Song of the Phoenix: Aria, by Jorge A. Pratt

*Ranma and Ranko lip-synch to the original SNES chiptune warbling of the
Opera House scene from FF6*

The door closed with a slam, and she ran.

o/~And she raaaaan...she ran so faaar awaaaaaay...o/~

        She had so very little time. Even though she knew they
would still be sound asleep, she was sure they would find out in a
matter of minutes. Already they had thwarted her several times,
and she was not going to let anyone stop her now.

"Must...buy...PS3..."

        A light, almost imperceptible drizzle descended to cleanse
her as she arrived at her destination. For one instant, she felt an
overwhelming chill wash upon her --she knew, at that moment, that
she was alone. No one would be near to hear her cries if anything
went wrong. No one would assist her with the slightest
encouragement, or even a whispered cheer. And for that brief
eternity, she felt truly afraid.

That's what she gets for forgetting her blankie at home.

        She set the harp on the ground before her, the photograph
at its base, and stood up. Its strings glistened: shimmering tears
suspended in gossamer threads. With one last nod of reassurance,
she stepped back and closed her eyes, invoking that song she knew
by heart.

o/~Whenever sang my songs / on the stage, on my own... o/~

        And she was the Caller.

But she didn't have a horn.

        A great column of blinding incandescence erupted
beneath her feet, reaching far beyond sight and flinging all those
around like leaves in a storm. There was one final shout of "NO!"
of voices male and female, but she no longer heard it. She heard
nothing more, as the spark upon her chest consumed her in a
bonfire of golden flames.
        And thus, with the first lights of aurora, a bird of pure fire
rose upon the ward of Nerima.

"JEEEEAAAAAAAAAN! ...huh? Wait, sorry, thought it was somebody else. ...um,
sorry 'bout...yeah."
"Leave 'em alone, Sike..."

First, there was the burning.

Then, there was the itching. And the peeling, OH GOD THE PEELING!!

        Akane Tendou had always had strange dreams.

Like the one about the purple kangaroo, the donut tree, and the pickle that
talked like Yoda?

        Akane was surprised. The flames, previously inoffensive,
roared loudly in response to her other's intrusion. Cold blue sparks,
the color of cobalt, rose amid the blaze to overwhelm its previous
warmth. And as the other gripped her hand tightly, struggling
against an unseen force to pull her away from the fire, a terrible
wind swept through her body and tossed them off their feet.

"EWWWW! THAT DOES IT, NO MORE BEAN JAM BUNS FOR YOU!!"

        She pulled herself up with all her might, but the water
clung to her, made her heavy, and dragged her down like tar. Her
hands slipped over the shaft of bamboo, and her legs kicked
violently under the surface. The water burned her, her feet were
frozen, and the flame in that abominable spring was like a million
voices, one hundred and forty-four voices that shrieked death and
sadness at her. And, all the while, Akane's screams and the roar of
the fire overhead filled her ears with the need to break free.

Weirdest sexual metaphor EVAR.

        That had been the fifth time in as many nights Akane had
had a nightmare related to Ranma in some way or another.
Sometimes, it involved him dying because of his curse; often, it
included the same feeling of dread, of helplessness that haunted her
now. Every time, though, she had been shaken gravely by the end
of the dream. But she couldn't help being frightened. It was... as if
her heart were being rent asunder by the horror that came to her in
her sleep.

Ah, it's just some old undead serial killer from America trying to rattle
her cage, nothing new here...

        Trembling, Akane took P-chan in her arms and stood up,
feeling the hard thumping of her own heart against the body of the
small piglet. With a sigh, she walked to the door and stepped out to
the dark hallway, then made her way slowly, on tip-toe, to the
Saotomes' room. She was hesitant at first, thinking it silly to feel
the need to check up on its inhabitants, but opened the door
nonetheless. And yet, while the huge panda within was blocking
most of the moonlight, what it allowed to see was enough to set her
at ease.

Ranma wasn't jacking off.

        The springs, his constant wards, felt just as alien to him.

Of course, what he was doing feeling up Spring of Drowned Lum is ANYBODY's
guess...

Normally, they would ripple and surge even in the lightest breeze,
and the bamboo would sway and dance along with them.

[Plum] "Father, please, for the love of all that is holy, PUT YOUR PANTS
BACK ON!"

        Clutching his chest to keep his heart from bursting out, the
Guide stumbled over to the door. He fumbled with the doorknob,
rattling it in the wood in his anxiety, but he managed to crack open
just enough of a gap to peer through.

"No, father, he said PEER! PEER through!"

        There was very little he could see, however. The mist over
the springs was fainter, as though it had been blown away, but it
was quickly roiling back into place. He could hear, though, that the
springs were agitated; the water churned and bubbled as if boiling,
and a few of their bamboo shoots were slapping noisily against
each other.

