The Legend of Lin Ran
RNRPG: The Legend of Lin Ran
Started by: Happosai
A young and beautiful red haired girl stood over the bodies of two of her sister amazons. The bodies were freshly killed with the curved sword the young woman held in her hands. Tears flowed down here cheeks.
"Cabinet, and Jubilee.. Why did they send you after me. This would have been easy if it had been others, but they sent the only friends I had after me." She sobbed quietly for a moment. "Forgive me my friends, it was never supposed to come to this."
The young girl ran as fast as her athletic legs would carry her. She knew if the Amazons caught her, she would be killed. She ran until she couldn't run anymore, finally falling to her knees gulping as much air as she could.
Glancing about she noticed that she was at the cursed springs of Jusenkyou. This just proved how bad her luck was.. But maybe a cursed form would help her escape.
Before Lin ran could act on that thought, a dozen amazons stepped from their hiding places. The group was led by Per Fum and Khu Lon.
" You can run no longer outcast." Per Fum was speaking as was her right as tribal enforcer. "You have been found guilty of treason in the worse degree. The council has ruled that you are to die.. and die by the hands of the enforcer."
The amazons jumped forward, Lin Ran was too exhausted to put up much of a fight. They had her subdued within moments.
Per Fum grappled Lin Ran's limp body by the throat and drug her to a Jusenkyou spring. " You want Jusenkyou, you can have it for eternity!"
Lin Ran couldn't fight back. She felt the cool waters of Jusenkyou cover her head as she began to run out of air. Within moments her struggles ceased as she succumbed to oblivion.
****
Happosai screamed and jerked awake. That was one of the worse nightmares that he had ever had.
He or she at the moment looked around. She was in the Kitchen of 'Cures and curses'. She must have fallen asleep waiting for Silk and Perfume to close the shop.
Happi-Chan wiped cold sweat off of her brow and stood up. She knew that everyone in a 5 mile radius heard her scream.
It was funny, she could swear the girl in her dream was her Cursed form.
*****
Perfume was just closing out the register when she heard the scream. It seemed to come from the kitchen. "Silk-Chan didn't that sound like Happi? Do you think she needs help?"
Silk nodded, placed the last box of tea on the shelf and walked quickly into the back room, "Happi, are you ok?" she asked in concern.
Happi-Chan was still standing in the kitchen clutching her chest. "I had the worst nightmare, Silk-Chan." She seemed to straighten up and looked Silk right in the eyes.
"I was remembering my death.. a death at the hands of Per Fum" She spoke in a far away voice. "Where Am I?"
"Per fum?" Silk's eyes flicked from her friend Perfume to Happi-Chan. "You're in Japan, in Tokyo, in my shop kitchen. What's your name?" she asked pleasantly, giving Perfume a look that said 'play along'.
Perfume was a little confused but nodded to Silk. She was curious to know what Happi meant by his death at the hands of Per Fum.
"Japan?" Happi-Chan asked seemingly a little confused. " How did I end up in Japan? I died in Jusenkyou." She stared at Silk her eyes unmoving. " I am Lin Ran, outcast amazon warrior!"
Silk's eye widened slightly, "Lin ran, what was the emperor's name when you died? do you know?"
Brush walked in the Cures & Curses, intent on purchasing some herbs and such for mana-replenishing potions. She saw tears on Happi's face, and walked in and asked Silk, "What's going on?"
Lin Ran looked about seemingly rather confused. She had no idea how long it had been since she died. It took all of her willpower to finally find a way to free herself from the spring, and a good many years.
" The Amazons care not about the emperor." Lin Ran answered Silk Haughtily. " The Matriarch was Xian Pu, slayer of the vile black dragon."
She then noticed Brush and how similar her features were to her own. She looked from Brush to Silk to Perfume and realized that they were all Amazons.
"Have the Amazons taken over Japan?"
