Freaking Out
A Ranma 0.5/Freakazoid fusion
by Black Dragon
Standard disclaimer applies... Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Freakazoid to Warner Bros and Steven Spielberg.
Starring Ranma Saotome as: Freakazoid!
Dr. Tofu as: Freakazoid's pal!
Kyusaku (from All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku) as: The funny-looking computer nerd!
Ryoga Hibiki as: The high-level evil dude!
Genma and the Tendos as: The clueless family!
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Saiyuri as: The innocent bystanders! (Targets)
And also starring Jane Canaway as The Hopping Woman!
This takes place just after the beginning of the manga, just before Shampoo shows up. Characters from other series will have little, if anything, in common with those other series.
**********************************************************************************
Ranma absently rubbed the bruise on his cheek as he trudged up the stairs behind Nabiki.
He honestly hadn't meant to call Akane a tomboy again, but after she had brought up that whole stupid bathroom incident and called him a pervert again, he'd countered with what was soon becoming a conditioned response. How did he ever get engaged to such a violent girl?
"So what was it you wanted to show me Nabiki?"
Nabiki looked back down at him and frowned. "Oh, don't sound so bitter. I just bought something with the money I got selling pictures to Kuno, and since you unwittingly helped me with that, I thought I'd let you give it a try."
Ranma blinked and started following her with greater interest. Nabiki seemed to him like the kind of person that does whatever she wants and gets away with it, so he figured if she was going to let him in on whatever she had, he might as well go along with it.
Opening up the door to her room, Nabiki sat down at a small desk and pushed a button on a big plastic box next to something that resembled a TV.
Closing the door behind him, Ranma watched Nabiki slide out a bigger plastic panel with a multitude of buttons, along with another small plastic object attached to a cord. "What's that thing?"
Nabiki was about to make a crack about how stupid you'd have to be not to recognize a simple computer, but then she remembered that he'd been in training for all his life. "It's called a computer. I'm not going to try to explain how it works to you, but I will tell you that it has a program that links it to a bunch of other computers all over the world, and I just bought a new product called the Pinnacle Chip that will make the program run faster." She turned around to see Ranma with a completely blank look.
He shrugged apologetically. "Uh, you lost me somewhere around the first 'program'."
Nabiki sweatdropped. "Um, nevermind. Anyway, you just do this to open it..." Ranma watched as she manipulated the small plastic thingy, which caused the pointer to move over a little picture on the screen. She clicked the button on the object twice, which caused a new screen to pop up. Then she typed something on the flat panel, and the whole screen changed again.
Nabiki whistled. "Now that's fast! You see, you just type in a subject here, then the search engine will locate a bunch of web pages that are related to that subject." Nabiki missed Ranma's sweatdrop and confused look as she suddenly sniffed the air. "Hey what's that...... oh no! I forgot! Akane's trying out a new recipe tonight!!"
Ranma was about to ask a question when Nabiki suddenly rushed by him and out the door. He turned around, and she poked her head in quickly. "Sorry, but if I don't order take-out now, the food won't get here before Akane's done in the kitchen!"
Ranma wondered what the big deal is. Could Akane be that bad a cook? "What about this, um, the compu-whatsit?"
Nabiki rushed out again and yelled back as she descended the stairs. "Try it out if you like! Just don't break anything!"
Ranma blinked, then sat down in front of the computer. Then he spent a long while staring at the big line at the top. Was that English? He only knew a little English, gathered here and there on his training trips. And what was all this jargon? URL? http? www? Getting frustrated and confused, he just sighed and eventually started typing things at random.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Gentlemen, we have a problem." Kyusaku gave a hard stare to every person seated at the gigantic table before him. What he was about to reveal could change the entire future of the corporation, or obliterate that future altogether. Absently he lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.
His stares had less than the desired effect, mostly because everything above his nose was completely hidden by his shaggy brown hair.
One of the members of the Board of Directors whispered to another. "Yeah, I think you're right. It is funnier with the Scottish accent."
"Really. Why'd they have to go and start inserting more anime characters everywhere?"
Kyusaku emitted a low growl. "This is no time to be breaching the fourth wall! This is serious!"
Regaining his composure Kyusaku addressed the entire table. "The Pinnacle Chip is... flawed."
Gasps and whispers soon erupted among the directors. Kyusaku stood statue-like at the end of the table, his head held low.
Suddenly, a voice from the other end of the table rang out. "And what exactly is the nature of this flaw?"
Kyusaku looked up suddenly, and then raised an eyebrow (not that anyone could tell, but, well, there you go). "Wait, who are you?"
The speaker was fairly tall, muscular, and wore a professional business suit along with both an eyepatch and a black and gold bandanna. The thing was that Kyusaku was fairly certain that the man wasn't even 18.
"Why, I'm the CEO of this corporation of course. You can call me Ryoga."
Kyusaku addressed one of the nearby directors. "What's going on? What happened to Geuchiarez?"
One of the other directors spoke up. "That's not how you spell his name."
Kyusaku rounded on him. "Shut up! We're supposed to be talking here! Now what happened?!"
The director he had originally been talking to grinned slightly and steepled his fingers under his chin. "Our former CEO has met with a most unfortunate accident, pending his decision to cut the Board of Director's pay in favor of his own salary. After we killed-I mean, after he fell down the stairs, we found Mr. Hibiki here wandering around the lab areas, so we made him the new CEO."
Kyusaku blinked.
A different director who had remained silent up until now grunted. "Hmph. Now there's a plot hole if I ever heard one..."
Ryoga slammed his hands onto the table. "Enough of this! What is the flaw?!"
Kyusaku cleared his throat. "First, the user would have to be connected to the internet. Then, he would have to enter an exact sequence of keys followed by 'delete'. The user would then be sucked into cyberspace, where'd he'd be transformed into a superbeing, capable of doing anything! But he'd be wild and insane, an uncontrollable force of pure nonsense! He'd be...... a Freakazoid!"
Ryoga scratched his chin in thought as he slowly approached Kyusaku. "How many people know about this... flaw?"
"Just me, and the people in this room."
Ryoga grinned. Then his hand shot out, grabbed Kyusaku, and threw him out the window with all the force of a freight train.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Kyusaku screamed as the ground rushed up to meet him, and would have met then with certain death, had this fic any basis on reality.
Back in the building, Ryoga turned around, then started laughing maniacally. "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Laugh with me!!"
As Ryoga continued, the other men sweatdropped. "Um, sir, that line really doesn't suit you..." one of the men pointed out.
*Smash* Ryoga's fist broke straight through the table. "I said LAUGH WITH ME dammit!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!"
The other men bigsweated nervously, then all laughed weakly.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma sighed as another blank page with a few words of technical gibberish appeared on the screen. He'd been at this for half an hour already, and hadn't ended up at anything other than this one page that didn't have any pictures and a short message talking about invalid URLs or some such nonsense. Nabiki wasn't back yet, and from what he had been hearing from downstairs, was still busy helping to put out a fire or something. Getting utterly sick of all this "internet" business, he tiredly started once again pressing a bunch of random keys.
Now, the chances of the most obvious occurence, that of him typing in the sequence mentioned above, actually happening are astronomical in proportion. But, being that trying to apply logic to this story would be like tossing bricks into a bonfire, I'm not going to bother to come up with a more feasible pretext.
Ranma blinked as a new window suddenly popped up on the front of the screen. "Press... any... key to... con-con-continue?" After he finished reading the English print, he looked blankly at the keyboard.
"Any key? Which one's the any key?" (Please slap yourself if you didn't see that coming)
Figuring that the message was bad, Ranma decided to press the one button that made everything else disappear.
As his finger compressed the "delete" key, an arc of electricity shot out of the moniter, causing Ranma to jerk backward. Then a swirling vortex appeared and he felt himself being sucked into the computer.
"Damn! I broke it! Nabiki's gonna kill meeeeeeeeeeee....." His voice faded away as his body disappeared into the moniter, and more electricity crackled behind him.
Ten seconds later, the moniter lit up again, and a figure was quickly blasted out of it. Energy danced along his back as he struggled to get up. Then, he suddenly stood up ramrod straight. "Whoa! I wanna do that again!"
Ranma was now just over six feet tall, with blue skin and black hair that was swept backward with a white lightning bolt through it. For some inexplicable reason, he was also wearing red pajamas with a big 'F' on the front, and a small black mask that only covered the area just around his eyes.
Ranma adopted a smile on his face, then zipped over to the mirror. "Wow! I look like I got mauled in a paint store!"
Ranma's head swiveled around (without the rest of his body) as he heard someone ascending the stairs. With a mad cackle, he dove out the window.
Nabiki entered her room a moment later, and looked around for Ranma.
"Hmmm. He's gone. Ack! My computer!" Nabiki quickly noticed the electric burns on the chair, and rushed over to see how much damage her new houseguest had caused.
After seeing that the computer had sustained no damage and was completely functional, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then she noticed the sequence of letters in the URL bar.
"Hmmm. He must have been just typing in random stuff. I guess I shouldn't have left him alone with it like that, he could have broken something." With that, she highlighted the entire line and hit "backspace". The entire sequence disappeared.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Akane muttered curses under her breath as she paced back in forth in the dojo.
How dare Nabiki make fun of her cooking like that? And after all the work she went through to make sure that the fire didn't claim the entire meal! Why did they make kitchen counters out of wood anyway when they were going to be placed next to a strong heat source?!
Akane was so focused on her mental griping, she didn't even notice that she wasn't alone in the dojo until someone tapped her on the shoulder.
She whirled around, and was about to give the intruder a severe reprimand (and not necessarily a verbal one), when she noticed that said intruder had blue skin.
This was sufficiently odd that she forgot about beating him and settled for staring at him for a moment.
Ranma just smiled. "Let's wrestle!" Then he tackled her into the ground, before he proceeded to apply a rather painful series of holds on her.
"OW!! That hurt!! Stop that!! Ouch! Get off of me and fight me like a man, you-ow! Hey, no!! That's a sensitive area!!"
At this point Ranma decided on a position sitting on Akane's back while holding one leg and occasionally pulling it back painfully. "Say 'uncle'!"
Akane growled. "I'll never lose to a weirdo like-OW!! OW!! OW!! Okay! Okay! Uncle!!"
Ranma only grinned again. "Now say, 'I hate Marty Ingel'!"
Akane was confused for a moment at the request, but some slight pressure on her leg reminded her of the vulnerability of her position. "Fine! I hate Marty Ingel! Now get off!"
"Now say 'I hate Mark Anthony'!"
Akane sweatdropped. "What? What's wrong with Mark Anthony?"
At that very moment, Kasumi walked into the dojo. "Akane, we finished putting out the fire and-oh my! Did you trip and hurt yourself?"
Akane quickly oriented on her sister and begged for help. "Quick! Kasumi! Get him off of me!"
Kasumi blinked. "Get who off of you?"
Akane was about to yell a very disrespectful accusation about Kasumi's vision, when she realized that there was no longer any weight on her back. "What the? Where'd he go?"
"Where did who go?"
"The blue guy! He was right here on top of me!" Akane turned toward Kasumi and noted her slightly worried expression. "I swear! There was this blue guy in red pajamas, and he attacked me! He was just here a second ago! Honest!"
Kasumi noted Akane's panicked look and became very worried. "Akane, are you all right? You didn't hit your head when you fell, did you?"
Akane grabbed her head in frustration and ran from the room, shouting curses all the way.
Kasumi watched her go, then shook her head sadly. "Poor Akane... I think the stress of the engagement is starting to become a bit too much for her."
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Whooooooooooooooooooooosh!" Ranma happily ran down the street, arms stretched out in front of him, making flying noises along the way. Those pedestrians that saw him quickly adjusted their paths to get out of his way, then watched, almost entranced by the weirdness, as he continued to pretend to fly along the path.
Ranma continued like this for a while, until a sing-song female voice rang out from an area of the fence behind him.
"You! Blue boy! You come here!"
"Erk!" Ranma stopped his passage suddenly, then started running backwards. "Shooooooooooooow!" Once he reached the point where the voice had come from, he looked up to see a very attractive Chinese girl with long purple hair pointing at him with a large curved sword.
Ranma pointed to himself in question.
Shampoo nodded. "Yes, you! You tell Shampoo where Ranma hide, yes?"
Ranma looked back and forth, and then gestured for Shampoo to come closer.
Shampoo cautiously climbed down from the fence and walked up to him.
Looking around again, Ranma put a hand to Shampoo's ear. "Pssst pssst pssst pssst pssst..."
Shampoo blinked, then looked at him. "Why you go 'pssst pssst pssst'? What this mean?"
Ranma put his hand to her ear again. ".................. It's a secret! ..................."
Shampoo growled cutely and backed away, then leveled the sword at Ranma's throat. "Shampoo no in mood for game! You tell where Ranma hide, or Shampoo kill!"
Ranma blinked, then lowered the sword slightly with his arm, only to lean on top of the blunt edge. "What's a nice girl like you doing hunting Ranmas anyway? There are so many other hobbies you could be enjoying! Say, are you free this Saturday?"
Shampoo blinked again, and then sighed, recognizing the same line that she'd heard from every teenage male (not to mention many that were older than that) since she left the village. "No. Shampoo have to find Ranma and kill! No time for date!" With that she turned and left, completely forgetting that he had known about Ranma.
Ranma watched her bounce away, then shrugged and left.
"Wooooooooooooooooooooooosh!"
A couple that was enjoying a mocha at a nearby Starbucks stopped talking when they noticed him, and thought about leaving when he headed towards them.
Ranma grabbed one of the cups and pointed to it. "Sorry, can I use this for a sec?"
The man who had previously owned the coffee stuttered slightly. "Uh, o-okay."
Ranma smiled. "Thanks!" *Splash* The hot mocha was spilt all over his body, which was suddenly smaller and clothed in a red Chinese shirt and black Chinese pants.
Ranma gasped as he threw the cup away from him. "What the hell just happened?!"
The couple, apparently deciding that enough was enough, beat a hasty retreat to a saner district. Ranma didn't notice.
