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Agent of Chaos
Chapter IV: When Chaos Sneezes
Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma 1/2, or any of many things ASSOCIATED. Never will, either. Drat.
Nodoka Saotome frowned.
In her short time staying at the Tendo residence, she had come to understand certain truths. Cold and hot water were always available; demons, evil spirits, and powerful martial artists/finacees made regular and destructive visits; and there was always magic of one sort or another flying around. In fact, she'd come to think of all that as proof of how manly Ranma truly was. After all, why else would all these things come to challenge/curse/kill/marry him?
Still, Nodoka thought a migrating Tendo-ke was a LITTLE over the top.
And indeed, where the beautiful home of Soun and his daughters--plus current free-loaders--had once stood was nothing but a huge vacant lot. It looked as if the whole property had gotten restless last night, and had snuck off to play hooky, taking its occupants with it. It hadn't even had the courtesy to leave a note!
Nodoka sighed and shook her head. "I might as well find a hotel," she said with resignation. "Honestly, I hope they get things straightened out soon. This mobile household business may just start to annoy me."
Tisking in a vexed way, she made her way across the street, trying to remember a good place to stay.
***
Tension was running high in the Tendo house.
Nabiki had always prized herself for being able to read people. The shift of eyes and posture, the slight changes in expression, and the amount of sweat on a person's face were all important clues to her in her business dealings. They helped her know exactly how hard to push, how long to hold out on a deal, and when to be absolutely merciless, or particularly careful.
But how to tell with these seasoned, trained martial artists?
Well, the bright red glows were good clues.
"WHERE IS HE?" Soun Tendo roared. "I WILL KILL HIM!"
Her father also had the addition of a huge head with fangs and a long, serpent-like tongue.
"Saotome! You'll help me kill him this time, won't you?"
"Yes, Tendo. This time he's gone too far!"
Akane was flinching at small noises, her mallet flickering in and out of existence, and Ranma kept cracking his knuckles, his left eye twitching like it had a really bad case of the hiccups. "When I get my hands on Mr. Weird..."
The front door suddenly banged open, and the man of the hour stepped in. Mr. Weird wasn't quite his usual cheery self. His clothes were a little rumpled, his beard seemed to have a large carp tangled in it, and there were dark circles around his eyes. He looked up sourly to meet the five sets of Evil Demon Eyes glaring down at him--and Kasumi, who could only manage a faintly disapproving frown.
"What's your problem?" he snapped thunderously, scratching his belly with one hand. "Do you have any idea how bad a morning I've had?"
Nabiki's glare intensified. How bad a morning HE'S had? She nearly stepped out into the Pools!
"First," Mr. Weird was saying, counting off fingers in the air, "My neighbor blew up his pet wombat in my front yard, scattering bits of it everywhere. After that, that darn hat salesmen nearly killed me with a hat that sucks brains--new model, he said, a favorite of all the blondes. Then, my socks revolted AGAIN, and I had to wash my feet with glass before they were pacified, and finally, my teleporting toaster burnt three cheeseburgers before it got my mail delivered properly!"
Nabiki paused a bit to puzzle it out, but gave up when she saw Mr. Saotome, in an amazing display of backbone, leap forward and put his bulbous nose bare millimeters from Mr. Weird's face.
"So you're the one who's done all this," he snarled, grabbing the little man and hoisting him into the air. "You're going to fix it. Right now. Do you HEAR ME, shrimp?"
Mr. Weird wrinkled his nose and leaned away, and then quickly snatched the Master of Anything-Goes' handkerchief right off his head. Genma squealed like a school girl and drew back, covering his head like he was naked. Mr. Weird landed back on the ground, a nasty grin plastered on his tiny features.
"Well," he thundered, sounding decidedly more cheerful, "consider this your punishment." He began to moonwalk, his arms jerking out at odd angled and his feet clicking together every few seconds. He pointed a finger at Genma, and then at Ranma. "And what the father must bear, the son must also."
Ranma had only a moment to gasp, "WHAT? I didn't--I mean, I ain't--"
There was a hollow 'pop' and whirl, and the Saotomes disappeared. And it didn't take long to find out where to.
