Disclamer: I don't own Ranma, or X-men, as usual. I don't own the Avengers, Half Life, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Daredevil, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spooksville, Perry Rhodan, or anyone associated with any of them. I just stuck them all in a blender.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, thanks are due to J. St.C. Patrick for spellchecking. Judging from how many he found, I'm getting better at spelling!

The car sounded a little sick as I drove it along the outskirts of Bayville in the late evening. I wasn't sure why, it wasn't like my driving was bad or anything. But rich people cars probably needed tune ups, and we hadn't bothered with that on the road.

Ucchan and Shamps were sleeping, Shampoo on the back seat like a c-c-c-c her old cursed form, and Ucchan lying against me. For some reason, they kept getting stressed out on this holiday. I wasn't too sure why, but it was probably a girl thing. After all, I hadn't seen anything exciting on the trip. Not even a single monster, martial artist or supervillian. Not even in New York. A little disappointing, to be sure.

Rahne had been dropped off in town, saying she'd rather walk home. It was just the three of us, one car, and all the clothes that my girls had picked up on the way. My girls. Sounded warm.

"Mansion, mansion, mansion. This is the right road, and I'm looking for a mansion." I chatted idly to myself. It was a little hard to see, it being nine in the evening, but this was far enough out of town that there weren't many houses at all.

Next to me, Ucchan stirred. "Hmmm? 'we there yet, hon?"

I smiled tenderly, and adjusted my shoulder so she'd be more comfortable. "I think I see it up ahead."

And I was right. It was three stories tall, judging from the lights I could see. There was a huge driveway, at least two hundred meters. If I hadn't been on the look out, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. The grounds looked nice, lots of trees and bushes.

I pulled up to the gate, and it opened on its own. We drove down the gravel road, the shaking waking Shampoo up. "Hey, sleepyhead. We're home." Home. It had a nice ring to it. I hadn't been able to call a place Home before, except for the Tendo's place, and even there we were guests. Here… it looked like it was gonna be great.

We pulled up at the house, and I carried Ucchan in. Shampoo leaned heavily on me, groping me accidentally. She had a sleepy, lecherous smile on her face, so I revised my opinion on how accidental it was.

The door opened, and Jeeves welcomed us in. The lateness of the hour didn't seem to affect him, still clean and pressed as normal. "May I show you your rooms, Ranma-sama?" he asked. I nodded, and the four of us went on up.

Our room was on the third floor, along with Emma's and Tessa's. Jeeves opened the door for us, and we wandered in.

The room was like a small house! It was like the one from the Hotel, but without the kitchen. It had a huge bedroom, a walk-in closet (I suspected that Shampoo might explode with joy when she was awake enough to notice), a spa, and a living room. The bed was massive, and ready for us. I guided Shampoo in, gently let Ucchan down, and crawled in between them.

Rahne bounded along the streets, her paws expertly avoiding the glass that sprinkled the pavement. She couldn't help herself, and let loose a triumphant bark. Here she was. Bayville. The one place that she had felt truly accepted. A place that had people like her.

Her running lasted half an hour, taking her to the gates of the Xavier Institute For Gifted Youngsters. She debated the wisdom of trying the intercom, but decided against it. No one would be up. Similarly, just jumping over the walls was out. The security system was top notch, and she didn't want to get everyone woken up for battle just to say 'hi'.

Shrugging in a very canine fashion, she curled up in a ball right outside the gates. She'd wander back in tomorrow.

"She is mine, now. Like she always was."

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH" I screamed, sitting up. I my eyes darted around the room, and found my fiancée and my wife in bed, looking confused. I glomped them both at the same time.

Shampoo looked surprised, and Ucchan looked pleased. I just held them close, shivering from my dream. I wasn't gonna lose anyone important to me. Not again.

This tender moment was interrupted by the door imploding under the force of ninety kilograms of black muscle. Bishop barreled through our lounge into our bedroom, holding a shotgun.

By reflex, I jumped out of bed and looked around. "Bishop, what's happening?" He just sunk to the floor with a nosebleed. I looked around for help, which came in the form of Sage (still in leather), and Emma (who's casual clothes were, surprise, white).

"Who screamed?" asked Sage.