"Geez, I barely remember a thing! And what I do remember... ugh... this is too weird. I need something to eat." And so, with that final statement, Ranma began the trek home, hopping on rooftops rather than pretend-flying.
__________________________________________________________________________________
*Ding-dong*
After a moment of waiting, Kasumi answered the door to see a fairly short man with shaggy brown hair and a cigarette standing on the porch rather nervously.
"Can I help you?" Kasumi was fairly certain she'd never seen him before. Was she another friend of her father's? Maybe the Saotomes knew him.
Kyusaku scratched the back of his head nervously. "Hello, sorry to bother you ma'am. Say, is the computer user of the house in, by any chance?"
Kasumi blinked. "Oh, you must mean Nabiki! Yes, she's home. I'm sorry, but you are?"
Kyusaku bigsweated. "I'm her... uh... martial arts instructor! Yes, that's it!"
Kasumi blinked again, then moved so he could come in. "Oh, I didn't know Nabiki had taken up the art again. I wonder why she didn't simply ask father." Seeing as the hostess had began talking to herself, Kyusaku quickly excused himself and went upstairs.
Nabiki was at that time descending the stairs, and raised an eyebrow when she saw the newcomer.
"Can I help you sir?"
Kyusaku glanced around to check if their was anyone listening in. Finding no one, he turned back to her. "Nabiki Tendo?"
She nodded.
"Have you recently had any kind of... disturbance involving your computer?"
Nabiki's expression darkened and she started to continue down the stairs. "I certainly hope not. That unit cost me an arm and a leg, and I only left Ranma alone with it for 5 minutes!"
Kyusaku blinked. "Ranma? So you havn't seen anything unusual concerning your computer?"
Nabiki crossed her arms over her chest. "What I saw were some kind of burns on my chair, my desk looking like a tornado had destroyed it, and NO RANMA!! If that jerk broke my computer, I'll make his life a living hell!" Nabiki directed a glare outside. "Well speak of the devil."
Kyusaku looked outside, and saw Ranma jumping over the fence that seperated neighbors' yards.
"If you don't mind, may I have a few words with him first?"
Nabiki snorted and walked into the kitchen. "Hmph. Knock yourself out."
__________________________________________________________________________________
*Ding-dong*
"Can I help you?" Kasumi bowed respectfully to the young man with the eyepatch.
Ryoga chuckled nervously. "Uh, hi. May I please speak to the computer user of the house?"
"Oh, you must mean Nabiki. My, she's been getting a lot of company lately! And you are?"
Ryoga gulped. "Who am I? I'm.... er.... her martial arts instructor!"
Kasumi frowned. "Nabiki's martial arts instructor is in his late 30's."
Ryoga gulped more deeply. "Er, English tutor?"
Kasumi's smile was back again, in full force. "Oh, okay! I just saw her go into the kitchen. Just take the first left before the hallway."
Ryoga thanked her, then entered the house and took the first right.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"What? A disturbance?" Ranma thought long and hard about that one.
"You know... like maybe electricity and a large, swirling vortex that sucks you into the depths of cyberspace..." Kyusaku prompted.
Ranma blinked. "Huh? You mean it's not supposed to do that?"
*Crash* Kyusaku wearily picked himself up off the ground and stared at him. "No, it's not supposed to do that."
Ranma suddenly clutched his head. "Oh crap! I really did break it! Nabiki's going to flay me alive!"
Kyusaku interrupted his ranting with a hand on his shoulder. "Look here kid, you've been given amazing powers!"
"Amazing powers that shall soon be mine!"
Both of them turned at the voice to see Ryoga in front of the house, arms crossed over his chest and a sadistic grin on his face. He had, of course, gotten lost looking for Nabiki and instead accidentally overheard Ranma and Kyusaku's conversation, but he wasn't going to let a little thing like that affect his entrance.
Ranma waved nonchalantly. "Hey Ryoga. What's with the eyepatch?"
Kyusaku turned toward him. "You know this mental case?"
Ryoga snorted. "Of course he knows me. It's because of our rivalry that I need the superhuman powers of your 'flaw'. And as for your other question, I'm wearing an eyepatch because I'm evil!"
Kyusaku backed away. Ranma blinked. "But you were evil before, and you didn't wear one."
Ryoga frowned. "No, before I was just bitter. Now I'm EVIL!"
Ranma shook his head. "No, I'm sure you were at least a little evil before."
"Oh shut up!! This is not a topic that's open for discussion!" Ryoga screamed, before regaining his composure. "In any case, you're coming with me."
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Whoa whoa whoa!! Hold on a sec!! How the hell did you do that?!" Ranma yelled from his position chained into a chair along with Kyusaku, guarded by two men with automatic weapons.
"I'm a better fighter than you! So how did you capture us all by yourself?!"
Ryoga smiled smugly. "That's for the author to know, and for you to... to... not know. Anyway, let's get down to business. WHAT IS THE SEQUENCE?!"
Ranma shook his head angrily. "I told you, I don't know! I just typed it in by accident!"
Ryoga snorted. "Do you have any idea what the chances of you typing in just the right sequence of characters in by accident are?!"
Ranma stared at him passively. "Yeah, so? What's your point?"
Ryoga gave him a hard stare. "Aw, never mind." He turned to Kyusaku, and gave him a light punch on the head. "I don't suppose you'd consider telling me, would you?"
"Damn right!" Kysaku growled. "And will someone get me a cigarette?! I'm dyin' here!"
Ryoga chuckled darkly as he turned around, and slipped a remote control out of his pocket.
"I thought that I may have to resort to an 'alternate' form of persuasion. Take a look at this!" Ryoga clicked a button on the remote, and one entire wall slid up to reveal a huge TV screen. It flickered for a moment, before showing an isolated room with Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Saiyuri all tied to chairs and surrounded by guards.
Hiroshi sighed. "I can't believe this is the only part we're getting in this fic."
"HELLO!!! We have bigger problems here!!" Yuka yelled into his ear.
Ranma sweatdropped. "What the hell? Why'd you kidnap them? Why not take the Tendos?"
Ryoga coughed and suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Miss Nabiki Tendo has... some very good legal consultants. It was considered much safer to just grab the most important extras."
Ryoga's smile returned. "Now, either you tell me the sequence in the next 30 seconds, or I will show them THIS!!" Ryoga grabbed something out of nowhere and thrust it in Ranma's face. "An Olsen Twins movie!!"
Ranma's eyes went wide. Kyusaku bigsweated. "What kind of sadistic monster are you?!"
Ryoga tapped the cassette box against the edge of the chair. "Was that a 'no'? Too bad."
Clicking a button on the remote control, another TV in the prisoner's room activated, and said prisoners all looked at it as the guards evacuated the room.
*It Takes Two, starring Mary Kate and Ashley!*
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"
Ranma struggled against the chains in an effort to free himself, but it proved useless.
Ryoga chuckled. "Don't even bother Ranma. Those chains are made from super-high-density titanium, which has no reason to even exist, save keeping people like you and me tied up."
Kyusaku started to sweat heavily as the screams of terror from the prisoner's room toned down to a fearful whimpering. Damn he wished he could reach his cigarettes!
"All right! All right! I'll give you the sequence! Just stop this madness at once!"
Ryoga smiled broadly and hit two buttons on the remote control, causing the wall to once again take the place of the TV. Putting a pencil in Kyusaku's mouth and holding a notepad to the point, the computer genius somehow managed to write a long line of legible code.
Ryoga gave a curt laugh, then pocketed the piece of paper. Then, without further fanfare, he began to walk out of the room, snapping his fingers at one of the nearby guards. "Kill them."
Kyusaku's eyes widened. "But... but... a-at least let the kid go! He has nothing to do with this!" Ryoga didn't listen, however, and simply left the room.
Kyusaku gulped as the men with the guns took aim. "Look kid, you've got to transform! Turn into the Freakazoid! Hurry!"
Ranma tried harder to break free, but to no avail. "I don't know how! *Grunt* Damn it! I could break free if only the stupid author wasn't trying to satisfy a second plot line!"
At that moment, one of the thugs suddenly stopped the other. "Hold up. They say that this kid turns into a girl when he gets wet. Let's check that out before we waste him." With that he produced a glass of water.
Ranma sighed. Great. His last moments alive were going to be as a girl being leered at by two evil minions barely more intelligent than your average garden slug.
*Splash*
The henchman had to shield his eyes as there was a sudden explosion of light.
(Cue Freakazoid music)
"What the hell? He turned blue! And he's still a guy! What's going on here?!" The henchman glanced at the glass now bereft of water, wondering if he had done something wrong.
Freaked-out Ranma smiled broadly. "Hello!"
The other henchman who still had his gun trained on Ranma just chuckled and flipped off the safety. "Eh, so you changed color on the outside. I wonder if your insides changed color too?"
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma dusted off his hands. "Well, that was easy."
The two henchman blinked, then realized that they were now chained to the chair.
"What?! How did this happen?!"
Ranma grinned smugly. "It's called a cut-scene. Anything can happen, and they require absolutely no explanation whatsoever!" Ranma's grin broke into a happy smile and he started dancing around the room.
"YEAH!! I'm #1! I'm #1! Who rocks?! Who rolls?! Yeah! Yeah! Oh yeah!"
Kyusaku quickly groped in his pocket for a cigarette, then quickly lit it. That accomplished, he grabbed Ranma's arm. "All right! Good work kid!"
Ranma nodded appreciatively. "Wanna go out for some ice cream?"
Kyusaku shook his head and headed for the door to the hallway. "Not now! If we don't stop Ryoga, he'll enter the sequence and become a Freakazoid, just like you! Except he'll be evil! And-what are you doing?"
Kyusaku sweatdropped as he realized that Ranma was still back in the room, doodling on the minions' faces with a magic marker. "This is no time for games! Come on!"
Ranma sighed. "Oh, you're no fun."
They proceeded to run down the hallway, until they came to a fork. Ranma suddenly turned to Kyusaku. "All right, Ro Sham Bo!"
Kyusaku sighed. "We have a better chance of finding him if we split up. I'll go left, and you go right!"
"You'll both be going down in a moment! Put your hands up!" several men with automatic weaponry swarmed into the hallway from behind them.
Kyusaku was about to do as ordered, when Ranma suddenly pointed towards an open window behind him.
"Kyusaku, look!" The computer scientist turned around in panic.
Ranma pointed down the corrider that the henchmen had come from. "Now! Run for it!" The henchmen all fled.
Kyusaku blinked. Twice. "Um................ okaaaaaaay...... left! I was going... left! Yes, and you go right! Yeah, okay..."
With that he quickly took off down the left passageway. Ranma watched him go for a while, then shrugged and started walking down the right path, humming "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".
__________________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, back in the computer room.
"Damn it! I hate these things!" Ryoga smashed the keyboard in frustrated rage, easily shattering the cheap plastic. Then he sweatdropped, and moved on to the next computer in the long line on the table.
"Okay, connect to the internet...... what? 'Press any key to continue'? Which one's the 'any' key?" Ryoga stood up, then glanced offscreen. "Huh? We already did that joke?"
He sat down again at the computer, and typed a few keys. "What now? 'Illegal operation'?" Ryoga blinked, then narrowed his eyes at the offending moniter. "Exactly how much do you know about this 'illegal operation'?"
__________________________________________________________________________________
And now, back to Kyusaku.
The computer genius extraordinaire was currently running for his life, being chased down by several large men with machine guns.
"Why did I say we should split up?! Why didn't I stay with him?!" He redoubled his efforts as a burst of gunfire richoched off the floor behind him.
Noticing a room with a large computer displayed on a panel on the door, he rushed into it, closing and locking the door just as a volley of bullets hailed the other side of the door.
"It's times like these that I wish I'd gone into robotics and created a super-powerful android to defend me...... Psh! Yeah right!" Walking over to the nearest computer, he turned it on and hit a few keys to bypass all unnecessary start-up procedures.
There was banging on the door. "Open up! This is the police!"
Kyusaku stared at the door incredulously. "No you're not, you're the guys who just chasing me! How stupid do you think I am?"
There was a meaty *thwack*, followed by "Idiot! I told you that wouldn't work!"
Kyusaku shook his head as he logged onto the internet. The banging on the door got louder.
The henchman broke the door open just as a swirling vortex sucked their quarry into the depths of the web.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Okay, I think I got it now..." Ryoga swallowed deeply as his finger slowly depressed the 'delete' key.
A character disappeared.
"................................................................................" was soon followed by "DAAAAMMMMNNN IT!!!!!"
Breathing quite heavily, Ryoga once again checked the characters on the little sheet of paper to the sequence in the URL. "Oh for the love of-I only messed up on one key! How hard could it possibly be to become a superhuman around here?!"
"Hey, let me try."
Ryoga looked up to see Ranma, in freaka-form, sitting on top of his computer.
"What in the......" Ryoga backed away, and Ranma hopped down in front of the computer.
He flexed his fingers, then sat down stiffly in front of the keyboard, hands poised like a pianist.
*Click-Click-Click-Cliiiiiick, Click-Click-Click-Cliiiiiiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Click...Click...CLICK*
Ryoga simply stared. "Wait a minute. Blue skin. Lightning hair. Big 'F' on chest. Can play Beethoven's symphonies on a keyboard. You must be a Freakazoid! Which means...... RANMA!!!"
Ranma nodded happily. "That is correct! You get a cookie."
Ranma tossed a cookie at him, and Ryoga swatted it away angrily. "I'll kill you!"
Ryoga lunged, and Ranma ducked under him as Ryoga punched his fist right through the opposite wall.
Ranma chuckled. "I think I'll have to teach you a lesson."
Ryoga rounded on him and charged again. "I'm the teacher here! And the subject is PAIN!!!"
Ranma stepped aside deftly as Ryoga demolished a multi-thousand dollar computer setup. "That was good. You make that up yourself?"
Ryoga growled as he turned around, then jumped toward Ranma with a flying kick. "Shut up, stay still, and die like a man!"
Once again Ranma took a step to the side, sending Ryoga crashing into the other side of the room.
"Like a man? What are we, cavemen? Real men don't settle their conflicts with fists, we're smarter than that!"
Ryoga got up from where he landed and glared at him, left eye twitching slightly.
