"'BRAINWASHED?!?!'"
"I'm afraid so," the blonde, blue-eyed 33-S calling herself "Louise" ("Lou" to her best friends) replied. "Fortunately, we made sure that your proper brain patterns were kept on computer so that when a chance like this came..."
"You'd be able to restore us back to normal," Kuonji Ukyou completed.
"Exactly."
The former members of Group "Nibunoichi" exchanged looks as Louise's words sank in, then Ninomiya Hinako perked. "So where is the delinquent that started this in the first place?" she demaned. "We can't allow him to get away with..."
Her voice was instantly cut off when Louise focused her eyes on the teacher, those blue orbs now glowing a brilliant crimson. "What, may I ask, is the problem with you people?!" the blonde Sexaroid snarled. "Do you all possess selective hearing or what's the story?! I told you who're the real ones responsible for this mess! And Ataru-sama isn't that person!! GOT ME?!!"
"H-h-hai!" Hinako stammered, unable to muster any willpower to draw out her handy five yen coin to defend herself from Louise's hypnosis.
"Okay, okay, we get the hint!" Ukyou cut in, waving the Sexaroid off. "But how the hell do we fight these Cylons in the first place?! They might be machines, true, but they've got all those blasters and all that! And the numbers alone are gonna be hard to handle!"
"Unless there's someway to summon the Kobalite colonials and their battlestars to help us!" Kunou Kodachi added. "Given the fact that the Cylons planned to launch their final attack against the Twelve Colonies shortly after they gained use of Genom's OMS techology..."
"Well, hopefully, whatever Enity summoned Ranma-sama, the other Ataru-sama, the Voyager and everyone else to this place might consider bringing a battlestar or two here," Louise mused, shrugging.
The fiancees quickly perked on hearing one name. "Ran-chan's here?!!" Ukyou demaned.
"Hai, he...!" Louise's reply is cut off by her communicator. "Hai, Louise here," she called into it after taking it out of her pocket.
"It's me, Lou."
"Meg, where are you?"
Hearing that name, the people who had seen the fifth Bubblegum Crisis OVA story Moonlight Rambler grinned on recognizing the name of one of Louise's fellow co-escapees from Genaros. "I'm with Ranma right now," Megan reported. "I just talked him into letting Nam put him under the brain scanner so we can see how much damage that moronic father of his caused with that Neko-ken training and all that."
"Did you now?!" Louise asked, then smirked. "How soon can he be fixed up?!"
"Nam says ten minutes. It's not that bad, but some key sectors of his inner mind were really messed up."
Hearing that, Ukyou and Shampoo emit twin cries of horror. Akane also looks concerned, but her long-ingraned habit of not showing her real feelings for her fiancee in front of potential rivals asserts itself. "Saotome-kun's mind is damaged?!" Hinako demaned.
"'Fraid so," Megan answered over the communications link. "The whole thing with the Neko-ken's branched out into other parts of his mind. His motor-reflex controls are fully intact; that's how he's been able to learn martial arts as well as he's done. But things concerning his social interactive skills and everything else are somewhat messed up. And his sexual responses are next to zilch. Geez, to believe that Tendou girl says all the time that Ranma's a pervert! That's a fuckin' joke and a half!! Way he is now, he'll be more celibate that a Buddhist monk for the rest of his life!"
Triple gagging noises from Ukyou, Shampoo and Kodachi. "Well, I guess that means we keep that bonehead mother of his in stasis for the time being!" Louise mused. "No need for that loon to go off on her 'not manly' kick and threaten poor Ranma-sama with seppuku!"
"Good thing we destroyed that damned sword of hers when she was brought over here, huh?" Megan asked.
"Got that right...! Eh?!" Louise looked around, quickly noting that someone had just taken off. "Where's Akane-san?!" she wondered.
"Probably coming to look for Ranma," Megan replied. "Dumn ass twit! Can't admit her feelings in public for the guy, so she's gotta play Jane Rambo and try to prove she's superior to his other fiancees!"
"Good point...! Oh, shit!" Louise was quick to notice three other departing figures. "The other dingbats are on the way, Meg."
"Hai, hai. I'll handle them."
The link was cut off. "You don't seem to like those girls, do you, Louise-san?" Kurumi, one of the sisters who believed Tendou Souun was her father, mused.
Louise stared at her. "Given the way those four morons treat the poor guy, would you blame me if I thought otherwise?"
Hearing that, Kurumi, Natsuki and Hinako nodded...
"Namiko's subjecting Saotome Ranma to the brain scanner?"
"Hai, Ataru-sama, as we speak," Anri replied over the communications links. "Given the amount of damage Nam's detected so far, it's no wonder that Ranma-sama was able to properly deal with any of the problems he faced back in his home dimension."
"Show me," the harem master ordered.
A holographic image of a person's brain flashed before him. Miroku walked up to stand beside Ataru, her own eyes taking in what was now being displayed. "If I understand the inner workings of an organic humanoid mind correctly, he should be a mental vegetable at the very least," the humanoid Cylon commented, her finger pointing out specific details for Ataru's attention.
"Yeah, I can see that," Ataru mused. He didn't fully understand even a tithe of what Namiko had detected, but the sheer level of highlighted areas spoke plenty. "How soon can this be fixed up, Anri?"
