//------------------------------// // Karma is a... // Story: My Little Sphinx - A Wild Pony in Equestria side story // by Tangent //------------------------------// My Little Sphinx A Ranma ½ - My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Crossover Insertion By Tangent *O o O o O* CHAPTER ONE: Karma is a… Where was Ranma? Admittedly, this question was at the top of many lists among members of a certain population in Nerima. The boy had been missing for the better part of four days now, which might have been taken for a training trip, as he had taken several of similar duration since he first move in with the Tendo family with his father. The only problem with that assumption was that he usually left a note and at least tried to take his camping gear if he could. Granted, sometimes if there was a big fight or an adventure, he wouldn’t have time, but such events seldom affected Ranma in isolation to anyone else, and nobody else had heard of anything else going on. The Amazon contingent didn’t have Ranma, or they would have been long gone, as he was the only one tying the three to Nerima in the first place. Not that suspicion didn’t fall on them anyway, but there was plenty of suspicion to go around, what with the other rivals for Ranma’s affections and general animosity among those objecting to those goals. There was one person did have a rough idea what had happened to the boy. Largely because he was the cause of Ranma’s disappearance, but he had honestly thought that the boy would have made it back by now if it were possible to return. Then again, Happosai never had told Ranma where he was sending him. Or that he was sending Ranma anywhere at all… But really, catching the boy napping peacefully on a random rooftop had been such a stroke of luck that Happosai simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity! And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tucked the instructions on how to get back in one of the lad’s pockets. The boy should have found and read the note by now, especially since it was folded in such a way as to make it noticeably bulky, just like that piece of litter over there… … Happosai took note of where he was, and grew agitated when he realized that he was in the alley next to the building he had found Ranma on. Picking up the folded notepaper, he opened it up and realized that, yes, it was the same note he had tried to send with Ranma. Oh, Hells. The poor boy probably had no idea what had happened to him during his nap. Given the description Happosai had found on the strange set of scrolls he had… liberated… during one of his excursions, the boy most likely believed he had died and ascended to a happy afterlife! Dammit! How was Happosai supposed to find out if the spell he had found that would send someone to the Everfree, a mystical land where clothing was entirely optional, was a trap or not if Ranma didn’t know how to come back? He knew that Ranma would at least try to come back to Nerima (which was the primary reason Happosai had chosen him to test the spell in the first place). The boy was too stupidly tied to his commitments in Nerima to stay away. If only Happosai could remember exactly where he had liberated the scrolls from in the first place. Then it would be a simple matter of going back and either finding additional records for a more complete picture, or terrorizing the original owner until he had enough information to work with. The main problem with this solution was that he was pretty sure that he had picked it up sometime during the time he had spent overseas after the oni incident. The American authorities were far less tolerant of his leisure activities, far more willing to share information about him among different jurisdictions, and far too ready to express their displeasure with him at gunpoint. And, as it turned out, all too happy to dump their problem with him on the F.B.I. once he had jumped state borders. So, no, Happosai wasn’t quite desperate enough to try sneaking back into a foreign country that willing to put a stop to an old man’s harmless fun. Which was why he had used Ranma to test the portal spell in the first place. That, and he thought that the boy could use a brief vacation from the poisonous relationships he had with his so-called friends and family in Nerima. Perhaps Happosai should leave the boy in the land of the Everfree? He’s likely live longer that way, or at least pick up a proper appreciation for the pretty ladies… Dammit, no! Happosai was not about to let Genma’s stubborn whelp get what should rightfully be his reward! At least, not without confirming that the pretty ladies were actually there in the first place, and that they actually considered clothing to be optional. Besides, while Ranma might be too much of a stick in the mud for his tastes, he was actually the best option for an heir that Happosai currently had for the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. He