Vampire Chapter Ten

J.W. Leonard

Nabiki's night was ruined. Whatever good feelings she had from the date with Ranma evaporated like so much water in a blast furnace when she saw Shampoo in the bath with Ranma.

Fear, disgust, and finally anger washed through Nabiki as she looked on in shock at what should not have been happening.

"You…You…You PERVERT! HOW CAN YOU FLIRT WITH SHAMPOO IN OUR BATHROOM?" Akane's indignant and outrageous outburst broke the spell for the group.

Shampoo rose from the water and off of the pale and shaken Ranma in all her naked glory and with a final glare at Nabiki, hit the wall of the bathroom that led outside.

Nabiki rushed out of the bathroom, heedless of the sounds of Akane's voice yelling at Ranma for being with Shampoo. She quickly dialed the number for the prison where Shampoo was supposed to be.

Nabiki didn't even wait for the person who answered the phone to finish saying hello.

"Why the hell wasn't I told that Shampoo escaped! No, I will not calm down! I demand answers! This homicidal girl that I put into jail, YOUR JAIL, and who tried to kill me and other members of my family just left a big hole in our bathroom! DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN AGAIN! YOU GET AN AMAZON BITCH AFTER YOU AND YOURS AND WE'LL SEE HOW CALM YOU ARE! SLAM The phone cradle managed to survive the final onslaught of Nabiki's outburst.

Nabiki's knees gave out from under her and she started to sob by the phone. She had gotten rid of her. She shouldn't have been able to get at her and take Ranma away from her. She was supposed to be in jail.

Nabiki felt arms wrap around her and she heard Ranma's voice call her name softly. Not caring how it looked, Nabiki grabbed Ranma to make him stay and sobbed into his chest.

Ranma had no idea what to do, but the thought of Nabiki crying just didn't make him feel good. So he just sat there in the hall while Nabiki cried into his shoulder.

Kasumi came along and helped Ranma carry Nabiki to her room. Nabiki was asleep before Ranma put her into bed.

Ranma had been shocked at Shampoo's return, but halfway expected it. What really bothered him was that Shampoo apparently turned into a cat, and Nabiki's reaction to her return.

Ranma was about to leave the room when Nabiki grabbed his hand.

"Don't leave me alone." She whispered.

Kasumi was standing at the doorway and heard Nabiki's plea.

"Don't worry, Ranma. I'll get you something to sleep on. Just stay with her." Kasumi sounded tired, but strong. Ranma nodded while accepting a pillow from her.

"What about Akane?" Ranma suddenly thought of the youngest daughter's tendency to react badly to anything he did.

"I'll handle her." Kasumi said as she shut the door leaving Ranma in darkness.

Ranma slept on the floor by Nabiki's bed that night.

888

The police were waiting when Nabiki and Ranma woke up in the morning. The officer in charge took some statements from them both. Ranma ended up telling a slightly modified story of what happened in the bathroom. Cats turning into girls wasn't something you brought up in front of a police officer, they were notorious for their lack of humor.

They were done in time to finish breakfast and go to school. Nabiki chose to go with Ranma, but she did enforce her timetable upon him.

Before Nabiki left, she did make sure to call a repair crew to fix the new ventilation in the bathroom wall. Nabiki swore that she would find a way to make Shampoo pay for the walls she kept busting through. Or see her in bars again.

Neither of the them got very far before an irate Akane stalked up to Ranma from behind and proceeded to boot him into the sky with a cry of "PERVERT!"

"Uncute bitch!" Was Ranma's fading reply.

"You had better have a damn good reason for doing that, little sister." Nabiki's cool voice betrayed nothing while her eyes bore into Akane. Last night she had been rattled, but now the Ice Queen mask was back in place and Akane had just earned a grade a glare.

"Kasumi kept me from doing it earlier, but he deserved it! He was in your room this morning. He was kissing all over Shampoo last night, too! Right after your date, no less! He's nothing but a womanizing perverted boy!" Akane heatedly said before stalking off to school.

Nabiki silently counted to ten before responding to Akane's rant.

"Akane, did it ever cross your mind that I wanted my fiancé in my room with me? Especially after Shampoo, who tried to kill me and him, just escaped from jail and came immediately here to either steal Ranma or kill us both? Since you have such a high opinion of yourself, you can walk me to school and defend your older sister if the Amazon comes to play."

"Oh…But he still…"

"Shut up. I don't want to hear it. Let's just go to school." Nabiki was thinking of ways to punish Akane for this and all the other times that she assaulted Ranma for the littlest of things.

Meanwhile, Ranma was flying through the air wondering what the hell set Akane off this time when he sensed a presence coming at him.

Ranma gracefully dodged or countered several mid-air attacks from the unknown presence before lightly landing on a rooftop in a defensive position facing his opponent.

