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Chapter Eleven
Ranma slowly opened her eyes her mind cloudy and her memory Swiss cheese. She looked around and found herself in a room she didn't recognize. She bolted upright, then just as quickly fell back holding her head a low moan escaped her lips. A cool compress was placed on her head and she turned her head slowly a wince distorting her features. As she looked into the golden eyes of Raistlin Majere.
Ranma gasped slightly at what she saw in the usually guarded eyes. She could have sworn she had seen pain, disgust, and pity flicker across the hour glass shaped orbs. In a move that reminded her of Nabiki the emotions fled from the golden mage and became cold and compassionless.
"You, Ryoga and Mousse will have no recollection of what happened to you. I
already talked with them and they only remember us leaving the three of you in
the inn. What do you remember?" Raistlin asked the girl laying on his
bed,
guarded hope flashing quickly in his eyes.
Ranma closed her eyes and a jumble of memories coursed through her
brain.
Disjointed images of lives she hadn't led, of pains she never felt.
Ranma opened her eyes as one memory stood out. A memory she was afraid to think
of and more importantly afraid to believe. She slowly turned and looked at the
mage next to her, the pain that filled his eyes confirmed what she feared.
"That bastard locked me as a female didn't he?" Raistlin was surprised she remembered any of what happened in the alley but nodded.
"He gave Ryoga and Mousse some herbs in a clear liquid. He told them..told them something about pain." Raistlin's eyebrow arched as he watched Ranma trying to remember.
"Did you take any Ranma?" Ranma slowly shook her head, then her eyes widened.
"He threw his ale at me and I swallowed some of it, not a lot but some." Ranma looked to her friend her eyes shining with tears she refused to let fall.
"Ryoga and Mousse had the potion full strength they don't even remember how they got to their rooms. I suspect yours was in the ale and thus diluted. He must have wanted all the magic from your curses. He needed you immobile so that he could steal yours as well." Raistlin said as he shook his head slightly.
"I suspect from your memories that all the drugs and potions people have forced down you, your resistance to them is fairly strong. Coupled with the fact that he weakened your dose. It allowed you to get free easier. You will however have memory lapses but the fact you do remember some may help the rest of your memory to return eventually." Raistlin told the girl as she laid on the bed staring at the ceiling.
"Then all of you have seen my life?" Ranma asked quietly not really wanting to know the answer.
"Yes, just as you and the others have seen ours, but only I and Caramon remember it. I have already told him not to tell the others, for like me I know you hate pity." Ranma nodded and smiled slightly at him.
Ranma turned her head back to stare at the ceiling. Raistlin paused momentarily before going on. A scowl crossed his young face as images of the life Ranma led filtered through his mind. His golden eyes raged with fire turning them a coppery color as the images of the Neko-ken crossed behind his eyes. They were followed by a sardonic smile as Raistlin pictured the tortures he would put the bastard through if he ever met him (sorry censored, way to violent even for me).
"Ranma do you remember why you three decided to allow the black mage to remove your curse instead of waiting for me?" Raistlin asked a slight bit of hurt crept into his voice.
Ranma closed her eyes searching her fragmented memory, trying to piece together as much as she could. Pictures flashed through her mind like snap shots in time. They were incomplete and out of sequence but she tried to put together what Raistlin had wanted to know.
"I don't know?" She finally said sweat pouring down her face.
"I only remember I didn't trust him, and..and I think I tried to keep them from letting him help them. I remember feeling the evil coming from him." She told her friend as she looked out the room's only window at the foot of the bed.
"I see, I can believe that you probably did try to stop them. From your memories your encounter with badly cast magic and failed cures tended to make you more cautious." Raistlin told her as he rubbed his chin.
BANG, BANG, BANG!
Raistlin looked at the door an angry flush on his face. Ranma cringed and grabbed her head at the loud noise. Raistlin patted Ranma's shoulder then covered her up. He got up to answer the door. In front of him stood another redhead this one angry. Her green eyes flashing. Caramon stood behind her pleading for forgiveness, Raistlin was sure.
"Where is she!" Tika asked her voice cold as she looked into the room.
