I do not own GD or Ranma
Author's note: I have to say I've been getting some rather nasty reviews from anonymous people and guests. I can take bad reviews from fellow authors but taking abuse from those who can't write, and who complain how I'm changing things, well…. It's fanfiction people, and if you don't like it write your own damn story. Another had a major problem with how I've done the romance in this story. For that I agree, romance in this story isn't nearly as satisfying or a major part of the story line yet as it is in my other stories. Emphasis on the yet there, but you have to admit that in the original GD, romance was a very small part of the story except for Genn and Séance. Brit and Strype got together and were serious within days of meeting, and really their courtship for the most part (except when it was having problems created by their enemies) happened off screen. I haven't read past the fourth gold brick (early compilation of the Gold Digger series), and know nothing about anything beyond that, nor do I care as a shit ton will be changing. Oh, and a warning: I know nothing about Ninja High School, so I almost certainly will make mistakes with those characters. This chapter will also show that Ranma's inclusion can change things for the bad and the good, and sometimes just his presence is enough to make things go differently, though the end result might not change.
I love the PMs and reviews I have seen for and against the inclusion of Brit. I'm still not saying that I'll include her or not, but you have until Sunday to try and convince me either way. Also if anyone notices typos i will of course correct them this weekend.
Chapter 11 Barking Up the wrong Ranma
There are many strange and odd dimensions out there, but probably one of the strangest was the chronoverse, a dimension that dealt with the passage of time. Here, time was not, as most humans would think, a line. Rather it was a series of gigantic bubbles all swirling around one another in some kind of galactic soup. Whether or not this is a representation our brain creates to try to comprehend the magnitude of something that it just isn't supposed to or if this is reality really has no bearing on our story, though it is an interesting question.
What does however is that people can enter or exit this area if they have the technology, and can enter or exit different eras of our time through the bubbles that represented different eras in time. They can do this for good or ill and one who had done it for ill is named Dr. Peachbody but he now found himself at a loss as to how to achieve his goals.
Dr. Peachbody was a dog, a black Labrador to be exact. While not exactly frightening looking, he made up for his lack of fearsome appearance with an intelligence that put him on par with Gina or any other human scientist. And he didn't actually need to be frightening personally as he had the technology to back up his words, as well as his attack-boy Benji. His mission was to go back in time and create a future where dogs ruled humans rather than the other way around. Unfortunately for him, he had failed several times, and there were no humans with the ability to counter him.
"We're stuck Benji," the doggie doctor said, sighing morosely, "we cannot possibly succeed in our crusade to correct the future. The humans have won. With their ability to access this dimension our own ability to do so is trumped, our last chance to save the dog-dominated future is gone now. We failed Benji the canine future is no more."
The heavily muscled blond haired young man stared at his master uncomprehendingly. "But Dr., I don't understand, why don't we just get rid of all those nasty interfering humans, we could go back in time and fix them!" Naturally 'fix' in this context had a much more evil context then it would used by a human.
"Ah Benji I shall try to simplify the explanation for your mind to comprehend." Dr Peachbody replied, turning to look at his attack-boy rather than staring out into the chronoverse. "The bubbles in this universe each represent an era in time. Once we enter one however we cannot go back, because for us, the bubble burst when we leave it. However, someone else would still be able to access the bubble, thus they could undo all the work we've done and we would be unable to do anything about it."
"Oh I can think I understand!" the naïve young boy answered.
"Excellent! Good boy! Have a treat!" the dog fished out a small treat from inside the jet they were both sitting on and tossed it up into the air, where the boy jumped up and caught it in his mouth.
The boy chewed for a moment as his master went back to sulking before speaking again. "Now I know why we're stuck Sir, those nasty humans would never pop their bubble first."
Dr. Peachbody's ears stood up straight as this suddenly ignited a thought in his brain. "Benji, that's it! It's so simple! We need to trick them into entering and leaving an era, an era that could nullify their very existence, that is, if we stepped in after they left! Start the machine boy! Our next stop is 1903!" The boy saluted, and jumped into the jet's cockpit as his master took a moment to chuckle manically. It's written in the code of villains that before every evil deed the villain must laugh manically, and Dr Peachbody was a firm believer in following the rules of his trade.
It was a gloomy group that went to bed the night after El Dorado disappeared at the Diggers residence. The next day brought little cheer as Gina, Penny and Brianna went to work trying to extrapolate Aebra's location and figure out a way to get there.
The non-scientists in the group tried to cheer Brit up to no avail. Ranma in particular tried to cheer her up by telling her stories of his misadventures, but she remained depressed despite his best efforts. She cheered up a little at lunch when Gina reported that they had found Aebra's location and that it was only a matter of time until they could build a hyper drive capable ship, but still the waiting was getting to her.
Ranma himself was twitchy all day, especially after breakfast. His life was going great at the moment, even with Strype's disappearance, and he knew what that meant: shit was going to hit the fan and soon! He had even told Kasumi and the others about meeting Sheila and what the mage council had said about his aura, and not one of them had pounded on him! That could only mean that something even worse was going to happen soon.
In fact all the girls had thought it sweet that he had hung out with Sheila during, as they put it 'her time of need'. Nabiki's reaction was the most effusive but for a very different reason…
/Flashback/
Kasumi smiled sweetly at Ranma as he finished telling them about his time in Jade. "I think it was very sweet of you to volunteer to spend time with Sheila like that Ranma." Everyone nodded, though Nabiki was looking up at the ceiling in thought, trying to remember something that Gina had told them a few days ago. "And the Retreat itself sounds fascinating. I wouldn't mind a trip there myself one of these days."
Brianna nodded. "Yeah Jade's a really cool place to visit, though the lack of plumbing, electricity and plumbing gets you down after a while."
Nabiki suddenly looked down, staring across at Gina. "Hey Gina, didn't you say a few days ago that you had designed a replicator like they have in that Star Trek show?"
Gina nodded, always eager to discuss her inventions. "Yep. Unfortunately the matter-to-matter conversion process is energy intensive, so I can only create simple things. And I haven't gotten the replicator's sound right just yet."
Nabiki grinned wolfishly as she turned to Ranma. "And you said this Sheila girl had never heard of Midol or tampons before? And you didn't see anything else modern there?"
Ranma nodded, not seeing where Nabiki was going with this. "Yeah, she said she relied on some kind of herbs or something, and had never heard of putting anything down there before. She was really grateful too. And nah, no ice cream no snacks except meat, no…" Nabiki cut him off by reaching across and pulling his face toward her, kissing him hard on the mouth. Ranma squawked, opening his mouth in shock as Nabiki's tongue invaded his mouth.
