I'm trying to do too many things, my backlog is ginormous. Various distraction (like that Stellaris video game) aren't helping.
Then there's my game engine, steadily eating up time while staying as full of crash bugs as ever.
Would you believe I haven't got to writing Ch.18 yet? Only four chapters to go, then I could start publishing my partially written sequel.This story is a work of fanfiction. As such, it owes a great debt to the creators of the characters used herein: Rumiko Takahashi, Matt Bozon, Erin Bell Bozon and the creative teams of Kity Films and WayForward.
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Chapter 16
Who have seen Hell, now?Shantae was going to take the most difficult part, not sure if her friends could even see the afterworld entrance and if they do that they could find their way there. She wasn’t planning on sending anyone there. Herself only. Three most difficult, most deadly dungeons you have to beat in a row, then backtrack. While having very little in the way of healing potions. Her stock she had thought was big, proved tiny when stretched across the whole team. While money began running out much more sudden than usual while there were a couple weeks til the next payday and no time to search for treasure. As a result, she was the only one capable of going after the Sizzle Stone. Well, Ranma could potentially too, but he was on his way to the Golem mines with his fiancees.
Bolo ran to the Mermaid falls, Sky and Shantae were haggling with fishermen hiring two boats...
Suddenly, she had to change her plans! Risky Boots came together with Hypno Baron, both demanding Shantae going to the Tan Line Island to deal with a surprisingly powerful source of dark magic there. Urgently, unless she wants to face the Pirate Master awakened this evening.
Such a disaster!
The half-Genie fretted, not knowing what to do, whom to send on this dangerous mission. Panicking, she tried recalling how it goes… And remembered that one can’t just walk into the Village of Lost Souls. First, you have to find a ritual mask of death on the Spiderweb Island, which you couldn’t just wear, Bolo has to pick it out of a fossil lump first… How did she manage all of that the previous time?
Whatever she did, there had to be a delay.
In the end after all her fretting, random persons had to be send to get the mask. Namely, Nabiki and Rotty. While Shantae went to the Tan Line Island twisting a slightly gnawed map in her hands. Akane’s untrained sister whose skills had appeared from nowhere by magic and who never had any adventures by herself. Anyone would be beside themselves worrying for her. While Rotty knew the land, her help was at times so troublesome… The green gal could find so much extra adventure it would be too much for both.
So Shantae was worrying, nibbling on anything she had in hand.
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“At least we don’t have to suffer the heat anymore,” Nabiki said as she climbed onto the pier and took a look around.
From afar, from the sea, the Spiderweb Island was obscured by a hazy blob of gray mist, like a chunk of bad weather stuck amidst sunny tropics. From inside, as expected, it was chilly and damp, a light drizzle falling from the overcast sky. The boatsman shivered as he donned a robe over his vest, which wasn’t covering his bare belly. He then put a tarp over the boat and hid under it like in a tent.
“Is it always so... overcast here?” Nabiki inquired straightening her wet hat. The rocky island was overgrown with trees. The grey of the overcast day was turning into twilight under their canopies.
“Well… It could clear, at nights,” Rotty called back, becoming livelier by the minute. “Especialy when the Moon is full. But you shouldn’t be here at night. You are too…” She cast an assessing look over Nabiki, “..edible.”
“I’m not planning on staying here til evening,” the middle Tendou responded as she stepped gingerly into the shadow under the trees. “What was it again? Right ahead through the hill that is to the left of the pier, then along the first cleft til the huge tree that grows out of it, up the branches to the right side, then about one hundred and fifty fathoms, we can’t miss it?”
She concentrated on her archaeologist knowledge but it didn’t bring anything out. This was ordinary forest of sparse trees, the ground between them overgrown with tufts of meaty leaves ankle deep, lush red flowers here and there. The only man-made edifice was the lighthouse, a small tower of weathered mud brick. Under the onion of its roof raised on thin struts, mystical blue flame was dancing soundlessly.
“I think it’s that way.” Rotty pointed with her hand, without much conviction. “This climate is like a resort, me and brothers visit from time to time to improve our… health. But other than that, it’s totally boring! Those, from the castle, are sourpusses. The landmarks grow repetitive in half a month tops. Leaving you with nothing to do. There’s monster web coverage, but you can’t spend all your death hanging on the net!”
Must be the same as “hanging on the phone” Nabiki thought recalling the Zombie abilities. While the web is like our telephone network for them. Out loud she asked something more relevant: “What sort of thing live here?
Unlive?”
Silence reigned in the twilight under the trees, only broken by barely audible whisper of drizzle against leaves. The frigid air smelt of rot - seemingly like rotting leaves, but too intense for that.
“Well, there are wild zombies,” Rotty began listing off. “Boring, phew, they aren’t worth wasting coffee on them. But these only crawl out at night, they stay buried during the day… Here, see the top sticking out?” She pointed at something green and shriveled poking out of rotten leaves. Nabiki immediately felt like standing on a minefield, tripling her vigil of watching her step. “All sorts of ghosts, those are nocturnal too. Spiders...”
“Like those poison spitting ones?” Nabiki inquired.
“Naw, those are small,” the Zombie gal corrected her airily. “Around here, there are medium, big and very big ones. These don’t spit poison, they make a web then sit waiting. But their nesting grounds are deeper into the thicket. We don’t have to go there, unfortunately.”
“Unfortunately?” Nabiki asked with suspicion, all her attention on the ground underfoot. Someone’s green hand missing half its fingers here, an innocuous-looking tuft of grass turning to be not grass at all but someone’s green hair there. It seems this whole rocky hill was stuffed full of zombies, like raisins in a bun. One wrong step, and… And what? How fast do they grab, how fast do they dig themselves out? While noticing their sticking out tops in the gloom where colors are faded wasn’t easy.
“I’ve told you: a monster coverage,” Rotty explained. “But yeah, you can hang in the net in a very literal sense if you blunder. Some spiders are so slow it takes them three tries to realize Zombies aren’t edible. Even as they reside next to each other! I remember, one such slowpoke cost me an extra left leg. Wasted all its poison on me, stupid!”
Nabiki involuntarily imagined a pony-sized spider injecting all its poison — which is really their stomach juice — into
her. Realizing yet again the adventurer’s profession was very, very dangerous. Fraught with liquefaction from inside out, for example.
But she wasn’t just going to give up.