Ewww, cursed spring yaoi.

        Slowly, the Guide crawled out from his humble hiding
spot and peered out the window. Sure enough, there was a faint
trail of smoke leading into the forest behind his house, where the
ground had been rent into a wide, deep gash. Low moaning came
from the woods as well.

It's Ifrit. He's got blue balls, and Shiva is giving him the cold shoulder.

        It was an enormous egg, nearly six feet wide and eight feet
long. Colored bronze, it gave off a metallic glint in the moonlight.
Sure enough, when the Guide tapped it with a knuckle, he
confirmed it was metal, and hollow. Also, he noticed, it was
extremely cold.

Oh, it's just another visitor from Ork.

        He didn't need to search for long, though. After just a few
seconds, the egg itself evanesced quietly into thin air. A few
purplish-blue sparks ran across the fading surface, lighting up the
forest, until finally the shell vanished to leave the Guide staring
agape at the figure within...

"Nanu-nanu."

Akane looked on wistfully as the landscape slid at high speeds
outside the window. Far in the distance, the mountains slowly
rolled past her, disguising the swift pace of the train as it hurried
onwards.

Onwards...to DOOM!!

        She had been standing outside the Dojo, with Mrs.
Saotome and another, unfamiliar woman behind her. In the
distance, she beheld an enormous tree, taller than even the Tokyo
Tower. She knew she was crying: her cheeks were red and wet, and
her eyes were dry.

[Kasumi] "Oh my...it's a giant weeping willow."

        With a sigh, she dumped herself on her seat and closed
her eyes. They were just nightmares, she told herself. Maybe...
maybe something in her heart was trying to give her a warning; the
visions always ended with Ranma and her being torn apart in one
way or another.

Sometimes literally.With chainsaws.

        Nodoka let out a sad breath. "I thought so. Really, I must
have the worst timing. They never seem to be around when I
visit..."

After a while, you'd think she'd start to get suspicious of that...

        When she finally composed herself and managed to pull in
a ghastly, soot and mud-covered redhead whose skin was making
an excellent impression of polished marble, Akane realized that
cats were probably no longer Ranma's only fear.

But is it worse than...the YUKARIMOBILE?

        "F-fa-fast..." Ranma mumbled, her eyes bloodshot, "T-too
fa-faast... Big tunnel... Light at the end..."

Don't go towards the light!

        "Sh-she just slipped in the bathroom and got wet, right,
Ranko-chan?" she tried, laughing foolishly.

She'd have had to have fallen all the way into the *unflushed* toilet to get
like THAT. @_@

        "W-wait, Auntie...!" Akane reached out, but there was no
getting through to Nodoka while she was in full-blown Protective
Mom mode. She could only watch and wait as mother and
"daughter" disappeared behind the restroom door.
        A few minutes later, they reemerged --to Akane's great
surprise.

"I thought the toilet ate you!"

        Akane stared, and bit her lip to suppress a wry giggle.
Ranma was wearing a flowing white sundress, tight as a glove at
the torso but with a skirt that flared widely below the hips, with a
revealing off-the-shoulder neckline that exposed just enough
cleavage to boast of healthy femininity while remaining decent.

*_*

        "You look so cute and feminine, Ranko-chan!" praised
Nodoka happily.

I'll say. n.n

        Akane regarded her for an instant, trying to reconcile the
tight, almost risque outfit with her kimono-clad mother-in-law. A
raised eyebrow was all she could manage. For her part, Ranma was
trying her damndest not to gag.

>From the mothball stench?

        The Hisame Hotel was relatively large for its type, a
dozen bungalows

huhuhuhuhuhuhuh, you said...BUNG...huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh...

were clumped together so tight it was difficult to see more than two
cabins at once for all the thick foliage. And while said bungalows

huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh...

the center of the manor directly opposite to the gates. Both floors
of the manor had wooden walkways --with handrails to prevent
people from falling into the garden's koi ponds

[Ranma] "D'OH!"
[Soun] "Now why didn't we ever think of that, Saotome?"
[Nabiki] "Around here, would it even make a difference?"

        Oblivious to the nervous sweat rolling down Akane's
forehead, Ryousei continued. "It's too bad Rui's not here yet.
Something to do with training, I think." He then turned to the
Tendou girl and, with a knowing grin, asked, "So, Akane-chan,
how's your father? Did he finally get rid of He-Who-Musn't-Be-
Named?"

"Nah, he's making some British kid do it."

        "He stole your underwear?" Ranma asked her aunt.
        "And right out of the laundry basket!" Mayumi smiled,
and added with half-lidded eyes, "Maybe he was peeking at me at
the time...!"

Well, that's ONE way to get a wife.

