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.

1. Heisenberg Uncertainty Fu

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.

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(Chapter theme song: Snarling of Beasts – Bedowyn)

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"I don't know what to think!" An ecstatic Virginia (or 'Pepper' to her associates) Potts stared at the glass of champagne she was offered.

"Don't think. Drink!" The soon-to-be former CEO of Stark Industries, Tony Stark, urged as he handed the glass to the prospective replacement CEO he had designated just moments before. As the tall, slender strawberry blonde took her drink, he raised his own in an imitation of a toast. Grinning through his dark goatee, he tapped his glass lightly against hers and the two began to imbibe the expensive alcohol.

"Sir..." the cultured tone of the A.I. system, JARVIS, interjected. "Loathe as I am to interrupt the festivities, I must report that an... anomaly is approaching the mansion along the surface of the ocean."

Stark's eyebrows climbed as his face otherwise went blank in surprise. JARVIS should not have canceled the mute command given earlier without a significant reason. Carefully setting his wineglass down, he asked: "'An anomaly'? JARVIS, I'm morally certain I included everything animal, vegetable, or mineral in your databases when I programmed you. What could possibly cause you to call it 'an anomaly'?"

"Sir," the strangely hesitant computerized voice attempted to explain, "the objects and actions I am attempting to analyze do all have analogues in my heuristic data-banks. However, it is the combination of these data points that makes the anomaly... err... anomalous."

"That's... well this just got interesting," Stark muttered as he stroked his signature goatee. "Huh. Well... tell me what all the data points are individually, then."

"I am tracking an outrigger canoe, four and a half miles away now, with a single occupant paddling it..."

"That's it?" the inventor and programmer started to scowl at the prosaic description that should never have caused the NLUI problems.

JARVIS then concluded: "...at 21 miles per hour."

Tony froze with his jaw hanging open and a single finger raised while Pepper gasped in shock. "Wooow," he finally exclaimed. "OK. This I gotta see. Pipe whatever video feeds you have to my desk monitors. And launch the stealth drone for a closer look."

"Yes, sir," the computer replied as three of the four screens obediently came to life. As Tony dropped into the desk chair, Pepper leaned over his shoulder.

"Should I ask what you've been using a stealth drone for?" she asked archly.

"The stealth drone? In Malibu? Er..." Tony pointedly looked away from her and scratched behind one ear. "Probably not."

"Uh-huh..."

"Anyway," he announced brightly, waving at the screens, "we have a mysterious anomaly to identify. And it is obviously a... uh..." he leaned in and peered at one of the monitor displays that did indeed show a small craft traveling at enough speed to raise a wake. "Can you zoom this in more, JARVIS?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, though the resolution will suffer," the image of the craft expanded as requested. "Until the drone arrives, only the rooftop cameras have any kind of view. It is paralleling the shore at a half-mile from the shoreline and is currently four miles away."

The two humans barely registered the explication as they studied the image in front of them for a few moments. "That's... OK... yeah, that sure looks like a canoe being paddled by a woman wearing a swimsuit instead of power armor or something. Pepper, where have you been buying my champagne from recently?"

"From the best vineyards in France and California, like always," she answered flatly. "Which I barely had a sip of, and I am seeing the same thing."

"So it must have been the really, really good stuff... no?" He grinned over his shoulder then looked back at the computer displays, eliciting a quelling frown. "OK, no. JARVIS, the shiny thing in front of the woman, could it be a motor?" the industrialist asked.

"Unlikely, sir," was the reply. "It is a shallow paraboloid made of sheet metal that is not in contact with the water. LIDAR shows nothing that could be a propulsion unit protruding under the object's hull." A rough, 3D wire-frame hologram appeared above the monitors, slowly spinning as it showed the craft, its occupant, and other cargo. There were indeed just seemingly smooth undersides of the canoe and the outrigger.

"What about a fan or air-jet above water?" Stark continued to speculate.

"Also unlikely," JARVIS denied. "Thermographic analysis does not show a heated backwash of air behind the craft." One of the monitors switched to a false color image that only showed reds, oranges, and yellows on the woman's body and the metal reflector. The minimal trail of heat behind the moving body was not sufficient to drive a vehicle at any speed in the experience of the world-famous engineer.

"Huh..." Stark trailed off. "Could we be spoofed?"

"I have been running repeated diagnostics on myself since detecting the anomaly," JARVIS assured them. "I have also instructed the Stark Industry's mainframe to run independent queries of the firewall logs for any malicious activity. No indication of a problem was seen. I took the liberty of acquiring images and video from civilian devices and am awaiting returns from queries of military and weather satellites and other sensors. So far, everything has confirmed there is something there." Several windows appeared on the screens that were not showing the zoomed in display, all from various angles that showed the mysterious craft.

"Tony..." a worried Pepper interrupted. "Maybe you should get the armor on. This is just too strange and whoever that is is coming our way."

"Wait, how do we even know this... super-canoeist?" Stark scrunched up his face at the term he used, then shook his head rapidly a couple of times. "Yeah... how do we know she's headed here?"

"I have no evidence to that effect," Jarvis offered. "The anomaly was beyond my ability to analyze and was encroaching further into my scanning range, so I alerted you as per core protocols, sir."

"Right. Gotcha." Tony leaned back in his chair, running his fingertips through the hair on his chin. "Hm-mm..."

"Tony..." Pepper said warningly.

"The drone is approaching effective range," JARVIS cut-off the potential lecture.

"Awesome," Tony pointed to a screen with a flourish. "Let's see it." A second later he leaned in, setting his elbows on the desk and propping his chin on his palms. "Oh ho ho! This just got very interesting indeed! Nice angle, JARVIS!"

"Ugh," Pepper sighed disgustedly, "you would say that." The camera was angled down forty-five degrees, giving an excellent view of a curvy, tanned redhead in a one-piece, blue and gold racing swimsuit as she paddled vigorously with a single oar.

"Zoom in on the girl! Zoom in!"

An electronic sigh issued from the speakers. "As you wish, sir."

Tony happily bobbed his head from side to side, his eyes welded to the expanded view showing the deep valley of the woman's cleavage as it swayed with the motions of her arms. "Is it my birthday?" He cackled. "It's gotta be my birthday. What day is it?"

"The date is May 19th, sir." The computer managed a long-suffering tone. "It is not your birthday for another ten days."

"Au contraire!" The irrepressible engineer waggled a finger at the screen. "The empirical data clearly shows it's my birthday. Or Christmas. Or Make-Tony-Have-a-Very-Good-Day Day. Oh!" He looked around and grinned at his now former assistant. "That's the best option! Who do I have to bribe to make that an official holiday?"

Pepper blew a long stream of air in exasperation as she rubbed her forehead with both hands. "If this woman ends up attacking you, I'm going to write 'I told you so!' on your forehead with a permanent marker. Or on your gravestone." Letting her hands drop she demanded: "Now stop obsessing over her boobs and figure out how she's moving that fast!"

"I'm not obsessing over her boobs!" Tony claimed petulantly before being smacked on the back of his head. "Ow! I'm not! I'm obsessing over her entire body! Those legs are absolute works of art! And oh-ho-ho... those hips are... OW!"

Pepper lowered the hand she had again smacked her long time boss with. "Tony, I swear to god if you don't start taking this seriously, I will put a bag over both our heads and cough on you..."

Tony flung up his hands at the threat aimed at his recent display of germophobia. "OK! OK! JARVIS, anything new on the propulsion method? What're the metal things for if they aren't for moving the boat?"

"Sir, using the drone's sensors, I have analyzed the volume and velocity of the water displaced by the oar. It is sufficient for moving the canoe at the speed observed." JARVIS paused a moment, then reported: "The paraboloid is polished on the inside and has a wire holder extending to the focus. It is a solar oven, sir. There is also a crude still comprised of a metal canteen and copper tubing. Spectrographic analysis shows the still has been used to desalinate water. It also shows traces of shark flesh on the wire armature. Specifically: DNA analysis indicates great white shark."

"Whoa," Tony exclaimed softly. "That's hardcore."

"Wait... she's going that fast on pure muscle power!?" Pepper yelled. "Tony, she has enhanced strength! She ate Jaws for breakfast! Get your suit on or call the police!"

"Call the police on her?" Tony asked incredulously as he turned his chair to face her. "For what? Reckless paddling?"

"She is stopping, sir," JARVIS interrupted again.

"Oh, hey..." Stark said in a deliberately mild tone as he turned back to the desk. "Problem solved. Where did she stop at?"

"About three quarters of a mile away, still offshore, sir."

"What's she doing?" Tony wondered as he peered at the screen as the enigma pulled something out of the backpack in front of her in the canoe. "Try getting in closer! That's it. That's... oh... uh..."

Pepper crossed her arms in vindication. "'International Ostentation' magazine. The issue with the ocean view of this place right on the cover. What was that about the problem being solved?"

"That doesn't necessarily mean..." the redhead looked at her magazine, then up toward shore a couple of times. "OK, so she's headed here. That's... not necessarily a bad... whoa!"

"Tony!" Pepper gritted out in frustration at his blithe enthusiasm.

