Full Circle II

Well, WSRaptor has breezed through this. Thanks

Ch4: Boomer Benpai

Rei stretched luxuriously on the soft bed, enjoying the feel of the cool crisp sheets against her clean skin. The subtle smell of perfume coming from her hair filled her senses as she slowly regained consciousness. When a cool breeze from an open window somehow found its way between her and her sheets highlighting the fact that she wore no clothes, she found herself waking up real fast.

From the time that her family had found themselves on the street, they had ingrained into her the importance of never going anywhere remotely undressed. After her parents had died, she had witnessed things on the street that not only validated the warnings she had been given but had also ensured that she took more care herself never to appear even remotely undressed.

To find herself completely naked was disconcerting. However, it didn't take her long to verify and assure herself that nothing untoward had happened even after being stripped naked and thoroughly bathed. If the worst that had happened to her after being kidnapped was a bath and a good nights sleep in such a rich setting she considered herself lucky.

Rei sat up and studied her surroundings. She didn't think that she had ever seen such lavishness. Not only were the bed and the sheets she slept in extravagant in their design and quality, but also the apartment seemed to match its opulence. She could not even remember having such things from when she had a home. Sure it had been six years, but she had been old enough to remember such details.

Beside the bed was a silken outfit that matched what she remembered Ranko wearing the previous night. It confirmed her suspicions that the red head was responsible not only for her kidnapping, but her bath as well. Getting dressed in the clean set of clothes provided, Rei set out to explore the apartment she had found herself in. It depressed her a little as she went from room to room viewing the opulence each contained. If this was what was considered mainstream, then how could she ever hope to get here on her own? Her stockpile, which had seemed huge moments ago, had suddenly shrunk in size significantly.

Following her growling stomach and twitching nose, Rei found breakfast already laid out on the table. She was amazed at the shear quantity of food. In all her ten years on the street, she had not seen so much food in one place. Having already determined that she was alone in the apartment, Rei correctly deduced that Ranko had left the large amount of food for her. So, with mouth watering, she immediately started to sate her hunger.

It wasn't until after she had finished that she found the note. Picking it up guiltily from beside the mess she had made in her hurry to eat as much as possible, she began to read.

Rei,

By now I'm sure you have enjoyed breakfast and I apologize for not being there to join you. If you still wish to hear my offer

meet Ranma at the Tendo Dojo.

Ranko

Rei studied the map below and grimaced. It just confirmed her suspicions that she was indeed in the middle of New Tokyo. It was a place where she and the other people who had not managed to successfully migrate to the new city were not welcome. So how, even with a map, was she to get to the Dojo in one piece? Mobs had been started for less reason than a member of her subclass being caught in the middle of new Tokyo, often on some trumped up charge of theft.

Besides, apart from telling her where she was Rei felt that the map was unnecessary. After all, everyone in what was left of the old city would have recognized the Tendo Dojo even if it were off limits to her kind. The Tendo's were considered strange that they had stayed in the old city, but they had earned the respect of both sides of the social divide despite that. To the second-class citizens, the dojo was a symbol of what they strived for. The upper class just saw it as what was lost six years ago and what was improved upon as a result. Nevertheless, she and all the others from the old city never forgot that the Tendo's were still one of the upper class and to be feared for the power they held as a result.

Rei took another look at the wealth that surrounded her and again at the map. So far, she had been treated well. It gave her hope that Ranko was a genuine chance at escaping the drudgery of what had essentially become slums. It had been her dream for ten years, but her life on the streets had taught her some hard lessons in trust.

Nodding her head and gripping the map tighter, Rei made her decision. If she let this opportunity slip by, then society had won in grinding her into accepting her second-class status. She would chance it and accept any consequences.

****



Kasumi snuck up the stairs to the guest room, which had been made up for Ranma. She hadn't heard him come in last night. However, she suspected that had more to do with him trying not to disturb her family too much after he disappeared than him not coming in. She wanted answers and she would get them before his morning lesson, appropriately supervised by herself and her father. Nabiki had decided to join in the hope that she would learn a new technique or two from the newest master in their dojo.

She fully understood the consequences of having a rival wing of anything goes competing in modern Japan. Too many martial arts had died out in the past for her not to. Even worse was the fact that neither she nor her family had any idea when or how their family art had split or been stolen. No, her family school was in her mind superior and would triumph over any inevitable struggles between the two factions. If or when she decided to kick Ranma out of the dojo, she was determined to not only do this but also limit any fallout that might occur.

