“Okay, normally, I’d be worried about your mental health, but… well… this is YOU we’re talking about. To tell the truth, I was actually expecting something… bigger”
Ranma blinked, completely caught of guard; was the chaos that followed him THAT bad? “Bigger? How so?” he asked, his curiosity and surprise getting the better of him.
“Well… knowing you, and factoring that you were talking to who I am presuming to be Sailor Pluto?” Here she paused for confirmation. Ranma nodded, and she continued. “You were the prince of some far off galactic empire and was married—or at least engaged—to the nine Senshi.”
All over the district of Juuban, eight different girls/young women/container of avatar of incarnation of Chaos sneezed simultaneously. All wondered if they were coming down with something, despite the fact that their innate magic would prevent everything but some of the rarer varieties of the common cold (and even that, in the case of Saturn/Mistress 9) from affecting them.
On a double-ringed planet several light-years from Earth, a certain emperor and father of a prince-turned-priest, an incest-obsessed princess, and a future goddess-human amalgam sneezed. Why was he suddenly thinking of that childhood promise he had had with one of his former fiancées, concerning the betrothal of their children? What was her name again? Serene? Selene? Serenity? It was something along those lines.
Eh, what did it matter? Last he heard, she had been killed in some battle almost ten millennia ago, along with her only children. Unless they were both reincarnated (the children had been promised, HEART and SOUL. A poor choice of words, but hey, what’cha going to do?) or something, it was nothing to worry about.
It was a pity, though, since she had been kinda cute. Especially with her white hair in that strange “odango” style of hers, whatever that word had meant…
Ranma twitched as he suddenly got the feeling that he’d been fucked up the ass by a parental figure yet again. He made a mental note to give his old man a much more vicious beat down come morning. Strange foreboding feeling over, he told Nabiki, “No, nothing like that. My mother back then wasn’t one for the whole ‘manly man’ thing. Actually, you might say she tried to get me to act a bit more… effeminate.”
Nabiki’s eyes widened slightly as she visibly tried to picture what he’d just told her. She gave up after a few moments. “I… see,” she drawled, “Well, that doesn’t change the fact that you were a prince with contingency plans. So, presuming you’re telling the truth about one being blown up with Atlantis, where are the others that you mentioned?”
“We had stashes on Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Europa, Titan, Titania, Triton, and Pluto… or, at least I think they were on those three moons; we had different names for them back then.
“Anyways, since most of it was in platinum, I’m pretty sure the stashes on Mercury and Venus have long since melted and become part of their respective planets. I know the palace on Mars was obliterated early in the invasion. I can only guess at what has happened to the stashes on Titan, Titania, and Triton, and the one on Pluto… well, that was the last, last, LAST ditch plan. My mother was the only one who could give permission for that, and she’s… well… dead.
“But it doesn’t matter if they’re still there or not… unless your connections run deeper and longer then most world leaders.” He had more and more trouble hiding his growing smirk as Nabiki’s face fell with each word he spoke; reveling in that fact that she was the one being screwed over for once. As a finishing touch, he shrugged and nonchalantly said “sorry”, as if the loss of a fortune that would have made Bill Gates look like a bum was nothing special.
“All-all-all that money… and I can’t get it…” Nabiki muttered, seemingly traumatized.
“Sorry,” Ranma repeated, once again trying to repress his smirk. Maybe he was enjoying this a little TOO much?
Nah.
Nabiki eventually regained her senses, which made Ranma internally sigh in disappointment. Eh. All good things, and all that… “Well, Ranma, you’re still going to have to pay me somehow… unless, of course, you want the fiancée brigade to know about your new girlfriends…?” Nabiki trailed off, making her threat clear.
Ranma sighed; he knew she was going to use something along those lines. He briefly entertained the thought of just doing this the easy way and killing her, but dismissed the though. It would be too hard to explain, even to the Nerima Prefectural Police Department, which, as he understood it, had an “ignore it if you can’t do it yourself’ policy.
Luckily for him, all those diplomacy lessons from his childhood hadn’t been for nothing. He had developed a plan during their little talk, and now was the time to put it into action.
He shook his head, as if he was disappointed. “Nabiki, Nabiki, Nabiki… how predictable of you, threatening me with my… fiancées.” He spat the last word out in disgust, and looked her in the eye as he continued. “It is also, I’m afraid, completely useless.”
To her credit, Nabiki looked completely unphased. Ranma would have been impressed, if the feeling of shock that was practically rolling of her hadn’t ruined the effect. He suppressed a smirk; ah, the advantages of being trained by both the Aura Warriors of Uranus and the Dark Templars of Mars—when it came to reading opponents, there was nothing like having both telepathy and aura reading at your disposal.
