Realities Warped!
By Jim Robert Bader
(Inspired by the works of Rumiko Takahashi and other artists too numerous to mention.
The Characters Chakar Shadowmane and Garimel Shalestar, however, was created by me, while Nicole (Dreiser) Manders provided some of the ideas that appear within this chapter.
Use by anyone else is strictly verboten and will tend to get you in trouble with us unless permission is obtained first...and you don't want to meet my agent when she comes calling, and there are times when she scares even me, believe me!)
Chapter Ten.
Lord of the Prance
Continuum #52413783 Gate of Ashkalon
"Say what?" said Doc Saotome.
"You're the clown behind this?" Super Ran asked with a lifted eyebrow.
"Careful," cautioned Wizard Ranma, "I sense power in his aura...he's nobody you wanna take lightly."
"Foul sorcery," spat Gaius, "Never trust a God or a Devil, assuming you could even tell one from the other..."
"Careful now there, my lad," Hobbit Ranma warned, "There's no need to be rash about this. Let's just take it calm and try to sort out what this bloke is up to."
"Fair words of wisdom, I think," said the Samurai Ranma with eyes narrowed to mere slits, "Only a fool rushes to attack without fully considering all of the options.
"This is nuts!" protested Ranma Saotome as he looked from his six counterparts to the oddly dressed man holding sway over those assembled.
"I assure you that I am quite serious in this endeavor," replied the oddly dressed figure who gave his name only as Celestine, "I have gone to some considerable trouble to orchestrate this meeting, but now that you are all here, I believe that I should proceed to pare down your numbers a bit and get rid of some of the excess."
"I have heard enough!" cried "Silver Samurai" Tatewaki Kuno as he drew his enchanted blade and cried, "You have meddled with our lives at your peril, now 'tis time to reap the consequences!"
"I'm with you, Brother," said the version of Tatewaki dressed in a knight's tabard, hauberk and standard, drawing his own straighter sword and crying, "For Asgard and for Justice!"
Celestine seemed more amused than concerned with this display and said, "I believe that we can start with the pretender to Hachiman's blade and his paladin counterpart." He thus waved a hand and caused both versions of Tatewaki Kuno to abruptly vanish.
"Brother dear!" cried the Kodachi wearing the sleek, revealing jet-black armor, who then whirled and aimed her hands while crying, "AKAGIYAMA MISSILES-!"
"I think not," Celestine replied and with another wave of his hand caused both her, the lady Nocturna and the leather clad Kodachi to similarly vanish.
"My lady!" two versions of Nabiki cried together.
"Kodachi-chan!" the Mousse with Angel-wings upon his back whirled to face Celestine while crying, "What have you done with her, you monster...?"
"Why, I have merely deleted her from the presence," Celestine replied, "She is quite unharmed, merely dismissed back to her home realities and no worse for her travels, especially in the one who was so recently resurrected."
"You toy with the lives of others as if we were mere playthings?" the Dark Mallard growled, "Then it is you who should feel the lash of Jus-!"
Abruptly he, the winged Mousse and the one wearing horn-rimmed glasses all vanished out together.
"Mousse!" cried the Ryoga clutching at his pet pig.
"That it!" the Incredible Oni cried as he drew back with both fists, "NOW RYOGA SMASH!"
"No, wait!" cried the normal seeming Ryoga.
"You're just going to...!" the tusked Ryoga started to warn when all four of them vanished out together.
"Ryoga-kun!" cried several of the Akanes in chorus.
"Now then, is that everyone we can afford to spare?" Celestine asked as he surveyed those who were remaining, "Yes, I think this does simplify things a bit. I might have to whittle things down a bit more just to get the right configuration, but the essential players are now separated from the dross of the would-be pretenders, so I think this will make a nice, tidy group to begin with."
"Begin?" asked Goblin Nabiki, "Begin what?"
"OH MY," remarked the 54 foot tall Kasumi.
"Oh, you're still here?" Celestine chanced to notice the woman in whose shadow many of the others were standing, "My apologies, I'll see to that little detail right away."
"But...!" one of the Kasumis started to protest when she, the Giantess, the Samurai and the toga-clad Kasumi all vanished together.
"My lady Cassandra!" Tiberius declared before glaring back at the one who was the cause of all that had happened, "You devil, how dare you so lightly toss us about as though we were mere playthings!"
"I am sorry if it appears to you that way," Celestine explained, "This isn't really about you or your personal life stories. I need you to complete a formula that I have been working on for some time now on my own continuum. You see, each of you is a part of a much larger puzzle that I must craft in order to achieve my ambitions. Where you are is Ashkalon, one of the Gates leading to the Heavens, and here I have summoned you to begin my quest to remake reality into a new image..."
"Ashkalon?" the Wizard Ranma said in alarm, glancing around and taking in the landscape, as did many of the others.
Normal Ranma was not at all certain about what he was seeing, but to him it appeared to be a flat mesa-like plateau that they were presently standing on composed of marble tiles two or three meters in length and width, stretching out to an abrupt edge only about thirty or forty meters away from where he was standing, yet situated among hilly peaks and clouds with very little in the way of vegetation, other than the bowl of an enormous tree that stretched up in a curling manner to touch the very heavens...
