Arc and Ki

by Miklagaard

A certain mysterious and beautiful Japanese redhead comes knocking at Tony Stark's Malibu mansion with insights into an equally mysterious power. Pepper has concerns, but Tony was sure this would be amazing anyway because: Redhead! Which ever way it played out... it was going to be one hell of a ride.

3. Employment Benefits

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan-fiction and no ownership of any intellectual property is claimed or implied. Quotes from original sources are included, but rather than disrupt the flow of the story, I will acknowledge them in general here. All instances of irony are likely intentional.

Note: I'm tackling this story as an R-rated version of the MCU, and a slightly steamier form of the Ranma ½ manga. Nothing really explicit, but the 'M' rating is deliberate. If you are concerned by mildly sexual situations, be warned. If you binge-watch Game of Thrones, this will seem hopelessly tame to you.

Also note: I added some comments to the end of the previous chapter, in case anyone is interested.

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(Chapter theme song: It's So Easy - Guns 'N' Roses)

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Harold 'Happy' Hogan was a man long used to unusual tasks. Over a decade as Tony Stark's driver and bodyguard had ensured that. He occasionally joked with his friend and employer that it was lucky he wasn't much of an author, considering the volumes and volumes of tell-all books he could write. Though the truth was that Mr. Stark had nothing to worry about. Even if Hogan had any kind of literary bent, gratitude would stop him, if nothing else.

Hogan greatly appreciated the fact that he had a career that was far more lucrative than most third-rate retired boxers could expect. It was certainly a hell of a lot safer over all than getting punched in the head repeatedly, despite his role as a bodyguard. There had been some dangerous moments here and there, true, but 99.9% of the time it was just palling around with his smaller, smarter friend and watching out for him to make sure his antics didn't get himself killed. For that matter, he'd done riskier stuff for free as a kid with his friends, watching out for them the same way, and they'd called it having a good time. Now he had an even better time and got paid for it. Not to say his job was exactly a non-stop party, but there was a hell of a lot more entertainment than a typical nine-to-five would have. It more than made up for the strange things he had to put up with. Especially nowadays that he was seeing some upward mobility to boot.

Today was a good example of both entertainment and weirdness. Hogan stood at the top of the boarding ramp that led to one of Stark Industries's private, supersonic jets with a thermos of hot water in hand. His task was to smuggle a teenager back to Japan just so that same kid could ride back, officially this time, after dealing with some legal issues. The smuggling part honestly rated a two at best on his weird-o-meter, but the particular young woman in question raised it to a five at least.

Happy may have requested a chance to be more than Iron Man's surplus bodyguard, but that didn't mean he wouldn't have been pissed if some random babe took over his current job even with the promotion, no matter how good-looking she was. Fortunately, Tony (with prompting from Pepper) had thought to send video proof to show just why he thought the new girl would be an adequate replacement. It had been astonishing to see her battle his boss in his armor, using almost all his weapons, and still pulling off a draw while wearing nothing but a swimsuit... or less. The wardrobe malfunction had been quite the highlight until Stark... buddy that he was... had told him that Saotome was officially seventeen for a couple more days. And the guy had specifically waited until after Hogan watched the clips of the sexy redhead and made full use of the pause and zoom features before oh-so-kindly passing that little fact along. Thank God JARVIS had scrambled the really naughty bits before they were shown to him. God or Pepper Potts.

Sadly, Hogan had to expect that the weirdness probably wasn't limited to what he'd been told so far. Tony had been too gleefully secretive for him to think otherwise. There was some sort of prank in the offing, and he'd bet the strange order about the hot water was part of it. He couldn't imagine what it was. Couldn't be a cheap plot to get his ass kicked by pissing off the super-human girl since his instructions specifically were to ask before splashing her. Shaking his head, he dismissed the trademarked scowl that had earned him his nickname 'Happy' as one of the reasons he was glad to make this sudden trip came up to him, looked out over the sunny tarmac, and asked: "Any sign of our passenger?"

Hogan turned to Trixie, the brunette of the big dark eyes and cherubic smile and gave his best attempt at a debonair smile as he answered her. "Pretty sure the point is we won't see Saotome coming until the last second. We have a few minutes before the time we were told," he told the attractive flight attendant. Well... flight attendant was her job description, but she had the tightly tailored dark blue uniform, jaunty cap, and high-heels of a Sixties-style stewardess, and the regular flight attendants were not letting her into their union any time soon. She and her co-workers were the entertaining part of today's work, though the person they were waiting for might put a crimp in that.

"Eto...?" a hesitant, feminine voice spoke up behind them.

"Jee-sus," Happy exclaimed as he jumped and turned around. Trixie squeaked in surprise as she startled too.

"Uh... sorry," the tiny, but gorgeous redhead wearing some Asian-style clothes he couldn't name apologized. "Hi? Supposed to say: 'I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once...?'"

"Jeez," the ex-boxer clutched his chest and took a deep breath to calm down. "And... whoa!" he had to comment as he took in the uniquely attractive young woman. He'd seen plenty of beautiful women over the years of being Stark's protector, but there was something about the Japanese teen that seemed... extra. She seemed radiant, almost, even just standing casually in poorly fitted men's clothing. A nudge from his companion got Hogan back on track. He rolled his eyes and finished the Bruce Lee quote Tony had insisted on as a lame cloak-and-dagger passphrase. "'But I fear the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times.' Ranma Saotome, right?" Trixie also smiled at the newcomer in welcome.

"Hai. By the way, if meet karateka who practiced 10,000 kicks 10,000 times... run away if they get mad."

Hogan snorted. "Good advice. Now how the hell did you get past me?" He was a big guy, and he filled up the doorway rather thoroughly, so sneaking by was impossible. Especially since she had a big backpack propped up beside her.

"Went up the hole the wheel comes out. Snuck inside," Ranma explained, pointing to an open panel in the interior of the plane. Though she left out a rather critical detail she had no intention of revealing yet.

"Ooookay," the bodyguard drawled. "You only needed to get as far as Stark Aviation unseen. You could have walked up the rest of the way like a normal person."

"'Normal?'" She shrugged. "I don't do 'normal' too good."

"Riiight." He gently urged the flight attendant in with a hand on her shoulder, then closed the door and secured it. "Kid, this is Trixie," he introduced. "Trixie, this is your other passenger today, Ranma Saotome. But first..." He unscrewed the cap of the thermos, showing a hint of steam as the cap came loose.

"Oh! Hot water?" Ranma's attitude brightened as she realized what he had. "Is OK to have now?" As much as it had become a point of pride for her to not care if she was in her female form in the last few months, much like it was a point of pride to be no more body-conscious as a girl than as a guy, she'd been having a few doubts about the always-girl-on-the-clock stipulation of the job offered her. Yes, it had been her choice to accept, and yes, she'd have all the guy time she wanted outside of work, and yes there was a ridiculous amount of money at stake, but she was still leery of the requirement after having time to think it over.

It was a little embarrassing to admit it, but the fact was that she'd gone along with the idea without thinking after getting slapped in the face with unimaginably large stacks of cash. She really didn't want to have any sympathy for the idiot magic-shopkeepers who kept handing extremely annoying or outright dangerous items to a loon like Kuno just because he threw money around, but... she'd kind of done the same thing herself, hadn't she? Well, at least Stark was an actual hero in the real world and not just in his delusions like Kuno.

For that matter, even Kuno hadn't been waving around millions of yen like it was nothing. He sure as hell wasn't offering enough to give someone a hundred-million yen nest-egg after just five or so years. Her needs weren't that great, so she'd bet she could quit and do nothing but martial arts for the rest of her life with that much money saved.

"Yeah..." Happy slowly answered the enthusiastic request, taken aback at her eagerness and even more certain he was about to be the butt of some joke of his employer's. "Tony said he doesn't care as long as he's not here to see it... whatever the hell that means." With that, he handed over the thermos and prudently stepped back, pressing Trixie back with his arm as he did so, making her even more confused. He had no idea what was about to happen, but years in his current job gave him an instinct to avoid side-scatter.

Taking in the caution the large man was displaying, Ranma hastened to assure them: "This not bad. Not dangerous. Just weird. Not believe until you see. Ready?"

"Can't you just tell us before you do whatever you're going to do?" Trixie sensibly pointed out. Happy nodded to show his agreement.

"Uh... OK. That make sense," Ranma conceded. Frowning a moment, she admitted: "Don't think I ever warned anybody before. Usually just happens and they see. Maybe Tony's head not go strange when he see, if warn," she conceded with more enthusiasm. "OK. I turn into guy."

There was a long pause as the two American's stared at her. "What?" Happy finally said.

"Hot water." She pointed to the thermos. "It make me guy when splashed. Cold water make me girl."

Another long moment later, Trixie asked: "Do you mean it makes you feel like a guy, or...?"

A little frustrated, Ranma shook her head and elaborated: "Mean it make me guy! Make these go away," she hefted one of her breasts through her shirt. "Make this come back," she made an expanding cupping gesture at her crotch. "Guy!"

Yet again there wasn't an immediate response, and Ranma's agitation grew as the other two's expressions revealed increasing suspicion she was crazy. "That's bullshit," Happy, finally said. "What's the real reason-?" He was interrupted when Ranma rolled her eyes and slung some hot water into her own face. "HOLY SHIT!" The big man's bellow was loud enough that the flight crew would have come running if it weren't for the extensive sound-proofing of the cabin. Ranma was now male, black-haired, and considerably taller... though still five inches short of Happy's 6'1". Hogan tensed up, almost falling into a boxing stance, looking like he was ready to go any direction once he gained a hint of what to do.

To her credit, Trixie didn't scream, but she definitely squeaked again and wobbled on her high-heels before stumbling completely. Before she could fall, Ranma seemed to teleport over to catch her. "Sorry! Didn't mean to scare!" he apologized again while making sure she was steady on her feet again. "I'm still Ranma, though!"

"That's... oh," she got a better feel of the muscles of the shoulders she had grabbed in reflex. "Hello there," she murmured while absently getting her balance back. She then touched his face where the hot water still lingered. It matched what the redheaded Ranma seemed to splash herself with, but it was still hard to believe. "You're really the same person?" she checked.

"Holy shit!" Happy exclaimed again.

"Yeah. Same Ranma," the young man declared.

"This is... you change with cold water, too?" Trixie echoed the previous, short explanation.

"Yeah. Back to girl. Was born boy, but got cursed."

"Holy shit!" Happy kept saying the same words, but the tone changed as he realized he'd been studying the pictures of someone who was a guy... sort-of? ...a little too closely earlier. Even though Tony had added pixelation, they'd still been some pretty spectacular shots of a nude, teen-aged... boy? Ugh. Well, he knew some kind of prank had been on the way. Even as he shuddered internally, Hogan was grateful only Tony and Pepper knew about that part.

"I think... I think I'll need to see that again," Trixie said apologetically.

"Me changing? Yeah, not first time somebody say that." He shook the thermos to gauge the amount left in it. "If have cold water somewhere, can show few times."

Before Hogan could say 'holy shit' again, the intercom nearby beeped and hissed before the voice of the pilot could be heard. "Mr. Hogan? What's the word on the flight? Are we a go?"

Shaken out of his shock only partially, Happy blindly groped for the button while continuing to stare at his coworker-to-be before pushing it and saying: "Uh... yeah. Yeah, the last... person showed up. We're good to go. Set things up with the tower and take off as soon as possible."

"Thanks. We're on it." The pilot sounded a bit curious about Hogan's shaky tone, but refrained from asking questions with the ease of long practice.

After the notice had been received, Hogan gawked at Ranma for a bit longer and said: "Holy shit! What the hell was that?"

"Curse," Ranma told them again. "Hot water boy, cold water girl."

"Holy shit!"

Ranma turned to the woman who was still clinging to him. "He say that lots."

Trixie shook her head and stepped away to stand on her own. She regained her professional aplomb as she straightened her uniform, and said: "That's to be expected. Fragility of the male mind, and all. Shall I guide you to the passenger cabin, err... sir?"

"Hey!" Hogan knew when he was being teased, and didn't exactly appreciate it. "My mind isn't any kind of fragile! I've seen a lot of weird shit in this job and handled it like a pro! I've seen bushes goddamn explode themselves...!"

"Wait. You know Pinku and Rinku?" Ranma interrupted.

"What?! No! What?" Shaking off the derailment, Hogan continued: "Whatever! Point is: I've never seen anything like this before! Definitely at least an eight on the weird-o-meter! It's just a little surprising, OK?"

"You're surprised? How you think I feel?" Ranma said with some amused exasperation. Trixie started giggling, but she managed to stifle it after a moment. She pressed her lips together firmly, though her wide eyes showed how amused she was. Watching the big man freak out seemed to help her get a hold of herself that much easier.

"I... Gah!" Hogan scrunched his eyes closed and shook his head rapidly. "How does something like that even happen?!"

"Cursed springs. I was knocked into one by my oyaji during spar." Ranma shrugged nonchalantly. "Came out girl."

"Like that's even an everyday thing!" Happy exclaimed, incredulous at the casual attitude. Though that attitude did kind of remind him of his boss's penchant for shrugging off the bizarre.

"Not everyday," Ranma denied. "Only know... ichi... ni..." he counted off fingers, "... six people who change like me!"

"Oh that makes it alright then," Hogan heaved his shoulders in fake relief.

"What you even saying?" Ranma wondered, not really understanding what point, if any, the other man had. With an annoyed expression he muttered: "Pepper react way better." Shaking his head, he said: "Look. I sense more people that way and that way," he gestured toward the front and back of the plane. "How many times I explain? Maybe do all at once?"

Seeing the aggravation of her passenger, Trixie regained her professional aplomb while straightening her uniform. "I'm sorry... er... sir? Ma'am?" She wasn't quite sure what address to use for a gender-changer.

"Call me Ranma," the martial artist simplified it. "OK to use words for guy when I'm guy. OK to use words for girl when I'm girl. OK to use either if you don't know what I am when you talk about me. But name is easier."

"Oh, er... right," the flight attendant agreed. "OK, Ranma. Sorry about the inconvenience. Would you like to follow me to the back? My fellow attendants should probably get that explanation. The pilots don't ever come to the back, so they don't have to know about this. They're kind of used to being left out," she smirked a little.

"Suits me," Ranma quickly regained his unconcerned attitude.

"This outta be good," Hogan muttered.

Trixie ignored the side comment. Firing up her professional smile once more, she inquired of her younger guest: "Can I take your luggage?"

"This?" Ranma hefted his pack a bit. "Nah, I got it. Just show me where to put it."

"Very well. Please follow me," she said invitingly. She touched a key on the intercom to set off a faint tone from the back that Ranma only heard because of his Ki-heightened hearing.

Trixie led the way with a practiced sway to her hips that Ranma manfully kept his eyes away from. First he checked to make sure the access hatch he used to get in was properly closed, then made a point of looking all around the rest of the part of the plane he walked through so he wouldn't be tempted. The passageway they used was on the left side of the craft instead of the middle, and they passed by a couple of closed doors before going through another door to the back. He was surprised to find not the drab rows of tightly packed stadium seats he expected from pictures and television, but rather plush and luxurious couches and swiveled club chairs. There was also a table, a bar with requisite bar-stools bolted to the floor in front of it, and fine wood cabinetry. Further back, he could see what looked like a small kitchenette as well.

Two other rather attractive women in uniforms that matched Trixie's were posed side-by-side in the ritzy cabin when they entered. Their smiles widened upon seeing them. "Ranma, these are Nichole and Alexis." Trixie gestured to the lady with light brown hair then the blonde in turn. "We'll be taking care of you and Mr. Hogan during the flight to Japan and back. Have you been on a private airplane before?"

"Haven't been on any airplane before," Ranma replied honestly with a shrug.

"You came to America by boat?" Seeing his nod, and completely unaware of the true context, she went on: "Then you are in for quite a treat today. Now," she sidled up to his side, lightly brushing up against him and taking the thermos from Ranma's unresisting fingers, shaking it a bit to see how much water was still in it. "Ladies, there's a bit of a presentation we need to do first." She quickly retrieved a bottle of cold water.