The assailant turned out to be a small, elderly, Chinese woman perched on a stick.

"Not bad…Son in law."

"What are you talking about, Old Ghoul?"

Whack

"Show some respect to your elders."

"Just who the heck are you?" Ranma rubbed the spot the old lady hit on his head.

"I am the Elder Cologne from the Amazon tribe. Shampoo's told me all about you." The smirk on her face just screamed trouble.

"I ain't gonna marry her. So don't even try."

"Oh, I think you'll be begging me to marry her in two or three days, future son in law." Cologne punctuated her final statement by poking Ranma in the chest with her cane.

888

Ranma got to school just in time to miss being late. After shooting Akane a glare for hitting him earlier, he took his seat and tried to pay attention. He kept going back to his confrontation with the old ghoul and how she had poked him with her cane. He could still feel the spot that she poked, it tingled like the flesh was asleep.

Ranma was leery of whatever the Amazons had planned against him but he was confident that he could overcome anything that they threw at him. Defeating Shampoo either time had not been difficult, though her new tactic of glomping him naked did seem to get past his defenses.

Putting it out of his mind, he spent the rest of the class soaking up as much knowledge as he could like Nabiki kept admonishing him to do. She knew there was a reason that she didn't like to open up emotionally. Once she let the mask on her emotions drop it took a little while for it to go back on. The date with Ranma had been enough to get her guard down so when Shampoo showed back up unexpectedly, she reacted badly.

Right now, Nabiki was thinking of a way to get back at her sister for being such a bitch the past few days to Ranma and her. Ranma may have had trouble holding a grudge against somebody but Akane's attitude had been rubbing him the wrong way as well.

Spotting Kuno, Nabiki suddenly knew what to do.

Forgery is more of an art form than a skill, and impossible to do without something original to work from. While Nabiki was a skilled forger as far as her family's or the teachers were concerned, she would be hopeless at doing anybody else's.

For what Nabiki had in mind, she had all the skills she needed. Quickly writing a note of affection in Akane's handwriting, Nabiki then passed the note over to the deluded boy.

It was almost comical to watch Kuno nearly burst into song over his love's confession of love for him.

After the teacher managed to settle Kuno down, Nabiki thought of how to get Akane out to meet him. An evil smile crept onto Nabiki's face as she decided to use Akane's prejudice against Ranma against her.

888

Ranma was in gym class and today they were doing track. Ranma had, at first enjoyed gym class, but then the other students started to complain about his above average performances during classes. If the teacher hadn't decided to grade on a curve, nobody would have said a thing.

Trying to get Ranma to tone down is like trying to ask the sun not to shine.

Ranma was running track just ahead of everybody else when the unexpected sound of a bicycle bell came from just above and ahead of Ranma.

Ranma barely stopped in time and jumped out of the way as a bicycle came crashing down right where Ranma would have been carrying Shampoo.

"Nihao, Ranma. You come with Shampoo and get married now?" Ranma didn't know what was scarier, a Shampoo trying to kill him or a Shampoo trying to marry him.

"Shampoo, I ain't gonna Crack " Cologne's staff hit Ranma's head, knocking him into the ground.

"Be a man, marry Shampoo." Ranma was quick to get back up and started to chase the old ghoul who managed to keep ahead of the boy despite being perched on a stick.

After leading Ranma around the field once, Cologne leaped into the sky to get away. With an impossible display of strength, Ranma hurled a concrete roller after the old ghoul.

At its apex, the roller was cut in half when a strange young man sliced through it effortlessly. He landed gracefully on the ground in front of Ranma. His long black hair flowing in the wind and his hands hidden within his large sleeves.

His impressive entrance was ruined, however, by the two halves of the concrete roller landing right on top of his head, knocking him to the ground. By now he had drawn a crowd from the rest of the students in the class.

After a second of lying there, he got up, shoving the large pieces of concrete off of him like they were nothing.

"Shampoo." He called out. Many of the students gasped in disbelief that he was still alive.

"Oh, Shampoo!" the strange man rushed forward and hugged Ranma in an affectionate embrace.

Fap "Who are you calling Shampoo?" Ranma planted his foot in the guy's face pushing him away.

The guy pulled out a large set of glasses from his sleeve and put them on and looked at Ranma.

"Who are YOU?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, the guy sent Ranma flying with a punch.

Ranma didn't stay away long and ended up on the guy's head on the rebound.

"Okay, just who are you?" Ranma was getting a little upset with this guy.

"I am Mousse, I am the man that is to be Shampoo's groom."

As serious as Mousse was in that declaration and before Ranma could say he could have her, Shampoo snorted in derision.

"What you talk about? We only friends, nothing more."

Cologne jumped back into the conversation at this point, having noted that Ranma hadn't given chase like she had expected.

