REN SS - No Alucard, part 2

[LawOhki]

My muse demands that I play with this alterverse some more.

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It was ten thirty and Kasumi was going about the task of raising everyone from their slumber. Due to the past two nights everyone’s sleep schedule was messed up, and it was a beautiful day that shouldn’t be missed. Nodoka was already up when she knocked on the door and she had volunteered to wake up Genma who seemed to be elsewhere. Ranma as well appeared to have found other sleeping arrangements than in the same room as his parents.

Moving on to Nabiki’s room, she purposely ignored that her younger sister and Ranma had become vampires. Vampires were evil monstrosities and neither of them could be that. If they appeared to be then it must be some magical trick, and a cure would have to be found. Knocking on the door, no one answered so she slowly opened the door enough to peak in.

“Nabiki?” She called into the dark room. Kasumi could barely make out anything because Nabiki had placed an extra layer over the window with a thick bed. “Time to get up.” She said more forcefully and used the wall switch to turn on the overhead light. The action was responded to instantly by a pair of feminine groans of complaint. Strewn around the floor was the clothing she had seen Nabiki and Ranma in.

“Turn off the light.” Nabiki whined tiredly from underneath the blanket that was too lumpy to be just one body.

“We’re trying to sleep here.” Ranma’s head peaked out at her, the gender cursed boy’s red hair sticking out in odd directions.

Kasumi glanced between the bed and the clothes, blushed, and hurriedly shut off the light as she left. “Oh my.”

“What’s wrong Kasumi?” Akane asked, rubbing her eyes as she exited her own room.

“I think maybe we should let Nabiki wake up on her own.” She answered quickly, grabbing Akane by the shoulders to hurry off to start making an elaborate breakfast to get her mind away from the image of Nabiki and Ranma in female form in bed together, and what that likely meant.

X x x x x x

Ranma woke with a smile, she hadn’t dreamed, she hadn’t met with that fake personality, and she woke cuddled up against an equally naked Nabiki while slightly drooling on the other vampire. Nabiki woke the same time that she had and glanced at where Ranma had been drooling.

“I’m not a chew toy.” Nabiki joked.

“Oh really?” Ranma clamped down with her teeth to gum at the other draculina’s smooth skin.

“Knock it off we should get up.” Nabiki playfully pushed Ranma away, or at least that’s what Ranma thought she had been doing, but instead she shot out from under the blanket and slid across the carpet into Nabiki’s standalone closet. “You alright?” Nabiki winced.

“It’ll take more than that to hurt me.” She boasted, though the small amount of rug burn on her hip was annoying for all of the several seconds it took to heal. “You better watch out if you do something like that with a human though.”

“I never really had to deal with something like that.” Nabiki slipped out of her bed and started to pull on some underwear.

“Didn’t you notice that you crushed that guy last night when you were feeding?” Ranma started to shift through the clothing on the floor looking for her own since the rest of it was in another part of the home.

“I did?” Nabiki stopped what she was doing.

“Uh huh.” Ranma nodded. “I did the first time too; as soon as it was hard to get blood I tried to squeeze him like a thing of toothpaste. There were other times where I forgot and ended up breaking bones by accident with just a touch.”

“Oh-- I guess I’ll keep my hands to myself.” The middle Tendo gulped.

“There’s a lot you need to learn.” Ranma was worried about Nabiki. She didn’t have Ranma’s self-control and if she was living with humans there would be a lot of temptation if she didn’t stay well fed. The sleep schedule on its own was going to cause friction. “And there’s a lot I don’t know.” She sighed.

If only her own Master had been forthcoming with information. Now that she was thinking about such issues, Nabiki had to deal with the issues of the change to a vampire without any kind of anchor like Ranma had. No matter how much of a bastard he had been, his mere presence had been a safe harbor in a stormy sea.

“Was what you-- or whoever was in charge last night, actually true?”