The subject of their discussion had twisted around slightly in order to look up directly at the drone's camera, showing Asiatic features that belied her red hair. Incongruity aside, it was a strikingly attractive face with vibrant blue eyes that seemed to look right at the observers in Stark's workroom. A beautiful, pleased smile broadened into an impish grin as the young lady flashed a peace sign at the camera. Then she straightened in her seat and started paddling again.

"JARVIS, wasn't the drone in stealth mode?" Stark asked in confusion.

"Yes, sir," the computer confirmed. "Thermo-optical camouflage was engaged and the drone uses reaction-less impellers that are almost entirely soundless in whisper mode. The drone came no closer than 25 yards. It should have been impossible for a human to detect it without special equipment, sir."

"The view from the back is just as nice," Stark muttered, no longer paying attention to the computer. Then he registered that she was leaving the camera behind. "Hey, she's getting away! Follow that hotty!" The image of the woman and her vessel immediately stopped receding as the drone accelerated in pursuit.

"Yes, sir," JARVIS agreed verbally. "Be advised, sir. She has changed course and is headed directly toward the mansion."

"Tony!" Pepper prodded him with an increasingly strident tone. "Get your damn suit on!"

"Good idea!" Tony stood and clapped his hands decisively, then rubbed them back and forth a few times, his eyes never leaving the video feed. Before Pepper could finish sighing in relief, he added: "I should slip into my speedo and meet her on the beach!"

"Are you kidding me!?" Pepper snarled as both her hands grabbed fistfuls of Tony's shirt and she pulled him around to face her.

Grinning mischievously, he asked: "What, should I get a thong instead? I don't think I have a posing pouch anywhere."

"Stop screwing around!" Pepper demanded. "She has super-human strength! Super-human senses! And she's headed right for us! Stop thinking with the wrong head and start treating her as a potential threat! Put the Iron Man armor on! Now!"

"OK! OK!" Tony held up his hands in surrender and pulled away to a safe distance. "JARVIS, prep the Mark IV for deployment."

"Yes, sir. Prepping deployment system."

"There. See?" Tony said soothingly as he waved toward where robotic arms were moving the red and gold armor to the launch pad, partially disassembling the complex array of seals and joints that held the Iron Man armor together so he could enter it. "I can be ready to go in seconds if I need to. But do you really think an attacker would show up in broad daylight in a swimsuit?"

Pepper did not reply immediately as she stared wide-eyed at the screen. Shakily she retorted: "Yes. Yes I do. Put the armor on."

"What?" Tony strode back to look for himself. "What's she doing now...? Oh... OK, I admit... that's kinda impressive."

On the monitor, the drone showed the uncanny redhead had reached the cliff directly below the mansion, where the waves pounded unimpeded on rock, instead of diverting to one of the sandy beaches further along the coast. While they watched, she sank bare toes and five fingers into the stone wall and climbed, all while holding her crude boat and its remaining contents on one shoulder with her free arm.

"Tony... for the love of god..." Pepper's voice was no longer angry or frustrated. It was genuinely scared. The tone caused Tony to jump forward like he had been poked with a stick and hurry to his armor.

"OK, if she's going to put her best effort forward like that, so will I!" Quickly the technological marvel was assembled and sealed around him. As soon as the face-mask closed over his head, he ordered with a metallic overtone: "Open the roof access, JARVIS!"

"Access opened, sir."

With the all-clear, Iron Man activated the repulsors on his boots and gauntlets, hovering for a moment on the pale-gold jets of pure energy before zooming skyward through the open hatches leading through his home.

Indulging in the exultation of flight for a few seconds, he rolled through a broad loop up and over the property, then braked in mid-air to slow to a hover over the intruder. Said uninvited guest had set her burden down on the top of the cliff and was waiting, hands on her hips, as she watched the flying man approach with a grin. As he drew closer, he estimated her age to be nineteen or twenty given the maturity of her figure and ignoring her diminutive height. Also he noticed her swimsuit was faded and worse for wear, and he contemplated coaxing her into a micro-mini bikini by offering to buy her a replacement.

Taking one hand off her hip, she pointed up at Iron Man and yelled: "That fun to watch!"

"Why... thank you very much," the inventor drawled suavely. "However, as much as I like to hear praise from beautiful, scantily-clad women... you are trespassing and I have to ask what you are doing here."

"Ah sorry, sorry," the mystery woman waved apologetically. "I forgot to introduce." Setting her right fist into the palm of her left hand, she bowed and announced: "I am Saotome Ranma... er, that's Ranma Saotome to Americans... of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu! I am a martial artist and I am here to fight you!"

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Pepper Potts clunked her head on the desk in front of her as she watched the confrontation unfold via the feed from the drone. "I hate being right all the time..." she muttered.

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Iron Man rose up slightly in the air at the declaration, reflexively aiming his palm repulsors at the still bowing girl. Realizing she was not attacking despite the seeming declaration of hostilities, he paused. "Seriously? You want to 'fight' me? Not something else? Are you mad at me for something?" He frantically tried to recall if he had ever had an encounter with her. "I'm almost positive we haven't met before..." Or else he was blind drunk if he did... no other way he'd forget someone with her looks.

Straightening and beaming a smile at the billionaire, she confirmed: "Yes. Fight." Her smile dropped for a second and she waved her and in front of her face. "I not mad!" She stopped with a grimace and repeated more slowly: "I am not mad, I mean. It is... friendly... challenge," she enunciated carefully.

"A friendly challenge," Stark echoed with a flat tone.

Ranma's face shone with a smile again. "Yes! To see who is better fighter! Oh, wait... I forget..." Hurrying over to her canoe, bent over and rummaged in her backpack. Iron Man's helmet noticeably tilted to the right and he began to drift a little as his concentration was riveted to the view suddenly offered of her taut, perfectly rounded ass.

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"Oh my god... Tony..." Pepper moaned, her palms pressed to the sides of her face as she watched his antics, especially the feed from his helmet camera zoomed in on the intruders buttocks.

"Shall I notify the police, Ma'am?" Jarvis offered.

The woman's mouth opened, but she didn't make a sound as she slowly shook her head. After a few moments, she collapsed onto the desktop again, her head pillowed by her crossed arms. "No, JARVIS," her muffled voice answered. "Not yet. This whole mess would get even more stupid if the police were involved. Total tabloid fodder. Just... try to run down whatever you can find on her, OK?"

"Very well, Ma'am."

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"Here!" Ranma announced as she pulled out a clear plastic bag. Inside was a white envelope with kanji painted in a vertical column down its length. Slipping the fine paper out of the protective cover, she shoved the bag back into her luggage and turned back to her would-be opponent. Bouncing in excitement she returned to stand in front of the still airborne Iron Man. Holding the top corners between the thumbs and forefingers of both hands she bowed and held it out in a formal pose, the characters on the front prominently displayed. "I have a challenge letter!"

Thoroughly disarmed by her performance... especially the nubile bouncing... Tony cut the impulse from his boot repulsors and dropped to a landing with a heavy thud. "A challenge letter, huh? I don't really like it when people... hand me... never mind." With the lack of tables or intermediaries, he set his quirk aside... he was armored anyway. The articulated plates of his armor allowed him to show a shrug before he went ahead and accepted the envelope. As his HUD showed a translation, he muttered: "Sure enough, it says 'Challenge' on it. Hey...!" He held up the letter as he recalled some minutiae from late-late-night movies he had watched as a kid. "You're not a dojo destroyer, are you?"

Waving both hands in denial this time, Ranma quickly assured him: "No! No way, Jose! I haven't done that since I was like twelve and it got boring! Besides," she shrugged, "you aren't running a dojo and I bet you don't have a dojo sign to take."

"Yeah... that's certainly true," the Stark scion answered distractedly. Giving her a long glance, to which she blinked lambent blue eyes innocently in response, he shook his head. "OK, then. A challenge letter."

"Yes! I couldn't send it ahead... because I couldn't figure out your post address from the TV program I saw, or the magazine. Sorry 'bout that." She rubbed the back of her head embarrassedly and she sketched a shallow bow.

"That's OK, we always make TV shows leave out anything that would let people figure out the address," Tony commented absently. "But how did you find the place without an address?"

"Oh! I watched the shadows to get the angle of the sun when different times were seen on clocks and on that wild window/TV thing you have." The Asian woman explained cheerfully in her slow and careful English. "I wasn't exactly sure about the day, but it was close enough to get me within, like, ten kilometers or so. Then I had somebody help me look at that computer-web map thingie to figure out the... uh... shape of the land?"

"Terrain, I think you mean," the superhero replied, rather impressed by her methods.

"'Terrain,'" she repeated meticulously. "Yeah. So once I got close enough, I just went along the coast until I found it. And here I am!"

"Here you are!" Tony agreed in a bemused tone, shaking his head. "Where did you come from?"

"Nerima," she answered promptly. "It's a part of Tokyo."

The armored man held up his hand and shook his head quickly. "No. I mean, where did you get the canoe and sail it from?" He pointed at the craft to make sure she knew what he was asking about.

"Oh that? I made it." Before he could ask, she clarified: "It came from a fallen tree I found on Kiyosumi-san... in Chiba."

"Hold up," Tony said sharply. "Isn't Chiba right next to Tokyo?"

"The city? Eh, sort of..." Ranma frowned in consideration. "I think there's one or two towns in between. But I was talking about the prefecture. South of the city."

