it's head
out. That girl was actually pleased that this little
plan turned out to be rather painful. She staggered
around for a few moments, shaking her head clear.

~Wait a minute,~ the girl thought. ~What is that?~
The cat hissed irritably and momentarily ignored the
question, looking around for prey. It's body was
small, but it was still a powerful spirit with
centuries of experience. Even with the limited energy
it had it could be dangerous.

The impulse to look back at whatever sensory blip had
caught her impromptu mistress's attention became a
little stronger. She really should have considered
the ramifications of letting the girl form a body for
her out of personal chi.

Of course after so long without a body, most of that
spent as a rather instinctual beast that just wanted
to fight, play, eat, or sleep. Thank goodness it was
now had it's mind so it could attend to higher
concerns.

Now where were those demons so she could have a good
fun fight. Then she could lounge in the sun or hunt
for the rest of the day. All of which are much higher
concerns than mere fighting, playing, eating and
sleeping.

Oh yeah, the girl wanted her to look over at that
group of people in robes around the fire again.

She looked in that direction just as the three rings
of released souls flashed through the cavern. She
recognized that for what it was. When the demon had
touched the shared soul space it had held with Ranko,
she had still been that insane mockery of herself.
Then she had killed the demon and apparently in the
backlash of released spiritual energy had awakened
herself.

The fact that she was now in a small outcropping of
some mortal girl's energy made it questionable as to
whether the situation was good or not.

She pondered the question over why the girl was
interested in a bunch of undead gathered around a
fire. Then she shook her head out one last time and
realized the fire was a gate.

The nearest thing possible to a vicious smile for a
cat crossed the ejected neko-ken's face.

********

"Ranko!" Genn shouted next to her.

Ranko broke her concentration to glance toward the
sound and found herself bowled over by something else
moments before a clawed arm of stone and fire swiped
through her former position.

"Are you okay?" Ranma asked as he picked her up. "Ya
look kinda spaced out."

"I'm fine," Ranko said shaking him off and getting to
her own feet. "I know where the gate is!" She
shouted.

"What gat...hey!" Ranma shouted as Ranko ran off down
the corridor, taking advantage of a brief gap in the
demon's forces.

"Don't go off on your own!" Nodoka shouted.

"Where is she going?" Brianna demanded sharply at
nearly the same time. The three geared up to follow
her, but found the way suddenly closed shut behind
her. As if the stone had temporarily melted.

"Damn it!!" Ranma shouted as he approached the now
far to small hole, which soldified as a small shaft
that allowed them to hear what was going on in the
next part of the cavern. Several rings of releashed
souls showed that Dr. Diggers was dealing with the
last batch of demons they whose bodies they had
destroyed.

"Akane-chan!" Nodoka said. "You're the only one that
can get through that hole in a timely fashion." Ranma
turned around to look at Nodoka and Akane, looking
torn.

"What me?" Akane said, glancing at the narrow hole and
back to Nodoka as if she were crazy. "You've got to
be kidding."

"No, she's right," Julia said. "You're a wererat now
in case you forgot, you have two other forms besides
this hybrid one you've been wearing."

"None of their spirits escaped me," Dr Diggers said,
coming into the cavern. He immediately noticed they
were lacking one were-cheetah, and the nearly closed
tunnel that hadn't been there when he'd done his
clairvoyant search earlier.

"Why can't he just open the tunnel?" Ranma asked. "Or
teleport us?" Dr. Diggers took a moment to
concentrate.

"It's warded against teleportation," he said. "And
opening magically created rock will take some time."
Akane sighed.

"Does anybody here know somebody that goes by the name
'Rook'?" Genn asked nervously as he stood at the wall.

"Rook," the Diggers and Sheila said together.

"So how do I change into a rat?" she asked, with a
glance towards Ranma. The male werecheetah looked on
the verge of a nervous explosion.

********

Ranko skidded to a stop and turned back to see the
corridor behind her shutting closed.

"Another werecheetah," a dry voice said. "How
unlikey, and yet appropriate." Ranko turned to see an
armored form wielding a pair of swords staring at her
from behind a group of translucent men and women with
empty eyes in white robes. Her nose wrinkled as she
caught a whiff of the room. Everything in here with
the exception of her and the.....n...neko-k..ken were
dead.

"Y...yeah," Ranko said, noticing that cat sneaking up
toward the figures around the fire. "Wh..whatever,
just get ready to get yer asses kicked."

"I think not," the armored figure said. "Take her,
and make it noisy so her friends can listen." The
translucent figures glided toward her.

Ranko smirked and punched out at one of the robed men,
only to have her fist pass through it. A circle kick
met the same results in passing through another two of
her attackers.

~Great,~ Ranko thought. The figures clumisly reached
out to grab her, but she stepped back and away from
them, growling as she saw the armored figure walk to
where the tunnel had been.

********

"Sheila of the Edge Guard," a dry voice said further
down the tunnel. "And young Miss Diggers."

