“It’s true… it’s so very true, all good dogs do go to heaven!” After that statement upon entering the store, Donna quickly had a pile of graphic novels sitting next to her and she had been reading for the last three hours since she walked in. “Do you think I could learn something like this?”
Soft Echo was cuddled up next to Donna listening to her read as she looked at her own graphic novel for children that was obtained by Foxglove. Donna had even read the premise for the bat to make sure the filly wasn’t looking at anything overly violent like she was; despite not being able to read the language Soft Echo still liked the funny pictures.
“I don’t know about that, it sounds really dangerous.” Foxglove was the designated adult of the group, she sat on a nearby shelf making sure Soft Echo didn’t wander off and that Donnabelle didn’t destroy something in her exuberance. She had been reading over the puppies shoulder every once in a while “Unless you mean to learn the blinding attack the guy can do.”
“I don’t see why I can’t learn both. First blind them with holy light and then hit them with a disk of angelic death! I need some angelic energy based techniques after all and that’s two… so I’ll need a demonic technique to balance it out.” After a moment of finally looking away from the stories Donnabelle found herself surrounded by a pile of books. She also noticed that the store owner hadn’t run them out yet. “Uh… you seem to be rather calm about us being in your store.”
“It’s getting me customers and besides, none of you are causing trouble for me. As long as you intend to be paying customers I don’t see a problem with it.” The shop owner was just that friendly and Donnabelle just shrugged at his comment.
“I have a question if you know the series, why doesn’t Kuririn ever use Sun Flash and Destruction Disk together? I mean all the opponents he comes up against have eyes which are always sensitive to such an attack. Plus there’s the fact that some of the tougher opponents don’t have the regenerative power to survive being cut in half.” Donnabelle had taken to reading some of the Dragon Ball stuff and skipped over a particular attack that Belladonna had learned, unlike Foxglove and more like Bonnie she could actually speak and read Japanese.
“Oh I’m well acquainted with the series. Kuririn never came off as particularly bright to me. I mean he had a fight where he acted like he could actually smell his opponent despite not having a nose in the original Dragon Ball series, it was against a grotesque man who usually defeated his opponents with his horrible smell alone.” The shop owner always thought the series had some weird stuff in it, but those were the highly interesting points before it got boring with the whole escalation of power levels thing. “Still though, most of the villains after Namek all had regenerative abilities making them really hard to kill with that technique even if he could land it. It was all about raw power after that point and he became kind of a joke character when before he was used more seriously as a foil for Son Goku. His technique is still quite powerful; it just became highly pointless for him to even use it after that point.”
“Well that was informative. Note to self, make sure the disk technique can feasibly explode or something while in the midst of cutting through opponent.” Donna was going to peruse some other books for a technique that she could possibly do with her demonic energy. “Watch the kid Foxglove; I’m going to find a graphic novel in here that will give me another awesome idea. Then I’ll pick out a few to buy. After that we can find a place to start putting my ideas into practice.”
“Why do I have bad feeling about this?” Foxglove was waved off by the puppy with the wagging tail as she sauntered off.
-
“You have to admit Pluto, they did have a point. Now we have three governments who now know who we are and where we live, also they have people that can see through our glamour. So Luna really does need to earn her citizenship and that’s why Ami is helping her with learning the things she needs to know.” Sailor Moon couldn’t be without her courageous cat sidekick who could take on a humanoid appearance, besides that it was a little bit awful to find out that you’ve been breaking the law for quite a while when you were supposed to be all about love and justice. “I don’t want them to deport my cat, she’s my best friend!”
“Fine, while you help Luna earn her citizenship, I’ll send the three outers to deal with the problem; hopefully they can take care of the disruptions to the future.” The pair of eyes that was Sailor Pluto was usually always watching the time stream for drastic changes and the future was now completely uncertain. “They’re less likely to be sidetracked by bureaucracy at least.”
-
The Tendo’s place wasn’t that large and Fluttershy was curious about all the neat little buildings and the signs she couldn’t read. Aside from Donna, Bonnie was the only one from their group that could read the sign.
The alien and pony duo were still following Ranma and he came to a stop at the door and then looked at them uneasily before he knocked, he at least let them know he was a guest in this house and the reasons why he was so pensive. Apparently his life sucked because of all the crap his father dropped on him, not to mention all the people who kept giving him crap over things that happened a long time ago in relation to that.
