[Episode 230678] [Episode 230678]”This morning on Tokyo News Central, we have the first in a series of exclusive interviews with the Nerima District’s very own Tendo Family, the hosts for the last year, and reported cousins of, ‘Ranko Tendo’, the young girl at the center of what is being called ‘The Altess Situation’! We’ll also be interviewing neighbors in the area in our upcoming segment, “Living Next to Aliens!”, but first a word from our local sponsors!-”
”-Nerima Dairy-Shack! Home of the ten-scoop ‘Ranma Special’, the twelve-scoop ‘Ranko Strawberry Crush’, and the new ‘Battlecruiser Brickle’, a mammoth boat of chocolate ice cream under a hard dark chocolate shell, studded with-”
In a comfortable room aboard a large ship hovering over Tokyo, a redheaded young girl in pajamas paced in growing frustration.
The quarters were comfortable. By her standards excessively comfortable. She had chairs and cushions in plenty, food and drink at her beck and call when she wanted it, a commanding view of Tokyo below, electronics on the walls offered potential distractions in limitless quantity.
Her mind was free; whatever the Adjustors had done, the alien medical apparatus had apparently wiped away. She didn’t feel any inclination to bow and scrape to anybody at all.
But she was still in a prison. A very comfortable, and well-appointed prison, but a prison nevertheless. A bare cell, a bunch of goons leering at her from behind a barred door, chains, and a locked collar would have been more acceptable to her frustration than this well-cushioned confinement.
About the only other thing it had in common with a prison cell, and the only thing it got right was the goons, only the goons singular in this case was a single funky looking black robot that stood in the doorway and looked at her impassively and unblinking.
Several times already she had tried to leave her quarters, only to be stopped by the robot. Then she’d tried to fake out the machine, only to discover her way blocked. The damn thing was FAST. So she’d gotten faster, and almost got past it.
Only to be stopped by a shimmering wall of energy in the door.
Damn! Some sort of forcefield. Of COURSE a big bad spaceship’s gotta have forcefields! What was I thinking?!
She’d retreated, and the robot had done the same. To pass the time, Ranma had started into a kata. Since she’d been picked up for Adjustment, she hadn’t had the opportunity to stretch and exercise like she was used to.
The whole time, though, she’d been studying the walls, the robot, the barrier, looking for weaknesses, places to be exploited with a good Breaking Point or similar attack. She’d didn’t want to risk a chi-attack until she had a definite target.
So far, what she saw was discouraging. There were damn few vulnerable spots. For all her confinement’s frills, it seemed part of whatever armored structure the ship was composed of.
Still, it might be enough to get her out of the room and at large. Then she could try to find a way down to Tokyo.
Unrealistic as hell, sure. What did she know about alien spaceships? But it helped pass the time.
Actually, she recalled, she knew something about SOME alien spaceships. Knew enough about one to hack its safe transit protocols and take off with it. But warships were a whole different matter.
HOW she knew that, still disturbed Ranma. She could remember doing it, but it was like a whole other life. Which it really was, and it apparently was hers.
Serious deja-vu.
Or what was the American joke she’d heard once? Serious vuja-de.
She was still musing about this when she became aware she had a visitor.
”Hello, dear. Can I interrupt your exercises?”
The woman she now knew as Cima Haman-Khan, but some part also insisted on knowing as ‘Ma-cha’, stepped into the room. Ranma noted the woman had exchanged her uniform for something softer and more somber, black pants and a loose sweater-like garment. Her expression was also more somber, not the menace she’d first seen, or the look of concerned affection she had when she was around Ranma previously.
”Ah, sure, Your ship.”
”Thank you.”
Cima settled on one side of the half-circle coach near the windowport. Seeing no reason to continue her kata when this woman obviously wanted to talk to her, Ranma went over and sat on the other end, facing her.
”How are you feeling, dear?”
