Honor On High
Mara's Story
by Richard Robinson
Mara was in big trouble, she was facing the First among the
Fallen Angels and boy was he mad.
She was sweating like crazy ( of course, the fact that the
temperature of the room was over 130 degrees Fahrenheit
didn't help) and she was so nervous, she couldn't sit still.
her eyes were blinking and her head, kept bowed to the floor
to the degree that her forehead touched the floor, still
twitched. The Fallen in front of her looked like a classic
picture of the devil, except his skin looked like it had
been rotting for centuries.
His horn were sharpened and long and covered with a brown
substance, that she was pretty sure was dried blood. The
green color of the mold gave it away.
I won't try to describe the room just picture a really nasty
dungeon and cube it. Then add a hundred percent for having
no color matching any other color in the place. Then put
things lots of things on the floor and add you can't tell
what anything in the room is made of. Except it all hurt you
in some way, Touch, smell, looks, even the aura of it hurt
to be near.
"You have helped a goddess escape from a demon, you
knowingly helped a mortal escape Damnation. You have been
seen reading a book. What do you have to say for yourself,
before I pass sentence?"
"The goddess was your opposite number under the Doublet
system and the demon knew it. IF she had died you would have
died. I helped the mortal because he had helped me and
wished to escape us. You know if one of them does us a favor
unknowingly we have grant them a wish to match the favor.
The book, well I always liked to read, even before I came
down here, it was a book of spells from a previous
civilization and added to the uses for my power." Mara
replied without moving any visible part of her body lest she
show disrespect. Although truth to tell she hated the being
before her and thought it must have been one of the
stupidest beings to have ever existed to trade Hell for
Heaven.
"Very well, Mara, since you both helped and hurt Hell, you
will be judged to see if you are to be promoted or demoted.
IF you pass this test, you will be in charge of the demon
who reported you for one millennium subjectively. If you
fail it will be your master for the next subjective
millennium."
"You will spent the next four days as a mortal, for the
first day you will remember who you were and will have some
power. you will use this time to prepare. The second day you
will know only that you are a mortal woman and you are being
hunted by a demon who wants to convert you into a demon. If
it is successful, you will lose. If you stay a mortal for
three days, you win. If you die, you will revert to a demon
so you will lose." laughed the monstrosity sitting before
her.
"Go now and start the contest, you have the country of
Japan, the suburbs of Tokyo to live in. I will be
watching."
Mara slowly backed from the presence of her boss and after
shutting the door( and if you think that is easy without
lifting your forehead from the floor, you are wrong.) She
stood up and went to her apartment to get what she would
need for four days and nights. She also looked at the
records for the area to see if there were any Devil Hunters
or anyone else who could help her. She couldn't find any who
wouldn't recognize her and kill her.
The next morning Mara was in Tokyo. She used her fading
powers to summon enough money to live luxuriously for about
a week. She paid for five apartments, so she could move
between each to hide. She equipped herself with a sword of
demon slaying plus eight. In short she did everything she
could think of. The apartments varied from luxurious to just
above condemned.
She bought clothes to fit each life style and put some of
each type in all of the apartments, so she could switch
without anyone seeing. She hid weapons which could hurt or
even kill a demon in each apartment and hid the last one on
her person. She knew she would think herself an atheist, so
wouldn't try any church to hide in, when the change came. So
she didn't try any Holy items. Finally the time came and as
the sun rose Mara the demon became Mara the human. The game
began in earnest.
Mara stayed in the middle quality of the five apartments,
figuring the demon would look for her in either the best or
the worst of the five. Apparently she was correct because he
didn't find her until the next day.
She had gone out for some food, when the demon appeared to
tempt her into signing a contract.
Fortunately She read what the contract said before signing
it and ran for her life. Even more fortunately for her she
ran into a fight between Ranma and Ryoga.
One of the fragments of stone from the blows being traded (
Ryoga had used his Bakusai Tenketsu ) struck her and
knocked her unconscious. Ranma and Ryoga stopped the fight
and carried her to the only doctor they both trusted, Doctor
Ono Tofu.
