Private Bet #7: The Prince of Pigtails
A Ranma 1/2 & Tenchi Muyo! Combo
by Shade

Disclaimer: TSR, Takahashi & AIC creations have been used here
without their permission. This is a lawyer free fanfic!

~~~~~~~~~~

"Who's that?"

"An acquaintance from Shadowdale."

Rowan didn't elaborate further.

"That's HIM?!?! I thought he'd be taller."

"He's probably the only person who can
sympathize with what Ranma has to go through."

The Guardian laughed at his little joke. The others
just sweatdropped, maybe if they were quiet nobody
would think he was with their group.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Shadow asked the hooded figure.

"Of course, meddling is one of the few vices I still have."

The hood was thrown back to reveal a old man with a
twinkle in his eye. With an agility that few would suspect
from such an ancient and dignified personage he tossed
a finely cut garnet into the pool.

~~~~~~~

Chromosomes are a funny thing.

A single one of them determines if you're boy or a girl.

The rest serve as a template for who you are and what you might be.

But the most interesting thing about them is that if given
the slightest push in the right direction the genetic information
for one individual can be changed to that of someone else....

~~~~~~

"Ranma! Ranma! Where are you boy?!"

Katsuhito Masaki wondered where that scamp
of a grandson had gone to now as he walked
up the stairs of the Masaki shrine.

Ranma Masaki was currently digging around
in his grandfather's storage room looking for a
certain set of keys. This was his last chance,
tomorrow he'd have to return to his home and
*Ugh*...school.

Ranma loved the summers he spent in this
peaceful valley but for the past couple of
years he'd been too focused on finding a
way to get into the Demon's cave to enjoy
the scenery and the quiet reprieve from
the normal hassles of teenage life. Then
there was his father and his weird ideas
to worry about.

Noboyuki had been a fine (if slightly shy) man
in his day. Then his wife Achika died.

In a fit of grief he left his son with his
father-in-law and became the apprentice of
a mysterious martial arts master. When Noboyuki
finally returned from his training he was a
changed man, he was....

...a complete and utter pervert.

Ranma shuddered briefly before resuming his
search for those keys. He just had to find out
what was in that cave!

A whisper of air made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Uh oh.....

He turned just in time to see the outside
door slide shut. Frantically he looked around
the room, Grandpa wasn't going to be happy if
he caught him here. But his emergency visual
scan turned up empty with the exception of a
sleeping cat.

He relaxed.

*WHAP*

"Ow!! What's the big...?!!!"

Pause.
Look over right shoulder.
Panic.

"Erk.....Grandpa...what a surprise to see you here!"

"Looking for this?" Katsuhito pulled out a
set of keys hanging from a old and worn
keyring from his robe.

The teenager's eyes gleamed eagerly.
~~~~~~~~~

The birds chirped happily
in the shade of the majestic trees.

As far as Mother Nature was concerned all
was right in the world.

Ranma might have argued about that if it
didn't hurt his jaw so much when he opened it.
The old man sure didn't pull any of his punches
and packed quite a wallop for someone his age,
but then his grandson wouldn't have had it any
other way. He'd put up a good fight, in fact
the battle between the two of them had lasted
for nearly five minutes this time, a new record.
In the end though Gramps had pulled out one of
his sneaky special techniques and the next thing
the younger Masaki knew he had a date with the
other side of the wall.

But he'd gotten the key.

Ranma smirked, then winced in pain.

{Damn, I forgot about my jaw again.}

He rubbed it ruefully, hopefully the
swelling would go down in a few hours.

~~~~~~~~~~
-Obligatory Flashback
[Scene edges soften]

"Ranma! How many times have I
told you not to play in here?"

"Gramps what's in there?"

Chibi-Ranma asked, ignoring the
scolding with an ease that spoke
of long experience.

"A demon sleep in there Ranma."

"A demon? Really?"

Katsuhito nodded, then prepared
to launch into his suitably heroic
story in order to impress the child
and convince him to never come
back here.

At least, that was his plan.

"Wow!!
Can I play with it?
Wanna be friends Demon?
Where are youuuuu?"

Chibi-Ranma darted around excitedly,
looking around for the demon in the cave.

"Come out, come out where ever you are!"

Katsuhito sweatdropped.

{I'm getting too old for this.}

~~~~
-We now return you to the present which is already in progress

Inside the darkened interior of the cave an ancient
gate was ajar, the lock that had sealed it for centuries
gathered dust on the rocks where it had fallen.