Rinse walked in carrying most of the bags from Brush's earlier stops to other stores. "Cousin Brush.. Rinse tired, we almost done?" He said as he dropped some bags accidentally then started to pick them up. He looked up as he noticed the other Amazons crowding around Happi Chan. "What wrong with Happi Chan?"
"Hello Rinse Chan, how are you doing today?" Perfume smiled sweetly at the younger Amazon. "It seems, Happi thinks she's an Amazon named Lin Ran."
"L-Lin Ran?" Rinse asked. "Rinse remember that name from Great grandmother Cologne. She told Rinse many stories... Rinse sure Lin Ran mentioned one time." Rinse tried to think of where he remembered the name but couldn't.
Perfume thought for a second. "Your right, Rinse Chan. That name is from our history." She was surprised she didn't think of it before, Amazon History was a specialty of hers. She begin going to her room.
"I'm going to check some of the writings I brought with me, Maybe i can find out who she is"
Lin Ran looked about in confusion. She didn't understand a word of Japanese. While the other amazons conferred with one another she had found the remote to the TV. Hitting the power button the TV came on loudly.
Lin Ran jumped back, surprised and in a fighting stance.
*****
Downstairs, Perfume was digging through some of her historical writings to se if she had a reference to Lin Ran. After a few minutes she found what she was looking for.
"Ah ha!" She smiled when she found the writing, then frowned when she read it closer.
"Lin Ran was drowned in Jusenkyou!" She ran back upstairs with her reference in her hands.
****
Lin Ran recovered and stared quizzically at the TV. "How little people get into box like that?"
She glanced uneasily at Perfume when she came back up. Something about that girl made her nervous.
"Those aren't real people." Silk explained, "A modern type of magic allows pictures of people in other places to be sent here and shown in the box. It's called a TV." Silk was thinking quickly... --How did Happosai end up with Lin Ran's conscienceless when the water I used on him was transported from Jusenkyou so long ago? he didn't even actually fall in the spring.-- the healer's palms suddenly itched for her mentor's old books on Jusenkyou.
Perfume motioned Silk and the others toward her, while Lin Ran was busy trying to understand the TV.
"Right here in the Amazon history scroll. It talks about the "treasonous Lin Ran" who tried to ally us with the Musk Dynasty. According to this, she was drowned in the pools of Jusenkyou, by the Tribal enforcer, Per Fum."
Brush looked over at Perfume. "Ok, that tells us who we're dealing with here. Now the question is, how did her soul wake up in Happi? The only way I know of for that to happen is if the mindset and personality of the person who fell in matches that of the person or creature who drowned there." Brush tapped her chin thoughtfully. "Maybe I should try a divination spell?"
"Magic is your specialty, history is mine." Perfume set too more ancient looking books on the table. "While your doing that, I'll see if I can find any references to something similar in the past."
Among Perfume's historical text, was one entitled, "Secrets of Jusenkyou."
Silk decided that it was her natural task to try to keep the girl from damaging anything or herself. "So, Lin Ran, are you hungry? would you like to try some modern food?"
Lin ran tilted her head slightly in Silk's direction, looking very confused. She didn't understand a word the healer said. " What are you saying?"
"Sorry, I forgot. It's been so long since I've spoken Chinese on a regular basis. Would you like something to eat?" Silk blushed, motioning towards the kitchen cupboards.
Lin Ran smiled at Silk, it had been a while since someone had been nice to her. "Yes, I would love some food. What are your friends trying to figure out?"
"They're trying to discover how you came to appear in Japan in our friend's body." Silk explained as she pulled a box of hot pocket clones out of the freezer. She took out two pockets and put them in the microwave they'd recently acquired, pushing the buttons for the time it indicated on the box. "Should only take a few moments to cook." silk smiled at Lin Ran, ignoring the slight shuddering of the microwave in her presence.
Brush had prepared her spell, and was about to cast it, but then she smelled...smoke? She looked at the microwave Silk had started. "Ummm....Silk...?" She said as she point towards the microwave.