I blushed. "Uh… I kinda had a nightmare." Emma and Sage rolled their eyes. To distract them, I gestured to the unconscious body on the floor. "But what happened to Bishop?"

From behind me, I heard Ukyo growling. Shampoo threw a robe at me, hitting me on the head. "Arien, that OURS to see!"

I looked down, and realized that all I was naked. I 'eep'ed and quickly wrapped myself in the robe. "Anyway. You can all leave now." They got the hint, and shuffled out. Sage dragged Bishop after her, muttering darkly.

Ucchan grabbed me in a big hug. Since she's so much taller than my curse form, I got a face full of cleavage. "Was it the dream again, sugar?" I nodded, at least as much as my position would allow. I could hear Shampoo sigh, and she came over to join in the hug.

This time we weren't interrupted by ex-military mutants, and finished in our own time. "Thanks." I said. We had a moment of silence. Then my stomach rumbled. "Lets get some food." They just rolled their eyes.

Logan was a man of many mysteries, even to himself. No one knew where he came from; no one knew WHY he didn't know. Few knew why he went for long motorcycle rides. Most blamed it on his 'Lone Wolf' personality, some calling it a byproduct of the feral nature of his mutation. The truth was much simpler:

He wanted booze.

In a house filled with super powered teenagers, he needed a little something to get him through the day. And the sleeping habits of the teenager didn't involve hours before nine AM, usually. The early morning was the perfect time to find a good, stiff drink or ten.

As he pulled up to the gates, the mutant noticed something odd. A large dog, or possibly a wolf, sleeping in front of the gate. Logan sighed, and got off his bike. He walked up to the dog, noticed an oddly familiar scent. He took off his helmet, and took a sniff. It was definitely familiar. It smelled like... "Rahne?!?"

The sleeping wolf awoke instantly, and jumped into Logan's arms, transforming into a human girl with a lot of freckles. "Mr Logan!" She gave him a hug that would have been painful to someone without an armor-plated skeleton. He hugged her back. They had been fairly close before she left. As the only two people in the mansion who had feral mutations, they understood each other better than most.

After a long moment, he put her down again. "How ya been, kiddo?"

She grinned up at him. "Not too bad. How's things been around here?"

He snorted. "Exciting. Loud. Ya missed a lot of action."

The Scottish girl laughed nervously. "Yeah, I heard about that apocalypse thing on the news. Did any one get hurt?"

"Naahh. Just a little banged up. Come on, let's get inside." He got back on his bike, and turned around. Rahne hopped up behind him.

Logan sighed to himself. So much for that beer run.

I was right- Shampoo went loony over the walk-in closet. Ukyo was pleased, but she's too practical to get too excited. The discovery of the spa earned some suggestive looks too. In the end, me and Ucchan got dressed, and headed down. Shampoo was still trying to figure out what to wear.

By my finely honed senses (my food radar) I managed to lead us to the kitchen. Jeeves was cheerfully preparing pancakes, and I helped myself to some. Ucchan sniffed, and hunted down some cereal- that girl really despises pancakes, pizza, and any other food that's round, flat, and not Okonomiyaki.

The sounds of a TV lead us to the lounge, where Bishop and Sage were drinking coffee, and Emma was reading a paper. There was nothing to lead anyone to believe that we were, in fact, a group of mutants who had plans to keep the world safe, and the money to back those plans up.

"Hey. Where's Ivan and, uh, Ivan?" I asked, announcing my presence in the room. Emma looked up from her paper.

"They are in a hotel, in New York, along with the rest of your Hellions."

"Hellions..." I spent a moment trying to remember. "Right, the people I'm gonna train. How many are there?"

She smiled proudly. "Ivan and Ivanovitch, Bishop, Alison, Carol, Longshot, Sharon, and Ukyo. Six, or eight, depending on how many people you count the twins as and how much training your fiancée needs."

I laughed. "Ucchan doesn't need any training from me- she's the best with a weapon I've ever seen." Out of the corner of my eye I saw her blush. "But why aren't they here? Why keep them all in New York?"

Emma got up from her paper, and wandered towards the stairs. I followed. "There is a machine that the x-men own- it's called Cerebro. It lets the user find mutants. This close to them, any large group of mutants would be spotted quickly. Even the six of us will be found by the end of the week. If they don't know we're here, then we have a distinct tactical advantage."

