-+- Standard Disclaimer -+-
The characters depicted in this story are not mine. Sue me and you get nada, cuz that's how much I own. Blah.
-+- End of Disclaimer -+-
Unlikely Companions
A fiction novella by Dave Zhang (dzhang@its.caltech.edu). Comments and criticisms welcomed. Copyright 2003.
"This text is spoken." 'This text is thought.'
Chapter 1: The Gathering
Cherry wondered if he had not missed one too many meals, or offended one too many demons as extreme pain hit his abdomen.
***
Yuu unwillingly started his second homework set for the night when an excruciate pain hit his stomach. Despite the fact that he often claimed something similar to happen, Yuu was not delusional, and realized when he was faking it, and when he was not. And currently, he was not. 'Damn! Knew I couldn't trust two-dollar sushi restaurants!'
***
One certain Ranma was sailing through air, feeling and thinking the same about Akane's cooking.
***
Miroku attributed his cause of his sudden stomach-ache to be Sango's violent jab right after he, ahem, tried to grow closer to the girl.
***
Moments later, at the base of the Cherry Hill temple, all four afore-mentioned characters suddenly materialized.
Ranma, being the best martial artist of the group, recovered first. "Where on Earth am I!? I shouldn't have landed yet for another fifteen seconds or so. Who are you guys?"
Miroku stood up and dusted himself off. "I am equally lost. Where is Sango? She was here moments ago."
Cherry looked someone surprised for a moment before regaining his calm, and address the group.
"I see you have arrived. You three have been specially chosen, and are gathered here for a purpose. You... are the chosen Companions!"
As Ranma and Miroku digested the ramifications of being drawn to another world to fulfill a greater purpose, Yuu finally recovered from the shock of inter-dimensional travel, and appraised the old man. Cherry, sensing himself being observed by Yuu, stared back at Yuu. Ranma and Miroku both noticed the tension in the air, and watched the scene in suspense.
Finally, Yuu decided to break the silence. "You just made that up, didn't you, old man? You also got dumped here when we did, didn't you?"
"Well, not exactly par se... I mean... uh..." Cherry sweated as he racked his brain to try to come up with a convincing story as he stalled for time. Failing that, he finally admitted, "Yeah."
"Argh!!!!" screamed Ranma. "You foolish old man! Don't confuse us like that!" Ranma then proceeded to pick up the old man by the neck, and punted him off into the distance. As Cherry proceeded on his aerial trajectory, he sighed, and said, "It is fate."
***
"Well, it sure don't look like I'm in Nerima still. You guys got any idea where we are?"
Miroku, still astounded by the modern world, replied, "Definitely not in 16th century Japan's country-side, that much is for sure."
"Well, there's a temple up ahead. Maybe we should walk there and ask?"
The three agreed on the idea, and approached the temple. Grandpa Hino choose that moment to appear. "Ah, greetings visitors. Would..."
He did not get any farther before Ranma cut in, "Ah!!! He's back already!?" Ranma dashed in and picked up Grandpa Hino and unceremoniously punted him just as he did Cherry moments ago, except harder this time.
Miroku and Yuu sweated. "Um... I think that was a different guy."
Ranma scratched his head in embarrassment. "Oh, it was... eh... hehe..." Ranma quickly decided he needed to change the topic. "So, who are you guys? I'm Ranma, heir to the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts! I'm the world's best martial artist!"
"Is that so?" said Miroku with just a hint of disbelief. He bowed to the others and introduced himself as well. "My name is Miroku, and I am but a simple wandering priest."
"I'm just a student. My name is Yuu." Yuu extended his hand to Ranma, and Ranma shook it heartily. He then extended it to Miroku. Handshaking was not a form of greeting in the sixteenth century, but Miroku correctly gathered that it was here, so likewise shook Yuu's hand uncertainly, before turning to Ranma and shaking hands with him as well.
"Well, there doesn't seem to be anyone else in the temple. The guy Mr. Martial arts kicked was probably the head, and only, priest here. Let's go back onto the street and see if we can find someone to ask directions from."
As the returned to the street, Ranma and Yuu stopped at the sidewalk, but Miroku, having never been in the modern world, continued walking into the middle of the street as a large SUV sped towards him.
"Hey, watch out!" Ranma realized Miroku wasn't going to be able to react on time, and thus flew toward in a tackle. He succeeded in getting both himself and Miroku out of the path of the car, but the car in passing drove over a puddle, and splashed Ranma in the face.
Miroku, suddenly realizing he had just been attacked, surveyed the scene for poisonous bugs, and finding none, turned to the car to released his dreaded Kazaana attack. Within milliseconds, the car came to a halt, and in another few, started speeding backwards into Miroku's palm.