Kasumi spoke sharply. "Nabiki! Not at the breakfast table please! It isn't proper or polite!" Everyone else nodded agreement, jealous, irritated or saddened (Brit missing her nookie source) by the sudden floorshow.
Nabiki reluctantly pulled away, a trail of saliva briefly connecting her mouth to Ranma's until she licked it away. "Special occasion sis." She stood up abruptly. "I have work to do, I'll see you all later."
/End flashback/
Nabiki had then left the house and went over to the main Diggers residence. She came back laden with scrolls and tomes detailing the laws and trade regulations of Jade and locked herself in her room. She hadn't been seen since except to grab coffee, and some printouts about precious metals and the commodity market.
Brit and Brianna joined Hurtz and Ranma in their sparring session in the gym that afternoon, her mother not wanting to train her until she could concentrate properly on learning instead of thinking about Strype and being way to high strung to just sit around waiting for news from the brains. Brit had actually offered to help, but she was shot down. Penny had come over to help and between her and Gina they were making a lot of progress in designing a hyperspace capable ship. Brianna had already designed several dozen weapons designs, and had completed her long term bit bomb project, calling them Peebos, so she was at loose ends for now.
Brit immediately noticed how twitchy Ranma was and called him on it, with Brianna nodding along next to her. "Alright what's wrong with you today Ranma? You're all twitchy and on edge. If anyone should be on edge it's me."
Ranma halted his pre-spar warm up sighing heavily. "You remember what happened at that fast food joint?" Brit nodded. Who the hell could forget a fiasco like that! "Well I think that somethin' like that is gonna happen soon. My life's goin' too smooth right now. I made a new friend, didn't get pounded for it and even had a nice spar in Jade. My chaos factor has gotta even it out somehow."
Brit opened her mouth to refute this crazy claim (something along the lines of "what the hell do you call my muffin disappearing into outer space then!") when suddenly the world around them shimmered as alarms blared inside the house. "Warning, Warning temporal anomaly detected, warning temporal anomaly detected!" The worlde around them disappeared and all three of the living beings that had been standing there found themselves somewhere else.
Cheetah ooffed as she, Brianna, Ranma and Brit all landed in a heap on a strange metallic platform. Kasumi and Nabiki had also arrived, though Nabiki seemed to have been laying down as she arrived already laying on the floor, and Kasumi landed delicately on her feet. "What the heck is going on?"
Gina looked on grimly as everyone untangled themselves, Brianna using the opportunity to get in a quick feel on Ranma, grinding against his crotch, and feeling him jump a bit in response. "I'm afraid that it's my fault. Something is going wrong in the time stream and that caused my experimental temporal defense bubble to activate, pulling us all here. It seems to effect the existence of us sisters directly and the rest of your being her indirectly. It seems as if one of our old foes has decided to meddle with time once again. We met Dr. Peachbody…"
She went on to explain what was happening but Brianna tuned her out turning to Ranma who she and Brit were still laying on, much to his chagrin and her delight. "Damn Ranma, when you're right about something you're right."
Ranma just nodded silently, concentrating all his willpower on not physically reacting to the two curvy, extremely attractive girls in his lap, purposefully turning away from where Brianna was grinding on his crotch, her breasts rubbing up and down against her sisters as she moved, trying to untangle their legs. Damn it I never had this problem in Nerima! Brit stood up first, then reached down, dragging her sister off Ranma forcefully as Gina's explanation wound down. The image of Peabody and Benji appeared on the display behind her, hiding a bomb under their parent's old house. "So what you're saying is that someone needs to go back in time to stop the dork dog from wiping us out of history right?"
Gina nodded. "Yep. And since this is our problem it should be me and Brit. We have no way of knowing what effect Ranma's chaos factor will have on the time stream if he goes, and your own origins make you a choice of last resort Brianna."
Brianna nodded glumly as Brit and Gina, wasting no time, went out to grab the Ginamobile (time travel version™). Ranma and Kasumi both leaned over and hugged her comfortingly. They both knew that her origins continued to bother her at times. It was hard, knowing she was a product of a curse and gene-splicing rather than love and affection like other people, and that her whole existence was prevalent on the lives of two other people.
Nabiki looked on, something bothering her about the whole set up. It's too easy. Why would someone go to the trouble of going back in time to take out someone and only use one shot to do it? Something's missing here. She turned to Brianna. "Hey Bri', tell me some more about this time travel thing."
Brianna nodded, not taking her eyes off the monitor as she answered, telling Nabiki all she knew, which wasn't much. "Well, ya see, the chronoverse is a dimension where…."
Nabiki listened growing more concerned with every word but before she could voice her problems Gina and Brit returned triumphantly, having successfully defused the bomb without their parents seeing them. Their happiness soon turned to shock as they turned to the monitor only to see Benji pull up to the house in a delivery truck. Nabiki groaned aloud. "I knew it! The first attack was only to draw you in, probably some kind of timed device set in another era/bubble thingy! They wanted you to be unable to enter the same time stream again! Now they've got a free shot at your parents, and there's nothing you can do about it!"
Gina and Brit looked at eachother in horror, but Brianna gritted her teeth resolutely. "They may not be able to anything but I can!" With a shout she called her power armor out of her sub space pocket, the one martial arts technique she had learned from Ranma thus far, donning it in seconds as her sisters looked on helplessly. They knew she was the only one that could now enter this space bubble, but neither was certain her existence was singular enough to allow her to do so.
Ranma had no such illusions, but he dithered for a moment as to how to get his thoughts on the matter across, opening and closing his mouth a few times as he tried to find the words. Nabiki and Kasumi however snapped him out of it by gently slapping his shoulders and nodding at him meaningfully. After a moment he nodded resolutely. He then moved forward and before Brianna knew what was happening he kissed her soundly on the lips. Brianna's eyes fluttered closed and she moaned, molding her body to his as much as her power suit would allow. When they pulled apart, Ranma leaned his forehead against hers speaking softly but with conviction. "Remember Brianna to me and everyone else here you are your own person, I care for you because you're you, not some kinda combo of yer two sisters. You got it?"
Brianna looked at him and nodded, his simple words filling her with resolve. Ranma nodded back and moved away. As soon as he was a few feet away, Brianna lit off her power suits thrusters, slamming out and away from the temporary shelter of the temporal bubble the lab was in and into the one Benji and Peabody were in.
One strafing run later, Brianna was back and it was safe to come out of the time space bubble. Brianna didn't notice, too busy being hugged and kissed by everyone else as tears streamed down her eyes. She had finally proven herself her own person both to herself and to the universe itself.
As this was going on Strype, Brit's missing paramour, was speeding through hyperspace towards his ancient home planet of Aebra.