I pondered that for a minute. "So we destroy it?" I could do that. I'm good at breaking stuff.

She shook her head, with a slight sigh of exasperation. "No, that wouldn't work. Not only would that alert them to us, but they'd fix it easily enough, and look even harder. What we need is a copy of the blueprints. If we had those, I know someone who's good with machinery. He could build something to hide us from it."

"So I break in, steal the blueprints, and then this guy of yours can take care of the rest?"

She gave me a look. "You want to go, ALONE, into a building filled with powerful mutants, a state of the art security system, so that you can steal something? Are you mad?!?"

I huffed, and crossed my arms. "Well, what was your plan?"

She looked smugly at me. "Shampoo, though she can't control the power, can use shadows to teleport anywhere. Even Gateway requires a photo of a place to teleport there. With a few months training, she can slip in and take the plans. She would only be there for a couple of minutes."

"Yeah... I like my plan better," I said cockily. "My way will take about half an hour, not months."

Emma looked ticked. "They have the most powerful telepath in the world there. A man with the greatest healing factor known to man, and unbreakable claws. A woman who can control the weather, can call tornados and lightning on a whim. A super-genius, a girl who can take you out with just a single touch, a boy who can teleport to you instantly, a girl who can make all your punches pass right through her. What do you say to that?"

"I've fought against worse odds, Emma." I said quietly, my mind drifting to that fateful battle. Jusendo... A whole tribe of Phoenix people, who were many times stronger than a normal man, who could fly, who had claws on their hands and feet. And then, tired from battling them, half drowned and half frozen, I had taken on Saffron. "Much worse."

I think something in my voice got to her, because she went quiet. "If you want to, it's your decision. You are the Knight. That means for everything that involves fighting, it's up to you."

I smiled at her. "Thanks, Emma. I know my limitations. I can do this." I thought for a moment. "Are these blueprints on a computer? I'm not so good with computers." I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment.

The White Queen shook her head in amusement. "I'm sure Tessa can come up with something. She's unparalleled when it comes to computers."

Behind me, I felt Ucchan walk up. I turned around, and she leaned in for a deep, passionate kiss. "Mmmm. What have you two been talking about?"

"Your fiancée was just finished convincing me that she should sneak into the X-mansion, and steal some blueprints," Emma related.

"Ahh. Hey, Ranchan," Ucchan started. "Shampoo and I want to go shopping. Be ready in an hour."

"Yes dear," I groaned. Going shopping is never fun, and on our trip I learned just how terrible it can be with Shamps. That woman has more stamina than Ryoga! Still, at least the company would be good.

'Emma.' The White Queen heard the voice of Shampoo in her head.

'Have you been practising?' She asked with approval. Her signal was much steadier than it had been before they left.

'Yep,' Shampoo returned with pride. 'I was wondering- if more mutants here increases our risk of detection, why are we all here?'

Emma smiled internally. Shampoo didn't miss anything. 'Jeeves is here to render the house habitable, Sage is outfitting the basement computers, I am working on establishing myself into Bayville's society.'

'And Bishop?' The Amazon's tone was decidedly frosty.

Emma pursed her lips. 'He said it was because it wasn't safe for two women and an old man to live alone.'

'More like he wants a piece of my husband,' growled Shampoo. 'You should have seen the way he was looking at her.'

'Indeed,' agreed the blond. 'He was broadcasting loud and clear.'

Emma felt Shampoo leave her mind, and stalk off. She shook her head. It was one thing to hear about the way people fell for Ranma, but to see it in action? Hell, she had caught herself giving the red-head a good leer on two occasions now, and she wasn't even into women! It was almost enough to make her think that it was some mutant power, but Ranma had been attracting women (and men) like insects to a light bulb long before her mutant gene activated.

Logan laughed as Rahne was buried under a pile of overexcited teenagers. First, naturally, was Kitty Pride (Shaddowcat), followed by Tabitha Smith (Boom Boom), Amara Aquilla (Magma), Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler), and Jamie Madrox (Multiple). More would have joined in, but Kurt had landed on Jamie and there were now a dozen Jamie's crowding around the Scottish mutant.