"AAAAAAAAHHHH!"
"EEEEEEEEEEEE!"
*SPLASH!* *SPLASH!*
Everyone rushed to the shoji doors and slid them open to stare out at the scene.
"Ooo, you fall in Springs of Drowned Seal and Loud Fisherman's Wife, too too tragic story of circus seal that drown fifty year ago because he forgot how swim, and not so tragic story of noisy woman I drown last week."
"Arf?"
"OOOOLD MAAAAANNN!!"
A nasty-looking woman with a fishing net in her hair leapt after a black seal and kicked it solidly in the face, but slipped off the animal's wet slimy skin.
"ARF!"
"AAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
*SPLASH!* *SPLASH!*
"OH! Now you fall in Springs of Drowned Monkey and Wolf, too too--
"Who who EEE EEE EEE!
*Snarl* "AROOOOOO!"
*SPLASH!* *SPLASH!*
"Springs of Drowned Wombat and Vacuum-Cleaner Salesman!"
Everyone collectively drew back as a man in a brown tweed suit and top-hat with polished dress shoes smoothly opened a long suitcase, and put on his most winning smile. Nabiki felt the blood drain from her face.
"You see," he said, gesturing to the contents of the suitcase, "these solid steel configurations are guaranteed for a life time! Free refund on any broken parts! And also, with this new model, the 3300 series, you have the tight-corner swivel nosel, sure to clean even the toughest of spots! Not only that, but--"
All other words were lost in everyone's terrified screaming--except for the Guide, who looked to be having the time of his life--and Nabiki was barely able to catch Kasumi as she fainted dead away. The wombat outside gave a desperate-sounding grunt, and latched onto the man in tweed, hurling them both backward.
*SPLASH!* *SPLASH!*
"Springs of Drowned Tortoise and Decrepit Old Man!"
What followed was what Nabiki could only describe as the slowest chase she'd ever seen. The turtle inched forward, slowly and carefully setting each flipper in the mud and dragging itself gradually forward. The old man was in as hot a pursuit as he could manage, leaning heavily on a knobby cane and warbling things like "Get back here, I tell ya! Come on! I fix ya fer sure, I will! Why, in my day..."
Nabiki's eyes began to glaze, and she heard Akane start to snore softly beside her. After twenty more minutes of almost no movement, the old man was finally able to catch up, tripping over the tortoise and managing to get both of them properly thrown into a pair of springs.
"Drowned Panda and Girl!"
Ranma-chan was already starting to charge again when a sign came up.
[WAIT! WAIT!]
Ranma-chan glanced quickly down at herself, and then desperately tried to stop her momentum, her arms wind-milling. She was barely able to settle back on a small piece of dirt and grass.
There was a solid-sounding silence as everyone looked at Mr. Weird. It was the same kind of silence you could get if you accused Lina Inverse of being manly, or announced to a room full of Saiyans that you've just eaten their lunch. Mr. Weird shattered it horribly as he clapped and cheered, whistling and banging his feet on the floor. "Come on! I want more! This was just getting good! Keep at it! Come on..."
***
Ona-Ranma sighed and leaned back, gazing at the ceiling of the Tendo living room.
"Man," she muttered exhaustedly, "I never thought I'd be so glad to be in my cursed form."
Pops growfed his agreement, carefully laying down a cockroach with a soft click. Mr. Tendo frowned down at the board, absently holding a lively one in place with a chopstick.
"Hmm... good move, Saotome..." He glance up suddenly as a loud sob and a crash came from the other room, and Genma wasted no time in moving the game pieces around--an impressive feat, considering they kept trying to scurry away.
"What is he DOING in there?" Tendo snapped.
Nabiki snorted. "He's still watching soap operas and eating beans, hissing at anyone who gets too close to the remote."
Soun Tendo's expression darkened, and then turned downright purple when it came back to the game board. "Hey, wait just a second, Saotome! I thought--I could swear--"
The panda grinned wolfishly. [Yes?] *flip* [Something the matter, Tendo?]
"Oh... no, nothing. Your turn."
"You know," Ranma said suddenly, scratching her head, "All of a sudden, I got this feeling that I've forgotten something."