"Real men settle their conflicts with GUNS!!!"
"......... You have got to be kidding me," Ryoga deadpanned.
Ranma grinned maliciously and reached behind him... *Cha-chink!* To pull out two HUGE plastic rifles, each with the words Super Soaker on the side and a fully loaded plastic water tank on top. Each one had several barrels, as well as many ridiculously complex looking devices on the side.
"Now you have to ask yourself one question....... 'do I feel lucky?'"
Ryoga gulped.
"Well? Do ya? PUNK?!" Ranma hit a switch on the back of the water cannons, and several automatic pumping devices started up, along with a few loaded water balloon launchers that popped out of the top.
Ryoga wimpered.
"G-bye P-chan! See ya in St. Louis!" He stopped. "Wait... aw, the hell with it." *THOOOM!!!*
Outside, the police that had just began to gather outside of the gigantic office building were subjected to the sight of the entire top two floors having their windows blown out by a sudden, huge rush of water.
Ranma cackled evilly and replaced the water artillery back into his super-special sub-space sack (trying saying that 5 times fast).
At that moment the moniter behind him lit up, and Ranma's attention was drawn to a message that typed itself across the screen.
[How ya doin' kid? From what I can tell, you beat Ryoga. Good work! I'll just be taking a spin around cyberspace for a while, so don't worry about me. Oh, by the way, to go into superhuman form requires nothing but cold water, and somehow the process is reversed by hot water. I have no idea why this is. Well, until we meet again, goodbye and farewell!]
Ranma nodded, then started to turn around when he noticed something happening on the screen.
"What the....... he's uploading his porn collection! .................................. Eh, whatever." Shrugging a final time, Ranma gathered up the unconcsious pig on the floor and left the building.
__________________________________________________________________________________
The crowd cheered as Ranma walked out of the building, pig in hand. He wasn't sure why they were there, but he wasn't in the proper frame of mind to worry about something like that, so he waved to them and they cheered louder.
Ranma heroically walked up to the nearest police officer, who was going to say something when Ryoga was unceremoniously dropped into his hands.
Ranma smiled and bowed. "Thank you for your services officer. My work... is done!"
With that he walked away from the confused police officer, who, in not finding any other use for the pig, dropped it on the ground and watched the guy in the red PJs walk through the cheering crowd.
"FREAK-A-ZOID!!! FREAK-A-ZOID!!! FREAK-A-ZOID!!! FREAK-A-ZOID!!!"
Ranma for the most part ignored the chanting, instead being drawn to a car that suddenly pulled up to the sidewalk.
"Dr. Tofu?"
Dr. Tofu shook his hand as he got out the car. "A job well done, Freakazoid. Want to go out for some ice cream?"
"WOULD I?!?!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
(3 caramel sundaes and a banana split later)
Tofu licked his lips as he put another spoonful of hot fudge into his mouth. Ranma was also eating a hot fudge sundae next to him, but was eating a lot faster.
"So... you know what I'd do if I had powers like that? I'd become one of those super heroes. But that's me."
Ranma stopped eating and looked at him. "But you're a martial artist right? With enough training you could become a super hero."
Tofu shrugged. "Maybe, but I chose to be a physician. They have a better union."
Ranma thought about it, then shook his head. "Nah..."
"Are you sure? You could protect the innocent."
"Nah..."
"Fight for love and justice."
"Nah..."
"Work towards world peace."
"Nah..."
"Impress the ladies."
Ranma paused. "Hmmmmmmm.......... nah..."
"And the annual superhero convention down in Tokyo has a free barbeque. I hear it's going to be grilled swordfish and pork ribs this year.
"BY GOD, I'LL DO IT!!!"
**********************************************************************************
Again, I would like to apologize to all the people I've offended by writing this... including myself... for ruining the comedic sanctity of the most glorious Ranma 1/2 with this... this...... oh, why do I even bother?
Freaking Out
Chapter 02
A Ranma 0.5/Freakazoid fusion
by Black Dragon
Standard disclaimer applies... Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Freakazoid to Warner Bros. and Steven Spielberg. Yes, I know, I promised myself I wouldn't continue this... but I can't help it!
Starring Ranma Saotome as: Freakazoid!
Dr. Tofu as: Freakazoid's pal!
Kyusaku (from All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku) as: The funny-looking computer nerd!
Minako Aino (from Sailor Moon) as: The primary romantic sub-plot!
Ryoga Hibiki as: The high-level evil dude!
Genma and the Tendos as: The clueless family!
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Saiyuri as: The innocent bystanders! (Targets)
And also starring Julianne Moore as The Hopping Woman!
Characters from other series will have little, if anything, in common with those other series.
**********************************************************************************
Ranma sighed happily as he downed the last of his miso soup. He set down the bowl, taking a moment to reflect how not having to defend your food could do wonders toward the enjoyment of a meal.
Genma lay at the other end of the room, beaten and battered.
Soun risked a glance out from behind his newspaper to his youngest houseguest. Somehow the boy had easily dispatched Genma this morning, beating him with strength and speed that many would not have expected, as soon as the elder Saotome tried to throw Ranma toward the koi pond.
Ranma ignored the curious glances, starting on another helping of soup.
His meal was interrupted as a fist smashed his head into the bowl he was eating from.
"Ow!! Ack! Bleagh! Hey, what'd you do that for?!"
He turned around to see Akane glaring at him. He waited for an explanation, and Akane suddenly shoved something in his face.
Said "something" turned out to in fact be Ryoga, in pig form of course, complete with black eyepatch.
Ranma looked up at his fiancee. "Okay...... something wrong with P?"
Akane's glare intensified. "When I found P-chan this morning he was wearing an eyepatch. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Oh, is that all? It's just because he's evil."
Akane's glare turned into a confused expression. "Evil? What?"
Ranma leaned back a bit. "Well, I mean, he was always a little evil, but now he's really evil. Or at least that's what he told me."
Akane was now really confused. "What? He told you? What are you talking about?"
Ranma just shrugged. "Ask the pig."
Akane was about to interrogate him further, or at least smash him good for whatever he probably did to P-chan, when she happened to glance at the wall clock.
"Baka! We're going to be late! Come on!" Before Ranma could protest, he found himself being dragged outside by his collar.
"Leggo a me, wouldja? I have to get my bag, anyway!"
Growling at her fiancee, Akane let him go and took off at a good clip toward Furinkan. Ranma joined her a moment later, running on the fence as usual.
Their journey was impeded only by a little old woman, who happened to throw a ladle of water in a high arc right in Ranma's way.
*Splash*
Akane almost facefaulted as she stopped and turned around.
"You idiot! Now we're definitely going... to... be......... late....................."
Akane blinked. The old lady threw another ladle's worth of water onto the sidewalk.
Akane looked around. The old lady emptied another ladle.
Akane scratched her head. *Splash* went the water.
Looking around, she could find no trace of Ranma, girl or boy. The only people on the street were herself, the old lady, and an old man wrapped up in a robe with a walking stick.
Akane stared at the scene for at least 20 more seconds before deciding that if Ranma was just going to disappear on her than he deserved to be late, and took off once more for the school.
Akane left, and the little old woman continued washing the sidewalk.
The old man unsteadily crawled up to her, and a bit of light glinted off something under a fold of cloth.
*GOOSH!* Water exploded from the nozzle of the firehose, drenching the old lady and knocking her back into her front yard.
Freakazoid ditched the old rags before pointing at the drenched lady and laughing. "Ha ha!"
That accomplished, he tossed the oversized hose aside and set off after Akane.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Akane checked her watch again as she ran past Dr. Tofu's and headed further down the street. She figured that at her current pace, without having to deal with Kuno, she'd make it into class just before the bell rang.
Suddenly she stopped. Narrowing her eyes, she quickly turned around.
Nothing. The street was deserted.
'That's funny. I could have sworn I was being followed...' Shrugging, she turned around right before she bumped into somebody.
"Oh, I'm sorr-YOU!!!" Akane fell back into a defensive stance as she saw the same blue guy that had beaten her so easily before.
Ranma just smiled. "Hello! Did you miss me?"
Akane growled. "All right you jerk! This time it's for real! Take THIS!!"
Ranma just stared wide-eyed at the large wooden mallet as it descended and smashed him into the pavement.
Akane smirked at his prone form, letting her hammer rest on her shoulder. "Hmph. I guess I showed you."
Suddenly, Ranma got up and dusted himself off. "That didn't hurt."
Akane blinked, then stepped back. "Wha-what?"
Ranma smiled again. "For one thing, you didn't use a big enough hammer!" Ranma stuck his hands behind his back, then pulled out a huge steel mallet with "10 Tons" printed on the side of the head.
Akane was suddenly very afraid for her life. Quickly going through her options, she ditched the mallet and ran screaming past Ranma toward Furinkan.
Ranma laughed evilly before giving chase. "Hey wait! Come on! I promise, this won't hurt me a bit!"
Akane ran faster.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Yuka and Saiyuri were chatting amiably amongst themselves, about cute guys, Akane's love life, and the latest evil plot that they had gotten dragged into, when something collided heavily with Saiyuri, sending her sprawling.
That "something" was one Akane Tendo.
"Akane! What happened? Are you okay?" Yuka helped her friend up as Saiyuri dusted herself off.
Akane looked like she was hyperventilating. "Gotta run away! Gotta run! He'll kill me!"
Saiyuri's eye's widened. "Who'll kill you? Ranma?!"
Akane shook her head. "No! The blue guy! The blue guy with lightning hair and red underwear!"
They blinked. "Huh?" they muttered in unison.
"The blue guy! He's right behind me!!" She turned around.
Predictably, she didn't see a thing. Neither did her friends. "But he was right behind me! I swear! He had a huge mallet!" She stopped ranting when Yuka put a hand to her forehead.
"Hmmmm... no fever. Still, I think you should go home and get some rest Akane."
Akane shook her head fervently. "I'm not crazy! He was just-I mean that he-Every time that-And the hammer..........."
Yuka and Saiyuri slowly started to back away as Akane kept staring at them with a crazed, panicked expression.
"Uh, yeah, okay, the blue guy..." Yuka started to turn around.
"Right, of course. The blue guy with lightning hair and red underwear isn't going to hurt you Akane. You're safe, understand?" Saiyuri wasn't leaving as fast as Yuka, but was making sure to distance herself from the youngest Tendo.
Akane looked like she wanted to say something, what with her mouth being open and her hand pointing hysterically down the street that she came from, but no sound would come out. Finally, she clamped her mouth shut, and hung her head, defeated.
"All right, never mind. Let's get to school."
None of them noticed the steel periscope that watched them silently from the canal next to the walk.
As they walked out of sight, bubbles started to emerge from the base of the periscope.
Eventually, Ranma's head broke the surface of the water, and he took in a deep breath of air, before hacking and coughing and spitting out a fish.
"Huh... don't know how that little sucker got in there......" shrugging, Ranma started doing the breaststroke down the length of the canal.
He continued doing this until he had almost hit a corner, then started swimming at an angle, coming out of the water and doing the breaststroke through the air.
He kept swimming, or flying, or whatever, until he was directly overhead a house's roof, at which point he pinched his nose and slowly floated down onto the house.
Stepping up, he put a hand to his forehead, then scanned the area. "Hmmm... as a superhero, I must find evil to vanquish!"
As he couldn't see any evil at the moment, he turned around and pulled out a big box with the words "Long-Range Sound Amplification Device" on it.
He opened the box, then pulled out an orange traffic cone.
"With this, I'll be able to hear the sounds of evil for miles!" after posing triumphantly for no reason, he put the large end over his ear and listened.
And listened......
"Wait! I think I hear something!"
"Help! Somebody help me!" Across the street, a small band of heavily armed thugs were trying to bring a struggling teenage girl with long blond hair into their getaway car.
Ranma lowered himself a bit to hear better. "It's very faint..."
The thugs that was holding the girl from around the back put his hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. She struggled a bit more, then bit his hand.
"OUCH!!! SONUVA &#%!$ BIT ME!!!"
"HELP ME!!! PLEASE!!! ANYONE!!!"
That was as far as she got before a gag was tied around her mouth, and she was soon bound tightly with rope. She looked up in fear at the obvious head of the thugs. Obvious because he was the only one with any kind of distinguishing features at all. Just like all the others, he was dressed in a blue pinstripe business suit with a blue hat to match, looking very much like a Mafia hitman. His only distinguishing characteristic, oddly enough, was that one hand seemed to be replaced with an MK-47 machine gun.
He chuckled deeply. "Now now, don't be scared. You'll be returned, nice and safe, once your rich daddy pays us the 200 million yen. And then all will learn to fear the name of Tommy Gunn! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!" Tommy fired a few shots into the air, then everyone piled into the car and left.
Back on the roof, Ranma lowered the traffic cone and frowned. "Hmmm. Distant shouting followed by distant gunfire. Obviously EVIL is afoot! I must put a stop to it without delay!!"
He struck a pose. At that moment, Dr. Tofu drove up and stuck his head out the window.
"Hey Freakazoid, wanna go play a round of miniature golf?"
Ranma immediately turned around and leapt into the car. "Okay!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
The scene opens in a sparsely decorated office, with a large desk in the middle covered in various papers. A bald man with a huge forehead who seems to be squinting is sitting on the desk.
"Who is this gun-crazed, one-armed man? Who is this heat-packing hoodlum?"
"Tom McKintire was once an honest, hard-working citizen who collected various firearms and headed the local NRA chapter in Nerima. His hobbies included collecting guns, shooting guns, sharpshooting, dullshooting, hunting, range shooting, FPS video games, and calligraphy."
"Tom liked guns so much, that he actually slept at night with an automatic weapon at his side. One day, someone played a mean practical joke, and stuck the gun to his hand with superglue."
"The doctors had to operate to remove the gun, but the operation failed, forever welding the weapon to his left wrist. Feeling bitter and depressed, and possessing lots of ammo, Tom changed his last name to Gunn in order to fulfill the silly pun, and began his life of crime."
