Grave's New Life

Chapter 21

By Philip Weigel

Disclaimer: I own nothing! You here me! Nothing! Everything belongs to Rumiko Takahashi-sama, High Lord Fred Perry and Godfather Ben Dunn.

Note: The opening part is dedicated to Light Guard, a fan of the story who made a specific request for the opening part.

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Stretching as she walked down the hallway of the place she called home, the silver haired, bronze skinned young woman known as Genn yawned as she woke up fully. Wearing light blue pajama bottoms and a light gray robe, she yawned again as she woke up entirely. She smiled as she continued walking, thinking about a certain black haired aura mage that she was friends with. ‘Friends, and maybe something more.’ She giggled to herself, knowing what her psychic senses had picked up from the young mage’s head. If only he’d get over his shyness, maybe they could move onto something more interesting with their relationship. She sighed slightly, wondering why humans had to be so difficult with their emotions. There was control, and then there was repression. Genn shook her head, wondering why humans, with their incredibly short life span, held back so many emotions. True, you had to keep them in check, but that didn’t mean sealing them up when it came to others, did it?

As she came into the living room, Genn blinked as she saw her closest friend and former lover, back when she could actually shift into a male form, work furiously on a laptop. “Brianna? This a good time?” She asked, slightly worried that her friend had gone off the deep end after having the evil version of her get free and get away. (1)

The blonde young woman, wearing gray biking shorts and a white tank-top, jumped slightly, before turning around and breathing out in relief. “Oh, Genn, you surprised me.” She said, before turning back to her computer screen. “Just looking some stuff up.”

The bronze-skinned woman sighed and shook her head, before walking up to the table and sitting down next to Brianna. “So, what are you. . .” Genn stopped what she was saying as she looked on the computer screen. “Searching for Werecheetah sightings? You think she might be on Earth?”

Sighing, the Lycanthropoid looked at her friend and nodded tiredly. “Yeah, I doubt she’d be in any of the other realms out there.” Though Brianna wouldn’t mind it if her evil side ended up in the Undead Realm and had to deal with those perverted skeletons for awhile. Might take the fight out of her, or just get her out of the way for a long, long time.

Genn grimaced as she picked up some of Brianna’s surface thoughts. “Brianna, are you sure that she’s still evil? I mean, she did save your life, right?” From what she had heard from the others about that night, Grave Digger had stopped Rook from killing Brianna, so why was the taller blonde so adamant about finding the short Werecheetah.

Brianna sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know, Genn, I just don’t know. But I need to know where she is, that’s all.” There were a few other reasons why she needed to know if Grave was still alive, the least of which was finding out just WHY she had been saved when Grave could’ve let her get killed by Rook’s sword. She also needed to know who that guy was that fought Rook and Grave had gotten upset over when he got hurt.

The silver-haired shorter woman shook her head and patted Brianna on the shoulder. “Listen, just,” she paused, trying to think of something adequate to say, “don’t go overboard too much.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking about what Brianna would do to Grave if she caught up with the short Werecheetah, or if she was talking about Brianna going overboard with her searching for Grave Digger. “Unless she causes problems, you should probably leave her alone.”

Brianna looked at Genn, startled, she knew, deep down, that she should probably let Grave have a chance to live in peace. However, there was underlying tremor of fear that filled her when it came to Grave Digger. Perhaps the memories of what she wanted to do to her sisters when she and Grave were merged were still there, but Brianna wasn’t sure. “But, what if she’s trying to come back here and harm everyone.”

“I,” the Raksasha stopped for a moment, in thought, “I highly doubt it. Something about the way she was acting when she saved you from what Gina told me.” She shook her head. “Please, Brianna, let her be?” True, they might regret it later on, but Genn just hoped her gut instincts were right on this about Brianna’s dark side.

Nodding, the blonde sighed. “I’ll try, Genn.” She said, before reaching over to the computer and pushing the auto shut down button.

Had she looked at that moment, she would have seen a tabloid article on animal people in Japan.