They sneaked successfully across the hill. It was Nabiki who was sneaking, feeling like this cost her a day of her life-span, no less. Rotty was strolling ahead with a spring in her step, not looking who she was stepping on.
They descended into a gully that gradually turned into a cleft with sheer rock walls. It was really dark here, hard to discern colors. A couple turns later a tree trunk emerged ahead, thick like a good sequoia. Recognizing it as the tree they had to climb, Nabiki assessed the route. Yeah, jumping from branch to branch “easily” required Shantae’s jumping ability, no less. Shrugging, Nabiki unfurled her whip and caught the lowest branch, without even thinking how did she do that. She gave it a couple tugs. It was holding. But what about Rotty?
Grinning widely, the Zombie gal tore her head off, aimed like she was throwing a basketball and launched it upwards to land somewhere on the upper branches. A second later, skeletal hands sprung up around her headless body do drag it down, seemingly underground. But there was no mark left on the ground.
Shrugging Nabiki began climbing the whip. It was harder than climbing a rope. The whip was biting into her hands, biting into her legs even through the thick trousers. Huffing, she pulled herself up onto a thick branch. There were five or six more ahead.
But she wasn’t just going to give up.
On the third branch when her arms were shaking a little and the distance to the ground had increased to “compound fracture”, a ghastly ghost muzzle jumped her, illuminated with a candle in its stubby arm and only visible thanks to that light.
Her hair standing on ends, Nabiki managed to avoid it by jumping backwards, closer to the trunk, somehow managing to make the whip loose instead of pulling it taut. The spherical ghost with its candle in a candle-holder began advancing at her, making her back away again. Finally, her whip was unwound from around the branch. She managed to whip, from awkward position, sending a wave from bottom up. A sharp crack at the freak… Did nothing, the whip just passed through it!
An instant later there was lumpy bark under her shoulder blades, icy breath of a ghostly maw in her face...
The ghost bobbed down sharply as Rotty’s head hit it from above. The Zombie girl popped up from below her head, tore her leg off and smacked the ghost with all her might holding the extremity by its femur like a club. The ghost made as sour face as it unraveled into ribbons, fading when the fallen candle stopped illuminating it.
“You are… doubling your striking power…” Nabiki voiced her observation gulping air, “by bending your leg as you strike, right?”
“Finally!” the green girl beamed making a point of bending then straightening her severed leg. “You are the first to figure it out! Shantae never notices.” She inserted her leg where it belonged. Of course it was the one with metal braces around the thigh. “But why did it crawl out during the day? Is it so dark in here?” Tearing her head off again, she launched it skyward and was on her way.
“Note to self,” Nabiki huffed assessing the next branch. “Ask Shantae how they deal with such nasty immaterial things. Although, who am I kidding? She’s most likely unaware of such problems. Either ki, her magic or something else — and it would turn out she is beating them since ages ago with her hair alone.”
The long, hard, nerve-wracking ascent — she even got sweaty despite the cold — paid off with… Yet another ghastly maw that lit up in the overhanging tree crown. She dashed away amazed at her sudden reserves of strength, jumped across to the cliff top and made to run away, her legs feeling like limp noodles doing their best to just fold on her. A glance over her shoulder showed the ghost blowing the candle out. Without its light, the ghastly spectre faded. Have it grown tired of chasing her already?
“These don’t like moving away from their hidey hole,” Rotty confirmed her guess.
A bit deeper into the forest, the two reached their goal. A shallow gully was baring the ceiling of an underground passage — with the mask they sought supposedly resting inside.
But there was a little problem: the stone slabs of said ceiling, though cracked and crumbling, were still stone slabs. To move these, a crane was needed, not two girls. A palm could be pushed through the crack between the slabs, but Rotty’s head couldn’t.
“How did Shantae get inside?” Nabiki snapped in frustration trying in vain to peer inside. “Don’t reply, that was a rhetorical question. She either smashed it as an elephant, or snuck inside as a mouse.”
“Looks like we have to find where this passage leads and start from there,”Rotty suggested airily.
Nabiki concentrated on her archaeologist skills. To the right, the tunnel was going deeper into the hill. To the left, an edge of a ravine of sorts could be seen.
“We have to go there,” she pointed with certainty.
“Ah!” The Zombie girl perked up. “Through the
fun part of the forest, then!”
Seeing such eagerness Nabiki felt ice crawling along her spine.
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Tunnels and passages carved through glossy, glass-like rock were lit by dim orange glow from uneven patches of sparkling, glowing rock and from bubbling lava river several levels below, searing heat rising from it.
“Shampoo, you had to stay blue,” the blue-glowing Ranma was berating tiredly while trying to detach a scantily clad red-glowing girl from himself. While not touching where he shouldn’t. His task wasn’t easy: nigh everywhere was skin while the magical magnetism was pressing them together. It was like trying to separate two magnets when the other magnet is a shapely girl pretending unconvincingly at trying to get away.
The blue-glowing Akane nearby, her eye twitching, wasn’t reassuring.
“I’ll attract it!” the uncute one snorted finally as she walked to a slit in the floor, a red chest sliding after her, attracted to her. “Aha, here it comes… almost… Gah! Aaah, hel.. p.. me.. ee.. ee..”
A biped horseshoe magnet that snuck up on her had attracted her — because of course it had to be a red one — grabbing her with both its hands and shaking her up and down like a milk bottle.
Detaching from Shampoo in a sharp rolling tumble, Ranma kicked the magnet monster away. It tried jumping back and attacking from above but got attracted to the opposite charged Ranma, beaten and crumbled, its glow and charge fading.
“Enough is enough, really,” the pigtailed guy said as he carefully avoided Akane to prevent the repulsion force between them pushing her into abyss. “One time could be believable, when you fell from that wall. Your second time, slipping, was stretching it. But you then had stumbled on a flat floor two times, then had stepped on a sharp pebble.”
“But it was really sharp,” the bikini-clad Chinese girl contorted balancing on one leg to offer him her other foot. “Here. A very sensitive spot.”
“Yeah, I believe you.” Ranma crossed his arms exuding skepticism. “Doubly so. That’s very sensitive — especially with your iron soles, after you had all but danced barefoot through that rocky desert full of thorns. And of course you happen to be magnetized opposite of my polarity purely by accident, even as those magnetizing curtains are very hard to bypass.”
“When does she do it?” Akane quipped.
