Soun Tendo shakily clutched the postcard in his hands, crying so much that he was almost unable to see the barely legible handwriting on it. After composing himself, Soun was finally able to read what his old training buddy, Genma Saotome, had written: 'Bringing Ranma from China. Start praying. Saotome.' Despite being slightly confused by what Genma meant, Soun was nonetheless elated by their impending arrival.
"R-Ranma? Coming Here? Oh, how I've w-w-waited for this day!"
Running through the Tendo home, Soun called out to his three daughters. "Kasumi! Nabiki! Akane!"
"Kasumi!!" the human fountain exclaimed, upon finding his eldest child in the kitchen.
"Yes, Daddy?" she replied, turning around only to find that her father had continued on with his mad dash through the house.
"Nabiki!!" he shouted out, finding his second daughter in her room, lying on her bed with an ice pop in her mouth, reading manga.
"Mm?" was all the girl with a pageboy-style haircut was able to mumble out before he had moved on.
"Akane!!" Soun called out, trying to find his youngest daughter. "Where is that girl?"
Akane was, at that very moment, entering her family's property via the side gate, which led directly to the dojo. Having just finished her run, she quickly changed out of her jogging clothes and into her gi, before she set up a stack of bricks and wooden boards, then proceeded to shatter the lot with one hit.
"That was nice," the long-haired girl sighed out, wiping the sweat off her brow.
"There you go again, Akane," Nabiki said, walking up to her sister, "No wonder the boys all think you're so weird."
"So why should I care?" the youngest retorted. "Not everybody thinks the world revolves around boys, Nabiki."
"No?" her elder sister queried. "Then I guess this wouldn't interest you."
The sound of thunder was partially drowned out by the cry of "Fiancé?" coming from all three of Soun Tendo's daughters.
"Yes. The son of a very good friend of mine," their father answered. "The son's name is Ranma Saotome. If one of you three girls were to marry him, and carry on this training centre, then the Tendo family legacy would be secure."
"Wait a minute!" Akane interrupted. "Don't we have some say in who we marry?"
"Akane's right Daddy," Kasumi concurred. "We've never even met Ranma."
"Heh heh," Soun chuckled, "That's easily fixed."
As rain began to fall in earnest over Nerima, three figures could be seen approaching through the veil the heavy downpour was creating. Now, normally there would be a pair of figures, a large panda and a well endowed redheaded girl with a pigtail. However, because of numerous fluctuations in the fabric of reality caused by a green haired woman with red eyes trying to create a Utopian society on Earth, and a certain man who travels through the time stream in what looks like a 1950's British Police call box; alterations had been made to one of the places that Genma and Ranma Saotome visited while in China.
As the first of the trio of figures becomes visible, it is quite obviously a heavily singed panda running for it's life, waving a sign around that had 'For the love of that is good and holy, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!' written on it. The people on both sides of the street were all wondering why they had all seen what they just did. They didn't need to wait long for an answer. Thundering down the street like a freight train came something that looked remarkably like a man made of metal and painted a rusty red. Without so much as slowing down one iota, it ripped a stop sign out of the concrete, folded the sign itself into a triangular shape, and launched it at the panda, barely missing its target as the beast skidded around a corner. The metallic being emitted a growl as it used the corner of a brick wall to slingshot itself around the same corner as its prey.
Stunned into complete silence, no-one noticed an attractive brunette wearing okonomiyaki seller's clothing run in the same direction as the panda and android, calling out, "Don't kill that jackass yet Ran-chan! I wanna help you do it!"
"Ranma and his father have been on a voyage of training," Soun Tendo continued to tell his daughters about his best friend and their future husband. "Recently, it seems, they crossed into China."
"Wow! China!" Nabiki exclaimed, feeling slightly envious of Ranma.
"What's so great about walking to China?" Akane snorted, dismissing any notion that traveling abroad was worthy of note.
"Is he cute?" the middle sister inquired, as her mind began to work in overdrive, concocting numerous fantasies that would cause a porn star to blush.
"How old is he?" Kasumi asked, "Younger men bore me."
"What kind of guy is this Ranma?" the two elder Tendo sister simultaneously queried.
"No idea" was the only reply their father had for them.
"'No idea'?" the second eldest girl parroted.
Soun's response was: "I've never met him."
Anything further that might have been said instantly died as a heavily battered panda flew over the outlying wall of the Tendo abode, and slammed into the ground. The creature shakily stood up, backing away from the wall and dropping into a defensive stance. Before any of the members of the Tendo family were able to recover enough senses to speak, a seven foot tall man made entirely out of metal jumped over the wall, creating a small crater in the ground when it landed.
In a synthesized voice that clearly held barely-restrained anger, it said: "Declaration of Intent: If you think you can decide who I am to be marrying, and expect me to just follow along with another of your insipidly moronic plans, you are clearly in need of psychological treatment, you walking mound of dessicated excrement!! Sarcastic Query: Were you inebriated beyond the ability to think rationally when you came up with this brilliant idea of yours; or had you merely suffered from one too many blows to the head!?"
"Daddy... this... is your friend?" Kasumi asked from behind her father, whose only response was a jerkily shaken head in the negative.
"Oh. So this panda just gets thrown into our home by a robot! Happens all the time!" Nabiki sarcastically shot at her father while hiding underneath the table.
The panda's only response was to cower near where most of the Tendo family had gathered to observe the fracas when another voice was heard, coming from atop the wall, "OK Ran-chan, I think your Pops is sufficiently humbled." The panda nodded rapidly. "Now let's apologize to this nice family for intruding upon them."
As the girl lightly hopped off the wall and walked up to what she had labeled 'Ran-chan', the mechanized man roughly grabbed the still cowering panda by the neck, hauling it upright with no effort.
By now Soun had finally regained the ability to talk and, while looking at the young redhead, asked, "You... wouldn't be..."
"'Ranma Saotome'?" the girl asked, knowing that was what the man in front of her was hoping to know. She wasn't disappointed either by the way he eagerly nodded. "Sorry, Ukyo Kuonji's my name," she responded. As Soun's face fell, the buxom young woman pointed to her Automaton companion. "Ranma's this big lug here."
Soun was very confused. He had been fairly certain that the young man before him (he was unable to see that the brunette standing before him was female because of the androgynous style of clothing she wore) was Ranma Saotome, son of his old friend Genma, and soon to be son-in-law. When the aforementioned redhead indicated that Ranma was actually the mechanical being that kept glaring at the panda with a look in its red eyes that promised unspeakable amounts of pain and cruelty, the mustachioed man decided that the events of today were a little bit too much for him to handle, and felt that right now would be a very good time for a nap.
*Thud!*
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(Posted Sat, 03 Feb 2007 04:00)
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