He examined her and said she would be all right, if she had
a little time to rest. While Ranma led Ryoga home, she
regained consciousness and explained her plight. Ranma after
talking it over with the Doctor, promised to defend her to
the best of his ability to do so. He called his friends to
see who were available, but the Amazons had gone out of town
and Ukyou was reporting to her father in person what had
happened since the last time, she talked to him. The Tendo's
had left for the beach and Genma and Nodoka had gone off
together, Ryoga didn't answer the phone which probably meant
he was lost again. The Doctor simply was to busy to do much,
so it looked like it was up to him.
He took her to the Tendo's for the evening and in the
morning, he fixed her some breakfast.
"I hope you like pancakes, cause I am really in a mood for
some." said Ranma as he fixed breakfast.
"Pancakes are fine, I suppose, I really don't think I have
ever tried any." replied Mara.
"Well after breakfast, I'll take you to your apartment and
we can try to figure out what to do next." replied Ranma as
he ate a dozen or so of them.
Mara mostly just stared as Ranma ate. She did try one of the
pancakes but it filled her up. How Ranma could eat so many,
so fast, was beyond her understanding.
When they reached the apartment Mara had selected, it had
been destroyed, along with the building it was in.
Mara was in a state of despair, when Ranma looking at the
building's ruins, commented the damage was almost as bad as
he and Ryoga would have done.
The thought that her defender could do worse, cheered Mara
up.
So she suggested another apartment and when it( and the
building) was gone. Another one, she explained she had set
them up as dummies to help her hide from the demon. She
checked the others but they were all gone and the weapons
with them.
She complained to Ranma "All I have is one teenage boy and
this sword between me and a demon. And I don't really know
how to use a sword. Well I can't give up or he'll win for
sure."
She offered the sword to Ranma but with his usual disdain
for weapons, he refused it.
So she kept it under her jacket and worried a lot.
Toward the end of the afternoon the demon found them in the
park. he had checked everywhere it could think of but
failed, giving up it finally walked through the park and
spotted them.
It thought for a few minutes, time was running out. If it
could talk her into signing a contract it would go a long
way toward getting promoted so it could have a sex. On the
other hand if it just killed her it would have her services
for a millennium. It noticed that she wasn't alone. If it
attacked the person with her maybe it could scare her into
signing the contract. If not at least it would have the fun
of killing a mortal before it killed her.
So it attacked Ranma Saotome. The fight wasn't too long,
about fifteen minutes or so. The demon tried to claw Ranma's
heart out of his chest, but ranma ducked and when it
overreached he bent it's elbow backwards so as to break it.
Then he pulled on the limb, eventually putting both feet on
it's chest as he pulled the arm off. He knew ( the Doctor
had told him ) the best weapon to hurt a demon is itself.
This wasn't quite what the Doctor meant but hitting the
demon over the head at the fastest speed he could manage (
about twice the normal maximum speed as the arm didn't
actually weigh anything and was radiating the power it was
made of away. ) finally the arm faded away but the demon was
reduced in power and hurting anyway, of course as a demon,
it was used to being hurt.
So it decided to try to spear Ranma with a piece of a cast
iron fence, of course the fence left it hand smoking and he
dodged the spear but it was a good try anyway.
Ranma continued to dodge the various things the demon would
throw at him and the demon would continue to try to hit hit
him, from a distance since it still hadn't regenerated that
arm he pulled off. Finally shortly before sunrise Ranma
started to get really tired, and remembering how the demons
hand had smoked after grabbing the fence. He moved over and
examined it.
To his surprise he found the fence was made of almost pure
cast iron and conveniently in shape of many spears held by a
small band. He peeled the band back and began to attack the
demon. First throwing one but that proved to be a bad idea
when it dodged and the spear almost hit an innocent ( and
really stupid reporter ) So Ranma peeled back a little more
of the band and pulled out the next spear.
This one he carried with him as ran up to the Demon and
despite the best dodging the demon could do he put the point
of the spear through it's chest. Unfortunately this wasn't
where it had it's heart, so Ranma went back and got more and
began playing with the demon as he put a pear here in it's
body then one there until finally the demon just faded away
as the spear grounded out all of it's energy that it used to
stay on Earth.
Shortly there after the sun rose and Mara the Human who felt
grateful and fond of Ranma became Mara the Demon who felt
grateful and fond of Ranma and decided to try to keep Ranma
around. So she pulled a contract out and asked Ranma if he
would sign.
