Ranma 1/2 By Rumiko Takahashi Oh My Goddess! By Kosuke Fujishima By Steve Pardue http://www.spardue.org/anime Scream! Chapter 1 -- Scream for Ice Cream! The dark haired girl stood outside the window of the ice cream shop. She wore a blue striped, white one-piece swimsuit and had long, dark hair done up in a loose ponytail which fell well below her waist. She had three triangular markings on her face, and appeared to be young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. Sweat poured down her body and darkened her swimsuit in long streaks, but the young girl appeared to feel no discomfort from the heat, or was ignoring it very well. Her face and hands pressed against the frosted glass of the shop. The heat of the mid-summer sun beat relentlessly down from a perfect, cloudless sky and she could feel the chill from the icy delights contained inside against her cheeks. She imagined that she could hear the ice cream calling to her: "Skuld, Skuld, eat me Skuld, I'm so soft and creamy and cold....", and perhaps she could -- she was a goddess after all. Skuld moaned softly as she watched the girl at the table in front of the window. The girl slowly raised a spoon of pristine vanilla ice cream to her face, then slowly slipped the spoon between her lips, allowing the cool creamy delight to melt slowly in her mouth. "Ohhhhhh... icccce creammmmmm...." What she wouldn't do for ice cream right now! A cone, a cup, one of those impossibly tiny sample spoons! Chocolate, Rocky Road, Butter Pecan -- she didn't care. Even sherbet would be perfect on a day like today. What was a trip to the beach if she couldn't have her ice cream?! She was a goddess, after all! If she wanted ice cream, she'd have ice cream! But Belldandy had made it clear that there was to be no more printing of money, coining of coins, or conjuring of currency of any sort. And her magic wasn't good enough to do the job, anyway. Of course, she'd been given an *allowance* by Keiichi before coming to the beach. How humiliating for a goddess to beg for money from a *mortal*. But they'd been at the beach since ten in the morning, it was at least a quarter of twelve by now, and her money was gone. How could they possibly put her through this? She hadn't had ice cream in the last half-hour! The pain!! The agony!!! Skuld closed her eyes and relaxed, allowing her body to press against the glass of the shop. She ignored the dark glances of the man behind the counter, the wide eyed stares of the boys inside and the harsh looks of their girlfriends as she felt the cool air conditioned chill of the shop pass through the glass and the swimsuit she wore and cool her heat ravaged, ice cream deprived body. She opened her eyes and stared again at the dish of ice cream on the table in front of the window. Half eaten now. Soon it would be gone. Skuld snarled at the thought of anyone but her enjoying the icy caress of the sweet and innocent treat. She'd show them -- Urd, Keiichi and Belldandy! She'd have her ice cream soon! Mark her words! Thoughts of revenge melted from Skuld's brain as a new customer took a seat at the table before her. Ohhh -- triple hot fudge and caramel sundae with whipped cream and nuts! Skuld writhed in pleasure and pressed her body against the window as ice cream dreams carried her further and further away into fantasy. -*- Something was disturbing Skuld's reverie. She wasn't sure what it was at first, but gradually she could make out a tune being whistled with vigor, if not skill. As Skuld turned her head to find the source of the noise, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, scraping off the dried drool that had accumulated at the corners. She saw a redhead with a pigtail in a swimsuit jogging up the road towards her. The girl was about Skuld's height, but looked to be a little older, and quite a bit better... developed. The girl smiled brightly at Skuld as she passed the young goddess, then entered the ice cream shop. Skuld leaned her head back against the window and was disappointed to see that the table in front of her was empty again. She rested her forehead against the window and closed her eyes. After a short while, she heard a knock on the window. Slowly Skuld looked up to see the redhead sitting at the table in front of her. The girl was rapping the window with her knuckles as she watched Skuld. When the girl was sure she had Skuld's attention she smiled, and motioned for Skuld to come inside. Skuld considered the girl's invitation for a moment before deciding she really had nothing to lose. She left the window and entered the shop. The wall of cool air in the shop invigorated her sunburned body. Not quite as good as ice cream of course, but better than nothing. As she walked around the corner towards the seating area, the man behind the counter frowned at her. "I thought I told you not to come back unless you have money. I know you don't have any money, I've been watching you stand in the window and annoy my customers for the last two hours!" Skuld spun on the man and was about to let him feel the heavenly wrath of her hammer when she heard a cheery voice behind her. "Don't worry Mr. Manager! She's with me!” This statement was followed by an impossibly high-pitched girlish giggle. Skuld turned her head and saw the redhead at the table waving wildly and generally looking cute enough to attract the attention of every man in the shop. The manager frowned another moment before shrugging. "Whatever, as long as you're with a paying customer." The girl at the table watched Skuld as she approached. When Skuld was standing in front of her the girl smiled, and spoke. "Hi. I'm Ranma." Skuld stared at the redheaded girl for a second then finally found her voice and introduced herself. "My name's Skuld." Ranma's smile got a little smaller. "Are you OK? You looked pretty spaced out." It took Skuld several seconds to process Ranma's words. Finally they seemed to make sense to