Sitting on the roof of a tall building, Ranma examined the suspiciously clean black pouch he'd found on the street. It looked brand new, fairly expensive and no one had come looking for it in the last hour.
Oh well, finder keepers.
The bag didn't explode in his face when he opened it and pulled out the boxy device that filled the better part of it, a definite plus in the teenager's book. Its back was smooth and colored the same as the bag, while the front was mainly a pale shade of silver with a bunch of buttons and sticks surrounding a small screen. Obviously this was one of the handheld consoles that were all the rage at school these days.
Ranma wasn't much into gaming. From what Hiroshi and Daisuke had told him the three big genre were the fighting tournaments involving superpowered martial artists, the long adventures where a badass fought waves of dumb mooks before defeating the big bad, saving the day and getting the girl, and what was essentially a picture book where some poor sap had to pick a girlfriend without having their rivals come down on them like a ten ton hammer. Ranma could understand why everyone would stick their faces to a tiny screen for a chance to get to be him, especially without the effort and pain it involved, but he was already living the dream so he wasn't going to pay for second hand experience.
They hadn't talked to him for a week afterward, for some reason. Dicks.
Still Ranma was a Saotome and no Saotome would turn down a chance to try something new for free, so he made himself comfortable and lit up the machine. The screen turned white before a stylized logo literally danced over.
The Higher Dimension
“Never heard of that one,” he thought aloud. Maybe a new model?
The next message was eyebrow raising.
“Wait, how do you know that?”
Before he could wonder further white light burst from the screen and Ranma jerked to his feet, a hand leaving the console to shield his eyes. The question became the least of his worries when he saw Nerima vanishing, replaced piece by piece by a white background.
Ranma didn't have the first idea of what was going on but he was pretty damn good at recognizing “run first, question later” situations. Without a thought the martial artist dropped the PFP, took off like a bullet and jumped to the lower roof of the next building. It didn't help much unfortunately as the expansion seemed to center on him and he stumbled when his landing point was suddenly much higher than he'd expected, sending him tumbling. By the time he was upright again the last vestiges of the horizon was swallowed. A thick mist fell all around him, lines of numbers and symbols flashing through it like lightning. “ This is... kinda cool.” He couldn't help but note.
“Whoever is supposed to welcome me into the Matrix can come out now,” He called. A hand meant to pass through his hair smacked him in the face as it was suddenly holding the PFP once again.
He was working his way to the real good curses when a blue spot lit overhead. It shone down on him and a laser line passed over his body from head to toes and up again.
Ranma took a quick step to the right, then back and the beam followed him without missing a beat. “Got it. I'm not getting away,” the martial artist accepted. He settled down on the ground and began toying with the PFP, half tempted to push buttons at random. He was distracted from it when a message popped on the screen, and a textbox appeared out of thin air right in his face.
A disembodied voice echoing its content in the politely bland tone of a mall female announcer.
“New Player registered: Ranma Saotome, age 17, variable gender. Lvl.31 Happy-Go Lucky Martial Artist.”
“ Variable... Hey you!” He growled, shaking the console fiercely. “Watch it! I don't call you a calculator, you don't call me a transvestite!”
“... Gender: Male.”
“Better.”
“Welcome Ranma-sama. You are recognized as this unit's new owner.”
“Cool. Don't forgot to say that when the previous guy shows up.”
“Data recovered, games files created. Re-initiating session, default settings engaged.” With that, the textbox vanished and the screen turned white.
“No wait; I've got questions before you do whatever you wanna do! Quit it, I said. Stop! Denied! Abort! Drop the anchor! Stay!” He shouted to the console he'd brought up to his nose.
The machine blithely ignored him and the martial artist's surroundings brightened until Ranma couldn't see a thing. It was all white, then all black.
And then...
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(Posted Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:25)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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