There had been... complications.
It HAD occurred to Orion that the people he was scouting would have lives that couldn't just be dropped for the sake of planetary salvation. Or rather, that these individuals wouldn't see the situation as being so serious that they simply had to drop whatever they were doing and rush off to "save the world". Still, he had assumed that the issues could be put aside initially and dealt with later, using his assistance and what limited resources he commanded.
So he had followed Ranma, who had followed Genma, who happened to drop a bit of a bombshell on the way to his friend's house.
So Ranma was subject to an arranged marriage. Orion didn't really care. The spouse could be either sworn to secrecy or, if she didn't seem trustworthy or would be a liability, kept ignorant of Ranma's battles through a mechanism he'd work out later.
That was enough of a little hitch by itself, but as it turned out, Ranma DID care. A lot. So him and his father fought a bit in the rain, Ranma turned his back at an inopportune moment, and Orion turned the corner just in time to see a panda bludgeon a young woman with a street sign.
That was just the tip of the iceberg, evidently. From what Orion could tell, the Tendo home was some sort of madhouse, and events had proceeded in a suitably bizarre manner with Ranma being groped, trained, assaulted, thrown, and basically treated little better than most people treated HIM when they found him walking on the retainer walls to their properties, though at least the things people hit him with tended to be small and light.
So now Ranma was expected to marry some self-righteous brat who had wasted no time in digging in her heels. The only positive aspect of the whole two-hour fiasco was that he had been caught spying by the eldest daughter and instead of being shooed away had been given a saucer of warm milk.
After things had calmed down somewhat, Orion caught Ranma's attention, and they both made for the roof.
"So, explain to me again how this arranged marriage thing is supposed to work. Don't get me wrong, I was never married, but I was under the impression that two people have to LIKE each other to form some kind of marital union." Orion wondered at the memory of the youngest daughter slamming the table down over Ranma's head. If he hadn't seen the disastrous sparring session between Akane and Ranma in the dojo, he might have considered recruiting Akane to fight as well. As it stood now, though? The girl was clearly unstable. Precisely the sort of person he'd hand over to someone like Genma to discipline. No way was he going to let some short-tempered prude with a superiority complex beat around HIS hand-to-hand specialist like some kind of pinata.
Also, for reasons he couldn't comprehend, he couldn't help but imagine the girl being constantly kidnapped and in need of rescue. Odd.
Ranma groaned. "Aw, hell, I dunno. I'm not ready for marriage. And I sure as hell don't wanna put up with that tomboy down there. This whole thing stinks." He shook his head. "But forget about it. We have work to do, right?"
Orion nodded slowly. "Yeah, but... are you sure you're going to be okay with things like this? I can continue the search myself for a bit while you straighten things out here."
"Nah," mumbled the pigtailed boy. "There 'aint nothin' to straighten out. I don't like her and she don't like me. All I gotta do is kill enough time for Pops to realize that his newest stupid plan 'aint working, and then it's no problem. In the meantime, the less time I spend around the gorilla in girl's clothing, the better."
"All right, then. I'm going to do some more research tonight to try and follow up on a lead. I'll meet you tomorrow morning at 0800 hours."
Ranma blinked. "What's that mean?"
"Oh. Right. Eight o'clock AM." 'Have to keep reminding myself he's not actually military,' the gray moon cat though as he dashed down the length of the roof.
_______________________
In the original timeline, Ranma would have gone to school with Akane the very next day, introducing him to the two most vile and oppressive evils he would ever know until the day he died: Studying and the Kuno family. Thus would began a chaotic but still predictable downward spiral where his scholastic life would be forever marred by a constant stream of idiots trying to either defeat him marry him.
This time around, Ranma just snorted when his father thrust a backpack toward him.
"Buzz off, Pop. I 'aint going ta school. I've got things to do."
Genma scoffed. "Like what?"
"Let's just say I'm trying to find a good sparrin' partner and leave it at that," Ranma said as he stood up and kicked the backpack away into a corner.
The elder Saotome crossed his arms over his chest. "Nonsense! I'm your sparring partner!"
Boot! Splash!
"I don't like beatin' up pandas," Ranma said, smirking. "There are laws against that sorta thing, ya know!"
Turning around, Ranma immediately had to deal with the idiot fathers' second line of defense, Soun Tendo, who was holding the backpack out to him with a stern expression on his face. "Now son, I won't have my daughter married to some uneducated barbarian!"
"Did you just give me a loophole to get out of this stupid marriage?" Ranma asked, rubbing his chin as if considering the idea. "Hmmm... go to school and be bored to death so that I can get married to some psycho macho chick... or go do what I want and never have to see her uncute face again... man, that's a tough choice!"
The choice was taken out of his hands a moment later as a savage uppercut launched him straight through the roof and into the sky. To Soun Tendo's dismay, Akane had not sent him in the direction of Furinkan.
_______________________
"Are you sure you're okay? You landed from an altitude of..." Orion stopped and lowered his head as he tried to do mental calculations in his head. "Well, a damn lot higher than I'd ever figured a human could survive."
Ranma grunted slightly as he followed the moon cat through the alley. "Eh, I'll be fine. I just think of it as constitution training. Good kitty!"
Orion rolled his eyes as Ranma stopped once again to pet a random stray cat "just because he finally can". Ranma had confessed he still didn't particularly like cats, but apparently found it a novel experience just being able to touch one without fearing for his life.
"Saotome, I'm as happy as anyone that you're no longer insane, but focus, please," he gently insisted. "We have to hurry if we're gonna find this..."
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Black Dragon
(Posted Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:33)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.