And to one side was a gateway...there were no other words to describe it, formed of shimmering mother-of-pearl and alabaster pillars that framed a set of stairs that stretched upward to vanish amid the very heavens. The appearance of this gate was so startling that Ranma wondered how he could possibly have missed it until that moment, but now that he could see it clearly it made a very definite impression of a rising pathway that spiraled off to someplace beyond mortal imagination. His mind felt strangely drawn to the thing, and yet at the same time he feared it, as though to pass beyond would have meant surrendering the life that he was now leading forever. That thought alone cautioned him and made him wary of this curious sense of yearning and temptation that sprang up at the very sight of the shimmering stairway, preferring instead to remain as he was rather than risk becoming...whatever it was that the pathway was beckoning him to be.
"Whoah," said the Nabiki standing nearest to him, "What is that...?"
"I'll give you a hint," her Goblin counter part remarked, "You can't buy your way up there. I know, I already tried it."
"The Stairway to Heaven?" said the Ukyo who looked like a medieval version of Rambo, "It's real? I'd heard the legends, but..."
"Aiyaa..." said four versions of Shampoo in moderated chorus.
"The Gateway of Ashkalon?" the Wizard Ranma turned back, "You've gotta be kidding! No mortal being can pass through those gates, only Gods and Immortals can enter without surrendering their physical bodies..."
"Actually, I do not need for you to pass beyond the portal," Celestine replied, "It is enough that I have brought you here where I can employ your pattern to bait the trap that I am setting. That is why you were separated from your offspring of the future timelines that you hail from...so that you may each play your part in the greater scheme of what I have created."
"What you have created?" Doc Saotome said archly.
"You meddle with our lives and feel justified doing this?" one of the Akanes said in outrage.
"Yeah, what gives you the right?" Ranko asked, then amended, "Other than being a God, that is..."
"Not my God, Sugar," Ukyo the Ranger declared as she fingered her bow and seemed to eye Celestine as though he were her next target.
"Um...just for the record," Xian-Pu remarked, "Just what exactly did you do with our...children?"
"Please forgive me," Celestine replied, "I do not mean to be rude, but I am on a very close timeshare and cannot spare the energy to explain everything to you at the present. If this works, then we may well have the time to indulge in a lengthy discussion of the merits of my calculations..."
"What do you mean if it works?" the Ukyo in coveralls asked with a disquieted expression.
"Do you really want to know the answer to that one...Sugar?" the Nabiki beside her murmured back.
"Yes," Celestine said as he waved a hand dismissively, "I don't mean to be curt, but..."
And like that they all collectively vanished.
"...You will just have to wait and see what happens next," Celestine said as he lowered his arm then glanced around, "Hmmm...everything appears to be in readiness...now all that remains is for the final players to make their entrance and we can get this program started. Much to do and so little time before they figure out what I am up to upstairs. Yes indeed...so little time left to remake a cosmos..."
And with those words hanging in the air he vanished from sight...had there been any eyes present who might have spotted him making his exit...
Limbo Realm Nether Space Between Dimensions
"Hello...anybody? Heeelllp!"
Ranko could barely hear her own words over the roaring winds that tried to suck her down into the black maw that beckoned below her. She was clinging desperately to the edge of a cliff with no real sense of how she had arrived in this strange, unfathomable place. All she knew was that the instant she had arrived she was attacked by...something...and by the time she had managed to fight it off she had been near the edge of a sheer drop into a whirling void, literally caught between Scyla and Carybdis with nothing to anchor herself against the pull that was hungrily attempting to devour her, and for reasons that utterly escaped her, her "stupid" pendant did not seem to be working.
"C'mon, damn you, get me out of here!" she glared down at the dormant thing then raised her voice and said, "Can anybody hear me? Dad? Mom? Master Happosai? Anybody?"
A strange growling noise overrode the scream of the winds in her ears, and then a lumbering shape pressed itself through the dark gray mass of her surroundings, and then she saw it in all its massive ugliness, a hideous creature roughly shaped like a Troll but with a face that would frighten an ogre. It made a guttural noise of inquiry as it stared down at Ranko, curiosity and hunger plainly written upon its misshapen features, promptly Ranko to amend, "Except him!"
The creature seemed to ponder for a few seconds before making up its mind and reaching down with a square-fingered hand that looked like it could wrap around a tree and use it for a toothpick. Ranko was picked up and lifted back over the edge by the creature, who dangled her at upside-down eye level as though to study her more closely, sniffing as though to confirm that she was something tasty, then opening its mouth and giving her the stink of its breath, not to mention a good look at its rows of teeth, bot incisors and molars.
"Ugh...use a breath mint!" Ranko winced, "Um...I mean...nice monster...you want to help me, right? You're really not a bad little monster, so you don't really want to...?"
All at once she was lifted up high as the creature tilted its head up and opened wide, presenting Ranko with a clear view of the path from its mouth to its gullet as she fought to try and avoid her certain fate if she allowed that thing to crunch down upon her nubile body.
But then a meaty "CHUNK" caused the creature to stagger, and then its mouth closed as it attempted to bring its jaws back together, only to find an arrow lodged between the top and bottom halves of its mouths, making the gesture futile, not to mention causing it a great deal of pain, though it was obviously too stupid to know this for a few seconds.
Another arrow hit the wrist attached to the hand that was holding her up, and suddenly Ranko was in free-fall once again. Unfortunately she was once more dangling over the edge of oblivion and had no way of reaching the cliff this time to prevent a certain fall. She wildly flailed with both hands looking for some way to find a purchase...
