"Hey, you okay?!"
Ranma knelt beside a slowly stirring Tendou Akane, he moving to help her sit up. Ignoring the groans and other noises from the other members of Groups 'Yatsura' and 'Nibunoichi,' he lifted his fiancee into his lap. "Akane! Hey, Akane, wake up!!" he barked into her ear as he patted her cheek to help her regain some sense of self.
Akane jolted as the hand hit her cheek, then her eyes slowly opened, her head drunkenly slewing around so she could gaze on Ranma. Blinking several times to help her visition clear up, she then peered intently at the man holding her. Sensing that this was not her beloved Darling Master, a snarl rose up her throat as a hand cocked to slam Ranma in the cheek...
"Unit Two-Oh-Four, stop!"
Akane froze in place, her face a twisted mask of fury. Ranma gazed quizzically at her for a moment, then turned to see who had shouted out. Standing nearby was a tan-skinned woman with shaggy crimson hair and glistening green eyes, she dressed in a beautiful jumpsuit that showed off a nearly-perfect figure. She held a futuristic blaster in hand. Noting that Ranma was looking at her, the newcomer blushed. "Sorry about that," she spoke in a voice that sounded strangely familiar to the martial artist. "She's already been brainwashed. Ditto with the others." She waved to the slowly recovering pile of female pulchritude nearby. "Unit Two-Oh-Four, on your feet! Stand at attention!!"
Akane quickly rolled off Ranma's lap, recovering herself smartly. Once at attention, she bowed her eyes demurely in a show of servitude to the newcomer. "We have been given orders to locate our Darling Master's dimensional counterpart, Megan-san."
"I'm aware of that, Two-Oh-Four. Those orders are now countermanded. You, your group and Group 'Yatsura' will return at once to your suspension chambers. Louise is waiting for you there. If you disobey that order, you will all be punished. Understood?"
Fear flecked across Akane's face on hearing that. "Hai, I understand."
"Go!!"
The possessed women headed off, some helping their still-dazed group-mates along the way. Ranma watched them go, then spun on Megan. "What the hell was...?"
His protest was cut off when she leaned in to deliver a chaste yet obviously friendly kiss. Ranma blinked several times -- he had been the receipient of kisses from his fiancees and other people in the past, so he had to admit that Megan's kiss was quite sincere -- then as they pulled apart, he stared at her. "What's going on here?"
Megan shushed him, then glancing both ways, leaned up to whisper in his ear, "You have your Sen-ken skills, don't you?"
Ranma blinked. How did she know that? "Um...! Ah, y-yeah!"
"Cloak us, then follow me. I'll explain as soon as we're in a safe place."
"Okay."
Both faded from view, then headed off...
"What do you mean that Meg stopped them from capturing the other me?"
"I saw what I saw, Master," Miroku replied. "I cannot detect Megan anywhere now and it appears that the man whom Unit 204 and several other members of her group were engaged to is now in the castle."
Ataru took that in, then tapped a control on his armchair. "Ataru to Sylvie."
"Yes, Ataru-sama?" the lavender-haired 33-S replied as a holographic image of her appeared before him.
"Sylvie, what are you people doing? Why did Meg stop Groups 'Yatsura' and 'Nibunoichi' from capturing the other me?"
Anri leaned into view from the right of the screen. "Sir, didn't you see what the other you nearly did to them?!"
Ataru blinked, then slowly nodded. "Well, yes, I..."
"Ataru-sama, there's another thing you need to know," Anri cut him off with an apologetic look. "It turns out that your other-self came here for a very good reason. The twelve girls in Group 'Princess One' are, in fact, his half-sisters."
Silence.
"HALF-SISTERS?!?!" Ataru blurted out.
Anri nodded. "Yes, sir. From what we could tell after we mind-scanned him, it turned out that your counterpart's father was..." She paused for a second, then shrugged. "Well, not so devoted to his wife in the initial years of their marriage. Furthermore, your counterpart's paternal grandmother, who was actually a Peer of the Japanese Empire before the end of World War Two, was able to ensure that the sisters were safely hidden away from any possible action to be taken by Moroboshi-sama's parents, especially his mother."
Hearing about Moroboshi Kinshou, Ataru instantly quivered. When he started this, he had Miroku make DAMN sure that money-grubbing hag and that useless fool he married wouldn't possibly interfere in his revenge. "I assume the other me's parents are dead?"