Jan was at the controls of the ship and she looked up at her friend concerned. "Lord Strype you don't have to remain on the bridge you know, you need to get some rest, you've been on your feet for over 30 hours. I'm fully capable of monitoring our progress through hyperspace."
"Sorry Jan, I just don't feel like resting, I'm too concerned thinking about what we might be facing. We have so few warriors in El Dorado, the war against Atlanta's cost us dearly. When we arrive only I will attack the dynasty everyone else will tending to the needs of the survivors and protect them from further assaults."
Jan stared up at her, eyes wide "Just you alone, that's crazy! The dynasty's viciousness and cruelty are legendary among every space going race. You cannot possibly hope to stand against those flesh tearing blood drinking monsters."
"That is why I have to use the artifacts of El Dorado, the heirlooms passed down from my ancestors. I never dared to use any of them before, even when Eldorado was at war with Atlantis as just one of these artifacts is terrifyingly dangerous, but now my only hope for victory is to use them all. Each artifact was created eons ago by the ancient rulers and protectors of my people but the technology to create these artifacts was lost by the time we began colonizing the galaxy as was the knowledge of how to properly control them." Since meeting Ranma Strype had come to realize that control was even more important than he had previously thought. Hearing the younger man's stories about out-of-control magic and its effects had brought home that science and magic were not things to meddle in without prior planning.
"Ancient technology, you piqued my curiosity Strype, may I examine one?" The female rab-er highly advanced alien, asked.
"I was hoping you would ask. See what you can find out about this one. It's called Flam Raker, but be careful. Whatever you do don't push your will into it, that will activate it, and I don't know what it will do."
As the female rabbit was looking at the device she asked "Do you truly know what the dynasty is and what we'll be facing?"
"I'm afraid I knew very little Jan."
Jan sighed; of course a race of carnivores would rush into danger without knowing anything about it. "Well I know the legends about them at least. They say the dynasty is ancient aging at the rate of stars. It's ruled by Rio the father and Riddell the mother. They spread their family throughout the galaxy and shadowy strongholds, conquering civilization after civilization. We rabbits were conquered, just as your people but unlike your people who were deemed fit to serve the dynasty as slaves, we were sent by the billions to the soul furnaces. From the furnaces they created the dynasty's warrior drones and anything else they could make from the 'recycled' material," She spat. "Billions upon billions from other races were claimed by the soul furnaces. The dynasty was truly the galaxy's darkest night there. And now it's back and it appears only you can end the nightmare before it grows." She looked up at Strype from looking at the object "Sorry I didn't want to put that additional pressure on you."
Stripe looked at her askance "too late."
Jan chuckled nervously. "Oh, on a happier note, I think I understand the nature of Flame Raker. The technology is very advanced, so much so I could barely interpret its function, let alone its design. All you have to do is concentrate and tell it what what you want in your mind. Flame Raker is a powerful Pyrokinetic amplifier. However, my will isn't strong enough to produce more than the candlelight." She demonstrated and a small flicker of light appeared from the top of the device's central ruby.
Strype reached out and took the device, wondering if this 'will' Jan talked about was the same as ki on Earth. Training with Ranma had given him much more control over his life energy, and his speed and strength had improved hugely. He couldn't quite do ki attacks yet, but he was close, and if that translated into better control or power whit his ancestral devices that would be an excellent thing.
One the device was in his hand, he thought at it, pushing his will into it and said "candlelight". Suddenly his entire arm burst into flame. For a moment he was scared, but the flames didn't hurt him. "Ahhh, wait, it doesn't burn?!"
"Of course not silly" Jan laughed "flame Raker protects you."
"Jan it's growing at a stop it!" By now the flame had covered his entire arm and was spreading to the rest of him
Jan looked at Strype as he flung his arm around, trying wildly to put out the fir. "I see many hours of practice in your future Strype, many long hours."
/Somewhere in China/:
Cologne looked at her scrying bowl, almost snarling in concentration as she glared into her crystal ball. Scrying over a distance was usually not difficult, no matter where or who given the magical power permeating Jusendo. But scrying Ranma had always been difficult, his strangely chaotic aura interfering with any spell. After his change merely finding a clue of his passage was difficult, let alone divining a location.
Magic or technology spirited him away from that warehouse in Tokyo, so I should be able to find him through magic. With a last weary sigh she allowed the spell to fade away. And yet I am flummoxed at every turn. Something is blocking any kind of tracking through magical means, I simply cannot get a read on him. Could the technological devices we saw there have something to do with it? Regardless, we must resort to more normal means.
She hopped away motioning with her left arm to another Amazon, a middle aged woman who had been waiting patiently in one of the corners. "Has there been any luck finding out who owns that warehouse Lin En?"
Lin En, a middle aged woman with thick coke bottle glasses and cheerfully pudgy features nodded. She had never been a warrior yet her skills in diplomacy, reading and law were among the best in the tribe. She had long served as aide de camp to the entire council of elders, and Lore-mistress Lo Tion in particular. In other societies she would be termed a spymaster. "Yes War-mistress, the warehouse is subsidized to an American company. Delving further, our agents at the Japanese Embassy have given me a list of names containing some individuals that may be of interest in your search. I am researching them now, but so far only one would seem to be involved with the kind of technology you described in your report to the council."
Cologne refrained from scowling at the emphasis on the words 'your search'. Lo Tion had been quick to denounce her efforts to rein in Ranma on her return to the village, and a few other elders had joined her. Now the council stood divided, and her position as Matriarch was in peril. Only Ranma's own reputation in the area as the slayer of Saffron, which the rest of the council had learned in her absence to be the truth, and the amount of power adding his seed to the tribe would give them, had saved her from an even worse loss of face.
Shampoo too had been denounced as a failure, but in her case simply beating all her challengers in a single day had silenced them. Shampoo had been the best of her generation before she left, now she was nearly as good as a council Elder. She was still not looked on with favor but there was no longer talk about punishing her for her failure to bring back her husband. Cologne's own position was much more precarious because when she agreed to help Shampoo bring Ranma back she had staked her own reputation alongside her great-granddaughters' success. "Do you have any information about this one name you mention?"
Lin En took out a notebook and began to read aloud from it. "Name, Gina Diggers, known occupation, scientist/inventor, an American living in Atlanta Georgia, age 24. The Japanese government also has a note on her in their files as being some kind of 'adventurer', interested in archeology and history. She has two sisters and two parents, whose names are not part of the file. She also has several internationally recognized patents for technological devices."
Cologne frowned in thought. So son-in-law is most likely in America, but then why can't I scry him there? Damn it, America will be tricky on many levels.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her great granddaughter, who had been standing silently near the doorway. "So Airen could be in this Atlanta place in America, or at least a clue as to his whereabouts? Shouldn't we leave now grandmother, before the trail gets cold?"