Ranma was busy trying to free what appeared
to be a sword from a small shrine he'd found
at the back of the cave.

He gave a mighty tug and a moment later suddenly
felt the blade sliding free from its stony confinement.

"This is the great weapon that imprisoned the demon?"

He held the sword up to get a better look.
The rusted iron blade snapped off and bonked him
on the head, decades of corrosion finally taking
their toll on the weakened metal.

"OW!" The hand not holding the sword rubbed the
large lump that sprouted from the impact.

"What a piece of junk!"

Except for the three red jewels mounted
in the sword's hilt it was nothing to look at.
He was a little curious about the design though,
Ranma didn't recognize the style or the material that
the hilt was made of.

"Kuso." All that effort for nothing, just a little rusty
trinket and a whole lot of pain. He'd skipped out
on his chores for THIS??

Angrily he banged the pommel against the nearest
object, a large rock with a ton of faded paper wards on it.

The stone broke in half.
The Shinto wards vaporized.

His eyes bugged out to twice their normal size.

{Oh man, I'm in trouble.}

Panicking the young man backed up to the cavern wall,
which suddenly wasn't there anymore...

"Aaaaaaaiiiiiiiiggghhhh...*THUNK*...ow..."

Forunately he landed on his head so
nothing important was damaged.

~~~~~~

A few minutes later Ranma ran screaming out
of the secret entrance. Nothing living scared him,
the dead were a different story altogether.
Especially when the corpse was still kicking!!

His Grandfather had taught him that a
little fear is healthy, it kept you alert
and alive.

But right now he was beyond simple fear.

The only other time he had been this shaken
had been when he was fourteen and his dear
old dad had decided to make a man out of
his son and dragged him to a brothel.

It took three years of therapy to get him
over that tramatic event. And he still got
cold shivers every time he passed by a perfume
shop.

"There's gotta be a way to close it!"

Ranma started tying the two pieces of the rock
back together with some of the vines hanging
from the walls.

~~~~~~~

".........."

"........"

"......"

"Well...it's never been
done quite like that before."

The Guardian tried to think of a diplomatic
comment to make. A large sweatdrop formed
as he struggled to be honest yet polite at the same time.

"Everyone seeing trouble coming..."

"AYE!!" The entire crowd boomed.

"Anyone think that it'll actually work out in Ranma's favor for once?"

A cricket's chirping filled the uncomfortable silence.

~~~~~~

Ranma snorted and woke up. He yawned,
then stretched out from his nap. The roof was
a great place to catch up on his sleep. After all
the nightmares that had haunted him last night,
he'd needed it. Then he noticed something...

"ARGGGHHH!!! It's night already?! I missed
all my classes!!!"

He paused as he realized what he had just said.

"Wait a sec...I missed all my classes! Why
am I COMPLAINING about it?!!"

A bell chimed softly.

"Meow."

"Huh?" Ranma pivoted around to see a small cat
padding its way toward him.

Smiling, he reached down to pick it up only to
see it vanish as it leaped toward him.

"What the...?" This was getting to be too weird.

"Ryoko."

He looked up to see an attractive cyan
haired girl standing above him.

"Ryoko?"

"That's my name."

The girl smiled, her eyes seeming to glow in
the starlit night. There was an almost feral
quality to her features that seemed to
enhance her already stunning beauty.

Wait a second. Her eyes...

"YOU'RE THE MONSTER THAT WAS IN THE POOL!!!"

Her golden cat like eyes narrowed, instinctively
the Masaki lad took a step back from that glare
that promised lots and lots of pain.

"It was cold in that cave..."

Oops. Maybe he shouldn't have called her a monster.

"....and dark. I was trapped in there for seven hundred years.
Seven HUNDRED years! Do you have any idea what's that like?!"

"Uh...uh...uh..."

"That's why I have to kill you.
Too bad though, you're kinda cute."

That snapped his wits back together.

"Kill me?! But I haven't done anything!!"

Ryoko shrugged.

"So what? I've got a lot of pent up
stress and frustration that I need to
let loose...RIGHT NOW!!!"

Ranma had already dived to the side,
alerted by the motes of glowing energy
that had spontaneously appeared around
Ryoko and gathered to form into a ball in
her palm. The blast blew a giant crater
in the school roof and caused a lot of
smoke and dust from the explosion.

He started running. Laughing wildly
Ryoko flew after him, firing brilliant
beams of destruction nonstop.

Amazingly he managed to dodge them all
as if he knew where the blasts would
be aimed at despite not being able
to actually see Ryoko for more then
a few seconds at a time.

"HEY!! Quit it!! You're going
to really hurt someone with that!!!"

Ranma yelled back as he jumped
to avoid yet another one of the
demoness's attacks.

"I know. That's the point! Now be
a good little boy and take your
punishment like a man!!"

"Forget it lady!!"

"What's a matter.....feeling a little chicken?"

That did it.

Nobody, absolutely nobody called Ranma Masaki
a chicken. As a cloud of smoke temporarily
obscured him from Ryoko's sight the martial artist
made his move.

Ryoko blinked in surprise as the dust settled to reveal nobody
in front of her. Then she came down to get a closer look.

{Where'd he go?}

"How'd he do that?"

*GLOMP*

Arms encircled Ryoko's chest, pinning her hands to her sides
as a pair of legs wrapped around her waist from behind.

"Gotcha." Ranma whispered softly into Ryoko's ear.