”Okay. Ah, no, I’m frustrated! Look, I---I’m not---”
”You’re not Aisha Haman-Khan. Yes, you told me before.”
”Yeah, I’m Ranko Tendo.”
”Not Ranma Saotome?”
”Eh?!”
”I’ve been reading and listening to the media from the planet below. The local multimedia has been making quite a thing about ‘Ranko Tendo’, but just as many sources are talking about a ‘Ranma Saotome’ being associated with the other name. Apparently, at least by one person, I’m being accused of being a co-conspirator with this ‘Ranma Saotome’, while all the rest of the sources speak as if ‘Ranko’ and ‘Ranma’ are one and the same person. Which are you?”
Ranma saw no point in denial. ”Ranma Saotome actually. That’s my name. I was raised here, and it’s who I am.”
”I know.”
”You KNOW?!”
”Doctor Zura gave you a thorough examination, neurological and physical, while you were out unconscious. Your body reads Altess, and so do your brain patterns. Most of them at least. The conscious part, though, is different. More like a baseline Human’s. I thought perhaps it was more brainwashing, or some sort of parasite, posing as my daughter, but Zura showed me otherwise. Another persona, a whole other set of life experiences, imposed or embedded on the nervous system, or rather integrated into it, like it had been there all along.”
Ranma was a bit put off by that; not only the idea that somebody might regard her as a parasite, but that somebody had studied her while she was unconscious.
”Care to explain it? How you come to wear my daughter’s face, her appearance, her biology, and maybe part of her mind, but you’re not part of some sort of plot to deceive me? Because if you are, it’s blown already. Tell me.”
Ranma saw no reason to lie to this woman. She held all the cards here. She settled herself on the couch, and took a deep breath.
”Well, it all started when-”
Setsuna shook her head. She was royally off her game, she knew, and this latest development just pushed it home.
Some Guardian of Time I turn out to be. How the hell did I miss this?! I’m slipping...that’s it, I’m slipping. I missed a dimensional rift in the Solar System, a damn starship landing in China, and an alien drowning in a chaos nexus! And I COMPLETELY missed an alien warship showing up today!
And how does this affect what plans I had for salvaging this whole mess? I had my plans pegged on Ranma to pry Makoto, Ami, and Usagi out of the Kunos’ grip, and wreck his empire, but now that’s out the window!
Setsuna retreated to the chamber holding the Gate of Time, intent on doing a quick scan to see what could cascade from today’s events, before she could do a more indepth study to redefine her plans.
She grabbed a cup of tea, hot caffeine stimulant to help sharpen herself, and settled in front of the Gates to watch.
The energies became a corporeal mist, billowing in fractal patterns that steadied, resolved themselves into images, that became identifiable as-
”PPPHHHFFFPPPHHTTT!!!”
The Time Gates got painted in tea.
*koff*koff*koff!”Okay;*hack* I can see this coming, but I still have problems believing it.”
Sol System, Just outside Mars Orbit:
”Dropping out of C-Plus Space in 3, 2, ---”
”Gravital emergence portside!”
”FEDDDAANNNKKK!!! WHAT THE GROSH IS THAT!!!??”
”Damn Zunush corvette! (Ill-bred offspring of a brain-dead nuersh-weed addict and a piece of public plumbing) almost HIT us!!! We got minor damage already from where his drive field slammed us!”
”*^%%^&^%!!! What the heck is a Zunush doing out here?!”
”Those are ronin markings on that ship, sir! Bounty hunters!”
”They must be after the same ‘kuno’ we are!! Hard on to their tail! Arm the forward cannon! No way they’re beating us to the target! Fire on their engines as soon as we bear!”
”SIR!!! WE’RE BEING PAINTED!!! THAT SHIP’S GOT A REAR TURRET AND THEY’RE FIRING ON US!!!!”
”They are?! THOSE DIRTY BACK-STABBING BASTARDS!!! THEY ARE!!! SHIELDS!!! GUNS!!!!”