"Silence child, I'm trying to think!" At Shampoos look of contrition she relented. Cologne had become more waspish since their return to the clan, but she had to control her temper. After all it was Lotion, not Shampoo she was truly angry at. "America is not like Japan child, with its respect for the old ways and its tradition of martial arts. America is very 'modern'", she spat the word contemptuously "and does not acknowledge our laws or our ways. The authorities there would never look the other way as those in Japan did. We will have to be swift, surgical. And you know as well as I do how likely that is against Ranma."
Indeed, since the fight at the school, Cologne had come to the conclusion that Ranma's skill was even greater than she had thought. No matter the price, we must have his seed for the tribe! A warrior with his blood and Shampoo's could make our tribe prominent again, we could possibly even conquer the entire region! "No, we must look elsewhere for aid in our hunt. I believe our cousins, the Amazons of Jade can help us here. They have more magic at their disposal than we. With some of their magic gates we can get into and out fast without arousing local opposition. And unfortunately that means I must go and speak once more to the council."
Shampoo sighed, not wanting more time to pass before leaving to hunt done her Airen, but having no way of going against her grandmothers wishes. If she knew her airen he had already attracted other girls to him, and that worried her. She had heard how loose American girls were after all, and her Airen, could fall for their wiles if she wasn't there. The irony in that line of thought never occurred to her.
That night the Amazon council met once again, and very quickly became divided into two camps once more. On the one hand there were those like Cologne who saw in Ranma's blood a chance for their tribe to become the power in the region. On the other, there was Lotion and her group, who were becoming increasingly concerned with how their chase of this young male was perceived by the outside world. Lotion put it as succinctly as possible in her rebuttal to Colognes demand to use the magic gate to travel to Jade. "The more and more we entangle ourselves with this Ranma, the more we show ourselves to the world. Our greatest protection has never been strength of arms, but anonymity, the hard terrain around us and our distance from the government of China. You are sacrificing that anonymity in your quest to bring this Ranma to heel! Now that he is in America this becomes even clearer. We cannot afford to have the Americans lodge a complaint with the Chinese. Our influence over the Communist Party has waned too much in recent years as it is! No matter how good our warriors are individually, they cannot stand against a modern army with guns, tanks and air support."
Cologne nodded, though inwardly she sneered at such a passive stance. "That is precisely why we need the help of the aid of our Jaden sisters. With their magic, we could get in and out of America easily, with no one in power there realizing what happened."
Lotion would have shot back immediately, but another elder, the heretofore neutral Rin-ser spoke up. "The problem I see Cologne is that you, our Matriarch, are making decisions that affect the entire tribe without thinking them through clearly. I understand we could capture the wild stallion quickly with the aid of our sisters, but what if they don't want to or refuse to help us? What if they demand payment? How much are we willing to give for their aid? I agree that Ranma's seed could help our tribe, but would it help us enough to cover the cost of obtaining it?"
Cologne was about to yell back but paused. Rinser's words carried a lot of weight because of her neutral stance, and her response had to convince the others. "I believe that Ranma's blood is that valuable, yes. Our sisters in Jade may demand payment, but surely his blood can also be used there. And I can use the money I and Shampoo made in Japan, as well as the treasures we liberated from the Phoenix Tribe and Happosai as down payment. In the end, I think the Amazons of Jade will agree to aid us. Are we not all sisters, daughters of the goddess Artemis?"
Rinser slashed a hand forward, forestalling Lotion once more. "Leave us Cologne. We will call you with our decision."
The other elders waited until Cologne left before turning to one another. Par-fume, another neutral elder scowled angrily. "All this fuss over a single male, honestly I think our dear Matriarch has lost her mind."
Det-ergent, one of Cologne's former supporters sighed. "I fear more and more you are correct. Cologne has lost the detachment necessary to make a proper decision about this. Ranma is important, but she has chased after him for so long that she has lost sight of all else. Could you see how fixated she is on it? She didn't even mention the Dragon's Vow, whose loss to my mind is far more important."
Lotion stayed silent, knowing that to speak up now would again polarize the council. This debate had to be about Cologne and the danger of her quest to the tribe, not about the ongoing wrangle for power between War-mistress and Lore-mistress that had been going on for decades.
Rinser, keeper of the treasures nodded agreement. "I agree with you there. I also have to wonder how many more treasures we would have now, wrested back from Happosai the thief, if she had immediately brought them back here. The Bracelet of Love Pills and the Nanban Mirror spring rather forcibly to mind. Both damaged beyond safe use. I wonder if they were so damaged before or after Cologne recovered them?"
The elders sat silent in thought. Truth to tell, Cologne had few friends and no real supporters on the council, despite what she thought. She had been gone too long, made too many bad decisions of late for it to be otherwise. But she was also too good a warrior, indeed by far the best warrior in the tribe for the elders to push her aside. She was also revered by the younger warriors in the tribe, many of whom looked to her for guidance and counsel over their own parents and grandparents.
After seeing no one else was going to break the silence, Lotion spoke up diffidently. "I have a suggestion that may serve the tribe in this." Her fellows looked at her and she went on. "Her position rests solely on her personal prowess and her chase of this Ranma, because of her aiding her granddaughter. Very well, let that chase judge her in our eyes. We send an observer with her, one of our number. If she continues in her destructive ways, that observer will have the authority to cut the tribes ties with her and her arrogant granddaughter then and there and make peace with Ranma in whatever way she deems fit. If Ranma has fought them she will be in no fit state to protest, and she will be far from here, unable to return easily or at all. And we will also have other warriors on hand to witness what has occurred. If Cologne succeeds, we back off and allow her to keep her position."
The elders looked at one another then nodded agreement. Banishment such as that might be harsh, but it was after all the only certain way they could depose Cologne from her position without starting a civil war within the tribe. Lotion smiled internally. She knew from studying him that win or lose, Ranma would never submit. Either this quest would end with no gain, and thus Cologne's warlike ways would be shown to be ineffective, or she would lose, and die. Either way, the tribe would be forced to change, and that was all to the good. Cologne and those like her, who refused to see others had rights or that technology had replaced magic in the world, had for too long stymied the tribe's potential growth.
Cologne was sent for and was informed Rinser would be accompanying her on the trip as an independent observer. She wasn't happy, but acquiesced to the council's decision.
The next day, Shampoo smiled happily, following her grandmother and the other elder eagerly into the council lodge at the head of a five woman party of other young warriors. Each of these warriors had been carefully chosen from the more calm and thoughtful of the younger set. The elders wanted the youngsters to see a bit of the world for themselves and to serve as witnesses to what would happen.