~That must be the 'Rook' character they had told me
about,~ Akane thought, reviewing what they had said
about his armor and tactics. A crashing sound behind
her spurred her along. Sure Dr. Diggers had said he'd
watch her and make sure she was far enough away before
they started demolitions, but still.

"I wouldn't bother with that," Rook laughed. "By the
time you can get through she'll be dead...or perhaps
undead...a werecat specter to do my bidding."

"We'll see about that, jerk," Akane said, her voice
coming out as a small squeak. Further back she had a
call of "Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken" and knew that
Ranma had heard and gotten angry as well.

********

If that c...c...cat wanted to protect her, where was
it now. Ranko glanced around as she continued to
dodge mindless, groping hands from the specters.

Her question was answered a flash of blue leaped past
and slashed at one of the specters. Great ripping
tears opened in the translucent image before the
specter seemed to be blown away, as if it had been
nothing but a pile of leaves seemlessly joined. Ranko
swore that a look of peace crossed the things face
before it vanished completely

"NO!" Ranko snapped. "Don't kil..."

"But they're already dead," the Neko-ken retorted.

"They are?" Ranko asked, then smacked herself in the
head, backing away again. That armored jerk was still
just watching. "Duh, ghosts." And the thing
certainly had seem peaceful before leaving...she just
wished she had another way to do this.

Another of the five ghosts was torn to pieces by the
little blue cat, which was emitting an impressive
amount of energy for something it's size. Especially
since Ranko was sure that she hadn't given it that
much.

"Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!" Ranko shouted, she kept
the speed lower than normal however, hoping to
disguise her true capabilities from the knight.
Still, combining even a minimal Kachuu Tenshin
Amaguriken with her cheetah speed was phenomanal and
the chi charged attacks ripped through the remaining
specters.

A low applauding greeted her display.

"It seems that I shall have to take care of you
myself," Rook said, drawing forth his swords and
moving in to attack.

"You're dead too, aintcha?" Ranko asked irritably.

"Doesn't really matter," Rook said. "You'll not
defeat me anyway."

"We'll see about that," Ranko said. ~I'm going to get
this one on my own. No help! Just me! I can do just
as well as Ranma can.~ She launched forward into a
charge, a loud boom rocking the chamber and blowing
over the fire gate as she crossed the sound barrier.
And all it would take her was one attack.

"KACHUU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!!!" She shouted and
snapped an energy shrouded fist forward at the chi
created speeds. She felt four impacts in the first
instant of contact and then her target was gone in a
puff of smoke. She blinked, confused. "That's it?"

She had just about put every remaining once of chi
into that Amaguriken and it only took four hits. What
if he hadn't been dead before, had she just killed
someone? Was she that shallow, that the first chance
she had to compare herself to Ranma that she ignored
her earlier decisions?

Then again it had always been like that. She never
did more than cursory training, unless there was a
fight brewing that she had to take care of. She spent
all her time scamming ice cream. The only time she
got serious into the Art was when she had to or
someone suggested she was weaker than Ranma. Or
rather, remembering that her memories were artificial,
the only time Ranma trained his girl side was when he
had to.

"Look out, girl!" her cat hissed, promoting a wince,
but Ranko did turn in time to see a flash of metal
descend towards her. She raised her arm to catch the
blade on the flat and deflect it aside.

"AAAIEEEE!!!" Ranko shrieked as her flesh connected
with the silvered sword. She only barely dodged aside
from the other strike, clutching her burned hand.

"That was impressive speed, child," Rook said
advancing on her as she backed away. "You actually
beat the teleportation. Four times, I wonder how many
hits I would have taken had I remained where I was
standing."

"Teleportation?" Ranko repeated. She stepped forward
and snapped a short kick at Rook, blinking as the
specter vanished into dust before the unenhanced kick
could reach him. Almost instantly she felt him
reappearing behind and struck out again with a mule
kick.

She glanced back as she did so and noted, with dismay,
that the armored jerk vanished into smoke again as she
kicked out. A flash of motion above her alerted her
to where the monster was appearing.

In mid air, right over her horizontal back.

Ranko leaped up off the one leg connected on the
ground and rolled past the descending Rook. Seeing
the neko-ken launch itself forward in a small blue
ball of fury confirmed her suspicion as Rook
teleported immediately behind the cat to avoid the
strike.

What she needed was an attack to cover a radius around
her. Unfortunately she had blown all her remaining
chi and was even now just operating on fumes.

Ranko landed shakily and examined the silver burn on
her arm again. That arm wasn't going to be much use
in the battle. She glanced up seeing her "familiar"
as Sheila had called the damn neko-ken, sent flying
against a wall before hitting the ground, momentarily
stunned. The sight brought a small smile to Ranko's
face, even as she stepped away from the cat.

The armored figure advanced on her, she swore it was
smiling under that helmet, as she tried to catch her
breath. Ranko took a shaky stance, feeling some of
her chi return courtesy of her capability to
regenerate.

"At least I closed the gate," Ranko said.

"It can be reopened," Rook assured her.

He slashed forward with one sword and another, forcing
Ranko to dodge back while she was considering a way to
beat that telepotation of his. She had to find a way
to get him without him knowing she was striking, that
was the only way. Then he wouldn't know to teleport.