"Oh boy," Hogan said under his breath, but he didn't stop her. He kind of wanted to see what was about to happen, after all. Instead he grabbed a beer from the fridge, ignoring the halfhearted slap at his wrist Trixie sent. He then perched on one of the bar-stools to watch the coming show.

"Ahem," Trixie got the attention of her somewhat confused fellow workers. "Now, all our guests on this plane are special, of course. But Ranma here is a unique brand of special," she started to explain as she uncapped the cold water with a mischievous expression.

"You really not gonna warn...?" Ranma's question was interrupted by a spurt from the plastic bottle hitting his face.

Shrieks of surprise and alarm ensued.

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The plane was still in the take-off queue before the trio of women had gotten the novelty of the Jusenkyo transformation out of their systems. Tony Stark's personal plane or not, LAX was one busy airport this time of day, and they had been taxiing in fits and starts as they waited their turn. The three giggling women and resigned teen did not pay the resumed rolling of the plane any heed as they stood on a patch of carpet darkened by spilt water. Not that the spills were a problem, the interior of the plane was designed to handle being doused in liquid and semi-liquid substances a lot more problematic than clean water.

"...And there are other things people can turn into?" Nichole was asking as she splashed the martial artist with cold water, which Happy appreciated given Ranma's damp shirt and bra-less chest. However, it was followed by another dose of hot water, and the ladies had their eye-candy instead. Happy had to frown to himself at the fact he had been staring at what was now a man's chest.

"Yeah. Mu Su is duck. Ryoga is pig. Shan Pu is... cat." Ranma shrugged. "Got lucky, I guess. Got used to being like this, and I always have hands, so is OK."

"Should we call you 'Mr.' or 'Ms.'?" Alexis asked with a smirk.

"Whatever I am at time is OK. Polite people back in Japan do that way, so works for me," Ranma told them casually. Considering the kinds of things he had been called on a regular basis, pronouns and formal titles were not any kind of a problem. "If not sure, say 'Ranma' instead."

"Oh... so you're gender-fluid?" Alexis verified with a teasing tone. The other two attendants groaned.

"...Yeah?" Ranma agreed dubiously. Fluids were involved in his gender, after all. Though the tone the blonde woman used indicated there was more to it than that.

"Don't be mean," Trixie chided.

Hogan's beer paused on the way up for another swig as he realized something: usually it was him who was the chump getting caught up in whatever embarrassing nonsense Tony caused. Sitting on the sidelines while someone else was the butt of jokes and teasing was a nice change of pace, actually. In fact, with Saotome being the new hire, you could say it was his obligation to put up with the low-man-on-the-totem-pole crap. Silently, Happy bobbed his beer in a private toast to the one who'd be taking over one of the roles he was only too glad to be rid of, feeling a lot better about the trip again. Finishing the sip of beer, he thought about what he should do as a respectable senior employee.

He'd pile on as well, of course.

"So," he spoke up loudly, "has it occurred to Mr. Stark that he can tell you to stay girl all the time yet?"

""Yes,"" all four of the other people chorused at once. Ranma blinked in surprise and swept a frankly curious look over the attendants.

"It's Tony Stark," Trixie explained. "If the choice is between seeing a pretty girl or not seeing a pretty girl... he's gonna go with seeing a pretty girl." She looked over the trim, well-muscled form of the young man. "Too bad."

"Well... yeah, he did that," Ranma shrugged uncomfortably. "Much more money for pay that way. Not all time, though. Just while working."

"Did the words '24-7 on-call' come up at any point?" Hogan asked with a sarcastic tone. Seeing the confusion on Ranma's face, he elaborated. "Are you supposed to be on the job all the time?"

"Oh, yeah," Ranma nodded in understanding. "Never said so, but Pepper said he shouldn't before he had chance."

"Close one," Hogan scoffed. "So you're really OK with that? I'd punch someone out if they tried to stick me in a dress or something for a job. I don't care how much they offered."

"If make me wear dress as guy, I'd punch too," Ranma admitted. "But this different. Am girl when girl. Can wear whatever then." He thought it over. "Dresses bad for fighting, anyway. Bad for yojimbo to wear."

"Heh," Hogan chuckled exactly once. "Better get used to the idea of wearing a skirt, I bet. Mr. Stark won't care if it makes your job harder."

Ranma grimaced, but shrugged again. "Tch. Have worn skirts as girl. Not big problem. Wear boxers underneath." The women burst out in laughter at the last addition, and he favored them with an unimpressed expression.

"You're really OK with this?" Happy questioned again.

"Eh... is just annoying. Not as annoying as a lot of stuff I've seen," Ranma said dismissively. "Boy. Girl. Not as important as one thing."

"What's that?"

"I'm Ranma Saotome," he crossed his arms over his chest and raised his chin with that pronouncement. "And I kick all the ass."

All four other people broke into laughter at that, to which Ranma exhibited lordly disdain, his arms still crossed. "You'll see," he promised. Hogan quieted and showed an accepting expression, something the women missed as they kept giggling. Unlike them, the former boxer had been shown enough to know the kid wasn't talking out of his ass.

"Sooo..." Alexis slowly stated, "you're overcoming gender dysphoria with the power of pure ego?"

"Yes." Ranma nodded decisively. He didn't know what 'dysphoria' meant, but he sure knew 'overcome' by heart. "Pure ego is veeery powerful," he said with a sage tone. "More powerful than you think."

"Don't bet on it," Trixie smirked as she traded knowing glances with her fellow attendants, thinking he was joking around. "We have a pretty good idea how far male ego can go." Ranma smirked right back at her, thinking of a certain signature technique of his.

"Speaking of... I bet I know why Mr. Stark wanted you to catch a ride on this plane," Hogan threw in. As he saw understanding looks from the ladies and a perplexed one from Ranma, he explained: "To make up for the being a girl while working thing."

"What you mean?" Ranma asked.

Before they could answer, or, more likely, refuse to answer quite yet, the PA system hummed to life with an announcement. "This is your captain speaking. We are second in line for take-off. Please secure the cabin and make sure all passengers are seated and buckled in. Thank you for flying Stark Aviation." With that, he video screen at the front lit up with a seatbelt symbol, and more such warning lights appeared throughout the cabin.

"Right," Hogan spoke up to get Ranma's attention to prompt him. "That means you, kid. Wheels up, soon, so let's get strapped in."

Alexis and Nichole guided the young man to one of the chairs beside the table, leaning in closer than necessary in order to strap him in. Happy sat across from Ranma at the table as Trixie did the same for him, even though he had ridden the plane several times in the past, and knew quite well how to operate the seat belt. He definitely didn't complain about the personal attention, however. Though she showed she had another motive when she whispered: "We doing everything?"

"International waters," Happy murmured back. "Almost eighteen, anyway." Trixie pursed her lips, then shrugged. Hogan waved off the questioning look Ranma gave him. The ladies found their own seats and soon enough the aircraft began to accelerate along the runway.

Ranma looked out the window with interest as the tarmac rushed by with increasing speed. "Not bad speed," he commented obliquely, not really indicating if he was impressed or not.

"Thing about planes is, the faster you go, the less you notice it," Hogan mentioned. "We fly way high above all the turbulence to go full speed, but it looks like the Earth is just crawling by underneath."

"Huh," Ranma said absently, still looking at the window while the ground dropped away.

The prospective employee didn't look bothered, but Hogan checked anyway. "Will the height be a problem for you?"

"Heh, no," Ranma scoffed, shooting a smirk at him, then looked out the window again. As long as nothing was causing him to fall faster than gravity would, falls from any height were not a problem.

"So," Happy announced, "I'm getting a promotion and a raise... and you are getting my old job." He was gratified to see surprise on the faces of the women. He also saw some interest, or at least curiosity, if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. It was a nice reminder about why he'd complained about being stuck as Iron Man's bodyguard in the first place. These days, it felt like he was more a tag-along than a defender, and who'd respect someone like that? Working for Pepper would involve more actual work, but it was worth it for the money and self-respect. And for the respect of others.

The long-haired fighter turned to give him full attention. "Hai, mostly. I can't drive though."

"Assuming we don't get a dedicated driver, we'll teach you that, and more. There's other things than fighting to being a bodyguard," Happy said portentously. "If you do your job right, there'll never be a fight."

Ranma looked like he was taking it seriously as he set his elbows on the table. "OK, I get that. Tony and Pepper said there was stuff like, uh... procedures?"

"Right, procedures. There's a lot of legal shit you need to know too so you stay on the right side of the law when dealing with some freak who's out to do Mr. Stark damage," the more experienced bodyguard detailed with some ruefulness. "There'll also be people you can't do something about, like paparazzi, no matter how much they really, really deserve it. Then there's the fact that a big part of my job has been to be big and intimidating to keep people from crowding in and giving cover to a real threat. You're pretty scrawny even as a guy. You'll be working with an even bigger handicap as a girl."

Ranma raised an eyebrow at being called 'scrawny,' but his only other reaction was to smirk harder. "I got a few tricks for that," was all he said with the hauteur of a lazy tiger. Despite what sounded like teen-aged bravado, Happy was at least partially inclined to believe him. Not only was there that video of Ranma's female form battling Iron Man, but his instincts as an ex-boxer were twinging something fierce from seeing how the Asian combat expert moved and held himself. He had the feeling that even without the video, he'd have picked up how dangerous the younger man could be. The kid smiled at his goading the same way he imagined Evander Holyfield would have had he ever met the man during his prizefighter days. Like there was nothing to prove, but if he had to prove it anyway, there would be only one conclusion. It would be brutal... and brief.

Hogan nodded slowly, ignoring the seatbelt warnings turning off with a bing. "OK, we'll have to test that out. Still, there are some other guys that we might want to assign to the detail, even if only as the first line of defense, or even just window dressing. I don't want to say they'd meat shields, but... yeah, they'll kinda be meat shields. I ain't happy about it, but it's part of the job. Not like you can stop a bullet."

There wasn't an immediate response as Ranma was distracted by Nichole leaning close to unbuckle his seat for him. He had to blink away the surprise, and get over the distraction of the woman's perfume, before he could go on. "About that. Actually..." his response was interrupted by the big flat-panel at the front of the cabin turning itself back on.

"Gooood afternoon sky over the Pacific!" Tony Stark yelled in a bad imitation of a radio DJ from the screen. Everyone in the space startled with the exception of Ranma, who just raised the other eyebrow. Happy turned toward Trixie, the de facto leader of her group and mouthed a query while pointing at her. She shook her head and raised her hands to indicate she hadn't turned it on. "Eh... that didn't quite fall trippingly off the tongue, but whatever... I'll keep it. By now your merry crew has reached cruising altitude, so it's time for a prerecorded message!" The eccentric billionaire's image stopped speaking and simply smiled as if waiting for applause to die down. "Now, Happy... you're probably wondering: how in the world is our little ocean-borne waif, Ranma Saotome, going to be an effective protector for the big, bad Iron Man?"

"I'm not. I'm really not," Happy deadpanned rubbing at his temple. "Did he plan to prank me about that too and forgot?" More likely, Stark had not bothered to re-record his message after Pepper had forced him to be a bit more responsible.

"I'm... sort of wondering," Alexis, the blonde beauty pageant winner, hesitantly raised her hand. She shrugged apologetically at the wounded look Ranma shot her.

"You may think the Just-Add-Water, Presto-Change-o feature of my prospective minion is the only thing special about her..." Ranma received some odd sympathetic looks at the pronoun Stark was insisting on. "But wait! There's more! Here are some of Ranma Saotome's greatest hits!" Theatrically, he shielded one side of his mouth as if he were conveying a secret with his aside: "(And I mean 'hits' literally.)" Throwing up his hands in front of the camera he cheerfully concluded: "Remember folks, JARVIS has verified all the following recordings are real and unmodified! Enjoy!"

What followed was a montage of videos of Ranma, mostly fighting, but also the demonstrations he, or she, had done in the mansion. Ranma himself was rather surprised how much material came from his time in Japan. There must have been a lot more cameras on him than he had thought during all the scuffles he'd been in at Furinkan considering how much footage there was. The corner of his mouth quirked up at how appalled the Americans were at some of the craziness he'd put up with every day. There were some attempts to question him about the goings-on shown on the screen at first, but he didn't have to say much before another scene distracted the audience, and they quickly gave up on anything but watching quietly.

The presentation completed with snippets from the fracas with Iron Man, though the master of Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu was amused to see that those were very carefully selected. There was the bit where his girl-form had given the armored hero a shove, where Tony had been sent rocketing back into the air mostly under his own power after the failed tackle, the part where Ranma had dodged that first repulsor blast oh so casually, and then a few of the times Ranma tagged the flying suit with thrown rocks. There were most certainly not any scenes of Stark being planted into the ground or manhandled by superior strength.

Despite the careful curation, the series of images and film did make Ranma look quite impressive if the reactions of the flight attendants were any indication. He grinned and took his arms-crossed-over-chest pose from before to remind them that he had, in fact, told them where he stood earlier. The ladies started their usual tasks of unpacking and laying out amenities, a fruit bowl, place settings, and even a flower in a vase on the table (which Ranma blinked at in mild astonishment) with practiced movements. However, their usual efficiency suffered as they sent wide-eyed looks the Ki-adept's way, not saying anything yet, but looking like it was only a matter of time before they burst out with questions.

In contrast to them, the senior bodyguard had a smug look of his own from being in the know before the women were. Still, he too was impressed anew despite having seen some of it before. Ranma filled in the silence in order to continue his earlier thought: "Back to the bullet thing... been shot at a few times before. Lots in North Korea or with some annoying yakuza gumis. I can take the hits, and can catch the slower bullets. The ones from hand guns, not the long ones... though..." he tapped the table and furrowed his brow in thought. "You know? Long time since anybody try shooting. Maybe can catch the fast ones too now?"

Happy opened his mouth to reflexively deny the possibility, but then remembered something. He'd been given the complete records from the fight the teen had with his soon-to-be-former boss, including the commentary and some preliminary notes the inventor had made. Giving it more cogent thought than a lot of the people he casually met would think he was capable of, he asked: "Those rocks you threw at Mr. Stark, could you have caught one of them?"

"Ee, yes. Mondainai... no problem," the young man replied with easy confidence.

"They were moving at rifle bullet speed, from what I heard. So they'd have more 'muzzle' energy... but being bigger would make 'em easier to track," Hogan thought out loud. "Guess we'll need to test. Can you handle a hit from a rock moving that speed?"

"Uh... yeah, though would like to take it at angle," Ranma grimaced as he admitted. "A hit to the head would mess me up for a while."

"Oookay, wow." He was feeling a lot better about turning the job of protecting Tony over to somebody else now. For all that he phrased it humbly, what the martial artist described was nothing short of walking away from a hit from the equivalent of a cannon shell. That was one hell of a qualification.

"Still, the idea is to not let something happen in the first place," continued thoughtfully. "A five-foot-nothing girl won't be able to scare off random idiots and crazies the way guys like me can. Not only that, but you'll need to be able to look at a room full of screaming people and tell which one single mook in the crowd is going to be a real problem. You got anything in your bag of tricks for any of that?"

Ranma grinned at the challenge. "You want big and scary, huh? OK. You ladies might want to sit down," he raised his voice in warning. Trixie took one look at him, another at the screen that had showed his feats of strength and promptly perched on one of the bar stools. Her coworkers followed suit, taking their cue from her. "OK, gimme a sec. Need to make sure I don't get the pilots too," he took a moment to concentrate. "Here goes."

All four Americans nearly fell off their seats as the sitting martial artist suddenly grew before their eyes. Within seconds, he was looming over them all, and they quailed beneath his massive presence. A force of nature leered down at them with glowing eyes that viewed them from a couple dozen feet above their heads.

Wait a minute...