Kasumi silently reached for the door. She had thoroughly oiled it the night before to ensure that it would open smoothly and silently. If she unsettled him a little by surprising him, then he might just reveal a little more than he intended. It was in his best interests to stay silent at this time, but she would have her answers for the sake of her family's school. Kasumi grinned imagining his surprise as she slowly slid the door open. She blinked in surprise at seeing the young man not sleeping at all, but in a lotus position meditating. That was a practice, which had long been, neglected in her own wing of anything goes. She would have to mention it to Nabiki. Still, it didn't matter too much. If she were silent enough, she could still startle him.

Reaching out to shake his shoulder, she couldn't help but recoil in shock when he reached out and grabbed her forearm without so much as opening his eyes. She was sure she hadn't made any noise. So how was it that the element of surprise had so quickly been reversed? It was as if he had sensed her and knew exactly where she was standing in what posture.

"Kasumi," he started with a smirk "I had expected Nabiki after I beat her so thoroughly yesterday or maybe even Akane to stare at my obvious manliness." His voice was loud and arrogant seemingly revealing a smug sense of superiority. "What can I do for you this morning? Class doesn't start for another half hour yet and I doubt you want to spar." Kasumi felt his arrogant smirk and superior tone grating. She just wanted to wipe the floor with him, but she knew that the opposite would most likely occur. She began to feel unsettled herself by his reaction. During the fight, he had seemed a lot more composed. He had shown arrogance, but today it seemed magnified and almost forced, as if he were trying to goad her. Kasumi took a deep breath. She had come to goad him into giving her answers. She would not be goaded in his stead.

He released her arm and opened his eyes as she sat down opposite him trying to calm down. Already the conversation was not going at all like what she had planned. She had planned to perturb him, not become unbalanced herself. "Tell me where you learned our family style?" she demanded determined to get an answer.

"From the grandmaster of anything goes of course," he smiled as if his explanation satisfactorily answered her question while his eyes twinkled in amusement. Certainly he showed no sign of the answer being remotely unreasonable and to her that came off as a little condescending.

"Impossible!" Kasumi replied derisively. "There hasn't been a Ranma taught in this dojo for over 200 years." Kasumi sat back once again feeling in control of where the conversation was heading. In the face of such evidence Ranma or whatever his name was would have no choice but to reveal where he had learned her family's style. "Even then, he had been a family member and you are clearly no Tendo."

"Kasumi..." she almost grinned in triumph when she watched his smirking face change to one of saddened indifference. It was clear she had struck a nerve. Still, she needed to back off a little. She couldn't afford to upset such a skilled master until she decided that he wouldn't be an asset to her school no matter how satisfying it was to drag him down a few pegs. "The morning class is about to start so if you haven't got anymore questions…" she watched as he started to get up.

Her frustration and irritation started to grow again at not only his avoidance of the issue of where he had learned her family style, but his continued smug arrogance. Anything goes was one of the things that marked her family unique even in today's society. "Tell me where you learned my family's style. Who gave you the right to change our school so much and how the hell did you jump our back wall?!" Kasumi covered her mouth in shock. She hadn't meant to mention that until she had read deeper into her family's history or until Nabiki had managed to defeat him and learn his style. Being derived from her own family's school, Kasumi couldn't see any reason why Nabiki couldn't learn a lot of it in the two weeks that he was staying.

"I practice anything goes as I was taught it by a previous Grandmaster," he said finally as he left the guest room and slid the door shut. Kasumi just sat there wondering how she had been so cleverly out maneuvered and unsettled in something as fundamental to her as her own school of martial arts. Also, she was curious as to what he had meant by his own closing statement.

*****

Ranma bowed to Soun as he slid into the dojo. No matter what he thought of the man, Soun deserved respect in his own dojo. His students had already formed up into lines with Nabiki and what he assumed where the other more advanced students. They were currently running them through basic kata's and other warm up exercises.

As he watched the students Ranma had to consider the course of action he was taking in riling Kasumi so much. He would have to work with her in order to restore his school to what it once was. However, he had committed himself to behaving like his younger persona until he felt it was time to reveal himself as the rightful grandmaster. It was good to know that his arrogant younger self could still rile the best of them and he could tell that Kasumi was not used to being so easily provoked.