~~~~~~

Hovering in midair a spiky-haired space pirate feared
throughout the quadrant for several centuries found
herself trapped by a mere seventeen year old earthling.
To say that she was shocked by this turn of events would
be an understatement of criminal proportions.

Ranma was equally surprised but for a different reason.
Apparently he'd misjudged Ryoko's position when
he'd landed on her. As a result of this he found himself
clutching two round objects instead linking his
arms around the demon's waist. Puzzled by this unexpected
development, his brain locked up trying to figure out what
was wrong with this situation.

Left without any guidance his hands started
roaming freely to try and get more data. Tactile
senses determined that the objects in question were
warm, firm to the touch, and much more then a mere
handful. This felt awfully familar, but he couldn't quite
put his finger on it...

*Squeeze*
*Squeeze*

Ryoko's eyes widened.
What the hell was he doing?!

{I'm going to kil...ki...kill...oh...ah......Ooh!!}

His fingers discovered a smaller area that felt
different from the rest, a hard point that tightened
as his fingers gently explored this newest anomaly.

"Eek!"

This was all happening too fast! She was the one that
was supposed to do the seducing around here! Ryoko
dove toward the ground in a panicked attempt to get
this unexpected passenger off of her. While this did
snap Ranma's mind out of its locked up state it also
caused him to tense up in a reflexive response to
being smashed against the school roof, his grip
tightened involuntarily.

"EEEK!!!"

The resulting flood of sensation to a very
sensitive area caused Ryoko to swerve wildly
and narrowly miss colliding into
the third story wall. She bucked wildly
and began to zig and zag in midair,
which only caused him to hold on more
firmly.

In the meantime Ranma's Central Nervous
System was trying to relay a message to
his increasingly distracted Brain.

(Hand to Brain! Hand to Brain! We have a problem!)

(What is it? I'm kinda busy trying to keep us alive at the moment!)

(Just thought you'd like to know that
we've found out what we're holding onto.)

(So what is it? And make it fast!)

(Ryoko's bosom.)

(Oh that's nice, now go do something
useful...*twing*...!...what did you say?)

(Ryoko's bosom. We're currently clamped onto
a very nice pair of...)

(WHAT?!)

At this point Ranma finally realized what
his hands had been clutching so tightly.

"Ack!"

The hands were retracted as if
they'd just touched red hot coals.
In this particular case they were
practically the same thing.

Of course that was when he realized that
he'd just let go of the only thing keeping him
airborne.

