Chief Gouley, the individual who had the dubious honor of being the superior to the trouble consultant team codename Lovely Angels, fiddled with the call button with a grimace on his face. Yes, this one team under his control (har!) always got their man (or men, or women, as the case may be), but the damage that often went along with their names made one almost wish that they didn't if only it would avoid the disaster precipitated.
Gouley could almost smell the planets burning as the Lovely Angles entered warp. Why the Central Computer cleared them after each incident was beyond him.
He popped a couple of Headache B' Gon™ tablets and pressed the button...
"I SLEPT WITH GUYYYS??!!! AND THEY WEREN'T GIRLS AT THE TIME??!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!" came Ranma's response to Yuri's accusation that he started to 'experiment'.
"Calm down, dammit!" Yuri pleaded. "Both your parents have been dead for a good hundred years, so they're not gonna come by to demand your head for not being absolutely manly! Besides, they were a lot more understanding than you give 'em credit for. (It took them a quarter-century, but still...)"
"Well, I guess that's a relief, but still, AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!" Ranma continued screaming.
"Oh, good grief..." Yuri swore and went back to calming down Ranma. She succeeded after about fifteen minutes, but she attributed this more to Ranma going numb and hoarse than anything she did. Still, Ranma was quiescent eventually.
And not a moment too soon.
The twin beeps were Yuri's only warning before Gouley appeared on the viewscreen, which meant in turn that Gouley could see her. More precisely, he could see her wearing only a tee and panties together with a well-built nude man without very much to cover him at all. Gouley raised a puzzled eyebrow. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, though that tone of his voice was quite clear what he was insinuating.
Ranma blinked in confusion at the remark, being far too subtle for his comprehension (no surprise there).
Yuri caught the implication, and blushed crimson, not only from embarrassment but also memories of the night before. She fanned herself, still trying to maintain an air of dignity. "Well, Kei and I are on vacation!" came her cool, snappy reply, straightening up and throwing her head back as if scandalized. Gouley flushed in sudden bashfulness. "What do you want, chief?"
Gouley scrutinized the strange young man sharing Yuri's bed, before clearing his throat. "As much as it pains me to say it, your vacation has been canceled. You are to depart immediately on your next mission."
"EHHHH!??!!??!!" screeched Yuri. "Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to spend some quality time with my Honey-Bun?" For emphasis, she grabbed Ranma's arm and snuggled it affectionately. Her distress was genuine, if not for the reason stated.
"'Honey-Bun'?" whispered Ranma.
"Work with me!" Yuri hissed back.
Gouley pinched the bridge of his nose. "You have no idea how much I would like for you to remain on vacation," he replied wearily. "Unfortunately, the central computer has flagged you as the Trouble Consultant team for the job."
Yuri sighed. So much for her vacation, but she supposed that would've been shot anyway due to Ranma/Kei's sudden cure for their shared affliction. "So what is this job, chief?"
"I can't tell you with your 'special friend' in the room. It's tip-top secret," replied the chief. "You'll also need your partner, whom I can't seem to find in her room. Do you know where your partner is, Yuri?"
Yuri's tracked to Ranma. "I might have some idea..." she admitted.
"Go get her, and get rid of your guest," Gouley ordered.
"I'll do that. Would you be a dear an wait for her? Thank you!" Yuri said sweetly as she reached for the hold button.
"YURI!! DO NOT PUT ME ON—" *fwick*
Yuri's features fell. "He sure is noisy," she remarked gloomily, releasing Ranma from her affectionate hold. "Ranma, you'd better turn into Kei so we can find out what Chief Gooey has to say to us."
"'Honey-Bun'?" asked Ranma in a full, yet questioning voice.
"I had to make it sound endearing," Yuri replied.
"'Honey-Bun'?!" came the stronger repetition of Yuri's pet name for him.
"C'mon, I was all I could think of on the spur of the moment," Yuri answered defensively.
"'HONEY-BUN'?!!!!" Ranma almost screamed into Yuri's face.
Yuri crossed her arms in annoyance. "Would you have preferred 'Ranma-sama'?" she asked evenly, "Or maybe 'Muffin', or perhaps 'Snoogie-Woogie-Wuppigus'?"
Ranma twitched at each potential pet name. "They all sound bad."
"How about 'Dai-Baka'?"
Ranma nodded. "Sounds good to me." Tick. Tick. Tick. "HEY!"
Yuri waved off his annoyance. "ANYway, you'd better turn into Kei so we can find out what the chief wants. He'll get annoyed if I keep him on hold very long," she said. Yuri scratched her chin, reconsidering her words. "Well, more annoyed than usual, anyway," added the Tro-Con.
Chief Gouley ground his teeth together as the annoying box on his desk flashed the message:
He was beginning to truly loathe that message after forty minutes. He stared at the screen, waiting impatiently for Lady Yuri to grant him an audience to speak with her noble self. Gouley supposed he could simply get some other work done while he waited, but if Yuri released the hold suddenly and saw him doing other things, it would diminish the impression of seriousness he wished to convey.
He could hear Yuri's words now: "You were doing THAT while waiting for me? The mission isn't very important then, is it? I'm going back on vacation! OH-HOHOHOHOO!!"
And that would be the end of the mission as far as she was concerned.
No, he couldn't risk looking as if the mission was any less serious than interrupting the Lovely Angel's vacation. So he sat there, glowering at the message on the screen, growing more and more aggravated with each passing second.
Finally, the words disappeared to be replaced by the Dirty Pair (he'll think of them by that unflattering nomen if he wanted to, dammit!) in the usual WWWA female Trouble Consultant battle bikinis, the ones that made them look damn sexy as their pert young flesh bounced and jiggled as they... Focus, Gouley!
Kei, as usual, looked bored halfway to tears and the briefing hadn't even begun yet, while her partner looked attentive and every bit the ideal 3WA Tro-Con she wasn't. Over the hyperlink, Yuri blinked at his annoyed face and said, "You waited forty minutes on hold? Surely you could've done something while you were waiting, chief!"
That did it. Chief Gouley exploded in a stream of curses and obscenities not suitable for a family thread.
It took several minutes for Yuri to calm the raging chief down. Ranma-chan (AKA, Kei) simply remained calm as she sat on Yuri's bead crosslegged in the STUPID standard 3WA Tro-Con uniform. Whoever designed this thing was a major perv! Ranma/Kei decided. He (she, at the moment) didn't trust himself enough to speak for this Kei person that he apparently was, even with Yuri's advice on how to behave as Kei:
Yuri: "Don't worry! Just remain the tomboy you always are and you'll do fine!"
Ranma/Kei: "Great!" (tick. tick. tick.) "HEY!"
"Now, what can we do for you, chief?" asked Yuri at last, finally calming her ulcer-afflicted supervisor.
Chief Gouley panted, his mood had finally fallen back to the default annoyed levels that was his baseline while dealing with the Pair. He picked up the paper, scanning over it once more for the mission specifics. "Your mission is
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(Posted Tue, 27 Jan 2004 07:30)
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