“Yes.” Ranma nodded while buttoning up her shirt, she still hadn’t found her pants. “Probably the biggest thing is to try and not get too excited over anything. When you do you’ll forget how much strength you have and you won’t really think about what you’re doing.”

“I’ll be fine, just keep my hands to myself, and avoid anyone who’s bleeding.” Nabiki replied flippantly with her back to Ranma.

“Nabiki, I’m not joking, I’m being deadly serious.” Ranma grabbed the other vampire by her wrist and turned her to look at her. “It took me weeks to figure out all the little things that would set me off. You can’t just ignore this.”

“You’re right, sorry it’s still a lot to take in.” Nabiki admitted and bowed her head. Standing in an uncomfortable silence, footsteps coming down the hall caught Ranma’s ears.

“Hey! Are you up yet Nabiki?” Akane’s voice came from outside the door a moment before she opened it and flicked on the light. “You slept the whole day.” The youngest Tendo stopped. “Ranma? Is this where you were sleeping?”

“Yea.” She answered her former fiancée. Nabiki was just now noticing that they had been operating in the dark. “I helped Nabiki block out the window last night and figured it’d work best if we just used one room during the day.” Ranma quickly explained.

“Weird, Kasumi didn’t mention anything about you being in here when she checked on you earlier.” Akane gave her a confused look before her eyes drifted down to Ranma’s bare legs. “Why aren’t you wearing pants?”

“Do I ever need a reason to run around naked?” Ranma asked innocently.

“Pervert.” Akane rolled her eyes before sitting down on Nabiki’s bed.

“You have no idea.” Nabiki said under her breath and Ranma’s face gained a slight red tinge.

“What’s that smell?” Akane sniffed around.

“You must be imagining things.” In the span of a second, Ranma had the covering over the window removed, and the window open. “It is kind of stuffy in here though.”

“I think I’ll go take a nice bath.” Nabiki suggested.

“That sounds nice.” Ranma hurried after the other vampire.

“But you’re a guy.” Akane protested.

“Jusenkyo is gone and hot water does nothing.” She informed the youngest Tendo who must have been left out of the loop for that bit of information.

“You mean you’re locked?” Akane didn’t stop, following them through the home and to the bath.

“If that’s how you want to look at it, sure.” Ranma answered, passing by the living room and seeing Soun and Genma trying to ignore Nodoka’s angry glare at her husband.

“And you’re alright taking a bath with Ranma, Nabiki?” Akane asked.

“Doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. She’s a girl right now.” Nabiki answered.

“Well-- whatever!” Akane snapped and finally stormed off to do something else.

“It’s a good thing she didn’t come in earlier.” Ranma pointed out.

“I wasn’t sharing.” Nabiki joked, wrapping her arms possessively around Ranma’s shoulders from behind, pressing her breasts into Ranma’s back.

“I meant maybe we should hold off on letting them know, ya know, until they get used to us being vampires.” The only times Ranma had been touched since becoming a vampire had been very unwanted. To even have someone say her name was such a nice feeling that she wanted to stop whatever she was doing to enjoy the moment. Of course when she realized how submissive of a position she was putting herself in with Nabiki at the moment, she slipped out of the Tendo girl’s grasp.

“Enough being touchy feely.” She strutted into the inner bath, stripping out of the little clothing she was wearing on the way. “I missed my bath last night.”

“Huh? What’s so important about missing a bath, you’ve done it before. Although usually it’s because you’re already soaked from something else.” Nabiki seemed to get her special emphasis on missing it somehow.

“Because--.” Ranma started to play with her index fingers. “I keep hoping that I’ll turn back.” She admitted. There were secrets that she would keep from Nabiki, but having told her about what had been done to her mind, and the removal of her real body there was little reason not to admit her unattainable dream. Sitting down on a stool, she rested her hands on the faucet.

“I’ll try to find some more pictures.” Nabiki slid up another stool.