They didn't have the overhead bins that made commercial flights hell for the hoi polloi, but there sure as hell wasn't that much headroom. "Hold up..." an indignant Hogan started to say. As soon as he did, the spell was broken, and a normal-sized Ranma was smiling at them mischievously.

"Hee hee," the Neriman escapee cackled at their expressions, then tried to look apologetic. "Sorry, sorry. That was just a fool the senses thing." He chuckled again. "Oyaji and the old freak managed to get the JSDF called out this one time with that. Thought a giant panda was gonna eat Tokyo Tower or something."

"So you didn't actually grow... giant panda?" Hogan looked completely boggled a moment, then shook his head rapidly. "No, never mind that. You obviously didn't grow bigger than the damn plane. What the hell was that?"

"Aura technique," Ranma told him with a corner of his mouth twitching upward. "Kinda... pushed my fighting spirit out to push down on your spirits and make me seem big. That remind me: Dairokkan. I can sense other people through aura."

"Oh right, you said something like that when you got on the plane," Happy remembered.

"Yes," Ranma confirmed. "Also, Dairokkan let me feel if somebody about to attack."

Nichole, who was into new-age crazes, sat down on the arm of Ranma's chair, her legs crossed and both calves pressed into the side of his leg. "Excuse me, Mr. Saotome?" she asked breathily.

"Uh..." he glanced down at the finely shaped legs traced by her uniform skirt and back up at her imploring eyes. "Just call me Ranma. What do you want to know?"

"When you say aura, you mean Chi, right?"

"Yes. We call it Ki in Japan, though." He raised a hand and slowly let his aura out... he really didn't want to startle her away from where she was right then. Gradually, wisps of gold and silver began to flicker and writhe around his fingertips, gathering and rising until there was an insubstantial ball of glowing energy over his palm, strands of shifting ether rising from it like fumes. He noted professionally that it was more silver than gold, but he had to admit he wasn't feeling particularly dispassionate at the moment. At least it wasn't showing any other colors that would show an unbalanced emotional state. For all he joked about ego being a powerful force, letting his Ki be too saturated with it or any other single emotion was something Hokkusu-Sensei had been very clear was bad in the long term.

"Holy shit!" Happy commented loudly in what was becoming his go-to phrase when dealing with Ranma. Trixie and Alexis were also gaping at the display.

"Oh, wow..." the attendant leaned in, her eyes glowing with wonder even more than with reflected light. "I knew it! I knew it was real!" Entranced she slowly reached toward the supernatural manifestation. Just before her fingertips reached their goal, she hesitated and asked: "Can I feel it?"

"Yeah, it's safe," Ranma assured her. "It's a part of me. It's like... it's just like water." At her questioning look, he explained further: "Water can drown you, or wear stuff down, or even break things if it's ocean wave or something, but just touching it won't hurt."

"Wow, wow, wow," the slightly older woman repeated enthusiastically as passed her hand over top of the Ki projection. Having verified for herself that it was harmless despite the resemblance to flame, she brought her hand down to caress the phenomenon more directly. "It tingles!" she giggled and reached in with her other hand as well, leaning against Ranma's shoulder to maintain her balance. "Oh man..." she gasped and shuddered as her hands plunged fully into the materialization of his aura. "Holy... you two have got to check this out! This feels amazing!"

"It's really safe?" Trixie checked.

"Yeah," Ranma said. "Ki is natural. Everybody has Ki. Also like water that way. I just have lots. And I can control it really well." He nodded toward his hand to punctuate his remarks.

The other two women did approach as they saw Nichole was feeling no ill affects. Alexis smirked and said: "We would check it out for ourselves, but you'll have to make room first."

Ranma simply turned the chair and lit up his other hand. Trixie and Alexis repeated their compatriot's actions in timidly testing the supernatural flare, then also immersing their hands more eagerly. The two late-comers soon were jostling each other playfully until Alexis stumbled into Ranma's lap... not entirely by accident.

The martial artist froze in some alarm at the incident, but relaxed an instant later as he remembered just how far away Nerima was at the moment. When the lithe woman proved unwilling to hop back off, he smirked and flared up his entire aura, making her shriek and laugh as she found herself inside a bonfire of skin-temperature dynamism. The other two women startled back for a bit, but after they saw their co-worker was enjoying herself, they crowded in atop the Ki-adept as well to bury him in woman-flesh.

Not only was this a rather pleasant experience for the young man, enveloping the women in his aura had another benefit. Inspired by his encounter with that psychic Satori kid, Ranma had come up with something to try to deal with Nabiki to stop her from deceiving, betraying, and sabotaging him at every opportunity. Hokkusu-Sensei had warned him it might not be as helpful as he'd hoped, but helped him work it out since it was such good practice. Essentially he spread out his Ki to cover another person's life-force, then read the emotions the target's aura revealed by how they echoed in the border between auras.

Unfortunately, Hokkusu-Sensei had been right about the utility of the move. He'd managed to use the 'Wild Tiger's Instinct Truth Sense' technique exactly once to avoid a trap, which was one of his more pleasant memories of his time with the Tendos. However, Nabiki later figured out what he did and made sure the parents came down on his head to forbid him from ever using it on her again. The middle sister had also spread the word on his new ability and how to know it was being used far and wide, uncharacteristically not charging all the traffic would bear either. Ranma had been astounded at just how much vitriol was thrown his way for coming up with his version of a lie detector. Apparently, misinformation was held to be sacred in Nerima, and it occurred to almost nobody that there was anything odd or unseemly about that.

Today, however, there were no obnoxious lunatics to stop him. So, with the three women being sort of clasped within the manifestation of his soul, he got a good read of their intentions. Unlike the fiancees or rivals of Nerima, there was nothing possessive or obsessive about them. In fact, despite how they were acting, there wasn't any strong feeling about him at all that he could sense from them. The most he picked up that could be called fiancee-like was some idle attraction, and even that took a distant second place to their curiosity and desire to have fun.

"A-hem," Hogan coughed loudly to get the attention of the foursome. "You all done yet?" He looked both amused and envious. Ranma took the hint and pulled in his aura again. Rather than let the trio struggle to sort themselves out, he wrapped his arms around them all and stood easily before carefully setting them back down. The former prizefighter took note of the easy and controlled demonstration of strength.

As the flight attendants straightened themselves out and got back to work, Hogan pressed on by asking: "So... you can manage intimidation, though you really need to dial that down. Really, really need," he emphasized with a distant look, imagining a stampeding crowd at some public venue. Funny, but liable to get someone's eye poked out. He shook his head and picked up his earlier train of thought. "Anyway, what was the other thing I asked? Oh yeah... spotting freaks before they try something. You were saying you got that covered? How well does that work?"

"Dairokkan can sense Ki, so can sense fighting spirit. Stranger wants to attack someone? Can pick them up in seventy-five meters or so. Stranger wants to kill? Can feel at two-hundred meters. If I know someone, and concentrate, can find them in five-hundred meters." Ranma shrugged. "Strong person mad at me? Can feel them almost a kilometer if they not hide Ki. Can sense other stuff like big techniques farther sometimes."

"Oookay... wow," Happy slowly nodded a couple of times before switching to shaking his head just as slowly. "I'll just... leave that up to you, then. Hey, uh..." he glanced at Trixie, who had laid out place setting in front of the two men. "Could I have a Jack and Coke? Please? Easy on the Coke, though!" he requested with a little humor, emphasizing the strangeness of his current situation.

"Certainly, Mr. Hogan," she agreed pleasantly and with a hint of sympathy. She used tongs to give him a hot, moist towel. She turned to Ranma and asked: "Hot towel?" She didn't wait for an answer and delivered the towel anyway. The raven-haired teen looked confused, but accepted it and bowed slightly in his seat in thanks. "Would you like something to drink as well, Mr. Saotome?" she inquired.

"Uh, can all call me Ranma, really," he requested again. "Ocha? Tea?"

"Tea? Really?" Hogan scoffed. He held up his hands to show how he was using the towel to wipe them off, and Ranma imitated his actions with a nod. "We're on a private plane over international waters and you turn eighteen in two days. Or make that one day once we cross the date line. Nobody's going to prosecute if you get a real drink." Ranma nodded, thinking that was why Trixie had been questioning Happy earlier. "You never had alcohol before? What's that stuff they like in Japan? Saki?"

"'Sake,'" Ranma corrected. "Can drink. Did drink. Not much point. Have anti-booze technique now."

"An anti-" Hogan heaved an exasperated sigh. "Do you have a technique for everything?"

Ranma leaned his head one way, then the other as he thought it over. "No?" he answered unconvincingly.

"Uh-huh. So how does this 'anti-booze' technique work."

"Is Renkotsu School of Martial Arts Fire Eating," Ranma explained with a demeanor far more serious than Hogan thought appropriate. "Is like poison resistance. Mostly don't have to think about it, just do. Can't get drunk at all."

"The what school of what?"

"Renkotsu. Martial Arts Fire Eating," Ranma answered the aggravated question with a tone that showed his confusion at the reaction.

"And that's... how is that different from regular fire eating?"

"Is... with martial arts? Like Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics or Martial Arts Calligraphy," the fugitive from Nerima explained as if he were explaining anything.

"Those are actual things?" Hogan wondered with a dubious look on his face.

"Yeah!" Ranma nodded before shrugging. "Is true is not very useful. Less than Martial Arts Tea Ceremony. More than Martial Arts Figure Skating. Is surprising first time wall of fire spit out at you, but wouldn't really hurt even regular martial artist. Definitely didn't hurt me at all. Still learned because challenger just insisted I beat them with fire eating and nothing else," Ranma rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Like every other challenger."

"That's... stupid." Happy's new junior nodded wearily in agreement with his assessment. "OK... you know that it's stupid already. Good? Whatever... never mind. I know a rabbit hole to avoid jumping in when I see one." After a shake of his head, Hogan gave Ranma an arch look and got back to the original subject. "You know, just getting drunk isn't supposed to be the point. Well, not the only point, anyway."

"Heh, could fool Oyaji... my father. Should've seen him panic when I threaten to give him Renkotsu training by force." He chuckled malevolently. "Was horrified. Didn't see him again for two weeks."

"Oh... he's that type of dad. Got it." Hogan, who grew up in the kind of neighborhood where that sort of parent was common, said with some nostalgic sympathy. "If you can't get drunk, then that's even more reason to have some."

Trixie spoke up: "We do have a rather nice junmai gaiginjo, if it pleases. Would you like it hot?"

"Oh yeah?" Ranma raised his eyebrows at what he recognized as a high-quality, expensive type of sake. It was the kind of stuff the Kuno's would boast of if they had a chance. Thinking about the likely price tag, he mentally shrugged and decided to help himself to something that would never have been available to him back in Nerima. He smiled a bit wickedly when he thought about what his pops would have done for just a taste. "OK, I'll have it. Hot, too. Arigato."

The seeming leader of the flight attendants nodded toward Alexis, who pointed to the quick boiling electric kettle she had already started. She also noted that a couple of champagne bottles were being chilled for later. Seeing things were well in hand, a glance at the kitchenette reminded her of something that had confused her earlier. "Mr. Saotome... Ranma..." she rephrased when she saw him about to object. "We were instructed to onboard eleven meals, not the seven we would have expected for a single trip. We were told that it would be obvious why later. Were the extras for you, by any chance?"

"Uh, yeah," Ranma admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "Ki users like me eat a lot. Usually I have five times as much as regular person. I eat five times as fast, too."

"I understand," she said with a perfect, professional smile. "Then we'll be glad to accommodate you."

A few minutes later, the passengers had their drinks and the three ladies were quickly and efficiently putting the finishing touches on the pre-cooked meals. There was a bit of consternation when they saw Ranma wasn't kidding about his eating speed and the trio had to continue prepping to keep food in front of him. After getting over his own surprise at the series of vanishing dinners, Happy continued to regale the younger bodyguard with anecdotes from his years of employment. The Japanese teen paid flatteringly earnest attention to his senior's words. After all, a yojimbo was a notable profession among people with his background... though regular Japanese society didn't necessarily look at it the same way... and he didn't want to mess it up.

Good booze, good food... exceptional food for an airplane... and being treated respectfully put the ex-boxer in a jovial mood. He leaned back with a smug and worldly expression as he expounded to his junior. "Everything else aside, this is a great job to have. The benefits are amazing. You'll find out soon, amirite?" he said as an aside to Alexis as she refilled his drink.

The other two attendants were not present, as they were having their own meals in the crew cabin while they had a chance. Alexis had already had hers, being given a chance to eat first among the trio so they could trade off. They'd also taken the time to discuss how the rest of the trip would go and came to a decision. The unanimous consensus was that the Japanese fighter was cute, polite, and interesting enough to bend a few rules for. Especially when they were more guidelines than rules.

The blonde shot Ranma a glance that he didn't catch the significance of and smiled. "Well... that is the job... and he is about to turn eighteen." Ranma was a bit confused that she seemed to be repeating things he already knew, but dismissed it with a lift of his shoulder. The attendant went on to ask: "What kind of music do you gentlemen like?"

"You know me. I'm fine with anything but Country, Western, or any mix of the two," Hogan promptly answered. "Other than that, go with whatever you like to move to."

Alexis nodded and turned expectantly towards Ranma. Flummoxed, the martial artist said: "Don't know much music other than friends' band. They called Mongolian Chop Squad in USA. You have one of their records...?" Seeing the blank looks he was given, he went on: "Guess not. So... not Enka?"

"What the heck is Enka?" the larger man asked.

"Some... drone-y traditional music," he teen waved a hand helplessly as he tried to explain it. "Always sung by some middle-aged guy in a yukata." He took on a constipated expression and sang like he was trying to reverberate the words through his nose: "'kanashii uso~, no tsukeru hito~' Gah!" he stuck out his tongue in disgust as he resumed his normal voice. "Drives everybody nuts, but they put it on the TV all the time."

"I can assure you that no Enka will be played," Alexis announced through her giggles. "Hey, perfect timing," she commented as the other two walked back in. "Shall we change seats, gentlemen?" she suggested as she picked up Ranma's drink to hand to him while motioning for him to stand. Nichole went to work on a electronic panel, and the shades over the windows all lowered automatically. She then dimmed the interior lights.

For his part, Hogan stood readily and led the way toward the larger of the two couches. Following the attendant's graceful guidance, a perplexed Ranma went to the smaller couch. His head whipped around at the pop of a champagne cork to see Trixie filling a glass with foaming liquor. Then he was gently pushed to sit on the couch. Alexis opened the arm of the couch to pull out a folding table, positioning it by his elbow.

The blonde shot him another smile before she went to deploy another table for Happy. In her place, Nichole sauntered up with a tray in her hands that held the refilled sake tokkuri in its hot water bath along with another porcelain ochoko like the one he already held. Rather than set the tray down directly, she sat next to Ranma and leaned into him while laying it on the table. He noticed her uniform jacket was gone and her blouse was made of rather thin, soft cotton. Huskily, the brunette whispered in his ear: "I thought I'd give this sake stuff a try. You don't mind if I drink with you, do you?"

"N-no," Ranma answered a little nervously. He swallowed a hasty sip from his own drink, then continued: "No problem at all." He had no idea how things had turned out this way, but he wasn't feeling the creeping dread he normally got when a fiancee was in the offing, so he wasn't complaining.

"Wonderful," she crooned, then leaned over him to fetch the extra drinking vessel and the alcohol, with a bit more body contact than necessary. Trying to distract himself, he noted that Trixie was seated next to Happy much the same way Nichole was with him. Though she had a champagne flute rather than matching Hogan's whiskey and soda.

"Er... hang on," Ranma interrupted before Nichole could fill her own cup. "Don't pour own drink in Japan," he explained has he claimed the tokkuri from her and set his drink aside. With the sure motions of someone who had seen his father and Tendo-san do this many, many times before, he cupped his left hand under his right as he poured a libation into the ceramic ochoko.

Charmed a bit by the demonstration of custom, Nichole bent in to tickle his ear with her warm breath as she asked: "What was the phrase in Japanese for a toast? 'Kampai?'"