In the basement of the house, in a room accessible only by the Matriarch of the clan was a magic circle of esoteric and ancient design. When activated, it would allow communication and even transportation between Earth and Jade.
Cologne spent twenty minutes preparing the circle and chanting the incantation necessary to access it. Then she and Shampoo waited a few minutes more until the circle was fully powered. When it was, a door opened to another dimension, a large white gash in the center of the room, showing a wide open grove surrounded by trees and a few wooden houses of simple design rather than the darkness of the basement.
Cologne hopped forward, motioning Shampoo to follow behind. "Now remember child, these are our cousins here and we need their help. That means no challenges, speak only when spoken to and let me do the talking." Shampoo nodded reluctantly. She had hoped to show these weird Jaden Amazons why she was the champion of her village, but with her grandmother's edict, that wasn't possible. They weren't there for two minutes before the warriors of Earth could see some of their sisters coming out to greet them.
Dr. Peachbody wasn't the only scientist exploring the chronoverse. Two others May and Dr. Mita were another pair, though their mission in the chronoverse was far more benign than the dastardly dog's. They considered themselves time fixer-upper's, trying to repair or otherwise negate damage done to the time stream by other time travelers.
Not that both of them were equally enthused on the mission they were doing right now. May, a young meta-human with decent martial arts skills and tremendous physical strength, acted as the bodyguard of the two, and was particularly put out. "Tonight's movie night Mita," she whined "Can't this wait, I mean come on we're time travelers, anything that goes wrong can be fixed anytime we darn well feel like it."
"Not if it happens in the chronoverse itself May" Mita, a slightly older woman in a stern business suit replied. "The chronoverse gives us direct access to any time, but there is no traveling backward or forward through the time in the chronoverse itself, which means that anything that happens in the chronoverse is given top priority."
In front of their highly advanced time machine was a sphere of time energy. Unlike the bubbles, which didn't interact with the rest of the time universe, this ball of chaotic time was warping things and changing the surrounding area, casuing ripples of distortion, like ripples in a pond.
"It's bigger than when I first detected it!" Mita said worriedly "its warping and stretching the fabric of time around it, if it gets much bigger it could tear all time and space apart!"
May muttered "icky" under her breath, as if her friend was just talking about something that would make a really mess rather than destroy all time and space, showing that she really didn't understand what was going on. She was around to hit things that was about it.
"We have to prevent it from growing any further. The antigravity engines on our time craft should be up to the task, if it's not too big all already." Mita muttered, looking at some of the readings on her computer.
Suddenly a strange voice interrupted her monologue. "I wouldn't do that if I were you!"
"Who said that?" Mita asked looking around wildly.
May was already pointing at something outside their ship, her eyes wide with surprise. "Ms. Mita I could be wrong but I think the dog that just pulled up next to us in that ship over there said it. You don't see that every day."
Dr. Peachbody ignored the younger girl, addressing his words to the older woman. "that time warp disturbance must be destroyed, at its source, or else you're simply solving the symptom, not the problem. I am out Dr. Alfred Steiner Peachbody. This is my friend Benji. We are time explorers from the future."
Benji on the other hand, had his attention firmly fixed on May. His face was suffused with a small flash and he whispered to Peachbody "Dr., that girl with the things in her hair, she's cute. Can I have her?"
Dr. Peachbody replied "Not now boy sit, heel!" For some reason May felt a shiver run down her back, but it disappeared so fast she thought she had imagined it.
"I'm Mita and this is May, we too are explorers in time but what do you know about this time warp and will you help us get rid of it?"
"We will help you get rid of the time warp but you have to trust us. We have been it examining this time warp for some time now."
"Very well Dr. Peachbody" Mita replied after a moment's thought, "what do we have to do?"
Inside Dr. Peachbody was doing cartwheels at how gullible the other time traveler was, but outside he maintained his serious and professional mien. This was his chance to not only get his hand on more time travel technology, but to also shut down Gina and her access to the chronoverse. "In the twentieth century, there is a bright young female human who is a rather eclectic scientist, however one of her creations, her warp field device is creating this time distortion and she's not aware of its horrible consequences. You must go there and ask her to shut it down, and if she doesn't, you must force her to shut it down. I will remain here, I must continue to monitor the time warp. If we act quickly we can save the time stream before any permanent damage is done."
Mita nodded seriously. "I understand Dr. Peachbody just give us the scientist's named, address and time coordinates, and we'll leave immediately.
"Certainly, the time and place are Atlanta Georgia, late twentieth century and the name is Gina diggers."
In the two days since the doggie doodoo, as Ranma called the time incident, there had been a lot of progress made on the various projects of the people in the Digger's household. Nabiki had figured out whatever she wanted, and was now writing up a proposal of some kind for the military. Gina never worked directly with the military, but so long as she had veto power over the plans her friend sold to them she was ok with it.
Her own project was going very well too. She had designed a series of hyperspace engines that could get them to Aebra faster than the ones Strype was using. She made certain of this by looking at the designs left over in Atlantis, another city that had once been a ship, and making sure that her design could outperform them in every way. Once they had a ship these engines could get them to Aebra a day or maybe two after Strype arrived. Of course building them would take a week or two, but her robots could handle that easily enough. Penny was already building the ship, thus spreading the workload out and halving the time before they could leave.
Right now, Gina was trying to build a sensor that would work in hyperspace, just in case the danger Strype's message to Brit mentioned could find them in hyperspace. Brit ried to take off her worries by trying to help, but was failing miserably. She just didn't understand tools at all. She looked up from her attempts to figure out the organization of her big sisters tool box, her ears pricking up. "What's that?"
"What is it Brit?" said Gina, looking up from where she was working on her sensor equipment.
"we've got company coming," the werecheetah replied.
"oh "Gina said "It's only Ryan, he said he was coming over." Gina was of two minds about her erstwhile boyfriend. On the one hand he was being much more attentive, coming over every day to hang out with her. But on the other hand she wasn't certain if this was a sign he was taking their relationship more seriously, or because he wanted to make certain nothing funny was going on between her and Ranma. His antagonism towards Ranma was apparent whenever the two were in the same room. Ranma could feel it, but Kasumi had sat on him firmly and made him not start anything with the older boy. At least not in the house, if Ryan wanted to fight they could take it outside. Ryan hadn't pushed it that far yet. More, Gina had decided that as fun as it was to embarrass Ranma, he really wasn't boyfriend material, so she didn't need big bad Ryan to come to her rescue.
"Not that" Brit growled, "Look at the ceiling."
Gina looked up and saw what she was talking about immediately. "Oh I see it now, Britney some kind of portal is forming. I thought you meant the doorbell."