"Are you seriously standing there telling me you ROWED across the ENTIRE PACIFIC OCEAN!" the industrialist shouted incredulously.

"Ah, not all at once," Ranma corrected, looking slightly disturbed at his reaction. "I stopped at some islands on the way." Her mouth twisted in faint disgust. "Even Hawaii. Bleh. It took me... nineteen days, I think."

"Bullshit," Tony declared.

"Hah?" Ranma scrunched up her face in confusion at the unfamiliar term.

"Sir," JARVIS interjected over the exterior house speakers, startling Ranma a little. "I can confirm her claim. I completed the extraction and analysis of data from military and civilian satellites, weather sensors, sonar readings, and various security and personal electronic video captures. There is no doubt Ms. Saotome did traverse the ocean in the craft before you."

"Really?!" Despite the blank metal mask and glowing rectangles in place of eyes, Tony managed to emote utter astonishment. "I mean... really?!" When the confused Japanese native nodded, his shoulders slumped and his arms went slack as he stared at her. "Wow...!" he breathed. "Just wow! I mean... I saw the Kon-Tiki documentary when I was a kid, but that was like a team of guys on a raft much bigger than that!" Straightening, he tried to run his hand over his face before he remembered that the gauntlet and helmet were in the way. "I can't imagine crossing an entire frikken ocean with nothing but a canoe and a GPS. Not even the Indian Ocean. Maybe the Mediterranean... maybe..." Looking over at his visitor he saw she had a very lost expression and was raising her hand like she was in class. "What?"

"What is GPS?" she asked tentatively.

"You're shitting me!" Tony exclaimed. "Wait... language barrier... right... JARVIS! What's the Japanese word for 'GPS'?"

"Gee-Pea-Essu," the computer immediately recited over the speakers, but Ranma showed no sign of recognition.

Iron Man's helmet made a rolling motion to go along with the rolling eyes that could not be seen under the armor. "How did you know what direction to row in?!" he asked slowly and distinctly.

"Oh," Ranma's expression became cheerful again once he finally said something comprehensible. "I don't know the English words... Uh... Hang on," she raised a finger briefly in a signal for patience and ran back to her backpack.

"Helmet camera feed is being stored, right?" Tony muttered as his gaze was once again locked in on the young woman's backside.

"Yes, sir," JARVIS confirmed. "No doubt to the detriment of the dignity of the Stark name."

"Nag... nag... nag..." the inventor groused.

"Here!" Ranma announced brightly as she held out the items she had fetched.

"A compass and a sextant?" Iron Man set one hand on his hip as the other covered his eyes with the envelope he was still holding.

"Yes!" She agreed happily. "They were a lot easier to use when sitting on a boat!"

Tony went still for a moment as that last comment registered. "OK," he dropped his hand and gave her a level look. "I know I'm going to regret asking, but where else would you have used a sextant?"

"Swimming," Ranma answered.

The inventor made a helpless gesture with his hands as he looked to the sky in supplication. "'Swimming!' Of course you'd use a sextant for swimming... not!" Looking down at the rather short martial artist, he asked: "When the hell did you need a sextant for swimming?"

"Me and Oyaji... my father... when we tried to swim to China the first time, we screwed up and ended up in North Korea! That really sucked... stupid mines..." she muttered resentfully. "Then we went back to Japan and got a water-proof compass to try again. We ended up in South Korea that time, which was a lot better, but Oyaji insisted of going all the way to China. So we swam back to Japan AGAIN, got a sextant, and Oyaji made me figure it out so we'd know when we went far enough south before heading west." She shrugged blithely. "At least we finally made it before typhoon season."

After a long moment, Stark looked toward his house and said: "Pepper? I'm beginning to suspect that champagne of shenanigans again!"

The former assistant's voice replied over the speakers, the high-quality sound system making her beleaguered tone crystal clear. "If you heard her say she crossed the Pacific in a canoe, then heard JARVIS confirm it, and then heard her say she swam across the Sea of Japan, then I heard the same things."

"We both drank the same champagne!" Tony pointed out.

"Hallucinations don't work that way, Tony!" She sighed in exasperation. "Besides, JARVIS heard the same thing..."

"Your summary was correct, Ma'am," the AI commented.

"...And JARVIS doesn't get drunk!"

"I knew I left something important out of his design," Tony joked.

"Hey...uh..." Ranma waved to get Stark's attention. "About that challenge?" she reminded him, pointing at her letter. Then she clasped her hands behind her back while leaning forward slightly and bobbing up and down a little on the balls of her feet. Her chest oscillated gently along with the movement of her body, immediately monopolizing Iron Man's attention

"Uh yeah... sure..." he agreed inattentively. Keeping half an eye on his surprise guest's decolletage, he managed to open the unsealed flap of the envelope with his armored fingers, but then was stymied. "Hang on," he murmured as he put his right hand under his other arm. "JARVIS, disengage my right gauntlet." With a hiss, the seal opened and he pulled his bare hand free. He grabbed the loose gauntlet and held it out to Ranma. "Here, hold this for a bit."

As the redhead took the piece of armor, Pepper yelled through the speakers: "Tony!"

Looking up bemusedly as he slid the letter out of the envelope, he answered: "What?"

"You just handed an extremely dangerous, highly sophisticated, top secret, supremely expensive weapon system to a stranger!" They could hear Pepper pounding on the desk in the background as she berated Stark.

While she spoke, Ranma slowly extended her hands as far from her body as she could, the gauntlet balanced on her fingertips while she also leaned her head back with an alarmed expression. "Uh... kuso... where should I put it?" She looked around for a safe and convenient surface to ditch the red metallic glove.

Tony chuckled and said: "Don't worry about it... it doesn't have any power when disconnected from the suit. I'd need to put in an extra, seriously heavy-duty power pack to let it fire even once by itself. But here," he held out his arm, "you can put it back on me now and I'll read your letter."

"OK," Ranma obeyed, carefully easing the gauntlet back onto his hand, making sure his fingers fit into it properly. "I wrote the inside in English," she told him while the gauntlet sealed itself again. "I'm not very good, but I think I got it right. I wrote in katakana above it, too."

"So I see," Tony muttered, slowly working his way through the disjointed English on the page, comparing it to the JARVIS-provided interpretation of the Japanese script. "Huh... your martial-arts school is really called 'Indiscriminate Fighting Flow?'"

"Eh, kind of. It... how you say... looses something in trans... trans..." The redhead pouted cutely as she tried to remember the word.

"'Translation,'" Tony supplied.

"Yeah... 'translation,'" she parroted. "I grew up learning it. We fight a lot of different ways... always mixing things up to throw off opponents until we figure out their moves and beat 'em."

"Sounds kind of like Jeet Kun Do," Iron Man commented.

"Meh... just a little bit," Ranma corrected. "We have way bigger list of moves, and we always learn more."

"Interesting... but that name is a mouthful," the billionaire complained. "'Mixed Martial-Arts' is already taken. How about you make the English name something like 'All-In Grappling...' or maybe 'Anything Goes?'" he suggested, thinking of the AC/DC song as he made the last suggestion.

Ranma cocked her head one way, then the other, frowning thoughtfully. "'Anything Goes' would be fine, I guess," she shrugged. "And since I'm the first master of the school to set foot in America, I guess I can give it an American name!"

"Awesome. And that segues into one of my other questions," Tony leaned in to look the young woman eye to glowing eye-slit-thing. "Are you really a master of the school?"

"Hai!" she replied proudly. "Happosai... the grand-master of the school... he left behind a master's certificate for me when he left Nerima. Was big surprise after that last fight... but whatever. It's in my bag! Wanna see?" she pointed back to her canoe.

Stark almost refused reflexively before he remembered the view he got every time she went into her things. "Sure... you can go get it!" Shaking his head a little once she was trotting away, he muttered to himself: "Man... I'm never going to get tired of this show." He'd known women who he'd flattered with the old platitude 'poetry in motion' plenty of times before, but they were barely worth mentioning compared to the vision before him. As laid back and informal as Ranma was acting, her still-damp swimwear still revealed a veritable symphony of sinuous muscle tone and supreme feminine grace as she moved.

"I can see your helmet feed, Tony!" Pepper called out. "I know exactly where you're looking!" The armored man frantically waved stop gestures at the house while she talked, but fortunately the Japanese beauty ignored the exchange. "Tony!"

"What? What are you complaining about?" he whined. "I mean, just from a purely aesthetic standpoint you shouldn't mind..."

"Just... look at the challenge letter again so I can read it too," she demanded tiredly.

"Fine... fine..." he acknowledged, holding the paper up high enough to keep it in view while letting him ogle the female fighter as she returned. He smirked as he heard the disgusted groan from his ever-reliable employee.

Ranma opened the scroll that appeared to be of fine vellum and held it front of her to display the contents. The owner of the mansion had no real interest, but he was fine with pretending to look it over while scrutinizing what the low neckline of her suit had to offer.

"Ahem," Pepper admonished after several seconds.

"Well..." Tony spoke up. "I'm no expert in dojo certificates, but that looks in order to me." Ranma smiled as she rolled it up and put it in the bamboo tube she kept it in. Stark returned to looking at her challenge letter in order to have a prop to cover his continued leering.

Pepper was reading the letter in earnest however. "Tony..." she intoned leadingly, "are you reading this carefully?"