She surveyed the Majere room for her quarry. Her eyes fell on the lump in the bed its breathing smooth and relaxed. Tika barged into the room and went up to the bed. She quickly gave Ranma-chan a cursory examination. Ranma stared at her confusion in her sapphire blue eyes and embarrassment reddening her face.
"She will be moved to mine and Laurana's room we can not have a young girl in a room with two men." Tika told them as she stood up her hands on hips.
"HEY!" Tika ignored Ranma's outburst, Raistlin tired to hide his smile.
"I am afraid that won't be possible. Do not forget girl that Ranma is a
boy
in a woman's body!" Raistlin told the angry redhead who wouldn't budge.
"SHE is now a girl and we will teach her to be a girl!" Tika told the mage a smug look on her face.
"LIKE HELL YOU WILL!" The outburst finally drew their attention to the other redhead.
"I AM A GUY! I WILL NOT LEARN TO BE A GIRL! AS SOON AS RAISTLIN REMOVES THE JUSENKYO MAGIC I WILL BE A BOY AGAIN!" Ranma-chan screamed as loud as she could to get her point a crossed.
"You didn't tell her did you?" Tika accused the red mage.
"Not yet but it seems my brother told you when it was not his place to do
so"
Raistlin glared at his brother who looked guiltily back at his younger
brother then over to Ranma.
"Tell me what?" Ranma asked confusion on her face.
Raistlin looked hard at Caramon who nodded. He came up and putting his hands on Tika's shoulders pushed her gently out the door. Tika struggled not wanting to leave the two alone, but Caramon would not let her reenter the room. Raistlin pointed to the bed and he sat down on the one across from it. Ranma sat on the bed her legs crossed as she stared at him, her head tilted to one side.
"Ranma do you remember any of what happened when the black mage started to cast the spell." Ranma looked at the golden skinned mage her mind sorting through her mental snap shots.
"I remember a fireball, lots of pain and a ball of blue yellow and
green"
Ranma looked at her friend a small smile on her face.
"Yes, well ah..um!" Raistlin tried to remember the mage's name from the shared memories.
"Dargus!" Was all Ranma said, Raistlin nodded.
"Well Dargus was about to blast you with a spell and I stopped him with a fireball. It caused the Jusenkyo magic to collide with you. Ranma we don't think the magic can be removed, not without your death. It also locked you in your female form there is no why for you to turn back." Raistlin sat staring at the dumb struck girl sadness for some reason he still couldn't fathom filled his heart.
"Ranma there is more!" The redhead looked at him not sure if she wanted any more news today.
"You understand with my eyes all I see is decay do you remember." Ranma nodded a vague memory of that curse being laid on the mage.
"When we first met and I looked at you and your frie..companions, in your cursed form you had no sign of decay as they didn't either. In your true forms Ryoga and Mousse showed signs of decay but it was still not as it should be. As the decay tried to take over them a white light would flare and stop some of it but not all. I would guess they would live almost as long as two maybe three elves." Ranma stared at the man before her, her mind absorbing all this information.
"You however when the light flared the decay vanished completely." Raistlin finished his eyes trained on the redhead before him.
"Then something has changed hasn't it?" Ranma asked her voice small and uncertain.
"Yes it has. Even though the magic of their cures have been removed. I can detect trace amounts still with in them. This must be because of the length for which they had the cures. There is not enough for them to change but it is enough to effect them. I dare say if either fell into a spring now the new form would be their permanent body." Ranma looked at the only true friend she had her eyes wide with shock.
"Ryoga and Mousse will still live longer then average lives, though they are starting to show decay and there is no white light to fight it back. They may now live the life expectancy of a single elf. You however..!" Raistlin paused unsure if he should go on.
"I however, what?" She asked him her eyes flashing in the candle light of the room.
Raistlin looked at the girl as her icy tone ran through his body. No longer
was there any white glow fighting the decay for there was no decay left to
fight.
Her entire body was shrouded by the white light. Sometimes it was so
bright Raistlin could not look at her. He sighed and explained what he now saw.
Ranma listened patiently nodding at what she was being told.