The rest of the mansion stood, beaming, while the Professor, Logan, Hank (Beast) and Ororo (Storm) smiled paternally (or maternally, in Storm's case). The institute was more than a school for those who lived there; it was a home. They were a family. One of their own was back.

"Like, wow! When did you come back!? Why didn't you call!? Are you staying!? Did you meet any cute boys!?" Kitty babbled excitedly.

Rahne giggled at Kitty's antics. "I just got back last night, but I didn't wanna wake anyone up, so I slept outside. So, what have you guys been up to, huh?"

Kitty positively glowed with gossip. "The Brotherhood tried to turn good. Wanda tried to hunt down Magneto, but gave up. Logan found a long lost daughter-"

"Clone," Logan hastily interrupted. "Not daughter."

"Clone, sorry. I was confused with the Professer's son, Lucas. Rogue was kidnapped by her new boyfriend, Gambit-"

"Ahh am NOT going out with the swamp-rat!" Yelled the gothic Rogue. Everyone in the room gave her a knowing glance. "At least ahh wasn't the one with an imaginary friend!"

"She was real! She's coming here next term!"

Scot Summers, who was also known as Cyclops, took a look at the bugged-out expression on Rahne's face and elaborated. "She was a telepathic mutant, and was trying to call for help. She had been trapped in the bottom of a mine for years, and was haunting people's dreams, trying to get someone to get her out. The problem was that she was doing this unconsciously; she actually didn't know she was trapped."

Jean Grey, one of the few mutants at the institute without a code name, laughed. "And of course, there was that whole Apocalypse business."

Ororo raised her voice. "As wonderful as it is to have Rahne back, you're all about to be late for school."

There was a sudden frenzy of people grabbing bags and lunches, and the house was quickly deserted except for the adults and Rahne.

"Thank you, and have a nice day," The salesman said, as the three of us left.

"Cool. Now we have all the furniture we need," I said happily. Shampoo (and, to a lesser extent, Ucchan) had been cruising the furniture stores all morning for things to fill up our room with. We were now the proud possessors of three chests of drawers, one of those girly desk-with-a-mirror things, a new bed (even though the one we had used the night before was fine), three bookshelves, a TV cabinet and a collection of lamps. I was just glad that the store delivered. I woulda hated to carry that around all day. My car was at a local mechanic's, who had muttered darkly upon seeing it. It wasn't that bad- a couple of small scratches, tops.

"Uh uh, Ranchan, we aren't finished yet," my fiancée smirked. "We still need a TV, some art to decorate the walls, and clothes. Lots and lots of clothes." I shivered.

"Actually, we need to do something first," I said carefully. "There was this shop I wanted to visit."

Shampoo literally glowed with pleasure at the idea that I was beginning to like shopping, and agreed instantly. We wandered around for a little while, before I found the place.

"Uh. Arien. Are you lost?" The Amazon was confused. With good reason; the shop had no sign, and all the windows were covered up with newspaper. On the door was a sign that read 'Coming soon.'

I smirked. "No." I pulled a key from my pocket and unlocked the door, gesturing for my girls to come in.

They looked around for a moment, dumbstruck. There were several tables, a stack of chairs in one corner, and a collection of bar stools in another. A counter sat in front of a door, leading out towards the back. "Ranchan... is this what I think it is!?!"

"Yup. One cafe; power and water connected, just awaiting a pair of chefs to decorate the place and order equipment." I must have done well - Both Shampoo and Ucchan glomped me so hard I felt like Akari must feel with Ryoga.

Ucchan had tears in her eyes. "For me?"

"Nahh. For us." I couldn't find the words to say what I wanted to. That I knew how much running her shop meant to her, that I wanted to be a part of that, that I wanted to eat her Okonomiyaki every day. That I knew what her dream was, and I wanted to make it a reality. But then again, I didn't need to.

My cute fiancée sniffed. "That extra stuff-" She pointed at some extra grills, elements, and a pair of deep fryers. "Is that from the previous owners?"

I smiled tenderly at Shampoo, who was beginning to look left out. "No, it used to be a clothes shop. That was all put in especially for a certain someone to cook traditional Chinese food." She glomped me even harder.

"Like we talk about on the ship- our own restaurant!"