"Yeah, it's Kampai," he agreed.

"In that case," she purred as she raised her cup and Ranma picked up his own to match her. "Kampai," she murmured as she clinked her drink against his, and he echoed her. She gave him a rather direct look as they both drank. She only broke the eye-lock to look down at her ochoko and say: "I've been serving this for years, but I never tried it before. It's pretty good."

"Yeah," Ranma agreed faintly, still looking at her face and trying to figure out what was happening.

Nichole set the cup on the table, then asked: "Do you mind if I get a bit more comfortable?" She was removing her patterned neckerchief even as she voiced the question.

"No? Don't need to ask," he replied with a puzzled tone. "Uh..." he added with some caution as she began unbuttoning her blouse and pulling it free of her skirt.

"Oh, I'm just doing this," she informed him as she took the tails of the garment and tied them together over the base of her sternum, edges of her lacy bra clearly in view. "I'm not taking it off," she assured him. "Yet" was added in a quiet undertone that he wouldn't have heard without Ki-enhanced hearing.

Before he could follow up on that, he was diverted by music starting to play. The screen at the front of the cabin came on again and showed what looked like a scene from a dance club where the people were moving to the upbeat tempo. A hatch opened in the ceiling and revealed two spinning balls on a rotating frame, and flashing, multicolored lights began to strobe from those balls around the interior of the plane. Ranma didn't recognize the song, or even the genre, but it was loud and seemed good for dancing, which was good enough as far as he was concerned. He gave his seating companion a questioning look, wondering if she wanted him to get up to dance with her, as that was something women seemed to like.

"Just relax and enjoy," she advised him as she put an arm around his shoulders and encouraged him to lean back in the couch. She nodded toward a brass pole that was rising from the floor until it met the ceiling in the center of the clear area bracketed by the couches. Ranma blinked and tilted his head at the sight, having no idea what such a thing would be for. His attention was redirected again as Nichole nodded toward Alexis, who strutted toward the pole, champagne glass in hand, her blouse also tied instead of properly buttoned and her neckerchief tied around her bare neck instead of the collar of the blouse.

The blond paid no outward attention to her audience, her gaze fixed on the metal shaft as she sipped her fizzing liquor. She hooked her arm around the pole and made a single twirl around it. When she came out of the rotation, she started moving to the music, her eyes closed and still nursing her beverage. Small movements at first, she started dancing with more and more abandon, her glass raised as she swayed and bobbed. Then she fell back against the pole, bracing her shoulder against it as she writhed and threw back her head to down the last of her champagne. She tossed the empty glass to be caught with practiced ease by Trixie.

Apparently that had been timed, as the beat was dropped less than a second later. Spinning, Alexis launched herself at the pole for another twirl, but this time she jumped up high to clasp the polished brass between her thighs, her head almost brushing the ceiling. An unzipped slit in the side of her skirt opened to let her left leg point straight forward into the turns as the other bent to twine her ankle around the pole, showing she was wearing sheer black stockings with garters. She threw back her torso, then pulled back into the pole with her hands, increasing the speed of her spin while slowly inching down to the floor with each revolution. As she reached knee height, she separated from the pole to gyrate in front of it.

Ranma was confused, but appreciated the performance. There wasn't really that much resemblance, but it brought the taris of Malaysian Silat to the martial artist's mind. Even that vague impression was wiped away when the blonde finished undoing her skirt and then tossed the removed garment to land on a grinning Hogan's face.

Now with her garter belt and black thong panties revealed, Alexis took a stance with her back to Ranma as she grasped the pole with her hands. She shot the shocked speechless martial artist a knowing grin over her shoulder as she moved her hips in deep, circular sways, getting lower each time until she was almost sitting on her high heels, writhing sinuously in an almost snake-like, hypnotic fashion. Then her legs straightened while her torso was still bent over, proudly arching her ass for the young man's viewing pleasure. As if to make sure he was paying attention, she gave her mostly bare right butt-cheek a slap, then stood up to vault onto the pole again.

This time Alexis held herself up entirely with her legs as she whirled, leaving her hands free to undo the knot holding her blouse on. Yanking it off to expose her lacy black bra, she tossed the shirt in Ranma's direction, though the lighter item of clothing didn't quite reach him. Instead, Nichole leaned forward and caught it, then playfully rubbed it in Ranma's face. When she tossed away the discarded top, instead of the enthralled or lustful expression she expected, she saw the survivor of a thousand and one absurd Neriman 'romance' plots had a worried expression.

He leaned in and intently whispered in her ear: "Are you ladies OK? Someone making you do this? There's temple in Tokyo can take you. Me and Hokkusu-Sensei can out-fight army up there!" Through the hand she had on his shoulder, Nichole felt a thrum of energy, like the revving of the engine of a powerful racecar as it awaited the start signal.

She pulled back and stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then her face relaxed into a warm genuine smile that was a lot less artful than her professional one. She leaned back in and said: "We're fine! The other girls and I have been taking off our clothes for money for years now. Since before Mr. Stark hired us."

"Oh." Ranma looked abashed as the subtle tension left him. "Oh? For money?" He furrowed his brows and made his wallet appear with a flick of his wrist. "Am I supposed to...?"

She covered the hand holding his wallet with hers and told him: "I normally don't say this... not in the clubs anyway... but put your money away. It's covered. We get paid a lump sum to strip on these trips. Now if you want to do come visit us in the clubs sometime, that's a different story."

As a matter of fact, Trixie, Nichole, and Alexis... their stage names... were one of the most popular exotic dancer acts in the Los Angeles area. 'TNA Air' blatantly traded on their association with the world-famous billionaire to draw in packed crowds whenever they performed at one of the local strip clubs, which was why they had uniforms different from the regular Stark Aviation personnel.

They had all responded to the cattle call that had gone out to the numerous would be actresses, models, and other entertainers who had come to LA to make their fortune. Like many of the other would-be employees, their ambitions had floundered and left them barely hanging on by their fingernails financially before taking it all off allowed them to make ends meet. Unlike most of the other respondents, they were friends who had met and worked together in the clubs. As was typical of her ability to spot the main chance, Trixie had come up with an idea to improve their odds. Rather than compete as individuals, the trio had practiced together as a unit, not just in dancing but in serving meals, helping passengers with safety measures, and doing everything else a regular flight attendant did. Alexis even had a cousin who was a normal flight attendant, and she had been extremely helpful to their plans. As it turned out, their exceptional preparation served them well as they ruthlessly crowded out all the solitary applicants.

It was worth the effort, as this was a pretty sweet setup. Even when he did fly, Stark wasn't able to take the 'Party Plane' any where near as often as he'd like because of Pepper Potts. And when he did take their plane, it was usually to someplace recreational, so it was more like a paid vacation for them. The rest of the time, they gleefully raked in the cash thrown at them by people eager to ogle 'Stark's personal strippers.' On top of that, they had medical, dental, and retirement benefits their fellow dancers simply didn't.

As such, serving alcohol to and dancing for a barely under-age, yet rather attractive young man while under the conveniently murky legal circumstances of international travel was not a problem. They probably could have refused without their jobs being at risk, but there didn't seem any point to make even that small a gamble. There had been a lot more annoying things to put up with over the years, after all, but they'd done them all anyway in order to keep their cushy positions.

The one thing they wouldn't ever do for the sake of their jobs was sleep with Tony Stark. Though even that taboo served the core purpose of keeping them employed. After all, if they ever did sleep with him, the notorious playboy would ditch them in a matter of days or weeks at best. Keeping him out of their beds was a guarantee of job security. Pretty much every smart or observant woman that worked for Stark knew one thing: Pepper Potts had lasted as long as she did and had been as successful as she was in her job was because she didn't sleep with the boss. It was almost like reverse sexual harassment. Stark would keep flirting. Heavily. But not only would he never get mad when refused, the women who shot him down the most thoroughly tended to get the biggest raises, bonuses, or promotions.

They weren't sure if it was a litmus test, or a weird form of masochism, but the end result was the same.

Nichole continued her explanation to relax her customer and set the terms for the evening. "To ride on this plane, there's only three things you gotta do!"

"What's that?" Ranma queried as the wallet disappeared again.

"First rule: Look, don't touch," she said seriously.

"Uh..." he glanced down nervously at where she was rather draped on him. Among other things, her breast was in firm contact with his arm.

Grinning, she elaborated: "That means we touch you however we want, but you don't touch back. If we put your hands somewhere, you keep them there!"

"OK, right," he agreed readily. Not that he was going to argue much of anything with the attractive woman. "Second rule?"

"Second rule: don't tell Ms. Potts. She probably knows already, but as long as no one says anything, she won't have to do anything about it." the brunette gave a helpless shrug. "In fact, the less said after the ride, the better. We're sure not going to say anything. What happens in the Party Plane, stays in the Party Plane, right?"

"Ah... right." Ranma needed a moment to parse out what the woman meant with her paraphrase, but he then agreed ruefully. He could just imagine what some people back in Japan would do if they found out about this situation. "Uh... rule three?

"Third rule: have fun!" To punctuate this, she leaned over him again to grab the tokkuri and his ochoka. She then handed him his cup and filled it the way he demonstrated. After that, she gave him the flask and reclaimed her own cup from atop the couch cushion so he could exchange the favor. Holding up her beverage for another toast she declared: "We party until the party is over. And then it's over. No expectations. No ties. No demands. We all go our separate ways until the next party. Got it?" Seeing him nod slowly with wide eyes, she took it as good enough. "Good. In that case... kampai!"

"Kampai!" Ranma replied with helpless amusement, clinking porcelain with her again, and they both drank.

She nudged his chin with a fingertip to get him looking at the active dancer. "Now that that's settled, you might want to pay Alexis some attention, she'll be getting to the good part soon!"

The blonde dancer was indeed looking right at them with a blank expression while busy shaking her thong-clad ass in Hogan's flushed and glassy-eyed face. She traded glances with Nichole, and whatever she saw seemed to reassure her as her smile reappeared. She stood up again as the music's tempo slowed down and strutted slowly toward the back of the plane until she was far enough away that the widely separated men couldn't see her front. Swaying to the music, she reached behind her back to unhook her bra. Shucking the skimpy garment off her shoulders, she grabbed the strap and twirled it over her head as her hips gyrated in counter-rotation. Her undulations pivoted her around and she faced her audience once again, one forearm held delicately horizontal to conceal her breasts.

The music shifted once more and Alexis strutted toward Ranma, the shield of her arm slowly dropping away to reveal tanned and pert mounds with brown nipples. As she passed close to him, a flick of her fingers sent the bra into his lap. Nichole made a production of retrieving the lingerie from the proximity of his crotch and the trailing it back an forth up his torso until she was tickling his nose with it. She grinned impishly at the incredulous look he gave her, but she did set the bra aside.

Alexis returned to the pole for more twirls and acrobatics. Her hair was still up in a bun, her cap was still pinned on, and her kerchief was still around her neck, so she still presented the image of a stewardess despite the complete lack of any significantly covering clothing. That soon changed as her dance continued. Mounted on the pole, the brass clamped between her thighs as she gently rotated, she let go of the pole to lean back, her torso balanced by her outstretched legs. Both her hands were free to unpin her hat and hair, the blue flight cap was thrown in Happy's direction as she shook her blonde tresses free.

Her thighs spread to release the metal rod and she caught herself with her hands instead. Turning on the fulcrum of her wrists, she twisted upside down to coil her legs around the brass shaft one more time to grip and free her hands to take off her neckerchief. Slowly and smoothly she descended, her palms meeting the floor just before her head. Walking on her hands, she crawled away from the pole, still clinging to it with her legs until she was far enough away that she had to let go. Her head jerked up and she pinned Ranma in place with a smoky glare. Lithely, she crawled on her hands and knees toward him, slinking like a predatory cat. Though this was a time his aversion to felines most certainly did not rear its head.

Before her compatriot arrived, Nichole took the opportunity to position the Ki-adept to suit their purposes. She pushed his knees away from each other, then firmly guided his hands to plant them palm-down on his knees. "Stay just like that," she murmured into his ear. Ranma's expression was a funny mix of fascination and plea for rescue, but he obediently held the position. "Definitely a guy," Nichole chuckled before she used a finger to nudge Ranma's chin and direct him to lock gazes with the prowling Alexis.

Seeing the look in the blonde's eyes, Ranma was suddenly frozen, unable to breathe. He'd had plenty of close encounters of the clothing-optional kind with young women before, and he had his own female form for that matter, so the nude feminine body was no mystery to him. Objectively speaking, Shan Pu's form was both curvier and fitter than that of the woman now between his legs, and the Chinese girl had launched plenty of naked glomps at him in his futon, the baths, or any other situation she could contrive. Still, there was something unprecedented about the twenty-something woman that affected him like nothing else in his eventful life. Something about her mature poise and knowing gaze that made the seduction attempts of the Nerima contingent look pathetic in comparison. This untrained civilian had cast a spell not even the Wild Horse of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu could shake off.

Alexis crawled up his body like a serpent gliding up a tree. The twisting and writhing of her body dragged her bare breasts against his thighs, belly, and chest until her face was hovering inches from his. She slung her neckerchief around his neck and gripped the corners. Using the cloth to hold him in place, she tilted her head and leaned in, her body resting fully on his. Her breath warmed his lips as she got nearer and nearer.

Just before their lips could meet, the music stopped. And so did Alexis.

Turning her head so their lips were no longer on a collision course, the blonde brushed her cheek against his as her mouth moved to his ear instead. "So... how did you like my performance?" her throaty voice demanded.

"Erk," Ranma squeaked with well-reasoned erudition, loud enough to be heard throughout the cabin. Everyone else in the room laughed at his reaction, which broke him loose of his trance as he took on a complicated look of annoyance, gratitude, and wonder. Alexis rose up to sit sidelong in his lap for a second time that trip and looped her arms around his neck.

"I think he liked it," Nichole commented with elaborate understatement.

"Damn right, he liked it!" Hogan called out from his couch. "There's a reason I think of Tony Stark as the best friend a guy could have!" The bulky man might have gone on to say more, but a new song started to play over the plane's speakers.

Once again, Ranma did not recognize the song. Koyuki and the rest had not had as much time to educate him in modern music as they would have liked. Alexis made as if to stand up, but before she could, Nichole grabbed her shoulder and whispered in her ear. With his heightened senses, Ranma was able to hear that she was mentioning his offer of rescue despite the loud music. He blushed and looked away in embarrassment, scratching at the side of his jaw, when he saw the look the topless woman in his lap gave him.There was some mirth shown on her face, but also appreciation.

Alexis stood up from his lap, and pushed his knees apart. Then she grabbed Nichole's hand and pulled her up as well. Taking her cue, the brunette started moving to the music as well. He coworker untied the blouse and slipped it off her shoulders. Then she moved close so the pair danced chest to chest between Ranma's legs while she reached around to undo Nichole's bra as well, sliding it out from between them without showing everything yet. While keeping her partners breasts covered with her own, she removed the skirt and tossed it aside, revealing the light blue thong and garter belt Nichole wore.

The two kept swaying and writhing against each other for a while, then Alexis slid behind Nichole, keeping the other woman's chest from being exposed completely with her arm, then her hands when she pressed into Nichole's bare back. The brunette fixed her eyes on Ranma's and smiled as she danced with her arms held above her head to sway with the beat as well. Gradually, the blonde's hands drifted down bit by bit until they were cupping the brunettes orbs instead, as if to offer them for the martial artist's inspection.

And inspect them he did, taking in every line and curve of the freely offered view. Akane might have once induced a wariness of anything sexy or intimate, but her change of heart and the time elapsed since had done much to undo the psychological complex he'd been developing. However, even if that hadn't happened, what he was seeing now would have gone a long way to cancel any aversion that had been conditioned into him. Beautiful women stripping off their clothes to dance for him was not something he had even imagined when he came to America, but he'd certainly hoped to have a good time with a girl without death, honor, or madness hanging over his head. This definitely qualified, and, scandalous though it might be, it occurred to him that he had really needed something like this to decompress from his time in Nerima and his desperate escape to America even if he never knew it.