“Thanks.” That one group picture wasn’t really enough to recreate her birth form, maybe with more she could do it. Maybe it might click something in her head that would fix what he had done. She almost hit herself for becoming so excited at the prospect. The best she should hope for is to be able to be comfortable as a man, everything after that was a bonus.

Watching Nabiki quickly and efficiently clean herself, Ranma ran a hand through her unbound hair, and considered the advantages of shorter hair. When it was time for the middle Tendo to get into the still warm water, Ranma smirked at the sharp gasp from the other vampire.

“This is great.” Nabiki purred, her body seeming to melt into the water.

“That’s another reason for it.” Ranma smirked as she cleaned herself.

“Are you going to hurry up or do I have to drag you in here?” Nabiki’s voice betrayed her intentions.

“You’re probably just getting more sensitive. In a bit you might not even be able to wear cotton cause it’ll be too scratchy.”

“Really?” Nabiki was distracted from extracurricular activities by that.

“But then you’ll figure out how to control your senses.” Ranma poured water over herself to clear away the soap. “It’s sort of vampire puberty that lasts a week or two.”

“Puberty was pretty good to me the first time.” The middle Tendo didn’t wait any longer before dragging Ranma into the bath.

Breaking the surface of the water, Ranma wiped water from her eyes. “Sheesh Nabiki, were you always this sex crazed before?” She asked.

“No-- can’t say I was.” Nabiki pressed herself up again Ranma, squeezing her between the other draculina and the side of the tub. “Everything just feels-- I don’t know-- I just need everything right now. It’s like I’ve drank dozens of energy drinks. I don’t know if I could sit still if I tried.”

“I warned you, things are different.” Ranma brought up her hands to tickle at Nabiki’s waist. “But we should probably use up some of that energy.” She added as she began to kiss the junction between Nabiki’s neck and shoulder, tracing up her neck until she found the sensitive spot where Nabiki had been bitten, making the girl gasp in pleasure.

“Or it could just be that you’re so good at it.” Nabiki giggled, her hands moving down Ranma’s body.

Squirming, Ranma tried to focus just a bit longer. “I’m pretty sure I’m really bad, it’s just-- oh! Uh that you’re so sensitive, nnnh-- it doesn’t matter.”

“Am I complaining?”

X x x x x x

Naked, Ranma slipped through the shadows unseen up to where she at one time shared a room with Genma. For simplicities sake she decided that sleeping in the same room as Nabiki would be best. Rising up from the shadow, she sat down on the floor and grabbed her duffel bag to grab some clean clothes. Downstairs she could hear Nabiki being questioned on why they had taken so long in the bath by Nodoka. The middle Tendo explained that they had simply wanted some time to relax.

Ranma didn’t spend a lot of time getting dressed and putting her hair back in a pig tail because she did not trust Nabiki around humans. Hopefully she was worried over nothing and the over vampire would adjust quickly, but she couldn’t take that chance. Maybe if it was around strangers, maybe.

Taking the normal way back to where everyone was gathered, she froze up when she saw the scene before her, her heart skipping a beat. Being around just Nabiki or talking to Akane allowed her to ignore it, but with everyone gathered, and her about to talk to them, sit down with them, it was almost too much. She was free, she would never see the bastard who had turned her into a vampire again, and she wouldn’t have to live another night in fear that he would take everything from her.

“Are you alright?” Kasumi asked, being the one to notice her.

“I’m fine.” Ranma choked up slightly and tried to hide it by kneeling down at the table next to Nabiki. “Um-- good morning.” Good evening would probably be better, but she had never worked on greetings since her sleep schedule had been changed. “Anything interesting happen today?”

“We were wondering why you slept through it?” Soun asked.

“Right-- I guess you all need some vampire one-o-one.” Ranma scratched as the base of her braid, realizing that this was going to be an inquisition. “We sleep during the day.”

“You were up well enough to kidnap Nabiki.” Nodoka butted in.