“Fire fight breaking out astern of us. Looks like a Zunush corvette and an armed freighter of some sort.”
”Threat?”
”Nope. Dropping astern fast....ewww, they’re really going hammer and tongs...Uh-oh. Two more emergences, further back...smaller ships, might be a fighter and a long range shuttle. Okay, another firefight just broke out.”
”Just keep us ahead of everybody else. And keep an eye out for anybody coming out on us.”
”Alright, guys, we ready?”
A chorus of affirmations answered him.
”Then, on a count of three! One, two, BANZAI!”
Garbage can lids held as shields over their heads, the security detail and groundskeepers advanced on the perimeter of the Kuno estate. As soon as the rushed into range, the protestors on the other side of the high fence proceeded to pelt them with stones, bottles, and rotten produce.
”KUNO OUT!!! KUNO OUT!!! KUNO OUT!!!”
”SLAVERY IS AGAINST GOD’S WILL!!”
”THE RICH RAPE THE POOR AGAIN AND CALL IT LAW!!! NO MORE!!! NO MORE!!”
”EVEN ALIENS KNOW HE’S NO GOOD!!!”
”BLUE DUNDER! BLUE DUNDER! TOKYO’S BIGGEST BLUNDER!”
The helmeted and shield-bearing security guards formed up in front of the groundskeepers as they went to work.
FWWWOOOSSHHHfwwoossshhhHsssssttttttt!!
Fire extinguishers went to work on the improvized firebombs that were burning the grass, hoes and rakes buried the shattered molotov cocktails, smothering the flames in the flowerbeds. Several of the more sports-crazy Kuno employees tried batting incoming projectiles back over the fence with their billyclubs or gardening tools.
”Where’s the bloody police!?” yelled one of the guards as he deflected an empty beer bottle.
”Dunno! Having pork buns and tea?”
Finally the police DID arrive, the screech of sirens the cue for a mass scramble and exodus from the Kuno property line. While the crowd dispersed, the estate employees caught their breath.
”Kuso! Somebody lobbed one over by the swimming pool!”
Groaning and cursing, the ready reaction team double-timed for the latest conflagration.
”Com’on, Yoshi! I can slip in and ice the little bastard no problem at all!”
”No, Ryoko! No killing! We’re heading back. Tenchi’s likely worried terribly about us.”
”I sneak in, I blast him, I fly up to the shi, present his head, get the money, sneak back, we party! No problem!”
”No. We already discussed this. No backslidding into space piracy! Let’s see what develops first. I have a feeling it would be better if we just let the Kunos sweat for awhile. Besides, I really want to ask Funaho to go over her memories again. Seems to me we detected a dimensional anomaly when I was chasing you, but I ignored it when I saw you were heading for Earth. Didn’t figure it was a possible gateway or wormhole.”
”Yeah; if I’d known about that, I might have taken it, too.”
”Well, I have a feeling that we’re going to have more company courtesy of that...a LOT more.”
“Oh, look at all the shooting stars! Is it a meteor shower? I don’t remember one being announced in the news!”
”-and that’s how I ended up on that stage.” Ranma finished.
Cima paused to digest what she’d just heard.
”So you’re really a boy.”
”Yeah. “
”With a curse.”
”Uh-huh.”
”A curse that turns you into a girl.”
”Yes.”
”With cold water. Hot water turns you into a boy. Only you can’t do that that now because-”
”I had my curse locked so I could protect the Tendos by getting in close to Kuno. He hates my male form. Thinks it’s a different person. Believe it.”
”It would be magic. Of course it would have to be magic.”
”You’re not angry?”
”Not particularly. And I’m not angry at you.”
”You’re not? But you think-thought-whatever, that I’m your kid! Hell, -I’d- have a hard time believing what I just told you if I hadn’t have lived it!””
”Because I believe you.”
“You do?”