Not that he had much attention for introspection. The two women shimmied closer and closer to the couch, pressing into his thighs and rubbing their bodies closer and closer to the apex of his legs. As he opened his mouth to say something, whether a warning or a question, the two spun to face away from him, then leaned back in synchronization to rest their heads on his shoulders. The dance didn't stop, however, as they continued to writhe against him, sliding up and down while giving him a good look at the front's of their forms. Ears blazing with a rush of blood, he glanced up to see Trixie was also sans clothing and doing much the same to Happy. The dark-haired dancer caught his eye with a wink and a grin. Somehow, it seemed like she gave the permission he needed to relax and enjoy, and he unwound enough to smile back.

############

Ranma's head was spinning with legal mumbo-jumbo as he exited the limo that dropped him off at the hotel he, Hogan, the dancers, and the regular airplane crew were staying at for the night. Honestly, his head had never stopped spinning in the last seven, nearly eight hours. He'd been almost dizzy as he snuck off the plane and a bit light-headed all the time he stealthily followed the Americans to the hotel, where he'd 'met' them for the first time and was introduced to the local Stark employees who would help him navigate through his legal itinerary.

It wasn't the alcohol, though... his Ki had burned away every drop as soon as he drank it, and it certainly wasn't affecting him hours later. However, he would very likely have been reeling on his feet even if he'd stuck to more wholesome beverages entirely. The ladies had danced off and on throughout the trip, rotating between the guys however they liked. Occasionally, one would continue to attend the two passengers, still topless, while the others changed into new outfits that they'd then take off to the beats of new songs. The rest of the time they simply sat, drank, and talked; with the lack of clothing being the only difference from what he imagined a get-together in a bar would be like. It was both very like what he'd vaguely hoped for in terms of casual, low-pressure dating, and also very, very unlike it as well. He still didn't quite know what to make of it, but he certainly had liked it.

It was probably just as well he was so bemused and distracted, however. He'd been immediately shuttled to the Tokyo offices of Stark Industries to meet Maeda-San and several other lawyers from his department and an outside firm that was better suited to civil law. He'd been expected to pick a lawyer to represent him in dealing with his family and the other inmates of Nerima. Not knowing much about law, he'd relied on the Wild Tiger's Instinct Truth Sense technique to pick one Kisaki Eri.

The middle-aged woman thanked him sincerely for his trust, then made him regret it by interviewing him extensively and relentlessly, even though she had the synopsis of his life that Pepper Potts had provided. She'd raised an eyebrow at the properly filled out paperwork for his passport and work permit that all showed dates far enough in the past to be applicable now, but hadn't commented beyond making sure it was accurate, however irregular the creation might have been. Then they'd pored over a series of forms that she insisted on explaining the details of to him even when he was all too willing to just sign and get it over with. His usual speed-reading trick hadn't helped, all it did was bring on the pain of a headache that much faster. Not only that, his new attorney had a large team of other lawyers and assistants to work in parallel to prepare even more questions and materials for a non-stop marathon of legality. So now it was information about injunctions, restraining orders, and competency hearings that made him slightly dizzy, not bare flesh and friendly attention.

He wondered if that was the real why Tony had sent him back to Japan the way he did. Hogan had thought it was recompense for the stay-girl promise Ranma had made, but it was also possible Stark had anticipated that Ranma would need some fortifying, and arranged for the new and pleasant experience to do the job. If so, it worked. Instead of running screaming for the hills, Ranma had doggedly slogged his way through the legal travails by remembering the promise of more money than he'd dreamed of, opportunities he'd never considered, and particularly that amazing flight and the anticipation of more such adventures in the future.

Now that he thought about it, both theories could be true, and the flight was both bribe and reward.

Regardless of his super-human endurance, it was a relief to get back to the hotel after a very full day. It was past 5 o'clock in the morning in California, which was the time zone he has adapted to during his much slower trip to America, though it was past nine at night in Tokyo. This time yesterday, Ranma had been paddling along the final leg of his journey, and so many things had happened since. While he had plenty of physical energy to keep going for several more days without rest, mentally he was feeling worn down. He perked up a bit as he felt the presence of Alexis in the lobby, thinking it was rather nice to have someone welcome him.

"Hey! You're here! Great!" The blonde greeted him as she bustled over with a smile. He smiled as well at the welcome, which widened as he saw the little black cocktail dress she was wearing. "C'mon," she insisted, looping her arm around his and abandoning the pose of strangers they'd adopted earlier that day. "We need to get you dressed!"

"Sure," he agreed without hesitation, then stopped and frowned. "Wait... dressed why?"

"We're going out, Silly!" she chirruped cheerfully. Tugging at his arm, her strength was futile, but her perkiness took up the slack. He absently started following despite himself.

They were in the elevator and on the way to the suite of rooms in the penthouse before Ranma had the presence of mind to ask: "Out? Why go out? Just... got here...?"

"Dinner! Then we'll look for a club to party! There're a couple of places in Shibuya I know we can steamroll the bouncers into letting you in," she assured him, not answering his real question.

"Wait... what about sleep?"

"Oh, we already got some sleep," she said blithely.

"I haven't," he pointed out with some fervor. "Been a whole day without sleep, too!"

She gave him doe-eyes and asked: "You won't come with us to translate? Really? We really wanted to have some more fun with you! Please?"

"Uh..." his resolve was wavering, but firmed up a bit when he remembered how long a day it had been. "We had party on plane! You want more party?"

"Yes!" she declared. "You've got all those tricks! Can't you also do some... martial arts force power thing to keep going?" she joked. Staring into his eyes, however, she caught his shifty look and grinned triumphantly. "Oh, hey! It looks like you can, right? Please? For me?" She blatantly leaned in to press her bust into his arm.

The Ki-user's resistance collapsed entirely before the onslaught of eager blonde beauty. "Oh my god..." Ranma sighed. The English phrase was not one he'd normally use, especially after having fought beings claiming to be divine, but it seemed appropriate for the situation. "Hai... hai... OK." He looked to the northwest and made a mental note to be careful about what he was about to do. "Just... leggo my arm for a second."

The flight attendant obligingly released him and he stepped away to take up a horse stance and close his eyes. Blading his hands, he held them palms up in front of his midriff, then took a deep breath, raising his hands until they reached his throat, then exhaled sharply while lowering the hands again. He repeated this two more times.

On the final repetition, he kept on inhaling well past what should have been possible for human lungs. His legs straightened and the feet that had been shoulder width came back together. He leaned back and tilted his head up, his eyes still closed and air still flowing in through his nose. Alexis blinked and looked around as the atmosphere in the elevator stirred and seemed to tingle in some way, reminding her of what it had been like inside the young man's aura. Ranma opened his eyes and the American woman noticed there was a silvery sheen to them for an instant before fading away.

Relaxing, Ranma sighed and told her: "OK. Can keep going now."

"Perfect," she purred as the elevator dinged and the doors opened. She hooked his elbow with hers again and guided him out.

Three of the doors on the short hallway were open, and Happy Hogan leaned to poke his head out of the main room. "Hey, Ranma!" he called out. "Your room is that one," he pointed to one of the open doors that led to a luxurious room larger than the entire second floor of the Tendo household. "They've ah... picked an outfit for you." Hearing the senior bodyguard's announcement, Nichole and Trixie trotted out of their room in their high heels and similar tight, black dresses to their compatriot's. Trixie gestured peremptorily at Ranma to follow as she went into his room.

Seeing the martial artist's still incredulous expression, Hogan smirked and said: "Pro tip: if a bunch of good-looking women call you out for a night on the town? You say 'yes, ma'am.'" Ranma titled his head in thought, then nodded at his elder's wisdom. "Besides, you'll need the practice if you want to keep up with Tony Stark!"

"Ooookay..." the Japanese superhuman acknowledged slowly as he was dragged with minimal resistance into the room. "Party is part of the job?"

"Kind of, yeah," the older man chuckled.

"Definitely," Alexis corrected firmly.

"Hurry up, you two!" Trixie insisted. "Let's make sure this stuff fits! We got those measurements from Mr. Stark's scanning thing, but I have no idea how accurate it is. It looks good to me, though."

"If he's using the same thing to measure women's bust-lines, it'll have it down to a 32nd of an inch," Nichole asserted half-jokingly as she drifted in as well.

"You had time for shopping?" Ranma was surprised. The three hadn't had all that much time for sleep in the first place, but they were looking very well turned out and energetic now. He hadn't expected untrained civilians to hold up that well if they were running around in stores too.

"Oh, hell no. We rested up to prepare for tonight," Trixie shook her head emphatically. Ranma quirked an eyebrow at the reminder that he hadn't been given any such consideration. "We used my phone to do the shopping. We picked out an ensemble we liked and had the hotel staff fetch the items in your size... I hope. They laundered everything, too. Also..." She leafed through her purse and picked out a plastic card that she handed to Ranma. "This is the key to your room."

"It is?" Ranma flipped the thing over and examined it dubiously.

The American women all paused and looked at him. "Haven't spent much time in hotels either, huh?" Trixie surmised.

"Well... ryokans and such. Had real keys if they had keys at all."

A quick demonstration of the key-card later, the ladies were then showing off the clothing they had selected. The blue silk shirt with a pattern he couldn't name even seconds after they identified it was fine, but... "Leather trousers?" Ranma asked with even more skepticism than he had for the flimsy plastic key.

"Tight, black leather pants," Alexis nodded earnestly. "Your ass will look fantastic." Slowly, Ranma turned his head to look directly at the blonde, then slowly he leaned back from her while eyeing her in dubious silence. For all his self-pride, it seemed weird for people to be that enthusiastic about his guy-form's looks. In his opinion, it made more sense to him when people acted like that toward his girl-form. The Nerima fiancees might have expressed appreciation for his male appearance... in their own inimitably deranged ways... but he was never sure if it were really about his attractiveness or if it was all about his presupposed role or what he could do for them.

Alexis ignored the unvoiced misgivings and pulled out something else. Gripping the sides, she tugged at the thin, black shorts she was holding to show how they stretched. "Don't forget the boxer-briefs," she advised.

"You picked out my underwear?"

"Trust us. We're experts in underwear," Alexis said sardonically. "We picked out your socks and shoes, too. Please change already so we know if it fits."

Ranma heaved a deep sigh, then took off his perfectly sensible, cotton tangzhuang top that he bought his own self, thank-you-very-much, to replace it with the overly expensive looking shirt the western women had chosen. Those women were looking wide-eyed at the intensely muscular and entirely hairless torso revealed. They had all gotten a good feel on the plane, but seeing it was a whole different thing. When Ranma noticed just how avid their stares were, he rolled his eyes, grabbed the rest of the clothes, and went looking for the bathroom to change in.

"Aww!" Nichole and Alexis protested in a synchronized groan.

"Just as well, he's not eighteen quite yet," the semi-official leader of the troupe reminded them. "Besides, I'd be worried about you breaking rule 1-B ," Trixie added as the door closed after their most recent client. Rule 1-B was: 'don't sleep with the passengers, either.' Since they were carefully staying out of Stark's bed to guarantee continued employment, they couldn't do anything, or anyone, else that might make him have expectations. It wasn't easy for a stripper to keep her personal and professional lives separate, but Trixie had been adamant about doing so, and it had served them well for years.

"You were getting a good eyeful too," Nichole riposted. "Hey... just imagine you were going at it hot and heavy with him and all the sudden he whips out that aura thing he does. Imagine how that'd feel from the inside as well as out, huh?"

Trixie bit her lip and breathed in slowly through her nose, infinitesimally nodding a bit until she suddenly shook her head. "Unless you've already saved up enough to retire on, forget it. Rule 1-B is still in effect. Don't screw it up for the rest of us. Literally or otherwise."

"Alright, alright..." Nichole held up her hands in defeat. "But the second Ms. Potts finally lands Mr. Stark, I'm jumping the kung-fu stud."

Trixie gave her a flat look, then cast a sidelong glance toward where Ranma had shut himself in, than looked back to her fellow dancer. "You got that right," she agreed emphatically, making her two compatriots laugh wickedly.

Unbeknownst to them, Ranma had heard every word even through the closed door. His pride had been stoked by the commentary, and his lingering social uncertainty had been relieved by their promise to hold back. However, the thing that stuck in his mind was the prediction about Pepper and Tony. He wondered how accurate that was.

############

Massive speakers assaulted his ears with electronic beats. Flashing light strobed into his eyes. Wildly flailing, soft, clumsy civilians cavorted and collided all around him. By rights, it was a situation that should have driven the combat expert up a wall with annoyance, but to his surprise, Ranma was actually enjoying himself. Undoubtedly it was because of the blonde and the brunette who were currently dancing with him sandwiched in between their writhing bodies.

The Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu was an art that tore down all human mechanics into a vast store of building blocks, letting the practitioners use this quantified knowledge to easily identify, analyze, adapt, and overcome the moves of their opponents. Swiftly learning popular dance styles by sight had been trivial for a master of the school, and piecing together a few movements of his own from what he had seen others do had gained quite a bit of favor from the ladies with him. The trio had taken turns alone, in pairs and occasionally all together when Happy was taking a breather to twirl, bump, shimmy and grind against him. In a way, it was a lot like how it had been on the plane except that they were clothed and he was standing. He had to frost his aura a little with the Soul of Ice to keep from reacting to much in this public venue.

Ranma was getting a few envious glances or even glares from some of the other men in the club, a fact he ignored with practiced aplomb. None of them were likely to try to brain him with an armored umbrella or shish kebab him with a spread of throwing knives, after all. In contrast, several of his countrywomen had apparently taken the close presence of the western females as competition, a cue, or both, and many locals had gravitated to dance with him as well whenever the stewardess team left room to do so. It was all a bit strange compared to the distance people tended to give him in Nerima, but he was definitely enjoying it.

Getting into the trendy club the women had chosen after dinner had been a lot easier than expected, in spite of the fact that only twenty-year-olds and older were supposed to be allowed. The trio of ladies had been making their final approach at full strut in order to figuratively bowl over the bouncers, when they were intercepted by an even more expensively dressed woman and her bodyguards. As it turned out, they were in the territory of the Kuroda Ikka, one of the less objectionable Yakuza families, and the organization had been keeping an eye on them ever since they were spotted in the sushi restaurant they went to. To his mild embarrassment, Ranma's reputation had preceded him, and the representative of the gumi had been sent to make sure all he was looking for was a good time and not to wage a devastating one-teen war of demolition upon them.

You do something like that one time and people never let you forget it.

...

Well... OK... no more than three or four times... depending on if Triads count.

In any event, Ranma had promised not to start anything as long as he wasn't attacked, and they had let him and his group in past the waiting line. They even invited Ranma back at any later date he chose. The Kuroda group was small, but influential far beyond their numbers, and they got that way by keeping good relations with powerful people.

During a break in the music when the DJ was announcing something incomprehensible even to the native Japanese speaker about the next set, Alexis called out over the noise of the crowd: "Let's go back to the table! I could use a break!"

"Me too," Trixie agreed as the two linked arms with Ranma, escorting him through the crowd to where Happy and Nichole were sitting and enjoying drinks.

"Finally wearing down?" Hogan asked as they sat down.

"Not really," Ranma shrugged. The women didn't seem to agree with the look they shared, but they also looked happy with how the night had gone.

The ex-boxer examined his charge and had to admit that if he was putting up an energetic front, he was doing a very good job of it. "Tired or not, we should probably pack it in soon. Ranma's meeting the lawyers again in about five hours."

"Uh... yeah, you got a point," Ranma conceded as he rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ignore the playful pouting of the women. "I guess we..." He cut himself off and rose smoothly to his feet, turning around to face where a trio of men in business suits were approaching. Hogan hastily joined him, putting three ladies behind them, when he realized two of the new arrivals had the hard-bitten, muscular looks of Yakuza foot soldiers.

