Ranma turned to exit the site when her danger sense went crazy. Quickly she grabbed the foreman in a fireman’s hold and she jumped out of the way as several steel girders slammed down on the ground that they had just occupied.
She put the foreman down on the ground, who was shaken, but still surprisingly professional. He nodded in thanks to Ranma as he got on his feet and yelled into his walkie-talkie,
“What’s going up there?! BBJ10 you’re on girder supply duty. Report in.” The walkie-talkie crackled for a bit and what came over the speaker sounded like music being played backwards. (While this did alarm the foreman, it would have scared him silly if he understood the hidden evil messages.) “ARC2 what do you see from your welding station?” A robotic head clanged into the dirt nearby. When the head stopped rolling on the side a barely legible ARC2 can be seen on it. “What the ….” He looked up to see a 7 foot figure jump down from the scaffolding.
Ranma battle senses went into overdrive as he quickly looked over the imposing figure. On the deformed robot’s head the code BBJ10 could still be read. It had the original claw arms that were used carry girders, but it also had an extra pair of sparking welding arms below those. She wasn’t sure if the extra pair of legs presumably from the defunct ARC2 dangling off the back did anything except make it look silly.
The foreman backed away, “No… it’s gone rogue. Officer Romanova-san is there anything you can do?” The disguised martial artist mentally sighed. How do I get myself into these messes? I don’t want to give the A.D. police a bad name. That might really piss those girls off. What did those officers say on that COPS American show Kasumi likes to watch? It was badly subtitled, but I guess it went something like this.
“Stop in the name of the law. These new buildings are the hope of the people. For destruction of private property and disturbing the peace, you are under arrest. Anything you say can be used against you in court. If you resist arrest then you will be punished.” Ranma winced as she mentally reviewed her interpretation of the Miranda rights. Damn. I think I mixed in something from that stupid magical girl anime that Akane watches.
The Foreman face faulted in mid-retreat. He jumped up from the ground and said, “Officer-san! Call for backup! It needs to be destroyed before it gets out into the streets!” He eyes widened in horror as he saw a concrete roller thrown in the red haired officer’s direction. His eyes were still opened wide, but this time in wonder as the female officer neither jumped for safety nor became the consistency of paste. Instead, she shattered the concrete roller with a punch. She smiled as she said, “OK. Resisting arrest then.”
Ranma quickly reassessed the situation. She now knew that the A.D. Police stopped robots gone wild. Also, she knew that the officer in that weird armor that she crashed into earlier could hit as hard any of the Nerima Wrecking Crew and therefore it would not be suspicious to use her full strength. Lastly, there were way too many people gathered by the construction yard entrance.
For some reason the curious public had decided that the construction wall would some how contain the violence within. Ranma would normally try to keep track of noncombatants during her fights, but there were more here then she could comfortable watch out for and her opponent definitely wasn’t constrained by any martial arts honor. She yelled at the gathered crowd. “Everyone get away! This could get messy!” Less then half the folks moved away she noted grimly. Damn. Still gotta worry about them as well.
The boomer decided that the annoying yelling human was an easy target and went to slam Ranma into next week, but it quickly became apparent that she wasn’t playing the same game. The red head ducked under the right claw, avoided the electrical bolt from the left welder, and planted three solid punches, which heavily dented the chest plates before she rolled out of the way of a foot stomp.
Ranma flexed her fist. Wow, that thing’s armor pretty strong, but not quite as tough as pig-boy’s hide. Those extra legs aren’t as silly as I thought. It does use them for keeping upright and can probably pack quite a wallop with them. So sweeping the legs are out for the moment. So let’s see if the head is its weak point.
The boomer advanced and attempted to smash the annoying human. Ranma moved only just enough to dodge each arm until she came face to face with the red-eyed boomer. She then delivered two swift punches to the head and followed up with a good old-fashioned ‘boot to da head’, which lifted the rogue boomer into the air. She followed it up in to air, grabbed its neck, and then flipped the 7-foot boomer over on its head. Ranma slammed the boomer head first into the ground and flipped several times backwards to get some space and break her own momentum.
The rogue boomer stood up a little unsteadily and looked around. Now it wasn’t truly thinking of anything beyond how much damage it could possible cause to humans as a whole. When it stood up it was facing away from Ranma and focused on the crowd beyond the wall. It ran and jumped toward the panicked crowd.
The disguised martial artist reacted quickly to the boomer’s attack on the crowd. She ran forward, jumped on the boomer in mid-leap and yelled, “Oh no you don’t!” She reversed flipped it back into the construction yard, twisted so that she landed facing the boomer and jumped again. She planted both feet on the boomer’s face with such force that a trench was created with its head for several yards. “You’re fight is with me you rejected toaster!”
If the boomer felt anger it only showed by the increased glow in its eyes. Using all of its limbs, it pushed it self-upright, which sent Ranma flipping into the air. The rogue construction boomer lurched forward with the full intent to spear the human. Ranma half twisted so that she caught claw. Using the momentum, she completed the twist, which broke the boomers right claw arm. She took advantage of the hole in it’s defense left by the dangling claw arm, “KACHUU TENSHIN AMAGURIKEN!” Hundreds of powerful blows landed on the abused boomer’s chest. The final punch blew it clear across the construction yard into several parked construction vehicles. Ranma smirked as she surveyed her handy work. Yeah! That’ll show that it! Looks like I broke through the chest armor. Some sort of glowing pulsing thing in there. It might be a weak point, like a power source. Maybe I should back up in case it blows. Uh oh. Maybe I should have broken that glowing thing when I had the chance. As the core pulsed, the boomer quickly absorbed the construction vehicles around it. A front load shovel became its right leg, a bulldozer its left arm, and so on. It built itself up to a two-story monstrosity, complete with a new head. The original boomer was stuck in the middle of the new boomers chest like some bizarre crucified tattoo with its eyes and core still glowing red. Ranma looked up and realized two things. One she had to destroy that glowing thing. Two it was going to be painful.
(Posted Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:54)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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