was getting too old to want to wait for his idiot students to train up another one to worthwhile levels. Especially since Genma’s success with Ranma had to be a fluke! Really, a ten year training trip away from a doting wife, or any chance for his son to actually get to know Soun’s daughters? Sure, training trips were important, but ten years? Away from civilization, pretty ladies, and public bathhouses? At least Soun had the sense to stay home, even if he had done a half-assed job training his youngest daughter. Genma had moved Ranma around so much that the poor boy hadn’t even known that the only friend he had managed to make during the trip had been a girl! And even worse, had failed to pick up on the fact that Ukyo was a girl when she found him as a teenager? How had Ranma become the martial arts prodigy he was without being able to pick up on important things like that? Chest binding only hid so much after all, no matter how familiar Ukyo was with the role. Mid to late teens was pushing the limits of her ability to successfully pull off her ‘boy’ act without specialized training. Ranma should have been able to pick up on any number of little clues, such as how Ukyo had to suppress the sway of her hips when she moved, or the lower center of balance revealed in her combat stance. How could Ranma read combat intent well enough to avoid attacks as well as the lad could without picking up more about the rest of how body language worked? Okay, maybe the boy did deserve a bit of a vacation in order to get away from his idiot father. Hopefully, four days in the land of barely clad Pretty Ladies would be enough to loosen him up some. And even if it wasn’t, Happosai had no intention of leaving his only viable heir behind when he left this world. Genma? Perhaps, but Happosai have to make sure that the man knew not to turn this into another sorry excuse for a training trip. Happosai had no desire to wait around ten more years for that to happen. Ultimately, Happosai just needed someone who would stay focused on actually bringing his heir back to Nerima. Actual skill in the art was secondary, or perhaps even unnecessary as the Everfree sounded pretty much like an iconic example of a peaceful paradise without any significant dangers. After all, why else would the whole realm consider clothing to be entirely optional unless their were no dangers, and thus no violence? Great, now Happosai had to think of someone who would choose to send his heir back, even if they ultimately decided to stay themselves. That shortened the list considerably, but he still had some candidates in mind. Maybe? Yes… Yes, Happosai had just the person in mind for the mission… *O o O o O* During the brief time it took Happosai to locate and approach the candidate he had decided on, Rainbow Dash and Wild Apple had recovered enough from their respective injuries that an appropriate time was scheduled for their public award ceremony, to be held at Ponyville's Town Hall. *O o O o O* “So let me get this straight,” Nabiki spoke as she glanced over the page Happosai had given her. “You sent Ranma to some place called ‘The Everfree’ something or other, a mystical land where clothing is supposedly entirely optional, which may or may not be in another world, and he lost the instructions on how to return. Even though you sent him over there while he was sleeping, without bothering to tell either him or anyone else what you were doing.” “Okay, okay,” the diminutive old man grumbled. “When you say it like that, I guess I can’t really blame Ranma too much for being irresponsible enough to lose the instructions.” “That you so thoughtfully tucked loosely into his pocket without waking him up,” Nabiki commented as she neatly folded and refolded the paper until it was roughly the size of an index card. “Exactly! He’s the irresponsible one for losing it in the first place!” “The mind boggles…” Nabiki pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration as she used her other hand to discretely tuck the note down the front of her sleeveless blouse and into something she normally considered to be just a bit more secure than a pocket. “And now you want to send me after him. By myself. Unprotected.” “How dangerous can the place be if they don’t wear clothes all that often?” Happosai countered. “Oh, I don’t know. Ranma hasn’t returned, or even contacted us, after four days. Sounds plenty iffy to me.” “Take your camera! I bet you’ll make tons of money from the pictures you’d be able to sell!” “Well, there is that,” Nabiki admitted, pulling her camera out of her desk drawer and checking the film counter before setting it and a couple of extra rolls of film on top of her desk. “I still want a bodyguard or some way to defend myself before I agree to be sent over. I am out of practice after all.” “Okay, fine,” Happosai grumbled as he reached into his shirt and pulled something