"Killed in a terrorist bombing several months ago," Anri confirmed. "Even more so, whatever power of influence they might have had over Moroboshi-sama's life was wiped out the instant the eldest of his half-sisters, Sakuya, was declared Matriarch of the Moroboshi Clan."
"A matriarchial-run family? I didn't believe it was possible in Japan," Miroku noted.
"The Moroboshi Clan in that univere is the exception to the rule, Miroku-san," Anri confirmed. "As far as Sakuya-sama and the others are concerned, there never has been and will never be a marriage between Moroboshi-sama and anyone else without their concent."
Ataru remained silent as he took that in, then he relaxed in his chair. "Well, there's another thing we seem to have in common," he declared, then leaned close to the holoscreen. "Now, do tell me, girls. What sort of plan have you come up with?"
"I dispatched Kiki's group to wake up Moroboshi-sama's half-sisters," Sylvie announced. "We can use them as bait to bring him to you."
Ataru's eyes widened, then he nodded. "Good idea, Sylvie. I leave everything to you two and Kiki's team."
"Hai!!" the two Sexaroids replied in sync, bowing to their emancipator.
Ataru clicked off the holoscreen, then turned to stare on Miroku. He is quick to sense the doubt reflecting in the humanoid Cylon's face. "Miroku, if any of the 33-S's come up with their own ideas, we have to respect them," he reminded her.
"Yes, that is true, Master," Miroku acknowledged that with a nod. "But their lack of experience..."
"We have enough forces to deal with the intruders currently on the grounds, plus whoever might still be coming," he assured her, the emotion draining from his face. "We can afford the odd mistake. I have faith in you and the Cylons, just as much as I have faith in Sylvie, Anri and the other Three-Three-Esses. Let's deal with the other idiots on the ground, then we'll deal with my counterpart."
Miroku blinked, then nodded. "By your command, Master."
I warned you about this one, Miroku.
So you did, Largo. Still, given what normally happens to that particular model of cyberdroid from your universe...
Yes, his sympathy for their kind is more than understandable. If any particular cyberdroid model has suffered from Genom's uncountable outrages, the 33-S's -- especially the second generation units -- are it.
Still, their loyalty to that human...
A mirthless chuckle echoes through the darkness. If it becomes necessary, he can be dealt with. As well as them.
True. None the less, our overall plan will proceed.
Yes. It will proceed...
"You're that Meg?! From Moonlight Rambler?!"
"Hai, that's me!" Megan replied with a nod and a warm smile. She and Ranma stood in a remote corner of the castle, one the crimson-haired 33-S knew wasn't monitored from the central tower. "Believe it or not, Saotome-sama, I do know about you through the manga and anime Takahashi-sensei wrote about your adventures. There were copies of the manga and anime stored in Genaros' main computer core."
Ranma flustered, then sighed. "Ya know, while I hate what that Ataru did to everyone else, I'm more than glad that he rescued you and the others," he then announced. "What Genom did to you guys..."
"Arigatou," Megan replied. "And believe me, it's an honour to meet someone like you, Saotome-sama..."
"Ranma."
"Meg," the Sexaroid returned, then sighed. "Okay, if everything goes well, your friends'll be de-programmed and you can take them back to your dimension as soon as possible. That sound fair enough to you?"
"More than fair enough," he agreed with a nod, then blinked. "But what about you guys...?"
A pensive look crossed Megan's face. "Ranma, please try to understand. We -- all of us -- owe Aatru-sama our very lives! It's not just what could've happened to Sylvie, Anri, Lou, Nam and me on Genaros. It's a lot more than that, in ways you can't begin to imagine from what was shown on those two OVA episodes you saw." A pause. "We love him, Ranma. We all love Ataru-sama and we want him to be safe and happy, free from all the garbage he faced in his own dimension. You understand that, don't you?" Seeing him nod, she continued. "We hoped that we could keep this situation under some sense of control. But that ended the instant the Cylons got involved..."
Ranma jolted, instantly recognizing the name from what he had seen of the video collection at Furinkan High School; Hiroshi and Daisuke, both hard-core Trekkers, had pointed out that particular series to him. "CYLONS?!?! From Battlestar Galactica?!! THOSE Cylons?!!"
"Hai!" Megan replied with a nod. "And they're not the idiot drones you might know from the 1970s TV series! These creeps've got a massive dose of religion!! And they see what Ataru-sama instigated as the perfect way of wiping out humanity in every dimension they could reach!! That's what's really going on here, Ranma! But...!!"