Focusing on the students, Ranma couldn't help but be impressed. From what Akane had told him, he had been expecting significantly fewer students. Also, from the look of the students, they had all had a thorough grounding in the basics of anything goes. They seemed ready for more advanced training. Still, it wasn't as easy at it sounded. His experience in teaching ten year olds wasn't going to help in teaching the group of middle-aged men and women before him. Of course, he had a wealth of experience to draw from which would help a great deal.

What he needed was someway to group them into both skill levels and the speed with which they learned the art. What he needed was…

Ranma was jarred from his thoughts by the ceiling as it was smashed inwards shooting debris across the dojo. How the skills of his school were so poor when they were still plagued by the weirdness that followed his style around he would never know. His assumption that the giant robot was after the Tendo family earned him a large metallic fist to the face which propelled him through the wooden walls of the dojo, the stone walls of the outer compound and had him lying dazedly wondering how long it had been since he had been hit quite so hard.

*****

Belldandy sat alone watching the scene below unfold in front of her on the computer screen. Moments earlier her younger sister's robot had waded in and started to destroy the dojo. Tears silently tracked their way down her face and splashed loudly into the cold cup of tea she held in her hands. She could see Ranma paying particular attention to the reaction of the students as they milled around.

From her time with him she had experienced his love for the art and knew its importance to the martial artist. She knew how he worked to perfect and preserve it. Even now, he sought to spread his art, but she also knew that his dreams would not be fulfilled in quite the way he imagined.

Her tears quickened as she saw him flung though the dojo's walls causing even more property damage and potential injury to the young martial artist. 'Will he ever forgive me' she wondered. 'He knew me once or at least he thought he did. When we meet again and I explain my role in his life, will he think of me as kindly as he did then?'

'It had started so simply' she thought. Belldandy's eyes were now so blurred she couldn't see the monitor in front of her. 'But then father revealed something that complicated matters.' She shook her head to clear her eyes and stared dejectedly at her tea. 'It was a burden I myself had to carry. Such news would only panic my older sister and frighten my younger.'

Belldandy considered the implications of what He had told her. "Something outside the ultimate force will come as a result of an action taken from within. Find someone with the potential to overcome our limitations." She knew exactly what he had implied and it had overwhelmed her even more than the fact that it had been Mara that had unintentionally led them to just that person. She had always known that mortals were slightly less bound to the ultimate force than the gods, but for a mortal to overcome such bindings made her shiver.

As far as Urd and Skuld were aware, they had been nurturing him for a different purpose. After all, not all war gods were born gods. They were wrong though, so very wrong but she couldn't blame them for their ignorance and they would find out soon enough. She just hoped that they would forgive her for her deception. She doubted Ranma would.

It had begun finally and nothing could stop it. "No" she thought. "It started a long time ago and even father didn't have the ability to stop it."

*****

"See, I told you that Benpai wasn't a piece of junk. Gooo Benpai!" Skuld cheered as the giant robot started destroying the Tendo dojo after having back fisted Ranma out of the compound.

"I haven't begun to see it fight yet Skuld. That was a lucky shot it got on Ranma. I just hope that it manages to give him a decent workout. He hasn't had one of those for years." Even so Urd couldn't seem to drag her eyes from the developing conflict.

"Unlike you old lady, I know what I'm doing. Look!" Skuld pulled out a device with a single red button on it. "Super Ranma Attack!" she cried pressing the button.

Both goddesses just watched as the robot tossed its head back and screamed while pieces of armour sprouted from its already formidable looking structure. "I'm still waiting to be impressed squirt," Urd tossed negligibly to her younger sister and was a little concerned when she didn't reply to the bait.

"Oh no! No, No, No...." moaned Skuld in a mantra.

Urd looked worriedly at her younger sister. Everything seemed to be going smoothly to her, so what was the problem? She then noticed the family boomer that had wondered into the dojo. "You didn't! Please tell me you didn't!" Urd begged.

"You were teasing me, so I added a few upgrades to prove that my Benpai could be as good as anything you could make," Skuld whined. "Besides Ranma can still win right?" she needled.

"Ranma Saotome never loses kid," Urd said worriedly. "But, if you've managed to destroy all Belldandy's work, I'd be more worried about what she has to say."

Skuld just sat there trying not to cry as she watched the family Boomers eyes start to glow bright red. She had a vain hope that someone could destroy the Boomer before it could merge with her own Benpai. If that happened... What her older sister thought of her would be nothing to what their father would do.