Her back hit the wall and immediately Rook rolled
around to her side, giving her a shot to the middle of
the room.

"Almost had me cornered there," Ranko said. "Maybe
you're not as good as I think." She smirked. Rook
did not answer, having learned much earlier that walls
where dangerous things for him to fight near.

"Ranko!" Akane shouted, from inside the cavern. The
armored creature stopped and turned to face the sound.

"How surprising," he said, looking over The newly
appeared wererat. "How did you get in here?" The
sound of digging magic and warriors could be heard
getting closer, but the tunnel was still solid on this
end.

~Thank you, Akane,~ Ranko said, launching an attack
forward at the distracted Rook.

Of course, Ranko had made the same mistake Julia had
in her first confrontation with Rook. It wasn't Rook
doing the teleporting...it was the armor. Rook
vanished before Ranko's fist could get there.

"Ranko duck!" Akane shouted, running forward. Ranko
didn't need to be told twice as she rolled forward,
the cleaving slash becoming only a painful burning
across her back. "You monster!!"

"Don't think that you can beat me, little rat," Rook
said. "I can already tell you're not as skilled
as...." Rook was cut short as Akane leaped into a
jump kick, back to the ground. Rook had a fraction of
a second to realize what was happening before he was
stuck in solid rock....again.

"Ranko are you okay?" Akane asked rushing to the side
of her the werecheetah. Ranko sat up, trying to
ignore the burning sensations on her back and arm.
She looked from Akane to where Rook was stuck in the
ground, hands and feet sticking out comically.

"You rescued me," Ranko said hollowly.

"Of course I did," Akane snapped in her usual annoyed
voice. "Why did you do something as stupid as run off
by yourself....anyway?" Akane's concerned anger faded
as Ranko's eyes began to grow misty.

"YOU rescued ME," Ranko repeated, before the fatigue,
stress and humiliation finally cracked her Soul of Ice
and she broke out into a gale of weeping.

"Oh," Akane said, reaching forward to hug the girl.
"You'd have beaten him eventually." She assured
Ranko, not sure whether the girl was hearing her or
not.

The final sound of the others breaking through the
rock echoed through the final cavern as Akane held
Ranko in what she hoped was a comforting hug, avoiding
the nasty looking burns on her back and arm as much as
she could.

"Is she okay?" Ranma demanded as he came in. "Are you
okay?!"

"OH!" Nodoka said coming over and seeiing the burns.
"These will have to be treated!"

"Missed all the fun," Brianna muttered to herself.
She glanced over to Ranko and her family comforting
her, hoping it was a comfort and not a humiliation and
then walked with Sheila and her mother to where Rook
was trapped in stone.

"This time why don't we cut him out and lock him in a
vault or something?" Sheila asked.

"A heavily warded vault," Julia agreed.

"With a Diggers anti-magic field set up around the
stone," Brianna finished.

"This time he's NOT coming back," Sheila finished.

Meanwhile the small, blue, as yet unnamed cat, unless
one considers "Neko-Ken" a name, finally sat up and
shook it's head clear. It was a spirit of thunder and
lightning, but really, there was such a thing as too
much of a good thing. Besides the thunder and
lightning in it's eyes and ears at the moment was more
of a concussion thing.

"Oh, that was fun," she said. "But wait until I learn
this little body some more."

********

Things were much quieter later in the day, when they'd
returned to the inn.

"She put the neko-ken into a seperate body without
using the familiar ritual," Dr. Diggers said.
"Without even knowing the ritual. That is
impressive." Julia nodded.

"You're thinking of asking her or Ranma to see if
they're interested in learning magic?" Julia asked.
The mage looked to her and she smiled. "You can't
resist a talented student any more than I can."

"I highly doubt that Ranma would like to study more
magic than it would take to duplicate his sister's
act," Theo said. "I assume Ranko would be along the
lines of her brother as well."

"That would be a bad assumption to make Theo," Julia
said. "Think about Brianna." The mage nodded.

"I'll suggest it," he said. "We'll see what she
thinks. After we talk to her mother."

********

Ranko looked down at her arm, Dr. Diggers had healed
it, but she could still remember the feel of her soul
being charred where the silver had touched it. That
wasn't what bothered her though. Akane, Ranma and her
mother had stayed with her in the room for an hour
before she asked them to leave her alone. They had
only left reluctantly.

They were worried about her, it was touching. But it
was humiliating.

And the Neko-ken was still hanging around her to.
Every time it came close she started getting the
shivers. At the moment she thought it was basking in
the sun far away from her. She could feel warmth
spreading evenly over that piece of her chi.

"Want to talk about it?" someone asked from the door.
Ranko turned morosely and saw Brianna standing there.

"No," Ranko said.

"Too bad," Brianna said. "Because you're going to."

Brianna walked over and sat down next to Ranko. Ranko
blinked as she first realized just how large she was
in her hybrid form, even Brianna, who would dwarf her
human form, looked rather small next to her.

