Setsuna would have wept but as she was currently being flung around at 7.6g accelerations in a four-dimensional whirlwind....
"Bleargh!"
Well, face it, not many people can take random directions at high acceleration.
Setsuna gradually regained her feet and her equilibrium, and found herself on a cold street. A quick trip to the Time Gate had produced results.
It being a Maalox moment, Setsuna grabbed a bottle of antacid. The new timeline had stabilized. Chibi-usa had never come back in time.
Instead, the difference had started when on a rainy day in March:
WHANG! A panda with piggy eyes beat the redhaired girl over the head with a stop sign and prepared to pick her up.
Except that this time, someone observed who knew that this was not typical behavior for pandas.
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!"
"Grrrowf!" threatened Genma, but then his eyes grew wide as he saw what the crowd was looking at as well.
(Pose. Stance of Righteous Declaration.) "Pandas are an endangered species, cute, and cuddly! For impersonating one and kidnapping helpless little girls..." (shift to sentai pose) "...I will punish you!"
"Growf!" The panda bared teeth in an attempt to get this silly girl in the orange cheerleader costume to go away.
"Sailor V Kick!" The girl leapt forward, only to find herself blocked and thrown. "Well, then. CRESCENT BEAM!" Zak!
"Growf?!" The panda stared at where he'd blocked the beam with his forearm, and now had a neat little hole going through his forearm.
Ranma slowly came awake to see some girl in orange fighting his father?! This wasn't a damn Amazon again, was it?
Sailor V was one of the Senshi. The Senshi remembered or developed as the need increased - more powerful attacks. This panda was proving remarkably hard to put down, which of course merely proved this was some dark kingdom youma!
Genma was surprised. This girl was getting better and better the longer they fought. On one level, he was well and truly intrigued. There was a strong love of the Art in him, and so he wanted to see exactly what this girl was capable of if she had an actual tutor in the martial arts. He'd had her pegged as someone who had learned all her martial arts from watching movies, and then he'd see something vaguely like one of his own moves thrown back at him.
On the other hand, the longer he fought this girl, the more chance of Ranma waking up and remembering that he was going to get married.
Whang!
Ranma watched the blonde miss a step, sliding on the wet street, and get struck with enough force by a stop sign wielded by a panda that she tumbled backwards and crashed through a cafe table before lying still on the wet cold street.
"Oyaji!" Ranma had put up with a lot from his father. Watching him kill someone was not acceptable.
Punt!Look ma! A flying panda!
Ranma grabbed the girl up and began running. He thought he'd seen a hospital back this way and...
The girl's clothes had changed. Waitaminute. Maybe she had some kinda Jusenkyo curse too?
Setsuna winced as the scene devolved further. Ranma thinking the girl had some kind of curse herself started unloading on what he thought was a kindred spirit. The girl had been kind and had listened to him and other than asking for some aspirin because she had developed this incredible headache was fairly quiet. Because she was injured and unsteady, Ranma's protective instincts had engaged.
No storm of sakura petals or anything. Just two lonely people who could confide in each other while both went through some tough times. Ranma spent two weeks meeting with Minako Aino and learned about something beyond martial arts. A real life-and-death struggle with a cause beyond filling his own belly and following his father.
It was almost at the end of that two weeks before Minako saw what Ranma looked like as a guy, and by that point they were friends.
Also by that point, Ranma was bound and determined that if there were fights like that going on - he was going to be ready and he was not going to lose the only friend he'd had since he'd parted ways with Ryouga. Even if Minako was most definitely a girl.
Minako on the other hand wasn't quite as desperate as she'd later become, but she still enjoyed looking over her friend's toned bod in his male form, and if she had a few hot fantasies about what she could do with that totally buff bod - she was entitled wasn't she? Pity something more couldn't work out but the fear of cats (and story behind it) had come out in the first week, and she couldn't abandon Artemis, could she?
Artemis had snuck around for his part, listening and watching and come to his own conclusions about Ranma Saotome. Diamond in the rough was his final assessment. Yes, he was crude and ignorant about many things, but Minako liked him and seemed to be able to draw something a bit less crass and obnoxious out of the boy than the first impression had been. Besides, he was a whole two years older so it couldn't develop into a relationship, right?
At two weeks though, at the Crown Arcade:
"Hey Motoki, ya seen Mina-chan around?" Ranma asked companionably. The other guy didn't seem too bad as far as other guys went. He had never hit on "Ranko" so that was a definite plus in Ranma's book.
"Not yet, another date?" Motoki asked.
"Nah. I don't really have a place to stay, and Mina-chan smuggles me food," said Ranma with unthinking honesty.
Two nearby girls turned, looked, and saw an absolute hunk standing there.
"Whoa!" Usagi said, practically drooling.
"Indeed," said her young companion, feeling hormones stir to life for the first time.
Crash! "GROWF!"
"A panda?!" Motoki yelped and ducked as a Sailor V game was reduced to pieces by Ranma ducking and a panda impacting the game instead.
"GROWF!" The panda declared, hefting a long piece of wood and then spinning it through a bo staff maneuver.
"Stupid oyaji! I... STOP!" Ranma saw a piece of the wood seperate, speeding back to where two girls were gaping. His hands closed on the shard of wood just before it would have killed a thin girl with blue-black hair.
WHAM! "Growf!" Genma gave a satisfied sound as he brought his improvised staff down on the juncture of skull and neck. The boy had gotten sloppy during the time he'd had to hunt him down. Now he could get Ranma to the Tendos and marry the ungrateful brat off and everything would be fine.
Watching the hunk get abducted by an obviously possessed panda, Usagi turned to her companion. "Ami?"
The studyholic blinked twice and then her face took a look of determination as if a practice exam challenge had just been announced. "Right!"
(Posted Sun, 15 Jun 2003 13:54)
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