The portal suddenly widen and out popped a young teenage girl dressed in a rather cutesy outfit shouting at the top of her lungs and trying to do an ax kick straight down toward Brit. Cheetah replied to this by simply opening a floor locker and letting the girl fall straight through closing after she passed. "I never thought these floor locker things would be so useful," she said, chuckling.
A rather exasperated voice sounded from above her and she looked up again. "I do apologize for my companion." Another unknown young woman said. Unlike the last one, she was dressed in a serious business suit with a large bow tie around her neck, and was sliding down a poll coming out of the portal rather than attacking. "May can be overzealous at times, and I also must apologize for this intrusion, but my cause is dire!"
Brianna let go of the device she was holding, surreptitiously reached into her pocket space. Ranma had just finished teaching her and Brit how to use this a week ago and already it had proven its worth many times over. Brianna in particular made use of it more and more, she now had a whole arsenal in there! Whatever this woman wanted she was going be prepared.
Gina on the other hand, was much more concerned with the propriety. "Who are you" she asked glaring a little at their visitor "and what's so important that you couldn't use the front door?" If she wanted people to just pop in unannounced she'd never have installed the special ringtone doorbell in the first place. Did anyone even know how long it took to design and build a doorbell that looked normal but that could take your fingerprint and use a previously chosen ring for each visitor? Honestly.
"I am Mita Salonis, a time traveler." The serious looking woman pulled out a small handheld oval, over which an image appeared. "This is a holographic image taken from a camera aboard my vessel. I'll show you what's wrong, and my dimensional door can't open to your door, sorry it just can't pick out a place that exactly." She gestured to the picture. "This time warp is forming because of the strange energies radiating from your warp field generator Gina. If you don't shut it off it could
"hold on," Gina interrupted looking at the device, "What's that on the edge there of the warp area." In the picture doctor doggie and his attack-boy stood. "Oh no, it's that time travelling mutt again."
"0h yes he's a friend Gina, he's helping us save the universe."
Gina turned to stare at her. "Oh yeah" she said drolly, "what the heck's Benji doing with that big gun then?"
The extremely naïve older woman replied "W-wait, what? It looks like a disrupter of some kind but I don't… I don't understand. He fired it. Indeed in the holo the attack-boy had fired what looked like a wide green beam out of the rifle-like gun he was holding. "The warp is now disrupting the time stream. This disruption is sure to prevent me and May from returning to the chronoverse!"
Gina patted her arm commiserating. "I take it you weren't expecting this?"
May shook her head fiercely. "He tricked us. We try to return now our atoms would be scattered all over time. We have to switch off your warp field device Gina if we disrupt the time warp the destruction we'll stop that as well."
Gina shook her head, "Mita, my warp field device doesn't generate a time warp the mutt knows that. Think about it, it doesn't make sense to send you into a trap with the means to get out, he was hoping you would cut off my limited means of time travel as well as marooning you here."
Brianna scowled. "I bet the mutt is responsible for creating that time warp in the first place." She turned around to her other sister. "Brit better let our guest out anyway."
"Gina my situation is very grim. My existence in real-time is best described as a paradox for I live in the chronoverse. The only way I am able to be here now is because of this paradox cloaking device I wear on my wrist. Without it I vanish from existence forever and its batteries are getting low and the batteries can only be recharged in the chronoverse."
Brit looked up at all of them from where she had lifted the floor locker lid. "We got some more bad news ladies, your little helper found her own way out." Inside the floor locker was revealed a huge hole in the floor, where May had forced her way out to the floor below.
"Oh no, she's going to switch off your warp field device Gina, if she does there is nothing to prevent Dr. Peachbody from permanently sealing off the chronoverse to all save himself!"
On the level below Gina and her friends May looked down at the young man she had landed on. "Er, sorry cutey, just passing through you know, nothing to see here." She said nervously, hoping she wouldn't have to fight him, he was just far too hot to hurt.
Ranma looked up at the girl sitting on his chest, then past her to the hole the girl had made in the ceiling. Next to him Hutrz was keeping a careful eye on the trespasser. "Uh-huh. Look, are you going to fix that or what?"
May got off of him, inching away slowly. "Um no?"
Before she could move Ranma was up off the ground holding her wrist in a grip of steel. "Sorry girl, but around here we fix what we break." Ranma and Hurtz had learned that lesson a few days ago when they accidently smashed the side of the house. They spent the rest of the day and well into the night fixing it.
May sighed, "Sorry cutey, but I've got a mission to complete for the sake of, well everything!" Suddenly her free hand was holding a grenade, which she flipped into Ranma's face, and he reflexively let go of her to try and catch the thing before he realized what it was, at which point he jumped away, transforming to his more durable werelion form. Hutrz had already dodged back around the corridor.
The explosion still blew Ranma back and through another wall into lab number ten, the newest and most empty of Gina's labs thankfully. Ranma groaned a little, pushing off some debris from the wall and looking down at his shredded shirt, his werecat form already healing from the damage, slower than most werecats would, but still faster than his normal body. "Damn it, I lose more shirts that way." He looked around at the hole in the wall, and then the hole in the ceiling, debating on whether to chase the girl down or start fixing her mess. If he didn't he just knew that someone would blame him for it. Still, work or hunt down a fight? Hurtz came around the bend, looking around for the intruder and then back to the damage she had caused. "User, Ranma, should this unit initiate repairs on corridor and ceiling, or join you in hunting down the intruder?" His core programming was inconclusive on the subject. HIs original programming would have had him chase after the intruder, but he had learned that none of his users liked damage to their home, so fixing things had become a priority in his programming, especially since user Kasumi had frowned at him. There was something terrible about that frown. Ranma shrugged, "I think we should both go after her, she may not be the only one around here y'know. His piece said, Ranma sped off down the corridor in the direction the girls scent told him she was going. Hurtz nodded, the repair robots could do their job rather than him this time, that was after all what they were created for, whereas he could choose what to put his hands to. This just goes to show that even among robots there is a social hierarchy, and Hurtz considered himself and his brethren at the top of it.
By the time he caught up to her she was already at her destination, but Brit had caught up with her first. As he got there both girls, looked up from their smack talk to stare at him, and suddenly paused. Brit turned away quickly, blushing hotly at the sight of Ranma standing there in his werecat form shirtless. His pheromones really affected her body way too much. Luckily they both knew it and went out of their way to not be around one another if he was in his were-from. The other girl just stared, drool dripping from her mouth and a blush rising to her face as for a moment she completely forgot about why she was there in the first place.
Ranma spotted Brit and immediately turned back to his normal body. "Er, sorry Brit, um, you can just grab her now y'know, she looks likes she's daydreaming or somethin'."