"What's to talk about?" Ranko asked. "All I was
useful for was getting my ass kicked and shaking like
a scaredy.....dog."

"YOU found the gate," Brianna reminded her. "YOU took
it out of commission. I'd say that you weren't
exactly useless."

"AKANE had to rescue me," Ranko said. "She ain't
bad...but...usually its me doin' the rescuing...or
Ranma anyway."

"Yeah, well we told her what to do before she went
into the room," Brianna said. "That idiot Rook
depends on that one trick way too much."

"That one trick almost killed me," Ranko said. "And
to think, if I had done just a single jab when I'd hit
that wall..."

"Yeah," Brianna said. "That's how Mom finally beat
him, he had her fooled to, almost killed her...thenl
he TOLD her how his armor works." She rolled her eyes
at the idiocy of that. "I guess he learned his lessen
about bragging from that."

"He almost beat your mother?" Ranko said, somewhat
surprised and impressed.

"Yeah," Brianna said. "But it's because of that one
trick of his, and now we all know how to beat him."

"Ranma would have beat him," Ranko said. "He's better
than me."

"Don't try to compare yourself to him," Brianna said.
"You'll always be in his shadow then. You remember
what I told you about Grave Digger?"

"That was before I existed," Ranko reminded her,
without denying that she remembered.

"Yeah," Brianna said. "Well anyway, the same thing
applies here I think. You think I could beat Brit in
a fight?" Ranko considered this and shook her head
slowly.

"No," she said hesitantly.

"And do you think I could out research Gina?" At this
Ranko held just a blank expression, both of the
Diggers genuises were so far beyond her in technical
knowledge that she could hardly tell their levels
apart. "Well it depends. With my inventions, I'm
probably an even match for Brit, maybe more so, Brit
doesn't do much serious training. And next to Gina,
for pure raw intellect and talent, she's head and
shoulders above me, but I find things she misses all
the time. She makes things too complicated for
herself. And when you put me all together I'm
probably the top military mind of the Diggers set. I
do my own thing, I don't try to do my sisters'
things."

"All I know is martial arts," Ranko said. "All I know
is what HE'S been taught."

"Are you interested in martial arts?" Brianna asked,
remembering her half-muttered comment before the shit
had started hitting the fan earlier.

"Not really," Ranko answered after a long pause.
"But...what else?"

"I'm sure you'll find something," Brianna said
comfortingly. "Hey, most kids your age don't know
what they're going to do."

"Most kids my age are still in the hospital," Ranko
muttered darkly.

"Yeah," Brianna said. "And most my age have yet to
hit kindergarten, so anyway...I got to go meet the
other girls. We're going shopping with the bounty
money for Rook if you want to come."

"Maybe," Ranko said.

"We'll wait downstairs for a little while," Brianna
said. "Don't mope it'll make you feel worse."

********

"...and then he asks me 'if that wasn't sex what was
it,'" Akane said.

"No," Sheila said. "He's that clueless?"

"He's that clueless," Genn agreed as Akane nodded.

"All this time I've been calling him a pervert," Akane
said, rolling her eyes. "And he doesn't even know
what it is."

"Did I miss anything?" Brianna asked as she came to
join them.

"Just some girl talk," Sheila said. She gestured to
Ranma surreptitiously, where the werecheetah was
sitting in the corner watching them nervously.
"Apparently Akane fell asleep on top of him and he
thought that was sex."

"REALLY?" Brianna said. "No way!"

"Yep," Akane said. "That's what happened." Brianna
glanced over at Ranma, whose face was turning red as
he realized that they were talking about him.

"Wow," Brianna said. "Lucky girl, you get to break
him in to all the wonderful little secrets of...life
without anybody screwing it up before hand."

"Errr...I guess," Akane said. Genn leaned over and
whispered.

"By reports you're not interested in Ranma," Brianna
said knowingly.

"I'm not!" Akane said, flustered, turning bright red
and glancing around nervously. "Wait a minute, by
what reports?"

"That samurai, and the chef," Brianna said smiling.

"Kuno!?" Akane blinked. "He's insane. And Ukyou
can't stand to admit that the only thing Ranma sees in
her is a brother or sister."

"But you're not interested," Sheila said. "And you're
talking about his cluelessness with sex." Akane
looked around like a caged rat, appropriately enough
and then relented.

"Fine," Akane said. "I like him. There happy?"

"Almost," Brianna said leaning forward. "So, how does
he make you feel?"

"I don't know," Akane said, twiddling her fingers
somewhat. "I feel...safe around him and well, in
danger at the same time. And now..."

"Now?" the other three said simultaneously. They all
leaned forward.

"I keep having these fantasies about tall grass and
running," Akane said. "From something that wants to
devour me...and I WANT to get caught."

"Mmmm," Brianna said eyes glazing a little.

"Must be the whole predator-prey thing," Sheila said.
"I wonder how it would feel to date something that
would instinctually hunt you."

"Hmmph," Akane said. "Ranma only does the hunting in
the fantasies, I have to do it in real life. He
freaks if you flirt with him." She immediately
blushed at that admission.