When Raistlin finished Ranma rose and walked to the window. She looked back at her friend then jumped out the window. Raistlin ran to the window a scream escaped his lips as he looked down but did not see his friend. He then looked up to and saw her hopping from roof to roof as she headed out of town.
"We have secured Genma. He can not leave until I release him." Cologne told the others as she returned to the main room of the Nekohanten.
"I am afraid my husband as finally done something even Soun will not forgive him for." Nodoka shook her head, her eyes filled with pain.
"Yes true, but that will be taken care of later tonight. Right now we need to try and reach son-in-law." Cologne told them as she placed an old chest on the table.
"I do not know if there is a time displacement where they went but if there is it should not cause the spell any problems." She told them as she rooted around in the chest.
"I do not know how long you will have to talk to son-in-law so tell him what you have to say and say it quickly." The elder continued as she sat up candles, a small burner and small metal bowl in the center of the table.
Shampoo came in carrying a tray of an array of herbs and spices she sat then
down next to her great grandmother. An eight inch fighting knife on the tray
also. Cologne sorted through the small bottles organizing them for easy
access.
She then began her preparations.
The assembled group watched as Cologne placed the fragments of the artifact into the bowl with some of the spices and herbs. Shampoo lit the candles as Cologne began to crush the mixture together in the bowl. She then picked up the knife and making a slice across her palm she let some of her blood flow into the mixture.
She then began to glow and her aura of ice blue closed the wound before the eyes of the Takashi's and their wayward daughter. She then held out her hand to Nodoka who looked at it with confusion.
"For the spell to work it needs some of the caster's blood as a magical
catalyst. It needs your blood to use it as a tracking device to locate
son-in-
law. The panda has already made his donation." Cologne smiled like a
shark on a feeding frenzy.
She pulled a vial from her robes filled with the dark red liquid of life from Genma Saotome. Nodoka nodded and held out her hand. Cologne made a slash across her palm and let her blood flow into another vial. When the small receptacle was full she pressed some of Nodoka's shiatsu points to slow the flow of blood and speed her healing.
Nodoka and her family watched the Amazon as she placed a dressing mirror of extreme age on the table. It was square and they could tell hand made. It had a dark oak frame with dragons carved around it. The mirror was three feet tall and two feet wide. The mirror was attached to a stand so that it could sit freely on any flat surface.
Nodoka's mother pulled up a chair next to her daughter on her left and her father placed one on Nodoka's right for the elder then placed his behind his wife. It bothered the Takashi patriarch that he must take this position, but he also understood the Amazon's matriarchal society. After all an international business conglomerate must understand all his customers.
Cologne placed the burner and small metal bowl of her blood, herbs and spices in front of the mirror then took her seat. She then added Nodoka's and Genma's blood to the mixture. The group then listened as she began chanting over the mixture with arcane words they could not understand. They watched as she took a long sliver of bamboo and lit it from one of the candles. She then lit the mixture.
A flash of flame shot up then a cloud of gray smoke with red tinge billowed from the bowl. It clung to the front of the mirror. They watched as the gray smoke moved over the surface of the mirror as though it were alive. They all gasped as an image began to appear in the mirror. The first thing they noticed was the bright red hair as the image began to clear.
Ranma finally stopped running when she reached a clearing in the forest surrounding Kadesh. She jumped up into the nearest tree and rose in its branches until she was hidden from anything blow her. She sat on a fairly heavy branch. She took a deep breath but refused to cry. She would not allow that bastard the satisfaction.
She sat on the branch her head bowed her hands clenched into fists in her
lap.
Her hands so tightly clenched that her knuckles were white and her nails
dug into her hands cutting open her palms allowing them to bleed unchecked.
She leaned her head back against the tree and looked up into the sky. She stared at the constellation of the scale for Gilean, the only God still in Krynn's sky and the God of neutrality. As she stared at the stars her eyes fell to two of the moons of Krynn. Lunitari and Solinari. Nuitari only being seen by those of Dargaus' ilk.
She watched as the two moons moved through the sky looking like they were almost touching. She remembered Raistlin telling her about soon how the two moons will overlap and would look like a pupil less eye.