"It's being done right now. All repairs should be done within ten minutes, Ataru-sama."
"I see. Tell Namiko to keep him restrained when she's done with him."
"Hai, Ataru-sama, it'll be done."
The link was cut, then Ataru sat back in his chair. "Not with a bang, but with a wimper, Miroku. That's how it's done."
"It did work this time," Miroku agreed, then shook her head. "But it doesn't work all the time."
"True," Ataru acknowledged that with a nod...
"Kaneko, this is Megan. Where are you guys?"
"Keeping a watch over several other of the groups our 'master' had captured, Megan. Why do you ask?"
"Saotome Ranma's four would-be bed-warmers from Group 'Nibunoichi' are trying to get to him before Nam can finish fixing up his brain. You think you can convince our Cylon 'friends' to keep them busy while Nam finishes her work?"
"I can do that!"
"Then do it, girl!"
"Hai, hai!"
Racing through the hallways of the giant castle, Tendou Akane gritted her teeth as she ran as fast as her legs could push her. One of the small benefits of having been a guest of this place was being given a mental map of where everything was located. And all of the would-be slaves of Moroboshi Ataru knew where the room where the brain scanner was located. It was there that everyone had been taken to in the wake of their capture to have their memories and brain patterns copied into high-density datadisks prior to their being placed into the suspension chambers for mental reprogramming. While it didn't make much sense to keep copies of the original thought patterns for a sea of would-be sex slaves, it did make loads of sense to create mental copy patterns so that humanoid Cylon infiltrators could then be built so they could be dispatched to the various dimensions as an advanced guard for the machine race's "final solution" against humanity.
Knowing that the Sexaroids that Moroboshi Ataru had rescued from the Bubblegum Crisis universe were ultimately on humanity's side was a good thing. Knowing that Ataru had originally intented to leave it at that until his concern for the Cylons' own "plight" had suckered him into something that could potentially lead to a holocaust worse than anything Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin or Mao Zedong could EVER imagine in their worst nightmares...! Well, that was a lot harder to take. Even with the positive examples of Hibiki Ryouga and Ono Toofuu to look up to -- and yes, Ranma as well when he wasn't acting like a jerk -- Akane still held a dim view of men in general. And Moroboshi Ataru (as his adventures in Urusei Yatsura so demonstrated) was just as bad as Happousai could be on an average day.
What would she do if she found him?
What would one expect, of course.
"Halt!"
Akane cried out as blaster fire zoomed her way, chewing up the ground and the wall off to one side. Seeing the squad of Cylon warriors charge her way, she dived for cover, summoning her chi mallet along the way. Growling as the androids closed the range, she then bolted out, swinging the mallet in a devastating downward blow that crushed two of them in one strike. The other Cylons spun on her, levelling their blasters on Akane. Before they could fire, mini-spatulas and ribbons lashed out to snare their weapons and yank them clear. As the Cylons turned to gaze on Ukyou and Kodachi, Shampoo leapt over her rivals to crush two of them with her bonbori. Akane polished off the rest with her mallet, then took a deep breath before nodding thanks to the others. "Came in time," she said, gasping.
"We can't deal with these jokers alone, Akane," Ukyou warned, then tensed on hearing marching feet coming their way. "Oh, shit!!"
The four women tensed as another group of Cylons came at them...
Elsewhere...
"Okay, that's the next group freed! Beam them up, Chakotay!"
"Energizing!"
A group of about thirty women disappeared in pillars of light and energy. Watching them depart, Kathryn Janeway breathed out in relief, then she tapped her communicator. "Did you get them, Chakotay?"
"They all arrived safe and sound, Captain," the Voyager's first officer replied from orbit. "Counting the people recovered already by Mister Moroboshi and his friends, we've liberated about three hundred hostages."
"We've got over two thousand to deal with altogether," Kathryn noted. "We'll have to pick things up. Who knows when the Cylons might use that D-hopper unit to probe into other dimensions."
"I'm keeping sensors locked on the castle just in case," Chakotay replied. "If they use that device, we can block it with an anti-tachyon beam from the main sensor dish. But given what we've been told about these Cylons, it's hard to predict what their reaction will be."
"Have you picked up any signs of Cylon ships?"
"Negative."
"Alright, then..."
Blaster fire echoed from somewhere to Kathryn's right, soon answered with fire from the projectile rifles being used by Moroboshi Ataru and his party. That chorus of thunder was broken by sharp explosions that sent parts of Cylons flying all over the place. "How're they doing, Tuvok?" the Voyager's captain asked as she crouch-walked over to join her shipmates.
"Extremely well for a group of untrained civilians," the dark-skinned Vulcan reported. "I was initially curious about Mister Moroboshi providing compound bows and explosive-tipped arrows to members of his team. However, witnessing Miss Ijuuin's, Miss Ayasaki's and Miss Miyauchi's skill with such weapons, the logic of Mister Moroboshi's actions became more than apparent."
"Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth, then," Kathryn concluded before a massive explosion shattered a whole section of wall behind the Cylons. Looking into the sea of flame, she demaned, "What's that?!!"
(Posted Wed, 18 Feb 2004 05:35)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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