Tendou and fix her up with him. All she had heard of this
mysterious cousin was that "Rui" was fond of rough contact sports,
had more than a few unrequited suitors at school, and, most
notably, was a bit of a martial artist as well.
        Thus it came as no surprise when, by nightfall, she and
Nodoka entered the room only to be assaulted by a Bruce
Lee/Jackie Chan tag-team.

Gasp! The horror! Not even Sheng Long stands a chance against that!

        Actually, it was only in poster and wallscroll form --nearly
every available surface in Rui's room was covered in some sort of
martial arts or Chinese paraphernalia. Aside from said posters,
there were pictures of tournaments, magazine clippings and the
occasional yin-yang lithograph.

Not to mention the lacquered chest full of opium...

        So her cousin was a decent, if normal, martial artist. Must
run in the family, she figured. On the other hand, the countless
books on meditation, mythology and... locksmithing? Those threw
her off somewhat.

Aaah! Rui is changing Jobs!

        "It'll be all right, dear," her mother reassured. "Akane-
chan and I will take the guest room, but if Rui-chan comes back
you two will have to share the bed..."

Muhahahahahahahahaha.

The first rays of dawn greeted Akane with an orchestra of crashing
waves as accompaniment. A hundred feet above, in the house atop
the cliff, the adults still enjoyed the sleep of the dead. Ranma, clad
in a simple one-piece swimsuit stood in the water, stretching both
hands out to her; an amused smile adorned the redhead's face,
irritating yet endearing at once.

"Come plaaaaay with meeee, Akane-chaaaaaaaaan...."

        Akane fumed at her snickering fiancee and waddled over
to her. However, the huge flippers on her feet, the pair of inner
tubes around her waist, the inflatable pads on her arms, the life-vest
and scuba tanks on her torso, and the visor on her face made her
stride rather... gauche.

Damn, just get a submarine, it'd be cheaper. o.o;;

        The surprising fright in Akane's voice ripped her back into
reality. Ranma barely had enough time to listen to the deafening
crash of the wave that loomed above them, finding herself tossed
forcefully at the cliffside, after which all was silent.

And their bodies were never found...

THE END

The constant crashing of the surf was softer now, even though it
had been unbearable a few minutes ago. That was good, because
the cavern was a magnificent resonance box --all sounds, even the
rhythmic dripping of limewater onto the ground, were amplified
tenfold by the solid granite walls.

"Nobody fart..."

        Turning away from the mouth of the cave, through which
light surged with blinding intensity, she faced her fiance as well as
their savior, who had finished wrapping Ranma in a fluffy white
towel.

She WAS planning to wrap her in a a fluffy white cat, but Akane pointed out
what a bad idea that'd be...

        "How did you do that, anyway?" Akane asked, fixing her
eyes on the girl opposite her. "It was... incredible."

"I've never seen anyone save lives and chew bubblegum at the same time!"

        Her entire being felt heavy, but after a brief struggle she
managed to open her eyes. And when she did, she stared in silence
at the sight. A dark, long tunnel stretched beyond her, filled with
chanting voices. She wore pristine robes of white, and she could
feel warmth around her still form. But before her, was a creature
that let her know exactly where she was.

"A Slime draws near!"

        She was about to try to speak again when she became
alarmed. What had happened? Where was Akane? Would... would
she never see Akane again? H-how was she supposed to deal with
that? Did this mean she would not get to tell her that... that she...

Wanted to borrow her floral print skirt and aqua knit top?

        Seeing Ranma pause, Akane thought she was going to
retaliate with the usual barrage of insults. That jerk! Acting like it
wasn't his fault, like he didn't know what happened! However, she
was more than slightly surprised to see the redhead drop to her
knees and yell out a shrill "Nooo!"

Elsewhere in Japan, a Latin migrant worker sneezed...

        A mallet fell, and so did silence. Ranma now lay, face
down, on the hard stone of the cavern. Akane quietly fumed while
the blonde tried to figure out what had just happened.

"Where the HECK did she get the mallet? O.o;;"

        "I'm sorry! I'm sorry I got you dead, Akane! Don't kill me
again!"
        "_What_ are you talking about?! I'm not dead! Now tell
me what that was supposed to mean before I kill you!"

*sweatdrop*

        Blushing the same color of her hair, Ranma sat up and
rubbed the back of her head, grinning stupidly in embarrassment.

As opposed to her usual grinning stupidly in stupidity.

        "Why do you keep callin' me that?" Ranma said. "Mom's
not around here, is she?"
        "Anyway," the other girl said. She wiped her hand with
the towel, and extended it. "I'm Ruiko Hisame! Nice to meetcha,
Ranko-chan!"

Oh dear. XD

================================
As for the PS3 being "an engineering
masterpiece"--so was the Spruce Goose.

That turkey didn't fly either.
              ~~*~~
The Eternal Lost Lurker
www.lurkerdrome.com



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