by Sailor Sedai (Ellf) » Thu Sep 05, 2013 12:22 am
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Ranma woke up the following morning in his usual fashion, flying through the air out the window of the bedroom and into the yard. He managed to adjust himself in the air so that he landed on his feet, and a few seconds later, Salamon landed next to him.
“Morning, Pop!” Ranma called as his father jumped out the window after him. He did it as cheerfully as possible as he could tell his father had a hangover.
“Time for practice, boy!” Genma leapt into the air, and Ranma joined, a smile decorating his face as he knew his father probably hadn’t noticed Salamon there yet. The two exchanged blows before landing on opposite sides of the koi pond, and Salamon, out of her daze moved to watch.
It took two more volleys of blows before Salamon received a subtle nod from Ranma and she joined the fray, cutting off Genma mid-leap. “SLEDGE DASH!”
Genma’s momentum was redirected entirely by the headbutt and he ended up landing face-first in the koi pond. A panda emerged and gave a little panda roar before it seemed to notice what had hit him.
“Oh, that’s so cool, Ranma!” Salamon squeed as she walked up to the panda. “It’s like he evolved into a Pandamon!”
“Growf!” Genma held up a sign. [Salamon?] He flipped it over. [Boy! Why didn’t you tell me Salamon was back?]
Ranma grinned as he picked up his partner. “You were out late last night, Pop, and you didn’t notice her this morning. You think I’m going to give up an advantage like that?”
Ranma ignored the sign that Genma was now displaying about how he was a disgraceful son for keeping Salamon from him and headed in.
Breakfast was already on the table and at Ranma’s usual spot there was a second bowl of food next to his.
“I thought that Salamon-chan could have her own place at the table.” Kasumi said as Ranma walked in.
Having long given up finding out how Kasumi found out things Ranma nodded and placed Salamon down next to him. Salamon, to her credit, managed to remember the correct thing to say before diving face-first into eating.
“Thanks for that, Kasumi.” Ranma began his own eating as Genma came to the table.
“So Ranma, what are your plans for today?” Nabiki seemed to be eying Salamon. He’d have to keep an eye on that. He didn’t trust the middle sister at all.
“I’m going to show Salamon around town. If she’s going to be living with us here, she needs to know the city.” Ranma answered.
Nabiki smirked. “Well, having a digimon around should be... interesting, Ranma.”
And this was one reason he wanted to keep Salamon secret for a while. Nabiki would likely have information out to everyone who would listen by the end of the day.
Akane smiled at Salamon. “You keep Ranma out of trouble, Salamon.”
Salamon, having finished her food, nodded. “Kay! So, Ranma, do you think we’ll find any other digimon?”
“I... If you asked me yesterday morning, Salamon, I’d say all we’d have to worry about is whether Ryouga managed to find his way back here soon enough. However, after that Ogremon appeared last night... Maybe. We might see more digimon.”
“Ogremon?” Nabiki perked up. “There’s more than just Salamon in Nerima?”
Ranma nodded. “If you see any glowing fog, that usually means a digimon’s appearing. If you see that, you should probably get away. Digimon that come out of the digital world aren’t always the most rational when they appear.”
Ranma continued, “And fighting them if they’re a higher form than child is dangerous. I think even the Old Ghoul or the Old Pervert would have trouble with an Adult or higher. Depends on the Adult though.”
Salamon perked up. “Old ghoul? What’s a ghoul?”
“Kind of like a Bakemon, Salamon.” Ranma idly commented.
“Ranma! That’s not very nice... Even if she is old...” Akane trailed off. “You shouldn’t teach her that kind of thing.”
Ranma scooped Salamon into his arms. “I’ll teach her what I want, she’s my partner. Besides, she’s smarter than she acts.”
Salamon climbed up to Ranma’s shoulder and then onto the top of his head, plopping herself down so she could be comfortable.
Ranma blinked as a camera flashed. “Hey!”
“Have to preserve this moment for posterity. Also it might be worth a few yen.” Nabiki said with a smirk.
Soun finally seemed to have broken out of his likely hangover-induced stupor. “Ranma, you should take Akane with you.”
Akane shook her head. “I’m sorry Daddy, but I have plans with Yuka and Sayuri today. We’re heading to the mall.”
Ranma nodded. “I’ll see you all later.” He turned and headed out. Now Ranma knew that Salamon had seen much of Shinjuku during the time where they all had lived there. So she didn’t really need things pointed out that could be seen from Shinjuku as well as Nerima, just from a different angle. She needed to see the ward itself. Ranma took to the fence so that Salamon would have a higher vantage point, and he idly noted something flying across the roof to the side.
