[FFML] [R.5][AU] MGR ch05

MAGICAL GUARDIAN RANMA!

PREREADING AND EDITING ASSISTANCE BY:

Howard Melton,
Philip Jacobs,
Jeff Denniston
Lord Talon,
And some guy named Steve.

DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma �' and all characters therein belong
to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. This
fanfic has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass
on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfic
may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other
fanficts, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even GASP
American comic books!).

CHAPTER FIVE:

R'hul had its minions, in the form of seven recently possessed feral
humans. As it had surmised, these were young post adolescents,
males at that, who were attempting to establish a 'territory' of their
own. Part of which entailed painting 'tags' in various locations they
wanted to claim. R'hul found this habit fortuitous, all the more so due
to the lucky circumstance of their stumbling onto a viable occult
symbol which they had already diligently spread here and there
throughout the local human community.

That sort of thing really cut down on the pressure R'hul was under to
establish a beachhead. No time needed to be wasted imprinting a
suitable symbol into his minions feeble minds. Instead, he could
simply tweek their own natural impulses and they would be compelled
to leave their 'tag' in discrete locations as they went through the
motions of their day to day lives.

But first, R'hul thought that it should do something about its
infiltration form...

O O O

Nabiki sighed. "Akane, why don't you go check to see if our fathers
are still mostly sober. I doubt they even noticed anything from all the
way over in the Dojo."

"Right. I'll bring them back to the family room unless they're too far
along, okay?" Akane wasn't looking forward to facing her father after
causing so much damage to the house, but she figured that Nabiki
had a point in getting the hystrionics over with.

"That's fine," Nabiki agreed. "In the meentime, I'll try to get Kasumi
up to her room so she can get dressed."

"Lots of luck, Nabiki," Akane commented as she turned to head
through the house towards the Dojo. "I don't think she wants to
give up her giant cuddle-toy." As she left the family room and
passed the kitchen, she muttered to herself. "Freaking scary
looking cuddle-toy as big as a car..."

O O O

Kasumi ran her fingers through Ranma's soft, fluffy fur as he carried
her the stairs to the second floor. He was following Nabiki to her
room, where she supposed that she'd finally have to let him put her
down. A shame really. In Ranma's arms she had felt safe and secure,
protected from the pain and worries of the world. In his arms, she
could be the little girl again, reliving her lost childhood when cute
and cuddly plush toys could keep the closet monsters at bay. When
a strong caring embrace ment that her parents loved her and were
ready to to make the hurt go away.

Kasumi didn't need to be strong or responsible in Ranma's arms. For
just these moments, snuggled in his azure fur, Kasumi could be the
child she was before their mother died without feeling like she was
letting her family down. She wanted to hold onto that feeling forever,
but she knew that she had to let him go.

To grow up again.

Still, perhaps she could get some material and make some plushies.
She's have to see if Ranma would be willing to model for her.

Kasumi felt disapointment as Nabiki lead Ranma into her room all too
soon. She sighed, but let Ranma set her down on her bed, at which
time he reverted into his smaller state without the oversized canines.

Eye's twinkling and full of mischief, Kasumi grabbed the large blue
kangaroo rat as he was about to hop off of her bed and cuddled him!

Nabiki's hair toinged out of place at the sight of her elder sister
behavior, causing Kasumi to giggle as she hugged Ranma against
her bosom. Ranma, for his part, squirmed for a moment, then realized
what he was struggling against and fell limp.

"Oh my!" Kasumi exclaimed, finally holding Ranma's dazed form
away from her chest as she looked at him with concern.

"Way to go, Sis," Nabiki chided as she poked Ranma. "I think you
broke him."

O O O

Later, in the evening in the Tendo Household...

Genma brought in supper for everyone as they sat where they could.
Even though it was only simple fare, he figured that Kasumi really
needed a break from her duties after her scare, so he took it upon
himself to do some camp cooking in their yard. While neither he nor
Soun had really had time to get drunk, they had experienced a strong
mutual catharsis before Akane had come to fetch them.

As Nabiki passed around bowls, plates, chopsticks, and serving
utensils, Genma was pleased to note that Ranma was receiving a
set of his own. Good, at least one of the Tendo daughters was
treating Ranma as a person. He felt better for having decided to
take his son's token from Shampoo.

"With two of your daughters able to activate Ranma's token, I feel
that my son's place is indeed here, Tendo." Genma started.

"Yes, well... Be that as it may, Saotome, how will we ever join our
two families?" Soun asked, glancing not so subtly at the hole in the
family room floor. The fact that it was Akane who looked sheepish
whenever he did so was not lost on him, but from what he had been
told the whole incident was an accident. Perhaps it would be best to
arrange for further potential accidents to occur outside, or even away
from the property all together. Not that he wanted to put either his
best friend or his son out.