"And now you know the rest of the back-story. Good day!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Ooh! I love the one with the big monkey!" Ranma rushed up to the course, then put his little orange ball onto the starting pad. The large wooden gorilla swung his arms back and forth along the green padded path in perfectly timed motion, leering at the various golfers.
Dr. Tofu smiled. "Yeah, though the castle's a real hit too."
Ranma lined up his initial shot, then got on the ground and used his club to measure the angle.
Dr. Tofu leaned on his club as he waited for Ranma to finish. "You know, I just heard that that Tommy Gunn character is holed up in an abandoned warehouse over on the east side. Rumor is that he's holding Minako Aino hostage, and he's demanding 200,000,000 yen for her safe return."
Ranma got up again, then frowned and moved the starting pad over a bit to get a better angle, and then got down to measure again. "Really? You gonna go check that out?"
Tofu shook his head. "Nah. I've got a ton of paperwork that I've got to finish back at the office. I thought you might want to go, seeing how you're a superhero and this is a pretty basic 'save the damsel in distress' scenario."
Ranma stopped to think about that. "Why, you're right! I'll save her immediately! ......... Right after this game." he turned back to the course.
Aiming very carefully, and taking a few soft practice swings, he focused his stare on the little hole under the gorilla's swinging arms. "Gotta time this just right........."
*Thwack!* *Ptong* *Sploosh* The ball bounced off the gorilla's head, then sailed in a high arc over the golfers' heads to fall into the large decorative lake behind them.
Ranma fumed and threw his club on the ground. "Nutbunnies! I hate those stupid water hazards!" He turned to Dr. Tofu. "Well, I guess I'd better go now Doc, ciao!"
He turned around, then stretched his arms out in front of him and ran off.
"Wooooooooooooooooooosh!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Man, I hate guard duty." The gate to the warehouse was guarded by two large thugs, both of them wearing Mafia-style pinstripe suits and carrying machine guns.
Both were also bored as hell.
"Man, how about that Aino chick though, eh? She's got a fine bod. It's too bad this fic is rated G, otherwise we coulda had some fun with her."
The other man chuckled in agreement before spotting an approaching figure. "Hold up. Someone's coming."
The man with the blue face dressed in work overalls and carrying a toolbox was apparently oblivious to the guns trained on him.
"Hello!"
The first thug poked him with the muzzle of his gun. "Who're you?"
Ranma adjusted the denim cap on his head and smiled. "Plumber sir! Got a report of some bad piping over at this address. Something wrong with the toilet, they said."
The man scowled. "Nobody told me about no plumber."
Ranma nodded. "Well, from the description of the problem, he's probably still showering. You see........."
Ranma suddenly leaned in and whispered to the two men. "Well, I really don't want to go into details, but let me just say that if you flush that baby, a lot of nasty stuff will come out, rather than go in."
The man backed away, looking slightly green. "Oh, uh, okay, right, gotta take care o' that. Go right ahead."
Ranma thanked the men and walked into the large double-doors without incident, closing them behind him.
The two guards turned back around and went back to guarding.
".................... Hey, waitaminute... this is an old storage warehouse. It doesn't have a bathroom!"
The other man's eyes widened and the two thugs turned around and tried to open the door, only to find that it wouldn't budge.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma dusted off his hands as he finished locking the door, then quickly ditched his overalls.
Then he turned around.
To look straight down the barrel of an assault rifle.
The thug that was holding it was backed up by a large group of henchmen, all indistinguishable from each other and all armed to the teeth.
The lead man chuckled darkly and cocked the rifle. "Well now, what have we here, it looks like someone's a little los-"
"HUSH!! Quiet!" Ranma suddenly looked back and forth frantically, as if afraid something was going to jump out and attack him.
The lead thug blinked. "What?"
Ranma stared at him with a crazed look in his eyes. "Be quiet, or it'll hear you."
The man raised an eyebrow. "It?"
Ranma nodded and crept closer to him. "Yes. There's EVIL about."
The man gulped, and all his men started looking around cautiously. "Evil? Where?"
Ranma crept up very close, then started looking around some more. "Nobody knows... it's a dark, evil thing that sneaks up behind you, and does... well... dark, evil things to you..."
The men were fairly panicked now, and started waving their guns around frantically, searching for a target.
Ranma suddenly stepped back, and pointed behind the group. "THE EVIL!!! IT'S BEHIND YOU!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"
The thugs all turned around to see a huge shadow cast against the wall, grinning at them menacingly. Then they all screamed and ran for the exit, plowing through the barricade and trampling the two guards into unconsciousness.
The mouse that had cast the shadow squeaked in confusion, then moved out of the light beam shining from a conveniently placed lamp and skittered off into its hole.
Ranma blinked. "Oh, wait, never mind."
Whistling to himself, he started walking toward the back of the warehouse.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Hmmm... I wonder what all that yelling was about." Tommy Gunn looked toward the next room in the warehouse. "Eh, there was no gunfire, so it couldn't a been that important."
Minako, who was still tied up but no longer gagged, bigsweated as she looked around at the numerous stacks of crates, each one marked in big red kanji, warning that the crate contained a set of weapons, ammunition, or explosives inside.
"Uh, are all these weapons really necessary? I just don't see the point. You don't have enough men to give all these guns to."
Tommy turned around, considered her argument, then shrugged. "Eh, it's the whole self-image thing. I gotta keep up appearances, and that means lots of guns."
He slid up on top of a crate. "Heh, don't worry your pretty little head. My money should be here in about 10 minutes, and then you can leave."
He started shining his gun-arm, and cocked his head slightly. "Say, you got a boyfriend or anything? Maybe we could go get coffee sometime, you know, after this whole thing blows over."
Minako sweatdropped. "Uh, well, I'm flattered, really, but I don't usually date older guys. Especially not criminals. With prosthetic limbs."
Tommy shrugged and lied back on the crate. "Eh, whatever, it was worth a shot."
*BAM!*
Minako and Tommy focused their attention on the doorway as the door came crashing down, to reveal Ranma, in all his red pajama-garbed glory.
Tommy jumped off the crate and readied his gun-arm. "What in the? Where are my men?"
Ranma gave a curt laugh. "So Tommy Gunn! At last, we meet again, for the first time!"
Tommy was about just shoot him, when he stopped and tried to figure out what he had just said.
"As for your men, last I saw they were running for their lives as they went potty in their pants! And you're next!"
Tommy suddenly came to a realization, and pointed to Ranma. "Hey! Now I know who you are! You're that Freakazoid guy everybody's been talking about on TV!"
Ranma nodded. "That's right! You get a cookie!" he tossed him a cookie.
The lead thug snatched it out of the air in confusion, then shrugged and ate it.
"*Gulp* Hey, that's not bad... oh yeah, I have to kill you now, don't I?"
Ranma opened his mouth to speak. "Aaaah......"
*Rattattattattattattattattattatta!!*
Ranma "eeped", then started dodging the hail of bullets, running around the room and diving behind a stack of crates.
Ranma stayed there as bullets tore into the wooden container, ready to jump for more cover should this area become unsafe. Minako managed to crawl up to him, leaning against the same crate as another round of gunfire erupted from their assailant.
Ranma waved to her. "Hi! I'm Freakazoid!"
Minako blinked. "Uh... Minako Aino. Say, you had a plan for this whole rescue, didn't you? I mean, you're just waiting for the right time to use it, right?"
Ranma chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head.
"Well, I had one to get in, but I doubted the plumber bit would work with anyone but the guards so I'm kinda winging it now."
*Rattattattat-* *Click* *Click* "Nuts! Gotta reload!"
Minako became frantic. "Quick! Now! Do something!"
Ranma frowned, then jumped up into Tommy's line of sight.
"Well, I already did this gag in the last chapter, but what the heck!"
As Tommy struggled to load the clip, Ranma sneered at him.
"Now you just have to ask yourself one question: Do I feel-YIPE!!"
Unfortunately, Tommy had finished reloading, and the gun was already spitting a rapid series of bullets at him.
Time seemed to almost freeze, and the bullets seemed to move impossibly slowly, being trailed by wavy distortions in the air. Ranma was also moving slowly, though not as slow as the bullets, and awkwardly wove in between them in what appeared to be a klutzy and frantic dance. After a few more seconds of this he seemed to get bored, and simply stood up and walked away from the steady stream of lead.
Moving to the cooler in the corner of the room, he opened it and picked up a can of soda pop, popping the lid and chugging it down.
Back over where Tommy was, time returned to normal, and the master thug saw that his target had disappeared.
"What the bloody-? How'd he do that?"
Minako peeked up from behind the crate. "Wow! That was so cool!"
Tommy growled and aimed his gun-arm at her. "Get back down and shut up!"
He heard a voice behind him. "That's no way to talk to a lady, Mr. Gunn."
Tommy turned around, then paled when he saw Ranma aiming a submachine gun at him.
"Ha ha ha! Take this!" *Tattattattattattatta!*
Tommy grunted and then screamed as the projectiles' impact knocked him back into a stack of crates.
Groaning in pain, Tommy brought his only hand up to his chest, and his heart nearly stopped as he felt a warm, thick liquid on his shirt.
He brought up his hand, and saw that the liquid was bright red.
He stared in horror at Ranma one last time before his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell limp.
"You shot him with a paintball gun?" Minako queried.
Tommy's eyes shot open. He looked back to his arm, to see bright green, blue, and yellow liquid on his wrists and arms just below his hand.
Growling in anger, he turned to the crate next to him, then smashed open the lid. Rifling around inside for a bit, he pulled out and then loaded what was obviously a bazooka.
"Awright, now you're dead!"
Ranma frowned, then pulled out what appeared to be a gatling gun from nowhere. "Oh yeah?"
Tommy snorted. "What's that? Another paintball gun?"
Ranma opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped. "Uh, yeah, it is, as a matter of fact."
Tommy shook his head. "Geezus Christ, boy! Why don't you just use a real gun?"
Ranma dropped his weapon and twiddled his thumbs. "Well... it's just that... you, know, they're illegal and all. I mean, I'm really not even 17 yet."
Tommy blinked. "Heh. Figures. Typical of the Japanese government, keeping people from their rights to bear arms. *Sigh* God bless America."
Ranma crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, I don't see what's so great about them. Look at you, you're such a fanatic that you can't solve a problem without shooting somebody."
Tommy's face turned red in anger and he started stuttering. "I-I c-can too. I, I... I just don't want to! Yeah!"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Uh huh, suuuuuuuure."
The one-armed man fumed for a moment, then grinned and tossed his bazooka on the floor.
"All right blue boy, I'll try it your way! Now how we gonna setlle this?"
Ranma smiled and grabbed his hand. "Thumb wrestling!"
Tommy's features took on a look of the utmost concentration as their thumbs moved back and forth.
"One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war! Firstonetoblinkloses!!"
Tommy blinked. "What?"
Ranma grinned. "Ha! I win!"
Before the criminal could understand what had just happened, Ranma rushed around him, and the one-armed criminal found himself tied up. He blinked again.
"You're really not very good at this game, aren't you?" With that he kicked the man from the room, sending him crashing through the wall of the warehouse.
Ranma smiled triumphantly as he untied MInako.
"Wow, that was so cool! My shiny horse in white armor!"
Ranma blinked as the rope went slack. "Uh, I think you meant either 'my prince on a white horse', or 'my knight in shinimmmph..."
He had trouble continuing as Minako had locked him into a passionate kiss, her arms wrapped around his head. Eventually she broke the kiss, and settled for snuggling into Ranma's chest.
Ranma sat there for a moment, then grinned. "Saaaaaaay, I could get used to this!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma gave Tommy a kick in the legs just for good measure, then turned toward the police officers, with Minako still clinging to his arm.
"Good work officers! Don't forget to disarm him!"
The police looked at him, then down at there prisoner. Then they burst out laughing.
Ranma looked confused "What? What'd I say?"
"Minako, darling!"
"DADDY!!!" Minako let go of Ranma's arm, to jump into her father's embrace.
Ranma walked up to the man and bowed. "There's your daughter, safe and sound, Mr. Aino."
The man in the expensive-looking suit that had arrived via private helicopter smiled at him. "Well, thank you very much. You're Freakazoid, right?"
Ranma grinned widely. "That's right! Here's your cookie!" he tossed him a cookie.
The man blinked in confusion, and almost didn't catch the pastry out of the air. "Uh... thanks. Minako, why don't you go wait in the helicopter. I'll be right with you."
"Okay!" Minako ran over to Ranma, handing him a slip of paper before giving him a peck on the cheek. "Call me." Then she ran off into the helicopter.
Ranma waved goodbye, and then Mr. Aino put his arm around his back and started leading him away from the helipad.
"Now son, tell me, do you have a job?"
Ranma blinked. "Uh... I'm a superhero sir."
"Yes, yes, I know, but what about your alter ego's career? Superheroing doesn't put food on the table."
Ranma sweatdropped. "Well, um, I'm still a student, you see, and-"
The man nodded. "Hmmm, I see. Any prospects for the future? Are you planning to become a doctor, maybe, or go to law school?"
Ranma was beginning to see where this was heading. "Hey, look behind you! It's Godzilla!" as soon as the man turned his head, Ranma pulled out a steaming kettle and doused himself.
Mr. Aino stared as Godzilla sat down on one of the other warehouses, then started munching on a giant squid he held in his claws.
"Ah... right." He turned back around, then looked about in confusion. "What? What happened to Freakazoid?"
Ranma scratched his head. "Oh, the guy in the PJs? He left, sorry." Ranma was about to do the same when Mr. Aino stopped him.
"Say, you look about Minako's age. How do you do in school? Are you single?"
Ranma bigsweated, then pointed behind him. "Hey look! It's Rodan!"
The man turned again, to see Rodan perched on a nearby skyscraper, trying to steal Godzilla's squid.
"*SCREECH!* C'mon G, I haven't had a bite in weeks!"
Godzilla bit him. This, of course, started yet another Tokyo-crushing fight between the giant radioactive monsters.
Mr. Aino just shook his head and turned back around, only to see that Ranma had disappeared.
**********************************************************************************
A Ranma 0.5/Freakazoid fusion
by Black Dragon
Standard disclaimer applies... Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Freakazoid to Warner Bros and Steven Spielberg.
