It seemed there were straight-battle arena matches, but that was just one aspect out of several. A number of the contests seemed more like those 'reality TV' shows he'd heard about but never saw the point enough to watch.
When he looked at his team in detail, he noticed that the 'slots' had titles.
___Team Type: General Mission___
Alpha:
Beta:
Tank/Primary Battler:
DPS/Secondary Battler:
Healer/Tertiary Battler:
Combat Support:
Noncombat Support:
Pursuit/Combatant:
General Support:
"Shampoo's fast, right?" asked Ranma, as he toggled a couple of things to change a line to read:
DPS/Secondary Battler: Shampoo, Cheetah, level 9. Primary skillset: Wu Shu
"Yes! Shampoo chosen first!" said the furry catgirl, pumping one fist and incidently bouncing a lot.
"Urrr, yeah, I guess," said Ranma. "So, uhm. That leaves-"
"Everything else," pointed out Cologne.
"IDIOTS," said Ranko a full minute after logging out of the quick video conference.
She sat back in her chair for a moment, pondering.
She played a dangerous game, and she knew it. Playing at being the loyal underling of those anti-Sukebe forces, she could play factions off against each other and continue to benefit from both sides. As far as the group 'Women Against Sexism and Pokegirls' was concerned - she was their secret plant within Jim Sukotto's organization. As far as McKenzie's group was concerned, she was a vengeance-obsessed ally who would destroy the entire organization in order to deal with the insult her dear Uncle Jim had done her.
In truth, she didn't see anything wrong with the treatment itself. There was enough evidence, including secret documents of her Uncle's, that indicated it WAS McKenzie's organization that had unleashed the virus and that it HAD mutated in the manner of such things and that the pokegirl cure HAD saved billions of lives.
Which made her want a bit of revenge against McKenzie's group as well. One thing at a time though.
That one of McKenzie's cells had used devices "stolen" from an experimental facility in order to try and attack her Uncle - was another case of how fanatics could be their own worst enemy. She spent a few moments going over her records, just to make sure nothing would come back to link her own involvement to the debacle.
Only when that was completed did she go over her own notes. Psychic versus Psychic combat was often a stalemate except when a particular special ability trumped general talents. A Hakima's ability to hear Truth for example, if someone was trying to block it - the Hakima knew about the blockage even if one brought a LOT of power to the blocking. Fortunately Hakima could be blocked through legal action from revealing too much, otherwise how many politicians would be out of work?
Bleep!
"Saotome-san," said the intercom. "We have more details on the attack. Oh, and there's an e-card from your Uncle. He thinks you're working too hard and could use some downtime."
Ranko pushed a button. "Send me the files on a thumbdrive, I'll look over them later."
Right now, after all, she had business to attend to. SOMEONE had to.
Two dots of light nine feet apart became discs scrawled with what looked like computer graphic runes glowing in white. The two discs moved, the top one moving down and the lower moving up. When they'd gotten to the position the other had originally occupied, several forms that had not originally been on the roof of the dojo now were.
“...Woah...” said Ranma, lurching as things stabilized.
Cologne nodded. “Yes, Teleportation does tend to have that effect on first-time porters."
“...I... I can taste the COLORS!” said Ranma as things shifted back to normal a bit at a time.
“Yes, THAT effect...” said Cologne, not mentioning that the teleporter herself had ANOTHER side effect altogether. Especially when teleporting large masses. She might have to port back to China and go visit her husband REALLY soon.
Well, at least she wasn't trying to do the job those Psychic types over at the Space Agency did. She could only imagine how bad that got THEM going.
"Alice?" asked Jim.
The little girl left sand-castle making for the moment in order to run and give her Uncle Jim a hug.
Number 13, on the other hand, was made very nervous about this. On the one hand this was a normal eight-year-old girl, mostly, in appearance. On the other hand, she knew exactly WHAT 'Alice' - a little blonde-haired blue-eyed girl was.
It was kind of like cuddling a nuclear weapon. A big one. No, that was understating it.
Not that 'Alice' was doing anything WRONG. She was treated well, but she could tell that a lot of other pokegirls were scared of her. It wasn't something any of them could completely conceal. The Psychic types avoided her to such an extent that she might not even know they existed.
As Alice and her employer headed for the hotel, Number 13 kept her vigil up.
She was an original. Unlike Number 14, who had been a cashier at some place called "Wallyworld" prior to her treatment. What that meant was that she'd been born a pokegirl, had been developed as part of the initial run of pokegirls meant to show off the process.
To simple visual inspection, she looked mostly human. Triangular ears concealed by her thick blonde hair. Her emerald eyes, currently hidden behind regulation dark glasses, were a couple of shades too bright to be normal-human. If one closely inspected her body without the "Secret Service" style clothing - there would be a few minor things like tissue density which would reveal she wasn't quite human.
No, she was Number Thirteen. Who'd been given the hated name of 'Millisande' and had just gone with Thirteen for a decade now. She was an Amazon, Steel Element, Air Subelement. Specialty: guns. Besides there was another of her type that went by the name Milly and it was best not to leave an opening for confusion.
"What's that?" asked Scott of the air. "Ranma's begun choosing his team? A Cheetah for one of his battler slots? Excellent."
Number Thirteen frowned at that concept. Mainly because it would mean a trip to Japan in the near future and coordinating with various security agencies.
"So," said Jim as he considered things. "I think that I may just have to:"
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(Posted Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:47)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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