out, tossing it to Nabiki. The skeptical girl caught the object easily and started examining it. Whatever it was, it was made of stone, attached to a leather cord, and was mostly feline shaped. “It’s a cat. With boobs. And a sort of human face.” The eyes of which appeared to be made from some sort of green gems. Not that Nabiki said anything about those. “What’s this supposed to do?” Nabiki asked dubiously. “Trigger Kitty-Boy’s Nekoken?” “Of course not!” Happosai huffed in irritation. “It’s an Amulet of the Guardian. Hold it tight whenever you’re in trouble and a sphinx is supposed to appear to guide you away from danger. I‘ve never been in enough danger to be able to trigger the darn thing myself of course,” he grumbled. “I’m just too damn good at defending myself to ever really need it. Ranma would also probably have some difficulty activating it, as skilled as he is. But it should be just the thing for someone like you.” “Yeah, I don’t think so. How about you get out of my room and find another patsy?” Nabiki waved a hand towards the door in a shooing motion, not bothering to hand back the talisman. Happosai had probably stolen the thing, and there might be a reward for returning it. Or it could prove valuable in its own right. Just how valuable depended on whether or not it was fake or authentic, and if it actually was enchanted. “Who said anything about your having any choice?” Happosai narrowed his eyes dangerously as he nudged the door shut. “Like it or not, you, Nabiki Tendo, are my best shot at either getting my heir back, or at least confirming what’s on the other side. So I’m sending you over now, before you cause any trouble!” The light in Nabiki’s room somehow got dimmer even though neither of them had touched the switch, and Nabiki could swear that she could just barely perceive a sort of negative aura seeming to boil off of the tiny old man. “Wait, what? You can’t!” Nabiki made a dash for her door, only to end up being poked in a few seemingly random spots as she attempted to dodge past him. “What… did… you… do?” she gasped weakly as the old man casually redirected her momentum so that she fell limply across her own bed. “Oh, nothing too serious,” Hopposai commented as he nonchalantly twirled the bra and panties he had just acquired for a moment, before tucking them into his shirt and pulling out a scroll. “Not even enough to trigger the talisman I gave you. Just a few pressure points to keep you complacent enough while I read the incantation. It’ll wear off shortly, but by that time, you’ll already be there.” “You’ll… never… get… away… with… this…” Nabiki struggled to get her body to do more than twitch here and there as Happosai read words aloud that she could only hear and promptly forget. Just barely, her left hand managed to close completely around the tiny stone sphinx as her room began to fade out of view. The last words she heard from Happosai before he and the world around him disappeared into formless mist was: “I already have, Nabiki. I already have…” *O o O o O* And in just that brief conversation had been enough time for the award ceremony honoring Rainbow Dash and Wild Apple to be over and done with. In fact, Twilight Sparkle had just witnessed Wild Apple's accidental transformation right as Nabiki completely faded from her room back in the Tendo compound. *O o O o O* Hapossai shrugged as he turned and left Nabiki’s room. While it had sounded cool, last minute gloating just wasn’t as fun if you weren’t sure the other person even heard you gloating. He idly wondered if Nabiki would manage to trigger the talisman to summon the cat-lady guardian spirit he had found out about shortly before deciding to… liberate… it into his possession all those years ago. As he had told the girl, he was just too damn good at defending himself to be able to trigger the darn thing himself under most circumstances, and the few times when it might have worked despite his being a martial arts grandmaster, he hadn’t had it with him. He never did notice the folded up sheet of paper, about the size of an index card, that had fallen to the floor as he had stolen Nabiki’s undergarments. In fact, it wouldn’t be until several hours later before the eldest Tendo sister, Kasumi, found it still laying there as she entered the room to put away Nabiki’s laundry. “Oh? What’s this?” she wondered out loud as she picked it up and unfolded it. If it was one of Nabiki’s homework assignments, she’d tuck it into the appropriate book. If it was something she felt that Nabiki was better off not getting into, she’d simply dispose of it discretely. Seeing that the paper was covered in Happosai’s illegible chicken-scratch handwriting, her decision was easy. “Into the burn pile with you!” Shortly thereafter, the paper met it’s fate in one of Soun Tendo’s ashtrays. Nabiki herself wasn’t missed by anyone until she failed to show up for dinner that evening. *O o O o O* Nabiki ran