Starring Ranma Saotome as: Freakazoid!
Dr. Tofu as: Freakazoid's pal!
Kyusaku (from All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku) as: The funny-looking computer nerd!
Ryoga Hibiki as: The high-level evil dude!
Genma and the Tendos as: The clueless family!
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Saiyuri as: The innocent bystanders! (Targets)
And also starring Jane Canaway as The Hopping Woman!
This takes place just after the beginning of the manga, just before Shampoo shows up. Characters from other series will have little, if anything, in common with those other series.
**********************************************************************************
Ranma absently rubbed the bruise on his cheek as he trudged up the stairs behind Nabiki.
He honestly hadn't meant to call Akane a tomboy again, but after she had brought up that whole stupid bathroom incident and called him a pervert again, he'd countered with what was soon becoming a conditioned response. How did he ever get engaged to such a violent girl?
"So what was it you wanted to show me Nabiki?"
Nabiki looked back down at him and frowned. "Oh, don't sound so bitter. I just bought something with the money I got selling pictures to Kuno, and since you unwittingly helped me with that, I thought I'd let you give it a try."
Ranma blinked and started following her with greater interest. Nabiki seemed to him like the kind of person that does whatever she wants and gets away with it, so he figured if she was going to let him in on whatever she had, he might as well go along with it.
Opening up the door to her room, Nabiki sat down at a small desk and pushed a button on a big plastic box next to something that resembled a TV.
Closing the door behind him, Ranma watched Nabiki slide out a bigger plastic panel with a multitude of buttons, along with another small plastic object attached to a cord. "What's that thing?"
Nabiki was about to make a crack about how stupid you'd have to be not to recognize a simple computer, but then she remembered that he'd been in training for all his life. "It's called a computer. I'm not going to try to explain how it works to you, but I will tell you that it has a program that links it to a bunch of other computers all over the world, and I just bought a new product called the Pinnacle Chip that will make the program run faster." She turned around to see Ranma with a completely blank look.
He shrugged apologetically. "Uh, you lost me somewhere around the first 'program'."
Nabiki sweatdropped. "Um, nevermind. Anyway, you just do this to open it..." Ranma watched as she manipulated the small plastic thingy, which caused the pointer to move over a little picture on the screen. She clicked the button on the object twice, which caused a new screen to pop up. Then she typed something on the flat panel, and the whole screen changed again.
Nabiki whistled. "Now that's fast! You see, you just type in a subject here, then the search engine will locate a bunch of web pages that are related to that subject." Nabiki missed Ranma's sweatdrop and confused look as she suddenly sniffed the air. "Hey what's that...... oh no! I forgot! Akane's trying out a new recipe tonight!!"
Ranma was about to ask a question when Nabiki suddenly rushed by him and out the door. He turned around, and she poked her head in quickly. "Sorry, but if I don't order take-out now, the food won't get here before Akane's done in the kitchen!"
Ranma wondered what the big deal is. Could Akane be that bad a cook? "What about this, um, the compu-whatsit?"
Nabiki rushed out again and yelled back as she descended the stairs. "Try it out if you like! Just don't break anything!"
Ranma blinked, then sat down in front of the computer. Then he spent a long while staring at the big line at the top. Was that English? He only knew a little English, gathered here and there on his training trips. And what was all this jargon? URL? http? www? Getting frustrated and confused, he just sighed and eventually started typing things at random.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Gentlemen, we have a problem." Kyusaku gave a hard stare to every person seated at the gigantic table before him. What he was about to reveal could change the entire future of the corporation, or obliterate that future altogether. Absently he lit a cigarette to calm his nerves.
His stares had less than the desired effect, mostly because everything above his nose was completely hidden by his shaggy brown hair.
One of the members of the Board of Directors whispered to another. "Yeah, I think you're right. It is funnier with the Scottish accent."
"Really. Why'd they have to go and start inserting more anime characters everywhere?"
Kyusaku emitted a low growl. "This is no time to be breaching the fourth wall! This is serious!"
Regaining his composure Kyusaku addressed the entire table. "The Pinnacle Chip is... flawed."
Gasps and whispers soon erupted among the directors. Kyusaku stood statue-like at the end of the table, his head held low.
Suddenly, a voice from the other end of the table rang out. "And what exactly is the nature of this flaw?"
Kyusaku looked up suddenly, and then raised an eyebrow (not that anyone could tell, but, well, there you go). "Wait, who are you?"
The speaker was fairly tall, muscular, and wore a professional business suit along with both an eyepatch and a black and gold bandanna. The thing was that Kyusaku was fairly certain that the man wasn't even 18.
"Why, I'm the CEO of this corporation of course. You can call me Ryoga."
Kyusaku addressed one of the nearby directors. "What's going on? What happened to Geuchiarez?"
One of the other directors spoke up. "That's not how you spell his name."
Kyusaku rounded on him. "Shut up! We're supposed to be talking here! Now what happened?!"
The director he had originally been talking to grinned slightly and steepled his fingers under his chin. "Our former CEO has met with a most unfortunate accident, pending his decision to cut the Board of Director's pay in favor of his own salary. After we killed-I mean, after he fell down the stairs, we found Mr. Hibiki here wandering around the lab areas, so we made him the new CEO."
Kyusaku blinked.
A different director who had remained silent up until now grunted. "Hmph. Now there's a plot hole if I ever heard one..."
Ryoga slammed his hands onto the table. "Enough of this! What is the flaw?!"
Kyusaku cleared his throat. "First, the user would have to be connected to the internet. Then, he would have to enter an exact sequence of keys followed by 'delete'. The user would then be sucked into cyberspace, where'd he'd be transformed into a superbeing, capable of doing anything! But he'd be wild and insane, an uncontrollable force of pure nonsense! He'd be...... a Freakazoid!"
Ryoga scratched his chin in thought as he slowly approached Kyusaku. "How many people know about this... flaw?"
"Just me, and the people in this room."
Ryoga grinned. Then his hand shot out, grabbed Kyusaku, and threw him out the window with all the force of a freight train.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!" Kyusaku screamed as the ground rushed up to meet him, and would have met then with certain death, had this fic any basis on reality.
Back in the building, Ryoga turned around, then started laughing maniacally. "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Laugh with me!!"
As Ryoga continued, the other men sweatdropped. "Um, sir, that line really doesn't suit you..." one of the men pointed out.
*Smash* Ryoga's fist broke straight through the table. "I said LAUGH WITH ME dammit!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!"
The other men bigsweated nervously, then all laughed weakly.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma sighed as another blank page with a few words of technical gibberish appeared on the screen. He'd been at this for half an hour already, and hadn't ended up at anything other than this one page that didn't have any pictures and a short message talking about invalid URLs or some such nonsense. Nabiki wasn't back yet, and from what he had been hearing from downstairs, was still busy helping to put out a fire or something. Getting utterly sick of all this "internet" business, he tiredly started once again pressing a bunch of random keys.
Now, the chances of the most obvious occurence, that of him typing in the sequence mentioned above, actually happening are astronomical in proportion. But, being that trying to apply logic to this story would be like tossing bricks into a bonfire, I'm not going to bother to come up with a more feasible pretext.
Ranma blinked as a new window suddenly popped up on the front of the screen. "Press... any... key to... con-con-continue?" After he finished reading the English print, he looked blankly at the keyboard.
"Any key? Which one's the any key?" (Please slap yourself if you didn't see that coming)
Figuring that the message was bad, Ranma decided to press the one button that made everything else disappear.
As his finger compressed the "delete" key, an arc of electricity shot out of the moniter, causing Ranma to jerk backward. Then a swirling vortex appeared and he felt himself being sucked into the computer.
"Damn! I broke it! Nabiki's gonna kill meeeeeeeeeeee....." His voice faded away as his body disappeared into the moniter, and more electricity crackled behind him.
Ten seconds later, the moniter lit up again, and a figure was quickly blasted out of it. Energy danced along his back as he struggled to get up. Then, he suddenly stood up ramrod straight. "Whoa! I wanna do that again!"
Ranma was now just over six feet tall, with blue skin and black hair that was swept backward with a white lightning bolt through it. For some inexplicable reason, he was also wearing red pajamas with a big 'F' on the front, and a small black mask that only covered the area just around his eyes.
Ranma adopted a smile on his face, then zipped over to the mirror. "Wow! I look like I got mauled in a paint store!"
Ranma's head swiveled around (without the rest of his body) as he heard someone ascending the stairs. With a mad cackle, he dove out the window.
Nabiki entered her room a moment later, and looked around for Ranma.
"Hmmm. He's gone. Ack! My computer!" Nabiki quickly noticed the electric burns on the chair, and rushed over to see how much damage her new houseguest had caused.
After seeing that the computer had sustained no damage and was completely functional, she breathed a sigh of relief. Then she noticed the sequence of letters in the URL bar.
"Hmmm. He must have been just typing in random stuff. I guess I shouldn't have left him alone with it like that, he could have broken something." With that, she highlighted the entire line and hit "backspace". The entire sequence disappeared.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Akane muttered curses under her breath as she paced back in forth in the dojo.
How dare Nabiki make fun of her cooking like that? And after all the work she went through to make sure that the fire didn't claim the entire meal! Why did they make kitchen counters out of wood anyway when they were going to be placed next to a strong heat source?!
Akane was so focused on her mental griping, she didn't even notice that she wasn't alone in the dojo until someone tapped her on the shoulder.
She whirled around, and was about to give the intruder a severe reprimand (and not necessarily a verbal one), when she noticed that said intruder had blue skin.
This was sufficiently odd that she forgot about beating him and settled for staring at him for a moment.
Ranma just smiled. "Let's wrestle!" Then he tackled her into the ground, before he proceeded to apply a rather painful series of holds on her.
"OW!! That hurt!! Stop that!! Ouch! Get off of me and fight me like a man, you-ow! Hey, no!! That's a sensitive area!!"
At this point Ranma decided on a position sitting on Akane's back while holding one leg and occasionally pulling it back painfully. "Say 'uncle'!"
Akane growled. "I'll never lose to a weirdo like-OW!! OW!! OW!! Okay! Okay! Uncle!!"
Ranma only grinned again. "Now say, 'I hate Marty Ingel'!"
Akane was confused for a moment at the request, but some slight pressure on her leg reminded her of the vulnerability of her position. "Fine! I hate Marty Ingel! Now get off!"
"Now say 'I hate Mark Anthony'!"
Akane sweatdropped. "What? What's wrong with Mark Anthony?"
At that very moment, Kasumi walked into the dojo. "Akane, we finished putting out the fire and-oh my! Did you trip and hurt yourself?"
Akane quickly oriented on her sister and begged for help. "Quick! Kasumi! Get him off of me!"
Kasumi blinked. "Get who off of you?"
Akane was about to yell a very disrespectful accusation about Kasumi's vision, when she realized that there was no longer any weight on her back. "What the? Where'd he go?"
"Where did who go?"
"The blue guy! He was right here on top of me!" Akane turned toward Kasumi and noted her slightly worried expression. "I swear! There was this blue guy in red pajamas, and he attacked me! He was just here a second ago! Honest!"
Kasumi noted Akane's panicked look and became very worried. "Akane, are you all right? You didn't hit your head when you fell, did you?"
Akane grabbed her head in frustration and ran from the room, shouting curses all the way.
Kasumi watched her go, then shook her head sadly. "Poor Akane... I think the stress of the engagement is starting to become a bit too much for her."
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Whooooooooooooooooooooosh!" Ranma happily ran down the street, arms stretched out in front of him, making flying noises along the way. Those pedestrians that saw him quickly adjusted their paths to get out of his way, then watched, almost entranced by the weirdness, as he continued to pretend to fly along the path.
Ranma continued like this for a while, until a sing-song female voice rang out from an area of the fence behind him.
"You! Blue boy! You come here!"
"Erk!" Ranma stopped his passage suddenly, then started running backwards. "Shooooooooooooow!" Once he reached the point where the voice had come from, he looked up to see a very attractive Chinese girl with long purple hair pointing at him with a large curved sword.
Ranma pointed to himself in question.
Shampoo nodded. "Yes, you! You tell Shampoo where Ranma hide, yes?"
Ranma looked back and forth, and then gestured for Shampoo to come closer.
Shampoo cautiously climbed down from the fence and walked up to him.
Looking around again, Ranma put a hand to Shampoo's ear. "Pssst pssst pssst pssst pssst..."
Shampoo blinked, then looked at him. "Why you go 'pssst pssst pssst'? What this mean?"
Ranma put his hand to her ear again. ".................. It's a secret! ..................."
Shampoo growled cutely and backed away, then leveled the sword at Ranma's throat. "Shampoo no in mood for game! You tell where Ranma hide, or Shampoo kill!"
Ranma blinked, then lowered the sword slightly with his arm, only to lean on top of the blunt edge. "What's a nice girl like you doing hunting Ranmas anyway? There are so many other hobbies you could be enjoying! Say, are you free this Saturday?"
Shampoo blinked again, and then sighed, recognizing the same line that she'd heard from every teenage male (not to mention many that were older than that) since she left the village. "No. Shampoo have to find Ranma and kill! No time for date!" With that she turned and left, completely forgetting that he had known about Ranma.
Ranma watched her bounce away, then shrugged and left.
"Wooooooooooooooooooooooosh!"
A couple that was enjoying a mocha at a nearby Starbucks stopped talking when they noticed him, and thought about leaving when he headed towards them.
Ranma grabbed one of the cups and pointed to it. "Sorry, can I use this for a sec?"
The man who had previously owned the coffee stuttered slightly. "Uh, o-okay."
Ranma smiled. "Thanks!" *Splash* The hot mocha was spilt all over his body, which was suddenly smaller and clothed in a red Chinese shirt and black Chinese pants.
Ranma gasped as he threw the cup away from him. "What the hell just happened?!"
The couple, apparently deciding that enough was enough, beat a hasty retreat to a saner district. Ranma didn't notice.
"Geez, I barely remember a thing! And what I do remember... ugh... this is too weird. I need something to eat." And so, with that final statement, Ranma began the trek home, hopping on rooftops rather than pretend-flying.