Brit nodded rapidly, though her own body had yet to calm down, and she turned, nipples still hard enough to poke out of her tight t-shirt and make Ranma blush as Cheetah grabbed for the younger girl. Hurtz moved around Ranma to aid user Brittany. Once they had her contained, they could let Mita explain everything to her.
Before she could however Dr. Peachbody appeared via a teleport beam right next to May. "We must escape May, everything has gone wrong!" He said dramatically "Mita was captured and now their defenses are up. I wasn't able to save her, but I can still save you! We must retreat back to the chronoverse!" With that the two disappeared.
At that moment Mita and Gina arrived on the scene with Gina. "Where's May?" The older woman had much more control than Gina, who was trying hard not to stare at Ranma as he pulled out a spare shirt from weapon-space. She pouted as her view was obscured, turning back to the conversation.
Brit replied "Dr Peachbody came and got her, I think she thinks it thinks it's on her side! My question is why was she going to destroy our hyper wave dishwasher, did she think that was the warp field device?" Ranma looked on, completely lost.
Brianna shrugged, "I'm just glad she didn't do it. Kasumi would've been most put out to go back to using the regular washing machine, this one is so much faster." Brit, Ranma, Brianna and Gina all shivered. "An upset Kasumi was a scary thing, especially to Brit and Brianna. For the others it meant doing their own laundry or no morning special times, but to the two were-girls, it meant no tuna, a truly horrible thought!
Mita ignored them however, concentrating on the readings her small scanner was giving her. "If Peachbody could circumvent the disruption between the chronoverse and real space so can I," she muttered.
With the diabolical dog and his minions, the good doctor was trying to put as bad a spin on things as he could. He wondered who the young man he saw was, but decided he was probably unimportant, just a bodyguard of some kind for the Diggers, just like the android, though he thought they had chosen a day where Gina had taken her hurtbots offline... "Things have gotten worse made much, much worse! While you were gone the warp field device owned by Gina Diggers malfunctioned. It is still generating the time warp but even larger, the time warp is now making distortions of doomsday proportions!
"Dr. Peachbody we have to rescue Mita, she can help us fix this!"
"We don't have time May! Remember problems here in the chronoverse must be solved quickly, we don't have time to spare. I have created a plan to save the universe but I need your help and access to your time craft's computers!"
"But-but-but, Mita said to never give anyone else access to our time tech!" May dithered.
"May please!" the dog pleaded, using the dreaded puppy dog eyes on her. Normally someone like him couldn't pull it off, after all, what evil being could, but he was a dog after all. "The universe will end if you don't trust me please May!"
The young girl was unable to mount enough will to fight back against the evil doggie eyes, and nodded, hitting some buttons on her wrist computer. "There, you're clear for access, just hurry."
"Thank you may and now that I possess time traveling technology that surpasses all others I think I can solve our problem." Initially he had planned to ditch the girl here in hopes of drawing out one of the Diggers and weakening their defense, but given the young man and the Diggers hurtbots, one of whom had also shown up by the time he collected the foolish girl, he needed something larger to draw them all off. This way he could also get rid of others who could get into the chronoverse.
Dr. Peachbody used the power of his news ships antigravity engines to control the properties of the time warp and neutralize it completely until he needed again. "There, the threat is gone for now." As May looked at the space where the warp had been he furtively manipulated the engines again, creating a much smaller warp in the same space. "But this is only a stop gap solution, we must stop Gina's and anyone else's experiments from the same time frame. They seem to be reacting badly to one another, and we need to shut them all down."
May nodded grimly while Benji looked simply confused as he went on. "I have localized another Dr. who has been meddling in time, and what's better he may be an ally of the Diggers. If you attack him, they will go to his aid and Benji and I will be able to destroy Gina's time warp device and rescue Mita at the same time." He gestured and Benji handed the girl some small, spherical bombs, flushing at the contact.
"But Dr., why don't I rescue Mita while you attack this other place?"
Peachbody thought quickly then thought up some great bullshit to feed her. He'd gotten a lot of practice doing so recently. "Because my dear you already teleported into the Digger's home, their anti-teleport/dimensional rift defense won't let you through again, but Benji can get through and grab Mita for us." Benji nodded, not understanding anything but knowing the doctor had said his name.
May blinked. "Oh, that makes sense. Well in that case, I'm good to go right now."
"Excellent!" Dr. Peachbody manipulated the time travelling device again, and a small rift appeared. "You'll be heading to this time, about twenty years prior to where we were before. Destroy Dr. Azland's lab and draw the Diggers attention. We'll pick you up as soon as we have Mita, and the problem will be over!" Mita nodded seriously, face set, and walked through the portal.
Dr. Peachbody waited a few minutes after the girl left before breaking out into evil villain laugh # 5, 'so, you've tricked the forces of good into doing your evil deeds for you'. After a while he stopped and turned to Benji. "Now, on to phase 2 of my conquest of the chronoverse!"
In real time Gina had just devised a way to stare into the chronoverse and watched as the distortion disappeared. "I can't tell you how embarrassing this is Gina, Dr. Peachbody completely tricked me. And with me having an IQ of 188 being duped by a canine doesn't do much for the ego."
Gina shrugged. She, Brit and Brianna had stayed in the lab to work on getting back May while Ranma and Hurtz had been ordered to fix the damage mya had done to the lab. Kasumi was already preparing dinner, and none of them wanted to be late. Brit however growled. "Tell me about it the mutt almost outsmarted me and Gina right out of existence a few days ago, if it wasn't for Brianna we'd have been done right there. We have to take him out once and for all sis, he's two dangerous and at this rate, we'll never finish the spaceship or catch up with Strype, whose light years away by now!"
Brit really didn't understand how much better the hyperspace engine Gina had devised were in comparison to the ones from El Dorado, and Gina had decided not to try and explain. With how worried her little sister was, the explanation wouldn't have done any good. "You don't see me disagreeing do you? Right now we… wait I've picked up something on the viewer. What they saw was May entering a new portal. Gina looked around worriedly and Mita frowned. "Oh no, what has that dog tricked May into doing now?"
Gina took a moment to look at the coordinate. "She was sent to Proffessor Azland, a doctor who specializes in history and time travel over in Quagmire, and about fifty years back. We've met him a time or two, a bit too serious for my tastes, but his time machine tech is pretty good. Dr. Peachbody must have tricked your friend into attacking and destroying his work."
"Leave that to us!" Brit said eagerly, anything to get her mind of her muffin. "You big brains stay here we'll get May back and you can explain everything to her then."
"yeah," Brianna chimed in "and hopefully we can find Peachbody, I want to show him some of my new pulson missiles. We'll take the ginamobile over there right now." Gina looked at her more combative sisters and nodded.