“All right, let’s go,” the pigtailed one said with a sigh as he leaned down into a side shaft to pick up a key from the little magnetic chest attracted to him.
“Why glomp so vulgarly?” Akane stomped forward, her nose high in the air. “I can’t understand you.” Missing a trap she got hit in the legs with a tuft of springy blades that popped out of the ground and got her even in her belated rolling tumble. “Ouch.” Sitting up she pulled her legs closer to inspect her calves. It was nothing serious, she got off with torn pant legs and a couple shallow cuts. “As if that even changes anything.”
“Phew, so naive! Maybe because `Ranma, I’m carrying your child under my heart` is an automatic win?” Shampoo stretched challengingly. “Which does any mesalliances, agreements and other joinings of the schools like a bull doing a hamster?” She leaned down to stare into Akane’s eyes. “And don’t comfort yourself thinking I’d be postponing til victory. This war will be over before any side effects of pregnancy could crop up.”
“Like he’d buy into such… Such cheap tricks!” Akane huffed, reddening.
“I’s clear you have never fished,” Shampoo said dismissively as she walked down the tunnel, her hips swaying supply. “Perseverance grinds through anything. You wait patiently, you beckon, you move your lure patiently closer and closer until you catch your fish off guard — then snap! You hook it.”
“Hey! I’m right here if you haven’t noticed.” Ranma sounded offended as he followed her while carefully averting his eyes.
“You can’t keep getting away forever.” Shampoo smiled charmingly as she half-turned towards him. “Sooner or later you’ll relax, let your guard down — and gotcha.” She made a clawing motion with her hand. “The pussy cat got her claws in you.”
The pigtailed one shivered.
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The ravine was in fact a long cave with its roof collapsed. Its sides had mockingly negative incline, going away from the edge in ragged steps. There was no other way than walking along this hole searching for a suitable place to descend.
They had to sneak through a copse of mighty oaks, strange green creatures with spiky purple shells climbing up and down the trunks aiming to slide down onto unwary traveler’s head. They had to crawl, holding their breath, through the mesh of a giant web under the glassy stare of a spider the size of a two-story house. Try figure if that thing was fast asleep or just lazy, waiting for the prey to stick. After that, they had to defend themselves from wild zombies. Who, thankfully, could be easily downed using the whip. Knocking one’s head off in a bold swing and dodging the body stomping away, Nabiki stepped on two more waking them. She also learned they dig out quickly but could be dodged easily if she watches out.
And only then did they find a suitable way down into the underground cavern, an air of rot and decay wafting up. The carpet of dense foliage overgrowing all the ledges looked grayish blue in the deep twilight.
Casting an irritated glare at Rotty — who complained they haven’t quite reached the
most fun part of the forest, although this place would do — the middle Tendou jumped down to the next terrace. What could she say? Half a kingdom for a flashlight. Or even a primitive oil lamp. But they haven’t bothered taking anything with them. No light, no ropes, no pickaxes.
Listening, surveying the surroundings, Nabiki jumped down to the next terrace. A barely discernible beaten path was following a narrow ledge along the rock wall. Here and there traces of simple rock hewing works could be seen. Niches made deeper and straighter, sometimes passages hewn through rock outcroppings. On the other side of the cave, beyond the darkness-shrouded chasm into which droplets of the light drizzle were disappearing, the same could be seen if in better detail. There were flimsy wooden bridges crossing some drops, tombstones, some armored statues standing out of the gloom a bit due to their white color.
The dead silence was only made more prominent by the barely perceptible whisper of drizzle against foliage. Nothing was mowing, no ghostly maws jumping out. There was only chilly dampness, and smell of decay, much stronger here in this enclosed space. The only thing to do was moving forward.
The narrow path lead to a grassy clearing abundant with tombstones, stocky like small square stone columns. These weren’t anything like Japanese vertical posts nor traditional western flat slabs rounded at the top.
“A strange place for a graveyard, to think of it,” Nabiki noted, simply to break silence.
“No, the place is quite good,” disagreed Rotty. “Pleasant. But who sits in the cubby holes...”
“Sits, you say.” Nabiki looked this minefield over. They had to cross it because the path continued on the other side. The inscriptions on the tombstones were in the local language she could read, but these read as complete nonsense like “Restless catty topsy-billy lie too stale not too ratty” and the like. She couldn’t find any patterns.
She began sneaking through the little cemetery feeling sharply how unskilled she was. She couldn’t move quietly across wet grass, she knew too little. She have forgotten how hard it was to start from the very beginning. Se grew lazy chosing those situations where her strengths shone and pushing anything else on others.
She almost missed it when instead of a zombie digging out, one tombstone suddenly lifted up a bit to scurry towards her. There were eyes glinting from below.
Jumping like a startled gazelle Nabiki spun her whip up and lashed, already losing her balance, falling backwards.
She hit right in the gap below. With a nasty shriek the fake tombstone thudded to the ground while she slammed painfully into a random tombstone with her bum. Wincing, she marveled at her own agility. Not from the very beginning, after all. The skills of the movie archaeologist were quite impressive. They just weren’t covering a lot of things specific to a magic world.
Then it dawned on her that those tremors weren’t pangs in her bruised bum. The very tombstone she was still leaning on was twitching. The monster inside simply wasn’t strong enough to lift her!
A riddle to solve in seconds: how to get out of this predicament. Simply standing up would result in it snapping at her heels. Trying to jump away would end the same: the pose was wrong, she didn’t have good leverage. The only solution was...
Rolling the whip up and attaching it to her belt she managed to lift herself up onto the tombstone from an awkward position by pushing with her hands. Praising all the aerobics and stretching exercises, she assessed her jump then pushed off.
The jump came out botched, she almost face-planted hopping desperately on one foot: the tombstone proved to be surprisingly light, it fell over from her push.
There was sort of a crab-like mummy writhing in the dark insides. She had a glimpse of a decayed, cloth-wrapped skull and scuttling legs like bone fingers wrapped in gauze. Then the thing went deeper, preventing her from taking a good look. Only the eyes still glinted.
“An interesting method,” Rotty said. “Not bashing but knocking them over? Worth a note.”
Beyond the next turn a bridge emerged, leading to the other side of the cavern, sideways to their path. One of those white statues was standing there, depicting either a robot or a helmeted samurai. It had a barrel-like torso, stubby legs with obvious articulated joints, its only eye half the size of its head closed.