”You’re at the focus of some of the most sophisticated medical telemetry in fifty sectors. Skin tension, heart rate, brain activity, psi-wave, a thousand different factors every second. If you were lying, I’d know it. “ She absently tapped at a piece of apparent jewelry attached to her temple.
Ranma felt a brief pique of anger and consternation at being studied without her knowledge again, But whatever those sensors, which were presumably still on her, might have told Cima just then, the Altess woman ignored.
Cima’s shoulders slumped, and her eyes took on a far-away look.
”Child, for over four hundred years I searched without success for my daughter. I wanted to believe she was still alive, but I had to prepare myself for the eventuality that she might be dead. When the talisman pointed me at this world, and we found signs of a single Altess life sign on it, I hoped for the best, but I kept my reservations. Surely SOMETHING was going to be different. I no longer believe in perfect happy endings, and this was no exception. And I was right. And thus far, your story rings true. ”
Her silence said a thousand things. Ranma might have suffered from foot-in-mouth when it came to his relations with the opposite gender, or just people in general, but he never could turn away from a sad woman, and sorrow lay over Cima Haman-Khan. This woman had searched for centuries for her daughter, had all but given her up for dead, then thought she found her at last, only to find an unintentional pretender in that daughter’s place. Ranma could only imagine what the woman could be feeling, and that was hard enough to handle.
”I’m sorry-”
”For what? By your own admission, you stumbled, literally fell, into this. From the start, you didn’t try to impersonate my daughter, much as I wanted to believe you were brainwashed.”
”I was.”
”Yes, a magic compulsion. We found out about that too. But it wasn’t what was making you...well, you.”
“It did SOMETHING, when it wiped out the slave Adjustment. I REMEMBER being your kid.”
”But are you my Aisha or are you Ranma?”
The answer was instant; “I’m Ranma!--but---there’s a lot of--.”
Cima held up her hand.”That answers it.”
There was a silence between the two again.
”So, what do we do now?”
Cima leaned back, her eyes staring at the ceiling in thought.
”In the last war, the Minion War, we lost many of our people. Too many. Many wanted to concentrate our bloodlines, to preserve our unique bloodgifts. Others feared that we would become too vulnerable that way, and that we should expand our numbers again. There was a time when it would be imperative that I take you back to our space regardless of who you claimed to be, or what you wanted, or even what I wanted. Kicking and screaming, unconscious and drugged, bound and gagged if necessary. Your...our...genetics are that precious to us.”
Ranma didn’t like the thought of that. Memories of the prince-of-the-month kidnapping Akane for marriage, the Amazons wanting his blood and sperm, Kuno boasting of ‘the seed of his loins’ made her flinch.
Cima pushed on with her explanation; ”The times are less certain now. Some of the old ways are being re-examined, re-evaluated, or aren’t as well enforced. I find myself wanting to tarry here. The pragmatic part wants to do everything to make sure that your genetics aren’t lost to us again. But that may require a different approach. To investigate this Jusenkyo and what it means to the Altess bloodlines and the Forge’s Gift. Why, for instance, if other people had fallen in this ‘Nannichaun’, are you the only one who registered on our sensors as Altess? That calls for explanation. The mother in me wants to protect you, here or in the Altess worlds. “
”If necessary, though, I will work to establish here on Earth an Altess presence, to make sure you have the means to protect yourself, or to get off it if you have to. “
Sounded like she wants to establish a colony, or an embassy, or just a hideaway. That doesn’t sound TOO bad. At least it seemed like she’ll let me go back to Earth...and Akane. Ranma thought.
”There’s also the matter of you learning how to use your Altess gifts.”
”Gifts?”
”You might not have noticed them, from what you describe as your limited time in your female form, but unless you somehow lose this ‘Jusenkyo curse’, you will one day find out as your female side matures. We Altess, we are decidedly tougher, stronger, faster, and more resilient than the average human being, in some cases by several magnitudes. We are certainly longer lived, and we have a certain greater affinity for the powers and disciplines of the mind; powers that my daughter tested positive for when she was younger.”