"Don't forget to work on that sensey thingie while we're gone Gina," Brit growled. Gina rolled her eyes, honestly how much work could she get done with Peachbody back and taking shots at them. Oh well, she put Brit's words out of her mind for now, and turned back to the computer with May.
Above them Ryan huffed in annoyance as he pushed the doorbell once again, rolling his eye as the musical chorus of 'Before he cheats' rang out. He wondered if Gina was trying to tell him something, but then shook the thought off. Finally after waiting forty minutes or more someone opened the door. He scowled seeing it was Genn and not Gina, but still asked. "Gina's here right, she said she would be here all day and I thought I'd come by and hang out or help or something, but I've been waiting hear for nearly an hour."
Genn shrugged, pulling up the towel draped around his body. "Sorry Ryan, I was in the shower. Séance is over with Nabiki at the main house, and Gina and the others are all down in the labs. They must not have heard the doorbell." Genn let Ryan in and Ryan went down alone. Normally Genn would have shown him the way to where Gina was working, but there were two problems with that. One was the fact he was dressed only in a towel, and he knew his monogender body made Ryan uneasy. The other was Ranma and his insane aura. Normally someone with as powerful an aura as Ranma had would be like a veritable smorgasbord for a rahkshasa, but not in Ranma's case. hIs aura was so chaotic and messed up it was like being near a psychedelic strobe light, and Genn liked more calm auras, like Séance's. Then too, he had seen some of Ranma's memories, and being near his aura made him remember them, which was not something anyone sane wanted.
Ryan made his way down the stairs and found the freak and one of Gina's hurtbots helping two repair bots to fix up some damage to the hallway. "Yo, you two know where Gina is?" As long as Ranma wasn't around Gina, Ryan was prepared to be somewhat polite.
Ranma looked over at the muscle bound adventurer and shrugged. Really he didn't like Ryan, but Kasumi and Nabiki had both warned him not to make things worse, so he didn't respond to the other mans' provocations. Then too, it wasn't like he liked Gina that way, so that removed the main bone of contention between them. He twitched his head down the left corridor, both his hands occupied holding up a slab of metal that one or the repair bots was welding into place. "Down in lab five or four I think. We had a bit of an issue a few minutes ago, and she and a new friend are hunting down Dr. Barky somehow." He sighed wishing that he had gone with Brit and Brianna, that way he might have gotten in some fighting. But he and Brit made it a point to get way from one another as soon as they could if he had been in his werelion form around her. It just made things easier between him and his friend. Suddenly he turned, and Ryan paused next to him. "Somethin's up." Ranma muttered.
Hurtz cocked his head, shunting more power to his ears. "This unit does not detect any new intrusions user Ranma."
Ranma's eyes narrowed, and he held up an arm barring Ryan's way. "Humor me, my 'fight' sense is tinglin. Ryan you head to the armory and grab a gun just in case, and you Hurtz, get some o' yer brothers up."
Gina scowled as she once more marked down a time that showed a temporal distortion with May's help. "Good-googily moogily, there's another one, that makes four places so far. What the heck is Peachbody up to?"
Mya shrugged, looking worried. "I don't know but somehow I think his using may to target a era we could enter was a bit too convenient for us."
An unwanted voice answered her from above them. "Yes, it was, wasn't it."
Gina looked up and groaned aloud at seeing Peachbody and Benji hovering above them in a new time machine that must have been Mita's by the way she was growling and looking around for something to throw at the duo. The dog gloated, another law of the evil code that had to be obeyed, while Benji at his nod dropped five small sphere into the room below. "I expected Britney or Brianna to after May but not both" he said, chuckling evilly "ladies you make it so easy!":
"Peachbody you mangy mutt give me back my time craft!" Mita growled.
"Finders keepers my dear" Peachbody sing songed, "Such fine handling, such decision control, my compliments. Gina Diggers time traveling technology cannot compare and since it's of no use to me, it must be destroyed. As for me I'm off to tie up a few loose ends. Farewell ladies." The crime craft disappeared at the same time the small spheres Benji dropped opened. Out popped carbon copies of several monsters from antiquity, a gargoyle, a minotaur, a golem and troll.
"Peachbody's biosynthetic weapons," Gina gasped backing away with Mita, wondering if she could get to the alarm installed by the door.
Mita wasn't handling it nearly as well. "Gina do you have any defense systems in this lab, please say yes!"
As the three monster's began to destroy Gina's lab they were interrupted by a voice from the doorway. "Now see, this is why you should listen to me Hurtz. I told ya somethin' was going on and here it is."
Gina and her new friend turned and gasped in relief, seeing Ranma and Hurtz step into the lab, followed by three more hurtbots and Ryan armed with a Brianna special™. "Ranma these guys are friends of Peachbody! They're here to wreck my lab!" Gina yelled out in relief.
Ranma grinned cracking his neck. "I get the minotaur. I got's a bone to pick with that shape."
Hurtz nodded. "Affirmative. Units 02, 05, protect Mistress Gina and guests. Unit 09 work with guest Ryan on the monster on the left. This unit will take the right."
Ranma grinned. He cracked his neck explosively and suddenly to the others it appeared as if he had disappeared. Ranma reappeared in the air in front of the towering minotaur's face, lashing out with a kick so fast that even Ryan couldn't track it. With an explosive *crack!* The minotaur was sent sprawling backwards, minus one of its horns, which cart-wheeled away into the lab.
For a moment both sides stood still, surprised by the speed of Ranma's assault, then Hurtz zipped forward to engage the Cyclops on the right and everyone else followed suit.
What followed was swift, brutal and entirely one-sided. Fierce the monsters might have been but they were no match for Gina's hurtbots or Ryan armed with some of Brianna's latest guns. And Ranma simply demolished the minotaur using it like some grotesque punching bag. As it lay there he stood over it giggling evilly, creeping everyone around him out for a few minutes.
Afterwards, the lab was in shambles, but most of the equipment was still intact, and Ranma shook herself out of her memories, turning to grin over to Gina and the others. Gina grinned back. Her lab was still intact, and with it both her computers with all her designs and her time space technology, and a way to track Peachbody down.
End chapter
Sorry to those who thought I could put the entire arc in one chapter, but I had to split it up, so much was going on and as it is I think I shortchanged some of the scenes. Next chapter, what happened to Brit and Brianna when they went over to Quagmire and the conclusion of the Peachbody arc. I also wanted to put in the part about Cologne as I didn't want too much more time to pass before we heard from her. Next chapter will be out on Sunday, not Saturday like normal, as I won't be able to work on my stories Friday like I normally would.