“That’s no statue, it’s a monster,” Nabiki concluded. “Its legs are functional, it’s placed suspiciously… What should I expect of them?”
“The kissbots?” Rotty replied airily. “Just dodge, otherwise there’d be a deep hickey. But you don’t have to hit him, he’ll offf himself.”
Tearing her head off, she threw it forward along the path, past the bridge.
“Kissbots...? Hickey…?” Nabiki stared at the monster with suspicion. It kept standing still like a statue. She couldn’t reach it with her whip, there was nothing to throw. She could only trigger the trap.
As soon as she was at the bridge start, the monster opened a yellow eye and rushed her with its grubby arms stretched forward, its gait stiff and awkward, creaaking loudly. Its lips were puckering out at the scale she only ever saw from Chardins. That’s no hickey, if such a kiss connects it would rip plaster from a wall!
Hurrying to spin her whip up, backing away in the direction Rotty went, Nabiki wasn’t fast enough to strike. The said “kissbot” rammed the cliff face at full tilt, bounced off losing parts, twitched its legs awkwardly and toppled into the abyss with all the grace of a log.
“They really off themselves,” she commented wondering at the stupidity of those using such things. These are one-use but any martial artist with a modicum of skill would dodge such an oaf with their eyes closed!
She assessed how far the goal was. She never had any problems with spatial awareness, but now it felt like a mental map opening, with all explored passages marked and even guesstimated continuations of the corridors. So this is how dungeons are perceived by someono who had spent twenty years studying them? Not just losing her way was impossible, even missing a barely noticeable side passage would require effort on her part.
Nabiki was going to exploit this skill to the hilt.
Then a root slammed the path in front of her and Rotty, thick as a log, studded with thick spikes. Startled, Nabiki lost her train of thought.
Rotty waited while the root was rising back up, then strolled under it without a care in the world, stopping when a similar one slammed the ground in front of her.
“What kind of phenomenon is this?” Nabiki inquired calmly seeing her undead companion neglecting to use her head trick.
“Crusher roots?” The other girl shrugged stepping forward when the root in front of her rose with a creak while the one in front of Nabiki slammed down again. “Guardian roots…? No idea how these things are called but they are really dumb. Pound at unchanging intervals, like hammering a nail down. The first time getting through is an adventure, the thirty first one is too boring.”
“Uh-huh.” Nabiki noted this observing the roots’ rhythmic motion. They weren’t just moving predictably but also showing for a fraction of a second from the foliage hiding them before slamming down. Just enough to jump back if you pay attention. But if you don’t, they would have to scrape you off the ground after such an elephant-sized tenderizer.
How does this differ from standing on the edge of a subway platform, to think of it?
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A small flame lit above her fingertip, Shantae was climbing through underground halls half-filled with sand and debris. So deep there were almost no monsters, if you disregards the irritated, slowly awakening mummies — whom you can easily pass while they wake.
Darkness reigned under those ancient galleries, darkness and silence filled with everpresent whisper of sand streaming down in thin veils. The rows of square columns were shrouded in dusty darkness barely broken by her tiny light. The dry, unstable sand was giving under her feet, pilled in awkward heaps.
In the end there was yet another breach. Fresh sand was littered with pieces of shattered stone.
Unlike any bossses she had encountered before, this strange source of dark magic was seemingly running away from her. Each time she thought here it was, she found it, there was either a breach into yet another labyrinth or nothing at all like it just vanished to be sensed from an entirely different direction.
“I hope it isn’t a ghost,” the half-Genie mumbled peering into the breach. Her tiny light revealed a bottomless drop, columns rising from it to disappear in the darkness above. Horizontal beams were crisscrossing the tiny illuminated space turning it into a real labyrinth. “No, it it was a ghost it would just seep through walls, not break them.”
Letting out a sigh, the half-Genie snuffled her light out and began dancing in complete darkness. Luckily, she had a bat transformation with its ability to sense walls with her echolocation without any light.
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“Are you kidding me!” Sky exclaimed, beginning to shake from cold.
Shantae’s absent advice of “just move vigorously” here, in this place, now felt like elaborate mockery. Deep snow was crunching underfoot pouring into her light summer boots. Frost was biting her bare legs, creeping under her two woolen shawls like these weren’t there. Sprinkling pines and firs, light snow was falling merrily from low hanging clouds, some sort of giant building barely visible among them.
Wrench squawked, puffed up so much he was almost spherical.
“Although…” Sky breathed out. “Knowing Shantae, she very well could. With her endurance...!” She clenched her fist so hard her leather falconeer’s glove creaked. “All right! It’s too soon for retreat yet, let’s try finding that entrance. Wrench! Scout from the air so that I could avoid monsters!”
Nodding grimly the war-parrot took flight. Dire chill or not, they had a job to do.
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“Who could have thought there would be so many mermaids at Mermaid Falls!” Bolo was grumbling as he climbed a rock wall towards where the factory entrance was marked on the map. “But wait… Maybe that’s why this place is called that?”
Several mermaids floating limply in the pond under the cliff couldn’t clarify this mystery for him, knocked out with lumps on their heads.
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“Akane, left!” Ranma warned as he strained to throw yet another stone gorilla over his shoulder. The golem crunched but held. Rolling into a rocky ball it tried crushing the martial artist. Who jumped over it easily and finished the monster off before it could unfurl back into its humanoid form.
Akane grabbed yet another egg-shaped mini-golem, who was advancing on her, with both her hands before lifting it over her head with visible strain and throwing it at her opponent with a sharp shout. Both the big golem and the improvised missile crumbled.
“The one time out of hundred when the maces would be actually useful, I don’t have them,” Shampoo commented as she slammed a boulder into another golem’s head from behind, then sent the stone ape sprawling with a powerful push of her leg.
“One out of hundred?” Akane replied, confused, as she was assessing which of the golems squash next. Then dodging a rolling ball because one golem had already decided to squash
her. “Why are you carrying them around, then?”
“Why, as a training handicap, of course,” the Chinese girl explained like it was something obvious. “The maces negate my strong points by slowing me down and restricting me into an inflexible power style. Pity someone, let’s not point fingers, proved too slow even for that, hmm?”
Akane just grew sullen in response, punching her next golem so hard she bloodied her knuckles while the monster shattered in a single hit.
“Akane, behind!” Ranma warned.