...And instead encountered a soft-yet-strong-and-feminine hand that caught her and prevented her from being sucked into the void of forever.
"Got you, Oneechan!" she cried as her rescuer swung her up onto the back part of a saddle that seemed to materialize underneath her, "Sure know how to cut it close, don't you? Good thing you're not much heavier than me..."
"Huh?" Ranko asked as her hands automatically went around the waist of the armored dark haired woman who was piloting this...flying horse? A Pegasus? She blinked her eyes and gasped, "Who...?"
"Hold that thought a second, Sis!" her rescuer urged as she gripped the horse with both knees and drew back on the bow she carried, knocking and aiming in the blink of an eye before aiming true with a silver-tipped arrow and sending it flying into the unprotected back of the creature.
It gave a pitiable yelp and stumbled over the edge of oblivion, then plummeted into the gaping maw of a whirlwind that sucked it up entirely as though it were a pebble in an hourglass, vanishing completely.
"Got him," the girl commanding their winged mount declared in obvious self-
congratulations, "Those Shambling Ones are nasty brutes, little better than ogres without the table manners, but they're far from the worst things you can encounter here in the Twilight Realms. Lucky for you I was homing in on your life signal or I might not have arrived in time for staging a rescue..."
"Who are you?" Ranko asked as she found herself in debt to a total stranger, "How do you know me?"
"Just hold on a second while I take us down," the girl replied, "Ryaela's picked a good landing spot where we ought to be relatively unmolested...at least for the moment."
"Ryaela?" Ranko repeated.
"That's the name of my Einherriar steed, Sis," the brunette replied as the horse spread its wings wide and brought them in for a four-hoof landing, then settled in to fold its wings while the dark haired girl casually dismounted, then turned around and gave Ranko a wink, adding, "Be careful with that first step, it won't feel quite the same as landing on an air cushion."
"Uh...right," Ranko said as she climbed down and found the ground oddly spongy and yielding, not to mention a bit slimy for her bare feet, though she adjusted after a few seconds, "Okay then...who..."
She stopped herself as she got a look at a pair of mischievous blue eyes gazing back at her with a smug, knowing expression. The features were unmistakable, so familiar that Ranko would have known them in the dark, but at first she had trouble accepting the witness of her senses as she gaped in mute astonishment then murmured faintly, "You can't be...?"
"Oh yes," she said with a cheerful nod, "You know me, Sis, I'm Meiko."
"M-M-Meiko?" Ranko looked her up and down then said in disbelief, "But...you...?"
"I'm all grown up and filled out, just like you said I'd be before I knew it?" the dark haired woman in the Valkyrie armor smiled, "Yup...and pretty darn well, if I do say so myself. Like my figure? I think it shows more of Dad's influence than Mom's, don't you agree?"
"But...how...?" Ranko wanted to know.
"Now if that isn't a saga all by itself to have to relate in one sitting," Meiko rolled her eyes, "In a way I guess this is cosmic justice for what I put you through at our first meeting. I can just imagine the questions you must have, Sis, but I think it will have to wait for a bit until we sort things out a little better. Let's just say that I'm the Meiko who comes from several years in the future...like, say, six or seven years, only I did a bit of growing to catch up with you, and I've been through some adventures of my own, so..."
Ranko just stared for a moment before slapping a hand to her forehead, "Mom and Dad are gonna kill me..."
"Oh?" Meiko asked, "Why do you think that?"
"Because obviously I failed to find you in time and you got lost, that's what," Ranko answered.
"And who says you failed to find me?" Meiko had that mischievous twinkle in her eyes once again, "Honestly, Sis, you ought to know better than to jump to these conclusions."
"Huh?" Ranko asked, "I don't..."
"Yeah, I know," Meiko said, "But that's what you get with timetravel, you never know when and where you're dealing with unless you take the time to sort it out. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that I came back in time to help you because I got word that someone was trying to bollix up my past, and we've both been through that one time too many as it is, right?"
"Uh...I guess," Ranko admitted with a sheepish expression.
"Hey, I'm not blaming you for what you did," Meiko assured her, "You helped out parents and created an entire new timeline, one that turned out batter for the both of us. Of course you made both of us into temporal orphans with no homeworld to go back to, but...well, no scheme is entirely perfect, right? The thing to remember is...the future is an open book in which you can write the destiny you want to live. You taught me that yourself...or you will one of these days. I know it seems complicated, but..."
"Tell me about it," Ranko averred, "So...do I succeed in rescuing you or not? And why won't this stupid pendant obey me?"
"First off, I can't really tell you that since for me it hasn't really happened," Meiko replied, "That Celestine guy kidnapped me out of my own past and is playing hob with my memories. I can feel the paradox effect pulling at me even as we speak, but there's still time to prevent him from majorly screwing up the rest of my life. That is, if you're willing to help me."
"Help you?" Ranko repeated, "In what way?"
"First, I've got to get you out of here to a place where it's safe to use the pendant," Meiko explained, "The reason you can't use it here is because this is the Void of Limbo, the downside of Null Space, and the tug of the Vortex of Annihilation is so strong that it could overwhelm normal dimensional transfer. Fortunately, as an Einherriar, Ryaela-chan can resist the strain and carry us to safer quadrants. Secondly, I need you and your pendant to help me round up some allies who can help us defeat the bad guy. Think you're up to it, Sis? I'll understand if you still find all of this more than a little confusing..."