Ranma nodded; truth be told, she HAD noticed that she tended to be slightly faster and more agile in her female form, but she’d ascribed that to being smaller and lighter. Now this woman was telling her that Altess were stronger still?
”If for no other reason than to safeguard WHAT you are, let alone WHO you are, you should learn how to use these abilities. I, and the crew aboard this ship, can teach you.”
Again Ranma nodded; lessons from a sensei she could relate to. It might not be so different after all.
”I have people down there I gotta protect.”
”I know. And a family too? I have responsibilities too. And you’re part of it.”
Cima stood up and looked into Ranma’s eyes, silver-blue meeting cerulean, and Ranma saw an oddly familiar determination mirrored there.
”You’re a part of me. Not simply of my blood but of my soul. And even if you’re just a walking repository of my daughter’s genes and memories, you’re still a part of what I am. And if you would let me, I would get to know the person you are, but know this; I WILL be a part of you as you are of me, and I will protect you as best I can.”
Wounded pride swelled for a moment. ”I don’t need any more protec-”
”You were almost sold as a slave. Even if it was by your consent, you did so only because you had no other choices. You were subjected to mind control, indoctrinated to be an obediant servent, as a sex-slave! It could have been different, it could have been worse, and it might still be! You could have already been raped! And that’s just WITHOUT my intervention! Now that the world knows you’re my daughter, you’re still in danger. Perhaps even more so. You were caught once before by something you didn’t foresee and couldn’t prepare against, and who knows what else you might face? No, I can’t let you face that uncertainty by yourself. I won’t!”
Cima’s expression was again that of angry determination that Ranma had seen when the woman had burst into the auction house, a small army behind her.
”I’m certainly not going to let that strutting little skxawng named Kuno get his hands on you. He appears to be unmotivated by greed, so simply buying him off is not an option. I have encountered too many of his kind to know appeasement cannot work in his case. He’s obsessed, entirely too covetous of that he cannot have, and quite mad, from what I can tell. And apparently not restrained by those around him.”
”Yeah, that’s Kuno for you.”
“No, he’s too dangerous to you to be allowed to run unchecked. Better still to solve that problem permanently and send a message to anybody else who would think to do the same to you. I think I will destroy him and his little empire completely, if I accomplish nothing else. And I want him to FEEL it happen.”
Ranma shuffled her feet and squirmed in her seat; the mention of the death-bounty still made her feel uneasy.
”Then there’s the matter of the rest of the system that allowed him to get where he is. Something will have to be done about that as well.”
Cima noticed Ranma’s nervousness.
”Aish-Ranma, with the resources you now have, what would YOU do?”
Again, Ranma hesitated. Aisha-memory was supplying what she last remembered about the Haman-Khan fortunes and her Earthly mind was trying to wrap itself around the information, couldn’t make the ends touch, and gave up in frustration. “Sorry, I got nothing right now.”
” We can discuss that later, but first-”
Cima leaned foward, her arms going around Ranma. “Sorry for this, but just for a moment, again, I’d like to hold my daughter.”
Ranma hesitated, but only for a moment. She put her own arms around Cima, and sank into the shared embrace, feeling the warmth of that hug. Unbidden, memories of a thousand previous hugs in the arms of this woman crept and played in her consciousness...but also unusually sharp memories of being hugged by his mother, Nodoka, as well. Ranma just let herself drift in that warmth.
They held that pose for an indetermine time.
”Ranma Saotome?”
”Hmm?”
”I am pleased to make your acqaintance. You impress me as a very brave young person. An Altess would have had difficulty making the choice to do what you did. Such sacrifice is rare among my people. Mind you, your actions weren’t particularly SMART, but they were brave. I think I will like having you as my student and, to what degree I may be allowed, my child.”
The two sat like that on the observation deck for a long time.
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(Posted Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:27)
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