her sun-addled brain. "Really?" Ranma frowned. "Yeah, really! Sit down and drink something." Skuld stared at the floor and scratched the back of her left leg with her right foot. "Well, like he said, I'm broke. That's why I was standing outside." Skuld looked up at Ranma. "Thanks for the offer, but I really should be going." A strong hand grabbed Skuld's arm as she turned to leave. She looked back and saw Ranma smiling at her again. "I'll treat you if you can stay a while." Skuld's face slowly brightened until she was smiling again. "Are you sure?" Ranma nodded. "I'd really prefer not to eat alone." She looked a little red faced. "Its embarrassing. Besides, if I'm alone all the guys will hit on me. It won't be as bad with you here." Skuld felt happy for the first time today. She hadn't expected a complete stranger, and a mortal at that, to be so friendly. Skuld sat down and smiled at Ranma happily as the girl flagged a waitress down. -*- Skuld pushed her chair back from the table and rubbed her stomach in contentment. She smiled as she looked at the remains of their binge. The table was littered with dishes, spoons and half-empty glasses of soda. Across from her Ranma was intently scraping the last bit of melted ice cream and chocolate syrup from the bottom of a bowl. A streak of chocolate ran from the corner of the redhead's mouth and down her chin. Ranma licked her spoon and winked at Skuld. "How're you feelin' now?" Skuld just smiled back at Ranma and patted her stomach again contentedly. "Great! I thought I'd *never* get enough ice cream to satisfy me." Ranma laughed. "No such thing as 'too much' ice cream!" Skuld was amazed that she had met a human who exceeded her capacity for ice cream. It had been a close battle, but Skuld had finally had to concede defeat to Ranma's superior skill, and stomach. She felt that for the first time since she'd come to Earth, she'd found someone who understood her. Ranma stood and stretched. "Be back in a sec'. Gotta go visit the little boy's room." Skuld laughed. "You mean little girl's room, right? You don't want people thinking you're a pervert." Ranma laughed nervously and rubbed the back of her head. "Oh yeah, little girl’s room, right!" As Ranma disappeared, Skuld looked out the window at the afternoon sun. The rays of the sun were streaming through the window directly into her face, so she reached into nowhere and pulled out her spectacles, adjusting the knob on one side to filter out the sunlight. She had built them herself to help locate system bugs, but they also made a pretty mean pair of sunglasses. When Ranma returned a few minutes later, Skuld turned to look at her. She nearly jumped out of her seat at what she saw. Now that she wore her spectacles she could see the ghostly image of a young man superimposed over Ranma. Skuld could see his resemblance to Ranma in his face, and their eyes were identical. For a minute she sat and stared at Ranma. Then Skuld saw the brightly pulsating energy tethers running from the ghost image to the redheaded girl. Skuld reached up to adjust her spectacles again. Ranma, who had taken her seat again, looked at the girl and smiled. Skuld smiled back, a little uneasily. Now that she had reset her spectacles, Skuld was gathering more information on Ranma. Around the ghostly image of the young man, Skuld could now see words, floating in tight spiral lines around the tethers anchoring the image to Ranma. The words were written in golden characters, burning brightly with green flame. Skuld quickly began to decipher the writing. Standard curse headers... hmm... shape shifting... hmm... Ah! Oh, no! Such a horrible fate. It depressed Skuld to think of her new found friend suffering under such a horrible curse. The gods could be unkind. Uh... well... sometimes. After all, she was one. She certainly hadn't cast this curse, and she just couldn't see Belldandy doing something like this. Thinking of all the warped gods and goddesses she knew who could have done something so cruel to such a kind person as Ranma, Skuld decided it must be Urd's fault. No one else could possibly be this diabolical. Besides, wasn't everything really Urd's fault when you got right down to the meat of the matter? Skuld considered her options. Maybe she could help. She couldn't grant Ranma a wish, that would violate her limited license. But, she was the system debugger for Yggdrasil, which left her with a certain amount of leeway. Checking to be sure that Ranma was occupied watching the afternoon sun, Skuld again reached back into nowhere and pulled out what would appear to most people to be a small hand held calculator. It was actually her remote debugging terminal. Skuld quickly downloaded the data her spectacles had gathered to the terminal and set to work. A few minutes later she smiled in satisfaction. There, that should take care of Ranma's problem. Now to upload her changes. Ranma stood and turned to face Skuld, still smiling. "Well, its getting late. I'd better get back in time for dinner. Kasumi's cooking tonight." Skuld stood and took a step closer to Ranma. Skuld smiled at Ranma and hugged her. "Thanks for the ice cream. You really are a lifesaver!" As she hugged Ranma, Skuld pressed her terminal to her friend's back and started the upload. Almost immediately she could see the change take effect in the curse's code. There! It's done! They smiled at each other for a second before stepping out of the shop. They each turned and walked in opposite directions along the street. Skuld smiled and skipped along, singing softly under her breath. It felt good to do a good deed. No wonder Belldandy was always so happy and Urd so grumpy. Skuld liked knowing that for once her skill was really going to help someone. Sure, Ranma might never know who had cured the curse, but Skuld felt her heart beat lightly, thinking of the joy that Ranma would feel when she found out she'd never turn into an icky old boy again.