Still, she had watched Ranma pull victories out of seemingly impossible odds before. She could only hope that he could again. Skuld glanced at Urd before focusing back on the mess she had created. Everything would turn out she thought feeling a little better. They had the ultimate force on their side.

*****

Approaching the Tendo dojo, Rei couldn't help but think about her walk through the recently rebuilt Tokyo. She was amazed at the shining spires of glass and metals, the glistening roads and the clean sidewalks. It really was nothing like she remembered. That just made her even more determined though to get back in.

She and the others who lived in the ruins of the old city were being left behind. It wouldn't be long before they were forgotten completely, an extended death sentence. It wouldn't be that hard either. Walking here no one raised a hue and cry. She was just like everybody else walking the streets and was treated as such, except she knew she wasn't. She was still one of the second class just washed and in clean clothes, disguised. She didn't belong here yet; she didn't feel as if she had earned it.

Which was probably why Ranko had deposited her in the apartment and instructed her to walk through the city, to show what she was offering in exchange for what she wanted. Rei would do almost anything, but there were some lines she wouldn't cross and she still didn't know what the red head wanted with her.

Rei quickly scurried behind some nearby rubble when she heard a loud rumble. It almost sounded like the dojo in front of her was being demolished, but who would dare? The people she had lived with for the last six years wouldn't dare risking reprisals and surely the upper class wouldn't hurt their own.

She almost screamed when something came barreling at her through the compound wall. The dust from the demolished stone, however, obscured her vision of what it was. There was a large thump on the other side of the wall of rubble. She ducked behind in the hope that the extra layer of protection would be enough. Carefully looking around the corner, Rei looked horrified at the young man no more than a few years older than herself lying in a tangle of limbs.

She could only imagine the amount of damage being thrown through a concrete wall had done to him. There was no blood, but Rei could guess that internally he was nothing but jelly after such an impact. So when his head turned in her direction she almost ducked back behind the wall she had been hiding behind.

"I've been expecting you, but as you can see I'm a little busy at the moment," he said before slowly untangling his limbs and standing up. Rei could only watch in disbelief as he started stretching and cracking some of his knuckles. "Ranko told me to expect you, but you should probably stay where you are for the moment. You might get hurt."

Rei ducked back behind the wall of rubble and tried to forget the impossibility of what she had seen but not before she saw him walking back in the direction of the dojo.

*****

Leon McNichol scowled at the pile of scrap metal all that remained of the rogue boomer he had been sent to destroy. There were, also, the bluish smears in the sky, evidence that the Knight Sabers had just beaten them. "Uh oh, looks like were late again Leon–poo," announced his partner who was lounging by the patrol car.

"Damn!" Why couldn't they ever get a break? Stupid vigilantes making the AD Police look bad. Even if they were doing a public service the damn Knight Sabers were doing it the wrong way. If they only worked with the AD Police and not against it, they could be infinitely more effective at cleaning up rogue Boomers.

"McNichols!" a voice blasted across the radio. "There's another rogue Boomer tearing up the Tendo dojo in the old Nerima ward."

"Alright, let's show those Knight Sabers that were more than toy soldiers Wong," he growled grumpily as he checked his gun and jumped back into the car.

"But, compared to the Knight Sabers we are toy soldiers Leon–poo," egged his partner annoyingly.

"Screw it Wong," he growled as he maxed the acceleration. He would beat them to the boomer this time and he would personally make sure that they arrived just in time to clean up there own pile of scrap metal.

*****

Sylia narrowed her eyes grimly. 'Another reaction' she thought. 'It's a good thing Priss and Nene are already suited up, but would the suits be able to go on an extended mission?'

"Priss, Nene, return for a new battery for your suits and head back out. We've got another Boomer to destroy and quickly."

"Another one?" griped Nene "But, we just finished destroying this one."

"So if you don't like it go home," Priss answered harshly. "So, where is it?"

"Old Nerima ward, Tendo dojo. With all the rubble still left over from the old city to assimilate, who knows how dangerous it could get with time so hurry. I want you to remember to keep an eye on each other's gauges. You haven't been on such a long mission before."

"Ahhhgg whatever! You coming or staying Nene?" Priss growled before re-lunching from the observation truck.

"Destroy it totally. Leave nothing left." Sylia reminded Priss again wondering at the occurrence of two rogue bombers so close together.

A/N – I apologize it should only be 6 years since the earthquake. It's been a while since I've seen BGC 2040 and I got it wrong. Well so you know, I'll be using the correct time scale from now on and re-watching it so I won't make the same mistakes.