She slowly closed her eyes as exhaustion and stress over took her. Her head leaning against the tree trunk. The two moons light covering her like a blanket in the night. A faint glow of black laid on top of the red and white light of the other two moons.
The three moons illuminated the area when their glow on Ranma was suddenly blocked as a ball of grayish smoke tinged with red formed in front of her. The smoky ball darkened and began to solidify as it hung suspended in the air in front of the dosing martial artist.
Ranma's mind was a jumbled mess and disjointed images of what happened in the alley flashed through her dreaming mind. Memories of those she left behind as she slept precariously perched in the tree. Her subconscious mind speaking to her in her mother's voice.
"Ranma!" The voice brought forth the image of her mother. Ranma stretched her hands toward the image in her mind.
"Ranma, dear wake up!" Ranma's dream took her home to her own room in the Saotome house.
Her mother trying to get her to rise for school. A soft sad smile played on the lips of the sleeping girl. As in her dream she jumped up and hugged her mother tightly and her mother returned the much needed embrace.
"RANMA!" Ranma's eyes snapped open as she nearly fell from the tree.
Her eyes unfocused she stared at the coalescing smoke before her. Her eyes widened as the image of her mother appeared before her. She slowly reached out with her bloody hand toward the image. Her mother's cut still bleeding hand reaching for her child's.
"Mom? Is that you?" The redhead asked her hand stopping a mere inches from suspended ball of gray smoke.
"Yes dear it is, but we don't have much time the magic won't last long." Ranma sighed deeply as she nodded slowly.
"Where are you son?" Nodoka asked her parents looking at their grandchild with confusion.
"I..We are on a planet called Krynn. A planet of magic and dragons and
war"
Ranma told her mother her eyes showing the signs of the battles she had
already fought.
"Then the Hibiki boy and Mousse are with you?" Nodoka asked the petite girl.
"Yeah their here." She answered dejectedly.
"Son, listen to me we are going to try and find a way home for the three of
you but you need to find a way to communicate with us so we can open the
portal"
Nodoka told her child, Ranma started shaking her head.
"I have nothing to come back to mom. I..I am stuck as a girl thanks to Ryoga and Mousse's stupidity, plus they won't let me come back." Ranma hung her head unable to look at the shock in her mother's face.
"Son-in-law how did you get stuck? Quickly tell me I might be able to help you undo it." Ranma raised at the voice of the old mummy.
Ranma told her of the black mage and what happened as she could remember it. As well as from what Raistlin had filled in for her. Cologne nodded her eyes alight with anxious greed and curiosity. She then looked up at Ranma and her eyes narrowed.
"Son-in-law, tell Mousse if he comes back I will kill him on the spot. For not only stealing that artifact which had a death penalty on it but for consorting with an evil source and allowing it to harm another." Cologne's eyes flashed and Ranma could tell she meant it.
"NO! YOU CAN'T!" Ranma's eyes stared wide with shock.
"You ask me to set aside his punishment even though he will betray you in the end?" The elder asked as she looked at the confused martial artist.
"I don't want to be responsible for his death. Please can't you just banish him or something?" Cologne's eyes narrowed as she was about to turn the young girl down, when Nodoka held up a parchment.
"We side with Elder Saotome in this Elder Cologne and as the majority here in Japan the death penalty is revoked." Nodoka ignored the shock gasp that came from her child.
"You are weak, to show mercy to one who does not deserve it." Cologne told them while shaking her head in disgust.
"No elder we show mercy to one who made a stupid mistake, but we do not stop you from issuing another punishment." Cologne's eyebrow shot up then she nodded in agreement.
"I agree then, from this moment on Mousse is no longer an Amazon and with his return will begin his banishment." Cologne told the group before her as she turned back to see a stunned Ranma.
"Elder Saotome I will try to figure a way to release you from the combined magic of the curses. I am afraid however your friend is correct if you try to remove it the same way as before you will die." Cologne told her, the shock falling from the redhead's eyes.
Ranma opened her mouth to ask more questions her mind a jumble of
confusion.
When she noticed the others beginning to fade. She shot forward
toward the swirling smoke her bloody palm touching the surface.