Akane frowned. "You know, I have the same feeling. What do you suppose it could be?"
Ranma's eyebrows furrowed in thought. Then she shrugged.
"Probably nothin'," she and Akane said together.
Right on cue, there was the sound of the front door opening, and a low growl. "Wait a second," an all-to-familiar voice said, "Where on earth am I now?"
There was a startled yelp, followed by a loud splash. Then the Guide's cheerful voice broke in.
"Oh, sir! You fall in Spring of Drowned Professional Wrestler! Too too tragic story of very burly bad actor who pose too long in front of springs!"
"Ranma Saotome--yer goin' down, an' goin' down HARD!"
Ranma and Akane looked at each other, and then bolted to the door. What they saw was a huge, beefy man with the famous yellow and black bandana. Huge veins stuck out all over around his now-tight clothing, and Ryoga bared off-center, gold-studded teeth at them. Flexing his pecks, the Lost Wrestler pointed at Ranma dramatically.
"YOU!" Ryoga roared, his nostrils flaring and the number of gold teeth showing increasing. "I'm gonna make you wish you'd never been BORN! I'm gonna kick your girly butt so hard, yer MOMMA ain't gonna be able to sit for a week!"
Somewhere, in a hotel in Tokyo, Nodoka Saotome sneezed. She glanced around suspiciously, fingering her katana.
"Why am I gonna do this?" Ryoga continued, a slow froth gathering in the corner of his mouth. "Because I hate you! Because yer the worst yellow, ugly, stupid, back-stabbing punk that was ever born! And because I am Ryoga Hibiki! I... am MAAAAN CRUSHER!"
Fireworks began to shoot off and smoke filled the air as Man Crusher's theme music began to play, a weird cross between classic Japanese and hard rock. After a few minutes, the display died down, and Ryoga began to rant again. He compared Ranma to everything from a scrawny chicken to a school girl to a dromedary with diarrhea. He went on to lay out in rich, single-syllable-word detail on how EXACTLY he was going to mangle the pigtailed martial artist over the progression of about six hours or so.
During the Lost Wrestler's raving, Ranma had time to get some hot water, wash his hair, brush his teeth, eat lunch, play cards with Akane--and lose, of course--and help Kasumi completely reorganize the kitchen. Nabiki, however, seemed intent on filming the whole thing, but the reason totally escaped Ranma.
Finally, as Ranma wandered back to the door to see what Ryoga was up to, the martial-artist-gone-pro-wrestler finally finished his extended speech, ending with, "And now it's time to pay, Saotome! Face the wrath of..." dramatic pause, "MAAAAN CRUSHER!"
The theme music started to play again as Ryoga leapt forward, attacking Ranma head on. They both leapt up to the roof and commenced the Anything-Goes Pro Wrestling match.
After only a few moments of fighting, Ranma quickly realized that not ALL of the Lost Boy's skill had flown out the window, and he still attacked with heavy reliance on his strength and endurance. The only major difference was where as the normal Ryoga would fight honorably to the letter, Man Crusher did all the dirtiest tricks he could think of, always taking every opportunity to get in a cheap shot, or kick Ranma when he was down.
But Ranma was still more a master of that type of fighting. After all, you didn't fight somebody like Genma Saotome every morning for more than ten years without knowing everything there is to know about how to fight people who fight dirty.
Besides, the Lost Wrestler kept posing and shouting his name every time he scored a hit, allowing Ranma to neatly turn him inside-out when he wasn't paying good enough attention. In addition to that, Ryoga was now far too cocky to get depressed enough for the Shi Shi Hokodan. When he tried it, all he got was a small puff of smoke, which he stared stupidly down at for a moment before Ranma's feet distracted his attention by planting themselves quite firmly into his face.
Ranma smirked. It looked like Ryoga was too stupid in that form to remember to use his cockiness instead of depression.
"MOKOU TAKABISHA!"
"Then again..." he mumbled as he flew backward.
The match seemed like it could go on a while until Ryoga tried to do a weird sort of body-slam where he sat on Ranma, and the martial artist finally lost his temper.