"For the time being, Ranma will stay here and serve as your daughters'
guardian. It cannot be coincidence that two of them can be empowered
by him," Genma pointed out. "I will stay a few days while Ranma is
settling down. In part to help repair the damage caused by this
evening's accident, but mostly to go over some ideas with my son on
how best to train your daughters in their new abilities.

"You're leaving, Pop?" Ranma asked, looking up from his food. The
first food he had eaten since becoming a guardian beast at that.
Adding to the novelty was the complete and utter lack of attempts
on his fathers part to steal his food.

"I'm going on a journey to attempt to find a way for you to be
restored to your human form, my son." Genma explained, voice
heavy with conviction. "You may have been called to serve a higher
duty, but I fail to see why the kami have decided that you must do so
as a guardian beast. I want you to be restored to yourself as soon as
possible, so I am planning a pilgramage to every shrine and temple I
can find to both pray for your restoration and to try to find out what
must be done for it to happen."

"Pop..." Ranma didn't know what to say. This was a side of his
father he had hardly ever seen while growing up.

"I'll try to visit as often as I can, Ranma, so please do not feel that
I'm abandoning you in any way," Genma went on. "You have been
called to Duty, my son, and I will not stand in the way of your being
able to carry it out. Instead, I plan to discover what it takes to speed
you surely through whatever destiny the kami have laid out for you
so that you can get your own life back in as short a time as possible."

"Pop..." Ranma tried to interject, only to be interupted as his father
chose to go on.

"Please, Ranma... My son," Genma spoke with heavy solemnity.
"Please forgive a father for his foibles. Please forgive me for taking
your life away from you and causing this heavy burden to be placed
on your shoulders. I know I haven't always been the best father I
could have been. I have often been short sighted, and too many
times have I let petty greed put you or your honor at risk. I need to
do this, my son. I need to try as hard as I can to restore you to
yourself, so that I may in some small way attone for my actions that
lead to this situation."

Everyone looked at Genma and thought deeply on what the elder
Saotome had said.

Nabiki was reminded that there was a purpose behind her
transformation. That there was a danger that she had been called
on to help defeat. One that could prove to be deadly serious. She
wondered why she only felt a little trepedition at the prospect of
facing youma and other monsters.

Akane came to realise that becoming a Magical Girl wasn't all fun,
games, and beating up the youma of the week. There were costs to
this business she had so carelessly entered. The Saotome's were
paying a very big cost indeed, and one that neither had ever sought
to pay. Costs that she herself had paid in the form of accidental
damage to her home. Akane resolved to listen to her new sensei, and
to try to master her seemingly wild and undisciplined powers.

Kasumi resolved to make Ranma's stay in their home as comfortable
as possible. Maybe later she'd even gather the nerve to touch his
token as well, but it was much too soon for that. She certainly didn't
feel ready to answer any such call to duty, Magical Girl or otherwise.

Soun was weeping openly at the tragedy of it all, but had yet to break
out into a sorrowful tirade of his own. How long that would last was
anybodies guess.

Ranma stared intently at his father, appearing to think deeply on all
that Genma had just said. After a moment, the large blue kangaroo
rat seemed to come to a conclusion. "Alright. Who are you and what
did you do with my Pop?"

Facefaults abounded! Moments later, Genma sat back up and yelled,
"Ranma! How dare you treat a solemn moment like this so trivially!?"

"Okay! Okay! Sheesh! Lighten up, Pop!" Ranma equivocated
sheepishly. "I forgive you already!"

O O O

R'hul examined its current domecile, the home of the feral humans'
pack alpha. Surprisingly the young adult had still been living with
his parents, but they were easily taken care of. Nothing permanent
yet, as they might still be needed to maintain his cover. Just a couple
of temporary transformations to keep them causing problems over
the short term. Both were now boneless blobs of flesh, homogenous
and self contained, without any external features save for their skin.
Capable of remembering what they were and thus quite able to
radiate satisfactory amounts of terror.

Good furnature was so hard to find, and seats that could supply
a fresh sense of personal horror were even more difficult to come
by back home. These two would simply have to be taken back to
its estate once their purpose here had been served.

Sitting on the female flesh-bag, with its feet propped up on the male,
R'hul directed its minion to activate the story viewing device. It had
found out about it from going through the memories of the feral
human and his family, and had made some other interesting
discoveries.

Humans had come to catalogue their darker natures, displaying their
fears and perversions in visable records for all to see. Trully an
excellent guide for the conisior of the soul.

At the moment, R'hul chose to start with something from the father's
collection, by the auspiscious title of "The Amityville Horror," to be
followed by "Alien" and then "Godzilla." Later, it would move on to
the tastes of its minion and see what "Legend of the Overfiend" was
about.

All in all, with its minions dutifully spreading their 'tag' hither and
yon, R'hul decided to kick back and enjoy some quality lesure time
for a day or two before making any big moves. Vacation time was
another thing that was hard to come by these days...