"Sure... of course I am," he lied.

"So you're fine with being made a spectacle on national television?"

"I never minded before..." Tony mumbled distantly. "Wait... what?"

"Maybe you should actually read the damn thing instead of peering down the front of her suit!" Tony winced a little and checked Ranma's reaction. To his surprise, she just looked bored and a little impatient instead of annoyed or flirtatious like most other women of his acquaintance would. "The terms of her challenge are to specifically fight you in front of television cameras, while you use your best armor and use any weapons you want, and she fights completely empty-handed," Pepper patiently summarized. "She also demands that the match happen before May 22nd, Tokyo time, and that the video of the fight be released to the public."

"Trying to become famous, huh?" Tony said knowingly. "That's why you want to fight? There's gotta be an easier way for a girl with your looks to get on TV."

"Meh," Ranma grimaced, "not really too happy about the more famous part. I got enough losers showing up to challenge me already."

"Yeah," Iron Man said in an exaggeratedly sympathetic tone. "Isn't it annoying when random people show up out of the blue and insist on having a match with you?

"Ah ha!" the redhead grinned and shook a chiding finger at the armored man, "But it's different for me! I'm no random loser. I'm Ranma Saotome and am the best of my generation! Maybe best of all generations! I'll give you the fight of your life... without, y'know, actually trying to kill."

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

"JARVIS, if she's well known in some circles, are you finding anything on her?" Pepper queried the house computer system.

"I am afraid not, Ma'am," the electronic voice answered. "While 'Saotome' is a common patronymic, I can find references to only one 'Ranma Saotome' in regards to martial arts. However, that individual is male."

"Dammit," she slouched in disappointment.

"It may be of interest to note that the Ranma Saotome I found is actually involved in martial-arts, resides in the Nerima ward of Tokyo, and specific mention of the Musabetsu Kakuto Ryu has been made in association with him," JARVIS offered.

"Really! That sounds promising... what have you got?"

"Nothing reliable, I am sorry to say," JARVIS's tone became hesitant. "Indications are that he is the main subject of some sort of elaborate hoax or social media performance group according to official statements by the Japanese national government."

Pepper blinked slowly at the jarringly odd addendum. "'Official statements?' By their national government? For performance artists?" Jabbing her finger at an unused monitor she ordered: "Show me! Now!"

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

"So what's in it for me," Tony asked, making a point of slowly looking her up and down.

"You get to improve yourself in the Art," Ranma nodded sagely, crossing her arms over her chest in a solemn pose. "You put on that suit, you're a super-hero. So you should be happy for a chance to improve your skills."

"Heh," Tony scoffed. "Well, leaving aside how likely it is you have anything to teach me about combat for now..." Ranma showed a secretive smile at that. "If you don't really want to be world famous, why the hell are you challenging me in the first place?"

"I wanted to prove I could beat you before," Ranma admitted, "and I'm starting to want that part more and more when you talk. But the biggest reason is that Japanese people are insane for the mecha. Iron Man is everywhere there. TV, billboards, dolls, bento boxes, mascots, cosplay, and... what's the thing where girls dress in sexy versions of, like, nurse and police uniforms?"

"Fetish wear?" An extremely pleased Tony supplied.

"Yeah, waitresses wear Iron Man 'fetish wear' in Iron Maid cafes," she shook her head at the antics of her countrymen. "Insane!" she repeated while slowly shaking her head.

"Pepper...?" the smiling industrialist turned to the mansion and caroled out.

"No!" she yelled back.

"I haven't said what I wanted yet!" Tony pointed out.

"I don't care!" she fired back with utter conviction. "Whatever it is, the answer is 'NO!'"

His long, disappointed sigh reverberated from the helmet speaker. "You never let me have any fun," he complained.

"Yeah... anyway..." Ranma interjected. "So since anything Iron Man gets shown on every TV in Japan, I need to fight you in front of TV cameras. And I need to do it before the 22nd."

"OK, I'll bite..." Tony shrugged. "What happens on the 22nd?"

"I turn 18 years old," she answered as if that explained everything.

The notorious lothario froze in mid-ogle as he heard that. "Uh-oh... jailbait..." he muttered.

"Nani?" Ranma looked puzzled.

Tony however, was off in his own little world and did not explain. "...But that body... it'd be a crime not to do her! Is she really seventeen...? No way a Japanese schoolgirl's packing tits like those... probably. Wait... I just got to wait three days and I'm golden..." Suddenly he slapped his palms onto the top of his helmet and twisted his torso from side to side in frustration, dropping the challenge letter. "But I don't wanna wait to tap that ass! Dammit!"

Ranma's chin cocked to the side as her lips thinned in a distinctly unimpressed expression and she started to crack her knuckles. "OK, I get where this going now. Guess we'll have a little pre-official-match-ass-kicking, then."

Paying attention again, Tony held up his gauntlets in a warding gesture, not even remembering they were weapons in the face of feminine ire. "Heh... heh..." he said weakly. "Did I say that out loud?" Slowly he eased backward, one step at a time, as Ranma approached with an intimidatingly blank face. "Now... let's not do anything hasty! You'll break your hand if you punch me!"

"Ya wanna bet?" Ranma asked him in a low, dangerous tone.

"Ha-ha... wow... you're scary for such a short girl. Whoops!" At the narrowing of the young woman's eyes, Iron Man ignited his repulsors and jetted to a hover well above the roof-line. "Right... now you can't try anything. Look... I'm sorry if you're offended, but seriously... I say stuff like that all the time. You shouldn't take it personally! So take a deep breath and calm down, wouldja?" Glancing to the side, he called out: "Pepper, tell her not to take it so seriously!"

The house speakers remained unhelpfully silent. "Aw man, Pep... don't leave me hanging!" Tony yelled after a moment. "Wait... why haven't you come running out here in Scandal-Prevention-Mode(TM) yet?" Still no answer. "Pepper? Are you OK?"

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

"Ms. Potts...?" JARVIS prodded.

"Oh! Uh..." Pepper blindly tapped the button to activate the intercom and stuttered: "Er... Y-yeah! I'm fine. I think. Just... shocked... and bewildered! Uh..." she trailed off as she continued to stare wide-eyed at a video file depicting one 'Ranko Tendo,' the girl now confronting her former boss, holding a panel truck above her head. A truck some boy in a bandanna had kicked at her like a soccer ball. JARVIS had not found evidence of CGI or other fakery, but she dearly hoped the advanced AI was wrong and it was the hoax Japanese officials claimed.

"Tony...?" she raised her voice, though it was still preoccupied.

"Yeah, Pepper?"

"Don't fight her!"

"What?"

The newly appointed executive turned to look at the external camera feed and instructed clearly and intently: "Do not fight that girl!"

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

Tony paused in perplexity, then replied: "I wasn't planning to... but why are you so insistent?"

"You..." she hesitated, then finished: "You might get hurt!"

"I might... get hurt? As in lose?!" Tony echoed incredulously, his ego taking a direct hit. "Are you kidding me?! Honey... I'm Iron Man! No little... ocean-borne waif is ever gonna beat me!"

"Tony!" Pepper yelled a warning, but it was too late.

"Should'a listened to the smart lady," a smooth, dulcet voice murmured in his ear just before the genius inventor's world went topsy-turvy. The gyrations ended with a thud that shook his body and his display showed nothing but brown and green.

"...The hell...?" Tony slurred in confusion. "Yah!" he yelled in surprise as his arm was wrenched back behind him, right to the edge of being painful. The motion turned him enough to see he was face-down on the ground beside his house. Craning his neck desperately, he saw Ranma Saotome holding his wrist with one hand while pressing down on his body with a foot, her expression aloof and superior as she looked down at him.

"Urgh," Iron Man grunted as he tried to pull his arm away from the petite woman's adamantine grasp, servos straining audibly under his armor. The woman's seemingly delicate arm didn't even quiver. Panicked, he yelled: "Let me go!"

"OK." The martial artist released his wrist instantly and stepped back from him, content to merely watch as he scrambled to his feet.

"JARVIS!" Pepper's cry could be heard since she hadn't muted her microphone again. "Call the pol..."

"Do NOT call the cops," Tony interrupted harshly, angered at the idea of needing help to defend his home and his friend. Glaring at the redhead whose hands were clasped innocently behind her back, he yelled: "What the hell, girl?"

"I may be a girl," she answered, "and I may be little, but I am not weak and I am not stupid. I'm not one of these... Hollywood starlets..." she pronounced laboriously, "that you play around with. I am powerful, experienced martial artist... a warrior even." She slowly stalked toward Tony, her hands falling loose at her sides. "So when I say I can beat you, it is not a..." she hunted for a phrase, "... a silly lie... or a little kid play-pretend. It is an expert giving expert fact."

Tony was captivated, trapped between warring impulses. Ranma Saotome in a cheerful, irreverent mood was delight to watch. Ranma Saotome when she got serious was a goddess of rippling muscle and hypnotically swaying curves, as majestic as a lioness. The technologist fidgeted indecisively between the urges to run away or to stumble entranced toward her.

Before he could resolve a course of action, Ranma stopped a foot away and looked up at him as if she could see right through his faceplate and into his eyes. "If you want to stand a chance against me," she said clearly, "you need to put your all into it!" Poking his chest-plate with a single finger, she sent the power-armor reeling back.