“Hmm… how so, Ranma?” she asked, her voice steady. Ranma was beginning to be truly impressed, despite himself.
“Well, first of all…” Ranma looked around, and noticed for the first time that he was still standing at her door. “May I come in first?”
He stepped past her before she could give him an answer, and casually leaned against the wall, ignoring her glare as she closed the door. He proceeded to continue as if he had never stopped. “As you’ve noticed, I’m not exactly… ‘me’ anymore. The fact that you’d use such a threat shows me that, despite evidence, you think I’m still naïve old Ranma. Well, you’d be happy to know that if my… admirers decide to get rough, I will GLADLY oblige them.” He gave her a shark like grin, not unlike the one she herself wore on occasion.
“Second, you’re trying to tell them to be threatened of girls that don’t live in Nerima, and don’t even know of me. They’re going to be suspicious when nobody shows up after a while. Best case scenario: it blows over, and they start distrusting any information you claim you can provide. Worst case scenario: they take personal offense and think you’re trying to trick them… which you are, in reality. Since us Nerima Wrecking Crew members have the combined I.Q. of a rock, I’m pretty sure the results will be somewhere in the middle—they won’t be smart enough to suspect you, but might conveniently forget that you’re a noncombatant.” And the scary thing was, everything he’d just said was 100% true. Seriously, he needed some new acquaintances (‘friends’ was too strong of a word).
“And if you tell them where the Senshi are… well, I can promise you that Pluto won’t like it. She’ll also see it coming, and, if it harms the girls in anyway, you might suffer a… accident. Pluto’s rather anal when it comes to the safety of her liege, you see.” Okay, so that part was pushing it a bit, but Nabiki didn’t know that… or rather, he was pretty sure Nabiki didn’t know what, if the sudden fear rolling off her was any indication.
“And that’s provided the Senshi actually do live in Juuban. What most people don’t know—and what I’m about to tell you, free of charge—is that they can teleport. They can easily live in… oh, I don’t know… Okinawa, and still convenient fight the youma that regularly pop up in Juuban.” Of course, if he remembered correctly, the Sailor Teleport (wow, what an original name) was quite draining on the users, and Pluto teleported by gating to the Time Gates—which killed anyone approaching that wasn’t Pluto—before gating to her desired location. Once again, what Nabiki didn’t know, she couldn’t use against him.
Feeling he’d made his point, if Nabiki’s perpetually shocked state was any judge, he finally made his own counter-offer. “Now, as you no doubt already know, I am, though I loath to admit it, a trained thief in this life. I’m also quite techno-savvy now, since the Moon Kingdom, though being several millennia dead, was quite advanced.
“You, my dear Nabiki, are not very well liked, no matter what you tell yourself. You also have done quite a few illegal things in your time, child pornography being one of them. You have quite a few things going against you, and the only thing keeping you from doing hard time are some very well hidden pieces of evidence.
“Now, as stated before, I am now a highly trained, extremely powerful, techno-savvy thief. Hacking your computer over there will be no trouble. Finding your hard copies will be a piece of cake. Handling anybody you send my way will result in a one-sided massacre, with a winner that should be quite obvious to a smart girl like yourself.” Ranma allowed himself that smirk, finally, it having grown wider as the fear coming from Nabiki increased throughout his little speech. “I think you can see where this is going.”
There was a moment of silence as Ranma let the girl in front of him sweat it out a bit. On a whim, he decided to sweeten the deal. He did want to get some sleep after all, since he had plans tomorrow, so he need to end this quickly. “On the other hand, my sister—Sailor Moon, you remember?—probably needs an advisor for everyday matters. Despite myself, you’ve impressed me over the time I’ve been here with your skills and know-how. The Senshi could always use someone with your mind. This also has the added bonus of putting you in a good light that would be quite hard to tarnish. Unless you do something REALLY bad, the cops won’t even be able to touch you.”
“So, here’s the deal: you keep quiet, wipe my tab, and do a few favors for me, and I’ll get you a clientele the likes of which you’ve never dreamed of. Do anything to piss me off, and you’ll be calling a woman named Bertha ‘mistress’ before the book hits the floor. And that’s provided you don’t get into an… accident beforehand.” Ranma narrowed his eyes for extra effect as he finished. “The choice is yours, Nabiki. What will it be?”
A moment of complete silence passed between them, as Nabiki made a life-changing decision, and Ranma thought up some contingency plans.
Finally, Nabiki opened her mouth and said…
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by The Fanfic Stealer
(Posted Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:41)
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.