Ranma, realizing that Miroku's palm emitted an extremely powerful vaccum attack, and would likely engulf the car, quickly wrapped his own hand over Miroku's, and forced it closed by sheer strength. "What the hell are you doing Miroku? There's people in that car!"
Miroku turned and suddenly forgot the matter of the SUV as he saw an amply-endowed Ranma-chan. He quickly grasped the girl's hand with his free hand, and got onto his knees, "Please, young vision of loveliness, won't you bear my child?"
Yuu, still on the other sidewalk, had been watching the events of the past few seconds with utter disbelief. Now he walked up to Ranma-chan, licked his index finger, and then put it to Ranma's shirt sleeve.
"Huh?"
"Let's get you out of those wet clothes," said Yuu with a wink.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
***
*splash*
"Wow, this is so amazing!" said Yuu, at the restaurant as he alternating poured cold water and hot coffee on Ranma, with the question of where they were completely relegated to the back of the brain in light of this new spectacle.
*fssst*
Miroku continued questioning the aquatranssexual. "You really change completely? Including... down there?"
*splash*
"Yeah."
*fssst*
"And you say you got this from a magical spring in China?"
*splash*
"Yeah. I'll tell you guys the story some other time."
*fssst*
"Will you guys quit it already!?"
*splash*
"Sorry, it's just so fun, no matter how many times I do it," said Yuu.
Miroku, with his hands at Ranma's chest area, groping her breasts whenever Ranma was a she, heartily nodded. "I agree! You're so pretty as a girl! Maybe you should stay like this most of the time."
"HEY! I'm a guy!" Ranma looked down and realized he was currently in girl-form. "Well, not right now, but in spirit I'm always a guy, all right!? And that means..."
BAM! Ranma backhanded Miroku into the nearest street sign. "NO GROPING ME!"
"What about bearing my child?" asked Miroku before he fainted from the pain.
***
Ranma stopped and waited. Five minutes later, Miroku caught up, panting. Another ten passed before Yuu finally caught up, immediate following which he collapsed to the ground. "Hey... not all of us... are... world-class... martial artists... you know..."
"Well, you guys could train with me. I can tell both of you have had some martial arts training, and high potential."
Yuu rested on the ground a little more before answering. "Well, I doubt we'll be able to learn how to leap from rooftop to rooftop very soon, but that sounds good. Just give me a week to recover."
"So, just what was here that caused you to leap so quickly here?" asked a very confused Miroku, who found them at an intersection nearly identical to the last one.
"Er... nothing, I guess. I was just scouting."
Yuu and Miroku facefaulted at having run the hardest they could for nothing in particular.
Yuu stood up finally after resting another few minutes. "Well, Ranma has no money, and yours doesn't count here in modern day. I didn't know I was going to end up here, so my wallet only has about 3000 yen left. That's probably good for two or three more meals for the three of us, at best, and definitely not enough for a hotel room. So I guess that means we need to go find jobs and cheap places to stay. Ranma, you're the fastest, so why don't you go look for possible places to stay. Miroku, you and I will go look for jobs. We'll all meet back here again at five sharp, all right?"
"Five sharp?"
Yuu and Ranma sighed as they started explaining the basics of modern timekeeping to Miroku.
***
Ranma dashed off to complete his assigned task. Finding a place to stay in suburban Tokyo couldn't be *that* hard, right?
First he found what he thought was an abandoned temple:
Very, it was very nicely decorated and well-built for an abandoned temple, but no one was there, so he could only assume it was abandoned. He walked in, calling out "Hello" the entire time to try to find someone.
'Funny. Usually abandoned temples don't have this much furniture. Maybe someone beat us here. If that's the case then maybe they'd be willing to share.'
He wandered about, until he suddenly heard the sound of the television turning on behind him. He whizzed aboutface to find himself face-to-face (or perhaps face-to-chest would be more accurate in this case) with the Norn goddess of the past.
Ranma quickly felt the trickle of nosebleed on his face. "Um... hello?"
"Why, hello dear! What brings you here?"
"Well... I'm just a.. you see... me and my friends are kinda looking for a place to stay..."
Suddenly Ranma felt himself malleted to the floor from behind as he heard a resounding cry of "Ack! Bug!"
"Dang, missed." Twelve-year-old Skuld walked around to face Ranma, and said, "Sorry, mister."
Urd picked Ranma up, leaned forward and said sensually, "Well, now, I'm sure we can work something out, a fine-looking boy like you and a beautiful woman like me."