__________________________________________________________________________________
*Ding-dong*
After a moment of waiting, Kasumi answered the door to see a fairly short man with shaggy brown hair and a cigarette standing on the porch rather nervously.
"Can I help you?" Kasumi was fairly certain she'd never seen him before. Was she another friend of her father's? Maybe the Saotomes knew him.
Kyusaku scratched the back of his head nervously. "Hello, sorry to bother you ma'am. Say, is the computer user of the house in, by any chance?"
Kasumi blinked. "Oh, you must mean Nabiki! Yes, she's home. I'm sorry, but you are?"
Kyusaku bigsweated. "I'm her... uh... martial arts instructor! Yes, that's it!"
Kasumi blinked again, then moved so he could come in. "Oh, I didn't know Nabiki had taken up the art again. I wonder why she didn't simply ask father." Seeing as the hostess had began talking to herself, Kyusaku quickly excused himself and went upstairs.
Nabiki was at that time descending the stairs, and raised an eyebrow when she saw the newcomer.
"Can I help you sir?"
Kyusaku glanced around to check if their was anyone listening in. Finding no one, he turned back to her. "Nabiki Tendo?"
She nodded.
"Have you recently had any kind of... disturbance involving your computer?"
Nabiki's expression darkened and she started to continue down the stairs. "I certainly hope not. That unit cost me an arm and a leg, and I only left Ranma alone with it for 5 minutes!"
Kyusaku blinked. "Ranma? So you havn't seen anything unusual concerning your computer?"
Nabiki crossed her arms over her chest. "What I saw were some kind of burns on my chair, my desk looking like a tornado had destroyed it, and NO RANMA!! If that jerk broke my computer, I'll make his life a living hell!" Nabiki directed a glare outside. "Well speak of the devil."
Kyusaku looked outside, and saw Ranma jumping over the fence that seperated neighbors' yards.
"If you don't mind, may I have a few words with him first?"
Nabiki snorted and walked into the kitchen. "Hmph. Knock yourself out."
__________________________________________________________________________________
*Ding-dong*
"Can I help you?" Kasumi bowed respectfully to the young man with the eyepatch.
Ryoga chuckled nervously. "Uh, hi. May I please speak to the computer user of the house?"
"Oh, you must mean Nabiki. My, she's been getting a lot of company lately! And you are?"
Ryoga gulped. "Who am I? I'm.... er.... her martial arts instructor!"
Kasumi frowned. "Nabiki's martial arts instructor is in his late 30's."
Ryoga gulped more deeply. "Er, English tutor?"
Kasumi's smile was back again, in full force. "Oh, okay! I just saw her go into the kitchen. Just take the first left before the hallway."
Ryoga thanked her, then entered the house and took the first right.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"What? A disturbance?" Ranma thought long and hard about that one.
"You know... like maybe electricity and a large, swirling vortex that sucks you into the depths of cyberspace..." Kyusaku prompted.
Ranma blinked. "Huh? You mean it's not supposed to do that?"
*Crash* Kyusaku wearily picked himself up off the ground and stared at him. "No, it's not supposed to do that."
Ranma suddenly clutched his head. "Oh crap! I really did break it! Nabiki's going to flay me alive!"
Kyusaku interrupted his ranting with a hand on his shoulder. "Look here kid, you've been given amazing powers!"
"Amazing powers that shall soon be mine!"
Both of them turned at the voice to see Ryoga in front of the house, arms crossed over his chest and a sadistic grin on his face. He had, of course, gotten lost looking for Nabiki and instead accidentally overheard Ranma and Kyusaku's conversation, but he wasn't going to let a little thing like that affect his entrance.
Ranma waved nonchalantly. "Hey Ryoga. What's with the eyepatch?"
Kyusaku turned toward him. "You know this mental case?"
Ryoga snorted. "Of course he knows me. It's because of our rivalry that I need the superhuman powers of your 'flaw'. And as for your other question, I'm wearing an eyepatch because I'm evil!"
Kyusaku backed away. Ranma blinked. "But you were evil before, and you didn't wear one."
Ryoga frowned. "No, before I was just bitter. Now I'm EVIL!"
Ranma shook his head. "No, I'm sure you were at least a little evil before."
"Oh shut up!! This is not a topic that's open for discussion!" Ryoga screamed, before regaining his composure. "In any case, you're coming with me."
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Whoa whoa whoa!! Hold on a sec!! How the hell did you do that?!" Ranma yelled from his position chained into a chair along with Kyusaku, guarded by two men with automatic weapons.
"I'm a better fighter than you! So how did you capture us all by yourself?!"
Ryoga smiled smugly. "That's for the author to know, and for you to... to... not know. Anyway, let's get down to business. WHAT IS THE SEQUENCE?!"
Ranma shook his head angrily. "I told you, I don't know! I just typed it in by accident!"
Ryoga snorted. "Do you have any idea what the chances of you typing in just the right sequence of characters in by accident are?!"
Ranma stared at him passively. "Yeah, so? What's your point?"
Ryoga gave him a hard stare. "Aw, never mind." He turned to Kyusaku, and gave him a light punch on the head. "I don't suppose you'd consider telling me, would you?"
"Damn right!" Kysaku growled. "And will someone get me a cigarette?! I'm dyin' here!"
Ryoga chuckled darkly as he turned around, and slipped a remote control out of his pocket.
"I thought that I may have to resort to an 'alternate' form of persuasion. Take a look at this!" Ryoga clicked a button on the remote, and one entire wall slid up to reveal a huge TV screen. It flickered for a moment, before showing an isolated room with Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Saiyuri all tied to chairs and surrounded by guards.
Hiroshi sighed. "I can't believe this is the only part we're getting in this fic."
"HELLO!!! We have bigger problems here!!" Yuka yelled into his ear.
Ranma sweatdropped. "What the hell? Why'd you kidnap them? Why not take the Tendos?"
Ryoga coughed and suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Miss Nabiki Tendo has... some very good legal consultants. It was considered much safer to just grab the most important extras."
Ryoga's smile returned. "Now, either you tell me the sequence in the next 30 seconds, or I will show them THIS!!" Ryoga grabbed something out of nowhere and thrust it in Ranma's face. "An Olsen Twins movie!!"
Ranma's eyes went wide. Kyusaku bigsweated. "What kind of sadistic monster are you?!"
Ryoga tapped the cassette box against the edge of the chair. "Was that a 'no'? Too bad."
Clicking a button on the remote control, another TV in the prisoner's room activated, and said prisoners all looked at it as the guards evacuated the room.
*It Takes Two, starring Mary Kate and Ashley!*
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!"
Ranma struggled against the chains in an effort to free himself, but it proved useless.
Ryoga chuckled. "Don't even bother Ranma. Those chains are made from super-high-density titanium, which has no reason to even exist, save keeping people like you and me tied up."
Kyusaku started to sweat heavily as the screams of terror from the prisoner's room toned down to a fearful whimpering. Damn he wished he could reach his cigarettes!
"All right! All right! I'll give you the sequence! Just stop this madness at once!"
Ryoga smiled broadly and hit two buttons on the remote control, causing the wall to once again take the place of the TV. Putting a pencil in Kyusaku's mouth and holding a notepad to the point, the computer genius somehow managed to write a long line of legible code.
Ryoga gave a curt laugh, then pocketed the piece of paper. Then, without further fanfare, he began to walk out of the room, snapping his fingers at one of the nearby guards. "Kill them."
Kyusaku's eyes widened. "But... but... a-at least let the kid go! He has nothing to do with this!" Ryoga didn't listen, however, and simply left the room.
Kyusaku gulped as the men with the guns took aim. "Look kid, you've got to transform! Turn into the Freakazoid! Hurry!"
Ranma tried harder to break free, but to no avail. "I don't know how! *Grunt* Damn it! I could break free if only the stupid author wasn't trying to satisfy a second plot line!"
At that moment, one of the thugs suddenly stopped the other. "Hold up. They say that this kid turns into a girl when he gets wet. Let's check that out before we waste him." With that he produced a glass of water.
Ranma sighed. Great. His last moments alive were going to be as a girl being leered at by two evil minions barely more intelligent than your average garden slug.
*Splash*
The henchman had to shield his eyes as there was a sudden explosion of light.
(Cue Freakazoid music)
"What the hell? He turned blue! And he's still a guy! What's going on here?!" The henchman glanced at the glass now bereft of water, wondering if he had done something wrong.
Freaked-out Ranma smiled broadly. "Hello!"
The other henchman who still had his gun trained on Ranma just chuckled and flipped off the safety. "Eh, so you changed color on the outside. I wonder if your insides changed color too?"
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma dusted off his hands. "Well, that was easy."
The two henchman blinked, then realized that they were now chained to the chair.
"What?! How did this happen?!"
Ranma grinned smugly. "It's called a cut-scene. Anything can happen, and they require absolutely no explanation whatsoever!" Ranma's grin broke into a happy smile and he started dancing around the room.
"YEAH!! I'm #1! I'm #1! Who rocks?! Who rolls?! Yeah! Yeah! Oh yeah!"
Kyusaku quickly groped in his pocket for a cigarette, then quickly lit it. That accomplished, he grabbed Ranma's arm. "All right! Good work kid!"
Ranma nodded appreciatively. "Wanna go out for some ice cream?"
Kyusaku shook his head and headed for the door to the hallway. "Not now! If we don't stop Ryoga, he'll enter the sequence and become a Freakazoid, just like you! Except he'll be evil! And-what are you doing?"
Kyusaku sweatdropped as he realized that Ranma was still back in the room, doodling on the minions' faces with a magic marker. "This is no time for games! Come on!"
Ranma sighed. "Oh, you're no fun."
They proceeded to run down the hallway, until they came to a fork. Ranma suddenly turned to Kyusaku. "All right, Ro Sham Bo!"
Kyusaku sighed. "We have a better chance of finding him if we split up. I'll go left, and you go right!"
"You'll both be going down in a moment! Put your hands up!" several men with automatic weaponry swarmed into the hallway from behind them.
Kyusaku was about to do as ordered, when Ranma suddenly pointed towards an open window behind him.
"Kyusaku, look!" The computer scientist turned around in panic.
Ranma pointed down the corrider that the henchmen had come from. "Now! Run for it!" The henchmen all fled.
Kyusaku blinked. Twice. "Um................ okaaaaaaay...... left! I was going... left! Yes, and you go right! Yeah, okay..."
With that he quickly took off down the left passageway. Ranma watched him go for a while, then shrugged and started walking down the right path, humming "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".
__________________________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, back in the computer room.
"Damn it! I hate these things!" Ryoga smashed the keyboard in frustrated rage, easily shattering the cheap plastic. Then he sweatdropped, and moved on to the next computer in the long line on the table.
"Okay, connect to the internet...... what? 'Press any key to continue'? Which one's the 'any' key?" Ryoga stood up, then glanced offscreen. "Huh? We already did that joke?"
He sat down again at the computer, and typed a few keys. "What now? 'Illegal operation'?" Ryoga blinked, then narrowed his eyes at the offending moniter. "Exactly how much do you know about this 'illegal operation'?"
__________________________________________________________________________________
And now, back to Kyusaku.
The computer genius extraordinaire was currently running for his life, being chased down by several large men with machine guns.
"Why did I say we should split up?! Why didn't I stay with him?!" He redoubled his efforts as a burst of gunfire richoched off the floor behind him.
Noticing a room with a large computer displayed on a panel on the door, he rushed into it, closing and locking the door just as a volley of bullets hailed the other side of the door.
"It's times like these that I wish I'd gone into robotics and created a super-powerful android to defend me...... Psh! Yeah right!" Walking over to the nearest computer, he turned it on and hit a few keys to bypass all unnecessary start-up procedures.
There was banging on the door. "Open up! This is the police!"
Kyusaku stared at the door incredulously. "No you're not, you're the guys who just chasing me! How stupid do you think I am?"
There was a meaty *thwack*, followed by "Idiot! I told you that wouldn't work!"
Kyusaku shook his head as he logged onto the internet. The banging on the door got louder.
The henchman broke the door open just as a swirling vortex sucked their quarry into the depths of the web.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Okay, I think I got it now..." Ryoga swallowed deeply as his finger slowly depressed the 'delete' key.
A character disappeared.
"................................................................................" was soon followed by "DAAAAMMMMNNN IT!!!!!"
Breathing quite heavily, Ryoga once again checked the characters on the little sheet of paper to the sequence in the URL. "Oh for the love of-I only messed up on one key! How hard could it possibly be to become a superhuman around here?!"
"Hey, let me try."
Ryoga looked up to see Ranma, in freaka-form, sitting on top of his computer.
"What in the......" Ryoga backed away, and Ranma hopped down in front of the computer.
He flexed his fingers, then sat down stiffly in front of the keyboard, hands poised like a pianist.
*Click-Click-Click-Cliiiiiick, Click-Click-Click-Cliiiiiiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Click, Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Cliiiick*,
*Click-Click-Click-Click...Click...CLICK*
Ryoga simply stared. "Wait a minute. Blue skin. Lightning hair. Big 'F' on chest. Can play Beethoven's symphonies on a keyboard. You must be a Freakazoid! Which means...... RANMA!!!"
Ranma nodded happily. "That is correct! You get a cookie."
Ranma tossed a cookie at him, and Ryoga swatted it away angrily. "I'll kill you!"
Ryoga lunged, and Ranma ducked under him as Ryoga punched his fist right through the opposite wall.
Ranma chuckled. "I think I'll have to teach you a lesson."
Ryoga rounded on him and charged again. "I'm the teacher here! And the subject is PAIN!!!"
Ranma stepped aside deftly as Ryoga demolished a multi-thousand dollar computer setup. "That was good. You make that up yourself?"
Ryoga growled as he turned around, then jumped toward Ranma with a flying kick. "Shut up, stay still, and die like a man!"
Once again Ranma took a step to the side, sending Ryoga crashing into the other side of the room.
"Like a man? What are we, cavemen? Real men don't settle their conflicts with fists, we're smarter than that!"
Ryoga got up from where he landed and glared at him, left eye twitching slightly.
