Scream along if you know the words!
Disclaimer: I am not a ghost. I am not a half-ghost super hero. I don't own Ranma 1/2 or rights to any half-ghost super heroes.
Ranma's POV
It was just another normal day at the dojo. The old pervert was causing trouble, my Old Man was sitting in the yard as a panda, and I was running through some katas. Then Mr. Tendo came home and slumped over the table.
After roughly half an hour of mopin' Mr. Tendo finally explained what was wrong. He had gotten railroaded into accepting the position Town Councilman. Somehow, this job also came packaged with the duty to catch the 'mysterious underwear thief'. It didn't take a genius to figure out who Mr. Tendo was supposed to bring to justice.
"How am I supposed to stop the Master? What if they find out I've been harboring the underwear thief they've been after? I'll be ruined!" From where I was sitting, Mr. Tendo was in a pretty fine pickle. Mr. Tendo also had to worry about what the old freak would do if he found out Mr. Tendo was in a position of power.
"Don't worry Dad; they'll never connect Happosai back to you!" Akane tried to console him, but somehow he was not comforted. Mr. Tendo then begged me to not mention a word of Mr. Tendo's new responsibilities to the old freak. We promised not to tell, for all the good it would do him.
"Welcome to politics!" Nabiki chirped happily as she entered the room. I was immediately on guard. Anything that had Nabiki that happy was bad news for the rest of us. "Will I get a kickback in my allowance?"
"How did you know..?" Mr. Tendo asked in a quavering voice.
"If you wanted to keep it a secret, why did you put up a big sign?" Nabiki asked and Mr. Tendo bolted out the door.
"Congratulations Mr. Tendo, but isn't there some conflict of interests, insofar as a certain old freak is concerned?" Outside we found a huge sing that shouted to the world that Mr. Tendo was now a Councilman, along with Ryu, who was admiring it. Mr. Tendo didn't answer, instead fixing Pops, who had put up the sign, with a death glare.
"Saotome! How could you?!" As Pops was in his panda form, he held up a sign to answer the question.
[Now it's of-FISH-al] along with a picture of a fish on the sign. I groaned at the bad pun, but Ryu started cracking up. Some days I wish I could be so easily amused. Then I remember who exactly I'm being envious of and the feeling passes.
"How could you do this to me? What have I ever done to you?!" Mr. Tendo shouted.
[Aren't you excited?] Pops seemed confused, but I guess he hadn't put two and two together.
"Tell me something, what if the Master should happen to see that?" Mr. Tendo hissed at Pops and the old man got it.
"Chairman Soun, eh?" Unfortunately, it was already too late. Pops and Mr. Tendo tried to plead with the old goat to see reason, but they might as well have asked water to stop being wet. To no one's surprise, Happosai immediately took the opportunity to abuse Mr. Tendo's position. From what I heard, almost everyone of the female persuasion who lived in Nerima lost at least one article of underwear that night.
The next day, Mr. Tendo called for all four of us to meet with him. It wasn't hard to guess it had something to do with Happosai and sure enough, no sooner had we entered the room than Mr. Tendo started begging us to put a stop to his antics. So I came up with a plan.
That night, Happosai looked to be heading out to steal more underwear, but we were waiting for him. As he walked away, we followed him.
"Will you all knock it off?!" Happosai demanded.
"This ain't exactly our idea of a good time either, you know," I quipped.
"But someone has to at least try and keep you in line," Ukyo added, but Happosai was suddenly distracted by a bra hanging outside and went to grab it, but I intercepted him and the game was afoot!
The rest of the night was spent with the four of us punting, punching, swatting, and otherwise keeping Happosai away from the underwear. As it got later, Happosai tried to bribe me and Ryu with underwear, but neither of us could be bought like that.
Eventually, our luck ran out. I was chasing Happosai and slipped on a roof tile and fell into the koi pond of the Tendo compound. Happosai was on me in an instant. I managed to pry him off by the time the others caught up and we started chasing him all around the house.
As it so happened, Mr. Tendo was entertaining a guest from the City Council and that was how Happosai heard about the ancient bra that was supposed to have mystical powers. We could all feel the night suddenly becoming much, much longer.
On the plus side, when we were heading out to guard that bra, Mr. Tendo was able to put his foot down to Happosai about coming along. None of us had any delusions about Happosai actually staying behind, but it was good to see Mr. Tendo show some spine for once.
Once we were all inside, Pops decided he just had to see the bra for some reason. Thankfully Mr. Tendo told him no and when Pops refused to listen, I splashed him.
"Geeze, you're acting like the old freak," I complained.
[Don't compare me to him!]
"If you don't want to be compared to him, then don't act like him," Ukyo sniped back. Before Pops could respond, we heard shattering glass and went to check it out. By the time we realized we'd been had, Happosai already had his mitts on the bra.
We chased the old freak down to the park and had him cornered when Mr. Tendo seemed to get an idea. He suggested that, as a martial artist, the old freak should be able to guard the bra. For a minute, it seemed like the reverse psychology might work, but Happosai opened the box and released the cursed bra. It floated up and then wrapped itself around Happosai's head.
Mr. Tendo then told us the legend of the woman who owned that bra. Apparently she killed any man who looked at a woman other than her. The bra was cursed to blind whichever man it attached itself to so they could never look at another woman. Happosai then started rubbing and pulling at the bra and, wouldn't you know it, managed to awaken the ghost of the murderous woman.