Regaining his balance after a few unsteady steps, the armored hero crouched a little, his blank mask practically steaming with embarrassment and annoyance. "OK... alright, little girl..." he injected a little mockery in his tone, causing the corner of the redhead's mouth to curl up in sharp-toothed, cat-like amusement.

"Tony... don't!" Pepper warned. Futilely.

"You want a shot at the title?!" Iron Man declared, then rocketed forward in a repulsor-assisted tackle. "You got it!"

Ranma just smirked perniciously as she shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet. The instant Tony tried to wrap his arms around her and carry her up into sky, he found his arms empty and the world pinwheeling again. Desperately relying on the helmet instruments to correct his flight, he came to a stop mid-air, finding himself a couple hundred feet above his mansion.

"Jesus..." he muttered. "How the hell does she keep doing that?" Scanning the ground below, he saw nothing but empty real estate. "And where did she go?!"

"Above!" Ranma's voice rang out like a silver trumpet from over his head.

Looking up, Tony had just a momentary glimpse of a spinning martial artist before he was hammered sideways by a kick. "Ahh... fuck!" he yelled as he tried to gain control of his flight again before he augured in. Just as he figured out which way was up again, a steel chain wrapped around him, yanking him backwards into a lazy spin. A fraction of a second later, he got a face-full of bare heel and was sent hurtling away again.

"Shit!" Another jerk had him reverse direction yet again. "Fuck!" A punch in the belly of his armor whacked him away from his assailant. "Fuck! Shit!" Like the world's most costly yo-yo, he bounced back and forth at the whim of the master martial artist. "Even more fuck!" He couldn't stay orientated long enough to read his instruments, but he thought they were nearing the ground at terminal velocity. "Even more shiiiiiit!" His fear was confirmed as a final kick sent Iron Man skipping along the scrub brush and rocks of the empty lots he had purchased around his mansion for the sake of his privacy.

"Argh!" he dug the red armored fingers of his right hand into the ground to bring himself to a halt, managing to get his feet mostly under him at the same time. Crouching in a three point stance, he saw the swimsuit-clad fighter standing there, as unruffled as you please, fifteen yards away. Her hands were casually clasped behind her again as she stood in quarter profile to him, raising a single eyebrow at the heavily breathing billionaire.

"Sir! Are you alright?" JARVIS asked urgently.

"Yeah! Just shaken like you wouldn't believe...! God...!" He staggered upright, "...I want a martini right now! Where have you been during all this?!"

"Twenty-two seconds have elapsed since the commencement of combat, sir. In that time, the limitations of verbal communication have not allowed me to make any intelligible contribution as the circumstances changed too rapidly from moment to moment."

Tony shook himself as that registered, he had honestly thought he had been getting pummeled for several minutes. "How's the suit doing?"

"Mechanical components are all at ninety-four percent or better of optimal condition, sir," the AI informed him. "The chest-piece has ninety-seven point nine-eight-three percent of maximum available power."

"Excellent!" Stark enthused. "Now if I can figure out how she keeps sneaking up on me in mid-freaking-air, or where she got that damn chain from, I'll be set."

"Sir, due to her almost complete lack of a radar profile, it has been impossible for me to track her when she accelerates beyond a certain rate," JARVIS admitted. "I cannot even speculate how she acquired the chain she attacked you with."

"Got it. OK. Activate all terrain mapping sensors at full intensity and watch her every move."

"Yes, sir. Be advised that processing the full data-stream from the sensors will reduce the processing cycles available for other support functions," the computer warned.

"Tony!" Pepper's shout intruded suddenly as she figured out how to send to his helmet speakers.

"Oh hey, Pep," Tony replied absently as he considered tactics. "Little busy now."

"Stop fighting! Just... stop... and it'll be over, I think!"

"What?!" he exclaimed in disbelief.

"She's just standing there, waiting for you!" his now-former assistant pointed out. "Remember she called herself a martial artist. She'll probably stop if you give up!" Tony refocused on his opponent. Sure enough, she stood like she was content to stay there all year. "And if she does keep attacking, you can let the police deal with her!" Pepper added.

Looking the redhead in the eye, Tony said: "There is no way the police can deal with this chick." Said chick smiled enigmatically at him, cocking her head slightly. It was a small gesture... insignificant... yet somehow it just rubbed him in the exact wrong way.

"Just try it, please? It's the sensible thing to do," Pepper coaxed. As she did, Ranma extended her open left hand out toward him, palm facing up, in a strikingly elegant movement.

"You're right," Iron Man replied in a reasonable tone. "That is the sensible thing to do." Feminine fingers flicked up once... twice as delicate lips shifted the smile from serene to provocative... and not the good kind of provocative. "But sorry, babe..." Aggression overtook reasonability in his tone. "I'm fresh out of sensible!"

He launched himself into the air, boot jets at full blast while he aimed his palms straight to each side, ready to jink in either direction as his target moved. He went up, over and back down on a short arc, theorizing that Ranma had used his own intention to carry her skyward before against him. This time, he'd plow her into the ground. It seemed like she could take the hit, and if she couldn't... well, he'd just have to buy her a nice body cast. In the split second before impact, he saw her foot slide forward into a stance and got ready for her expected dodge.

"Wh...umph!" Air was forced out of Tony's lungs as his charge and his plans stopped as suddenly as hitting mountain. Rather than evade, the martial artist had caught him in mid-flight. Normally he would appreciate the face-full of womanly chest and feminine arms wrapped around him far more, but he was too shocked, angry, and even a little frightened to do so now. He struggled to get free, but as flexible as the articulated armor allowed him to be, the Iron Man suit was still a solid layer of metal covering his limbs, and he couldn't find purchase to pull away.

Things got worse as Ranma started shaking him like a terrier would a rat. "Is this all you got, rich boy?" she taunted with a playful tone.

"Aw crap..." he wheezed. "Override proximity safeties and activate boot thrusters... full power!"

"Sir, that's..." Jarvis tried to dissuade him.

"Do it!"

As ordered, the repulsors mounted beneath the soles of his feet ignited at maximum thrust. Unfortunately, it did not succeed in wrenching him from the female fighter's grip. Shifting her grip to one upper arm and a leg, she redirected the acceleration into a circle, spinning him over and over as her bare heels rotated on the ground like it was smooth ice instead of rough stone and dirt. His other leg scissored out as well, but the armor prevented it from going out more than forty five degrees, so its repulsor was just adding that much more to his increasing angular momentum.

Before he could countermand his ill-advised order, Ranma released him. Centrifugal force transitioned into linear velocity... mostly. She held onto his arm just long enough to launch him into the sky in an uncontrolled, flat spin, thrusters still firing and sending him in loops like a firework.

"G-Gah... ergh..." the normally silver-tongued futurist was reduced to grunts and groans as he fought to stabilize his flight. Cutting his jets, he went into free-fall long enough to figure out which way was up. Twisting his body and firing repulsors judiciously, over a thousand hours of operational experience came into play as he stopped and came to a hover well out above the ocean waves. "Gah! Dammit!" he cursed in a mix of relief and frustration.

"Tony! Are you OK?" Pepper called out to him via the radio.

"Gone from shaken to stirred," the billionaire admitted, "but I'm OK."

"JARVIS is blocking me from calling 911 because of your order. Have him let me through!" she pleaded.

"No!" he denied. "Unless the county sheriffs have a Super-Saiyan division, there's nothing they can do other than escalate this mess and get hurt doing it. I'll handle this, one way or the other. But give me a chance to think this out."

Turning back to shore, Iron Man saw his tormentor standing on the cliff's edge, looking at him. Once again, she was in her nonchalant stance with her hands clasped behind her back. "Sonnuva..." he hissed to himself at her unruffled appearance. "This isn't working... JARVIS, any analysis on how the hell she's been doing all this?"

"I am sorry, sir," the AI apologized tonelessly, "Ms. Saotome's abilities are beyond my ability to calculate. My tactical algorithms have been entirely unable to subject her actions to stochastic modeling... even retrospective modeling is failing. My ability to give warning is highly limited."

"That's... Huh, well that's something, all right," Tony commented distantly. He had plugged in not just the known specifications of all past and present weapons and technologies to JARVIS's databases along with all written treatises on strategy and tactics, but also included blue-sky technological speculation to anticipate future threats. "Maybe I should hire her to upgrade your algorithms."

"I am unable to estimate the probability of such an appeal succeeding or of it being effective should it succeed, sir," JARVIS informed him in a monotone that hadn't been heard very often since the early days of his activation. Continued utilization of the learning and self-programming sub-routines had made the AI sound more emotive as time went on.

Stark chuckled a bit as he realized the situation was bizarre enough that it was putting too much strain on the CPU time to allow the personality features to function. However, ideas on future improvements would have to wait for later. "Well, trying to grab her to subdue her hasn't worked. Trading punches isn't likely to work." He sighed in exasperation. "I don't have a lot of non-lethal options, now that I think of it. AND ARE YOU JUST GOING TO KEEP STANDING THERE...!" He suddenly threw up his hands and shouted down to his opponent as the ridiculousness of the situation registered with him.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted back: "It's OK if you need extra time to think things out! I am the best, after all!" Then she smugly returned to holding her hands behind her as she rocked back and forth a little on her heels.