The youngest Tendou turned around dodging four large rocks vomited by a golem. She then proceeded dodging the mini-golems those rocks unfurled into as they landed. The big golem rolled up into a ball and started rolling at her, laughably slow. It was too easy to jump aside. The mini-golems didn’t know the clever trick known as dodging so they all got flattened.
“Wait, I think I found a better way!” Ranma grabbed the golem, as it unfurled into a stone gorilla, by its foot, raised it over his head, spun it around a bit gaining some momentum, then slammed it against the ground. The monster crumbled.
“Impressive,” approved Shampoo. “But I’m not strong enough for that.”
“I could only lift the small ones,” Akane agreed as she picked up a handy boulder. “Let’s just smash them without any fancy moves, all right?”
And they smashed them, without much effort. Soon there were no more golems, there were no more than a dozen to begin with.
“The Stone is ours!” Ranma proclaimed with satisfaction as he headed to the pedestal in the center of the hall, Shampoo following him.
“Wait!” Akane stopped them. “What did Shantae mean by `they are building a new king`”?
“That bas relief over there?” Shampoo pointed at the end of the hall where golems had been chiseling away at the wall creating a massive figure with a heavy jaw and low brow ridges, its entire form exuding primeval might.
“Don’t tell me…” Ranma mumbled. “It’s ten meters tall...”
“No, it can’t be,” Shampoo waved their concerns aside with an air of confidence. “It’s just a part of the wall.”
It was obvious the golems were planning on creating a full statue, while also carving the hall a bit longer. But they only done half the work and would never finish it because all the sculptors were now scattered across the floor in a layer of crushed stone.
“How do I grab this thing?” Akane asked as she walked up to the pedestal and eyed a rectangular stone tablet hovering there, ever seeping something akin to purple clay. She poked it cautiously.
The stone suddenly soared, flew towards the unfinished statue and disappeared in its forehead.
A low, ominous rumble rolled, especially frightening in an underground hall under who knows how many thousand tons of rock. The floor began trembling under their feet, pebbles falling from the ceiling.
The bas-relief opened its eyes and stirred, accompanied with sharp reports of shattering bedrock.
“Can’t be, you say?” Ranma quiped.
“Ai-yaaaah…” Shampoo could only reply, backing involuntarily.
King Golem was wrenching itself out of the wall it was whole with just a minute ago. The parts that weren’t sculpted looked very rough, wild ragged stone. That wasn’t making the elephant-sized fists any less impressive, though.
“Well,” Ranma reassured the fiancees, gulping involuntarily, “Shantae had beat it somehow, all alone...”
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Rows of crusher roots as wide as a room. Rows of roots striking synchronously with deceptively safe wide gaps between them where you suddenly find another row striking synchronously and barely survive only just fitting between them. Cleverly hidden roots you only dodge on a hunch. All of the above combined with kissbots hidden in nooks, no more laughable at all.
Fear burned out, constant tension turned into a Zen-like serenity. With icy calm Nabiki was making her way forward, towards the target. Deadly risk and the treasure hunter’s job, these always go in pair, never one without another.
They had only about fifty meters of this labyrinth to go, it was gradually turning into a dungeon. A dark opening was ahead, carved through a rock wall. There was the same gray gloom of a half-cave visible through it. There were no roots nor other traps. But there was something shapeless glowing green on the ground right in front of the opening.
“Hey, Rotty!” she called out. “What sort of new disaster is this?”
“Where?” The green girl began looking around. “Oh! Watch out for this one. It's a grubby grabby hand. Blunder and it’ll paw you all over!”
Those incessant innuendos of hers were growing really tiresome.
Throwing her head through the opening, Rotty pranced ahead.
Nabiki approached cautiously provoking a meter-long ghostly arm to spring out of the ground. Grabbing emptiness the extremity began grabbing blindly and groping about, testing the air with sharp swings of its knotty fingers.
Rolling further away from the prone position her desperate dodge landed her in, Nabiki stood up dusting dirt off.
Not having caught anyone, the ghostly hand calmed down retreating back into the ground. How could she make it to the other side? No, Shantae would simply jump over, Akane probably as well. Nabiki was in good shape, but compared to the martial artists… Jumping over was out. Going around was likewise out, the entire space in front of the opening was inside the grab radius. Couldn’t just dash by, the hand was fast.
Well, archaeologist skills, go save the day!
Going around, back through all the crusher roots, would only give a dubious chance. Using the whip… Her attempt to beat the ghostly grabby hand failed: the whip was passing through. Again. She felt like going to a nearest temple to enchant it against spirits. Climbing over… There was a very handy log sticking overhead, a part of a former bridge one level up. Knowing she could both easily grab it with her whip, as well as release, was reassuring. But there was only one log. Swinging over the monster posed the same problem as with jumping over: too low. And— Oh, she could do
that?
Who could’ve thought archaeology includes acrobatics!
Rehearsing her planned move in her mind — and realizing with painful clarity she wasn’t giving up only out of pride, Rotty alone able to reach the mask from here — Nabiki took a running start hitting the log with her whip and swung pulling herself up, curling with her legs above her head. Her arms popped audibly screaming in pain, icy wind from the ghost hand’s passage caressed her back but she was already uncurling, dropping, sending a wave along the whip to make it detach. Landing in the opening she tumbled forward while the monstrous hand was groping in other direction.
She made it! Jumping onto her feet out of the ghostly appendage’s reach she felt all her fears and doubts vanish under onslaught of triumph and confidence.
“Ha! I did it! I—”
Pride, the bugger, it comes before the fall. These two work in cahoots scamming amateurs who imagine themselves masters.
Her well-attuned self-preservation sense screamed making her lift her eyes, to see at the edge of her vision a wide strip of taut rubbery flesh falling at her, glinting tackily in the dark.
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Finally! Sky’s breath of relief hung as a puff of vapor in the frosty air. Here it was, the gate!
Sticking the cold Wrench under her arm, her teeth clattering, the young woman began stumbling towards the pier. Snow was crunching under her feet she wasn’t feeling anymore, walking like on wooden blocks. The cold was sinking its claws deeper and deeper into her body right through two woolen shawls, sucking last warmth from her clenched fists. Her ears weren’t stinging anymore, having become numb long ago.
Away, away from this island! While she still had strength to walk, not to remain here together with Wrench as two frozen carcasses.
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“Where could it be!” Bolo exclaimed in desperation. The metal corridors around him were littered with scattered, upturned barrels. Not in the third one of the right stack, not in the tenth, nor in the middle or the left stacks. The stone he sought was nowhere to be found. Maybe he had lost his way while beating the duty croc?