Since it didn’t seem to be coming after him, Ranma didn’t give it further thought.
“Where are we going, Ranma?” Salamon hadn’t moved from her perch on his head.
“Well, I figured the best place to start might be the zoo. You can see a lot of real world animals which some digimon seem to also look like.” Most people walking by Ranma didn’t tend to give the martial artist a second look, even when he was speaking to the digimon on his head. Nerima had become slightly desensitized to such things.
“That sounds fun...” Salamon murmured.
“It’s coming from over there, Jian!” Ranma blinked. That voice sounded familiar.
“I’m coming, I’m coming... you know you’re not supposed to scare people....” That voice also was a tad familiar, but Ranma couldn’t quite place it.
“Ah, who’s scared? The people around here seem a lot more relaxed than back home. They even offered me breakfast at the hotel, Jian!” Ranma looked toward the voice’s source, and it took a bit before it came into view, even with his bouncing, Terriermon was still a small digimon.
The Terriermon was with a human. His tamer, obviously. Ranma felt he should recognize this person, maybe even remember a name, but it wasn’t coming to him. The tamer paused. “A Salamon and a guy standing on the fence... Saotome Ranma? That you?”
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Jenrya never found that wild digimon the previous night, and he’d reported as such to Yamaki. Neither he nor Terriermon knew what that meant. Did the digimon just go back to the digital world on its own, or did someone handle it? Regardless, Yamaki had encouraged the pair to stay in Nerima for a couple nights, setting them up with a nice hotel and a stipend. If anything, Jenrya was glad to have a little bit of a vacation from Shinjuku, though Terriermon seemed a bit sad that he couldn’t play with either Lopmon or Shiuchon.
That morning, Jenrya and his partner set out to find out whatever dealt with the digimon or to find it or something. He wasn’t quite sure why Yamaki had him doing this. It had been a bit slow recently; maybe this was just Yamaki worrying over nothing.
“Come on, Jian... Let’s take a look around! I haven’t seen this part of the city before and I don’t think you have either!” Terriermon certainly seemed enthusiastic. Of course, with school out for summer break, the little guy was just happy to be around him.
“All right, all right. Let’s go, Terriermon.” He was rewarded a few seconds later by a weight on his shoulder, indicating his digimon had joined him, and he headed out. The hotel was near a few restaurants that seemed to be preparing for their lunch rush early in the morning. There was a ramen place, the Nekohanten, a barbecue place, Kim Chung’s, a sushi place, named of all things, Ichiban, and there was an okonomiyaki place, Okonomiyaki Ucchan’s. Maybe he’d be able to get something at once of these places with the money that Yamaki sent him.
After they got past the restaurants, Terriermon perked up. It wasn’t quite the way he did it when there was a feral digimon that he was sensing. His fur remained unruffled by whatever instinct that he had. “Jian, there’s a digimon nearby.”
Jenrya paused for a second. It wasn’t that he doubted his partner, he’d been with him too long to doubt such instincts, but just because there was a digimon nearby didn’t mean much unless they found it. “Are you sure it’s not just indigestion?” Jenrya joked.
Terriermon leaped to the ground and glared at him. “Come on, Jian! It’s this way! And it’s not Calumon or Guilmon either!”
Terriermon headed off through the streets. Jenrya, without any better ideas, had to follow his partner if only to keep him out of trouble. There were a decent amount of people around as they were running through the streets, and Jenrya idly wondered why they weren’t reacting to Terriermon. Yeah, people knew digimon were real and had for the past six years, but a digimon still wasn’t something normal to see. Why these people weren’t even batting an eye confused him.
“Hold up, Terriermon! We don’t even know where we’re going!”
“Momentai, Jian! It’s definitely this way, I can feel it!” Terriermon was almost bouncing at this point. He was dashing through the crowd at this point. “It’s coming from over there, Jian!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming... you know you’re not supposed to scare people....” Jenrya followed, and he could see past the people he was weaving through toward the fence. On the fence was a guy around his age dressed in a red Chinese shirt and black pants tied off at the bottom. On top of the guy’s head was... was that a Salamon?
“Ah, who’s scared? The people around here seem a lot more relaxed than back home. They even offered me breakfast at the hotel, Jian!” Jenrya just shook his head as he continued forward.
“A Salamon and a guy standing on a fence...” This reminded him of someone. Who did he know that was partnered with a Salamon? Oh he hadn’t seen him in a while! “Saotome Ranma? That you?”
“Yeah, that’s me...” Ranma seemed to not quite recognize him, but it was now fairly clear that he had a D-Ark. “And you are... hmm.... Henrii... no, ah! Li Jenrya! Been a long while.”