"AAAHHHHH!!!"

~~~~~~~~

Amazingly the part time martial artist
managed to somehow land on his feet, it helped
that he'd chosen to let go during one of Ryoko's
lower passes over the roof.

Which only left the space pirate to deal with.

The very embarrassed female space pirate who had
just been mistakenly molested by a pair of rogue
appendages.

"How dare you!"

"Wa..wait a sec!!! I didn't want to
grab you or anything, honest!!! It was a
mistake, why'd I want to feel up an old
demon trying to kill me??!!"

Oh boy. That did it. Ryoko saw red as the
insult struck home. A feline look of pure
rage appeared that made all the old legends
about her wrath seem like little kid stories.

"Why you!! Now you die!!!"

A bright orange Beam Saber materialized in her right hand as
she dove downward like a striking bird of prey. The hellish glow
from the blade seemed to promise much pain for its victim.
It seemed that she was really serious this time.

"Oh shit!"

Ranma started running.

~~~~~~~
-A short while later

*PANT*
*PANT*

Okay time to take stock of the situation.
One roof blown to bits.

Check.

One classroom destroyed by a gas explosion.

Check.

One classroom blasted by a weird energy beam.

Check.

One very pissed off demon about to cut his
head off for insulting her.

Check.

Call it dumb, call it sexist, or just call it a deeply
ingrained sense of survival but he hadn't been able to work
up the nerve to actually hit Ryoko. It probably would
have only gotten her more mad at him then she already
was anyway. If he was going to die he'd like to at least
do so as a *whole* man.

"Um...I suppose it's too late to say I'm sorry?"

"You got that right!"

The plan had been to just scare the Masaki kid for
abandoning her in the dark cave. But after he'd felt
her up and then said those mean things to her to boot
Ryoko was out for blood, Ranma's blood to be precise.

The deadly lance of solid light cut down.

*SNAP**HISS**CRISZZZZZTTT*

A blade of blue energy materialized from within
the torn remnents of Ranma's schoolbag as the Master
Key activated to defend the blood of the Royal House
of Jurai. It parried the blow intended for Ranma and
then thrust its hilt into the stunned school boy's hands.

"Hey! That's not fair!!" Ryoko protested as she swung again
with the same lack of results. Her energy beams had no effect
either against the other sword's defensive forcefield.

"Lady, I'm not the one doing this! This thing's got a mind of its own!!"

Pulled forward by an irresistible force the reluctant
teenager was forced into a duel with the ravishing
buccaneer from the stars. Gradually he drove her
onto the defensive, the sword supplying the experience
that he lacked to thwart Ryoko's every strike and thrust.

One such move left the young Masaki
eye to eye with a bountiful display
of cleavage.

"Arrggh!!!"

Therapy had gotten him up to being able to
carry on a coherent conversation with a girl
from a safe distance away. *This* was an entirely
different story altogether!

Ryoko's anger was briefly replaced by curiosity as
Ranma's expression bordered on sheer terror before he
somehow managed to move a good ten feet away from her
before she could blink.

{What in the world?}

Then the implications of that look hit her, the cyan haired
beauty looked down to see what had scared her opponent so.

{Why that little...how dare he!!!}

She'd never felt so insulted in her life. The blow to her
pride was considerable, especially since Ryoko knew
she was very attractive. Tears started to form in her eyes
at this complete rejection of her by the one person she'd
waited for seventeen long years to be with.

"So...so you find me that hideous do you..."

Unnerved by the threatening shimmer he saw building in those
heartbroken golden pupils Ranma blurted out the first words
that came to mind. Of course that meant his brain didn't get a
chance to proof read his speech.

"NO!! NONONONO!! That's not it at all!! You're too
attractive!!! It's my fault, I'm not used to being so close to such
a cute girl!!! It was an accident I didn't mean to call you a devil!
It's just that this has never happened to me before!"

{Did I just say what I think I said?!}

Oh well. Can't win them all.

[Does he really mean that!?]

Suspicious yet hopeful at the same time,
Ryoko decided to test the truth of his words.

Using her free hand she inched the shoulder of her outfit
down....WAY down. A wind and a prayer kept the fabric
from falling past the bounds of decency (relatively speaking).

Ranma's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, his attention
glued to the teasing sway of the oh so thin cloth. A sudden
weakness in his knees nearly caused him to collapse but he
didn't notice. Ranma's primal instincts were torn between
fight, flight, and something else entirely...

