The door opened to reveal Nabiki, in all her smarmy glory. “Hello, Ranma. What’re you doing up so late?” she asked almost innocently… if she hadn’t had that particular glint in her eye that she got when faced with a money-making opportunity. Obviously, Ranma didn’t buy it for a second. Hell, the old Ranma wouldn’t have bought it!
“Nabiki. I’m assuming you heard?” he asked, trying to keep his face neutral. He had never liked her much. Heartless, money-grubbing bitch. Doing it for the family, his ass.
Come to think of it, he was pretty sure at least SOME of his troubles could be partially attributed to her. Her selling of pictures of him in both forms couldn’t have helped matters, certainly. Which reminded him… ‘I gotta check if there’s anything I can do with that curse later…’ he mentally noted for later.
“Heard what, Ranma-kun?” Playing stupid? How… cliché. He said as much.
“Really, Nabiki, the stupid thing just doesn’t work for you.”
She looked surprised for a moment, but quickly recovered, dropping the playful attitude and openly smirking in a superior manner. Ranma tried his best not to roll his eyes. “This is going to cost you, Ranma. Big time. Possibly two or three times your current tab.”
“I… see. And I obviously won’t be able to pay that.”
“I don’t know… you ARE a prince, after all. You must have something. Gold, silver, jewels…?”
Ranma raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Nabiki? I’m Prince Ran REINCARNATED. Anything I had on me was left on my old body… or do you not know what reincarnation entails?”
She gave him a “do you think I’m stupid?” look. Ranma was tempted to answer in the affirmative, despite the question never having been voiced. “Your kingdom has to have some emergency stashes for the occasional coup or something. I’m sure there are probably a few left somewhere, even after all this time…”
“Well… we did have some contingency plans…” Ranma paused at the look of pure greed the girl was giving him.
“…Well? Where are they?”
“…But they’re impossible to get.” Ranma relished in the new experience of getting one over on Nabiki as her face fell a bit. Relishing finished, he continued, “The closest one was in the treasury of Earth’s capital, Atlantis, which was completely obliterated during the war. I can only imagine that the platinum we had was among the casualties.”
Nabiki gave him that “do you think I’m stupid?” look again. The temptation was killing him. “Do you really think I’m going to believe Atlantis actually existed?”
“You believed I’m the prince of the Moon Kingdom easily enough. Why be skeptical about this?”
Ranma’s first clue that something had gone wrong was Nabiki’s upgrade from “do you think I’m stupid?” to “now you’re just messing with me.”
“Um… moon what?” she asked.
Ranma blinked in surprise; the Moon Kingdom wasn’t mentioned during his little conversation? Whoops. Well, nothing to do but roll with it. “Yes, you heard right- Moon Kingdom. On the Moon. I’m the reincarnated First Prince of the Moon. What did you think I was a prince of? Some forgotten village in China or something?”
Nabiki was silent for a moment, before replying…
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(Posted Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:30)
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