Neither Fluttershy nor Bonnie had any romantic inclinations towards Ranma who had a problem with woman throwing themselves at him with reckless abandon to either kill or marry him. Instead they just felt sorry for him more than anything and they’ve only been given an abridged version of his life.
“So, is Nerima always this…. weird?” While they waited for someone to get the door Fluttershy looked over her shoulder and saw several armored men in what she assumed were military uniforms firing weapons at what looked like a giant black ants crawling around on several buildings.
“It’s actually rather quiet today if all that’s happening is a small Ravager invasion, those EDF guys you’re seeing always take care of it before I can really do anything about it though. So I stopped bothering to jump into that kind of fight a while ago, unless the Tendo residence was being directly assaulted.” Having turned around to see what was going on Ranma had to shrug at the sight. He saw that Fluttershy was looking at the melting ants sadly. “Don’t worry Flutter those aren’t real ants. Ravagers are aliens who make mechanical monsters and have them mimic nature, which also apparently includes unstable chemicals that cause most of their technology to dissolve into nothing once destroyed. It is a bit crazy that those aliens can make them so realistic that it looks like they bleed. Nothing to really worry about as the Nerima Construction Crew tends to put things back to normal overnight, even if entire buildings get knocked down they’ll be back up before you know it.”
“How can they fix buildings being knocked down so fast?” A building exploded down the street as Fluttershy asked her question and she cringed reflexively at the sight, she looked worried and saw somebody with a jetpack fly over them while firing a laser into the horde of killer robotic ants.
“Oh trust me; the NCC has had lots of practice getting things back in order. If not because of me and my friends who are sometimes called the Nerima Wrecking Crew from the amount of collateral damage we tend to cause, then because of all the others things constantly destroying Nerima. Surprisingly there are almost never any casualties from the destruction of buildings or all the other weird things going on around Nerima, the tourist industry is always doing pretty good around here because of it.” Not that anyone ever bothered to ask Ranma what he thought before these two came along, this was a refreshing change of pace for him as he was not a jock of martial arts as some people paint him as. He was just bored with normal things like school and could get actually good grades if he just invented an academic form of martial arts. “You’re actually more likely to die of a paper cut while here than anything else. Quite frankly the simpler things kill more people around here than the absurd and it’s very absurd to live here in the first place, I would know.”
“Oh hello Ranma, who are your new friends? Would you like to come in for some tea? I’m Tendo Kasumi, it’s very nice to meet you and I must say your mane looks pretty.” Turning around they came face to face with the matron of the Tendo home was a peaceful looking woman with long brown hair. She had a similar air about her that Fluttershy had, but it was not exactly the same feeling entirely. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see Ranma or the stranger beings he dragged home with him.
“Thank you very much ma’am for inviting us into your home and the compliment. Also yes please, I would like to indulge in some tea.” Smiling up at the human Fluttershy received a simple happy smile in return before they entered.
“I’ll have some water, but thanks for the offer.” Bonnie looked at something and reached out as nobody was watching her.
“Oh and tell your friend not to steal anything while she’s here. I don’t mind when Genma-baka does it since he usually brings that stuff here so I can eventually give it back to their proper owners, it’s bad enough that he’s actively trying to eat us out our of house and home.” The serene sounding Kasumi hadn’t even turned around and Bonnie immediately put back what she had picked up. She seemed like a calm happy go lucky person, but she was quite stern where it counted. “I will not tolerate any thievery from anyone else, thank you for your understanding.”
“Wow, she really has me pegged.” Bonnie had never been caught before she could do something that fast before.
“Not really, among the other things my father is, he’s quite a horrible thief and Kasumi is a saint to let him keep living here like he does.” Shaking his head Ranma turned to Kasumi. “Where is everyone Kasumi and have you heard about a convention around here?”
“I don’t know where everyone is at this time, but I do know where a convention is being held. Here, I have a flyer for it that I picked up because I thought you might be interested in the tournament.” Kasumi handed Ranma the flyer for the convention which had its location listed on it, then she set off to make tea for her new rather adorable guests that she just knew Ranma would help. ”Now if you will excuse me, I think I’ll make you and your new friends some snacks as well while I’m at it.”