"MOM! DON'T GO PLEASE MOM, I NEED YOU! DON'T LEAVE ME AGAIN!" Her cry tore at Nodoka's heart as she leaned forward placing her bloody palm on the smoke covered mirror against her child's palm.
"NO!" Was all Cologne got out before the mirror exploded in flash of grayish red light.
The explosion knocked the three elders back from the table. Keitaro catching his wife while his eldest son caught his sister. Cologne just flipped in midair and landed solidly on the top of her staff.
She stared at the destroyed mirror sadness at the loss of a family
heirloom.
Her eyes are then drawn to a strange glow of grayish red. She
turned to see Nodoka's family stare down at her with worry. Nodoka's right hand
was glowing with a grayish red light. Cologne pogoed over to her and took her
hand into hers. She examined it carefully. Small bolts of lightning coursed over
hers and Nodoka's hands as the glow slowly began to fade. The shark like smile
on her face made the Takashi family very nervous.
A bright light flashed as a percussion wave of air slammed her back against
the tree. Her head mashed into the trunk. The cracking sound filled the
grove.
She fought to stay awake as she slowly began to fall from the tree.
Ranma grasped out to grab the tree branch to steady herself but missed
calculated as her mind went black and she toppled over to fall from the tree.
Caramon followed his brother as Raistlin ran from the inn. The worry on his
baby brothers face scared him. He had never known his brother to care so much
for someone else. He shuddered as memories of Ranma's life came back to
him.
In a way much of her life similar to Raistlin's. They both in some ways
were the victims of others and were mostly alone.
Caramon followed Raistlin from the town and into the nearby woods. He
wondered how the red mage knew where to go. It was like he knew right where to
look.
Raistlin never hesitated but kept moving almost as if he didn't
something bad would happen.
The two Majere men drew closer to a clearing. Caramon thought he could hear voices coming from within the grove of trees. When he heard the anguished wail of Ranma asking his mother not to leave him. Caramon shuddered as he remembered the death of his own mother.
They entered the grove just as the bright grayish red flash exploded near one of the trees. They heard the explosion of air as the light winked out. Raistlin turned at the sound of rustling leaves and a soft grunt. He spotted a small glow of grayish red and headed toward it.
Caramon followed him toward a tree and the two looked up to see a gray red light falling toward them. In Raistlin's greenish light Caramon just made out the falling body of a young girl. He was about to push his brother away so he could try to catch the girl but was stunned instead.
When Raistlin however pushed him back as he took a position under the falling girl his staff balanced on its end as it waited for its master's hand to return to it. Caramon was in shock as his weaker brother pushed him away and he actually felt the strength behind the shove.
Caramon stared in awe at his brother, unable to understand where this new strength came from. He watched with widened eyes as Raistlin reached up and grabbed the falling body of Ranma Saotome as she fell from the tree. He watched as the dead weight of the girl hit his brother and they both collapsed to the ground.
Raistlin struggled to sit up holding an unconscious Ranma in his arms. He
began looking for injuries when his eyes were drawn to her left hand. He reached
out and to touch the still glowing gray red hand. He quickly pulled his hand
away.
When small bolts of lightning arced toward his hand.
He felt strong magic but not of his world. He reached out again and this time allowed the small bolts to strike at his golden hand. There was no pain, though the gasp from Caramon made Raistlin realize it looked painful to him.
"It is alright brother I am in no danger." Raistlin insured his brother quietly, before the big man did something stupid.
As the lightning swarmed around his hand he felt the power weakening. He smiled evilly as he pushed a small amount of magic through the glowing gray red light surrounding Ranma's hand. His smile broadened as the grayish red glow split in half and covered his hand as well.
He watched with fascination as the glow slowly absorbed into both his and Ranma's hand. He then felt the connection. His eyes widened as he felt the strong presence of a woman. One who was worried about the young girl in his arms. He started to rise when he felt the other. A strong willed woman of great age but her connection not as strong.
Raistlin looked down at the girl in his arms. A knowing smile appeared on his face. A look of anticipation in his eyes. For he was like Ranma with a new martial arts technique, Raistlin smiled a cocky grin as he realized he had a new source of magic to work with.