Mara said " I can promise to make you the strongest man in
the world and the fastest now that the demon is gone. If you
will sign this contract I can give anything in the whole
world you want, including the whole world itself if you want
bad enough."
Ranma replied rather tiredly " The only thing I wish for is
someone who would love me because I am me. I wish I would
meet someone and keep seeing them until we have had enough
chances to get to know one another well enough to know if we
can live together and make a team, not always fighting each
other, not with widely different dreams, but two people who
would work together to achieve a single goal. One that both
chose, and both would willingly work or fight for, whatever
the cost. With love on both sides and trust on both sides
and a chance of real happiness. The stuff all my friends
don't have or manage to really believe in, shucks even my
families don't really believe in that sort of thing." as he
finished his hearts wish, he fell asleep.
Mara Looked at him and said "I hope you get your wish but it
is beyond my powers."
For the next few days it seemed that what ever Mara was
assigned to do would involve with her meeting Ranma and he
would inevitably prevent anything really wicked she was do
from being done or any evil she was to cultivate, he would
interfere. Such as one time, this purse snatcher was going
to grab the purse of a drug user, the plans were for him to
try the stuff and since she had a disease, he would catch it
and she would get the money for more by stealing from a john
who catch what she had and pass it on to his wife. Ranma
however stopped the purse snatcher and since he wa only a
kid, he spanked him hard and let him go. the needles feel
out in front of a policeman, as Ranma returned the purse. So
she went to jail and the disease was found in time to be
cured. So five souls who would have ended up probably going
to Hell, didn't.
This went on for a couple of weeks until finally she gave up
and was ordered to ask Ranma to Marry her. It was felt this
would slow him down since he was interfering with a dozen
different demons. She went to Ranma and explained what she
was and promised to never put his soul at risk if she could
help it. She also promised to love him for as long as he
would live and longer.
She also told him that she had been ordered to marry him
because he was fighting Hell itself.
Adding to the levels of Good in the world and reducing or
preventing levels of Evil.
Ranma said " I learned a long time ago not to let anyone
suspect how much I know. I started when Pops would beat me
for studying, even though what I learned helped me in the
Art. So I concealed many of my abilities, I knew you were a
demon the night I slew the other demon.
>From what I have learned by studying the beings around you.
I can tell a Demon from a Spirit and what kind of powers
they have. I have figured out how to duplicate or neutralize
a lot of the magic with my Ki and the Chi, that I can
gather. I have learned to keep a supply of Chi with me at
all times."
"To answer your question, I can accept you as a fiancee,
only if you persuade my pop to engage me to you. Offer him a
lot of food, and get it in writing if you can. i won't
promise to marry you but I'll promise to be a friend, as
long as you are one to me."
"I won't promise to help you do evil but I will promise to
defend you when you need me."
"Frankly you seem to be to nice to want to be a demon, why
are you one. My sister and I were born of a union between
God and Devil, She got to be a goddess because her mother
had a sister who would one of three in a set. A set is a
powerful thing among gods and demons. They can change the
heart of a person.
Because my sister would be part of a set of goddesses, I was
given to Hell to become a demon. For a long time I hated my
sisters sisters feeling they had stolen her form me but this
last year I made peace with my sister and we are friends
again as we were as children. We are still on opposite sides
but that is most often politics. I find myself often helping
good and some of the gods are as evil as any demon. Now I
will promise not to do any evil when I am with you. nor to
do any knowingly to your family or friends.
This story ends a few weeks before the start of Honor on
High. This as usual is a first draft. In fact I wrote in one
night, I hope my depression doesn't show to badly but as I
may soon be dead. I am trying to get out as much as
possible. After I get some comments back or get flamed I may
revise this. I haven't made up my mind yet. The couple do
have some other minor adventures but this was the biggie.
--
Rick Robinson
RICHARDROBINSONJR@prodigy.net
If violence is not solving your
problems you're just not using enough of it.
Misato
"I guess I'm just an old-fashioned sentimentalist at heart.
I refuse
to accept a no-win scenario. I hate the thought of a
universe without
justice. If the maneuverings of dark powers can't be
exposed and
defeated by the pure of heart, then there's no point in
anything. I
can't believe that."
-- Benjamin Hutchins