"Oy... cheeky wench, isn't she?" Tony muttered. "You know what? Sod this close-quarters combat nonsense for a game of soldiers... I'm flying the world's most advanced weapon system. She's tough enough to take the hits... probably... so if she wants my best techniques," he raised glowing palm-repulsors and aimed at the Japanese youth causing her to grin in anticipation. "She can have them!"

Beams of glowing golden power converged on Ranma's position. Or her former position. Still rocking back and forth as if she had never moved, she stood a foot to the side of where the repulsor blasts had passed, a new small crater in the soil a little behind her.

"JAAARVIS..." Tony sing-songed worriedly, "please don't tell me she out-ran speed-of-light energy beams!"

"She did not, sir," he was reassured. "Ms. Saotome moved 0.071 seconds after the capacitors began to charge and 0.026 seconds before firing. The targeting system was unable to compensate."

"That's good to hear..." Tony said, "...though still a little terrifying. So uh... continuous fire!" he yelled as he started firing again and again at the elusive martial artist, chasing after her as best he could. For her part, Ranma streaked back and forth across the field, constantly changing directions amidst a hail of detonations. "Ha! How do you like them apples?!"

Cackling madly, Tony kept on trying to tag the redhead. However, when he noticed he was down to a little more than 80% power with no success, he got a hold of himself. "Ahem... JARVIS, what's up with the targeting?" he asked while continuing his barrage. "She isn't bothering to take cover and is staying in view, so..."

"Sorry, sir. While I am able to determine her location at any given instant with extensive CPU cycles devoted to terrain mapping, her maneuverability defies all on-the-fly modeling." The artificial intelligence went on to elaborate: "Even taking into account massive estimates of strength, she has been effecting course changes that should not be possible given the mechanics of human form, friction, and aerodynamics. Attempting to determine vector changes would require processing capacity that would disallow continuous location tracking, even assuming it were successful."

"You can figure out where she is or maybe which way she is going, but not both?" Stark summarized.

"Correct, sir."

"Holy hell... she's using Heisenberg-Uncertainty-Fu on us!" Tony joked in consternation.

"Sir?"

"Never mind. OK, let's shotgun it. Make an optimal targeting spread for the micro-guns that she can't wriggle around and prepare to fire!" Iron Man's shoulder-plates rose to deploy two racks of small barrels fused together in a row, six on each side. On his holographic display, a couple of concentric circles of dots appeared. Aiming carefully, he fired a series of repulsor bolts to herd the Saotome in a particular direction until she was hurtling toward the circles.

"Fire!" he barked, hearing a chorus of 'Fwips' of displaced air as the weapons fired. As hopeful as he was, Tony was not too surprised to see that instead of getting hit, Ranma spun in mid-leap to face the flying armor briefly, her hands flickering, before she turned again to rocket in another direction. Three small clouds of vaporized metal appeared above her.

"What the hell happened this time?" Tony wondered as he kept up the suppressive fire.

"Optical distortions consistent with pressure differentials were seemingly emitted from the estimated locations of Ms. Saotome's hands, intercepting the projectiles that were on course to strike her," JARVIS reported. "Note that this is not confirmed and her hand movements could not be completely tracked at the speeds they attained."

"She blew up the bullets... just with air pressure alone?" the genius inventor asked faintly. "Holy crap... she's like a walking, talking cheat-code."

Noting he was starting to edge down toward 70% of his reactor's total energy capacity, Tony decided to try ending things in his favor. "Hey! Little girl!" he called, looking down on the martial artist literally and figuratively while never ceasing to send energy blasts after her. "This looks like a stalemate, but you're going to run out of luck eventually! How about you be a good kid and surrender already?!"

"You first, rich boy!" she called back, voice loud and clear in spite of her frenetic dodging.

"All you're doing is running away while I have the high ground and repulsors!" Tony tried again. "What have you go..." Iron Man's question was cut short by a brief blip from the collision alarm before he was nearly knocked out of the sky by an impact just below the shining circle of the Arc reactor.

"Rock Thrown Accurately!" Ranma stopped to announce her answer to his unfinished question. Then she blurred out of the way has he fired with his free hand, the other reflexively clutching at his sternum despite the armor taking the brunt of the blow.

"JARVIS? What hit me and where did it come from?" he prompted for an explanation.

"A rock, sir. Just as Ms. Saotome claimed, she threw it... at over twenty four hundred miles per hour."

"She THREW a rock?! At Mach 3?! Holy fucking jeebus shit!" Tony swore, realizing there had been a secondary crack of a shockwave on top of the impact. Shaking his head, he said: "And I got no warning because it was outside your predictive parameters again. Right?"

"Indeed, sir, but the database has been upd... Incoming!" the AI suddenly interrupted itself to give alarm.

Iron Man dodged down and to the side, the incoming stone exploding into fragments as it glanced off his shoulder. Then it became a running exchange of fire between mankind's most advanced ranged weapon and its most primitive. The gold and red armored man looped and spun in the air, cursing inventively; as the barely dressed woman flickered across the earth, surrounded by continuous explosions, and laughing gaily all the while.

Frustrated, Stark ordered: "We're gonna try for splash damage instead of a direct hit. Give me a firing solution in her general area for the unibeam and both hand repulsors to intersect on the ground!" Silently and quickly, the computer complied. He pulled up and slowed a moment as the projectors on his chest and hands brightened with stored power and aligned near the path of the extremely speedy martial artist. "Fire!"

The promontory lit up with the flash of three powerful energy bolts converging and exploding with far more force than Tony had expected, casting a momentary shadow of the rocky bluff out over the Pacific. Then things went dark again as dust kicked up from the impact swallowed the area.

"Oh shit... whoops!" the flying man yelped as fragments of stone struck his armor and the cloud of debris overtook his position. "Shit... that wasn't supposed to happen. Note to self, never cross the streams unless you really mean it!" Boosting upward, he flew to a hover above the dust cloud and looked around. "Oh hell... that'd better not have killed her... where is she, JARVIS?!"

"Utilizing all available sensors..."

Once again, the AI was interrupted in mid-report by a blaring proximity alarm and the Japanese fighter herself.

"Above!" she cried out, repeating her earlier warning with a distinct tinge of amusement.

"Dammit, not agaaaaiiin...!" Tony screamed as he was wrenched out of his hover by a casual grab and toss, then sent hurtling toward his house by a spinning axe-kick. He was unable to correct his flight before hitting the ground once... twice... and a third time before skidding to a halt next to the driveway in front of the mansion.

Before he could orientate himself again, he was picked up and his arms restrained, twisted around behind his back with the palms facing each other. Desperately, he activated the boot repulsors to escape, but his legs were kicked upward and he ended up pile-driving himself head first into the ground. Rolling and writhing on the dirt, the two combatants wrestled for leverage.

Struggling to free his arms, Tony heard an alarming 'spang!' inside his armor as his efforts suddenly weakened. "Right arm servos have incurred severe damage, sir!" JARVIS alerted him.

"I can see that!" the billionaire replied impatiently. "Tell me something I don't know, like how to get out of this!"

"Analyzing..."

While the computer tried to find a solution, Tony continued to fight as best he could with just his legs free. Unfortunately, the hand-to-hand expert managed to free an arm from holding his wrists to loop around one leg. With a sudden wrench, she yanked it up in front of his chest, using it as a lever to pin him on the ground. This also brought it up in front of the Arc reactor such that firing a unibeam would blow his own foot off.

"Dammit!" he yelled up into the sky as he tried to twist and turn in the inexorable hold.

"Hey! I win! Stop struggling already!" Ranma demanded.

"Like hell!" Stark yelled.

"Ugh... stubborn..." she groused. She picked him up a little and slammed him back down, bringing the back of his helmet down on a rock with a dull, metallic gong. Then she did it again. And again.

"Bam! Bam! Bamo! Bam!" she sang along with the beat of titanium-gold alloy on basalt. "OK! You give up now?"

"Are you trying to annoy me into surrendering, you crazy bitch?!" Tony blurted.

"Yeah!" she agreed brightly. "Bam! Bam! Bam!" She paused a moment. "Is it working?"

"No!" He resumed his attempts to break free, trying to light off his boot jets, but only driving himself further into the dirt.. "This is stupid! Let me go!"

"No," Ranma replied in a matter of fact tone. "Bam! Bam!"

"Let him go!" Pepper Potts shrieked as she came running out of the house, brandishing a heavy glass paperweight.

"Oh hell..." the armored hero muttered, cutting off power to his repulsors and putting them on safety mode. "Pepper! Go back in the house!"

Heedlessly, the new CEO of Stark Industries ignored him and charged forward to bring her improvised bludgeon down on Ranma's head with a thwock.

"Hey! Quit it!" Ranma complained, frowning in annoyance but otherwise unbothered by the assault.

"Let him go!" the normally composed professional yelled, then hit the younger woman again.

"Quit it! I only let go when he say I win!" Ranma yelled back.

"OK," Tony interjected, unable to resist, "'I win!'"

"That not what I meant!" Ranma growled and bonged his head on the rock. "Bam!" she called out in counterpoint to the impact of a multimillion-dollar helmet.

"Let him go!" Pepper demanded as she wound up and brought the heavy glass down to whack Ranma's cranium again.