" Is it supposed to do that?" Lin Ran wondered.
Perfume glanced up from the book she was studying, and noticed the microwave shuddering.
"Silk-Chan, the Microwave, it's going to explode again!"
Silk reached for the 'clear' button, but it was to late. The modern technological marvel in food preparation did a very nice job of exploding, splattering Silk with scalding hot ham and cheese hot pockets. As usual, the only one who was hit was Silk, as the only one that was hated by all microwaves was Silk. Also as usual, the healer didn't even flinch. This had happened so many times before that she no longer even noticed the flaming food the demonic contraption flung at her. She had come to expect it, though she never gave up hope that one day she would be able to fix a cup'o'noodles all by herself. She reached for the paper towels, her look daring Brush to say anything.
"What the hell!?!" yelped a startled Keisuke as the explosion woke him from his nap. "Why the hell do these things always happen when I'm trying to sleep?" he asked himself aloud. Getting up in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, he went to go check what was going on now. Reaching the top of the stairs, he found a ham and cheese mess covered Silk. He did the only thing he found appropriate at the moment. He laughed his ass off.
Perfume dropped the book she was reading and helped Silk clean the exploded food off of her face and clothes. She gave Keisuke a dirty look.
"This certainly is not funny, Keisuke-Chan."
Of course Perfume seemed to spend a little two much time getting the food off the front of Silk's Gi.
Brush was laughing herself silly by now. "Nice move, Silk! You could start a whole new type of terrorism!" Brush's laughter died down to a quiet snicker, then she cast her divination spell. "Well, we'll get some results in a few moments. In the meantime, I think we need to call the only other person I know who has the spirit of their curse running around inside them. I might be able to compare the curses and figure out what's going on. Do you mind?" Brush said as she went to the phone to call Alex.
"Don't worry about it Perfume." Silk said, "I'll just go change." She elbowed Keisuke in the ribs as she passed, tossing him to the floor with a not so subtle hip toss. "Oh, I'm sorry about that." she apologized, offering him a hand to get to his feet. "I'm such a klutz sometimes, can't operate simple electronics, always knocking people over, that sort of thing." her smile was half a smirk, and as venomous as her pet snake's.
Keisuke looked up with a smile obviously trying to hide his humiliation, and not very well at that. "Okay, okay, sorry for laughing. I apologize." he said as she pulled him up off the ground. Dusting himself off he poked Silk in the shoulder. "What's with him?" he said pointing at Happi-Chan.
Silk caught the offending poking finger between her two fingers before it made contact, then said softly, "The spirit of his cursed form has taken over his body. We're trying to find out how that happened." she released his hand, "And apology accepted." she smiled a real smile this time and headed up the stairs to her room.
Keisuke blinked. "Uh...hey, I got an idea. Before anybody could object, Keisuke grabbed a bucket of hot water from the sink and splashed Happi-Chan.
"Owwwww Thats HooooooT!!!" Happosai yelled as the VERY hot water drenched him. "You little Punk, what did ya do that for?"
"There," said Keisuke, tossing the bucket aside. "No more ancient spirit possession or whatever the hell you guys were talking about. Now excuse me while I take my nap." he finished as he made his way back downstairs to his room.
Happosai shook his head flinging hot water everywhere. The confusion was evident on his face. "What just happened, I feel like I was trapped in the back of my mind."
A few minutes after Brush had gone to the phone, Alex came walking into the shop, in his human form for a change. "Ok, so what's the deal? What's going on?"
"Nothing!!" yelled a disgruntled Keisuke from the bottom of the stairs where Alex couldn't see him. "Everything is fine. Happy is fine. Silk blew up another microwave, but she's fine too. Everything is fine. I need sleep now!" Keisuke slammed the basement door behind him.