A grim nod tilted the martial artist's face. "You need help!"
"Hai!!"
"You got it!"
Elsewhere...
"The Sentimental Graffiti girls...?!"
Ataru gaped at the row of twelve suspension units, each bearing a teenager girl within, all of them dressed in different uniforms from schools spanning from Nagasaki to Sapporo. Like his introduction to Azumanga Daioh, Ataru had learned of Sentimental Graffiti (and it's twelve-episode TV counterpart, Sentimental Journey) thanks to his sisters on Promised Island. "Man, how the hell did the other me learn of all these girls if he lived under Lum's thumb right up to the moment he started all this...?"
His voice trailed off as he looked on the row of women in stasis across from the Senchi girls. There were a row of approximately twenty women, all dressed in blue seifuku similar to the Tomobiki High uniform. "The Tokimemo girls, too?!" he muttered, then noticed that one of the girls, a tall blonde tomboy, dressed in a grey male school uniform. "Geez, he even got Ijuuin Rei, too?!" Ataru declared with a wry chuckle, then he took note of the group in storage some metres to the right of the Tokimeki Memorial crew. "And the To Heart characters, too! Damn it all..." he spat out, then he perked as his communicator sounded off. "Hai, Moroboshi here!"
"Ah, Ataru-kun, there you are!" Tanizaki Yukari's voice echoed from the device. "Someone wants to talk to you."
A male voice then cut in. "Mister Moroboshi, this is Commander Chakotay from Voyager."
"Go ahead, Chakotay-chuusa," Ataru replied. "Are you aboard my ship now?"
"The signal's being relayed through the Windrider," the former Maquis commander and native American mystic replied. "It turns out that several of the ladies you just rescued are fans of the old 2-D television show that display our adventures..."
"Chakotau-chuusa, in my universe, we call them 'Trekkers,'" Ataru returned with a chuckle. "Who was it?!"
"Moroboshi-sempai, I'm sorry!!" a very young voice chimed over the circuits.
Ataru sweated. "Mihama-san..."
"Ne, ne, Ataru-kun, have you found any more of the girls your counterpart kidnapped?!" Yukari asked.
"Just found a whole slew of them, Sensei," he replied. "The Senchi, Tokimemo and To Heart female cast. I was about to reverse their brainwashing and get them out of the tubes when you called."
"That's good news," Chakotay said. "We just received word from Tuvok's away team. They found your sisters."
Hearing that, Ataru took a deep breath, tears brimming in his eyes. "Thank you," he whispered.
"There're other things I'd want to say, but not over an open channel," the Voyager's first officer then added.
"Gotcha," Ataru nodded. "Okay, listen. Have Neelix-san beam over to my ship. I think he'll be impressed by the galley there. We'll need to get food prepared for the hostages. Mihama-san?!"
"Hai!" Chiyo called out.
"Go into the galley and help out. If I recall the situation in those particular video games, there're a slew of very good cooks in the people I'm about to let go. When they're aboard, get them to help out, okay?!"
"Hai, Sempai, I understand!" Chiyo replied.
"Okay, then! I'll call you as soon as the girls are ready to be beamed out."
He shut off and stowed the communicator, then turned to the controls beside one chamber. Looking inside, he was quick to recognize the lady contained within as Nanase Yuu, the Senchi girl from Hiroshima. Hitting the ABORT button, then waiting for the programmed response before hitting it again, he nodded, then moved to the next chamber. Within ten minutes, all the girls stored in this part of the castle were on their way to mental freedom from the other Ataru's brainwashing. "Okay, now let's hope..."
"Intruder!" a familiar metallic voice barked from Ataru's left. "Capture him!!"
Ataru spun just as the first volley of blaster fire flew over his head. "Oh, hell!!!" he barked out, levelling the Range Hunter on the phalanx of Cylon warriors now storming his way. "As the Americans are so fond of saying it..."
The huge battle rifle thundered. "EAT SHIT AND DIE!!!!"
Several of the Cylons fell in the first volley. Unseen by Ataru, the androids' blaster fire began to chew into the ceiling overhead, allowing chunks to drop down and shower the area around him. While most of the hunks harmlessly strike the ground, a few lucky ones strike the control panels of several of the captives. Specifically, it was...
(Posted Sun, 15 Feb 2004 07:48)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.