Ranma felt more libido radiating from this woman than all of his Nerima fiancees combined, and did what any typical anime gynophobe would do--he ran out of there as fast as possible.
***
Miroku wandered about the city, considering what abilities he had that could possibly be useful in this brave new world. This, he had a very hard time accomplishing, not only because this was a difficult problem, but more importantly because modern fashion was a lot more risque than medieval wardrobes. Miroku found himself distracted by pretty girls in tank-tops wandering by every ten seconds.
Finally, he realized he was wasting too much time like this, and remembered his original task. 'Oh yes. I'm supposed to be getting a job.' He wandered about a bit more, before deciding he should just walk into buildings and ask for jobs.
'Hm... let's see. Well, any building is as good as any other. I'll try this one. Hardcore Studios, eh? Wonder what they do.'
Miroku wandered in, and followed the tortuous passages until finally arriving at the main filming area. There he saw... one nude man being, ahem, serviced by two equally nude girls. Instantly he decided this was the place to be for him.
A worker noticed him and asked, "Hey, you here to perform in that new movie? What's it called? You know, the Biker something or other one."
Miroku, still watching the recorded scene in fascination, gave only a dumb nod without really listening to the man.
"Well then, come on! I'll show you to the set." The man dragged a still-bewitched Miroku to another area of the studio.
Upon leaving the first filming area, Miroku finally regain some control over his mind and motor muscles. "So, where are we headed?"
"To your set, of course. That's what you're here for, right? To work?"
Miroku's mind boggled. "So... you mean I'm going to be doing something like what I saw?"
"Heh, something like it," said the man with a chuckle. "You sound like you're new at this. Anyway, it's pretty simple. You just do what you're told, and you'll be paid at the end of the filming."
'I get to do... *that*, and I get paid as well!?' Miroku was in heaven. "It'll be great working with you!"
Miroku now eagerly let himself be led to the new filming area, where a half-naked woman already was comfortably positioned prone on a bed. With curly locks of blond hair, an ample bosom held in check only but a translucent bra, and tight jeans that showed off well her long legs, the woman at least Sango's equal in looks, Miroku decided. At the thought of Sango, Miroku suddenly felt a bit guilty. After all, he knew they had deep feelings for each other--but dang it, that girl needs to loosen up more. Kinda like this pretty girl on the bed.
'Well... Sango's in a completely different world; it's technically not cheating if I'm in another world, right?' Miroku reasoned. Miroku was still in this ambivalent state of mind when the stagehands were bringing out his costumes and undressing him when the girl on bed got up and turned to face Miroku.
"My, you're a cutey," said the girl in a seductive, throaty voice. "Come on now, I've been waiting."
In saying so, the girl unzipped her jeans and revealed 'her' true gender. Miroku's eyes bulged out before he took out running, through the nearest wall and onto the streets screaming in apprehension.
Nearby, Cherry watched the scene and said in his ominous voice, "It is fate." Miroku noticed him and grabbed him along, while he continued to run from that infernal place.
***
Yuu decided that he probably wasn't going to get any high paying jobs right away, and headed to the nearest ice cream shop. After all, those are almost always hiring, and the job usually isn't too stressful. After all, Miki works in one, and she seemed fine with it.
So, he calmly walked into the nearest ice cream store, and asked for a job.
The middle-aged manager became wide-eyed, and then looked Yuu up and down for any signs of abnormality. Upon finding no obvious ones, the manager rushed up to Yuu, and began shaking hands with Yuu violently, sealing off the contract, as if to prevent Yuu from backing out.
'Hm. They must be really short-handed here. Oh well. Lucky for me! I might even be able to bring some ice cream to Ranma and Miroku when I'm done tonight.'
The workday began normally enough. A few couples with small children came by and bought some ice cream. Business was kind of lax, so working was actually kind of relaxing.
Later on some high school girls came by for ice cream, and applied the I'm-so-cute-you-know-you-want-to-give-me-an-extra-scoop attack on Yuu, but he just smiled and resisted it. The girls left grumbling about insensitive guys eating their non-augmented ice cream orders.
At that time an ugly-looking boy walked in, followed by a very beautiful girl with horns. Yuu blinked. That couldn't have been right. Yep, she does have horns. And she's floating a few inches off the ground. And she has a baby boy also with horns floating beside her. Yuu looked to the manager for an explanation, only to see the man had already ducked behind the trash can, frantically signaling to Yuu not to reveal his location.
"Uh..." Yuu had a distinctly bad feeling about this. "What would you three like?"
"Peh. Give me a cone with everything on it. Ignore the girl behind me."