{Well, well, well. What have we here?}

Ryoko's mood improved immediately as she
watched the effect her little display had on her choosen
prey. Now she knew exactly what kind of punishment
to give him. Her wicked grin was not for the faint of
heart, nor did the lusty gleam in her eye spell anything
except trouble.

Ryoko took a confident step forward.

Ranma took a small trembling step back.

She advanced, he retreated. The mingled look of
panic mixed with a raging case of repressed male
hormones was getting her juices flowing, nothing like
stalking your prey before bringing it down to prepare
for the main course.

Deciding to end this little game, enjoyable though it was,
the space pirate teleported the remaining distance between
them.

She forgot about the sword he was still holding.
The automatic defense program was running
and Ryoko was still designated as hostile.
It targeted her power source and prepared
to neutralize the threat.

Both of them realized what was happening at the same moment
as the glowing blade came up from its guard position.

{Oh no!}

Ryoko froze in shock as she watched the
sword swing toward her wrist in slow motion.

Ranma saw the fearful expression on the girl's face
as the Master Key aimed for her hand and something
within him snapped.

"NO!"

Digging his heels into the dirt he pulled back with
all of his strength, trying to divert the sword from its
course. Ranma gritted his teeth as he strained to
stop himself from cutting off the demon's hand, she'd
tried to kill him moments ago but he just couldn't allow
her to be hurt for some reason. A salty iron taste filled
his mouth as his teeth cut into his lower lip. The
pain drove him on, with a visible heave of effort Ranma
managed to just nick her, taking her gem off in the process.
It was a masterful feat of incredible swordsmanship that
was made even more impressive by the fact that it had
just been a stroke of incredible luck.

The small red gem burst into flame and disintegrated
before it ever hit the ground. In the background another
school building exploded as human and alien looked at each
other, unsure as to what to do now. Normally the fight scene
was resolved one way or the other but since this wasn't a
canon story there were no precedents to follow.

"Um...."

Ranma scratched his head and started laughing nervously.

Ryoko looked puzzled for a moment before she too started
to laugh. Partly in relief and partly because this *was*
kind of funny in hindsight.

"Oh well, another battle lost. That's the story of my life it seems."

She decided to stick to her rehearsed script.
Since Ranma had just saved her from what would
have probably have been a very painful experience
she couldn't just start attacking him again. For starters
she'd probably lose to that damn sword, besides the pirate
had other plans for her hero.....

"I'm sorry."

Granted he hadn't actually beat her but it seemed like
the right thing to say at that moment. For some strange
reason this situation of defeating a girl in combat sent a
shiver running down Ranma's spine.

"Oh, don't worry Ranma. We'll meet again."

The cyan haired girl bowed then vanished
into the ground with a smile.

"...uh..."

Why did he have a very bad feeling about this?

It might have been partially due the fact that the gas main
for the entire school chose that particular moment to blow up.

~~~~~~

"Oh man, what a day."

Demons, Giant Explosions, and Magic Swords. This day was
starting to resemble that Anime series he watched.
Lost Neon Saber Successer Tenchi 1/2, now that was
a guy who had a messed up life. Tenchi Saotome was
such a weenie even though he was a great martial artist.
He had multiple fiancees, mortal enemies popping out
of the woodwork, and he couldn't make up his mind and see
that the one person he could be happiest with was right there
in front of him!

{If I was in his shoes I'd never mess up that badly!
All Tenchi's got to do is marry Kasumi Ruriko! It's so
obvious!!! How can he not see it?!}

Trudging up to his room Ranma had almost convinced
himself that today had just been a bad nightmare resulting
from letting Noboyuki order their dinner. His father had the
weirdest taste in easy to prepare food. Who ever heard of a
meal with no rice or noodles in it?! What the hell was an MRE anyway?

The exhausted young man threw himself on his bed, too
tired to even bother with a shower.

Strange, his bed wasn't usually this lumpy.

{Wait a second. This mound feels awfully familar....}

*Grope*

{Oh no. It CAN'T be...}

Flinging off the cover confirmed his worst fears.

Lazily Ryoko opened one eye from where she lay.

"Welcome home...Ranma."

Ranma raised his gaze to the ceiling as the sight of the
disordered state of the girl's clothes was quite distracting.

"Oh boy..."

Maybe exploring the cave hadn't
been such a good idea after all.

(To be continued...)