Ranma leaped off the fence, and after that, Salamon jumped down off his head. “Terriermon! Hi!”
Jenrya smiled as Salamon tackled Terriermon. “Yeah, it’s been a long time, Ranma. Haven’t seen you since you left town after the D-Reaper.”
“Yeah, well, Pop and I had to get back on our training journey. We ended up doing quite a bit after that. I see you managed to get Terriermon back too, when did that happen?”
“Well, about a month after you left, Takato managed to find his way back into the Digital World and came back with all our partners. Ryo ended up joining Cyberdramon back there, but everyone else came back here.”
“That’s... actually pretty neat... Salamon didn’t show up till last night, herself.”
Huh. He wondered if last night Salamon was the Wild One that Yamaki was tracking. “Oh?”
“Yeah, she ended up helping me finish off an Ogremon. Guy wasn’t that tough, but I don’t know if humans can actually disperse digimon.”
Salamon perked up. “Yeah, Ranma made a tornado! It was awesome. I wanna make a tornado too, Ranma. Next time we fight can you swipe a card that lets me?”
Ranma chuckled. “Sure Salamon, I think I might have a card or two that can help with that.”
Wait. Tornado. Ranma made a tornado. How the hell did he make a tornado? Maybe Salamon was mistaken. Of course, he’d heard of crazy things that supposedly could be done with martial arts, but that was something right out of a manga. “Tornado? Ranma, was that you last night and not a digimon?”
Ranma scratched the back of his head, below his pigtail and laughed. “Yeah... It was a martial arts technique I learned. One of my most special attacks. Hey, you’re a martial artist too, right? Maybe we could spar later.”
Jenrya blanched a little. While he did practice Tai Chi, without biomerging with Terriermon, he wasn’t too sure he’d be able to effectively use it against someone who had been practicing crazy martial arts that let you produce tornadoes. “Yeah, I’ve kept up my Tai Chi practice.”
Ranma smiled. “Ah yeah, I remember MegaGargomon using that against the big phoenix jerk. That was impressive back then. Should be interesting to see how well you do without digimon help.”
That’s what he was afraid of... “Momentai, Jian. Ranma probably won’t hurt you! He’s probably got a lot of control if what Salamon was saying is true. “
Before Jenrya could respond, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open. “Moshi moshi. Li here.”
“Li-kun, this is Ootori Reika. We have two Wild Ones moving in on your position. They’re both displaying power levels consistent with Adult digimon bordering on Perfect. They should bio-emerge soon.”
“Right, let Yamaki know that Terriermon and I are on it with the person who dealt with Ogremon last night. He might remember Saotome Ranma.”
Ranma seemed to be paying attention to the phone call and subtly looking around. Jenrya pulled his sunglasses from his pocket to put them on before the digital field formed.
“Will do. Be careful, Li-kun. HYPNOS out.” Ootori-san cut out without giving him the chance to say goodbye. He put his phone away.
“So, two digimon incoming, right?” Damn, Ranma’s ears must be good or he had that turned up too loud. Jenrya nodded. “Well, we’ll just have to make sure that they’re handled.”
The hairs on Jenrya’s arms began to stick up and he could almost taste the static charge on the air. Ootori-san wasn’t kidding when they said that they were closing on them. “Ranma, you have anything to cover your eyes?”
“Not yet, my old sunglasses broke a while ago.” Ranma had already gripped his D-Ark, much the same as Jenrya.
“Well, Terriermon and I should be able to handle this, you don’t have to get involved.”
Ranma looked at him like he was nuts and then a manhole burst upwards as the digital field erupted from both it and the water. “Terriermon...”
“Momentai. I’ve got them...”
He glanced down at his D-Ark, and it displayed the first digimon’s data. “Ranma, that’s a DarkTyrannomon, we’ll have to be careful of its Fire Blast and Iron Tail...”
Ranma gave an affirmative sound. “And in the water’s a Seadramon. That’s going to be a pain to deal with.”
“Don’t worry about it, Terriermon and I have this. Biomerge Activate!” Jenrya thrust out his digivice as he called out the activation phrase.
Terriermon jumped up in preparation... “Terriermon shinka.... or not...”
Wait... what? Why weren’t they together right then? Jenrya tried again. “Biomerge Activate!”
“Terriermon ... aww forget it...” Terriermon sounded disappointed.
“Jenrya, what’s wrong?”
Jenrya looked at his D-Ark as he heard the roars of both DarkTyrannomon and Seadramon echoing through the area. The readout said, “Biomerge Failure.”
Both Adult Digimon roared again. “It’s not working... Terriermon and I can’t biomerge...” Why was this happening? Why now? What were they going to do?