Bolo checked the map yet again.
No, there could be no other conclusion. Here it was, the farthest processing line, here it was, the stack of barrels. All scattered now in a layer of barrels, each checked three times. But the stone wasn’t there.
Maybe he should check another hall…?
But there was already a sound of stampeding feet against metallic floor. Gritting his teeth the boy was forced to retreat. He could beat one or two of the coveralls-clothed biped gators with his spiky ball on a chain — with effort, they were tough crocs. But it sounded like half a dozen or more were scrambling to greet him.
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Finally! Feeling the dark source just beyond a corner, Shantae dove into yet another breach… To find herself in a dead end. No one had stepped here in millenia, to the point even spider webs long fell apart, mummies hanging out of their sarcophagi crumbled to ash and shreds of decayed rags.
“Is this some form of illusion! Where did it go!”
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Nabiki was standing frozen splayed at the edge of the opening, afraid to even breathe. Behind her, the grostly hand was raging, groping, buffeting her back with icy wind of its passage. In front of her face, a three-meter tongue was swaying a little, dripping viscously, stretching from a crown of crooked teeth under the cave ceiling. The thing had been hiding above the opening’s ceiling, an ideal ambush spot.
Dodging it had been an absolute miracle that took probably her stores of luck for the next year.
Shinigami didn’t just pat her on the shoulder this time, he was standing behind her waiting impatiently. The huge tongue was right under her nose. If it sways just a bit further...
“Hey, how long are you—” Rotty sounded from somewhere ahead. “Oh...”
“And this one, I suppose,” Nabiki quiped, her voice cracking, “is able to
lick me all over?”
Lethal blunder or not, Shinigami breathing down her neck or not, she was intent on playing it cool til her last breath, until the light goes out and the river of the dead fades in ahead.
“Umm, you just…” Rotty couldn’t find words. “So close… There’s no room between them at all...”
Tired of slobbering, the thing pulled its tongue in… Only to drop it again, the end swaying and almost touching her. A couple viscous drops landed on her shoes.
“Come on, get outta there.” Rotty grew nervous. No doubt imagining what would Shantae say when she returns alone. “You… Just duck under it when it pulls it in again!”
Yeah, just.
Banishing the nagging thoughts of what would she say to her mom and if she did dirt on herself with all those villain games to the point she’d have to cross the river across the deep spot with its hungry serpents instead of a ford — she had given up on the ceremonial bridge long ago as she deemed turning your life into constant bother for just a single occasion a monstrously wasteful choice — she waited for a right moment and ducked under the tongue going up. She almost botched the timing: a fraction of a second was wasted to overcome disgusting trembling in her suddenly uncooperative legs. The tongue dropping back down managed to drip on the small of her back.
Throwing herself away in a probably unnecessary roll, she jumped onto her feet unrolling her whip hastily.
The thing turned to be a huge, lumpy upside down cone with a maw on its end and a huge yellow eye looking around shiftily. Seeing the prey escape the monster pulled its tongue in becoming almost invisible in the dark. Only slobber dripping at times from the crown of blunt teeth was giving its presence away.
Nabiki lashed at it fiercely, astonished herself at the blinding rage suddenly overcoming her. A hit, another one and the immobile lumpycone began convulsing. Then it vomited a flood of green slime depositing a pile of bones, a human skull especially prominent among them.
The wave of stench made her eyes water.
“You’re a beast,” Rotty commented merrily.
“Are such… Ceiling surprises common here?” the middle Tendou asked pinching her nose shut and backing away from the disgusting mess.
“I don’t know about here.” The Zombie gal shrugged. “But in the
fun part of the forest...”
“I am so glad I do not like fun,” Nabiki quipped, her voice dry like Sahara.
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They only brought King Golem down after figuring they had to hit it precisely in its forehead. Hitting any other body parts, no one of the three had strangth nor special techniques to crush solid, monolithic stone. Maybe Ryouga with his Breaking Point would have fared better but Ranma had his doubts. It didn’t work with the ship and the golem was likewise kind of alive.
Had been.
Several blasts of Tiger Domineering, boulders thrown by Akane and Shampoo, even bigger boulders the girls were hammering it with after jumping across the side galleries onto the golem while Ranma ditracted it, resulted in the mega-golem losing its cranium.
After swaying a bit the beheaded hulk fell onto its back causing so much shaking it raised fear of the ceiling following suit.
“Did someone see where did the stone fly off to?” the pigtailed martial artist asked coughing and waving dust away.
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A dead end again! Shantae growled in frustration as she tried to sense where the parasitic source of dark magic had moved again.
A mummy climbing out of a nearby sarcophagus received the full charge of her accumulated irritation.
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“So Shantae haven’t returned yet?” Nabiki asked as she entered the Mimic’s workshop.
“Nah,” the blue haired guy sitting at a workbench replied gloomily. “But I’m sure she’ll succeed. She is a real hero unlike me, the clumsy bungler I am...”
“Why, was it too hard to get through?” The middle Tendou frowned.
“No, I got into the factory all right.” Bolo sighed. “Sneaked around some crocs, knocked some others out. But I couldn’t find the stone. Dug through three stacks of barrels — and nothing.”
The unluck.
Exerting titanic effort of willpower, Nabiki forced her face into unnatural, twisted expression — namely, a sincere, friendly smile — as she said cheerily: “Don’t blame yourself, I’m sure it’s all Ranma’s fault. He remembered it wrong or something. Anyway, the next step of the plan is you,” She slammed a lump of stone — this thing almost cost her her life — onto the workbench in front of him, “turning this into a ritual death mask Shantae could wear. Come on, we believe in you!”
He began tinkering with the rock scrubbing it by millimeter, soaking it in stinky liquids and scrubbing again, his depression forgotten. Good riddance, one headache less.
Finding a hammock among piles of stuff Nabiki hung it on two convenient hooks — that weren’t probably purposed for this but to demons with them — and slumped into it like a wrung out rag. She was just watching half-lidded, keeping her stock of the situation.
Time was crawling for some, flying for others.
Sky returned, sneezing and wrapped in a shawl. While it was so hot out there...? Wrench on her shoulders was mimicking a fuzzy ball. Reporting success, the young woman left a marked map and left saying she'd go to the bathhouse, to warm up. While it wass so hot out there…?