The dapper, bland expressioned man in the middle ignored the potential for an incident and bowed, first to Ranma, then to Happy. The Japanese native replied with a wary bow automatically, and the senior bodyguard hastily followed his lead. "Saotome-San. Mr. Hogan," the man greeted, continuing in English. "My name is Shinohara Tomoya. I would like to express the appreciation of the owners for your patronage." He turned and gestured to a small column of club employees who were carrying various wrapped packages, a couple of which were obviously bottles under the paper. More heavies came along with them to glare the bystanders back with their presence, giving the group a semblance of privacy. "Please allow us to present a few minor tokens of our esteem for you, for Mr. Stark, and for Ms. Potts, even if these items are a bit prosaic."

Hogan considered denying the connection for a moment, but this wasn't the first time a savvier type had spotted and identified him. "You figured that out, huh?" he sighed. "Is there some kind of message you want us to pass on or something?"

"Not at all," the apparent high-level lieutenant denied. "We merely recognized you and made some suppositions. The gifts are merely that, no need to do anything but pass on the compliments of the Kuroda family."

"What kind of suppositions?" Hogan asked with a bit of suspicion.

"Saotome-San's capabilities are well known in our circles," Shinohara answered smoothly. "To us it would seem obvious that he would do well as either a bodyguard, trainer, or a battle partner for the inestimable Iron Man."

Hogan went professionally stone-faced, but the tinge of worry in Ranma's face confirmed the guess. Glancing at the American man, the employee-to-be asked: "Don't think we can say anything about that, right?"

Hogan rolled his eyes at the giveaway, saying: "No, we have no comment."

"Then please ignore any speculations I may mistakenly voice," Shinohara went on, not even trying to sound sincere about the supposed inaccuracy of his assessment. He bowed again. "In any event, please accept these on your employer's or prospective employer's behalf."

Ranma also bowed. "Thanks for the offer, but don't think we can take them."

Remembering the tips on local customs he had been given by Pepper on previous trips to Japan, even though Tony tended to breeze past formalities wherever he went, Happy also gave something halfway between a nod and a bow as he gave another proforma refusal. "Yeah, that's real nice of you, but we can't accept."

"Please, I insist," the front man continued on as if nothing had been said, waving the workers forward.

"Well... if you insist..." Hogan muttered, not willing to go another round of pretend refusals, before holding out his hands to accept the first box, bobbing his shoulders a bit to respond to the porter's bow.

"That is for Ms. Potts," Shinohara related. "And that is for Mr. Stark," he added as another gift, one of the bottles, was passed over. "And that is for you, Mr. Hogan," he concluded as a second bottle was given. He turned and addressed the martial artist who was also receiving two packages. "The first of those is also for Mr. Stark. Please forgive the imposition."

"Tony gets two? That's about typical." Hogan smirked as he accepted a bag to make it easier to carry the gifts. Ranma had already disappeared his own items up his sleeves.

"No..." Ranma shook his head. "It's... it would have been four things if not for that. Bad luck." Seeing the mystified look from the westerner, he shook his head again as Shinohara smiled thinly. "Never mind. Explain later."

"Well, thank you for the gifts, we'll be sure to pass them on," Hogan concluded while stifling a yawn. "Though we really need to get going."

"Indeed," Shinohara said agreeably. "Please let us know if there is anything we can do to accommodate you during the rest of your visit to our country. I'll have your driver summoned."

"Already handled," Hogan replied, holding up his smart-phone. "Thanks again, but I think we're good... uh..." he looked at where Ranma had suddenly facepalmed and held up his other hand as if he were in class. "What is it?"

Heaving a sigh, Ranma asked in Japanese: {"Shinohara-San? Is there a derelict building or empty lot near here? Preferably northwest of here?"}

The Kuroda fixer blinked once, then frowned. "Oh dear," he responded in English again. "Do you suspect one of your opponents is here?"

{"Oh I know my opponent's coming this way, yeah. I can feel the Ki from here,"} Ranma answered with some annoyance. {"There's not too much hurry, but I really need a place to fight, 'cause I don't think I can get away with giving a no for an answer."}

"Hey... what's going on?" Hogan interjected.

"I got someone I gotta fight," Ranma answered laconically. "Which way?"

"There's an athletic field four blocks that way," Shinohara pointed. "We can make arrangements for repair, as needed."

"Right," Ranma sighed before springing up to the lighting gantries above and vaulting toward the front door. With a flicker of high-speed motion, the martial artist dove outside through the doorway and was gone before anyone at the front could react. Tilting his head thoughtfully, Shinohara then signaled one of his henchmen who took out a phone to make a call.

"What the hell? Seriously... what's going on?" the ex-boxer asked again.

"Apparently one of the people Saotome-San is famous for fighting is approaching," Shinohara explained. "I told him where to go to fight so there wouldn't be too much damage." Seeing the expression on the American man's face, he motioned for the visitors to follow him as he went toward the exit as well, informing them: "There's likely no way to stop the battle, but we can observe. In fact..." he switched to Japanese and ordered one of his men: {"Ojou-sama will be interested in this. Inform her that Saotome-San will do battle at the Shirioken sports field."} The attendant bowed and also hastened to make a call with his cell phone.

As the group exited the club, a limousine squealed to a stop in front. One of the doormen trotted over to open the car door and Shinohara ducked in while his attendants piled into the front. He looked back out and gestured to the hesitant Americans. "I assure you, combat of the caliber we are about to see is not often witnessed in modern times. Please get in, we do not want to miss this."

Nodding at the prospect of learning more about the prospective bodyguard's actual ability, Happy Hogan also entered the vehicle, the women following suit. They were barely seated before the car accelerated, four motorcyclists buzzing past to take the lead and clear traffic. The Yakuza members paid little attention to the traffic lights, the bikers simply taking turns to pause in front of oncoming traffic and holding up hands to stop the other vehicles and let the limo pass at full speed. With the escort, they made very good time and parked next to an athletic field less than a minute after getting in motion.

Despite the high-speed driving, Ranma had beaten them there on foot and was standing near the center of the field faintly lit by streetlights. The group disembarked and approached the surrounding fence, Shinohara's guards bracketing him. Before they could think of getting past the barrier, the martial artist gestured for them to stop without looking at them, his gaze fixed off in the distance. Nobody seemed willing to say anything as they took in the scene, the tension rising without a word being spoken. Even the Ki-blind civilians could feel something in the air that set them on edge.

"Muko-Dono," a scratchy aged voice of an old woman could be heard by all the people present, even though the unseen owner of the voice was not shouting. {"It has been quite some time since you showed your face."}

{Hey, ol' hag,"} Ranma replied casually. {"Shan Pu sneaking around here somewhere?"}

{"Hardly. Some of us do have to work in the morning instead of playing around at all hours of the night. We do have a restaurant to open in a few hours and so she is sleeping like a proper and obedient young woman. I'm sure she'd appreciate waking to find you gift-wrapped in her bed, however."}

{"Not happening,"} Ranma declared firmly, sliding into a stance. {"Matter o' fact, I've got loads of work to do in the morning, too, so lets get this over with quick."}

{"So impatient,"} the matriarch of the Joketsuzoku of China tutted as she stepped out of the darkness. Or more properly, she pogo'ed out of the darkness on her gnarled wooden staff, balancing atop it even as she steadily bounced across the field. Her odd form of locomotion raised her protuberant eyes above the two feet off the ground they'd be level with if she stood on her feet, though even with the assist her height still didn't rise above chest level of Ranma's female form. Her snow-white hair trailed after her like a banner, and the deep wrinkles of her face worked into an amused mien.

"Omigod, what is that?!" Alexis exclaimed loudly from the sideline. "Is that a human?"

At this point, Ku Lon dropped to her feet and made a vague swiping motion in the general direction of the blonde with her stick. A whisper of wind seemed to flow and swirl around the blonde woman, and she suddenly yipped and jumped as she felt a swat on her backside. It felt like the stick had somehow teleported over to chastise her.

{"Hey! Leave her be!"} Ranma protested as he straightened into a normal posture. {"They ain't used to seeing shriveled up old mummies get up and walk around where they're from!"}

"From America, you mean?" the ancient combat expert inquired in English that was as good as her Japanese. "Is that where you have been?"

{"Nah, never been there. You can check my passport,"} Ranma informed her with a smirk.

"As if you would be limited by the deficiencies of the modern world. Let us converse in English for the sake of our unexpected audience," she requested as she trotted up to the much younger martial artist and started circling around him. "So... America. From the feel of your aura, I can tell you've been on an ascetic pilgrimage, but I wouldn't have expected it to be to the clumsy giant of the west."

"A whata-what?" Ranma asked, confused by the unfamiliar words.

"An ascetic pilgrimage," she enunciated. "A training journey. A real one, not those harebrained outings your idiot father dragged you on." She examined him with narrowed eyes as she made a circuit around him. "Solitary. Lengthy. Austere. Had I not known that you went the other direction, I'd have thought you'd quested for some meagre measure of enlightenment through the Gobi Desert. It is a small change so far, but with your aura I could feel the effects all the way in Nerima."

She was actually very impressed, and mildly dismayed... not that she'd admit it... at how the boy's already towering Ki-presence had kept developing in the few short weeks he was gone. After the battle with Safuran, it seemed like floodgates within the teen had opened wide. Ki reserves that had started out already close to unprecedented had then expanded in leaps and bounds. At first, his gains could largely be attributed to him associating with that priest, plus the forging strain of the continuing incidents in Nerima. However, those gains kept coming steadily. This despite the fact that it normally took exponentially more and more time to increase the strength of one's Ki as that Ki grew. It was almost sick how no one else in Nerima seemed to notice it. Like watching a village full of idiots insist the creature in their midst was a pet iguana when what towered over them was clearly the form of a dragon.

Furthermore, she could perceive that even escaping the stresses of Nerima hadn't slowed his progress. She doubted his skills had grown all that much, if at all, but raw strength and speed made up for a lot. Especially in the quantities she was sensing. It almost tempted her to simply let the child go his merry way. However, another thing she fully intended to keep to herself was how outright appalled she'd been to realize that massive aura had been unnoticed by her until she woke with a start less than half an hour before. Ranma's journey had settled his aura rather well, and it was no longer the noisy jangle it had been after over a year in Nerima. Luckily for her, perhaps, the boy's state of mind had been disarrayed and his self-control relaxed by festivities and female companionship enough to botch his stealth. It did amuse her that even untrained women were enough to hand a defeat, however small, to the young male no matter his personal power. Still, that spot of humor wasn't enough to make up for the fact she had been given a bit of a fright, so she would exact some payback. Or at least some further entertainment.

"Rowed across the Pacific, did you?" Ku Lon finally asked after her ruminations were done.

Sour-faced at the accurate assumption, and getting a little tired of how people seemed to be reading him like a book that night, Ranma said: "You've got big imagination. Maybe your brain's too old to work right."

Ku Lon only chuckled at the weak sally. "These young women... they aren't fiancees, obviously. But I would bet they were the ones to dress you in that," she nodded at his outfit. "Leather trousers... very nice." She made a point of pacing around behind him for a particular viewing angle. "Very nice indeed. If I were 250 years younger, I would not be turning you over to Shan Pu."

Blushing and a little nauseated, Ranma plaintively requested: "Just skip to part where try to beat heads in, please?"

"Oh, not quite yet," Ku Lon refused as she wandered away to examine the onlookers. "Yakuza... and an officer, specifically," she judged as she regarded Shinohara. "Not deferential to the fat one..."

"Hey!" Hogan objected as her pointed staff picked him out.

The crone leveled a look at the man that shut him up and caused him to raise his hands inoffensively. "Not deferential..." she repeated as she slowly got nearer the fence, "but more respectful than would normally be the case for a westerner. Not respectful enough for him to be someone powerful himself, so he must be the representative of someone who is. He's not government, no... he must work for a businessman. Someone famous if you have heard of him, Muko-Dono, and were willing to approach him. Hmm... what wealthy American is particularly famous in Japan right now?" She suddenly turned and pointed her staff at Ranma in fine crime-drama style. "You went to Anthony Stark, did you not?"

"That's quite the Sherlock Holmes performance ya got there, but you're wrong," Hogan denied.

"Oh? So this Stark Industries identification badge is not yours?" she challenged as she held up the man's wallet. It was open to clearly show Hogan's face pictured on the badge in question

"How the hell...?" Hogan started to ask in shock, reflexively patting at his pockets.

"If you don't realize how far beyond your comprehension who and what you are dealing with..." Ku Lon cut him off as she flipped the wallet over the fence to be caught by its owner. "Well... you should pay close attention and learn as quickly as you are capable." Leaving the American man to curse under his breath and wonder how she'd managed to steal the wallet in the first place, Ku Lon turned back to her quarry. "Interesting... very interesting..." she mused inscrutably, tilting her head in consideration as she looked at Ranma again.

"Ya'd better not try anything on them or any other regular people," Ranma warned with an unusually serious tone. "It'll be my duty to stop you."

"Very interesting," the matriarch said again as she nodded slowly. "Well... you know what you need to do if you want to go on one of your little trips without my interference. This is no different, even if the trip will be a bit longer than previous examples. As such, I do believe I will hold back a bit less than usual."

"Yeah, right," Ranma scoffed as he got back into a stance. "Like you've been holding back."

"With five thousand years of Joketsuzoku teachings to draw upon, I can always find a way to surprise you," Ku Lon countered as a she readied her staff for combat. "Though after all these peaceful weeks, perhaps you've lost a bit of your edge? We'll see. Let's start with some basics."

Twin cracks split the night as the two Ki-adepts seemed to teleport at each other, meeting in mid-air with a barrage of further cracks and pops as their hands, feet, and Ku Lon's staff broke the sound barrier. The two continued to salvo strikes and blocks until they reached the ground, then sprang away from each other. "Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken," Ku Lon commented. "You've incorporated the training into your kicks as well, I see."

"Not just the kicks," Ranma boasted, then streaked around in a circle around his opponent, leaving afterimages of himself behind as he looked for an opening.

"Splitting Cat Hairs. So you figured out the core of that technique. Astute of you, but can you show me something ne... woulph..." Ku Lon's taunt was interrupted by a punch to her shriveled torso, sending her flying. She took the blow full on, but her mastery of her Ki allowed her to recover and wipe away the damage even before she tapped down on the ground. "Well struck. You used the Ki-infused afterimages to distract while approaching with your presence suppressed. Not quite the Umisenken, but effective under the circumstances. Let's see how your technique matches with mine." With that, she also blurred into a series of afterimages.

############

"I can't believe this," Nichole said, wide eyed as she saw clusters of insubstantial images fighting each other all over the field. Their Yakuza host had walked off to greet a woman who had ridden up on the same brand of motorcycle as the escort team, though hers was painted a bright red instead of black. The newcomer didn't remove her helmet, and didn't approach them, so the Americans were politely ignoring her.

"I can't believe he's fighting an old lady," Alexis snarked. "Though she kind of deserves it," she said plaintively as she rubbed her backside.

"Haven't you seen Star Wars?" Happy asked absently as he struggled to capture the action with his phone's video function. "It's the little wrinkly old masters you gotta really watch out... D'oh...!" he flinched along with the others as the apparitions suddenly disappeared and Ranma was sent to dig an involuntarily trench across the field with his face.

############

Cursing unintelligibly, Ranma fended off a follow up attack as he spat out some dirt. The multi-centenarian chuckled at his annoyed expression. "You can't possibly hope to match senses I've spent more decades than you have years developing" Ku Lon pointed out. "Nice try though."

"Pah..." he spluttered one last time and scowled. {"Yeah... yeah... it's a work in progress. And I remember you said the same thing about me ever matching your speed. And will you lay off the pressure points already!? They don't work on me anymore!"}

"Making you use up your overgrown reserves of Ki is a valid tactic. Also, remember to speak English, please," Ku Lon reminded him.

{"Why? I sound like Shan Pu speaking Japanese when I speak it,"} Ranma complained.

