Just-Ice
by Trisha L. Sebastian



[As long as everyone's jumping on the thread, here's my two cents,
before Tybalt bans it and all tributaries of it.....]




Hibiky Ryouga was wandering through the streets, as he was apt
to do.  He was quite lost, not so lost as to be on one of the 
*other* islands of Japan, but still rather lost nonetheless.
"Yes," he thought to himself, "I am lost."

He looked around at the mountain behind him and the city far,
far off in the distance.  If this was Fuji, then Tokyo must be
down below.  At least that's how the normal brain would have processed
such data.

In the Hibiki brain, the data was taken in by the monkey, translated
into Monkey-speak, fed to the ostrich, who then proceeded to lay an egg.
The chef took the egg, cracked it over a pan, added some Tabasco 
sauce and gave it to the oracle to read.

"Delicious," said the oracle.

"I'M LOST!" screamed Ryouga to his subconscious.  "Do something about
it!"

"Almost done with breakfast," said the oracle, wiping up the last bits
of Tabasco with a piece of bread.  "Now......."

*BRAAAAAPPPPPP!*

Ryouga's eyes flew open.  Seeing as they were already open, it was quite
an astonishing feat.  "Tokyo is *this* way!" he pointed gleefully, and
charged back up the mountainside.

"Hmmm," murmured the cook.  "Must need more Tabasco sauce."


*****************************


At last, after four scrambled eggs, Ryouga found his way to a small
Shinto temple on the outskirts of town.  Which town, he wasn't sure,
but he would soon find out.

"Excuse me, could you tell me the way to Furinkan High?"

The priestess jumped up and down with joy.  "It's you!  The Wandering
One!  Oh, we are so overjoyed that you have finally returned."

Ryouga wiped away the trickle of blood that was slowly escaping his
nostril.  "Yes," he murmured confusedly, "I think I remember this place.
It's not often you see Shinto priestesses wearing bikinis...."

She stopped bouncing and grabbed his hand.  "Come inside, lonely
traveler!  We're finally done with the good luck charm for you."

"Good luck charm?"

"Yes," she smiled enthusiastically.  "Don't you remember?  You kept crying
out in your sleep about 'that bastard Saotome' and how you wanted to
get your revenge on him?  I almost died of fright when you screamed
in my ear like that."  She snuggled up to him, her soft breast squishing
against his chest.

Ryouga put two and two together, and even the oracle was surprised.

"Er, aha, <giggle>...."    KLUNK!


*******************************


Ryouga woke up in a dimly lit room, surrounded by lots of scantily
clad women.  He fainted again.


*******************************


Ryouga woke up tentatively, opening just one eyelid, as to not expose
the rabid monkey and the ostrich to the sight of more women, clad in
filmy lingerie, covering just the... right... spots.......

KLUNK!


*******************************


Ryouga woke up again, this time outside, and only one woman was next
to him.  Luckily for him, she was wearing an old pair of sweats and a
big raincoat.

"You're so funny, sir, to keep fainting and spurting like that," she
giggled.

"I don't hormally do that," he said, blushing a bright, bright
red.

The priestess (same one from before, mind you) smiled benignly at him.
"Do you think you're ready to receive the good luck charm now?"

"Remind me what this charm is supposed to do?"

"Smite your enemies, give you boundless amounts of love, money and
a good sense of direction."

"I'll take it!"

Ryouga jumped up, grabbed the small charm from her hand and danced around
the courtyard.  "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you..."  He picked
her up and swung her around in an improvised polka.

"No, thank you, kind sir.  My sisters and I are always so lonely up here,
with no one but us to spend the time with."  Her voice grew more husky.
"It's so good of such a virile young man such as yourself to do service
to us.  We cannot help but to want to grant you your every... desire."

This time the monkey needed no prodding.

KLUNK!


FIVE DAYS LATER......


"Saotome, I have seen hells because of you, and you will pay!"

"Oh, hi, Ryouga."

WHAM!  BAM!  THANK YOU MA'AM!

Ryouga crawled away.  Surely those sweet, kind, nubile young girls
couldn't have tricked him.  His ribs ached in all sorts of new places
he never dreamed he had.  Why hadn't the good luck charm worked?

He gingerly reached his hand into his pocket, and came up empty.
"Where did it go?!?" he screamed in unintelligible fury.

Somewhere there was the sound of an ostich snickering.


**************************


"Estimated time of arrival?"

"If the winds are good, four hours, sister."

"Excellent.  Come, ladies, we must prepare for his... coming."

The girls in the scrying room jumped up with joy.  All of them
bounced out, rushing to their boudoirs to prepare themselves.

The lead priestess smiled to her sister.  "That didn't take long,
did it?"

The sister smiled back.  "He is a resiliant young man."

"Let's hope he never beats this 'Saotome.'  How else are we going
to get laid?"

The sisters laughed to themselves, quickly leaving the scrying
room.



THE END



Trisha L. Sebastian
tls@thekeep.org
Proud Member of the BML Productions Crew

=========================================================
OVERHEARD:
Two more glasses of scotch, and I'll recite 
Shakespeare in Islamic pentameter.
"Forsooth, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is...not veiled? Stone her! STONE HER!!"
			--Matt Nute

She sang, of course, "M'ama!" and not "he loves 
me," since an unalterable and unquestioned law
of the musical world required that the German 
text of French operas sung by Swedish artists
should be translated into Italian for the clearer 
understanding of English-speaking audiences.
		--Edith Wharton

=========================================================