“Actually I sort of went willingly.” Nabiki spoke up.

“We can be up during the day.” Ranma said quickly, trying to avoid any discussion about Nabiki being tricked. “But the sun makes us tired, it-- rejects our auras, and we can’t sleep at night.”

“Oh dear, it’s a good thing you graduated Nabiki.” Kasumi noted.

“Ranma didn’t though.” Akane added.

“Yes but the school did accommodate us in that he can repeat the school year.” Nodoka said.

“Might as well tell them I can’t. I’d just fall asleep in the class.” Ranma voiced her opinion on that idea.

“Did either of you want dinner? I saved you some.” Kasumi asked sweetly.

“We can’t eat human food Kasumi.” Ranma explained another aspect of vampirism. “We’ll just throw it up if we can actually swallow it.”

“Why would you do that?” Kasumi asked innocently.

“Cause we’re vampires.” Nabiki answered her sister.

“But vampires are evil demons, you two aren’t evil demons.” The eldest Tendo answered with certainty.

“No but we are vampires.” Ranma tried to get through to Kasumi who seemed to be blocking out that simple fact.

“You’re good vampires?” Kasumi seemed to be getting it but needed to know this.

“Basically.” She nodded. “The only thing we can eat is blood.”

“I’ll see if I can find someone who has some.” Kasumi decided.

“I believe we should deal with the more important issue.” Nodoka drew attention to her. “Can you be a man anymore?”

Ranma stared at her mother, alternating between which eyes to focus on. “I can.”

“Do you hurt the weak for food?” Genma finally joined the conversation, his arms crossed, and completely serious.

“I had no choice.” Ranma bowed her head to stare at her lap. “He-- made me do it so he could steal their money.”

“How did he make you?” Nodoka asked and Ranma felt that she was looking for a reason to blame her.

“He was the master vampire, I had to do anything he commanded.” Ranma explained. “But he didn’t like to do that, he-- he liked to threaten me in other ways.” She didn’t want to have to explain them, not in front of this many people. Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she glanced over and found that Nabiki had noticed her distress. ‘Who would have thought that being a vampire would make Nabiki nicer.’ She thought sadly.

“How often do you have to have blood?” Akane asked a practical question, she also appeared to want to get away from the subject of what Ranma had been forced to do.

“It depends, if I use a lot of special abilities or need to heal from a lot of damage, then I have to have blood once a week.” Ranma was just using her own experience, assuming that Nabiki would be similar. “If not, then two-- maybe three weeks.” She purposely left out that to drink blood required the death of the donor. That should stay between her and Nabiki, everyone else should assume that they simply leave someone weak from blood loss.

“If you can be a man, why are you not?” Nodoka once again asked a question about her gender.

“I don’t-- he-- ripped what I looked like from my mind.” Ranma quickly wiped away blood tears that were threatening to fall from her eyes. She heard gasps from Kasumi and Akane, while the other three remained silent. “Nabiki said she’d try to find more pictures so I can try and be myself again.” She added hopefully, more to placate Nodoka than anything else.

“That’s-- good.” Nodoka did not seem to be fully accepting of this but didn’t say anything more.

“Pop, are you feeling up to a spar?” Ranma asked her father. “I’m sure I’ve gotten really soft.”

“Well it seems like someone has to be around to knock some sense into you.” Genma nodded.

“As long as it’s not with a maneki neko statue.” She joked.

[frice2000]

Nabiki playfully pushed Ranma away, or at least that’s what Ranma thought she had been doing, but instead she shot out from under the blanket and slid across the carpet into Nabiki’s standalone closet.

Feels like a run-on.

Nabiki slipped out of her bed and started to pull on some underwear.

Tearing the underwear or damaging it slightly might work there. I mean if she can't judge a playful push the underwear would tear spectacularly. Just a suggestion, could be a nice addition.

“Was what you-- or whoever was in charge last night, actually true?”