for all her worth, ignoring both the bitter cold of the deep snow and the effects of branches and thorns on her poor abused bare skin as she bobbed and weaved through the narrowest gaps she could find between the rocks and trees of this monstrous forest Happosai had sent her to. All the while barely staying ahead of the biggest, meanest, and ugliest lion-thing she had ever seen(1). She knew that she had been right in second-guessing his proposition. Just go through the portal with the instructions on how to return, fetch Ranma, and take as many pictures of the pretty pretty barely clad locals as she wanted, to either sell or blackmail Ranma with. It had seemed way too good to be true, and her gut feeling had been to try to back out of the deal, but the old pervert had sent her through anyway! He even stole her bra and panties in the process while he was at it. The very first thing that had gone wrong upon arrival (other than the fact that she had effectively been banished to wherever this was in the first place) was finding out that it was apparently in the middle of winter wherever she had ended up. As in snow up to her knees deep(2). And the only clothes she had on were the entirely insufficient short shorts and a sleeveless blouse. Checking for the note so she could send herself right back to her nice warm room proved to be fruitless, as it was missing. Not that it wouldn’t have taken Nabiki a good long while to read Happosai’s chicken-scratch handwriting anyway, but as far as she knew, it had been her only ticket home. And then some badly scarred lion-thing with bat wings and a scorpion tail had started chasing her through the deep snow and the occasionally thorny underbrush it hid. Fortunately, its injuries were slowing it down enough to allow Nabiki to stay ahead of it, if only just barely. Unfortunately, the threat was more than sufficient to trigger the amulet that Happosai had given her for her protection. This was bad because said protection took the form of turning her into a wingless sphinx, which really did a number on the remaining tatters of her meager clothes, already a mass of loosely connected rags and tatters from squeezing between nearly too tight spaces and entirely too close for comfort near misses from Mr. Kitty. On the other hand, she was no longer freezing and she was much faster now. A bit clumsy, perhaps, but definitely faster as she loped forward in an awkward series of four legged bounds. Annoyingly enough, on top of everything else, her now bare boobs jiggled and bounced painfully between her forelegs, brushing against the deep snow and the occasionally thorny underbrush that it lay hidden beneath its cold, powdery surface. “Dammit!” Nabiki cursed as she burst out of the underbrush(3) and into an open field overlooking rolling hills and no further cover to be seen, the sounds of the monster crashing through the same underbrush no where near far enough behind her. “Dammitdammitdammitdammit!” She sprinted across the field and down the hill for all she was worth, hoping to gain a little distance between her and the beast before it broke out of the forest as well. She ran… She tripped and tumbled down the hill… She rolled over in a panic, expecting her very last sight to be the gaping jaws of the beast closing over her head. Except that never happened. Instead, the heavily scarred manticore paced back and forth at the edge of the tree line, pacing back and forth at it looked about, but refusing to come out of the forest. Every now and then it would look at her in confusion, but never for very long. Eventually, it apparently gave up and wandered back into the forest. Nabiki was safe(4)… And she finally collapsed, physically and emotionally exhausted… *O o O o O* Meanwhile, the object of Nabiki's fetch quest, one Ranma Saotome (now going by the name Wild Apple after becoming an honorary member of the Apple family), was boarding the Friendship Express, bound for Canterlot. She (as the pony, Wild Apple) was rather bemused by the familiar way that what was supposed to be a small trip involving just her, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity and Sweetie Belle, had somehow expanded to include several other ponies as well. Most notable being Fluttershy, Big Mac, Granny Smith, Applebloom, Pinkie Pie, Ditzy Doo and her daughters, Sparkler and Dinky Doo. Oh, and Ponyville's mayor was also coming along for some reason. Doctor Stable tried to come as well, but was kicked off the train several times by various ponies. *O o O o O* The hungry sphinx plodded forward, trying to ignore the weight of her bare boobs as they rubbed and bumped together between her forelegs with every shaky step. Seriously, after who knew how long she had been away from civilization as a strange cat-girl thing with pathetic survival skills, she was starving to death. The last thing she remembered eating, more days ago than she could clearly remember, was