Nabiki killed some time trying to imagine what sort of a North pole branch office was on that island to cause such a reaction.
Ranma returned, swollen with pride, with the two fiancees: Shampoo hanging on him and Akane sizzling with irritation. Feeling a faint concern for her Little Sis — who sported cuts and bruises and moved a bit stiffly — Nabiki sent the pigtailed one to bring the first magic stone obtained to the villainous alliance.
Bolo finished picking the mask clean. Wow, it was ugly as sin! She ordered him to add ties. How? Anyhow! You are the tinker here, it’s your problem!
Ranma returned to loiter, having lost the fiancees somewhere.
Shantae wasn’t coming back. Having nothing to do, Nabiki drafted Saotome-kun into war council. They agreed on this being the best time to run around the neighboring islands cleaning up single remaining happoubats and other small loose ends. But Shantae had the lamp!
Tired of waiting, Ranma grabbed the notes and sketches describing the Mud Bog Island and Oubillette of Suffering and went after the Sizzle Stone. He made a point that she must not tell the others yet, if they follow him they’d boil for nothing.
Akane came, along with Shampoo needling her. Little Sis was holding up, bristling in return. Nabiki closed her eyes, carefully pretending an unconscious carcass. Shampoo tried shaking Ranma’s whereabouts out of Bolo. What she got instead was a self-demeaning monologue about Bolo being worthless compared to the real heroes.
Shampoo left. Akane sat nearby complaining to her sleeping — as she thought — sister about unfairness of it all.
Then Nabiki haven’t noticed falling asleep for real.
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Finally! Feeling the dark source just beyond a corner, Shantae dove into yet another breach. She found herself in a hall with a tall arched ceiling. Light was shining from above. Rows of square columns framed arched niches stretching to the ceiling. Somewhere up above, invisible from her position, there were windows in the right wall, letting in sunlight making the tops of the left wall’s arches blaze in shining curves. A sand drift was rising towards the far end of the hall in a gently sloping hill.
And, Ryouga standing in the center of it glaring around grimly.
“Don’t tell me...”
But no, the feeling of darkness was coming off him. It was clear now why it was so powerful.
Shantae gulped. Ryouga as a boss… Words “flattened into a thin pancake” were coming to mind. Whole two auto-potions in her inventory suddenly felt so inadequate.
Maybe she should talk him down…? She definitely should talk him down!
“Hi!” she greeted friendly.
Ryouga glared in reply.
Shantae was studying him surreptitiously. All his clothing was local, except the bandanna: ragged, patched, gray-beige baggy pants tied off with a sash, a vest over bare torso. That was all. His feet were bare, his head uncovered. There was a huge iron club on his shoulder. Which monster did he take it from?
“Let us go back,” she tried. “There’s nothing useful in these dungeons, only dust and mummies angry after waking up. But in the town we have dinner, and bath...”
“Don’t you pretend you are glad to see me,” the martial artist in a spotted bandanna snapped back.
“What, why?” She disagreed. “We could use your help. Especially now as the decisive battle is looming near.”
Ryouga just got more pissed: “Yeah, right you do! Then, after it’s done, go get lost somewhere, don’t get in the way!”
What, who told him off like that…? Ranma…? Uh-oh. Note to self: those two fit together badly like a cat and a dog. She should never put them on the same team. Sigh.
Boys.
She tried another approach: “Your help would be great for Akane. She’s on a mission now, together with ShanPu and Ranma, going after the Golem Stone. But ShanPu treats her badly: they are rivals, after all. I’d prefer it were you.”
Against her expectations, Ryouga only grew more angry. “Ranma, you bastard,” he growled. “On a mission alone with Akane-san!” — obviously her words about ShanPu went into one ear and out of his other one — “Now, when I am finally free of the pig and would be able to admit my feelings to Akane-san!”
`Free of`…?
And then the puzzle in Shantae’s head clicked coming together. All those unspoken words, distractions, the fuss around the piglet...
“So P-chan isn’t a youkai at all!” the half-Genie exclaimed pointing her accusing finger at him. “It’s a curse, the same as Ranma’s or ShanPu’s! But they are all hiding it from Akane, by some reason… While you hang around in her hands...”
Ryouga froze, his pupils like dots. He then shouted furiously: “Don’t you dare telling her, do you hear me? Ranma gave his word! Now, when I am finally free of the pig…!”
“I won’t stay silent!” Shantae grew furious in turn. “I don’t know how did you manage convincing them all, but acting like that is low! It’s like me using my monkey dance to pretend a mindless animal and rub against pretty boys… Low and unseemly! I will tell Akane everything!”
“Ranma… Shantae… Curse you, curse you both!” Ryouga roared clutching his hair and beginning to glow sickly green.
Whoops.
“Giving me a chance to be free of the pig and admit to Akane… Only to take everything from me…?” the lost boy was growling, holding his hands in front of him like claws, like was going to either tear something or clutch at his head. “I won’t forgive you!”
His eyes were glowing crimson, dark emanations rising over the bulging muscles of his back and shoulders like a black heat haze.
Shantae took a combat stance bouncing nervously from foot to foot. The part of her that wasn’t frozen in terror was making battle plans. Only distance, only magic! Hanging Storm Puffs on approach routes, hitting him with lightning - and retreating, retreating!
Gulping nervously, she tore the bandanna from her head placing the Magic Tiara there. She’s need a lot of mana. If she lives long enough to spend it.
Ryouga, meanwhile, was glowing with more and more intensity. He then clutched at his head screaming in so much anguish and despair it made her feel icy goosebumps. Oppressive, heavy greenish depression was gathering around him collecting into a ball of human magic. It was already three times bigger than those he and Ranma were throwing at Risky but was still growing, swelling with negativity.
Shantae gulped and kept bouncing, her legs weak, on the verge of giving out. Was he going to throw
that? Or blow himself up together with the surrounding landscape...? Silly things were coming to her mind. Like how would her obituary look like.
Ryouga, meanwhile, fell to his knees, twisting his arms, howling in anguish and hopelessness. The growing ball of depressive energy touched the side walls, pulverizing the columns, beginning to float up.
Up…?
One glance upwards at the ceiling told Shantae she had no chance of getting away in time. She began one of the dances she had learned in the future. Please work!