...charge last night said

It took me weeks to figure out all the little

Around here I think a little bit about Ranma specifically being concerned about Nabiki hurting those she cared for would work nicely for the psychological changes as well as lead into the later discussion you have about her old master threatening her. Maybe a removal of the word humans and inserting 'family' would make it work even better?

What’s that smell?”

They don't sweat but they still lubricate? Interesting. Is it blood colored too like their...wait wait don't want to know this is supposed to be a family friendlish forum.

I wasn’t sharing

How much of that is genuine Nabiki personality and how much is vampiric addition? I know the lack of morality comes from the being murderous leech thing but did she feel that way about Ranma at all before? Think we should know going forward.

I keep hoping that I’ll turn back.”

Really nice sad little scene. Very emotional. Only thing I think it needs is Nabiki's facial expressions/gestures when Ranma states that.

herself to clear away the soap.

If I had super senses god knows I wouldn't put artificial scents on my body. Just saying. Maybe pure soap with no added scent as an essential purchase?

Being around just Nabiki or talking to Akane allowed her to ignore it

What is 'it?' my initial impression was hunger but later I'm thinking it's the emotional impact of seeing her family one she thought she would never see again.

“I’ll see if I can find someone who has some.” Kasumi decided.

A little too oblivious even for Kasumi. You can do much the same thing worded differently to get across the same emotion but that line is a bit too farfetched even for her.

That’s-- good.” Nodoka

Good Ms. frigid has some emotional connection with her child.

Anyway an excellent chapter. I am very glad to see you continuing it as it's a real pleasure to read. Honestly, I have to say with this chapter I prefer it to your main line. It just has more emotional movement and better character development thus far, though a lot of that comes from as I've said my favorite part about a vampire story being their struggle at no longer being human and dealing with their new powers which this has in spades. I don't know what you have planned for it but honestly i think you should continue without anything but the basic rules from the Hellsing verse. Lots of places you can take this with them being uninvolved or only peripherally involved. Anyway very nice look forward to the next. You've got too many stories going though...Heh hard to read through all of your rapid output.

[JustinD]

I can imagine either that Dr Tofu may be able to arrange for donor blood for them if he's still in town or that the amazons may make an agreement with the vampires that they supply blood from their warriors (indirectly of course) in exchange for the vampires' guaranteed aid during defensive conflicts (I doubt Nabiki would allow them to become the amazons puppets).

[Tornado Ninja Fan]

She purposely left out that to drink blood required the death of the donor.

Why would Ranma think that? He should remember that the vampire drank his blood for a couple of nights.

[LawOhki]

If I had super senses god knows I wouldn't put artificial scents on my body. Just saying. Maybe pure soap with no added scent as an essential purchase?

Other than a couple smells that get them interested or disinterested (blood, garlic) everything else is something they can ignore. How else would they be able to be around death and decay?

What is 'it?' my initial impression was hunger but later I'm thinking it's the emotional impact of seeing her family one she thought she would never see again.

Ranma explains it in the next sentence.

I can imagine either that Dr Tofu may be able to arrange for donor blood for them if he's still in town or that the amazons may make an agreement with the vampires that they supply blood from their warriors (indirectly of course) in exchange for the vampires' guaranteed aid during defensive conflicts (I doubt Nabiki would allow them to become the amazons puppets).

Donor blood will eventually come up but getting it from the Joketsuzoku is pretty much out of the question unless they go to China. And who would they need aid defending themselves from?

Why would Ranma think that? He should remember that the vampire drank his blood for a couple of nights.

Like in the main story, I made it so if a vampire has blood they have to finish it either by finding someone else or the original victim or else they're like a drug addict going cold turkey. Especially for newer vampires. So Ranma wants to mislead the humans into thinking that they can just sample the local cuisine and leave no evidence.

And the vampire only had Ranma's blood one night and was going to finish him off the next. He was purposely torturing himself.