Genma had no idea where this last had come from, but if his son was going to go around rescuing cats from trees and the like, then he was going to bloody well wear one of the wrestling masks they'd gotten while studying martial arts in Mexico! That way the shame of having an altruistic son would not be traced back to Genma.
Genma looked at the traffic on the freeway and snorted. "Another example of why we walk everywhere, son. Look at all those people trapped by their reliance on technology." That they couldn't afford a car was besides the point.
"Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?" Ranma asked in that odd way of his. He stiffened as he overheard something.
"Not again," growled Genma.
Zip!
Genma sighed and looked for a place to set up camp. Oh the shame of it!
"We'll never get through this traffic," said Soun, his eyes fixed on the ambulance only a few hundred feet ahead and at the same velocity they were at. Zero.
"Mommy's gonna be all right, isn't she?"
"Let's go check," said Soun, pulling one of the most stupid manuevers of his life. Considering he'd gone to study under Happosai that was saying a lot.
Getting through traffic was easy.
Demonheading the attendents wasn't on his list of brightest moves either, as one of them replied that if they couldn't get her to a hospital within the next five minutes they'd expect to lose her.
Watching their mother bleed to death internally, in a traffic jam, filled with hopelessness and frustration, would have caused years of emotional problems for the family.
"Excuse me," came a boy's voice.
Akane and Nabiki quickly climbed into the ambulance as some little boy picked it up and started flying with it! Okay, it was only going about 25mph but that was still faster than a dead stop.
When the ambulance came down in a hospital parking lot, the attendents were far too busy getting the patient into the ER, but the family stared at the young boy (about Akane's age) as he flew up and away (a little unsteadily, Nabiki had noted) before they went into check on their mother.
As it was, they were told that if she had come in fifteen minutes later, she'd have died - but that they had a 50/50 chance at that point...
Soun railed against the gaijin superhero for not being faster or producing healing rays from his eyes or something.
Soun's wife Kimiko told him to stop being such a putz.
Akane wondered if the superguy had some ulterior motive.
Nabiki pondered the meaning of power and control. For the first time in her young life, she found money to be less of a definition of such things.
Kasumi wondered if she should become a roving reporter for the Daily Shimbun. Those reporters in America got to thank superheroes all the time.
Genma knew his son and those odd talents of his, not to mention those strange impulses, would be a problem if they were discovered by the authorities.
Nothing good could come of it.
So while his son was thinking happy thoughts to fly (Genma should have known that that Peter Pan video Ranma and Ukyo had seen a few years ago had been problems - he just didn't know how much problem until Ranma had started floating and bumping into trees) and find the new campsite, Genma considered his options.
The first problem had been the engagement to Ukyo. Ranma hadn't come into the fullness of his powers yet, but had "paid a trick" on his old dad by flying back and snagging Ukyo when his buddy had fallen down. Genma had taken twenty miles to realize how much heavier the cart was.
Keeping Ranma ignorant of the deal had been difficult, but the boy was easily distracted by such things as a training method involving a car wrecking yard's hydraulic press. Ukyo had been a lot less anxious to go through the same training and had eventually been convinced to go back to her father and up her training to where she could keep up. Hopefully the promise he'd observed the two kids making, to fight crime and save the world together when they were older, would prove to be one of those silly childish pledges that would be forgotten as time went on.
Being around large cities was out now. Genma acknowledged the necessity of Ranma learning to use his odd talents so as to be able to control them, but lifting busses off of railroad tracks and rescuing people from burning buildings tended to draw unwanted attention.
Where to go where there were not so many people to have this sort of thing going on.
After long consideration (and falling asleep twice while staring into the fire), Genma decided to try going to:
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(Posted Tue, 14 Jan 2003 11:58)
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