"Yeah. There's even a small bedroom upstairs for us to stay in when we wanna get out of the mansion for a while."

"...you remembered." Ucchan's voice was little more than a whisper. Back when we were kids, she had talked about opening her own shop. She had dreamed about having a house, but also having a room at the shop for busy days. That, and she liked the idea of waking up to the smell of Okonomiyaki.

Our hug stopped, and they moved apart. I stood there, looking lost, when Shampoo closed the door. Ucchan then tackled me, pulling off my shirt and almost destroying it in the process. Shampoo started wiggling out of her dress. "What the!?"

"Hush, sugar. I'm gonna show you just how grateful I am!"

Damn. How could I have forgotten how much Okonomiyaki put her in the mood? I just hoped I'd be able to walk straight when she finished.

Rogue fumed. Not for any particular reason, other than the normal problem of not being able to touch anyone without killing them. She just habitually fumed.

Despite the fact that it was a school day, she was wandering around the town, finally ending up where her favourite store used to be. Two weeks previously, it had closed up over night. They were going to set up a new store a couple of blocks away, but according to the signs they had posted it would be almost a month before they were ready to open their doors again.

She wandered up to the door, trying to peer in. What she saw gave her a blush and a nose bleed. The dialogue only made it worse.

"Harder! Harder! ARIEEEEEEEEN!!"

"With squid! With squid! RANCHAAAAAN!!"

"We're home!" I shouted triumphantly that evening. "Any one around?"

Bishop walked into the hall. "Tessa's busy programming on the basement computer and Jeeves is making dinner. Need a hand carrying that?"

I smiled at him- it was a pretty kind offer, considering that we'd barely spoken to each other so far. "Hey, thanks." I passed him most of the bags I was carrying, and we wandered up towards the third floor. I dumped my bags on the floor, and they spilled all over the floor. I caught Bishop blushing as he saw the contents of one bag. As to what was in it... let's just say that if Happosai saw me in any of it, his head would explode. Or he'd get a charge big enough to fight the Hulk, Iron Man and the Thing at the same time.

"Um... that... uh... you see... let's go check on dinner!" I rushed out of the room, Bishop following at a more sedate pace, the beginnings of a grin on his face. Not that I picked out those ...things... myself. They were Ucchan's idea. She's been to so many boys-only schools that they've rubbed off on her.

Now, let me explain: I don't like to wear girls clothes. I don't like 'feeling pretty' or any of that crap.

But.

I don't hate wearing it, not anymore. I had to get used to it as time went by, for disguises and stuff, and that often got funny- like the time I pretended to be Ryoga's sister. But for all the times I cross dressed for my own amusement, the deciding factor was when I was hiding from Mom as 'Ranko'. She loved taking me out shopping for clothes- she knew that I had no mother, and she loved being able to be someone's mother, at least for a little while. And I liked spending time with her- even if I had to be a girl. That got me over the bulk of my dislike for girl's clothes. (After she found out about my curse, I'd notice her getting a wistful look in her eye whenever we'd walk past a girl's clothes store. If she had ever asked to go shopping for girl clothes with me, I wouldda said yes, for her sake.)

On the other hand, I like making Ucchan and Shampoo happy. What's a couple of pieces of sleepwear compared to them? Not that I expected them to stay in one piece for very long- Ucchan is big on ripping clothes off me.

'Arien,' I felt Shampoo's voice in my head. We had done some practising on our trip, and she was getting pretty good. Unlike her other ability, teleporting through shadows. That tended to go wrong. Her greatest success so far was winding up in the right room- falling through the ceiling. 'Dinner time.'

After dinner (and by god, Jeeves could cook!) we all met up in the basement. Emma had returned from her outing, and Tessa held something that looked like lipstick.

"Are you still set on doing this, Ranma?" Emma asked, resignedly. It looked like she still wasn't convinced.

"Yup. Might even get a good fight out of it too."

Emma sighed, and Tessa passed me the lipstick. "This is a highly compact USB drive, with a storage capacity of over four hundred gigabytes. I have coded a leach program onto it, which I am confident will pass any firewalls you might encounter. You need to find a connection to the mansion server, and insert it into a USB port. The download process will take approximately fifteen minutes."