"Confusing?" Ranko started to rally, "That's usually my line. Meiko-chan...I can't believe how you've grown! You look the same age that I do..."
"That's because I am the same age, Silly," Meiko chided, "Just like the Ranko I know is about six or seven years older and already a seasoned Lieutenant with the Time Force. Oh yeah...that's right, I'm just like you now...I work for the same cause."
"You what?" Ranko blinked. "That's right," Meiko replied, "I'm a time agent. I'm also a part-time Valkyrie and a lot of other things that even I have trouble keeping track of, but this really isn't a good spot for me to go into full details, other than to say that you've always been a role model for me, and it's a thrill to finally be able to rescue you for a change. Now, shall we be going? I'd like to get my eleven-year-old body back from the creep who took me."
Ranko was just beginning to sort this out when she sensed the presence of another life form...two of them by the feel of it, and both of them radiating incredible levels of power, more noticeably the closer they approached.
"Take it easy," Meiko urged, "I know those guys, they're mostly harmless."
"Mostly harmless?" Ranko cocked an eyebrow, recalling how that term had often been applied towards her father. She turned to see the two men as they walked side-by-side, arguing over something that seemed to have the both of them worked up for some reason, one man with solid black hair wearing a red costume with white trim and a half-cape, the other man a tall blond gaijin in a weird form-
fitting black-and-red costume with a gold star emblazoned on his chest, not to mention a pair of gold bracers around his wrists that seemed to glow with an unfathomable power.
"...But I keep telling you," the blond man was telling the other guy, "This is the Negative Zone..."
"Nonsense," the powerful looking man in the red-and-white costume responded, "It's the Phantom Zone, I have it on the best authority..."
"And I have it straight from no less than Reed Richards," the blond shot back, "Besides which, my people have studied this realm for countless millennia, and the Supreme Intelligence..."
"Is an idiot from the sound of things as you describe them," the other man shot back, "The Phantom Zone was discovered by the Kryptonian race and has been used as a means of incarcerating prisoners..."
"And I am telling you it's the Negative zone!"
"The Phantom Zone."
"Negative Zone."
"Phantom Zone."
"Negative Zone!"
Ranko listened to the two men argue as they passed on by without taking a moment to so much as acknowledge their presence. Instead she heard Meiko huff, "What a couple of dorks! As if it matters what label you stick on it? It's still Limbo one way or the other..."
Ranko thought a moment on this then shrugged and said, "Men."
"Yeah," Meiko sniffed, "Tell me about it. So, wanna get going?"
"You bet," Ranko replied, "Only...where to?"
"We'll let the pendant decide...once we get back into the Light zone," Meiko answered, already moving to remount her steed as the winged horse dutifully suffered to have her once again gracing its saddle. Then Meiko reached down and offered Ranko a hand, helping to swing the other girl back onto the rear mounting, and then the horse flapped its wings and took off at a trot, becoming airborne within mere seconds.
"This guy really is yours?" Ranko had to raise her voice over the increasing volume of the winds as they sailed up into the firmament.
"You don't own an Einherriar," Meiko replied, "He chooses you, not the other way around...but yeah, he's been my mount for a couple of years now...long story how that happened. Maybe I'll tell you if there's time, or you can go through it the long way...provided we keep Celestine from using me to end all of Reality as we know it."
"He can do that?" Ranko marveled.
"Sure can, and a lot more besides," the other girl answered, guiding them through a swirling play of light and color, causing the oppressive air all around them to become as light and perfumed as though spring had come early to the mountains, "That's why we have to stop him, and quick. We're on a mission from the Gods, Oneechan, so let's get moving to our next stop 'cause I just know Mom and Dad are gonna be worried, and you know what happens when they get worried."
"Oh yeah," Ranko shuddered, having a very strong idea of just what mayhem and destruction could be in the offing if their parents were not assured as to the safety of their two adopted daughters, and it was an easy tossup which one would be more to be feared in that light, their father or mother.
A trembling sense gave her the answer she needed and she softly murmured to herself, "Oh yeah...definitely Mom, no question about it..."
"Yeah," Meiko agreed, "I found that out the hard way," and with no further words she spurred her mount on as they merged once again with the fabric of the timestream...
Continuity #09142736
"We're so sorry to have disturbed you, my Lady," Nabiki graciously bowed to the blonde-haired elvish beauty, "It was never our intent to intrude upon your solitude and stir up unpleasant memories...to say nothing of other unsavory incidents best left unspoken."
"It is quite all right," said Lady Galadriel III to her unexpected houseguests, "Your presence has stirred memories, but mostly pleasant ones of times long past when my husband and I took long walks together and shared many an adventure. I must say that it was a pleasure meeting your husband once again, and upon seeing you, my lady Nabiki, quite happy to share adventures of your own together. It makes me feel what you humans might call...nostalgic."
"I'm just sorry it was so brief for you and my counterpart," said Ranma with as much courtesy and grace as was in him, "A few years ain't much, but I'll bet my brother felt extremely lucky."
"Yes, but I was the one fortunate enough to have him by my side," the lady swept the tall dark man with eyes of luminous crystal moonlight, and her ageless features seemed to glow from within with a warmth that made Ranma feel extremely...awkward, "Mortal men are doomed to die, but while he lived my husband truly lived as men should do, to the fullest measure of his abilities. He may have lacked in grace and manners, but he made up for it with heart unmeasured, and in you I see the reflection of his carefree innocence. Do not let the shadows cloud your path, Lord Ranma...in the memory of he whom I once held so dear I bid you be at peace for all the days that are to follow."