"Real men settle their conflicts with GUNS!!!"
"......... You have got to be kidding me," Ryoga deadpanned.
Ranma grinned maliciously and reached behind him... *Cha-chink!* To pull out two HUGE plastic rifles, each with the words Super Soaker on the side and a fully loaded plastic water tank on top. Each one had several barrels, as well as many ridiculously complex looking devices on the side.
"Now you have to ask yourself one question....... 'do I feel lucky?'"
Ryoga gulped.
"Well? Do ya? PUNK?!" Ranma hit a switch on the back of the water cannons, and several automatic pumping devices started up, along with a few loaded water balloon launchers that popped out of the top.
Ryoga wimpered.
"G-bye P-chan! See ya in St. Louis!" He stopped. "Wait... aw, the hell with it." *THOOOM!!!*
Outside, the police that had just began to gather outside of the gigantic office building were subjected to the sight of the entire top two floors having their windows blown out by a sudden, huge rush of water.
Ranma cackled evilly and replaced the water artillery back into his super-special sub-space sack (trying saying that 5 times fast).
At that moment the moniter behind him lit up, and Ranma's attention was drawn to a message that typed itself across the screen.
[How ya doin' kid? From what I can tell, you beat Ryoga. Good work! I'll just be taking a spin around cyberspace for a while, so don't worry about me. Oh, by the way, to go into superhuman form requires nothing but cold water, and somehow the process is reversed by hot water. I have no idea why this is. Well, until we meet again, goodbye and farewell!]
Ranma nodded, then started to turn around when he noticed something happening on the screen.
"What the....... he's uploading his porn collection! .................................. Eh, whatever." Shrugging a final time, Ranma gathered up the unconcsious pig on the floor and left the building.
__________________________________________________________________________________
The crowd cheered as Ranma walked out of the building, pig in hand. He wasn't sure why they were there, but he wasn't in the proper frame of mind to worry about something like that, so he waved to them and they cheered louder.
Ranma heroically walked up to the nearest police officer, who was going to say something when Ryoga was unceremoniously dropped into his hands.
Ranma smiled and bowed. "Thank you for your services officer. My work... is done!"
With that he walked away from the confused police officer, who, in not finding any other use for the pig, dropped it on the ground and watched the guy in the red PJs walk through the cheering crowd.
"FREAK-A-ZOID!!! FREAK-A-ZOID!!! FREAK-A-ZOID!!! FREAK-A-ZOID!!!"
Ranma for the most part ignored the chanting, instead being drawn to a car that suddenly pulled up to the sidewalk.
"Dr. Tofu?"
Dr. Tofu shook his hand as he got out the car. "A job well done, Freakazoid. Want to go out for some ice cream?"
"WOULD I?!?!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
(3 caramel sundaes and a banana split later)
Tofu licked his lips as he put another spoonful of hot fudge into his mouth. Ranma was also eating a hot fudge sundae next to him, but was eating a lot faster.
"So... you know what I'd do if I had powers like that? I'd become one of those super heroes. But that's me."
Ranma stopped eating and looked at him. "But you're a martial artist right? With enough training you could become a super hero."
Tofu shrugged. "Maybe, but I chose to be a physician. They have a better union."
Ranma thought about it, then shook his head. "Nah..."
"Are you sure? You could protect the innocent."
"Nah..."
"Fight for love and justice."
"Nah..."
"Work towards world peace."
"Nah..."
"Impress the ladies."
Ranma paused. "Hmmmmmmm.......... nah..."
"And the annual superhero convention down in Tokyo has a free barbeque. I hear it's going to be grilled swordfish and pork ribs this year.
"BY GOD, I'LL DO IT!!!"
**********************************************************************************
Again, I would like to apologize to all the people I've offended by writing this... including myself... for ruining the comedic sanctity of the most glorious Ranma 1/2 with this... this...... oh, why do I even bother?
Freaking Out
Chapter 02
A Ranma 0.5/Freakazoid fusion
by Black Dragon
Standard disclaimer applies... Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi and Freakazoid to Warner Bros. and Steven Spielberg. Yes, I know, I promised myself I wouldn't continue this... but I can't help it!
Starring Ranma Saotome as: Freakazoid!
Dr. Tofu as: Freakazoid's pal!
Kyusaku (from All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku) as: The funny-looking computer nerd!
Minako Aino (from Sailor Moon) as: The primary romantic sub-plot!
Ryoga Hibiki as: The high-level evil dude!
Genma and the Tendos as: The clueless family!
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, and Saiyuri as: The innocent bystanders! (Targets)
And also starring Julianne Moore as The Hopping Woman!
Characters from other series will have little, if anything, in common with those other series.
**********************************************************************************
Ranma sighed happily as he downed the last of his miso soup. He set down the bowl, taking a moment to reflect how not having to defend your food could do wonders toward the enjoyment of a meal.
Genma lay at the other end of the room, beaten and battered.
Soun risked a glance out from behind his newspaper to his youngest houseguest. Somehow the boy had easily dispatched Genma this morning, beating him with strength and speed that many would not have expected, as soon as the elder Saotome tried to throw Ranma toward the koi pond.
Ranma ignored the curious glances, starting on another helping of soup.
His meal was interrupted as a fist smashed his head into the bowl he was eating from.
"Ow!! Ack! Bleagh! Hey, what'd you do that for?!"
He turned around to see Akane glaring at him. He waited for an explanation, and Akane suddenly shoved something in his face.
Said "something" turned out to in fact be Ryoga, in pig form of course, complete with black eyepatch.
Ranma looked up at his fiancee. "Okay...... something wrong with P?"
Akane's glare intensified. "When I found P-chan this morning he was wearing an eyepatch. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Oh, is that all? It's just because he's evil."
Akane's glare turned into a confused expression. "Evil? What?"
Ranma leaned back a bit. "Well, I mean, he was always a little evil, but now he's really evil. Or at least that's what he told me."
Akane was now really confused. "What? He told you? What are you talking about?"
Ranma just shrugged. "Ask the pig."
Akane was about to interrogate him further, or at least smash him good for whatever he probably did to P-chan, when she happened to glance at the wall clock.
"Baka! We're going to be late! Come on!" Before Ranma could protest, he found himself being dragged outside by his collar.
"Leggo a me, wouldja? I have to get my bag, anyway!"
Growling at her fiancee, Akane let him go and took off at a good clip toward Furinkan. Ranma joined her a moment later, running on the fence as usual.
Their journey was impeded only by a little old woman, who happened to throw a ladle of water in a high arc right in Ranma's way.
*Splash*
Akane almost facefaulted as she stopped and turned around.
"You idiot! Now we're definitely going... to... be......... late....................."
Akane blinked. The old lady threw another ladle's worth of water onto the sidewalk.
Akane looked around. The old lady emptied another ladle.
Akane scratched her head. *Splash* went the water.
Looking around, she could find no trace of Ranma, girl or boy. The only people on the street were herself, the old lady, and an old man wrapped up in a robe with a walking stick.
Akane stared at the scene for at least 20 more seconds before deciding that if Ranma was just going to disappear on her than he deserved to be late, and took off once more for the school.
Akane left, and the little old woman continued washing the sidewalk.
The old man unsteadily crawled up to her, and a bit of light glinted off something under a fold of cloth.
*GOOSH!* Water exploded from the nozzle of the firehose, drenching the old lady and knocking her back into her front yard.
Freakazoid ditched the old rags before pointing at the drenched lady and laughing. "Ha ha!"
That accomplished, he tossed the oversized hose aside and set off after Akane.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Akane checked her watch again as she ran past Dr. Tofu's and headed further down the street. She figured that at her current pace, without having to deal with Kuno, she'd make it into class just before the bell rang.
Suddenly she stopped. Narrowing her eyes, she quickly turned around.
Nothing. The street was deserted.
'That's funny. I could have sworn I was being followed...' Shrugging, she turned around right before she bumped into somebody.
"Oh, I'm sorr-YOU!!!" Akane fell back into a defensive stance as she saw the same blue guy that had beaten her so easily before.
Ranma just smiled. "Hello! Did you miss me?"
Akane growled. "All right you jerk! This time it's for real! Take THIS!!"
Ranma just stared wide-eyed at the large wooden mallet as it descended and smashed him into the pavement.
Akane smirked at his prone form, letting her hammer rest on her shoulder. "Hmph. I guess I showed you."
Suddenly, Ranma got up and dusted himself off. "That didn't hurt."
Akane blinked, then stepped back. "Wha-what?"
Ranma smiled again. "For one thing, you didn't use a big enough hammer!" Ranma stuck his hands behind his back, then pulled out a huge steel mallet with "10 Tons" printed on the side of the head.
Akane was suddenly very afraid for her life. Quickly going through her options, she ditched the mallet and ran screaming past Ranma toward Furinkan.
Ranma laughed evilly before giving chase. "Hey wait! Come on! I promise, this won't hurt me a bit!"
Akane ran faster.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Yuka and Saiyuri were chatting amiably amongst themselves, about cute guys, Akane's love life, and the latest evil plot that they had gotten dragged into, when something collided heavily with Saiyuri, sending her sprawling.
That "something" was one Akane Tendo.
"Akane! What happened? Are you okay?" Yuka helped her friend up as Saiyuri dusted herself off.
Akane looked like she was hyperventilating. "Gotta run away! Gotta run! He'll kill me!"
Saiyuri's eye's widened. "Who'll kill you? Ranma?!"
Akane shook her head. "No! The blue guy! The blue guy with lightning hair and red underwear!"
They blinked. "Huh?" they muttered in unison.
"The blue guy! He's right behind me!!" She turned around.
Predictably, she didn't see a thing. Neither did her friends. "But he was right behind me! I swear! He had a huge mallet!" She stopped ranting when Yuka put a hand to her forehead.
"Hmmmm... no fever. Still, I think you should go home and get some rest Akane."
Akane shook her head fervently. "I'm not crazy! He was just-I mean that he-Every time that-And the hammer..........."
Yuka and Saiyuri slowly started to back away as Akane kept staring at them with a crazed, panicked expression.
"Uh, yeah, okay, the blue guy..." Yuka started to turn around.
"Right, of course. The blue guy with lightning hair and red underwear isn't going to hurt you Akane. You're safe, understand?" Saiyuri wasn't leaving as fast as Yuka, but was making sure to distance herself from the youngest Tendo.
Akane looked like she wanted to say something, what with her mouth being open and her hand pointing hysterically down the street that she came from, but no sound would come out. Finally, she clamped her mouth shut, and hung her head, defeated.
"All right, never mind. Let's get to school."
None of them noticed the steel periscope that watched them silently from the canal next to the walk.
As they walked out of sight, bubbles started to emerge from the base of the periscope.
Eventually, Ranma's head broke the surface of the water, and he took in a deep breath of air, before hacking and coughing and spitting out a fish.
"Huh... don't know how that little sucker got in there......" shrugging, Ranma started doing the breaststroke down the length of the canal.
He continued doing this until he had almost hit a corner, then started swimming at an angle, coming out of the water and doing the breaststroke through the air.
He kept swimming, or flying, or whatever, until he was directly overhead a house's roof, at which point he pinched his nose and slowly floated down onto the house.
Stepping up, he put a hand to his forehead, then scanned the area. "Hmmm... as a superhero, I must find evil to vanquish!"
As he couldn't see any evil at the moment, he turned around and pulled out a big box with the words "Long-Range Sound Amplification Device" on it.
He opened the box, then pulled out an orange traffic cone.
"With this, I'll be able to hear the sounds of evil for miles!" after posing triumphantly for no reason, he put the large end over his ear and listened.
And listened......
"Wait! I think I hear something!"
"Help! Somebody help me!" Across the street, a small band of heavily armed thugs were trying to bring a struggling teenage girl with long blond hair into their getaway car.
Ranma lowered himself a bit to hear better. "It's very faint..."
The thugs that was holding the girl from around the back put his hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. She struggled a bit more, then bit his hand.
"OUCH!!! SONUVA &#%!$ BIT ME!!!"
"HELP ME!!! PLEASE!!! ANYONE!!!"
That was as far as she got before a gag was tied around her mouth, and she was soon bound tightly with rope. She looked up in fear at the obvious head of the thugs. Obvious because he was the only one with any kind of distinguishing features at all. Just like all the others, he was dressed in a blue pinstripe business suit with a blue hat to match, looking very much like a Mafia hitman. His only distinguishing characteristic, oddly enough, was that one hand seemed to be replaced with an MK-47 machine gun.
He chuckled deeply. "Now now, don't be scared. You'll be returned, nice and safe, once your rich daddy pays us the 200 million yen. And then all will learn to fear the name of Tommy Gunn! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!" Tommy fired a few shots into the air, then everyone piled into the car and left.
Back on the roof, Ranma lowered the traffic cone and frowned. "Hmmm. Distant shouting followed by distant gunfire. Obviously EVIL is afoot! I must put a stop to it without delay!!"
He struck a pose. At that moment, Dr. Tofu drove up and stuck his head out the window.
"Hey Freakazoid, wanna go play a round of miniature golf?"
Ranma immediately turned around and leapt into the car. "Okay!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
The scene opens in a sparsely decorated office, with a large desk in the middle covered in various papers. A bald man with a huge forehead who seems to be squinting is sitting on the desk.
"Who is this gun-crazed, one-armed man? Who is this heat-packing hoodlum?"
"Tom McKintire was once an honest, hard-working citizen who collected various firearms and headed the local NRA chapter in Nerima. His hobbies included collecting guns, shooting guns, sharpshooting, dullshooting, hunting, range shooting, FPS video games, and calligraphy."
"Tom liked guns so much, that he actually slept at night with an automatic weapon at his side. One day, someone played a mean practical joke, and stuck the gun to his hand with superglue."
"The doctors had to operate to remove the gun, but the operation failed, forever welding the weapon to his left wrist. Feeling bitter and depressed, and possessing lots of ammo, Tom changed his last name to Gunn in order to fulfill the silly pun, and began his life of crime."
