No Fury Like… (Preview)
Story By JavaLamp
Characters are the properties of their respective owners, I do not claim ownership of the characters of this fanfiction excepting those I have created. In other words: Thank you Rumiko for creating such a wonderful world for our minds to play in. And also, Please no one sue me for this, I'm in college, I work my butt off for just over minimum wage and I don't get paid for this.
Writer's pre-notes
This is a prologue, if you've already read this prologue, I'm well and truly surprised, I hope you enjoy my writing, and I look forward to hearing your comments and questions/suggestions, if you just feel like saying it sucks, go scream at a wall, it cares more.
-JavaLamp
And so… on with the story!
No Fury Like...
For a drizzling summer day in Nerima, it wasn't too strange a sight to see someone walking down the street; it was a fairly ridiculous sight, though, to see this girl. Naturally, she was soaked, but it was the two backpacks she had stacked on her back that nearly caused people to call the Weekly World News, what with each one being about 3/4 her size.
A scream piercing the air changed her demeanor instantly; cracking her young face with lines of anger as she ran full bore towards the source of the noise. Rounding a corner, she found the source of said scream, a girl with chin length brown hair of about 18 years in a nervous kenpo stance, cornered by 3 men. They didn't have much size advantage individually over the girl, but their handguns gave any one of them all the advantage they needed for whatever they had planned. Onna-Ranma unceremoniously dropped her packs with a thud.
Onna-Ranma gritted and bore her teeth in rage at the man of the group who turned to look at her, netting her... a look of amusement from said male.
Without turning to the rest of his group, he spoke, "Hey guys... we got some little girlie playin' hero! Oohh, and she's pretty too, I think Malcolm would want this one for 'Che Casa Nova'. You two grab that one, this one's all mine." He said with a sick smile crossing his features, "Now play nice..."
Onna-Ranma's features were blank as she walked toward the man. Stopping mere inches from the bore of the pistol, she waited for the man's next movement. Immediately as he started for the handcuffs at his side, she moved. Grabbing his right wrist, she pulled his gun arm straight as her left forearm fluidly smashed his elbow backwards. As he opened his mouth to scream his pain, she spun around, raising her left foot to proper height to connect with the side of his jaw, knocking it from it's sockets, ripping open many skin breaks, and leaving his neck open for her incoming spear hand to strike. On the follow through she quickly positioned him in front of her to receive the two bullets the other two men had fired at her.
Dropping the first man's now lifeless body to the side, she turned her attention to the two remaining punks; one was in shock, about to drop his gun, while the other was just about to fire again. Onna-Ranma sprinted towards the one who was about to fire. When she was a mere foot from him, he fired, instantaneously Onna-Ranma was in a spin, missing the bullet by millimeters, when she was coming about again to face him, Onna-Ranma clenched her hand around the man's wrist, and completed the spin with a side kick just under his arm, rewarding all in earshot with the sickening pop of a dislocating shoulder and the snap of 2 or 3 ribs. The gun clattered to the ground as Onna-Ranma crouched and then jumped at the wall parallel to the man's chest. Onna-Ranma bounded off the wall at near bullet speed directly at the man. As she reached him a look of absolute terror had marked the man as she cupped her left hand around his neck and pulled forward as she simultaneously drove a spear hand into the cartilage attaching the left ribs to the sternum, dislocating 5 of said ribs as her hand penetrated into the man's chest. She grabbed the first pulsating object she found and yanked, ripping a few of the man's arteries away from his heart. Flinging her hands down, discharging most of the blood on her hands, Onna-Ranma sprang to a position directly in front of the last man standing, and sparing no time, performed a snap kick to the man's jaw, sending his head to rest on his back as he crashed backward into the wall.
Without a word, Onna-Ranma walked back to her packs, inattentive to either the girl in the alley, one Nabiki Tendo, or the one that had just rounded the corner just before she had dispatched the last man, Nabiki's younger sibling. While the one in the alleyway was still in shock from the punks, or more recently their swift vanquishing, the one who had just arrived hadn't as much of a problem, she directly approached Onna-Ranma.
"Umm... excuse me?" She said, choking slightly on her words when the deadness of the men in the alley forced it's way to the front of her mind.
A set of eyes moving to acknowledge her arrival was all that Akane received in response.