"Actually, you sound worse than Shan Pu," she chuckled again. "After all this time in Japan? Talking to customers day in and day out? Her accent is a put-on at this point. Playing on the cuteness angle for all she's worth."

Abandoning his stance for a moment, Ranma brought one fist down on the palm of the other in a gesture that reflected his realization. {"I knew it! She went from barely speaking to where she's at now in a few weeks and then never improved again!"} He yelped and ducked under the tip of the cane that sped right for the bridge of his nose at supersonic speed and the owner of the staff who had hurtled along with it over his head.

"English!" she demanded insistently. "If this is to be our final battle, I want your new friends to be able to appreciate the whole thing!"

"Wh-what?" Ranma was shocked at the declaration. Then his face hardened. "If you think you'll kill me..."

"Hardly," she denied scornfully. "Yours is not a talent to be wasted so casually. I simply have no intention of going to America to fight you again. T'is a barbaric and obnoxious country."

"Hey!" Hogan shouted from beyond the fence.

"It's full of fat people like him, too," Ku Lon continued unperturbed, getting another shout of protest. Ranma rolled his eyes at her and she took the opportunity to take another swipe at him. "Don't take your eyes off your opponent! I won't accept such sloppiness!"

Ranma did look directly at her, but his face was solemn. This was seeming to be more a lesson than an actual attempt to defeat him. Regarding her for a moment, he asked quietly instead of projecting his voice to the audience: {"It's like that, then?"}

Nodding, Ku Lon told him: {"Assuming you win, of course."} Notably, she didn't sound at all dubious about his chances. {"You might be able to step out into the modern world. Might... though I have my doubts. If anyone can, it will be you. We of the Joketsuzoku, however, are not so ready to expose ourselves. The Kisses of Death and Marriage will be superseded by the needs of the tribe for discretion. I'd call it a masterstroke on your part if I didn't realize you'd stumbled into this little loophole accidentally."} She sighed with exasperation. {"Sheer dumb luck... again."}

Shaking her head, Ku Lon continued: {"Shan Pu... is her own person, and she might try to continue her pursuit. Then again, she might not if I tell her about the Tendo girls finally being out of the running too. I hope she'll accept a draw in their little contest and take the restoration of her position among the Joketsuzoku as her compensation. You are abandoning your father's pathetic plans, are you not?"}

{"Yeah,"} Ranma agreed. {"No more arranged marriages. No more joining the schools except what I figure out my own damn self. No more getting sold. No more seppuku pledge. No more nothing"} He smiled a little evilly. {"I've even got lawyers to make it stick!"}

"{Hmph... definitely time to withdraw, then,"} Ku Lon muttered. More loudly, she said: {"Then I doubt there will be too much problem with my great-granddaughter. The last few weeks have given her a cooler head, and she wasn't quite as heartbroken as she would have assumed before. It may turn out that you are not quite as irresistible as you might like to think,"} she teased.

{"Huh... OK, good. That's a hit to my pride I'll gladly take,"} Ranma declared wryly.

{"Reversal Jewel,"} Ku Lon mentioned casually, reminding him of a time when he didn't take a ding to his ego quite so philosophically.

{"Urk,"} Ranma flinched, then shook his head. {"OK, I mean I'll gladly take the hit now. I can learn, you know."} He grumbled at how Ku Lon flippantly dismissed his claim with a thoroughly wrinkled and patronizing smirk. {"Whatever. So what if she doesn't give up...?"}

{"Then I would appreciate it if you would discreetly ship her back home,"} the ancient answered calmly. {"I assure you, there are no hard feelings on our side. You may even teach the Joketsuzoku techniques I taught you to any female students you like."}

{"Whoa. Really?"} Ranma was stunned for a second, then smirked. {"That mean I can teach whatever Joketsuzoku stuff I figured out myself to anybody?"}

{"You mean Hidden Weapons and the Exploding Point? Feh..."} Ku Lon scoffed. {"Those aren't Joketsuzoku. Teach those to whoever. We don't care."}

{"Soul of Ice? Rising Dragon Destruction Wave? Those are Joketsuzoku, right?"} Ranma confirmed. {"I can seriously teach them?"}

{"To women, certainly,"} the matriarch reemphasized firmly. {"Teach them to as many women as you can manage. Just make sure no men learn, and I will have no objection. Those two techniques in particular were made to counter the Phoenix People, and are useless on us. Assuming you do not wise up, and assuming you win our little contest tonight, then we are done with you my foolish would-be son-in-law."}

{"That's it? It's over?"} Ranma asked with some wariness. {"Just like that after all this time?"}

{"'All this time?'"} Ku Lon chuckled. {"A couple years of diversion is nothing. I've had meditation sessions that lasted longer that."} She shrugged and added: {"Besides... even the loophole wasn't... completely necessary. Defending a child in her own home is hardly the formal challenge the Kiss of Marriage requires, after all. And the Kiss of Death was canceled in compensation for helping with our little firebird problem. We only kept up the pretense in the off chance you would find us a more palatable alternative to the Tendo union."} She chuckled again as the Japanese teen smacked a palm over his face. {"Are you really complaining?"}

"Hoooo..." Ranma let out a long breath. {"OK. No. I'm not complaining."} It was everything he ever wanted, but he still felt a bit off. Pensive. Taking another breath to focus himself, he realized what it was. Plans aside, most of his whole trip had felt like just another random adventure that would soon end and he'd go right back to the grinding status quo of Nerima. Weeks of quiet solitude giving him time to think, the offer of legitimate employment, the serious inclusion of legal firepower into the chaotic mess of his life... and, he had to admit, the attention of beautiful, sensuous women without the twin threats of pain or marriage hanging over his head... all of it chipped away at his habitual assumption, but the absurdly aged matriarch had shattered it completely. He never wanted to go back to that sense of futility, yet in that one moment, in a strange way he missed it deeply.

{"This is really happening,"} Ranma breathed in near-wonder.

{"It is,"} Ku Lon confirmed.

{"This is growing up, huh?"} he went on with an self-deprecating smirk.

{"The feeling the world is wide open to you, and you to it, and it is much, much larger that you truly realized? Yes. But you do need to prove you are ready to me."}

"OK," Ranma repeated, nodding to himself. He noticed some more limos had pulled up next to their battlefield, and he sensed the sorts of auras he associated with underworld types behind the tinted windows. "English from now on?" he confirmed with a voice that now reached the watchers.

"Indeed. American will also be acceptable," the Chinese elder quipped, also sending the words out on waves of Ki for all to hear.

"American, huh? Well... you asked for it." Ranma grinned wildly as his Ki roiled through his body, a silver light shining in his eyes. Revved up, he cut loose with a battle cry inspired by his new patron. "LET'S ROCK AND ROLL!"

Dirt blasted out from under his feet as he charged. Punches fired with the speed and sound of a machine-gun as he bulled forward. For her part, Ku Lon also grinned as she rode the tidal-wave of his force, ironically using one of the prime tenets of the Saotome branch of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu against him: evade, deflect, observe, and overcome. She patiently waited for an opening to counter.

Ranma, of course, frequently fought a practitioner of his own school in the form of his father, so he had counters of his own. One hand trailed behind him with wide spread fingers, that side of his aura sizzling with stolen heat he wrenched from the air with his other hand, flash-freezing the moisture in the atmosphere around the tiny martial arts master to slow her down and pull her in with air pressure. A touch caused the forming ice to thicken and harden around the matriarch all the faster.

Ku Lon's swift sharp inhale preceded a supernatural shriek that burst out in a shockwave, blasting away the ice before it could reach up to her head. It pushed Ranma away as well, as he clapped hands to his ears. As a bonus, the Ki-enhanced vibrations re-heated the air instantly to completely neutralize the side-effects of the Soul of Ice variant. Ku Lon went back on the attack, landing several hits with her staff and feet while Ranma frantically tried to restore function to his ears with a flood of Ki, still holding his hands to the sides of his head as he tried to block and dodge as best he could with his feet.

Finally quick-healing his abused eardrums, Ranma retaliated with a clap of his hands that met with the force of a bomb, just narrowly missing the suddenly retreating form of his opponent. A cone of force erupted from his hands, the shock front turning the air into a steel cannonshell that blasted the white-haired crone away.

Ranma pursued with a strange zigzag pattern that turned into a diving spin. His right hand nearly blistered with boiling heat as his left went rigid with shocking cold within the fierce temperature gradient he just created. "Cyclone Dragon Bullet!" he yelled as a nearly opaque column of shredding winds blasted forward with a roar.

Ku Lon managed to avoid the brunt of the attack, but had to dig her staff into the ground to keep from getting sucked in. This left her open to Ranma's follow up. "Heart Seeking Spiral Arrow!" he announced his technique once again as he came spinning in like a drill in a double-legged kick. Ku Lon's last millisecond dodge failed as Ranma's path shifted to follow. She hardened her cane as much as it would bear with her Ki and put it between her chest and the boy's feet. It did not help her much as the true core of the technique was unleashed.

The drilling motion of Ranma's assault transferred instantly into Ku Lon, and she was sent corkscrewing into the ground... and didn't stop. Clods of dirt fountained up as the diminutive old woman was buried deep below the surface.

Ranma worked his jaw and pounded the side of his head to try to get his ears back to normal. Despite the lingering effects, he was in high spirits. "Ha! Well that work pretty good," he said smugly as he walked over to where he thought the elder was. "Guess better dig... whu-oh!"

The raven-haired teen vaulted backward in a series of backflips as the ground began detonating in a line that sought him out. Ku Lon hauled herself out of the first crater, filthy and bedraggled, but still game for more combat. "Exploding Point – Revised," she proclaimed her own technique. "That was a remarkable variation of the principles of the Rising Dragon Destruction Wave. So... allow me to show you something very new in return!" She tossed her staff to the side and cupped her hands around her mouth. None of the observers could hear anything, but a visible distortion rocketed from the tube formed by her hands toward where Ranma was in mid-leap.

The would-be bodyguard frantically tried to shift his mid-air path to avoid it, but was still struck in the chest. His next landing resulted in a messy tumble as the sonic disruption somehow ravaged his inner ears, and his balance along with them. "Sonnuva... again!?" he shouted in frustration as he struggled to stand. "Shimatta!" he yelped as a golden ki-bolt nearly slammed into his head before he could duck.

"You..." he snarled at a now-cheerful ancient as she retrieved her stick. "Take this!" Unsure of his aim as he reeled under the effects of the induced vertigo, Ranma fired a series of Moko Takabishas at his assailant while still on his knees.

############

"Holy shit!" Happy blurted. "Were those...?"

"Ki-blasts," the unnamed helmeted woman answered with a faint accent. "Never thought I'd see them in real life. This is amazing! Good call, Shinohara!"

"Thank you, Ojou-sama."

Seeing the curious expressions sent her way by the Americans, the helmeted woman crossed her arms and said: "Ignore me. I'm just a mysterious masked fighter."

Since that ridiculous statement was backed up by the filthy looks from several Yakuza foot-soldiers, the westerners obediently turned back to the fight.

In fact, they were getting plenty of practice ignoring things in plain view. Not long after the unidentified woman arrived, more limos had pulled up. More men like the Kuroda's enforcers exited the vehicles, but they stood around like guards. Apparently there were more high-ranking people they were not going to meet still inside, watching the impromptu bout. The helmeted woman's facade had worn pretty thin when she'd gone over to greet them all with bodyguards flanking her.

It was all making Hogan a bit antsy, but he didn't get the feeling there was any real threat his group, and there were plenty of reasons to stay put.

############

"Heh, inelegant. Wasteful," Ku Lon scoffed as she retaliated with her own aura-bullets. Her smaller, more efficient energy blasts intercepted and exploded Ranma's more powerful ones.

Still, the exchange of energy bolts bought Ranma time to figure out what to do next, and that was to close his eyes and dash forward. Ignoring his compromised sense of balance and swimming vision, he was able to close in with the matriarch. Despite his closed eyes, his strikes were as rapid an unerring as before. "Much better!" Ku Lon praised. "Look beyond your senses to see the truth underlying the world!" In that moment, she sounded more like an approving professor than an adversary in brutal combat.

Ranma showed his teeth in something between a grimace and a grin. Redoubling his attack speed, his battle aura compressed the impact energies of his strikes into things that were sharper and more dangerous than even his uncanny musculature was capable of normally. Ku Lon deflected the first few such attacks until she got the rhythm of the pulses of physical and supernatural force he was using. Then she allowed one such punch to land dead on... and redirected the power of it right back at Ranma with her staff.

The black-haired teen's eyes opened wide at the counter, hastily reversing the direction of the force the instant he was hit and channeling it into his own counter-punch... plus a bit extra oomph in revenge. This was a slightly advanced form of the internal striking he had described to JARVIS. Where instead of focusing their own power at a certain point in the enemy's body, he and Ku Lon diverted the energies of incoming attacks as soon as they landed.

Thus started a dance of high-energy hot potato as the two martial artists tried to stick the other with the slowly growing attack. Weaving to and fro across the field, bleed-off effects from the back-and-forth exchange made the ground ripple like water in their zigzag path, leaving strange ridges and peaks imprinted in the land.

After several long seconds of check and counter-check, Ranma broke the stalemate by lengthening his striking arm a few centimeters to throw off Ku Lon's calculations and cause her to miss her turn of the redirect volley. With a grunt of pain and effort, the ancient managed to disperse much of the force into an omnidirectional burst, but she still went flying, leaving a few drops of blood behind.

"Never thought Chardin School ever be useful in real fight," Ranma commented as he reset his dislocated elbow and massaged Ki into it to restore it back to fighting trim.

Leveraging herself back to her feet with her staff and patting down her dirtied and ragged robes, Ku Lon replied equitably: "Those strange French people with the food obsession? I wouldn't have expected such a useful little surprise from them, either. That whole misadventure seemed like a complete waste of time when I heard of it."

"Extend arm, not tongue. Sometimes is useful. Hated that whole thing, but anything be training," the Saotome paraphrased one of the key tenets of his school. Then he zoomed across the broken ground at the Joketsuzoku, feeling that she was wearing down and eager for the endgame. The elder went to high-speed evasion, leading him on a chase that was just a vague blur zigzagging back and forth around the field to the audience's eyes.

After several moments, they hear strangely echoing chuckles from the male Ki-adept that dopplered in crazy patterns from random spots on the battlefield. The strange shifts in sound sources stopped as a sudden blast of wind sent an expanding torus of dust out in all directions, making the watching people outside the limos shield their faces. When the view cleared, they could see Ranma was standing tall, while Ku Lon was once again collapsed in the dirt several meters in front of him.

"You serious?" he called out mockingly. "Use Rising Dragon Destruction Wave? On me? Saw spiral coming for kilometers! Easy to break! And to use against you!"

Coughing to clear her lungs, Ku Lon replied: "Indeed, you have come to own the technique quite thoroughly. Makes it even more acceptable for you to teach it. Now that I think of it, you might very well have used it in combat more than any other in history. Even I have only needed it twice in an actual fight in my long life. The Joketsuzoku are a peaceful, retiring people, after all." She readily ignored his scoff at her declaration while clambering to her knees, clutching her cane with one arm while her other hand was splayed out on the ground. "Yes, using that move on you may very well have been a mistake. Perhaps you could call it a gambit of desperation."

Shaking his head in rueful homage at the elder's admission, Ranma leapt into a high arc, twisting to lead with his foot to close the curtain on their little fracas with a final kick.

"Or...!" the crone suddenly shouted, and Ranma hurtled to the ground as if he'd been swatted out of the air by an invisible hand. "I was setting up a trap all along!" she completed her triumphant statement.

"Urnf!" Now it was Ranma's turn to struggle up to a kneeling position. "The hell, old hag?! What is this?!" Everything felt like the weight of the world was dragging on it, and the air felt heavy and cloying even though a strong breeze was blowing outward all around him. For a moment, it seemed like his flesh wanted to sag off his bones until his Ki stabilized it. Even his hair felt like it was about to yank his face down into the dirt. He feared he'd been hit by the Ultimate Weakness Moxibustion again until he noticed the airy silk shirt he was wearing was now hanging off his frame like it was made of chain mail. In fact, it was starting to stretch even as he watched.