"Mousse! You were once spurned by Shampoo!"

"But…That was when we were only three."

"Age makes no difference! It has been decided that this man is Shampoo's groom." Cologne pointed at Ranma.

"Not if you ask me, I'm not! I'm already engaged to Nabiki."

"You have a fiancé…and yet you…and Shampoo…" Mousse was absolutely shaking with rage.

"Now listen…"

"Enemy of all women!" Mousse attacked Ranma with a kick, something that Ranma had been half expecting, but that had only been a feint.

Mousse then hit Ranma with something that was more damaging than normal fists.

"You want a fight, buddy?" Ranma was not happy at being sucker punched like that.

"Yes. These are my terms! If I should win…"

"You can't have Shampoo." Cologne interjected.

"….Then I will take your woman! Nabiki!" Mousse tried pointing at the girl, but Nabiki was in class elsewhere, so he ended up pointing at Akane.

"You got it! The fight is on!" Ranma was right in his face.

"I have your pledge as a man?"

Cologne got a speculative look on her face with that.

888

"Ranma did what?"

"He put you up as a prize in his fight with this Mousse character." Akane was really enjoying telling her sister about the challenge Ranma had gotten, especially at how easy it was to put Ranma in a bad light with it. She had been waiting all day to do it too, now it was just past sunset and Ranma was inside out of hearing range.

"We'll just see about that." Nabiki said with a determined look as she brushed past Akane and went into house to look for Ranma.

Just as they were getting inside, they heard Ranma's male voice rip through the house in cries of pain coming from the bathroom. When both of them got to the bathroom they found a naked female Ranma dousing herself with cold water like her life depended on it.

Akane had been getting brave so she stuck around.

"What's wrong?" Nabiki asked with some caring in her voice, the terms of the battle where she was a prize momentarily forgotten.

"The water is boiling." Ranma gestured to the steaming furo.

Kasumi, who had been drawn to Ranma's cries as well, stuck her finger in the water.

"It's barely warm." She announced.

"But it was so hot!" Ranma insisted.

"From now on, even lukewarm water will scald you." Cologne appeared in the doorway in the house on her staff.

"The pressure-point I touched makes your whole body as sensitive as a cat's tongue." Ranma put her hand over the spot Cologne had touched that morning.

"You need warm water to become male. To be a man…Agree to be Shampoo's groom."

"You can't make me, you old ghoul." Ranma was about to launch herself at the old ghoul to make her reverse it but cologne disappeared out of sight before Ranma could get to her.

"What about your 'pledge as a man'?" Akane brought up the original reason that she and Nabiki were there in the first place.

Ranma didn't have an answer for that.

888

That night was a long one as Ranma continued to attempt to change back into a guy, but she couldn't even tolerate water above room temperature without screaming in pain. The temperature that Nabiki and he had determined would cause the change was higher than that. Every time that Ranma was able to change, he reversed it in an a mad dash for cold water.

Nabiki was a little concerned about this new development, especially since she remembered hearing about the cat's tongue spot once before. She was about to go to bed when she snapped her fingers as the memory finally presented itself. Nabiki's stomach dropped as she realized just where she heard it last and quickly got the number for Hong Kong.

"Hello?" The speaker's voice sounded tired, but Nabiki wasn't going to wait for morning.

"I need to speak with Eve."

"I don't think that you have…"

"Look, you little shit. Ranma has been locked as a girl by an elder Amazon using the Cat's Tongue, I know that this is the number for Eve, so don't play games with me!"

"Nabiki?" Eve's voice suddenly came on the line. "What's wrong?

Nabiki told Eve everything that had happened that she knew of. Including what she hadn't told anybody else about.

888

Right before daybreak, Ranma was frantically trying to come up with something so that she could face off against Mousse in a match later in the day.

"What's the strongest sunscreen we have?"

"Ranma, Yawn Go to bed, Ranma" Genma said to his 'son'.

"Can't sleep like this. You know that."

At that moment, the sun peaked over the edge of the horizon, fortunately, Ranma wasn't on that side of the house. Ranma slumped, unconscious, to the floor suddenly.

Genma had seen this before when they were in China, so he wasn't concerned with it. Genma figured that now was a good time to douse the boy with hot water to both wake him up and get back as a boy.

Splash

"Yeeeaaaaargghhh!"

Ranma's scream of pain woke the entire household.

Ranma quickly ran to the bathroom and doused himself in cold water. Rushing past Soun, Akane, Kasumi, and Nabiki like a bat out of hell. She gave a sigh of relief before falling unconscious again.

"Looks like that won't work." Nabiki deadpanned.

Kasumi went into the bathroom and tried to rouse Ranma by shaking her shoulder.

"Ooh!"

"What's wrong Kasumi?" Soun asked.

"I think Ranma's dead."