[Episode 90018] [Episode 90018]"Ehhhh?!" Ranma asked, his pigtail twitching. "Why not?"
There was a soft thump as Shampoo's clothes hit the floor. Not exactly how she would have chosen it, but frankly in the mood she was in the two girls with Ranma at the moment were inconsequential. There just wasn't time from what she'd heard on the radio.
Meanwhile, outside, a duck that had been stuffed halfway into a mailbox continued to try and work his way out.
The big boy had been 20 kilometers long by 15 kilometers wide by 3 kilometers thick. Composition - carbonaceous chondrite with veins and spurs of nickel-iron and nuggets of something entirely different that had no terrestrial analogue. Transuranics. Speed was a leisurely 553,500 kilometers per hour.
A fissure had been identified. Nuclear weapons were fitted with boosters where possible and launched. The strike had defied all sorts of odds just hitting the target. 80% of the missiles exploded as they'd been programmed to do, which was 15% more than had been expected.
A lead hunk of rock that had accompanied Big Boy made it down. A chunk about the size of the Kuno estate, entirely composed of meteoric nickle-iron touched down in a place called Yellowstone Park. When it hit, it went perhaps an additional fifty meters before it exploded with a force of five megatons.
People had ignored what the park was for a very long time, which was to say that it was an active volcano of a type that normally doesn't form a cone. Pressure released.
The explosion instantly killed everyone within one hundred miles of the blast unless they were sheltered by hills and mountains. As it had the last time it blew, ash and pyroclastic material rained down for three thousand miles to the west and one thousand miles across. The North American "breadbasket" was buried under ash, with economic and societal repercussions that would reverberate worldwide.
The newsreader looked up with a grin. "America has been hit!"
Cheers from those watching the broadcast.
"Millions expected to be dead," announced the newsreader.
More cheers.
"The vile perpetrators of Western culture have been hit badly," said the newsreader, wiping tears of joy from his eyes.
Glasses were raised to toast the meteor, which didn't seem nearly so bad now.
"Another fragment is inbound and looks like it will strike..." said the newsreader. "This can't be right."
Meteors, after all, do not play favorites.
The reaction in Paris was slightly different, as many of those present saw the meteor slice the top off the Eiffel Tower before the meteor slammed into the city on the other side.
Akane wiped some of Yuka's lipstick off with a hankerchief as she looked out across from the slopes of Mount Fuji. Yuka and Sayuri lay exhausted on the same blanket, with a blanket over them for warmth. Not that many were noticing, having largely been in the same situation.
The radio at someone else's site continued to play.
"...impacts in North America, Europe, the Middle East. Some reports indicate Mecca itself is gone - part of the inferno caused by that impact. All contact with the U.S. West Coast is lost, possibly due to disruptions in their power grid. One of the scientific observers here at KNN Tokyo states that instead of being hit by a cannon, we've been targetted with a shotgun. Wait a moment, another impact has been reported in the Pacific. Another impact is occurring in..."
Akane looked down and noted she had a second shadow. Then she looked up to see what looked like a second sun in the sky. Hurrying slightly, Akane kissed both of her friends as tenderly as she could within what she felt were likely time constraints.
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(Posted Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:06)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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