"Well, that's just the proper way to do it," Sheila
said. "As long as they believe that THEY'RE the ones
doing the hunting anyway."

"Devour me...heh...heh..."

All eyes turned slowly toward Brianna.

"Brianna is a little...." Genn started, leaning over
to whisper to Akane.

"Sex-crazed," Sheila finished.

"I am not sex-crazed," Brianna said. "I just LIKE it
that's all."

"If you were male you'd look surprisingly like Tirga,"
Sheila said.

"Hey," Brianna said. "I'm not a two-timing
arm-dragger like him. What do you see in him anyway,
Sheila?"

"Tirga is the pervert that hit on me in my room
right?" Akane asked. "The tiger guy."

"That's him," Sheila said dryly, eyes narrowed.

"What DO you see in him?" Akane asked.

"Other than the obvious, of course," Brianna said,
licking her lips. "If you weren't set on him I'd give
him a quick try."

"That two-timing, arm-dragger?" Genn repeated.

"Hey, he's a good looking two-timing arm-dragger,"
Brianna said. "Besides being used and abandoned might
be good for him. What goes around comes around you
know."

"You are bizarre," Akane said, arching her eyebrows.

"You don't know the half of it," Genn muttered.

"Tirga has his good points," Sheila said finally.
"He's a creditable member of the Edge Guard."

"Okay," Brianna said. "Outside his reported skill in
the sack, that body, and his ability in a fight, what
are his good points?"

"Actually," Sheila said. "He's the only one that
reports his skill in the sack."

"Wait a minute, didn't you and he have a fling or
something?' Brianna asked. "Wouldn't you know?"

"That was Genn actually," Sheila said, gesturing to
the Rakshasha. Akane looked from the Rakshasha to
Sheila and looked confused until she remembered that
the little creature was a shapechanger.

"Oh," Akane said. "Replacement pervert."

"I am not a pervert," Genn protested.

"You slept with Kodachi," Akane said.

"And paid for it greatly," Genn muttered.

"With Kodachi, you haven't even begun to pay for it,"
Akane said.

"Great," Genn said.

"Who's Kodachi?" Sheila asked.

"Someone from Akane's home town," Brianna said. "Some
rich girl with a strange laugh and a thing for whips."

"Oooo," Sheila said. "Lucky boy, Genn." The
Rakshasha twitched.

"Hey," Brianna said. "Isn't that Gar over there?"

"Oh yeah," Sheila said, standing up and waving.
"Thropan and Onoli too." The three were-cats noticed
Sheila waving and started over.

"I guess the girl-talk is over for now," Brianna said.
Then she noticed Ranko coming down the stairs, and
sighed in relief. At least for a moment

"Oh, is Ranko coming with us?" Akane asked, noticing
the girl as well. Then it happened.

"Uh oh," Sheila and Genn added.

********

Ranko grumbled to herself as she came down the stairs
and started to work her way through the crowd toward
where Sheila was waving. The jagwere must of just
caught a flash of her or something, because she was
looking in the wrong way. Whatever, at least she knew
where to go to meet them in this restaurant-inn
thingie.

She was about half way there when she felt some one
slam into her from behind and to the side. She would
have fallen right then if whoever had bumped her had
not grabbed her and pulled her up.

"Oh sorry about that," a voice said behind her. "I
didn't see you..." The voice trailed off for a moment
while Ranko looked down to where her "rescuer's" hands
were placed. "Something wrong?"

"Gar," another voice said, hesitantly. "Hands."

"What about...wait a minute," Gar made the mistake of
experimentally squeezing, which had the effect of
snapping Ranko out of her shock.

********

"Is it fair to suggest," Brianna asked. "That if
Ranma is as clueless and intimidated by sex as you
say, then Ranko...."

********

"PERVERT!!!!" Ranko shouted flipping around and almost
faltering when she saw the werecat. The punch did not
land with as much force as it would have as a result.
Therefore, Gar only flew back fifteen feet. As Gar
flew, so did Ranko, in a manner of speaking.

********

"Yep," Sheila said, wincing as her brother landed.
"It's fair to assume."

"Th....th...that...c...c..cat groped me!!" Ranko
gasped, virtually appearing behind Akane.

"That's my brother, Gar," Sheila said.

"He's a pervert!" Ranko snapped.

"That's a pervert," Sheila said, pointing toward
Brianna.

"Hey!" Bri protested.

"Gar's just male," Sheila said.

"Yeah," Ranko said. "A pervert. Right?'

"Right," Akane added. Both Nerimans nodded in eerie
unison. "Except for Ryouga anyway." Ranko twitched.
Then a were-lion approached their table, and he stood
taller than all of them.

"We apologize for that incident," the lion said. "Gar
did not mean to...do that. He was just trying to save
her from the fall."

"Yeah, Onoli, we saw the whole thing," Sheila said.
"Including the last little squeeze."

"Errr," Onoli said nervously. As Thropan guided a
dizzy Gar to the women's table. Tirga, in human form,
appeared next to Onoli then and started putting his
two cents in.