Absently reinforcing his nice, new clothing with the Iron Cloth technique, he looked around, his neck joints popping with the strain. He could see the ground around him was rising upward... no, the stretch of earth he was pinned on was settling downward, forming a lopsided oval whose narrower, shallower side stretched a little past Ku Lon. "The hell?" he repeated. Then he noticed that clouds of debris outside the depression were falling out of the air a lot slower than normal. His eyes nearly popped out of his head as he realized what was happening.

"You redirect gravity?!" he screeched. "Outside your body!?"

Ku Lon cackled at his shock. "Yes indeed! All that Ki I spread around wasn't to form the Hiryu Shoten Ha! It was all to grasp and focus the pull of the very Earth itself! No Art exceeds that of the Joketsuzoku!"

############

Breath frozen in his throat, Happy Hogan picked up a rock and shucked it underhanded toward the area of effect, following it with his phone camera. The arc the stone traced flattened out a few feet away as it fell more lazily, then suddenly it shot to the ground like a bullet. "Holy shitballs..." he rasped quietly. Looking toward Shinohara, he spoke up more loudly. "Did you know they could do that?! Gravity?! Really?!"

It took a moment before the other man turned to look at him, but the Yakuza notable's face was bland when he did so. "Of course we did," he stated calmly.

"Really?!"

"No," the Japanese man retorted scornfully, startling a slightly crazed laugh from Happy and a peal of more excited laughter from the helmeted woman who was almost vibrating in place with enthusiasm at the thrilling reversal of the fight. Shinohara rubbed at his forehead. "Well, this makes the Kuroda Group's position on high-level martial artists look even wiser than ever, at least. It is good this was witnessed." He directed an arch look toward the additional limousines that had shown up. It was hardly difficult to deduce that they must hold representatives of other Yakuza groups, but Hogan carefully did not inquire and the women with him followed his lead.

############

On the field, Ku Lon was still extolling the nuances of her technique. "If you ever figure out how to do this, never use it near or in tall buildings! The unbalance in weight will topple them!"

"I can't believe you're doing this at all! Crazy old bat!"

Cheerfully, she called back: "Like it? At the focus where you are, I would estimate a hundred times normal gravity now weighs on you!"

"One hundred? That's it?" Ranma furrowed his brows in confusion. "That only 8 tons for me! Can lift way more than that! You mess up math?" Flaring his Ki, he pushed against the ground while reinforcing his own body, particularly his heart and lungs, managing to stand with a bit of a wobble. "Ha! Made it!"

"Heh, so you have. But now what will you do? My calculations are entirely accurate, thank you very much. There is a great deal of difference between a martial artist shifting the balance of some object against the balance of the world in order to lift it and the world itself pulling on every atom of your body!" Smugly she went on to ask: "Perhaps a new plan is in order? Maybe now you would like to abandon your plans to emigrate to America and come with us back to China instead?"

"Yeah right," Ranma scoffed, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. His gaze traced the pattern of the rounded indentation again, then looked to where Ku Lon hadn't moved from where her hand was pressed to the ground. That ground had sunk as well, though not as much or as widely as on his side. He suddenly barked a laugh and briefly lifted his hand to point at her before immediately dropping it again. "You stuck too!" he crowed even as he wavered, trying to avoid falling.

Twisting her lips in annoyance, the superannuated woman confessed: "Yes, fine. I'm caught too. This is... how did you call it again? A work in progress. Still, the facts are that the effect is less on me, and that you are indeed caught like a fly in fresh sap."

"Uh huh," Ranma said skeptically. "And when your Ki runs out?"

"I just need to last longer than you," Ku Lon claimed stoically. Then she realized how unlikely that was when dealing with the absurdly talented and above all young master she was opposing. "Hmm..." she said musingly. "That does seem more effort than it's worth. Perhaps I should try making up a new technique as a finisher. Improvisation seems to work rather well for you. Let me see here..." She then started waving the top of her staff from side to side. Or quivering it a few fractions of a centimeter, rather, as it now weighed more than solid osmium. Soothingly, hauntingly she intoned: "You are getting sleepy... very sleepy..."

Ranma had to laugh at the old biddy's moxie. "Good joke! But I think you in trouble! Could just wait you out..." he speculated out loud. "But that boring." He thought deeply about how he normally lifted a large mass. True enough, a Ki-adept's method of raising large objects was more oblique than simply lifting with main force. It was more like balancing wave forms to lean something against the Earth in a rather odd way with his own body as a block or wedge instead of being the actual direct support... something that was very hard to describe to a non-martial artist. In this case, there was no third body to use dynamically, and most any other practitioner of his level would truly be trapped until the technique ended. But Ranma Saotome refused to give up even if only his pride was at stake and not the match... or perhaps especially because it was his pride at stake. Like Ku Lon said, creativity under pressure was one of his hallmarks.

Frowning in concentration, Ranma swayed slightly from side to side, rocking a bit more and more with each repetition until he managed to get a foot a few precious millimeters off the ground. He came back down with a thud, but grinned as the force of his fall was redirected with his Ki to shove his other foot off the ground. Gritting his teeth in triumph and concentration, he repeated the pattern, much like he had in the stike-redirect exchange he'd had with Ku Lon earlier. Said opponent pursed her lips in a silent, impressed whistle.

Soon the teen was juddering and drumming against the ground, the enhanced gravity making his ultra short motions bizarre to the eyes of people used to living in a one-gee field all their lives. Giving a strangled chuckle he started translating his vibratory movements into forward motion, taking steps that could only be measured in small fractions of centimeters and milliseconds at first, like a child playing 'choo-choo' as they scuffed their feet along the ground, until the cycle of diverted and re-diverted forces allowed him to take broader paces.

Storing and compressing and rerouting the various forces over and over within his aura, he began to walk in a way that looked almost normal. Yet the ground throbbed and quaked under his tread as the harmonic standing wave he'd turned himself into took on a longer frequency and wavelength and he slowly picked up speed. "Jovian! Thundering! Crusher Step!" he gritted out the new technique name triumphantly, his eyes set on his ancient target.

"Oh dear," Ku Lon murmured as she realized the young man's speed was increasing geometrically and he would soon plow into her like a main battle tank moving at motorcycle speed. Nor could she release the gravity lens nearly as quickly as she created it, though she was frantically doing so as fast as she could manage. "Ah well... it was educational anyway," she sighed before raising her voice just before the point of no return. "I surrender!"

"Shimatta!" Ranma cursed as he realized he had no good place to aim all the potential energy he'd been building up. It kind of annoyed him the elder was looking at him with the clear expectation that he would figure out a way to end his experiment in Ki-mechanics in a way that would leave her entirely unharmed. "Dammmmiiiiiiiiiiiii...!" he yelled as he abruptly rocketed straight up in more an explosion than a jump that took him out of the weakening gravity field and far far beyond. His voice dopplered off to nothing as he shot up into the darkness above.

"Hee hee hee..." Ku Lon giggled like a woman centuries younger as she looked up into the night sky while staggering to her feet, a wave of dizziness nearly overwhelming her until her coherent life energy put her body back to rights. Finally the constriction on the local gravity dissipated and she was able to hobble over to the watchers, leaning on her cane instead of bouncing along on it. "It will take a while for Ranma to return from that," she announced.

"Uh..." a bug-eyed Happy Hogan hesitantly asked as he stared upward: "Did you win?"

"Oh no," she chuckled raspily. "I had to admit defeat before he smeared me across the landscape. I should know better than to use high-energy techniques against him. He has a habit of wrapping everything you throw at him into a painful little package to paste in your face. This time, he had to turn the attack against himself to avoid hurting a surrendered opponent." She waved tiredly at the worried looks the Americans were giving her. "Don't worry, he's fine. He deflected the energies well. It will just take him some time to fall back down at terminal velocity."

"What?!" a panicked Trixie shouted. "That will kill him!"

The extremely old woman gave the attendant a very disappointed look. "Young lady, martial artists of our level call terminal velocity the 'safety speed.' Once we slow down to that, we are no more at risk than you would be falling out of bed."

"Are you sure?" the concerned brunette asked.

"Look at that," Ku Lon instructed as she pointed her cane toward all the craters and trenches in the athletic field. "Look at how we reshaped the earth... with our very bodies, at times. A falling body would only make a small dent in comparison." She paused and cocked her head. "We created quite the mess despite trying to keep things contained to the field, didn't we? I'll be sure Ranma properly cleans it all up tonight," she cackled darkly.

"Ahem," Shinohara coughed delicately to get their attention. He bowed to Ku Lon and said: "Honored Elder, it was at my suggestion that Saotome-San met you here. My employer would be glad to pay for the repairs. I represent..."

"I know what you are, Kuroda man," Ku Lon interrupted with cool dismissal. "If you wish to save the young man a sleepless night, I shan't stop you. Though you'll want a Nerima crew if you want it done before the morning. Give me a pen and paper," she ordered, and the organized crime figure hastened to comply. She wrote down some names and contact numbers and handed them back. "What kinds of dealings does this one's master have with such as you?" she asked while tilting her staff in Hogan's direction.

Shinohara gave an apologetic glance to the large man and answered: "Honored elder, we have merely offered greetings and respects to Tony Stark and his people. Nothing else. Strictly a matter of diplomacy."

"So he remains an ex-weapons manufacturer?" she queried, getting a confirming nod. "Fascinating," she commented, stroking her chin. She then made a vague flipping motion with her hand to dismiss the Yakuza officer, pointedly ignoring him thereafter. She craned her head to look at the camera lens that Hogan was reflexively still recording with, and she nodded in approval. "Continue your video, I have a message for you to pass on to Stark. Tell me, American, do you appreciate just who you have recruited now?"

As disheveled and mud-stained as she was, the withered old woman still projected an aura of dominance that was well reinforced by the display of mayhem she had just participated in. Happy was nervous as he nodded and answered: "Y-yes ma'am... I think I do."

"Hmm... I doubt that you truly understand even now, but I suppose it is enough to start with. Ranma Saotome is a unique existence in many ways," she began to lecture while pacing around the visitor. "Even before his recent trip, I would have rated him as being well within the ranks of the strongest hundred people in the world. Today I would have to raise that estimate to the top fifty." Honestly, she was probably underselling the Japanese teen, but it was not in her nature to give him unvarnished praise.

"Nor, it seems, does he show any inclination to slow his growth. There are several masters, such as myself, who can match him, but we are almost all at least a century in age. There are a trifling few of half a century or so who can say the same, and there is exactly one person of both similar age and power that is known to me. And that one is a descendant of dragons who directly inherited the knowledge and power of his forebearers. Very few others in these diluted times have come even close to learning and growing as much as Ranma has at such a young age. Most of those who have achieved even a fraction as much are frequently unstable or otherwise unsuitable for going out into the modern world."

The wizened little matriarch reversed direction as she continued to pace. "Of course, there has been a long-running debate between elders of my level for the last couple of centuries or so to decide if any of our kind should participate at all in this age you and yours have created. Cixi's folly and the atrocities of the recent war in the Pacific only bolstered the position of those of us who favor withdrawal. Let the rest of you either straighten yourselves out or finally destroy yourselves."

Now this, Happy did have an response for. Bodyguard-slash-driver or not, there had been many people who had gotten in his face about the new direction of Stark Industries, even though he was no decision maker. He answered the extremely old woman the same way he answered other annoyances he'd met: "Hey, you got a spaceship to go find some other planet to live on, that's great. Go for it. If not, we're all stuck in this together."

Ku Lon stopped and pointed her cane at the camera. "Indeed. That is a valid point made by the other side of the debate. Another point is that martial artists find their true calling in aiding the common people... in spite of themselves, if need be." She rested her staff on her shoulder and shrugged. "The Joketsuzoku to not subscribe to the latter ideal, but I can understand why others do. Ranma certainly does. I suspect it was a large reason he was so averse to joining us."

Pensively, Ku Lon stroked her chin while tapping her staff on her shoulder. "The boy is very much a throwback to an earlier age. Powerful. Skilled. And potentially more. His aura is well on the way to settling into serenity. One might even go so far as to call him reliable. You would have to cast back a thousand years to find more like him. Back to a time when beings strode the Earth as gods amidst humanity. That age is long past, and we few stragglers of those times had thought that we would eventually fade entirely into myth, for we are too strange and too powerful to fit into the new paradigms of the civilizations that have arisen." Happy looked around and saw that while his fellow Americans looked as confused as he was, all the Yakuza who he could see looked very serious as they listened to the old woman's ramblings. He'd bet the VIP's in the cars were doing the same.

"Yet..." Ku Lon resumed her pacing slowly, speaking almost as if to herself now, "...here you are. You, the minion of one who looms large in this new world of advanced technology, mass production, and mass institutions. And here Ranma is... everything I just said, but perhaps most importantly of all: young. Young and unburdened. Well-versed in the posterity of past generations, yet not hide-bound by tradition. Yes..." Ku Lon stopped and regarded the burly American and the device he was still filming with out the corner of her eye. "If any of the Youxia can make a go of it in the broader world, Ranma can. Perhaps the old ways will breathe new life because he joins forces with Mr. Stark." Then she shrugged coldly and added: "Or perhaps he will fail. If so, it should be only him who falls. Preferably after he has impregnated one or more competent females."

Suddenly, she hopped up to balance on the head of her staff, bringing herself as close to staring her target directly in the eyes as she could manage. "It is for this reason that I do not end this plan of Stark's. And yes, it is very much up to my forbearance that it continues. Be assured that regardless of the wealth and political power that can be brought to bear, and even with Ranma as an ally, I can still cause enough damage to make a continued association with the boy entirely unprofitable, should I decide that association should end."

"Hey lady!" Happy protested. "Are you seriously threatening us? Do you have any idea what kind of heat that can bring down on you?"

"Threatening?" Ku Lon cocked her head as she peered into the camera lens. "Perhaps a little. My real intent is to make sure you know how serious and unique this opportunity is. We are talking about someone who embodies the distillation of millennia of study and innovation, after all. It is extremely unlikely such a chance will ever appear again. Also..." she paused to consider before carrying on: "Also... to those with the perception to feel it, there is... something in the offing. I and others like me can sense it as a quiver in the air... as a tremble in turning of the planet. There is something coming. Something soon. Something I suspect that will make you very glad to have Ranma on your side."

More intimidated and worried than he was willing to admit, Hogan weakly scoffed: "Fortune-telling? Really? Shouldn't you have a crystal ball and a bunch of beads around your neck for that?"

"Hmph..." Ku Lon hopped back to the ground. "Make of it what you will. Perhaps my intuition will prove correct. Perhaps it will not. Perhaps instead this will all just turn out to be nothing more than a catastrophically hilarious and pointless shambles as so many things have in that child's existence. Either way..." she paused and looked toward the roof of the athletic center near the wrecked field significantly.

As the American and Yakuza contingents followed her glance, a faint sound from above grew rapidly louder. "...iiiiiiiiiiiiittttttt!" Ranma's yelling voice traced his descent until it terminated with a mighty splash in the swimming pool on the building's roof. Streetlights picked out the spray of water that fountained high above the impact.

Timing her moment until she judged Ranma could hear her, Ku Lon cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted upward: "Forgot to take the Earth's rotation into account on your way down, didn't you Muko-Dono?!"

"Shaddup!" came the dulcet and feminine reply from on high. "I still won! You say you give up on 'Muko-Dono' thing already!"

Chuckling, the ancient continued her previous thought: "Either way... she is your problem now. In summary, my message to your employer is this: do not screw this up, Mr. Stark." Waving over her shoulder, the Joketsuzoku matriarch strolled away, lost in the darkness far faster than should have been possible at a stroll.

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Authors notes: Yeah, I'm still inserting a few characters here and there from other anime or manga works. Don't take it too seriously. They're there just for background and the cross-over is truly MCU and Ranma ½.