"No! Quit it!" Ranma repeated. Bam! The red and gold headpiece resounded again.

"Let him go!" Whack!

"Quit it!" Bam!

"Let him go!" Whack!

"Quit it!" Bam!

Over and over the two women stubbornly repeated the same actions. They couldn't see it, but Tony's face went slack and he gaped in surprise at the new development. After a few more rounds, he stopped struggling and just relaxed, looking up at the sky. Soon he was laughing helplessly at the absurdity.

"You're laughing at this, Tony?!" Pepper screeched indignantly at him.

"Yes, Ms. Virginia Potts... I am laughing," he replied in a solemn tone, ruined somewhat by irrepressible chuckles. "You're not really hurting her. She's not really hurting me. What's not to laugh about?"

"I don't need to hurt you to beat you," Ranma stated in an offended tone.

"I... you... she... what?!" Pepper trailed off in confusion. Reflexively, she brought her hand down for a final hit on Ranma's utterly unbruised forehead. "Ow!" She dropped the paperweight and stuck her finger in her mouth. Unluckily she had caught it between the unyielding glass and the martial artist's unnaturally durable skull.

"Ah! Shimatta!" Ranma gasped. Immediately, she kicked Iron Man away from her and leapt to her feet. "Sorry! Sorry! Here, let me have a look!" she asked while standing in front of the strawberry blonde and holding out her hands in contrition.

Tony staggered to his feet. "What the heck? Weren't we fighting?"

Ranma spun around and shifted to the side a little until she was in between the older woman and the repulsor-armed man, spreading her arms protectively as she faced him. "Hey! Time out for hurt... uh... not-fighter!" she frowned both at what she thought were her opponent's plans and her struggle to find a correct word in English. Over the diminutive young woman's head, Tony could easily see Pepper's incredulous gaze switching back and forth between him and the redhead.

"Heh," Stark gave an amused snort. "You know what?" He slowly raised his hands, pointedly aiming his palms safely outward. His right arm sparked and made grinding noises, but he ignored it as he declared: "I surrender! Hell... if I get a view like that each time... I'll surrender all day, every day!" He nodded significantly toward her chest.

While Ranma herself looked unscathed from the battle except for smudges of dirt, her swimwear was another story. It was ragged and torn from shrapnel, and it hadn't been in too good a condition even before the fight started. She looked down and saw one of the shoulder straps had broken and her right breast was completely revealed. As she registered this, the other strap gave up the ghost and the remnant of her suit sprang away from her upper torso like a broken rubber band.

The martial artist's only response to her exposure was to shrug and say: "OK, but I want a real fight next time." Turning back to Pepper, she said: "Let me see the finger, please."

Embarrassed, far more by her self injury and her confusion at the girl's antics than by the naked female flesh on display (she had worked as Tony Stark's personal assistant for many years, after all,) Pepper held her hurt finger out and said: "It's just bruised, see?" Ranma took her hand gently and tapped it with one finger. "Oh!" Pepper exclaimed in pleased surprise.

"What?" Tony asked as he came around as if to observe the procedure, but unsubtly staring at Ranma's bare bosom instead.

"It stopped hurting," his former employee told him.

"Yeah, I made it... like... if you held really cold thing for a long time," Ranma tried to explain.

"You numbed it just by touching it?" Pepper clarified.

"Yeah, now I fix it," the Asian girl said casually. She started massaging the hand, a faint glow showing where their skin met that Pepper missed as she closed her eyes, but Iron Man did not.

"Whoa! what is that?" the engineer asked, startled, and reached out as if to separate the two women.

"Oooh my!" Pepper moaned, causing Iron Man to freeze, visibly intrigued by her tone despite his metal shell. "Don't stop her, Tony! That feels really... ah!" she gasped a little. "...Really good!"

"Reiki technique," Ranma explained. "I know people who can heal something like this in a second or two, but I have to do it the slow way."

"That's slow?" Stark exclaimed as JARVIS highlighted the rapid fading of the purple and blue marks on Pepper's finger.

"This is soooo weird," Pepper opened her eyes and shook her head in bemusement, rather mellow from the treatment she was getting. "A minute ago we were all fighting and now I'm getting pampered while Tony pervs at the underage girl pampering me."

"It was just practicing the Art," Ranma shrugged. "I never understand why people get all mad about it. Friendly and uh... clear-headed is better." She tapped Pepper's hand once more and the taller woman felt the pleasant warmth spread from her hand to her healed finger. "There. All better."

Pepper raised her hand in front of her face and flexed her fingers. "That's amazing! It isn't even sore anymore from all the typing I did earlier today! I should have you give me a shoulder rub sometime."

"Sure, if you want," Ranma said agreeably.

"That's great that you two get along now!" Tony interrupted. "You two should kiss and make up!" His face couldn't be seen, but the leer was clear in his voice even with the mechanical overtones.

Pepper rolled her eyes. "No, Tony," she sighed, missing the brief disappointed look in Ranma's eyes. Looking down at the younger woman, she remembered her state of dress. "Did you want to borrow some clothes?"

"Huh?" Ranma looked down. "Oh... nah, I got things in my pack." Picking discontentedly at the edge of the remaining fabric, she grimaced as a piece came off in her fingers. "Things meant for swimming should hold up better in water. Stupid thing started getting ragged after a couple days out of Japan."

"That's what you're worried about?" Pepper took half a step back and crossed her arms over her chest, giving Ranma a skeptical look. "Didn't you just get mad and attack Tony in the first place for how he was looking at you?"

"Iie... no..." Ranma said, waving her hand. "I got mad because he say he wanted to do ecchi things to me. I fought because he thought I was weak. I don't care if guys look... I beat them up if they try to touch."

The new CEO shook her head in perplexity at the never-ending source of oddness. "Who are you?"

"Oh, sorry!" Ranma looked abashed as she had forgotten the social niceties she had been determined to be better at observing. Bowing politely without the clasped fist since Ms. Potts was obviously no kind of fighter, she greeted: "How do you do? I am Ranma Saotome of the..." she looked up in surprise at faint tearing noises. "Uh-oh..."

The martial artist suddenly hopped back from the two Americans. As she landed, the tearing noises got louder just before her heavily damaged bathing suit exploded into confetti. Thuds and clangs echoed from the mansion walls as what seemed like an entire blacksmith shop plus medieval armory materialized around the petite young woman and fell to the ground. Pepper and Tony stared in new astonishment at lengths of chain and rope, katanas, shurikan, kunai, spears, grappling hooks, various tools, iron weights, formless lumps of scrap metal, an anvil, and even a lone wallet scattered in a rough circle around Ranma's bare feet.

"Huh..." the pigtailed fighter grunted as she set her fists on her bare hips and surveyed the mess. "So that's what happens." She nodded to herself as she made mental notes and prodded one of the chains with a delicate toe.

Stark didn't take long to brush aside the spontaneous generation of hundreds of pounds of material in favor of something of greater interest to him. "Hey! You're a natural redhead? That's surprising... I've never seen such a vibrant red if it didn't come out of a bottle. And, unlike any other redhead I've seen, you've got a bitchin' tan as well. Really nice shade... really brings out the... naked. Have you modeled? Would you like to? Been meaning to take up photography."

Pepper closed her eyes with a pained expression as she let out a slow breath. Then with a convulsive movement, she bent to grab the dropped paperweight, came up in the best pitcher's stance she could manage in a business skirt, and threw it with all her might to bounce off Iron Man's helmet. She ignored his sound of mild protest and turned to the nude woman blinking distractedly at her. Calmly, she asked; "Ms. Saotome, could you tell us where all of that... equipment came from?"

The fighter smiled winningly at her and said: "Call me Ranma! And this was the stuff I was carrying around to practice the Hidden Weapons technique. I didn't know what would happen if clothes got destroyed, so this was good... exre... exerp... experiment!"

Tony got serious again as he gestured at all the metal work. "You hid all this? In a swimsuit?"

"Yup!" She confirmed proudly, then her face fell a little. "Just figured it out a couple months before I left, so I'm not as good as I want to be yet."

"You hear that, Pep?" Stark murmured as he tilted his head toward his friend.

"I heard," she confirmed blandly.

"She's not very good at it yet," he went on.

"Uh-huh."

Tony took in a long breath through his nose. "OK... new plan. We give her whatever she wants to stick around and show me how to bend the rules of physics even more than I already do. And be the house nude model."

"What kind of stupid..." the newly minted chief executive of a science and technology firm paused in her first impulsive statement, her eyes going distant as visions of massive profits from new inventions danced though her head. "Actually... that might be a good idea... the research job, I mean. Let me talk to her a while before deciding anything, though." Speaking up louder, she asked: "Uh, Ranma? Could you show us how you store those things away? I assume that would require that you get, you know, dressed again, hopefully?"

"Yeah, you bet!" the redhead obeyed cheerfully, jogging to her canoe.

"Dammit, Pepper!" Tony hissed.

"She has to stop running around naked sometime." Pepper rolled her eyes.

"No she doesn't."

"Underage~" Ms. Potts caroled warningly.

"But... dammit," he hissed again before he got distracted. "What the heck? Boxers?"

"Huh? Oh..." Pepper looked to see what their surprise visitor was putting on. "Weird. Maybe its a Japanese fad? And why am I talking about underwear with you of all people?"