As Onna-Ranma gave a swift tug to secure her packs in place, she started to leave the alley silently. Akane could do nothing to stop her; the blood on Onna-Ranma's knuckles mesmerizing her till her sister's sobs caught her attention.
"Nabiki!" Akane cried, dashing to her sister's side.
Onna-Ranma disappeared around a corner just as a patrolling officer entered the main alleyway from another street to find the source of the shots. He could not stem the tide of nausea from overtaking him, and soon there was a stack of half digested ramen noodles added to the scene as his partner rounded the corner.
-*-*-*-*-*-
"Nabiki! Akane! You both had me so worried! I'm so very glad you're both safe!" Soun very nearly cried out, entering the office in the police building where they were. His tears formed a steady stream down the furrows in his cheeks, burned there long ago by another tragedy.
The peace officer in the room spoke first, "We found your daughters in a mess you could only describe as hellish, had I not seen the aftermath, I would have never believed what your daughter here described. We're having our coroner verify what he can right now."
"CORONER!? What do you mean to say? Are my daughters charged with something? They couldn't have! They didn't! You can't!" Soun broke into more tears, fully losing all that was left of his composure and succumbing fully to the wail.
"Calm DOWN Mr. Tendo, your daughters didn't do anything illegal, even if those men died at their hands-" was all the officer could say before Soun's volume increased to epic proportions, drawing the attention of everyone in the neighboring rooms.
"Mr. Tendo! Your daughters were being assaulted with deadly force, those men had *guns*, they were going to rape your daughters..."
-*-*-*-*-*-
Later that day the drizzle had let up, and Soun was gripping both of his daughters closely to himself on their way home from the station when Nabiki began to look intently forward. This didn't go unnoticed.
"Nabiki! What is it?" Soun whispered sharply. (He had been ready to explode on anyone who came close to his daughters since he had found out about the incident in the alleyway.)
"Look Daddy!" Nabiki said, pointing down the street ahead of them, "I'm sure of it, that's the girl who killed those men! She's the one who saved us!"
"Yeah Nabiki, I see h- eeewwwwww…. her hand's still coated in blood!" Akane winced at the prospect of walking around all day with someone else's blood on her hand.
Soun immediately began running toward the girl, with his daughters still protectively folded in each arm. Nabiki and Akane were, to say the least, horizontal and surprised at their father.
Amazingly enough, the street was almost deadly silent when Soun reached his target. Following her hadn't been easy though, she had almost immediately ducked into an alley and disappeared, only to reappear behind them after a few minutes of searching, there was still that bright red hair, the backpacks, and those Chinese clothes, but she seemed a good bit taller, and the blood was gone from her hand; maybe she had been ashamed about it and could stand tall and proud like she should now that it was gone, Soun thought.
Soun put his daughters down and shouted, "Young woman!" reaching for her shoulder, which suddenly wasn't there when his hand arrived. Turning to look left, Soun saw the two backpacks in a neat stack next to a young figure in a loose fighting stance.
"I'm a Man!" Ranma shouted, "Can't *anybody* tell what a man looks like in this country?"
Akane and Nabiki's eyes danced up and down the young, *definitely* male body before them in disbelief, Soun just stood like a statue, with his mouth open like he was about to say something.
After a minute of just standing there, Ranma shouldered his packs and started down the street only to be stopped by Soun's voice calling after him, "Hold there young man!" Ranma stopped in his tracks and slowly turned his head to face Soun.
"What do you want?"
"My daughters were assaulted this morning by men with guns."
"I don't know anything about that, I was asleep all morning." Ranma said, thinking to himself, 'That's truthful enough, I really don't know anything about it, what does this guy want with me... Waitaminute! What if that blood was-'
"I just want to know where my daughters' rescuer is; a young woman, who my daughters say was wearing the exact same clothing as you are, just came by here before we saw you, I want to know if you saw her. In fact, her hair was the same-"
"Haven't seen her." Ranma said with a sneer on his face as he again began walking down the street.
"Akane, Nabiki, let's go home, perhaps she will turn up again somewhere." Soun said, again wrapping his daughters tightly with an arm on each side of him. "You there, young man!" Ranma made no movement to acknowledge Soun, "You look like you could use a hot bath and a place to change clothing!" With that Ranma stopped and whirled around to face the Tendos
"What do you mean by that? Are you trying to insult me?"