Genn smiled and blushed as her stomach growled. “Guess it’s time to eat.” She laughed when Brianna’s stomach growled in response. “Okay, time to get some food.”

Brianna nodded; she hadn’t gotten anything to eat in at least twelve hours after all.

(---)

Meanwhile, in Japan, a certain professor was sitting in front of a flashing computer screen; the rest of the room was fairly dark, save for a lamp on the desk that his computer was on. On the screen was something called “The Power of Steam”, which was mostly a light blue screen with animated pictures of steam and what it could do. Cracking his knuckles, Steamhead turned to the side and held up his steam-powered digital camera (it only weighed forty pounds), before pulling out a connection cord and plugging it into the camera, and then into the computer. He smiled as a few pictures popped up on his computer screen. Double-clicking on the picture of a blue-eyed, black haired Asian youth, the good professor of steamology started typing some comments about the person. “Hmm, decent fighter that eats a lot, nice kid.” Steamhead muttered to himself, before uploading another picture that popped up right under the first one. “Usually seen with this little cutie, more-than-likely his girlfriend.” He said to himself, making a thumbnail picture of a certain petite Werecheetah. He thought it was weird that her name was apparently “Grave”, but he was in no real position to talk, not that it stopped him from thinking about her slightly unusual name.

After a few more lines, Steamhead nodded, before posting the pictures and his comments about his time in Japan to his website. He just knew that the people back in Quagmire would love to know how he was doing and all the interesting people that he had met.

After shutting down the program and the computer, he stood up and stretched. “Well, better get that test together for tomorrow then.”

(----)

In New York a promising young tabloid reporter blinked as he came across something interesting from Japan. “Animal people?” He said to himself. “This could be my big break!” He said, before quickly typing up some sort of report on his computer, which was quite certainly faked without any regard to the facts, before sending it across the internet. (2)

(----)

As she slept, Grave, in light blue pajamas, sneezed lightly, before rolling over. A small smile adorned her face as she started to purr contentedly, her tail twitching back and forth slightly, moving the blankets that she was under slightly.

A few minutes later, she cracked an eye open, before sitting up and groaning. Looking around tiredly, she got up and padded out of the room. Padding her way down the hallway, she stopped in the kitchen, before opening a cabinet, grabbing a glass and walking over to the refrigerator to grab some milk. (3)

A few minutes later, she walked out of the kitchen, before padding back down the hall. However, she padded past her room and over to Ranma’s room. Opening the door, she smiled as she saw him sleeping on his bed, she purred lightly as she saw he wasn’t wearing a shirt to sleep, her purring increased slightly as she noticed him laying against the wall, leaving plenty of room in his bed for another person.

Grave then slipped into the room, before closing the door and tip-toeing across the room, before sliding under the blankets and laying down next to Ranma. She purred lightly as he moved in his sleep, pulling her into a hug and cuddling against her. Closing her eyes, the petite Werecheetah wrapped her arms around Ranma, before drifting off to a peaceful sleep.

As she slept, her tail moved and curled around Ranma’s legs semi-tightly. (4)

(---)

The next morning, Nodoka, dressed in a red robe, yawned as she walked down the hall, intent on making breakfast for her manly son and that cute Neko-tama. (5)

She blinked as she saw Ranma’s door open. The sun wasn’t up yet, and her son didn’t usually get up unless he had to or wanted to train, and even then he wasn’t up until just before dawn at the earliest. Stepping over to it, she peeked into the room and smiled as she saw the scene in front of her, Grave was cuddling right up to her son, with Ranma on his back, and Grave partly sleeping on top of him, her head nestled into the crook of his neck and shoulders, her son’s left arm over Grave’s shoulders, holding her to him as they slept.

Tip-toeing away from the door and the touching scene, the older redhead was so proud of her manly son that she decided to make an extra-large breakfast, just for him and that Neko-tama. She sighed, a far-a-way look in her eyes as she aimlessly wandered into the kitchen. She just hoped that this meant something and wasn’t blind hope on her part.