"Well, can you blame him?" Tirga asked. "I mean she
is one hot little lady, almost as tall as Britanny,
slimmer build with just a trace of red in her fur.
Hot, man!"

"Could you all go away please?" Ranko asked, still
hiding behind Akane.

Akane would protect her. Akane was She Who Shooed
Away Cats. She always had been. The fact that she
had been in a deep depression because Akane had
rescued her earlier did not register...after
all...these were CATS.

"Why are you in human form?" Thropan asked Tirga as
they reached the table.

"Because she's afraid of cats," Tirga answered
pointing to the werecheetah crouching behind the
wererat. "So if I'm gonna get in tight with..." The
girls cleared their throats.

"This is not a wise thing to be saying," Sheila said.

"Uh...heh," Tirga said, which was about when he was
pulled over and found himself staring into the glaring
eyes of the other werecheetah.

"What was that about getting in tight with my sister?"
Ranma asked. Tirga smirked and shifted into his tiger
form.

"Meow," he said, smirking. Ranma vanished and joined
his sister behind Akane. "Heh, funny kid."

"Oh for Pete's sake," Akane said standing up from her
chair and walking over to Tirga.

"Oh hi," Tirga said. "Rethinking my offer from
earlier?"

"Should we do anything?" Thropan asked.

"She looks a little smaller than Sheila," Onoli said
in response. "There shouldn't be much problem."
While it was true that switching to her hybrid form
resulted in a minor loss of mass for Akane, it was
still obvious that the Edge Guard had not yet
encountered the Wrath of Akane. Except for Tirga, but
as for him.

"Like I said," Sheila sighed. "Too stupid to be a
threat."

"HEY!!" Tirga snapped. He was about to protest
further, but then Akane grabbed him. A few seconds
later Akane was walking back to her seat and dusting
off her hands.

"Really," Akane said.

"Trip to the healer's," Thropan said, looking down at
Tirga. Ranko and Ranma were applauding her and
quoting Dr. Tofu from a year or so ago.

"See how that joint's bent backwards?" Ranma asked.

"That's Akane's touch alright," Ranko finished.

********

The helicopter, heavily modified by a combination of
Ace, Penny, Brianna and Gina's talents, touched down
on the ground in Japan lightly and easily. As the
engines shut down the passengers and crew, meaning
Ace, immediately disembarked to be met by a tall,
buxoum werecheetah.

"MUFFIN!!!" Britanny shouted crossing the distance
quickly to hug her husband. "It's been ages!"

"It's been two days," Konatsu said. Britanny turned a
smoky glance toward the ninja's direction.

"Exactly," she said. Stripe rolled his eyes in
amusement.

"Where's Gina?" Penny asked.

"She's just a little behind me," Britanny said,
pointing back to where her sister was standing up
after the backdraft of her the werecheetah's
departure.

Gina was dusting herself off as she approached.

"Warn me next time," Gina said as she caught up, then
looked to Lydia lying asleep on the stretcher. "What
happened to her? She should be awake."

"We had some magical interference," Penny said. "Is
your father around?"

"Nope," Gina said. "He's in Jade, not sure when he's
coming back just yet. Is this the girl?" She pointed
to Yuka.

"Uh, hello," Yuka said, watching Brittany nervously.

"Hi," Gina said. "Don't worry, as soon as my dad's
back we'll have you back to your old self." Penny
cleared her throat and pulled Gina to the side.

"She might have it by heredity," Penny said. "Some of
her family comes from Africa, and we think that
necklace of hers is what caused your rat friend to
keep sleeping."

"Any reason you're giving me the rundown so quick?"
Gina asked, she glanced to Ace and smirked. Penny's
eye twitched.

"I want to get back to my date," Penny said tightly.
"Is there anything else you need my help for?"

"Not at the moment," Gina said.

"Then Ace and I are gone," Penny said. "Call me in a
few hours for more details. Good luck, Gina."

"Thanks, Penny, I'll do that," Gina waved as the other
genius turned to head back for the helicopter.

"Yo, G, stay safe," Ace called out as he helped Penny
board the plane. ~As if any warning has ever done you
any good before.~

"You too Ace," Gina called out.

********

Something, a snake, loomed over a little cat girl who
was staring dazedly ahead. They were across a wide
field from her. The little girl seemed familiar.

"Hey!" a voice shouted, and Lydia felt the scene zoom
forward with great speed until she was seeing the
snake up close. "Stay away from my sister."

"You sssister is mine, cat," the snake hissed sliding
back. "Already the poison runs through her veins.
She will be filled with anger and hate and a thirst
for blood...and be my servant."

The view rocked dramatically until Lydia could see two
small bleeding wounds on the little girl's hand. A
furred hand, maybe fourteen years old, snatched out
and grabbed the dazed girl's hand. Another furred
hand covered the first, and a flash of white passed
into the little girl's body. She felt the contact and
the flash of power, almost as if they were her hands.

"Your poison is gone, Set," the voice yelled again.
It was somewhere close, just off camera, but Lydia
couldn't connect it to anything. "Be gone before I
send you away."