"He's exaggerating a bit, Alex-Chan." Perfume turned to the newcomer. "It seems that the spirit of the girl that drowned in Jusenkyou has awoken in Happi's cursed form. We were hoping that you might be able to help."
Alex nodded. "Well, from what I know from my own experience with the Springs, if the person who falls in has a similar enough mindset or personality traits, the soul trapped inside the spring will go into a new body."
"The only problem with that theory," Silk said as she came down the stairs in a clean pair of jeans and a blue tank top, "Is that the water I splashed Happosai with had been taken from the springs years ago, by my mentor. How did the soul get transferred to Happi? Did it come to him when a viable personality match was found and it only took this long to appear because it took it a while to travel the distance from Jusenkyou? it's quite a astral landscape from here to the mountains of China. Many, many paradigm changes to navigate."
Happosai had to interrupt at that point. "You mean I'm sharing my body with a ghost!?"
Then he thought about something Alex had said. "You said the personality would transfer if I was of a similar mindset? What if I truly wanted the curse?"
Silk facefaulted. "You wanted it?!" then she regained her composure. "Happi, I would never have thought it of you."
Perfume was left completely speechless by Happi's question. "There has to be more to it than that?"
Happosai was more than a little embarrassed about talking about this. No one knew what went on in his mind sometimes. There were several very valid reasons why he wanted it.
"You see, when I first met Ranma I saw the advantage of having and Girl form. I could get into all sorts of places that an old pervert would never be able to get into."
He paused and drew a deep breath before continuing the last part of his reason. "Also, in 300 years I never had a family or children, both of which I always wanted."
Brush's spell finally completed, and she facefaulted at the results after hearing Happosai's admission. "Well, according to what I found out, that's fairly accurate. He wanted to be a woman, and he got it. And the personality that goes with it." Brush looked at Happosai and simply said, "Whoa."
Perfume had to go to the next room, to get a grip after Happi's statement. She never expected that from the old freak.
Rinse blinked at Happosai and poked him, "Little-pervert-man have family.. sort of... your students and us... we put up with you like real family would with troublesome family member, otherwise we no try helping you today. No feel bad..." Rinse had a weird way of trying to be nice yet.. still sounding insensitive.
Alex merely shrugged, being used to seeing and hearing far weirder things. "Ok, so now what? Do we try to put the spirit to rest, let her run lose, what? Somehow, I don't think a merger like what I'm trying to do would work."
Happosai smiled at Rinse, it may have been insensitive but at least he was trying to help. "That's the problem isn't it Alex? I can't lose control of my body half the time, We have to figure out something."
Perfume finally came back from the other room. She was trying hard to stifle her laughter. She would have never guessed that the old freak wanted a woman's body.
"From what little I know of the occult, couldn't we somehow send Lin Ran's spirit to the afterlife where it belongs?"
Alex thought about it. "It's possible. But the question is, how do we do it? And should we do it? He may find that having her spirit around is beneficial, like with me and Zuberi."
"I don't feel like arguing with myself, and I certainly don't want to lose control of my cursed form." Happosai countered. "And it seems to me that Zuberi is sometimes more trouble than he's worth!"
"True," Alex replied. "But on the other hand, he's helped me out a lot too. If I could get him over his fixation, we'd be alright. But anyway, this isn't about me, this is about you. and Lin Ran."
"You're right Alex, this is about me and her." Happi drooped his head, trying to figure out what to do. He was fresh out of ideas. "Is there a way to merge her personality with mine, so I will still be in control?"
Brush decided to speak up at that point. "It may be possible. I've been working on a way to permanently do the same for Alex. Both parties have to be willing. What is most likely to happen is that the person, who owns the body will pick up some of the character traits of the other, and any skills. For example, if I tried this on Alex, he'd most likely retain the enhanced senses and perhaps the Neko-ken. But he'd also react to catnip in his human form."
Happi thought about this for a moment, that seemed like the easiest and best way to fix this problem. He would give up a bit of himself, but would once again be in control.