Even if it was just blind hope, the Saotome matriarch doubted that either would mind if she gave them a push in the right direction. Although, if she tried to hard, she was almost certain that those two would dig in their heels, oppose the idea and she’d never get her grandchildren before she was in her mid-forties.

(---)

Around an hour later, just as the sun cracked over the horizon, Ranma groaned as he cracked his eyes open. Moving his left arm, he blinked as it ran over something soft, fuzzy and really warm. Blinking several times, his eyes widened slightly as he saw who was in his bed with him. ‘What the? When did she..?’ He asked himself, trying to figure out when she had slipped into his bed last night. He tensed up slightly as she stretched out by extending her arms and legs, before arching her back, her hips going straight up for a moment, before she lowered them. The pleasant yowl that escaped from her mouth caused him to shudder slightly, the fear that he had experienced from the Neko-ken popping back up in his mind.

Grave lifted her head, blinked a few times, before yawning loudly. “Uhh, hi, Ranma.” She smiled.

“Ah, hi, Grave.” He chuckled slightly, unsure of what to say. It wasn’t the first time that he had woken up with her sleeping next to him, but this was the first time that it had happened and he didn’t recall when the petite Werecheetah crawled into bed with him.

Grave took away any chance Ranma had to say anything when she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. Smiling into the kiss, her tail wagged back and forth slowly behind her.

Ranma blinked a couple of times, before mentally shrugging and returning the kiss. If she didn’t care, why should he? She was the one kissing him, why should he try to fight against it?

After a couple of minutes, the two broke the kiss with a gasp. Grave giggled as they recovered their breath. “Morning.” She smiled at him cutely.

His face flushing, Ranma nodded. “Yeah, morning.” He didn’t know what brought her to kiss him, but he didn’t really care about that. In fact, it felt pretty darned good, in his opinion.

Grave moved around so that she was sitting on the bed, before stretching her arms over her head and leaning back, getting the morning kinks out of her joints, causing a couple of them to pop and crack.

Ranma watched as Grave’s stretching caused her shirt to pull up and back, revealing her abdomen to him, her shirt outlining her pert breasts perfectly to him. All he could do was stare, quite a bit, before she relaxed and lowered her arms.

Blinking, the petite girl wondered why her best friend was staring at her stupidly. She then smirked at him, before hugging him and rubbing her forehead against his. “Keep this up, and I might think you want a little more.” At his confused look, she mentally sighed, but kept her smile on her face. “Never mind, but you shouldn’t stare like that; someone might get the wrong impression.” She winked, before getting up and off the bed, and running out of the room, leaving a flustered and slightly confused Ranma in the bed. (6)

After a few minutes, Ranma shook his head to clear it, before getting up and putting some loose clothing on. His head was so mixed up with the different signals going through it; he knew that if he worked out some, he might as confused as ever, but at least he’d feel better about it without having to think about it. (7)

Later that day. . .

Sighing as he walked to the gym, Ranma wondered why the heck the gym teacher had called him in so early in the morning. Coming up to a wooden door with a white window that was almost impossible to see through, so as to let anyone who was inside some privacy, Ranma grabbed the door-knob before turning it and letting himself in.

As he looked inside, the martial artist was slightly surprised as the only things he saw was a desk in the middle of the room, a couple of chairs in front of it, a small rotating fan on the top, along with a few papers laying about on top of it.

Behind the desk was the school’s gym teacher, a blonde-haired, brown-eyed young man, fairly muscled, who was wearing a black muscle shirt, and leaning back as he was with his legs, which were also fairly muscled, crossed and resting on the top of the table, revealing that he was wearing gray pants and white shoes. (8)

His over-all appearance, as best one could tell, gave off one that said he was in good shape and fairly athletic, though Ranma didn’t feel anything special about him. Compared to G’nolga and his old man, this guy wouldn’t even be a half-ways decent workout.

The man looked up and smiled as he saw the person there. “Ah, Saotome-san, glad you could make it so early this morning.” He said jovially, before taking his legs off the top of his desk and planting them onto the floor with a slightly heavy thud.