"Godling, you cannot fight me," the angry snake
hissed. It started to slither forward, and Lydia felt
something like a cringing and a repressed fear as
those two arms encircled the little girl, who was
coming out of her trance.

A steel blade sliced downward, narrowly missing the
dodging serpant. The scene shifted up to see a
jackal-headed man weilding a polearm with two
semi-circular blades.

"Begone, serpent of darkness," the jackal barked.

"This is not over, little cat," the snake hissed as it
fled. The jackal bent down to observe the wound on
the girl's hand.

"There is no hate," he muttered. "But rage will
always be a part of her now."

"Not always," the voice said. The scene flashed to
darkness.

********

Another scene flashed into view. Cats, cats,
everywhere. As far as she could see in the huge room.
All lounging about or playing, or hunting, or looking
at her. She felt herself standing up and walking, and
the cats parted before her. A pair of lions bowed as
she passed them.

"Going out again?" a woman's voice asked. She
recognized it as Sehkmet.

"I'm not only one of the Eyes of Ra," another voice
said. It was close, but Lydia could not see where it
had come from. "I have other...duties..."

"If you can call what you do a duty," Sehkmet
muttered. "I'm surprised you don't try to lay me."

"Now sister," that other voice said. "I am not a
pervert. Leave that incestuous stuff to the
Olympians."

"I do," Sehkmet said tightly, controlled. "Thank
you."

"Certainly you'll find someone eventually sister," the
voice said.

"Not as long as these are still here," Sehkmet pointed
to the wrap around her hand. "They half think I'm a
spy for Set."

"You aren't," the voice said. "And that will be
obvious, when we have flayed the serpent alive." A
pleased smile adorned Sehkmet's face, and the scene
flashed back to darkness.

********

The scene flashed onto the aftermath of a battle.
Sehkmet and was standing near the edge of Lydia's
view, in full battle gear. She herself felt heavy and
weighed down slightly, and as the view moved the sound
of steel on steel could be heard.

An open toed boot, revealling clawed toes, kicked at
the body of a huge serpent.

"He's dead, sister," the same voice said happily.
"The damn snake is dead. We can live in peace now."
Sehkmet was looking at her hand, momentarily
unwrapped.

"The scars aren't gone," she said. The view shifted
and a gauntleted hand took Sehkmet's own and examined
the two bald marks where a snake had bitten a little
girl long ago.

"That's just your body," the voice said. "The anger
will go away if you let it." The scene flashed to
dark.

********

Another scene. Only she saw it in flashes, as if
opening her eyes only for blinks and shutting them
again

This time Lydia felt, or was it remembered, great
pain. There was a lot of heavy breathing, and she
could smell a number of people, cat-people surrounding
her. The words were garbled through the pain, until
at last it ended and she felt merely exhausted.

A cloth wrapped child was soon taking up the view of
her dream.

"Ailuros," the same woman's voice declared softly
before the scene faded to black.

********

Another scene, the building with the cats again. A
little cheetah girl ran through the room, playing and
laughing.

"Ailuros is so quick," the unnamed voice said happily.

********

"We have to do something," Ailuros declared, she
seemed older now and familiar somehow. "These are
cats, mother, surely you can do something."

"It is a mortal's war," the voice said reluctantly.
"We have no reign to do anything while this wizard
holds to mortals."

"But he's using them as assassins and slaves," Ailuros
protested.

"Do you think I DON'T know that?" the voice demanded.
"He has not yet done anything that we can use to
interfere yet."

"But..." Ailuros said. Sehkmet barged into view.

"Iceron has declared himself the God of all Cats," she
said angrily. Lydia could almost feel a small smile
appear on the unseen speakers face.

"Daughter, sister," the voice said. "Get your gear.
We're going to war."

********

Another scene. It came in isolated flashes and she
could only catch parts of it.

"DIE FIENDISH MORTAL!!!" Sehkmet charging forward.

"These are the deities of Egypt?" aaccompanied by a
low, arrogant laugh.

"YOU WILL FALL!!!" It was that same voice from
before.

Fear followed as the spectral image of a great serpent
was printed against the blackness between flashes of
battle.

"Let go of my mother!" "No Ailuros! Stay back!!"

"The cub seeks to defend the mother," the arrogant
wizard said. There was a flash of black fire and
screaming that Lydia almost felt as if it were her
own.

"Sist.....!"

Then there was darkness and flashes of pain and fire
running through her, body and soul, as something tore
at her, and dragged her down. Seeking to devour her,
destroy her. And then that force was shattered and
almost released her with a roar of rage and pain.

"Sehkmet," the voice said. "You did it..." And the
scene flashed closed.

********

Time uncountable followed, tethered in the darkness,
racked with pain and sorrow. This was not the
promised afterlife, this was something else. Sehkmet
had defeated the wizard after her fall, but she had
apparently not killed him.

Darkness and pain remained until light flashed.

********

Lydia snapped awake with gasp and looked around the
room. Three werecheetahs, that's all that registered
at first. Then she started to notice the others in
the room.