My eyes glazed over sometime around 'USB'. "Huh?"

Her eye twitched. "Find a computer. Take the lid off the lipstick. Find a hole in the computer shaped like the plug in the lipstick. Wait 'till it stops flashing, pull it out, and come home."

I grinned happily. Nice and simple. "Gotchya. Umm... My car's at the mechanic's. He thought there was something wrong with it. Can I borrow yours?"

"NO!!!" Everyone stared as the White Queen shrieked. She then blushed. "I mean, Jeeves will teleport you to the front gate of the mansion. From there, it's all up to you." She pointed at the button on the end of the lipstick. "This is a signalling device. Push the button when you are exactly where you came in. The portal will only be open for a moment, to make sure no one can follow you."

Ucchan and Shampoo gave me a kiss each, and I slipped the not-lipstick down my top- using hidden weapons technique is much safer than a pocket. "Ready to go."

Jeeves' green portal appeared in front of me, and I stepped through.

Brent was a lifelong resident of Bayville. He had attended the school, finishing about the time that the hall was blown up by stray fireworks, and had gotten an apprenticeship at a local mechanics.

The work was fun, and he loved working with his hands. At about the time that his apprenticeship finished and he became certified, the world was rocked by a certain supervillian creating an energy barrier over an Aztec pyramid.

Today had started off like any other. He had cured a hangover with another beer, showered, bid his girlfriend a fond farewell and driven to work. There, he had argued with his boss, teased the new apprentice, and gotten to work.

The day had taken a strange turn when he had seen a new car. It was a Bentley, and it looked like the price tag could buy a couple of large houses. It was also covered in dents, there were cracks running through the windows, and the front lights were gone. All in all, it was almost enough to move Brent to tears that such a car could be treated so poorly.

The divers, a trio of hot Asian girls, had approached him and his partner. The red head took the lead. "Hey, are you the mechanic?"

Brent stood up straighter. "Yes, ma'am. Can I help you?"

"Yeah, this car's been makin' funny noises. Ya think ya can take a look?"

Brent rolled up his sleeves, and opened up the bonnet. What he saw almost made him throw up. "What in god's name did you DO?!?"

Red blushed. "Well, those sheep shouldn't have been there. Seriously, who let a herd of sheep into the middle of a road?"

"Dont forget those cacti." Interjected one of her companions.

"And the 'Shortcut'"

"And the rocks."

"Yeah, but apart from that what could it have been?" The worst part was that the red-head was serious.

"It should be ready some time tomorrow afternoon," said the other mechanic thoughtfully. Normally it would take longer, but that car screamed that its owners had the money to pay extra to get it as soon as possible.

They exchanged contact details, and the Asian trio went shopping. Brent just cuddled the car. "Don't worry, baby. Papa's gonna take care of you."

The place was surrounded by a stone wall, about two metres tall. I jumped over that without a problem, and slipped into the Umisen-ken.

An interesting fact about the Umisen-ken is that while it projects a blind-spot when people look at you, it doesn't apply directly to machines. It hides body heat, and scents, and anyone watching you on a camera will get the same effect as if they were watching directly, but things like motion detectors, automated cameras and laser beams work like normal. This meant that to slip in, I couldn't depend only on that technique- I had to work hard at it.

But you don't have Genma Saotome for a father without learning a thing or two about stealing, or breaking into places you really shouldn't be. I could see the discoloured grass which indicated there was something underneath- probably a gun. From there, it was child's play to bypass them, and run through the blind spots of the watching cameras.

My first obstacle was, interestingly enough, a person. I had jumped over an especially well placed camera, when the ground below me started exploding! I flipped sideways and ducked down. A blonde girl was chasing a guy the same age, throwing what appeared to be weak hand grenades.

"Bobby! You get your rat ass back here!" She threw more of the explosives, and I could see that she was making them. I remembered that everyone who lived here was a mutant.

"No way, BoomBoom, I don't wanna die! Come on, it'll wash out, I'm almost sure!"

They kept on going, and I breathed a sigh of relief, before moving on.

The next obstacle was also a mutant. I had a moment to hear the words "Go long!" before another teenager smashed into the ground I was standing on, ploughing up the ground nicely. In his hand he held a football. He looked around, and I concentrated even harder on the Umisen-ken, and ran off.