"Alright, this seems like the best bet Brush Sweetie, how do we do it?"
Brush began drawing two circles on the ground. I'll need you and Alex both inside these, in your cursed forms. Assuming the other soul in your body is willing to merge, after I chant the spell, it should merge the two of you."
"Alright, I'm all for it." Happosai stepped into his respective circle with a glass of ice water in his hands. " I hope that this works Brush!"
He splashed the water on himself, and transformed into Lin Ran.
"What is going on?"
"Lin Ran, your soul has been reborn into the body of one Happosai, a Japanese man cursed from the Spring of Drowned Girl in Jusenkyou. The spring you fell into, that held your soul until recently. Your mind and soul comes to the surface when his curse is activated. He wishes to request a soul merger, so that he might feel complete, and so that you two do not have to live out dual existences in the same body, or that your soul would float off alone. It is your choice. I can send you to the havens, or you can join with him and live again for a time." Silk's voice was steady. She'd been listening from the base of the stairs for a while, not speaking until now.
Lin Ran started wide-eyed at Silk and the others. Her gaze lingering on the griffin. She understood what was at stake, she could go on to the afterlife or she could live again as part of this man's personality.
Living the way she was simply was not going to work. It was a living hell on both of them.
"Very Well Magus. Continue the spell. "
Brush nodded, then began to chant as she read from a spellbook, in a language that was old when the world was young, drawing magical power from the area and channeling it to her desires. The room darkened, and Brush's hand began to glow golden, as the circles did the same.
"While the spirit grows strong,
the body grow weak.
Less these soul pass from cheek to cheek."
The four spirits from the bodies were separated from their hosts, then Brush continued.
"By the powers of Ra, god of the sun,
Let these two souls become one."
The two souls that went to each body began to merge, and glow brightly. After a few moments, the new spirits went back into their original bodies. Brush then muttered a few more words, and the group felt the magic returning to where it had come from. Brush looked at Alex and Happi. "How are you two feeling?"
Happi Chan was laying on the cold floor at this point. She seemed to have problems assimilating the other soul. It seemed that Lin Ran resisted when she saw what kind of pervert Happosai was. Finally the two seemed to come to some sort of agreement and they managed to merge.
"I think you did it Brush-Chan. " Happosai's voice seemed to be two separate voices then they merged into one by the end of her sentence. "That was rough."
Perfume watched the entire transformation, completely spellbound. (Pardon the pun) She had never seen magic on that level and was in awe of the power Brush had at her disposal.
Alex blinked in surprise at the sensations he was feeling. His eyes, flashed briefly to a golden color and became slitted like a cat's, before returning to normal. "Well, other than the fact I want to catch a deer and play with a ball of yarn, I'm fine."
Brush smiled, then splashed Alex with some warm water. "Good. Now if you'll excuse me," Brush began to waver, "I think I need a nap." She then passed out into Alex's arms from the strain of using her own resources to power the spell, instead of drawing it from another source.
Happi ran over to Brush and Alex to help him with the fallen mage. There was true concern etched into her features. " Is she alright?"
Alex laid her down gently on the floor, and propped her head up with a pillow tossed to him by Perfume. "She'll be alright. She's just drained from using her own personal power to cast that spell. We're not near enough to any ley lines right now for her to draw enough power for what she did. She'll be waking up in about half an hour or so."
"GOOD!" Happi responded. " we owe her for helping us. " She smiled and rose to her feet, turning to Silk and Perfume. "I'm sorry about all the trouble I caused today, i hope I didn't scare you."
Alex picked Brush up gently in his arms, and rose to his feet. "Well, I guess I'll just take her home now. That way, she can draw power from the lines at the house to restore her strength."
Happi-Chan began swaying slightly. Absorbing an unfamiliar spirit was difficult at best. It had actually taken a lot out of her also. She plopped down on Silk's couch. "I feel tired....." Happi fell over into a content sleep.