“Wow, it seems everything is going our way today… I feel gypped for some reason.” It was just a nagging feeling, but Bonnie couldn’t help but feel that things should have been more exciting than this. Maybe when they found the sumo ninja and the convention things would begin to heat up, instead of just being mildly weird according to Ranma’s idea of what weird was. “Well no point in looking a gift pony in the mouth.”
“That’s actually a saying on my planet.” Interjected Fluttershy who was kind of amused by what Bonnie said.
“Technically the reason I said it is because Ranma’s name translates to Wild Horse. So far things seem to be rather tame in comparison to his name.” Shrugging, Bonnie sat down at the nearby table and waited.
Ranma joined them at the table to continue talking about his horrid sounding life of misunderstandings and problems. After a while Kasumi came walking in with a tray loaded with bean and veggie dumplings, a kettle with warm tea, a couple of tea cups and the glass of water that Bonnie wanted.
“Here you go… oh dear!” Kasumi tripped slightly and it sent the lone glass of water sliding to the end of the tray and it launched its contents straight for Ranma who closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. “Oh my, thank you! It’s so nice to not have to clean up the mess from yet another spill in the house.”
Hearing Kasumi’s exclamation, Ranma opened one eye. He followed that action with opening them both in amazement to see a small white cloud floating before him and Fluttershy’s outstretched hoof was touching it. Gently flapping her wings Fluttershy fluttered her way over to the glass of water and squeezed the cloud out over it once it was back in an upright position.
“There we go, no harm done.” Fluttershy said calmly having stopped one of Ranma’s poorest kept secrets from being discovered with her quick actions. She gave the glass over to Bonnie who took a sip from it before popping a dumpling into her mouth and crunching it loudly.
“Kasumi, did that just seriously happen?” Ranma was in quite a daze at having not been splashed with cold water, he had yet to tell Bonnie or Fluttershy of his major problem that continued to go unsolved. In fact he had been skirting the issue until it came up on its own like it usually had with everyone he met. When it had an opportunity to cause problems, Miss Shy just reached out and stopped it cold. The water hadn’t hit him and it was returned to the glass from whence it came and then passed off like it was nothing.
“I believe it did. Isn’t it nice to not have to mop the floor for a change? You and your friends are always getting everything so messy; it’s nice that you have some civilized friends for once.” Comparatively civilized in comparison to all the troublemakers Kasumi had to stay tranquil around on a daily basis, it was hard for her to hold back on giving them a stern talking to. Not that a stern talking would have stopped their antics, much to Kasumi’s unspoken and silent lament. “Oh, have you told them about your curse yet?”
“You have a curse? Well it couldn’t have been worse than the curse I had; you look perfectly okay to me Ranma-san.” Fluttershy had managed to use the polite verbiage and got a nod from Bonnie who was enjoying the dumplings.
“What do you mean when you say you had a curse?” Ranma’s interest in Fluttershy had skyrocketed upon hearing that she had been cursed.
“Eh, she looked like she was halfway twisted bat before the curse was stripped of her… of course curing herself of it had some unusually interesting side effects. The temporary one was the inability to feel much emotionally except for happiness, the lasting power depends on the size of the person and how powerful they are as far as I can guess. Fluttershy spent almost two days stuck like that.” Judging by the way he was looking at the pony Bonnie could tell he was interested. “The other side effect was a little more permanent and is running around somewhere with a puppy and a magical bat that personally knows the guy who cured her. At the time Fluttershy was bleeding and her curse kind of physically manifested into a child, hers to be specific.”
“It’s probably the best thing to happen to me since I left my home planet; my little Soft Echo is so adorable. I’m just glad she’s not as clingy as the curse was, oh and she’s a fruit vampire. She gets so cute when she sinks her tiny little fangs into some fruit and starts sucking away at it.” Fluttershy could go on like a real mother for once instead of listening to other ponies talk about their children.
“Yeah, the little ankle biter is admittedly cute and soft, sometimes I think she might be a bit too snuggly. Nothing wrong with that though.” Normally Bonnie would be iffy around children, especially after what happened with Lilo, but Soft Echo was hard to be nervous around because she was so friendly like her exquisite looking mother.