"Dar--ling!" After punishing Ataru her usual way, Lum snuggled close to the lightly-fried Ataru, and said while giving him her cutest look, "How could you be so heartless to me?"
Yuu blinked. Maybe he had fallen asleep at work, and this is all a dream. Yeah, that's it! A dream...
Ten flew up to Yuu and said, "Hi, I'd like a chocolate cone please!"
Yuu shrugged and decided to go along with his dream. While cute girls had no effect in extorting from Yuu, the baby Ten was pretty cute despite oni horns, so Yuu gave Ten the biggest scoop of ice cream he had given out the whole day. "There you go!"
Ten licked the ice cream, only to find his tongue stuck to the very well-frozen ice cream. "Issh chuu coutt..." Yuu couldn't helped but chuckle at this.
His merriment quickly faded when Ten breathed out fire to melt the ice cream though. "Ah, much better!" proclaimed the baby oni.
Yuu, with much of his hair and eyebrows burnt, decided he would have to reconsider the cuteness of Oni babies.
At that moment a plain-looking schoolgirl entered the ice cream shop as well, and was *not* happy to see Lum embracing Ataru. Shinobu quickly picked up a stool and started bashing Ataru over the head with it, while yelling indistinguishable curses.
'Hm,' thought Yuu. 'Those stools were cemented to the ground.' He decided that Ranma may have to reconsider his declaration of being the world's best martial artist in this new world.
***
Keitaro walked his usual way, looking down at the ground, thinking about studying and Naru, and of course the childhood promise when he suddenly bumped into someone. In doing so, he splashed the bottle of water he was carrying all over Ranma.
"Ah, excuse me. I'm sorry... ah..." Keitaro stopped talking to stare.
Ranma wiped herself off, saying nonchalantly, "Ah, don't worry about it. This type of stuff happens to me all the time. I must be a water-magnet or something."
Upon seeing Keitaro's shirt saying "Inn Manager," Ranma took a sudden interest in this scrawny boy. "Hey! You're an inn manager! You got any rooms open still? Me and my two friends are looking for a place to stay."
"Ah..." mumbled Keitaro, still stunned by Ranma-chan's looks, before he finally snapped out of his daze to parse Ranma's question. "Yeah! Yeah we do!" A extra tenant meant extra money to make repairs with. Three, and the inn treasury might actually be in the black for once! And this girl didn't look like she would cause much damage to the inn. Yep, this was a great opportunity! "Why don't you follow me, and I'll lead you to our inn."
As the duo walked to the Hina Inn, Keitaro told Ranma about the hot springs, which of course made Ranma more excite because of easy access to hot water.
"Oh yeah, I must also tell you that this single-sex..."
"Oh that's fine!" said Ranma. "Now, which way to the hot springs?"
Fifteen minutes of soaking naked in the springs and one encounter with an angry naked female kendoist later, Ranma ran away again.
***
After the horror that was the Hardcore Studio, Miroku and Cherry next tried to find a job at Steve's Bar. Steve, the manager, being extremely short-handed, didn't care that Miroku didn't have much experience mixing drinks.
"Just give the customers something. Usually they're too drunk to care it actually was. If they do, then they'll give you instructions."
Miroku's first patron just wanted beer.
"What?" asked a genuinely confused Miroku.
"Beer. You know, just pour me a glass out of that tap right there."
"Oh." Miroku complied, and was tipped.
Moments later, a different patron asked for a screwdriver. Miroku, not knowing that the establishment served anything other than beer, proceeded to pour the guy a glass of beer. The guy drank it, and realized after drinking the last drop that it wasn't a screwdriver.
"Hey... That's not a screwdriver. Screwdriver is orange juice and vodka..."
Miroku shrugged and found the proper ingredients and made the guy a very badly mixed screwdriver. Fortunately the patron was too drunk too notice.
This continued, and all was well until a sober patron came in demanding a blowjob.
"A what?" asked Miroku.
"A friggin' blowjob, fool! You know, get on your knees and..." The shocked customer stopped talking as Miroku actually complied and was in a kneeling position.
"What do I do from here?"
The patron bolted out the door.
"You are very unlucky," said the shriveled priest to Miroku.
***
At 5pm, an upset and slightly crispy Yuu walked back to the street intersection where he was supposed to meet the others. Only to see Ranma, Miroku and Cherry being at that moment dragged off by the local police. And he thought the day couldn't get any worse.
--End Chapter 1--
// OK, that was pretty random and non-continuous. I'll probably start weaving a real plot in the next chapter. // Yes, this was partly inspired by "Great Crossover Crisis." I didn't like how all of them were Ranma and all of them were overpowered to the point of lacking any real challenge though.