"Bai bai, pig-boy!" he snarled. "HIRUU SHOTEN HA!"
The tornado whipped up around them, and Ranma was barely able to keep his anger in check enough to not get sucked in himself. The twister raged out across the Pools of Sorrow, carrying Ryoga Hibiki, a.k.a. the Man Crusher, off into the distance.
"NOW who's boss, huh, pig-boy?" Ranma shouted, waving a fist at his departing adversary. "Who's the man? ME! I am!"
He paused and blinked.
"What am I SAYING? I spent WAY too much time listening to that moron's speech..."
Ranma settled back, panting heavily as the rocks he'd stirred up with his Hiruu Shoten Ha fell back to the ground. As an afterthought, a large roof tile smacked the pigtailed boy in the back of the head. He fell forward, eyes swirly.
"How could things possibly get worse?" he moaned.
Lightning and thunder followed the statement, which, as Ranma looked back on it later, was a Very Bad Sign.
***
"You shouldn't have been so mean to him, Ranma," Akane said sternly.
"MEAN?" Ranma exploded. "What do you mean, mean? I tried forever to just get him to go away!"
Akane sighed. "I know! It's just that... wasn't that a little excessive?"
"Hey, what would YOU do if something that big and ugly tried to sit on you?"
"...Okay, good point."
"Well, well, well," Mr. Weird said suddenly beside them, causing them both to leap up and clutch the wall. "I see that both of you are together. Good. That makes it so I can start adding to your problems."
"And just what exactly have you been doing before now?" Akane snapped, glaring at the gnomic personage. Ranma could see she liked him just about as much as she liked dead flies in her soup, or perhaps going on a date with Kuno.
"Why, that was just the warm-up, stupid girl," Weird chuckled. Then he pointed a finger at her. "This will be just the beginning, too."
Ranma and Akane watched in horrified fascination as the little man began to wiggle around, making strange growling sounds, his finger never moving from where it was pointed.
Finally, he stopped and snapped his fingers, accompanied by the familiar rush. Ranma tensed and darted his eyes, once more expecting a Scaly Green Monster, or perhaps a door-to-door insurance salesman. He cringed at the thought.
After a couple moments, though, it seemed that nothing had happened. Again. But Ranma was the type that learned from his mistakes, so he waited. Still nothing came.
"All right, I give up," he said finally, "What--"
"R-Ranma!" Akane whispered urgently, and he felt something hard tug on his arm, and there was a loud clink. Ranma swallowed. His eyes wide and wary, Ranma slowly glanced down at his arm, and then felt his jaw go slack.
Ranma Saotome was now attached by the wrist to Akane Tendo by a huge, manacled chain. Ranma growled something not fit to be repeated in public.
"All right, what NOW, you half-pint gnome?" he snapped at the Mr. Weird. He and Akane leaned forward to tower menacingly over the little man, arms outstretched and intent on strangling him with the chair.
But short-stuff leapt nimbly backward, a very nasty smile blooming on his features. "There's only one way to get that off, you know," he snickered. "You have to do something."
"What?" Akane demanded.
The little man laughed. "You have to kiss."
There was pause.
"Passionately," Mr. Weird added.
Ranma and Akane gasped, and then looked at each other. A dozen conflicting emotions played hopscotch in Ranma's tired and very put-upon brain, but eventually, embarrassment did a complicated triple skip and took over.
As Ranma's face practically burst with the pressure of the blood rushing to it, he noticed absently that Akane's reaction was just a LITTLE bit different.
She pointed a mallet that filled the room at Who W. Weird, and smashed him with such force the entire building shook. Wall paintings and furnishings shifted in their places, and there were startled shouts all around.
When things finally settled down, Akane looked back at him, her eyes wide. With startling abruptness, she fainted and fell forward onto Ranma, her head landing in his lap.
At this point, the martial artist's wearied gray matter threw up its hands in despair and ordered a full system shut-down. I can't work with the massive sensory overload I've been getting, it complained, and it's time for my vacation.
Ranma couldn't agree more.
He slumped back, eyes rolling in his head, bound and determined to not wake up for as long as he possibly could.
Gee, oblivion sure is nice in times like these.
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