Now it's one of the first rules of thieving- when robbing a place that still has people living in it, NEVER use the door. Heeding this rule, I jumped up into a second story window.

"Like, way better! You should have seen him, mom! He was awesome! I never knew he was that noble. He buried Magneto, and looked after me. What a hero." Yes, instead of a nice, empty room I had the luck to find one inhabited by a girl on the phone. "We haven't had time to talk much, but we're getting along way better." She looked distracted, so I sneaked over to a computer in the corner and plugged the 'lipstick' in.

The door slammed open, and in strode a grumpy goth girl, covered head to toe in chocolate pudding. "Ahh am gonna KILL that popsicle!"

The chattering teenager put her hand over the phone. "Like, eww! What happened?"

"Bobby happened! He waited for Tabitha to make one of her stupid bombs, and stuck one, still in her hand, into that big bowl of chocolate puddin'" She pulled off a long-sleeved, transparent green shirt. "Stupid popsicle."

I stayed, crouched in the corner; hoping no-one would see me, as gothic-pudding girl stripped off. I was half expecting to be malleted any second. Though what I would have given for Akane to mallet me. She'd never raise that mallet ever again.

"Gack!" a pudding-covered tank top hit me in the face. Instantly I knew I'd made a mistake. Chatty-girl and gothic-pudding girl froze. I froze even faster, if that makes sense, and focused on the Umisen-ken like my life depended on it- which it almost certainly did.

"What was that noise?" whispered Chatty-girl.

"Ahh dunno, but mahh top's gone." whispered back gothic-pudding girl, wearing nothing above the waist except a scandalous bra.

I glanced down at the computer, and gladly noticed that the 'lipstick' had stopped flashing. I pocketed it quickly, and ran forward, barging past the girls and jumping out the window. Behind me I heard shrieks.

I cursed to myself. The Umisen-ken needs a lot of chi to work, and this was easily twice as long as I'd ever used it for. I was running low. Experience had shown that instead of being invisible (to living things), I'd now look like a transparent blur. Then it would be a dark blur, and finally it would disappear altogether.

Some ingrained martial arts instinct warned me to jump, and a split second later red plasma lanced through where I had been. The shriek had brought people swarming out of the mansion, and some guy with a visor was waiting by the front gates- right between me and the place where the portal was.

I hit the ground, and darted sideways in time to avoid a hand-grenade-ish explosion, and a beam of ice. In front of me a blue demon (not a cat, a pointy tail demon) popped into existence, which I responded to by popping it one in the jaw, not slowing down.

Lightning, from the sky and from behind me, passed so close to me that it made my hair stand on end. A stream of liquid fire went slightly to my left, igniting an innocent tree. I risked a glance backwards, and saw a blue gorilla, a man with blades in his hands, a man who looked like he was on fire, and a small army of identical pre-pubescent boys hot on my tail. I wasn't gonna make it. So, I did the one thing I swore I'd never do.

I lunged forward, and kissed the guy with the visor. On the lips.

Finally, another chapter. I'd like to blame delays on a number of factors- end of semester tests, a computers assignment, my laptop getting stolen, and stuff. That said, the credit for this getting finished now (and not in a month) goes to Sunshine Temple- who released 3 chapters within a fortnight of each other. That really inspired me to hurry up.

Just to confirm when this fic is set- Ranma killed Saffron the same day that the X-men defeated Apocalypse. They took about two weeks getting back to japan. The wedding was the day after they arrived in Japan. Two days later, Ranma, Ukyo and Shampoo left for America. They spent about two weeks on the boat, and their road trip took exactly two weeks. That means that this is just over a month after the end of X-men: Evolution.

X-men: Evolution is not AU at all. Ranma is very slightly AU. Shampoo was human when they looked over the ruined pools of Jusenko, because her x-gene had activated (in the manga, she was a cat, next to duck-mousse). Ranma didn't notice. At the wedding, her curse was never activated. Finally, when Mr Tendo sat Ranma and Akane down after the failed wedding, Ranma was female. About five minutes later, he tried to change back and found he was locked. The scene of Ranma and Akane walking to school didn't happen. Everything else happened after the manga (if only by minutes).