"No, no, I'm merely offering a bath and a meal to you in return for our mistaking you for someone else."
"A MEAL!?! Err... umm... I mean, uhh, yes, that would be good."
"Ha ha, very well then, come with me, and we'll have you cleaned and fed in no time." Soun slowly released his grasp on his daughters and brought up his right hand to shake Ranma's while clasping his left on Ranma's shoulder. "Well, I suppose we should be introduced, I'm Soun Tendo, Master of the Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts."
"I'm Ranma... I uhh..." Ranma lowered his head and vocal tone, "I don't have a family name."
"Hmm. Ranma, eh... I knew a Ranma once, he was the son of a good friend of mine, but we can talk of that later, first let's get home!" With that Soun renewed his grasp on his daughters and walked straight home.
-*-*-*-*-*-
"Kasumi! Kasumi, we're home!" Soun announced, entering the front gate of the Tendo property. The sounds of a dozen students practicing martial arts could be heard emanating from the dojo in the back of the property. Ranma stopped for a moment to read the two signs hanging from the entrance to the property, "Tendo School of Anything Goes Martial Arts" and "Newly re-opened!" Akane and Nabiki both went inside and started chatting in subdued excitement when they were out of earshot.
"Yes, Father?"
"Kasumi, while I finish with the belt tests today, please see to our guest, he will be staying with us for dinner. Ranma, if you need anything, please tell Kasumi." With that Soun went back to the Dojo.
"Umm... Hi." Ranma said.
"Hello Ranma, I just filled the furo for Father, but it seems he's busy, would you like to use it?"
-*-*-*-*-*-
"Nabiki? Who was that guy?"
"I don't know Akane, I want to see what I can get on him."
--
LOGON: ICEQUEEN
PASSWORD: *******************
Welcome ICEQUEEN,
14 new messages
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1)Req. info on SS Moleman281@jban.org
2)Underhanded Weekly OVRMNDBOT@Uhand.Week.com
3)URGENT: Been spotted kunowachr@nerima.net
4)RE: USA Expansion? SLAsuka@Nerv.gov
--
"Hmm. I'll have to read those later..."
"Hey Nabiki? Why do you use this when you could use something with graphics?"
"One, this is faster. Two, this is more secure."
"Oh."
---
4 new messages
:m
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Users online: 4 from lackeys group
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unique group members:
Magus
HarryPetros
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GeneralHav0k
:chat GeneralHav0k
Asking GeneralHav0k to chat..............
:Greetings GeneralHav0k
Greetings ICEQUEEN
:General, I need a family name on a 'Ranma' of Japanese origin, most likely Tokyo area, has traveled China, Martial Artist of High Caliber, likely 16-17 years old.
Checking.
:I'll assume normal rates, normal methods.
Correct as always, queen.
I have 2 hits for that information.
:Not bad, quick and efficient, that's why I like you General.
Hmm... this is interesting, one doesn't have a family name.
:And the other?
Family name-Saotome, this one reports that a clerical error was made at birth, this Ranma is a girl, with red hair according to the change. The other Ranma's record was created in the same update as that change, it has no information but an age and sex.
:Excellent work General.
A pleasure queen, May I ask what the information is for?
:Why not, this is harmless information.
Harmless in the queen's hand? Indeed it must be innocuous.
:It's for my sister.
I see, in return for that, this one's a freebie, whoever was registering the changes either wanted them to be found or was a real novice, it was cake to find.
:Much appreciated General, Good day.
Good day ICEQUEEN
:/Q
Ending Chat with GeneralHav0k
--
"How did you know he'd been to China, sis?"
"Akane, when you're in the information business, nothing escapes you, especially not the China 'traveler' tag on Ranma's packs"
"Oh, I thought it was the shirt. I'm going to my room, I've got to study for a test tomorrow, tell me what you find."
"You got it, sis."
--
:l local
local group members:
Sasuke
Katsu-jirou
Miko
:chat Katsu-jirou
Asking Katsu-jirou to chat.....................................................................
/REQUEST TIMEOUT
--
"C'mon Katsu... I know you're there."
--
:chat Katsu-jirou
Asking Katsu-jirou to chat..............................................
:Katsu... you really need to pay more attention.
You'll understand when I explain.