"Uh...ain't likely to happen with my lifestyle, if you know what I mean," Ranma shrugged, uncomfortable at being praised by such a timeless beauty, "But you take care, you hear? And your kid..."
"Striding Horse is the name we gave him in our language," a brief smile of genuine mirth touched the lips of the radiant lady, "It seemed appropriate given how he has inherited his father's somewhat reckless nature..."
"Cute," Peorth remarked as she continued to hold a struggling old man at arms length, "But strangely fitting."
"Let me go!" protested Happosai, "I didn't do anything wrong! I just want to show my respects to the lady!"
Ranma forced himself to turn and see the young man looking up at him with wide blue eyes and a look of wonder touching his expression, his long brown hair done up into a warrior's braid while he was wearing an odd blend of Elvish and Chinese robes and leaning on a six-foot recurved longbow.
"Yes," Nabiki sounded both amused and saddened as she studied the boy named Istil Saotome, "I can see much of his father in the boy, almost like another youth I once knew a long time ago when my husband's days were as carefree and innocent, give or take a couple of curses."
"Are you...really my father?" the boy at last managed to stammer.
"I'm like him," Ranma replied, "I just took a different direction. You take care of your mother, Boy, that's all any man could ask. Oh yeah...and be careful about eating stuff that gets prepared by Tomboys."
The youth winced accordingly and said, "Tell me about it...there is this one lady tracker I know...I cannot decide if she is more man than lady..."
"Son," Lady Galadriel gently chided.
"Yes, Mother," the boy immediately subsided.
Ranma smiled lopsidedly as he looked at the halfelven youth, who to all appearances might seem a slender sixteen but was probably much, much older, given the natural rate of elvish maturation, and on impulse he gently chucked the boy a playful fist to his shoulder and said, "You'll do all right, Kid, just as long as you listen to your mother."
"Peace be with you all of your days," Nabiki bowed to the Elvish Princess.
"And may you have many safe journeys," Lady Galadriel replied as the Time Cops turned around and moved back into the timestream, leaving behind the woodland hills of Avalon and its glories.
"Well," Peorth sniffed, "That was certainly different. Nice to see how Celestine has not lost his sense of humor."
"Misdirected once again," Nabiki frowned, "I really hate these false trails that we keep stumbling into. Your friend is quite the clever one, I'll grant, but I won't let even a god get the better of me."
"I just wanna know why we keep winding up on timelines where things wound up so radically different," Ranma grumbled, "I mean...a me who got adopted by the Elves and died fighting off a horde of Goblins at some bridge? What next, a me who piloted an X-Wing like in Star Wars?"
"I wouldn't put it past this Celestine character," Nabiki replied as she led the way, following the trail set down by her instincts, levels of reality flowing about them as she sought the right one to merge back into, "He seems to be deliberately leading us to certain worlds...but for what, other than to delay us?"
"It's quite obvious if you think about it," Happosai spoke up, "He's obviously trying to teach Ranma here a lesson."
"Oh yeah?" Ranma asked as he eyed the annoying little man, "How you figure that, Pervert?"
"Open your eyes and see for yourself, my boy," Happosai scowled as Peorth continued to keep a firm grip upon his collar, "What's the one thing in common with every reality we've been to so far? It's all been about you and the choices you make over who you're gonna be with. Take Akane, for example..."
"Let's not and say we did," Ranma said curtly, "I've already been through enough hell over choosing the Tomboy over...what the hell?"
Nabiki's eyes widened and she said, "I didn't cause this...we just seem to have shifted here, almost like someone carved a deep groove in this reality to mark it, rather like folding the page of a novel in order to create a temporal bookmark..."
Peorth glanced to the side and said, "Perhaps that is what Celestine intended for us to find."
The party followed her stare and then Ranma's eyes got wide as he read out the sigh aloud, "Ucchan's Cat Cafe? Okonomiyaki and Ramen Served Here Daily? What the heck is this?"
"Apparently Kuonji and Shampoo must have formed a partnership together," Nabiki frowned, "But how does this relate to us. I'm curious enough to go in there and find out. Coming, Mother?"
"Hey, I'm just as curious as you, Dear," Peorth replied as she dragged Happosai with her, though it was Ranma who led the way, already pushing open the door before looking around and saying, "Hello, anybody in here?"
"Hmm," Nabiki mused as she followed her husband in and swept the interior with a glance, "Not too many customers for the morning crowd...must be a slow business day, but they are obviously open, so..."
All at once Ranma moved, his hand snatching the hurled baker's peel before it could strike its intended target. He whirled to face its owner and the proprietor of the restaurant then said, "U-Ucchan...?"
"You've got a lot of nerve showing your faces around here," growled a much older version of the Ukyo they knew, clearly pushing in her late twenties or early thirties by the careworn trace of her otherwise lovely features, "How dare you come back to Nerima, Saotome!"
"Huh?" Ranma took a step back as though he had been slapped, "Ucchan?"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" she spat, "You lost the right a long time ago, Mister! And you!" she turned her venom on Nabiki, "We don't serve gold-digging hussies in this place, so take your baggage with you and drag your sorry butts out of here before I have you expelled!"