"I don't know," Tony mused facetiously, "why are you staring at a half naked girl and discussing her lingerie choices with me?"

She snorted in amusement in spite of herself. "Bastard."

"Son of one, maybe," Tony retorted with a smirk.

Ranma returned wearing a black t-shirt advertising some sort of band, loose cloth pants that looked like they came from a kung-fu movie, and slippers. Something about the ensemble struck Pepper as strange until she realized it was all oversized, including the slippers that the young woman's toes were clenching the soles of to shorten them and keep them on.

The martial artist walked over and picked up one of the hunks of scrap metal. "Hidden Weapons is just that: a technique to hide weapons," she explained as she slipped the steel object up the short sleeve of her shirt, making it disappear without a bulge.

"Holy crap!" Tony muttered. Pepper nodded silently in agreement.

"Two main things are put stuff away and pull stuff out again when need it," Ranma went on matter-of-factly as she continued to quickly stow items away. "Master of the technique can pull things out in any order from any part of their clothing. I can only pull things out from whatever sleeve or opening I stuff it in, and the first thing I can get out is the last thing I put in."

"JARVIS, what are you seeing here?" the inventor requested.

"Sir... I have no explanation for what Ms. Saotome is doing," the AI replied. "Sensors indicate that the objects are there right up until the instant they are gone. Scans of Ms. Saotome's person show no sign of the objects she is supposedly carrying."

"Anything of note at the time the stuff disappears?" Tony prompted. "Bursts of radiation? Gravitic anomalies?"

"No radiation, and the sensors would not necessarily register any but a very large and persistent gravity change." After a long pause, JARVIS continued: "However, sir, it should be noted that doppler analysis shows the objects recede faster and farther than would be expected based on the region they traverse just before they cease to exist."

"Ah ha!" Stark said in excitement, suddenly getting an idea of how the trick was done. "Hey, Ranma? Is there anything kind of tricky you have to do when physically moving your things into your clothes?"

"Well..." she cocked her head and thought it over. "Main thing is you have to turn it weird way instead of pushing it straight in."

"'Weird' how?" the famed genius asked intently.

"It's hard to explain..." Ranma held up a kunai to demonstrate. "You can turn things forward and back, yes?" she tilted the point of the blade down and then up again, "also turn them left and right and tilt them side to side?" she continued to show what she meant by rotating the weapon in the indicated directions.

"Yeah?"

"For Hidden Weapons, you have to turn something same way, but not in any of those directions." She scowled a bit. "Or maybe all those ways at once... it's really hard to say in words. But if do it right, it sort of... rushes into the pocket itself."

"Hoo-hah... applied N-dimensional physics! Right out of a Heinlein novel!" Tony whispered excitedly. Pepper heard him and stopped breathing for a few moments in shock. Her degrees from Wharton were in business, but she had been working for high-tech organizations all her professional life and was very familiar with esoteric concepts.

"That's absolutely amazing!" Stark raised his voice to say. Ranma smiled and preened a bit at the compliment. "So do your things stay in there until you take your clothes off again?"

"Actually, it work better than that," the redhead told him happily. "Once I cram something into the Stuff-Space... that's what I call it," she said as an aside, "then it stay there in shirt or whatever I use even if I take it off. Which is good... when my swimsuit started fraying, I had to leave it off most days. If the stuff popped out when I did that, it'd go overboard."

"Hold it!" Tony raised his hand in a stopping gesture as he got distracted again. "You were bare-assed naked out in the open for weeks? That explains the all-over tan... though I really want to see what images JARVIS managed to find now."

Ranma shrugged as she put the last item, a rope with a grappling hook, into her right sleeve and said: "I had to, sort of. Only had one suit and all my other clothes would have been a mess to wear when wet. I only put it on when I got near people or to recharge the technique."

"And... hold it again!" Tony interjected once more. "'Recharge the technique?'"

The young woman blinked and then shook herself. "Sorry, I forget because is obvious to me. Really important part of Hidden Weapons: put Ki into clothes and stuff before putting in. Wears off after a while, so have to put Ki in again. Have to wear clothes when doing this instead of just holding... not sure why that is," she pouted.

"'Ki?'" Pepper asked, eyebrows raised inquisitively.

"Yeah! What did I say...?" Tony exclaimed, congratulating himself. "I said Super-Saiyans earlier, didn't I?!"

Ranma shot him a strange look, wondering if he meant 'Saiyajin,' then pointedly looked away to address the older woman. "Ki is... life... breath... soul... other stuff too." Looking Pepper straight in the eyes, she raised her hands, loosely open and palms up, nearly to the level of her shoulders and exhaled. Abruptly a nimbus of gold and silver fire sprung up around her, her clothing rustling and her pigtail whipping about like in a strong wind. "Ki is power." She held the pose and the aura for a couple breaths more, then dropped her arms and the light-show "Can do things with Ki. Move faster. Hit harder. See without sight." Waving at the hand she had treated she added: "Can heal."

Cutting the audio to the outside of his helmet, Tony muttered: "JARVIS...?"

The computer quietly stated: "Scanning... unknown energy source detected. It is not Arc energy, but only the sensors you designed to measure Arc reactor output register it beyond the basic luminosity."

"Astounding," Pepper responded aloud in a mix of nervousness and fascination, inadvertently echoing Tony's thoughts. "So you were born with ability?"

"Everybody born with Ki," Ranma corrected. "Just very few train it. Take more than..." she mimed jogging, "just running and lifting things. Must run as fast as you can, then run even faster. Must lift all you can, then lift more. A priest I know say, Ki is the place where you push past limits. Push past body limits... mind limits... soul limits." She lost her solemn expression and scrunched her nose cutely. "I never did mind stuff so good until recently. Haven't figured out where begin with soul stuff... but I will!" she hastened to assure her listeners. "Ranma Saotome don't lose!"

"Alright, Sonya Goku," a single crimson eyebrow rose at Tony's new appellation for her. "I can see... sort of... you maintaining a t-shirt of holding with a constant supply of energy. But that thing don't exactly have batteries. I'd have to see it for myself, so take it off and drop it so we can see if it keeps holding your gear." He pointed at the ground with a carefully cultivated serious demeanor.

"Eh...? Fine," Ranma acknowledged in an annoyed tone, then started to lift the hem of her shirt, exposing the faint six-pack of her abdomen.

"Wait!" Pepper dove forward to grab her wrists. An instant later she looked up in realization at just how bad grabbing a martial artist of the Saotome's capability could truly be. However, the redhead's expression was one of mild curiosity as she looked at the older woman in inquiry. Breathing a bit easier, Pepper turned loose to look at Tony and stated: "A super-powered martial artist straight out of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' shows up, blows away our every understanding of human limits, fights you to a standstill in your Iron Man suit, lays this amazing demonstration of spiritual power on us... and you go for cheap tricks to look at her tits again?" Giving her former employer a look of weary disbelief, she asked: "Have you totally lost it? Are you completely deranged? Suicidal?"

Flinching a bit as the last jab came a little too close to his recent struggle with despair, Tony covered it up with his usual bullshit. "No... no... I am genuinely curious, as a scientist. Gotta test things out, you know." Pepper Potts crossed her arms and gave him a leaden glare. "...Annnd maybe the fact she's so ridiculously strong makes me want to see her body that much more. So..." he clapped his gauntleted hands and nodded to the petite woman, "get to proving it! Chop-chop!"

Ranma had acquired her own skeptical look by this point. Nevertheless, she shrugged and started pulling up the t-shirt again.

"Stop!" Pepper grabbed her wrists again while Tony made noises of complaint. "What are you doing?!" she seethed through gritted teeth. "Are you an exhibitionist?"

"What is ex-hi-bi-tion-ist?" the fighter carefully asked in puzzlement.

"Do you get a thrill letting people see you naked? Does it make you happy and err... excited, I mean?" Pepper rephrased her question when Ranma still looked uncertain.

The young woman's face twisted into a moue of distaste. "Iyada... no way! I don't really care what people see, but I'm not hentai about it! But he challenged me," she jerked her head in Iron Man's direction. "Had to do stuff I hated more plenty of times to win challenges."

"He challenged you?" Pepper confirmed dubiously, getting a nod in reply. "And you had to rush to answer the challenge here and now instead of waiting a bit to answer the challenge in a way that doesn't show off your breasts again? Like put on a bra, maybe?"

"Oh!" the redhead looked enlightened, the habit of years having prevented her from even considering responding under more favorable terms. "Actually, can do a lot better than that!" She went over to her canoe again.

"...You're killing me here, Pep," Stark commented.

"I will be if you keep playing pervo games with an under-aged girl," she snarled. "Getting an eyeful because on an accident is one thing. Actively coercing her into taking her clothes off is soliciting a minor. That's one scandal you managed to avoid all these years. Don't mess that up because you decided to do your mid-life crisis in your own idiot way."

"Fine... fine..." he replied in a bored tone.

Ranma returned holding a metal canteen. "Wanna see magic trick?" she asked as her hand glowed with Ki, heating the flask. Pepper narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the sly quirk of the redhead's lips.

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

Authors notes: So after many years of lurking... here's a story. The MCU looks like a fun playground, and Ranma has always been one of my favorite fan-fiction subjects. I hope people enjoy this.