an uncharacteristically aggressive white bunny - and the only reason she had even caught it was that it had tried to fight her instead of hopping away. Damn thing nearly won, too, which was embarrassing. The point being, while the weather had eventually warmed up, the sphinx had gradually wasted away with the melting snow. Her scraggly and matted fur now covered loose skin draped over too thin muscles. She could easily feel individual ribs whenever she rubbed a paw against them under her obnoxiously firm breasts that never seemed to shrink or get lighter. In fact, the sphinx was fairly certain that her magically buxom bosom was the only reason she had lived even this long, as her body apparently drew some sort of miniscule nourishment from it’s ever replenishing fat reserves. Not enough to keep her from starving though. Just enough to keep her from wasting away completely. The sphinx found herself imagining herself as a shriveled bag of mummified skin and boned with perfect boobs being found centuries later by some fossil hunter. They would end up in some laboratory as scientists poked, prodded, and dissected them, trying to unravel the secret of why they were still firm and voluptuous. And she would inexplicably feel every single bit of it from beyond the grave… The sphinx whimpered to herself and shook the vision from her head. Some variation of that imagine spot had haunted her ever since she had noticed the peculiarities involving her bosom remaining healthy while the rest of her was withering away. She was pretty sure she was becoming delirious from both the hunger and sleep deprivation because her nightmares were even worse than her waking hallucinations. It was getting harder and harder to think clearly… She barely even remembered her own name… Nab… Nabby something? Nibbles? Whatever. It didn’t matter any more. She cast it away with all the other irrelevant things in her head. As she wanted to cast aside her irritatingly heavy and sensitive boobs that just wouldn’t let her forget about them! A concerned voice drew her attention. Some blue horse thing with a horn on its head and a white mane and tail. She had vague recollections of hearing the language before, but in her hunger-maddened state she didn’t care. The nearly mindless creature that used to be Nabiki Tendo pounced! Only to collapse as a rope coiled itself around her body. She lost consciousness as her head hit the ground… *O o O o O* "Oh good, you're awake," The sphinx heard a somewhat arrogant voice speak as she shifted weakly on the hard wooden floor of... wherever she was. She was still a cat-thing, as far as she could tell, and still painfully hungry albeit nowhere nearly as badly as before. Her paws were wrapped in some sort of thick material her claws couldn't cut through, there was a muzzle around her mouth, and a thick rope connected a collar around her neck to a metal ring in the floor. A floor which her bare boobs were pressed uncomfortably against, even under the meager weight of her starvation emaciated body. Seriously, everything else seemed to have wasted away, so why hadn't her breasts? "...water..." "And you seem to have regained some level of rationality this time. Trixie was beginning to wonder," the blue unicorn stated calmly as she wrapped her bowl of thin warm broth (made from some sort of bird) in her aura and floated it over. "Slowly now. Trixie already spent a lot of time nursing you back to health, and Trixie does not want Trixie's efforts to be wasted. Especially after Trixie subdued you when you attacked Trixie in your hunger madness." "...sorry..." the sphinx rasped out a reply as she held her head unsteadily over the wooden bowl and slowly lapped up the thin broth. It was plain, unseasoned, and overcooked, but at that moment she thought that it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted... Annotations from the Journal of Nabiki the Sphinx: (1): I would not find this out until much much later, but this was probably the very same manticore that Wild Apple had fought off in Ponyville a few weeks before. Apparently it survived the experience. (2): The snow actually varied in depth quite a bit. On average, it was mostly knee deep, with occasional sections where it was up to my thighs or only ankle deep. And almost all of it was hiding some form of underbrush. I'm probably lucky that most of the hidden underbrush didn't actually have thorns, although the patches I stumbled through that did were painful enough. (3): I don't remember exactly when the last few remaining shreds of my clothes gave up the ghost, but I was pretty much completely naked by this point, and had been for a while. (4): For a given definition of "safe" anyway. Turns out that I had just crossed almost all the way across the regular ambush lane of a hibernating hydra. I am damn lucky that it didn't wake up. Mr. Kitty proved he was smarter than I was by deciding to stay out of it.