"Baggage?" Peorth sniffed, "I like that..."
"Hey, wait!" Ranma waved his hands frantically, "I'm not here to cause any trouble, Uch-ah-Ukyo-san...I mean...what did I do to make you this angry?"
"What did you do?" the very calm with which she spoke those words, coupled with her wide-eyed astonishment, did not bode well as in the next second she all but exploded in his face, "WHAT DID YOU DO? WHAT DIDN'T YOU DO, YOU JACKASS!? You dishonored me! You picked Akane and then HER over me and Shampoo! You ruined both our lives, and I'll be hanged if I'll let you do it again! I...!"
"Is something wrong, Airen?" asked a certain lovely purple-haired woman as she came from the kitchen area, only to pause and stare as she saw who was being chewed out by her partner, at which point she said, "Ranma?"
"Uh...hi..." Ranma responded a bit weakly.
All at once the lovely face of a twenty (or thirty) something Shampoo went hard as stone, and then she lifted her nose and went, "HMPH! Now I see why Ucchan is so upset. No time to serve mendicants and peasants who do not pay their way. This is a place of business, only customers who pay for food welcome here, not mercenaries and bandits."
"Bandits?" Nabiki looked from Ukyo to Shampoo and back before saying, "Mind clueing us in on a few things...Sugar?"
Ukyo turned her baleful glare upon the Time Agent and said, "Sure, but it'll cost you...Sugar."
Nabiki arched an eyebrow at this, and at the open palm the chef extended in her direction.
"Excuse me," Peorth spoke up, "I really don't mean to intrude in this, but...HEY!"
"YOOOWWZAA!" Happosai cried in delight as he broke free from the goddess and launched himself at Ukyo, catching the chef by surprise as she yelped and gave back a half-step, clearly unprepared for the suddenness of the pervert's attack while minus her combat spatula.
Too fast for the eye Shampoo moved, and suddenly she met Happosai's charge with a fist that sent him flying backward at great speed, the old man impacting with the far wall with force enough to even stun him for a few moments. The purple haired Amazon then snarled, "No touch Airen! Little pervert man need lesson in manners!"
Ranma and Nabiki both ignored the fate of Happosai and instead riveted upon the one word that caught them both by surprise as they chorused out, "AIREN?"
"Yeah?" Ukyo glared back, recovering her bearings, "What about it. Me and Shampoo are a team now, wanna make something of it?" and she put a hand to the other woman's shoulder in a manner that was more than passing friendly.
Ranma continued to gape as Nabiki spoke up for him, "You mean...you and Shampoo...?"
"Like you don't already know," Ukyo snorted, "After Lunk-Head here married your Tomboy sister and left us both out to pasture, Shampoo and I linked up and formed a partnership. In point of fact, we met in a bar where we were drowning our sorrows, and then Sham-chan here threatened to kill herself, muttering something about preserving her family honor."
"Her..." Ranma's face drained of all color and expression.
"That is right," Shampoo glared at him, "You make me lose face before my tribe and people. You never accept that the traditions and laws of my people had meaning to me, you thought they less important than your stupid Japanese customs, and you dismissed me from your heart and mind like I was garbage. You never cared about me or about Ucchan, only yourself, Saotome, so why should we care about you now, especially after all that happened to you..."
"Um..." Peorth raised a hand, "Pardon me for being the odd one out here...but...what exactly did happen to Saotome here? Just for curiosity's sake..."
"So, he didn't tell you?" Ukyo sniffed, "The marriage to Akane fell apart after only a few years, and she got to keep the Children. Ranma wandered around pretty much lost and abandoned for a while there, even tried to hit up on us for old times sake, but we weren't taking."
"Have enough of that for one life," Shampoo glared angrily, "Ranma clean up own mess before he come back and try making mess of our lives all over."
"Of course, that was before the Tendos found out about the Trust Fund that'd been set up in his name," Ukyo noted, "When Ranma here turned twenty-two he came into some money...a lot of money, which explained why his Pop was always after him to marry a Tendo since the stipulation was that he had to get married. Mister Tendo was furious with Akane, but by that time she'd gone on to college and was lining herself up with a pretty good career...and then you set your predatory sights on him, Nabiki," she glared at the round-eyed Timecop, "Figures that would lure you back to the poor dumb lug, and it wasn't long before you talked Ranma into taking you on as an alternative to your sister."
"Is the Japanese custom in divorce that family no have anything to do with man who is divorced by wife for irreconcilable differences," Shampoo said a bit smugly, "But maybe Japanese customs easy to set aside like Amazon and Chinese customs when is convenient."
"So," Peorth mused, "Ranma wound up with Nabiki here after all, eh?"
"Yeah," Ukyo said smugly, "And as far as we're concerned you two deserve each other, a marriage of manipulative opportunists, and we hope you both make each other very, very happy."
The sarcasm was not lost upon either the Time Cops or the Goddess, but before there could be a verbal reaction to this, in came a couple of laughing children, one clearly chasing the other crying, "Give that back, Xu-Gar!"
"Make me, Tspiz!" teased the other girl as they darted around and leaped over the tables.
"Kids-HEY!" Ukyo raised her voice, "No horseplay in the restaurant, you little Scamps! Front and center and at attention!"
Both young girls instantly subsided and as one chorused, "Yes, Mother..." but then the girl with brown hair said, "But Xu-Gar stole my hair ribbon!"