The depression charge soared causing a rockfall of deadly huge chunks of masonry. For a moment, it was bright, the light of a sunny day pouring unimpeded into the ragged hole where the ceiling used to be. Then the swamp-green ball shadowed the sun falling back with inexorability of doom. And it struck, flattening the sand drift, shattering the walls, driving a small crab into the sand like sledgehammer.
A teeth-shattering blow. Worse than being hit with Dagron’s tail.
With a sinking heart she listened to her body: did her shell crack or not?
It seems she was alive.
Dust was slowly dispersing, suffused with sunlight. Ryouga’s form faded in, indifferent to anything, covered in the sand streaming from above up to his waist. Rocks were falling from above, deadly huge and sudden in the dense haze. Shantae carefully freed one claw, then another, beginning to dig herself out. Sand was streaming like waterfalls threatening to bury the wrecked remains of this underground hall.
Turning back into a girl she ran up to the unresponsive Ryouga. He couldn’t be shaken awake, zero reaction. Grunting in frustration she began pulling him out of the sand like a carrot from a garden bed. Her own feet were sinking, new sand was pouring in — was it speeding up? She barely managed pulling him out, the dolt. Rocks were falling faster and bigger, an obvious hint to get out. She dragged Ryouga away into an underground corridor, then had to return suck dark magic into the lamp. There was a lot of it, released out of him with that depression charge. Where did he get so much, gathering curses with his every step or what?
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Hexer was one of the ugliest creatures he had ever seen, Ranma reflected while searching through the Village of Lost Souls for the entrance of hell. But for a guard at the underworld entrance, that’s perfect. He’d scare anyone not belonging there with his looks alone so hard they’d outrun their own squeals.
The cliffs pockmarked with habitable caves were receding into a haze backlit by faraway lakes of fire. Exceptionally tough nagas and grim reapers materializing suddenly out of thin air aiming to lop your head off with their scythes were everywhere. How does this place go, purgatory or something?
Dodging easily, jumping onto a nearby cliff, the pigtailed martial artist patted his knapsack making sure the tongs he borrowed in the workshop were in place. The three of them, none able to use the hidden weapons technique, had no end of trouble with the Golem Stone that was endlessly dripping some clay-like substance. He had to be prepared for the worst. That the Sizzle Stone would be dripping magma or something like that, to the point you can’t carry it in a sack.
What’s with that girl, her haircut and manners suspiciously familiar…? How did she say, Rotty’s soul…? Away, away and around, don’t let her notice!
You couldn’t tell souls from living people. Mistakes could be made. Maybe that was the point?
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Nabiki had time to wake up, Shampoo to make peace with Akane — kind of, she probably just grew weary of needling her — everyone had time for dinner, even girl-Ranma had time to come back showing off the Sizzle Stone she obtained, a red-hot tablet with small flames eternally licking it. The sun had time to touch the horizon painting the sky the colors of sunset. And only then Shantae did finally come back, dragging a gloomy Ryouga on a rope behind her.
“Lost, I can understand,” she complained. “But this is more like some sort of uncanny talent… Where are you pulling again to? Follow me, don’t wander!”
“You don’t have to drag me on a rope like some sort of cattle!” he objected with indignation. “I’m perfectly able of getting there by myself!”
“You are,” Shantae quipped tiredly. “If by `there` you mean the end of the Earth. We had tried three times already, I’m sick and tired of catching you.”
At this point Ranma noticed them.
“Ryouga!” the redhead roared resoundingly, imitating the said boy. “Because of you I have seen hell!”
“Are you mocking me, Ranma?” He bristled clenching his fists.
“Not at all,” the part-time girl retorted in acerbic voice, her arms crossed carelessly behind her head which was only making the desire to punch her stronger. “A real hell full of fire, boiling resin and souls of sinners who do their best to suffer there. Where do you think the Sizzle Stone was hidden...? just getting there was an adventure in itself… Don’t you dare say otherwise! It’s truly your fault! Who Shantae got so busy with that I had to be the one to descent into the hells, m?”
She then proceeded painting a vivid picture of abysses full of fire, in graphic detail, not letting Ryouga put a word in and embellishing shamelessly.
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“One… Ugly story got revealed, concerning you directly,” Shantae told Akane after calling her aside. “I want to tell you everything, badly, but… We cannot afford our team breaking apart. Not right now. But as soon as we save the world, someone will admit everything to you, I promise. And if he doesn’t, I’ll make him. On my word!”
“Uhhh, all right,” the youngest Tendou agreed with reluctance, wondering what could have happened, so bad that her friend couldn’t even tell her. Did Shampoo use some bewitching stuff again? Did Ranma do something fundamentally stupid again?
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Checking for the last time that the villains didn’t come to blows — no they didn’t, they were squabbling all business-like how to better craft their superweapon — Xian Pu searched around as a cat, found an unused room with a full-height mirror — those were exceedingly rare things, in rich houses only — and then came again sneaking in as a girl.
She kept repeating the monkey dance with patience probably better applied to something else until she perfected it as best as she could from memory alone. And, nothing.
That was expected, if frustrating: the dancing girl had to be a magical creature. But she was a magical creature in her cat form only. A trifle remained, adapt the dance for a cat. She splashed herself and tried dancing on her hind paws, just to clear her doubts. She only made herself laugh so hard she was rolling on the floor yowling.
No, this wasn’t possible without a teacher. Which meant her only hope was the dance spirit living somewhere deep in the Squid Baron’s dungeon. There were small obstacles, though: first, find free time amidst saving the world. Failing which would be a pinnacle of stupidity because Ranma would reliably kill himself trying to support Shantae who would reliably kill herself by trying to hold the falling sky on her shoulders. The half-Genie was that kind of girl. Secondly, after finding the time Xian Pu had to find the spirit in the dungeon and somehow convince it to help her.
She chittered whipping her tail. You can’t know until you try.
She sneaked out of someone’s manor just in time to go to the bath together with others.
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Shampoo’s name (珊璞) in her native language means Coral (珊 shān - coral; 璞 pú - natural uncut jewel). Which is known to anyone reading the original of the manga because at her first appearance “シャンプー” in Ranma’s speech bubble is furigana for “珊璞”. Read “Shampoo”, bear in mind “Coral”.
In my fic, three different forms are used. “Shampoo” by most (and their POV), “Xian Pu” by herself and “ShanPu” by Shantae who just hears it differently.
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Published in Russian: January 03, 2021. Translated to English: March 18, 2021. Argh, I’m such a slowpoke