A little after dinner that night, the Tendo dojo was visited by a friendly looking old man in casual Scottish clothing. Thickly smoking pipe in hand, the old Scott knocked pleasantly on the front gait.
"Oh, we have a visitor. I wonder who would be visiting us at this hour?" wondered Kasumi as she got up to answer the door.
A few moments later she returned, laughing musically with the old Scotsman she'd found at the door. From her tinkling laughter, Kasumi found the old foreigner pleasant company indeed. "Excuse me, everyone, but it seems that Ranma's employer, Mr. Fetish has decided to stop by for a quick visit!" Kasumi announced from the foyer as she brought their guest into the house.
"My, what a pleasant surprise! I hadn't expected I'd be meeting you so soon Mr. Fetish; my son was just telling us about your products over diner a little bit ago!" Nodoka greeted the friendly old man as he entered the sitting area with a respectful bow.
"Was he now, nothing bad I hope. An old man like myself needs his hobbies you know. I may be a dirty old man, but at least I can say I keep it strictly to the ones as is interested," replied the man in a mock serious tone as he returned Nodoka's bow with a grand one of his own. Glaring playfully at Ranma as he sat by the TV.
"Hardly, it sounds as though you have quite an 'interesting' assortment of goods Mr. Fetish. I'm very much looking forward to browsing your store, I think I might even have a few purchases in mind already," Nodoka countered pleasantly.
"Pish tosh, a lovely, elegant thing like yourself interested in my things!? What would your neighbors be thinking if they heard such things?" Mr. Fetish retorted playfully, feigning scandalized shock at the 'horrid' suggestion.
"That I'm a healthy, middle-aged woman with natural needs and an open mind. All while trying to convince themselves they weren't too embarrassed to buy their own marital aids," Nodoka countered with heartfelt sincerity.
"Oh, a woman after my own heart, if only I were a few decades younger. . ." he trailed off wistfully, and then pretended to suddenly realize something. "You wouldn't be a married woman would you, lass? Using that 'marital aid' word and all?" Mr. Fetish asked, peering about in mock fear for an angry husband.
Nodoka nodded sternly at the man's jest. "For almost seventeen years now; for all the good it's done me. You should have set up shop a little sooner Mr. Fetish, perhaps then I might not have resented my husband's ten year absence quite so much!" Ranma's mother answered unhappily, glaring in the general direction of her husband in the adjacent room.
"Left you alone that long did he? Criminal I tell you, absolutely criminal of him! I don't sell fixes on the past I'm afraid, inter-dimensional law and all that, lass. But you take these to my shop some time and your son or I'll fix you up. I got a few 'marital aids' back at my store likely to fix that loveless lout of yours right up. He'll be ready for you anytime you want him to be, lass," promised Mr. Fetish, handing Ranma's mother a couple of gift certificates for his magical novelty shop. Ranma barely noticed the angry look that was directed in the direction his mother had indicated.
Then just as suddenly as it had appeared the angry look was gone and he was dragging a neglected Kasumi back into their conversation "Now this lovely lass here tells me she'd like to get out and about a bit more. Only she worries about who'll take care of the nitwits here if she leaves them behind for a few hours," Mr. Fetish declared grandly as he held Kasumi by the shoulders, presenting her to the room at large, silently admonishing the 'crowd' as he did so. "So, I was wondering if anybody here would mind if I set her up with a nice friendly little helper to keep the natives in line while she's out and about?" Everyone present indicated no objections.
"Good, it'll come out of the lad's pay, but I pay him well enough he won't miss it that much I think. Now for the other half of my proposal; I think given a fair little chance our sweet little homemaker here might enjoy a night or two out on the town with the hired help over there. I'll be paying the props on that one though lad; I'll not be having any excuses for not treating a lady right. Consider it fair trade for the lass's new assistant," continued the old man, brandishing Kasumi's blushing form as if guarding her from an invisible mob.
"If Kasumi doesn't mind, then I don't either. Akane will probably try to kill me over it, but Kasumi deserves a good time once in a while too, what's a little pain compared to that?" Ranma replied, somewhere between joking and serious.
The tone didn't escape Ranma's new, matchmaking employer though. "I'll fend of the repercussions lad . . . well, the short term violent ones anyway. You don't keep a delicate flower like this one locked up out of the sun, lad. It ruins them after a time, as evil a crime as any I could ever name," replied Mr. Fetish, glaring briefly in a direction that none could have known was directly at Kasumi's father.
"Well, I suppose once or twice shouldn't hurt much," relented Kasumi, accepting the proposal.