"Only after you stole one of my ivory Odangos," her purple haired (almost) identical twin countered, "Make her give it back, Mom, I need it to go Iceboarding..."
"Simmer down, you two," Ukyo instructed, "You're both late getting home from school, and we're got a restaurant to open up before the paying customers get here. You think they're going to serve themselves?"
"Listen to your Fama, Children," Shampoo instructed, "Go up to your rooms and wash yourselves up, then get down here and help me out in the kitchen."
"Yes, Mother," sighed one girl.
"Yes, Mother," chorused the other before both girls turned and gave appreciative stares at Ranma, at which point they chorused again, "Who is that?"
"Never you mind who this is," Ukyo instructed, "Just some old business that needs tidying up. Now listen to your mother and go straight to your rooms, Sugar."
"I'm Sugar," the purple haired girl protested.
"And I'm Spice!" the brown haired girl insisted, only to have both girls fall silent as Shampoo turned THE GLARE upon them, a look that only a Mother could manage after many years of long and careful practice.
As both girls tromped away, Nabiki turned to the parents and said, "Your kids...are named Sugar and Spice?"
"Yeah, and they act like wild Indians sometimes," Ukyo growled, though motherly pride showed in her expression.
"More like wild Mongols," Shampoo corrected, "Indian people have many strange customs, but they are not wild men."
"You obviously haven't been to a Maharajah's party..." Peorth mused before giving a yelp of surprise as a pair of diminutive hands began to fondle her breasts.
"Yowza! Now this is the stuff a man needs to live!" Happosai cried happily as he rubbed his face in Peorth's heavenly bosom.
"DIE!" she cried as she knocked him to the floor with a hammer-like fist, then stood panting in disgust for several seconds longer.
"That old man never changes," Ukyo sniffed.
"Which is another good reason not to let him be anywhere around our daughters," Shampoo decided.
"But...ah...well...how...I mean...you...?" Ranma stammered as he looked from one former fianc e to the other.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Ukyo said smugly.
"Silly Ranma," Shampoo snorted without her usual cute hint of amusement, "Not know that Amazon law say when two Warriors choose to marry they must agree that one of them have baby to carry on bloodlines? Great-grandmother help give answer, and Shampoo very happy to have Airen's babies."
"We also have a son that I carried to full term," Ukyo revealed, "But he's either still at school in detention or getting into trouble, just like his mother. Takes after you so much I'd almost swear you were the father. Of course Sham-chan's got more than enough mischief in her for the both of us, so..."
"But..." Nabiki hesitated before plunging ahead and saying, "How did you two...?"
"Get together?" Shampoo smirked haughtily, "It happened when we trained together, when great-grandmother taught me how to defeat Ranma and win back my lost honor. Ukyo supported me and gave me the strength that I needed to win out, and in the end I came to depend upon her for the love and affection that you never gave me, Ranma. She was there holding my hand while you were giving me the back of your hand and turning instead to Akane."
"But...hey, I never..." Ranma stumbled then fell silent as he saw the glare in the crimson eyes of the Amazon, who did not look at him at all with the hopeful affection that he remembered so well from the old days.
"I was your wife," she said coldly, "But you never cared for me, you never saw me as anything but a silly annoyance, just someone to put up with because you lacked the spine to tell me the truth to my face, not that it would have changed anything between us since I was bound by my laws and faced disgrace and possible exile from my tribe for failing to claim you for my husband."
"I..." Ranma found that words failed him utterly, and he hung his head in shame, remembering what had happened to the Shampoo of his own timeline.
"And to lose out to Akane?" Shampoo could not keep the contempt out of her words, "A girl who could not cook your food or keep house to save her life? Who hit you for petty reasons and called you names and never gave you the respect of a husband? Who accused you of all manner of perversity even when there was not the least evidence to support her suspicions? Who suspected you of being unfaithful with me when you never once responded to my affections? And who ultimately dumped you in favor of a man who could actually show her his affections?"
Ranma did not raise his eyes as he responded, "What do you want me to say? I screwed up, I was an idiot, and I'm sorry..."
"You're sorry," Ukyo repeated, "Kind of late to face up to what you did, Sugar, like the way you took my heart and stomped on it repeatedly, first by choosing okonomiyaki over me, then making me hope that there was a chance between us, then sponging off of me for free meals while refusing to see me as a woman? I was your 'Cute' fianc e, remember? The one who would have walked through fire for you, and you didn't even have the courtesy of explaining to me why I was less acceptable to you as a wife than Akane. At least I never tried to poison you..."
"I know," Ranma raised his eyes and turned the full depths of his own emotion towards the chef, startling both her and Shampoo at the trail of tears they saw there as he answered their accusations with a simple, "You would have died for me, both of you, and I never deserved that. I never gave you what you deserved or needed, I never even thought of you as serious contenders. I was blind to so much back then, a real idiot through and through, and I never took it into my thick skull how much I was hurting you both. I just didn't see it back then...I was too much into my own pain, full of my own self-pity, and I thought of you as more annoyances than the friends you were. I thought everybody was out to get me back then, and I never asked for any of this...it was all my fault, but I didn't see it...I blamed it all on the panda..."
"Ranma-kun..." Nabiki felt her own heart go out to her normally indomitable husband.