"And now you know the rest of the back-story. Good day!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Ooh! I love the one with the big monkey!" Ranma rushed up to the course, then put his little orange ball onto the starting pad. The large wooden gorilla swung his arms back and forth along the green padded path in perfectly timed motion, leering at the various golfers.
Dr. Tofu smiled. "Yeah, though the castle's a real hit too."
Ranma lined up his initial shot, then got on the ground and used his club to measure the angle.
Dr. Tofu leaned on his club as he waited for Ranma to finish. "You know, I just heard that that Tommy Gunn character is holed up in an abandoned warehouse over on the east side. Rumor is that he's holding Minako Aino hostage, and he's demanding 200,000,000 yen for her safe return."
Ranma got up again, then frowned and moved the starting pad over a bit to get a better angle, and then got down to measure again. "Really? You gonna go check that out?"
Tofu shook his head. "Nah. I've got a ton of paperwork that I've got to finish back at the office. I thought you might want to go, seeing how you're a superhero and this is a pretty basic 'save the damsel in distress' scenario."
Ranma stopped to think about that. "Why, you're right! I'll save her immediately! ......... Right after this game." he turned back to the course.
Aiming very carefully, and taking a few soft practice swings, he focused his stare on the little hole under the gorilla's swinging arms. "Gotta time this just right........."
*Thwack!* *Ptong* *Sploosh* The ball bounced off the gorilla's head, then sailed in a high arc over the golfers' heads to fall into the large decorative lake behind them.
Ranma fumed and threw his club on the ground. "Nutbunnies! I hate those stupid water hazards!" He turned to Dr. Tofu. "Well, I guess I'd better go now Doc, ciao!"
He turned around, then stretched his arms out in front of him and ran off.
"Wooooooooooooooooooosh!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Man, I hate guard duty." The gate to the warehouse was guarded by two large thugs, both of them wearing Mafia-style pinstripe suits and carrying machine guns.
Both were also bored as hell.
"Man, how about that Aino chick though, eh? She's got a fine bod. It's too bad this fic is rated G, otherwise we coulda had some fun with her."
The other man chuckled in agreement before spotting an approaching figure. "Hold up. Someone's coming."
The man with the blue face dressed in work overalls and carrying a toolbox was apparently oblivious to the guns trained on him.
"Hello!"
The first thug poked him with the muzzle of his gun. "Who're you?"
Ranma adjusted the denim cap on his head and smiled. "Plumber sir! Got a report of some bad piping over at this address. Something wrong with the toilet, they said."
The man scowled. "Nobody told me about no plumber."
Ranma nodded. "Well, from the description of the problem, he's probably still showering. You see........."
Ranma suddenly leaned in and whispered to the two men. "Well, I really don't want to go into details, but let me just say that if you flush that baby, a lot of nasty stuff will come out, rather than go in."
The man backed away, looking slightly green. "Oh, uh, okay, right, gotta take care o' that. Go right ahead."
Ranma thanked the men and walked into the large double-doors without incident, closing them behind him.
The two guards turned back around and went back to guarding.
".................... Hey, waitaminute... this is an old storage warehouse. It doesn't have a bathroom!"
The other man's eyes widened and the two thugs turned around and tried to open the door, only to find that it wouldn't budge.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma dusted off his hands as he finished locking the door, then quickly ditched his overalls.
Then he turned around.
To look straight down the barrel of an assault rifle.
The thug that was holding it was backed up by a large group of henchmen, all indistinguishable from each other and all armed to the teeth.
The lead man chuckled darkly and cocked the rifle. "Well now, what have we here, it looks like someone's a little los-"
"HUSH!! Quiet!" Ranma suddenly looked back and forth frantically, as if afraid something was going to jump out and attack him.
The lead thug blinked. "What?"
Ranma stared at him with a crazed look in his eyes. "Be quiet, or it'll hear you."
The man raised an eyebrow. "It?"
Ranma nodded and crept closer to him. "Yes. There's EVIL about."
The man gulped, and all his men started looking around cautiously. "Evil? Where?"
Ranma crept up very close, then started looking around some more. "Nobody knows... it's a dark, evil thing that sneaks up behind you, and does... well... dark, evil things to you..."
The men were fairly panicked now, and started waving their guns around frantically, searching for a target.
Ranma suddenly stepped back, and pointed behind the group. "THE EVIL!!! IT'S BEHIND YOU!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"
The thugs all turned around to see a huge shadow cast against the wall, grinning at them menacingly. Then they all screamed and ran for the exit, plowing through the barricade and trampling the two guards into unconsciousness.
The mouse that had cast the shadow squeaked in confusion, then moved out of the light beam shining from a conveniently placed lamp and skittered off into its hole.
Ranma blinked. "Oh, wait, never mind."
Whistling to himself, he started walking toward the back of the warehouse.
__________________________________________________________________________________
"Hmmm... I wonder what all that yelling was about." Tommy Gunn looked toward the next room in the warehouse. "Eh, there was no gunfire, so it couldn't a been that important."
Minako, who was still tied up but no longer gagged, bigsweated as she looked around at the numerous stacks of crates, each one marked in big red kanji, warning that the crate contained a set of weapons, ammunition, or explosives inside.
"Uh, are all these weapons really necessary? I just don't see the point. You don't have enough men to give all these guns to."
Tommy turned around, considered her argument, then shrugged. "Eh, it's the whole self-image thing. I gotta keep up appearances, and that means lots of guns."
He slid up on top of a crate. "Heh, don't worry your pretty little head. My money should be here in about 10 minutes, and then you can leave."
He started shining his gun-arm, and cocked his head slightly. "Say, you got a boyfriend or anything? Maybe we could go get coffee sometime, you know, after this whole thing blows over."
Minako sweatdropped. "Uh, well, I'm flattered, really, but I don't usually date older guys. Especially not criminals. With prosthetic limbs."
Tommy shrugged and lied back on the crate. "Eh, whatever, it was worth a shot."
*BAM!*
Minako and Tommy focused their attention on the doorway as the door came crashing down, to reveal Ranma, in all his red pajama-garbed glory.
Tommy jumped off the crate and readied his gun-arm. "What in the? Where are my men?"
Ranma gave a curt laugh. "So Tommy Gunn! At last, we meet again, for the first time!"
Tommy was about just shoot him, when he stopped and tried to figure out what he had just said.
"As for your men, last I saw they were running for their lives as they went potty in their pants! And you're next!"
Tommy suddenly came to a realization, and pointed to Ranma. "Hey! Now I know who you are! You're that Freakazoid guy everybody's been talking about on TV!"
Ranma nodded. "That's right! You get a cookie!" he tossed him a cookie.
The lead thug snatched it out of the air in confusion, then shrugged and ate it.
"*Gulp* Hey, that's not bad... oh yeah, I have to kill you now, don't I?"
Ranma opened his mouth to speak. "Aaaah......"
*Rattattattattattattattattattatta!!*
Ranma "eeped", then started dodging the hail of bullets, running around the room and diving behind a stack of crates.
Ranma stayed there as bullets tore into the wooden container, ready to jump for more cover should this area become unsafe. Minako managed to crawl up to him, leaning against the same crate as another round of gunfire erupted from their assailant.
Ranma waved to her. "Hi! I'm Freakazoid!"
Minako blinked. "Uh... Minako Aino. Say, you had a plan for this whole rescue, didn't you? I mean, you're just waiting for the right time to use it, right?"
Ranma chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head.
"Well, I had one to get in, but I doubted the plumber bit would work with anyone but the guards so I'm kinda winging it now."
*Rattattattat-* *Click* *Click* "Nuts! Gotta reload!"
Minako became frantic. "Quick! Now! Do something!"
Ranma frowned, then jumped up into Tommy's line of sight.
"Well, I already did this gag in the last chapter, but what the heck!"
As Tommy struggled to load the clip, Ranma sneered at him.
"Now you just have to ask yourself one question: Do I feel-YIPE!!"
Unfortunately, Tommy had finished reloading, and the gun was already spitting a rapid series of bullets at him.
Time seemed to almost freeze, and the bullets seemed to move impossibly slowly, being trailed by wavy distortions in the air. Ranma was also moving slowly, though not as slow as the bullets, and awkwardly wove in between them in what appeared to be a klutzy and frantic dance. After a few more seconds of this he seemed to get bored, and simply stood up and walked away from the steady stream of lead.
Moving to the cooler in the corner of the room, he opened it and picked up a can of soda pop, popping the lid and chugging it down.
Back over where Tommy was, time returned to normal, and the master thug saw that his target had disappeared.
"What the bloody-? How'd he do that?"
Minako peeked up from behind the crate. "Wow! That was so cool!"
Tommy growled and aimed his gun-arm at her. "Get back down and shut up!"
He heard a voice behind him. "That's no way to talk to a lady, Mr. Gunn."
Tommy turned around, then paled when he saw Ranma aiming a submachine gun at him.
"Ha ha ha! Take this!" *Tattattattattattatta!*
Tommy grunted and then screamed as the projectiles' impact knocked him back into a stack of crates.
Groaning in pain, Tommy brought his only hand up to his chest, and his heart nearly stopped as he felt a warm, thick liquid on his shirt.
He brought up his hand, and saw that the liquid was bright red.
He stared in horror at Ranma one last time before his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell limp.
"You shot him with a paintball gun?" Minako queried.
Tommy's eyes shot open. He looked back to his arm, to see bright green, blue, and yellow liquid on his wrists and arms just below his hand.
Growling in anger, he turned to the crate next to him, then smashed open the lid. Rifling around inside for a bit, he pulled out and then loaded what was obviously a bazooka.
"Awright, now you're dead!"
Ranma frowned, then pulled out what appeared to be a gatling gun from nowhere. "Oh yeah?"
Tommy snorted. "What's that? Another paintball gun?"
Ranma opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped. "Uh, yeah, it is, as a matter of fact."
Tommy shook his head. "Geezus Christ, boy! Why don't you just use a real gun?"
Ranma dropped his weapon and twiddled his thumbs. "Well... it's just that... you, know, they're illegal and all. I mean, I'm really not even 17 yet."
Tommy blinked. "Heh. Figures. Typical of the Japanese government, keeping people from their rights to bear arms. *Sigh* God bless America."
Ranma crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, I don't see what's so great about them. Look at you, you're such a fanatic that you can't solve a problem without shooting somebody."
Tommy's face turned red in anger and he started stuttering. "I-I c-can too. I, I... I just don't want to! Yeah!"
Ranma rolled his eyes. "Uh huh, suuuuuuuure."
The one-armed man fumed for a moment, then grinned and tossed his bazooka on the floor.
"All right blue boy, I'll try it your way! Now how we gonna setlle this?"
Ranma smiled and grabbed his hand. "Thumb wrestling!"
Tommy's features took on a look of the utmost concentration as their thumbs moved back and forth.
"One, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war! Firstonetoblinkloses!!"
Tommy blinked. "What?"
Ranma grinned. "Ha! I win!"
Before the criminal could understand what had just happened, Ranma rushed around him, and the one-armed criminal found himself tied up. He blinked again.
"You're really not very good at this game, aren't you?" With that he kicked the man from the room, sending him crashing through the wall of the warehouse.
Ranma smiled triumphantly as he untied MInako.
"Wow, that was so cool! My shiny horse in white armor!"
Ranma blinked as the rope went slack. "Uh, I think you meant either 'my prince on a white horse', or 'my knight in shinimmmph..."
He had trouble continuing as Minako had locked him into a passionate kiss, her arms wrapped around his head. Eventually she broke the kiss, and settled for snuggling into Ranma's chest.
Ranma sat there for a moment, then grinned. "Saaaaaaay, I could get used to this!"
__________________________________________________________________________________
Ranma gave Tommy a kick in the legs just for good measure, then turned toward the police officers, with Minako still clinging to his arm.
"Good work officers! Don't forget to disarm him!"
The police looked at him, then down at there prisoner. Then they burst out laughing.
Ranma looked confused "What? What'd I say?"
"Minako, darling!"
"DADDY!!!" Minako let go of Ranma's arm, to jump into her father's embrace.
Ranma walked up to the man and bowed. "There's your daughter, safe and sound, Mr. Aino."
The man in the expensive-looking suit that had arrived via private helicopter smiled at him. "Well, thank you very much. You're Freakazoid, right?"
Ranma grinned widely. "That's right! Here's your cookie!" he tossed him a cookie.
The man blinked in confusion, and almost didn't catch the pastry out of the air. "Uh... thanks. Minako, why don't you go wait in the helicopter. I'll be right with you."
"Okay!" Minako ran over to Ranma, handing him a slip of paper before giving him a peck on the cheek. "Call me." Then she ran off into the helicopter.
Ranma waved goodbye, and then Mr. Aino put his arm around his back and started leading him away from the helipad.
"Now son, tell me, do you have a job?"
Ranma blinked. "Uh... I'm a superhero sir."
"Yes, yes, I know, but what about your alter ego's career? Superheroing doesn't put food on the table."
Ranma sweatdropped. "Well, um, I'm still a student, you see, and-"
The man nodded. "Hmmm, I see. Any prospects for the future? Are you planning to become a doctor, maybe, or go to law school?"
Ranma was beginning to see where this was heading. "Hey, look behind you! It's Godzilla!" as soon as the man turned his head, Ranma pulled out a steaming kettle and doused himself.
Mr. Aino stared as Godzilla sat down on one of the other warehouses, then started munching on a giant squid he held in his claws.
"Ah... right." He turned back around, then looked about in confusion. "What? What happened to Freakazoid?"
Ranma scratched his head. "Oh, the guy in the PJs? He left, sorry." Ranma was about to do the same when Mr. Aino stopped him.
"Say, you look about Minako's age. How do you do in school? Are you single?"
Ranma bigsweated, then pointed behind him. "Hey look! It's Rodan!"
The man turned again, to see Rodan perched on a nearby skyscraper, trying to steal Godzilla's squid.
"*SCREECH!* C'mon G, I haven't had a bite in weeks!"
Godzilla bit him. This, of course, started yet another Tokyo-crushing fight between the giant radioactive monsters.
Mr. Aino just shook his head and turned back around, only to see that Ranma had disappeared.
**********************************************************************************