Tenchi mused there were other reasons Ryoko at least would behave around the beach house. Nanoha wasn’t the only cute little girl with firepower hanging around Ranma, but she was the most straight forward, although the girl with the short lavender hair that popped up sometimes worried Tenchi more.
There was one entity in the house that made both Tenchi and Ryoko cautious, particularly when it came to dealing with Ranma. Shortly after they arrived at the beach house for supper and to check on Ayeka’s cooking progress, a curvy red-headed woman had made a bee-line for her little Ranma-kun.
Tenchi had no idea when Washu had started staying in adult form so much since he didn’t visit the beach house too often, but apparently at some point her and Ranma had adopted each other. The was no announcement of it, and Ranma still referred to her as Washu-chan, but it was quite clear from the way Washu put an arm around Ranma’s shoulder to pull him close while considering her daughter with a smirk. “Well Ryoko-chan, are you feeling the urge to settle down and have kids of your own?”
Ryoko in turn frowned at the kids, particularly Nanoha as the girl clung to Ranma’s side opposite of Washu. Annoyances aside the kids had caused a bit of shift in the uncertain triangle relationship between her, Tenchi and the spoiled princess. Not only was her mother harping on her to settle down and have kids, but there had been some not-so-subtle hints to make a truce with Ayeka since Ranma’s little harem got along so well.
After a moment Ryoko humphed in annoyance. “As if.”
Washu in turn glanced at the big open kitchen, Ayeka in her little apron standing out among the little girls, making her look a bit like a mother. A bit clumsy perhaps as she uncertainly dealt with her simple dish, but Ryoko didn’t like the smile Tenchi got from the scene. “Isn’t it charming? After the Jurai princess becomes confident in her housewife skills I’m sure she’ll have the courage to formally petition to marry Tenchi-dono.”
At that Ryoko gave a startled squawk before dragging Tenchi away from the happy family kitchen scene.
As soon as they were out of sight, Washu turned a grin down at Ranma. “Well, did you help arrange that?”
Ranma simply smiled while humming happily. “Oh, it was nothing much, just talking about supper like usual.”
Chuckling a little, Washu knew Ranma was working with Sasami on that little project. It was a bit impressive for someone like Ayeka to finally bite the bullet and start actually learning to do something new. Those two girls had far too much pride for their own good and Tenchi’s peace of mind.
Well, hopefully they would mature soon. Her and the Jurai royalty were looking forward to a wedding in the future. Hopefully her foolish daughter and the prideful princess would marry Tenchi before Ranma had his big group wedding. Ever since Sasami had let slip her family had marriages like that, Nanoha and Usagi were definitely on board and they didn’t have the infighting of the older girls.
Glancing at Ranma again Washu had a little giggle at the thought of how the boy had already adapted to the situation. He played referee on the rare occasion, but for the most part he just relaxed and let the girls do as they pleased. Definitely a bright boy, she just needed to work on his actual education some more.
After supper, Washu made sure to give Ranma a check up at the work station. Checking the integration of his magic device’s defensive systems, the second were the support systems. Sensors, Communications, Navigation, all of them subsystems that required Ranma to form an information connection to the device.
Unlike Nanoha’s device that stayed external, Ranma’s was meant to integrate with his body, more like a magical cyborg component. She was doing this part in private however as there was nothing interesting to demonstrate for an audience. Just her checking results on her computer as Ranma learned to mentally integrate the device.
All that was just preparations for the what mattered to Ranma, flight mode. The defense mode came first for safety reasons, in case for instance he crashed into something she could be confident he wouldn’t get too injured. Likewise he needed the support systems so he wouldn’t get lost while flying. The communications system was nicely designed as well, instead of just texting or calling him, they could also put up waypoint and mission markers, so for instance a return home for cookies message could flash on his HUD without really distracting Ranma.
Systems checking out, Washu unlocked the next stage of Blazing Courage, the magic device adding new items to the total outfit. The flight module was primarily an addition to the back of the jacket stretching up to the neck and going down across the shoulder blades with a smooth slight backpack. The addition of gloves over the hands was the initial form of the combat system, but enhancements to the jacket sleeves and shoes also served as stabilizers for the movement system.
Systems checking okay, Washi smiled at Ranma, the fit boy eager to try out something so fun. “Alright Ranma-kun. You’ll start out with hover mode to practice, just try not to crash. We’ll test your nav and comm systems while you’re out, okay?”
Grinning at the idea of the fun he was about to have, Ranma snapped her a jaunty salute. “Gotcha Washu-chan. Besides, crashing into stuff is Usagi-chan’s job. Might have to do some crash testing anyways before you give her one.”
Smiling at his jaunty humor, Washu poked him on the nose. “No crash testing today.”
Still smiling Ranma hopped back out of poking range. “So, am I ready to go?”
Instead of answering, Washu turned around to her workstation with a grin. Activating the missions, she uploaded the data to Ranma’s display.
Grinning as the missions was okayed, Ranma walked out of the house while activating his new systems. Starlight Drive ready. Stand-by.
A bit away from the house, Ranma made sure he had a straight line out to the ocean without any obstacles or people to bump into. Starlight Impulse. Ground Mode.
The dull blue circle on the back of his jacket lighting up to an electric blue, Ranma lifted off the ground as his hover mode engaged. After confirming everything was okay, he headed straight for the ocean, picking up speed as he started splitting waves with a splash as he zoomed just over them.
Back at her terminal, Washu was glad she’d been introduced to video games. Among other things it had given her an idea of how to build a few things for Ranma. If say he wanted a Gundam, why give the boy a small non-working model?
Besides inspiration for fun little projects, the actual structure of the games helped her make Ranma’s magic device and other projects for the kids user friendly. For one the device had a built in tutorial, although Ranma was currently doing an expanded tutorial mission. That gave him all the testing parameters on a little check list to do at his own pace and as he met each goal he’d at least get a ding of success.
Likewise his movement system had both limited acceleration and top-speed, but through a system of experience points with bonuses for doing the tutorial those limits would be raised.
It was an approach that worked well for Ranma, allowing him to stay active and have fun, which helped him concentrate on actually learning what he needed to learn.
Zipping over waves just a bit over head, Ranma learned he could control the degree of hover. Lowering himself down to where he could ride up and down waves as if surfing them changed the motion a lot. Not only could he surf the valleys and kick up a nice plume of water behind him, interacting with the waves also allowed him to use them as ramps.
Even restricted to relatively low speeds and a very low altitude that kept him in grabbing reach of adults, there was plenty of fun Ranma could have skipping off the waves.
Watching Ranma play out on the waves, Usagi turned big sparkling eyes to her mother. “So can I get one and play with my friends? Can I? Please? Tomoyo-chan designed me such a pretty dress for mine.”
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(Posted Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:44)
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