"I'm sorry," Ranma said, almost sobbing, "I know it doesn't mean that much, I know it can't change what went down, and I know I can never make up for what I did to the both of you. I'm sorry all of it happened, and if I had to do it all over again I'd...I'd..."
"Probably make the same mistakes," Peorth said quietly, "But then again, that's a part of being human."
"No," Ranma said firmly, "I wouldn't do the same things over again. I'd find some way of making it right. I'd kill that old man if it meant freeing myself from the stupidity of what he put me through. He had no right to go making decisions for me about who I was gonna marry, even if he was my Pop. He had even less right doing that to you, Ucchan, or for stealing your prize at that contest, Shampoo. Him and Mister Tendo..."
"Yeah," Nabiki sighed, "Daddy really wasn't much better than your Pop, Ranma-
kun, although he did try in his own rather pathetic way...and what happened to Akane..." she glanced away, her eyes suddenly hard and bitter with remembered emotions.
"I'm sorry," Ranma said again, "I didn't mean to come back here and stir up all this mess. Here," he tossed the baker's peel back to Ukyo, who casually snatched up, "Feel free to whack me a good one if I ever show my face around here again. I deserve worse, believe me."
He started to turn away before pausing to add, "Ucchan...Shampoo...take care of yourselves. Y'know, never thought I'd be saying this, but the two of you do make a pretty cute couple."
"Uh...thanks, I think," Ukyo said dubiously.
"What change to make Ranma so sensitive that he admit to feelings?" Shampoo wondered.
"A lot of stuff you're better off not knowing about, believe me," Nabiki informed them, turning a soft nod towards her nominal former rivals, "Take care and always love each other, and say hi to the kids for me. They really do kind of remind me of some girls I used to know a while back."
"Charmed," Peorth smiled before giving the couple her own blessings and exiting the restaurant, not noticing that the old man had fully recovered and was trailing after with an eye to her pert backside.
Ukyo blinked her eyes and said, "What do you suppose that was all about?"
"Aiyaa," Shampoo replied, taking Ukyo's hand and squeezing it with affection.
Out on the streets Ranma took a deep, ragged breath then said, "When I find that Celestine guy, remind me to thank him before I punch his lights out."
"I know exactly how you feel, Ranchan," Nabiki replied, "That was draining...yet oddly therapeutic."
"Certainly aired a lot of dirty laundry for you both, eh?" Peorth remarked, "Which is probably what Celestine intended all along."
"Yeah," Ranma said as he glanced back over his shoulder, "Considering what happened with us...with the Ucchan and Shampoo I remember...I never did get a chance to say I was sorry. That's haunted me for a long, long time now. Can't say I feel any better about it, but...at least I got to say it this time."
Nabiki looked at her husband sidelong and asked, "Would you change anything if you could go back in the past and fix things, Ranma-kun? I know you really did care about them, even if you could never bring yourself to admit it..."
"Yeah, and I don't really know," Ranma replied, "Maybe I'd have picked one of them, maybe I'd have done the gutsy thing and married both of them...Amazon law would have allowed that. Or maybe I'd have just set them down and explained things so they wouldn't have false ideas and expectations that I could never live up to. I was in love with Akane before I really knew both of them, idiot that I was, but if I went back with what I know now...I'd have given her to Ryoga in a second and picked you in her place. That would have satisfied Pop and Mister Tendo and got this whole mess straightened out in the first place."
"And if Mortals could make wise decisions all of the time then they would never need the help of Goddesses," Peorth said with a soft smile, "But for what it is worth, I am glad that Nabiki found a man like you to look after her...even if you are more than a bit rough around the edges."
"Thanks, 'Mom,'" Ranma sniffed, only to move like a shot as his hand snatched Happosai out of the air before the little man had a chance to sneak up on Nabiki, "Where do you think you're going, you old coot?"
"Hey, leggo!" the Grand Master struggled in vain as Ranma easily resisted his best efforts, "I wasn't going to do anything, and why do you have to hog all of the cuties? You ever hear about sharing?"
"Y'know," Ranma said, "It would serve you right if I dropped you off someplace where you'd have no chance of getting back to where you could molest the innocent girls throughout the cosmos, but at the moment I can't think of anyplace I hate so much that I'd want to inflict you on them. Even Hell's got it's limits..."
"Best to ignore grandfather for the moment, Ranma-kun," Nabiki sighed, starting forward again, "Come, we've wasted more than enough time here, we have a quarry to bag, and for once I feel like doing a little butt stomping of my own. Only one question troubles me about this whole affair, Ranma-kun."
"And that is?" her husband asked.
"When did you ever bother to tell me about this trust fund they were talking about?" she eyed him obliquely, and at that Ranma began to feel more than slightly nervous...
Continued.
Comments/Criticisms/Sugar Valley Highs: shadowmane
My thanks to Nicole Manders (aka Dreiser) for the ideas behind that scene where Ukyo and Shampoo are running a restaurant (and a family) together. Her story "Bonboris and Spatulas" was very **inspirational** in helping me form this concept.
Next time up we see Garimel cheerfully wrecking havoc in search of her husband while Chakar confronts Celestine and the Time Cops converge on the scene of the crime, but what of the rest of the time displaced youths and their future offspring? Find out next time in: "Oh My-My Goddess!" or, "The Towering Infernal!" Be there!
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If you wish to check out my other works, Please check out my Fanfiction webpage at: ~ All related chapters of this series can be found there along with my other works.