:I'm sure I will, you're a busy man after all.
We just hauled in another one of my boys.
:Out drinking late, *again*?
Um.. no.. we just found him, one big bloody mess next to his head under pier 31.
:Hold on... *another* one of your boys?
Yeah... we've found 3 so far. Fei under pier 31, Gai behind a set of boxes and Joe out in the yard by the loading crane.
:Any witnesses?
Not really... some drunks, and one of Joe's drinking partners. Kept sayin' stuff bout Joe leavin' to go pick up on some 'hot little redhead'.
:Redhead?
That's the last Keitaro heard from Joe.
--
"This doesn't sound good."
--
:Katsu, how many 'arrivals' did you have last night?
Pretty slow night for that, only 10 stowaways.
:Any redheads?
Naw, I saw the redhead Joe was after, she was just a little thing, couldn't have been more than 16, no way *she* coulda done that to my boys.
:I'm not asking that, were there any other redheads beside the girl?
Well, there was a boy, looked about 17, wore his hair in a braid, I think the two were related...
:I'm beginning to think so myself.
You've seen 'em?
:Yes. And I have a bit of information for you... that little redhead did kill your men.
There's no friggin' way!
:It's real... I watched her easily kill three gun-armed thugs today.
I can't believe it.
:Believe it, because I saw it.
...
...
My god...
:If you can, keep a wrap on this, until I have some proof of where and who she is, if she finds out you're talking about her, you might find out the hard way about her.
:/Q
Ending Chat with Katsu-jirou
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--
"I have got to find out who that girl is."
Precisely at that moment, a loud male yelp emanated from the bathroom.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Several minutes earlier:
'*sniff*-*sniff*- I was so busy this morning and afternoon with Nabiki after my run that I forgot to take a bath, I guess now's a good time.' Akane thought, stepping out of Nabiki's room silently. Quietly she opened the door to the outer bathroom area and looked in the hamper. 'Hmm... Ranma's in there... I wonder, naah, I'm always giving those boys a hard time about being perverts. I'll just wash up a bit while he's in there. Ooh... I can hear him!' With that, she quietly put her ear to the bathroom door and listened carefully.
"-at'll I do? I finally found Nerima... and I found Tendo, he's got a nice house, his daughters all seem nice, and they're cute too," Akane blushed, "but if I stay they'll find out about dad, and I don't want that to happen to them. What can I do?" Ranma sat for a moment in silence, thinking, and Akane removed her ear from the door and proceeded to scrub down. When she was in the process of putting her clothes back on, a sound resonated some what from the furo, "That's IT!" and immediately action was heard in the water. Akane finished dressing and was about to turn away from the inner bathroom door when it flew wide, revealing a wet, and very naked Ranma. Quickly the door flew closed again as Ranma yelped loudly, apparently loud enough for the entire house, because soon enough Kasumi and Nabiki were in the outer bathroom as well. Nabiki drilling Akane for details and Kasumi trying to convince them both to leave so Ranma could dress.
After a minute of that, the girls left, only somewhat because of Kasumi. Soun had decided it was his turn in the furo.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Writer's post-it notes:
'Whew!' (umm... I don't know why, but nearly all the other fanfic writers out there always say that in their post-notes, so I figured I should...) Anyhow, this is the first draft, MamiyaOtaru, I've already noted it's bloody, and a less, shall we say 'graphic' version is in the works. I started writing this mainly as an outlet when I was mad one day, I was surprised when Mamiya found it, read it, 'commented' (ask him), and wanted me to write more. Anyhow, the impressive part of this is that I'm putting this where anyone can see it... and question/predict/comment to me about it... *wink**wink**nudge**nudge*.
java_lamp@yahoo.com
or, your comments and such can get to me through in the forums, or through the email of UrashimaKeitaro of those forums, keitaro@trigun.com
Wanna know what's to come from this?
-Serial Murder in Japan?
-Just how would Onna-Ranma react to Tatewaki Kuno's advances?
-How did Ranma end up like this?
-Where's Genma?
-For that matter, what does this mean for all the rest of the OOC cast? (that's right, no canon casting here, people can, and will, do what their 'not supposed to' according to the manga/anime)
As you may or may not have guessed, I'm not giving any of it away, it's the questions that drive us, and that's precisely what will drive this story.
-JavaLamp