O O O

Late in the evening, Nabiki decided that she had had enough for one
day and had gone up to get ready for bed. Hooking a finger under
her left glove, she pulled it off and tossed it to the floor where it
landed with a splash. Nabiki stared at the puddle of water on her
floor, being particularly surprized because she had at least
subconsciously expeting a thump from the silver and steel plates.
Except that the only silver and steel pieces were on the remaining
articles of her costume. Curious, she turned her attention to the
rest of her outfit, examining it with more scruitiny than before. The
boots, which reached halfway up her calves, looked as painted on
as the rest of her outfit other than the thick sole, the steel toe and
heel sections and a rectangular plate on top of each of her feet. Her
remainingt glove, which had the fitting for Ranma's sapphire token
on a silver and steel plate on the back of the hand, had another plate
that ran along the top of her forearm like a bracer and was held in
place with silver bands. Nabiki ran the fingers of her left hand along
the plate aqnd then froze.

While her fingers felt the steel plates and silver trim, both of which
feeling as hard and rigid to her caressing fingers as she would have
expected, her arm felt the gentile toach as if it were directly skin to
skin. Holding her right hand close to her face, Nabiki looked at what
appeared to be a glove that fit over her palm and fingers like a
second skin, only without prints or nails, but felt like bare skin to the
touch. With sudden realization, she then examined her halter top...

Nabiki was not particularly surprised to discover that her halter top
also felt like bare skin to her hands. Cupping her breasts in her hands,
which certainly felt like direct skin to skin contact to Nabiki, she raised
them to her face, which was bent forward as far as her neck would
allow. From this close perspective she could compare her glove, which
definitly looked like smooth material to her eyes, to her halter, which
looked equally smooth. She could even easily tell where her nipples
where due to the fact that the material followed the contours of her
skin so closely.

A quick thought made her check the groin area of her shorts, but
Nabiki was relieved to note that whatever made the rest of the
strange material follow her bodies contours so closely everywhere
else fit that area like a leotard instead. Like a second skin, yes, but
without following that particular topological fold.

The hems that she could see directly, were almost all set flush
aganste her skin, with the exception or her remaining glove, which
was hemmed with silver rings. Moving a hand to her waistband,
she tried to hook a finger under the 'hem' was, and was moderately
startled when she could do exactly that. She tugged the 'fabric'
away from her skin, noting that it came away like latex, and felt like
silk, but looked for all the world like she was pulling the color right
out of her skin rather than from on top of it. Letting go of the hem,
Nabiki watched it snap back into place and merge with her skin once
more.

She hadn't even felt anything.

Not being able to trust her sense of touch with this visually opaque
but tactilely transparent material, Nabiki walked over to use the mirror
of her vanity bureau to use the mirror mounted on the back of it.
Turning around, she looked over her shoulder and checked to see
if her rear cleavage was modest like the groin, or contour perfect like
her breasts.

...

Okay, so she had a perfect wedgie that she couldn't feel.

Oddly, Nabiki didn't feel even the slightest bit of embarrassment
over the matter, although it did seem strange that neither Akane,
Kasumi, not her own father had said anything about it. Thinking
back on it, she was pretty sure that Akane's costume fit pretty much
the same way too...

Hearing a panicked commotion from Akane's room, Nabiki was certain
that her younger sister had just made a similar discovery of her own.
Wandering over, Nabiki was sleightly disappointed that Akane had
already managed to smother the flames before she could offer to put
them out. Now that she was paying attention, she could tell that
Akane's costume appeared to fit exactly the same way her own did.
What was left of it anyway, as the halter was now apparently a
scortch mark on the floor.

"Hey, Akane," Nabiki announced herself. "Lets go find Ranma and
see if we can't be powered down for the night, okay?"

"Yeah," Akane agreed unsteadily. "That seems like a good idea.
Let's go ask Sensei!" Nodding with more determination, Akane
moved to head out the door, apparently without any concern about
being topless.

"Sensei?" Nabiki cocked an eyebrow at that, but turned to head
for the guestroom before Akane could answer.

Nodding with more determination, Akane moved to follow her
sister out the door, apparently without any concern about being topless...

END CHAPTER FIVE

OMAKE THEATER PRESENTS: House R'hul

R'hul sat at the table as its minion's mother served dinner.

"So, tell me, Mr. R'hul," the father began as his wife served his favorite
terriaki eel. "How did you meet my son?"

"Blurp burple belch cough burple." R'hul replied as politely as it could
with a face full of tentacles.

"Isn't that just the most incredible thing you ever hear dear?" the
mother aksed her husband.

R'hul, for its part, just cursed his luck at the fact that its lead minion's
parents were C'thulhu's Witnesses...

O O O

SPECIAL TREAT - FFML EDITION:
Ranma's really really big sabertoothed kangaroo rat form!
http://www.forsaken-innocence.com/images/mgart/Magical_Guardian_Ranma_02_by_Reiko_Foxx.jpg