"Oh shit," she muttered. "I should have stayed with
the #$#$ed up dreams."

"Miss McKracken, I presume," Gina Diggers said as all
eyes turned toward her.

Someone said something in Japanese with a relieved
tone of voice. To her surprise, a white-furred
wererat came into the room and began serving everyone
tea. Oddly enough, everyone seemed to come to
attention when she entered the room, and even Lydia
felt an odd desire to never say another single swear
word in her life.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"They want us to help rescue her sister from
Gothwrain," Moisha said, pointing to the wererat.

"Eh?" Lydia repeated. Rescue a RAT from Gothwrain?

********

Gothwrain smiled as night fell and he prepared to
attempt to lay the trap in the Tendo girl's mind
again. He sat down and centered himself before
casting the spell. The girl had some truly impressive
natural defenses, she could have been an exceptional
mage. Gothwrain had other ideas, however, and he had
no intention of giving Nabiki the training she would
find so very useful in the next few moments.

He cast the spell and let it seek his target. Again
there was that instant reaction of being forced out.
This time, however, he was ready for the primitive
reaction and merely pushed back harder. Nabiki's
outer defenses caved quickly. After pushing the spell
past Nabiki's outer defenses he pulled back letting
the spell do its work.

He took a heavy breath and glanced to the screen that
showed Miss Tendo sleeping a little restlessly.

********

Nabiki gritted her teeth at the pain as she felt
Gothwrain push his spell into her mind. She
concentrated on keeping her cool and appearing to be
asleep and merely the recipient of a bad dream. She
concentrated on paying attention to what happened as
the spell worked it's way deeper into her mind.

~What are you doing to me?~ her thoughts demanded as
she began to feel herself thinking differently.

The spell was a simple one, designed to implant only a
few impulses into her mind, unnoticed as she slept
through what should have been a highly unpleasant
nightmare. As the impulses began to arrise on the
surface, she was bolstered by the fact that she was
awake and knew there was a spell in effect. Still she
could only identify with certainty a few of the
imposed thought patterns.

The first impulse backfired spectacularly. Nabiki
felt herself acquire a sudden respect for and loyalty
to Gothwrain, for all of half a second. When respect
and loyalty flared into outraged betrayal and bitter
hatred as she considered what the "Lord High Elder"
was still doing to her. Still, she could put on a
false face for her captor and put on a good show. She
just had to make sure she didn't go overboard.

The second thought she identified was equally easy to
identify, but harder to fight. She was already a
little afraid of the werecheetahs and their obvious
power. She felt that fear rise to irrational levels
quickly, and could barely keep it in check despite
knowing it was being forced on to her. After that,
she was too exhausted to notice anything else going on
and fell back unconscious.

********

"Funny that they'd build such large air vents in this
place," Romeo thought. "Maybe we got this base from
someone else." He ceased his wondering as he came to
the end of his search and looked down into the room.

There she was, Nabiki Tendo. And she looked to be in
terrible shape. That didn't make any sense whatsoever
though. Gothwrain was here to protect rats, not hurt
them. Maybe there was a reason for it that he didn't
know.

He rolled his eyes. Of course there was a reason he
didn't know, but was it a good reason?

"It's clan business," Romeo said, hesitating.

He only had about five minutes left before he had to
be back in his own room. Besides, there were cameras,
he couldn't hope to get to her without being seen.
Unless...

"Maybe she's sick or something," Romeo thought. "Not
injured. I could just check and see. If this works."

He played with the vent blades until he could slip out
and clinged desperately to the ceiling in a manner
similar to what Zero had taught him. Had he been
human or hybrid, it would have been impossible, but
apparently, as a rat he could do a creditable
imitation of spider-man.

"Spider-man, spider man," Romeo muttered under his
breath. "He can do whatever a spider can..."

He inched along the ceiling until he reached the
camera and then clinged to the camera for long enough
to find the button to shut it off. That succeeded he
dropped to the floor and shifted into hybrid and
hurried to the bed to check on his rescuee.

She was beaten severely, and with silver. He could
smell the burns even before he saw them all across her
back through the torn dress. There couldn't be a
reason for this, she was just a bystander for goodness
sakes. She was younger than he was.

Feeling faint about what he had just decided, Romeo
took his tools out of his night suit and went to the
door. It took a minute or two, but he worked his way
into the opening panel and wired it open eventually.
That left him only a couple more minutes before they
discovered he was AWOL. It was time to skedadle.

He returned to the bed and gingerly picked up the girl
he had dragged here, and left the room, closing the
door behind them.

He had to dodge patrols a few times, but more or less
he got out of there very easily. Easily enough that
it made him worried. Any easy accomplisment in Zero's
training was soon followed by something incredibly
bad, and so he worried. He was well away from the
headquarters when Nabiki started to wake up.

"Get out of my head," she muttered weakly once before
falling back asleep.

"Oh man," Romeo said. "Her family is going to kill
me."

********

"The package is being delivered," his aide said.
Gothwrain smiled darkly as he considered the veritable
time bomb Romeo was taking with him.