"Nor would a few hundred lass. There's a fine line between making a home and living in a gilded cage, child. It's high time you stretched them wings a little, the ones you seem to have forgotten about having," admonished Mr. Fetish gently.
"Hey Ranma, your boss seems to be quite the generous fellow, for being a 'dirty old man' as he puts it," commented Nabiki. The mercenary girl intentionally brining attention to herself as she half heartedly tried to get a rise out of Ranma.
"Ah, another beautiful young lass. It seems there's a number of lovely flowers here, all of them given too much 'fertilizer' and no room to grow. It's hard to make an honest day's pay when there's no honest work to be had, isn't it girl? You think over what you need as long as you feel like, lass. If you should decide you can deal with the whispering, you come talk to me, we'll hammer something agreeable out," commented Ranma's boss. The old wizard obviously responding to comments that Nabiki wouldn't dare say aloud, ever.
"Hmph, looks like I picked up a hired hand with more than a little baggage to go with him. But like I said, an old man's got to have his hobbies. One of my favorites is fixing tangled messes like what you're sitting in, lad," added the old wizard, teasing Ranma and the audience at large.
"Ha, I hope you're up to the challenge then, boss, cause my life's pretty messed up," complained Ranma, finally becoming more than a casual participant in the ongoing conversation.
"Oh, I'm not so old that a hard bit of wind will blow me over lad. I just don't like anyone giving my people and their kin a hard time except me. Fun's fun, but some people just don't know where to draw the line. But I think you'll be learning that as you get up to speed,"
"Well, just don't hurt anybody while you're trying to help me out. A bunch of them are just too stupid to know better," Ranma half threatened, half pleaded with his new boss.
"It all depends on them lad. I can fix ignorant, and I can handle dim-witted, but there's some village fools too stupid to cure, if you catch my drift, lad," the old wizard replied in an unexpectedly fatherly fashion.
The moment was broken however as Akane passed the room on her way back from the furo. "Oh, Akane! Ranma's employer stopped in for a visit, won't you say hello to him?" invited Kasumi, attempting to draw Akane into the pleasant moment. Kasumi meant well, she truly did, but when it came to family the poor girl had some blind spots a passenger plane could fly through.
Akane was all but glowing when she stepped back into view. "Oh, so that’s the hentai wizard that's got my perverted fiancé selling his even more perverted 'TOYS' to hapless customers. Or should I say to people who may or may not want to actually buy any of his disgusting filth! And he just happened to drop by for a visit did he?" asked Akane, her tone identical to all her other pre-explosion rants.
"Um, Akane . . . does the word wizard mean anything to you? Or am I just wasting my breath trying to talk you out of getting yourself turned into who knows what?" Ranma tried bravely, despite his visible lack of hope.
"ARGH! DIE PERVERT!!" screamed Akane in a berserker rage as she charged her helpless victim. Her speed seemingly doubled by the blind rage she was obviously in.
Ranma was quick enough to tackle his new boss out of harms way, not realizing that the old wizard had protections of his own in place. Akane wasn't as lucky, the passive shield spell she bounced off of knocking her out cold, literally. Frozen in mid-motion, Akane was immortalized in a frozen rictus of unadulterated, mindless rage . . . well, until she was thawed back out anyway.
Ranma's boss seemed slightly stunned by the sudden turn of events, though not for the reasons those around him believed. "My, you're quick, lad! You reacted even faster than my defensive spell did; I thought I'd been hit by a freight train there for a moment! Most commendable, lad. But it was hardly necessary, though I might want to consider improving that defensive spell's reaction time. Then again your lack of harmful intent might have been why you weren't affected like the girl was," commentated the old Scotsman as he shook his head clear of the impact.
Meanwhile Ranma was silently berating himself for nearly fumbling the save and consequently hitting his employer so hard. Of course the fact that he'd moved faster than most bullets, with barely an instant's notice never factored into Ranma's criticisms. "Sorry about that, boss. I didn't mean to catch you that roughly, but it was kind of a bad angle and all that. I can't believe Akane attacked you like that; generally she only attacks me when she's like that," he apologized as he tried to smooth over the event.
"You did nothing to apologize for, lad. You honestly believed you were saving an old man's life. A commendable reaction, after all, there aren't many folks about as well protected as myself. I'll have to think up an appropriate reward for you later, after Ms. Kasumi's date I imagine. In the mean time, this vicious wildcat needs her claws trimmed a bit. A bit of punishment wouldn't be out of order either I believe," Mr. Fetish retorted distractedly, stroking his bearded chin a couple times as he considered Akane’s frozen form.
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(Posted Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:34)
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