“You’re the one who called me.” Ranma shrugged, wondering why the guy was acting so surprised to see him. People were crazy that way.

The teacher nodded. “True, I needed to ask you for some help.” Seeing the student in front of him blink a few times, he continued to explain. “As you probably know, there’s an inter-school sporting event coming up later this week.”

“Yeah? So?” The martial artist asked, wondering why he was being asked about some stupid school event that wouldn’t even take a fraction of his concentration to deal with. It wasn’t like anyone in any nearby school had the ability to deal with him. Ranma honestly didn’t think anyone could be anywhere near as tough as Ryoga or G’nolga.

The gym teacher nodded, before clearing his throat. “Well, remember that day not too long ago when you and that unusual person were fighting?”

“Yeah?” He asked, wondering why the teacher was bringing it up now. If it was truly important, wouldn’t it have been brought up sooner?

“Well, after seeing how well you were able to fight there, I was asked to have you help out the school for the event.” Seeing Ranma blink, the teacher continued. “You see, the martial arts club is a member short to participate and the guys that are able to participate have been looking forward to competing for some time now.” He stopped, waiting for a response from the student in front of him.

“There’s a limit?” Ranma asked, blinking stupidly.

“Bare minimum. You need at least six people per team.” He sighed, before continuing, “And while there are over thirty people in the martial arts club, only five of them are able to make it to the tournament.”

“So, why can’t they all make it?” It wasn’t like he wasn’t going to at least consider it, but, at the very least, the other people who were in the martial arts club could actually go and show up.

“Well, they would. But you see, three of the top eight members, which were going to be in the event, had to drop out. One got sick, one broke his ankle and the last one had to leave town with his parents for a week.”

Sweat-dropping, Ranma just stared in slight shock. He then shook off his shock, thinking that such an event could’ve happened at any time and it wasn’t just him. (9)

“Well, anyway, while our members are good, we’re down a member and we need someone who can fill in. Considering what we all saw you do when you were attacked. . .” The teacher trailed off, hoping that Ranma would pick up.

“Uh, yeah, so why can’t someone else take their spot?”

The teacher groaned and shook his head. “If someone could’ve I wouldn’t have asked you to show up today.” He said, sighing. “Will you please show up for the event and help our martial arts team out?”

“Why didn’t you ask that in the first place?” Ranma asked him. When the teacher sighed, he shook his head. “Never mind, I’ll help.”

“You will?” The teacher asked, his eyes lighting up.

Ranma nodded. He did say he was, so why didn’t the guy believe him the first time?

To Be Continued. . .

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Preview of Next Chapter:

“Hey, Grave here! Well, that was a boring chapter!”

“Hey, Grave.”

”RANMA!” <Insert sounds of someone being pounced on by an overly eager Werecheetah.>

“Oooomph! Anyway, going to be at the school tournament.”

“Not without me, you’re not.”

“Um, okay, I guess.”

(1) Yes, Genn and Brianna WERE lovers, until something happened back in the Black and White Series, see, Grave Digger blasted Genn with raw magical energy. Shortly after that, Genn was never able to turn back to her Neutral or Male forms. Being a Raksasha, Genn’s a natural shape-shifter; of course, being the daughter of a Djinni makes it a little easier to shape-shift. From what I understand, the magical energy that she was hit with made her shape-shifting unstable, and thus, only in more recent issues, Genn’s only able to take on female forms from now on.

(2) Just like most of the mainstream reporting out there.

(3) Do I *REALLY* need to put the details in for this?

(4) Why did Grave do this? Maybe she couldn’t sleep? Or maybe she just wanted to cuddle? You decide for yourself. I ain’t telling.

(5) Oh wow, she wore something OTHER than a Kimono!

(6) Kinda mean, huh?

(7) Sounds like him, huh?

(8) I figure that since he’s a gym teacher, he’d get more lee-way than most.

(9) In a few years, he’ll look back and curse himself for being so naïve.