"Who dares disturb my slumber?!" Ukyo facepalmed.
"Could she get any more cliché?" Ryu wondered. Then the ghost lady saw her bra attacked to the old freak and she recoiled. She then took back her bra and swatted Happosai away when he tried to cop a feel. She may be an evil, murdering psychopath, but if she hates Happosai, maybe she ain't all bad. Of course, as soon as I thought that, she spotted me.
"Oh, he's more my type," She purred and I felt a shiver run up my spine. Her eyes went red and suddenly everything went black.
Ukyo's POV
Ranma's eyes suddenly glazed over as the ghost started giving off an eerie glow. He then started walking towards her.
"Leave him alone!" Akane shouted at the ghost, but got smacked away for her troubles.
"Knock it off or I'll see if you can kill a ghost!" Ryu snarled as he got in front of Ranma and tried to push him back while I pulled. Unfortunately, Ranma was still able to keep going.
"Oh, you have spirit, I like that," The ghost began to glow again, this time looking at Ryu. I expected his eyes to glaze over, but he just continued glaring at the ghost.
"What?" The ghost sounded as surprised as I was.
"Your little mind trick isn't going to work on me!" Ryu declared. The ghost cocked her head slightly to one side.
"Are you perhaps a poof?" I didn't understand what the ghost lady was saying, but clearly Ryu did. The light, cool evening suddenly felt hot and oppressive. Ryu, not normally one to cut an imposing figure, stood up to his full height and was quaking in fury.
"I put up with it more than enough from the kids at school…I WON'T HAVE SOME GHOST START MAKING ACCUSATIONS ABOUT MY SEXUALITY TOO!" Ryu roared and looked like he was about to leap forward with murder in his eyes when Akane came back with a bucket of water, which she used on Ranma and accidentally on purpose got Ryu too. Ranma snapped out of the hypnosis and all the fight seemed to go out of Ryu.
Deprived of boy toys, given that Ranma was now in his girl form and Ryu was mysteriously immune, the ghost flew into a rage and transformed into a lamia-like creature and caught all of us in her coils.
By sheer, dumb luck, when Happosai got in the way of some hot water intended to turn Ranma back into a guy until we could figure away to defeat the ghost, it splashed on Genma, who just so happened to look like the ghost's long lost lover. It was the mother of all coincidences, but we weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
While she was distracted chasing Genma, Happosai managed to latch on and I can only assume he accidentally drained all of her spiritual energy, thus causing her to vanish and the bra to turn to dust.
All in all, it was a pretty anti-climatic finish, but the night wasn't over quite yet.
Ryu, still in a bad mood, slunk off into the night. I made to follow, but Akane stopped me.
"We should give him some time to cool off. I'd say about an hour."
"Alright, if you say so," I acquiesced. I figured that, as the one who had known Ryu the longest, she knew what she was talking about.
So, an hour later we headed over to Ryu's house and we let ourselves in.
"…I know already, but I don't think it's that simple…please don't give me that look. You always give me that look right before you tell me-" Akane chose that moment to knock on the door to Ryu's room before opening it.
"Talking to Kirara again?" Akane asked without preamble.
"Remind me to take away your key, Scarlet," Ryu quipped without any real bite. She stuck her tongue out at him in response.
"Who's Kirara?" I asked and Ryu pointed to what looked to be a stuffed nekomata, only this one had four tails. Ranma, understandably, shied away from the toy.
"She helps me organize my thoughts, bounce ideas off of, that sort of thing," Ryu explained. I had heard of stranger things people did to help themselves think, so I dropped the subject.
"Stop trying to distract us with your delusions, we're worried about you, ya moron!" Akane ribbed Ryu. He grimaced slightly.
"I'll be fine in the morning. I just let my temper almost get the better of me," Ryu waved her off.
"Ryu, you told me that friends look out for each other. You don't get to monopolize on the looking out for," Ranma piped up. Ryu looked at Ranma sideways.
"My, what big words Saotome." Ryu teased.
"Oh shut up," Ranma said good-naturedly.
"But seriously, whatever you need, if it's someone to listen to you, or a hot okonomiyaki, just say the word," I said, "That goes for everyone in this room."
Ryu rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed.
"Thanks Ukyo, I appreciate it. Tonight was just the straw that broke the camel's back. I won't lie and say I'm ok, but having friends like you weirdos makes it tolerable,"
"Weirdos?!" Akane dope slapped Ryu.
"To be completely fair, I am the most normal person here. I'm not an aquatransexual, an okonomiyaki nut who carries around a giant spatula, nor engaged to an aquatransexual via a feudal era parental agreement. I think it's safe to say I win the normalcy contest." Ryu explained smugly. Us 'weirdos' looked at each other and, with nonverbal agreement, we all leapt on Ryu.
Wow…it's been a long while. Roughly 18 months since I last updated...As I finish this chapter, I find myself looking back at those 18 months. It wasn't easy. It damn near beat me. But now that it's over, I can safely look back and say I'm stronger for what happened. I won't bore you with details, but I will tell you what finally encouraged me to sit down and write again: I finally got a job. I'm a cashier at Wal-Mart. It's not the flashiest job, but it means I've finally been able to start paying off my student loans.
With my life back on track, I felt I was back in the frame of mind to actually write and not have it suck. But I'm somewhat biased. As always, comments and constructive criticism is very much welcomed. Hopefully next chapter will be sometime before the end of February. This is Scarlet-Eyed-Demon signing out!