“How powerful was this guy that broke Flutter-san’s curse?” Ranma had a vested interest in anything that could possibly break his curse, even if it ended up with him having a sister or a daughter of his own.
“He was really quite powerful for his stature. He healed all my wounds, cleared some kind of pain causing poison from my body and helped out my slightly frayed mind. Even then I’m still quite under a lot of stress and this tea is really helping with that, does it have honey and mint in it by any chance?” Fluttershy got a nod from Kasumi before she turned back to Ranma. “If you want to know where he lives we could have someone come give you a ride to him, he lives in New York and so does our magical bat friend. She can help introduce you to him when you’re done helping us. So what is your curse? It doesn’t look very visible or disfiguring.”
“I change gender when I get hit with cold water and turn back with hot water; I also think it causes me to attract water to myself like a magnet. You said he can also help with mental issues? Maybe I can get over my fear of… you know, the furry devils with the claws.” Ranma didn’t want to say the C word and Kasumi gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder in understanding; she was always nice to him even if she didn’t particularly hold any romantic feelings for him. He had very few friends who were girls that didn’t take some kind of violent psychopathic romantic interest in him. Maybe this was his chance to finally get rid of his curse for good, but he wouldn’t bet on it.
-
“Come on, work damn it, Helios Halo!” Donnabelle traced a ring of bright burning light into the air with one of her digits and then she placed the palm of her right paw at the center of the ring of light. She sent the halo of light spiraling downrange by swiping her paw forward to launch the attack.
The attack hit the waiting large daikon dead center while being completely vertical and sawed into it slightly before dissipating. The vegetable didn’t seem to take much damage from the attack and it had been wedged into the ground slightly by Donnabelle so she could use it for target practice. They were currently in a daikon field after having finished shopping for graphic novels.
“Well that was better than last time when it exploded in your face; maybe you should try a different technique?” Foxglove had no idea why the puppy was so intent on learning to do a violent attack with such angelic properties. She was watching over the bag of manga Donna had acquired and Soft Echo seemed to be entirely content with just watching her puppy do neat tricks.
“You never know when you might need to cut something completely in half while melting it. Besides I paid for some time to practice my stuff and talked it out with that Hideki guy, plus it’s entertaining to the little tick.” Speaking of the filly, Donna frowned when the filly touched the Daikon and jumped back quickly putting her hoof in her mouth while whimpering. Walking up to the Daikon she could see a thin layer of steam coming off of it. She lifted up the daikon; she handled the heat far better than Soft Echo did. “Hey, I cooked it! Foxglove, could you do some kind of soothing magic spell on the ticks hoof or something? Her crying is annoying.”
Foxglove was immediately up to the challenge and managed to heal the slight burn. Should Donna perfect that attack, she didn’t think there would be anything left by anyone who was hit by it. It was rather sweet that Donna cared for Soft Echo while trying to pretend that she didn’t.
-
After their snack at the Tendo home and dojo, Fluttershy and Bonnie were once again by led by Ranma to the place where the convention was being held. Aside from passing two giant robots beating the crap out of each other a block over, two girls in a deadly sword fight, a pig that transformed into a pig themed car, two people running down the street firing rocket launchers at each other constantly, the blue mechanical humanoid figure she saw once before flying overhead with the propeller attached to the top of its head and what looked like a yeti calmly walking down the sidewalk, it had been relatively uneventful.
Well uneventful in consideration to the reaction of every human on the street to everything going on around them, they really didn’t seem to care about what was going on at all. Sometimes the people avoided falling debris or ran out of the way of something dangerous before continuing on like normal, aside from that they treated everything as if it were just another day.
“It must really be a slow day today for everyone; usually I’d see at least three yokai, a small dragon and be attacked by at least one of my fiancés out of the blue at this point.” Even Ranma was a bit lazy about it all. In fact everyone seemed to be taking everything in stride. “Hey when we find this ‘find it’ guy of yours and the rest of your group can I show you a nice place to eat for lunch?”
“I’d hate to see what your definition of fast actually is. Once we can get our whole group back together I’m good with lunch.” Bonnie was still watching the two giant robots fight in interest, one had a giant energy sword and the other one was firing a massive amount of missiles at it.
They had reached the place where the convention was taking place without any trouble, though Fluttershy was slightly perturbed by the things they had seen on the way.