Greetings! Ihavecometotakeovertheworldmuahaharesistanceisfutile.
...Oops. Wrong script, sorry. -blinks innocently-
This is my first foray into the Ranma fanfiction universe, since I've only quite recently got acquainted with the (Japanese, English-subbed) anime series and fell in love with it.. Heh. I haven't watched the entire series, though, just the middle-ish part, but I have decided that heck, if I'm wrong or mistaken about anything, I'll count on someone to correct me. - That means you! Yes, you. Actually, no, it's you. -points randomly-
I've been thinking about acquiring the manga, but I haven't started looking for it yet, so never mind about that yet. Therefore, the fic will be based mostly on the anime series..
Anyways, let us begin without any more further ado!
Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½ or it's associated characters and storyline. I'm just borrowing it for a while. It would be nice if you refrained from suing me. I'm innocent! Really! However, I take no responsibility to whatever may happen to the characters in my ficcie... -cackles and runs off-
Syntax:
"..." Talking, duh.
'...' Thinking
Note: When in girl form, Ranma will be referred to as a female, yadda yadda...
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Uninvited Guests: Chapter 1
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The door slid open smoothly, then closed with a decisive snick. Ukyo called a quick "welcome" in response to the familiar noise without looking up, her hands and spatulas flashing as she went through the habitual motions of preparing okonomiyaki. Serving it up to her most recent customer with a flourish, she turned to the newcomer. "May I help-"
"Yes. Spatula-girl help Shampoo." The face of the Chinese Amazon glowered back at her.
"What for?" Ukyo asked suspiciously, brought up short in the middle of assuming an instinctive battle pose, which attracted several nervous glances and startled a few of the newer patrons. It was highly unlikely that the proud Amazon would turn to her for help, not when the old ghoul was with her.
"Great-Grandma think Shampoo take too long to win airen," the blue-haired girl stated. Her eyes narrowed, and then her features suddenly softened and took on an uncharacteristically weary cast. "Shampoo tired too. Shampoo want to know for sure if airen has any interest."
"Hmm, I think I know what you mean," Ukyo replied, letting loose a small sigh and relaxing her guard minutely. "Not like we can do much about it, though." Come to think of it, she'd been chasing (harassing, rather, she thought wryly) Ran-chan for a long time; she couldn't even remember a time when she hadn't been doing so, only that it was too long a time ago... And Ran-chan hadn't even given in a notch. Her spatulas tapped the countertop rhythmically as she pondered. It wasn't like the Amazon to come all the way here to have some, rivalries aside, girl-to-girl talk, though...
"Great-Grandma found ancient potion recipe. Truth potion. Mind potion." Shampoo struggled to express herself. Damn her bad Japanese! "Connects minds." She looked hopefully at Ukyo's face for a smidgen of understanding, only to be disappointed. She tried again. "Connect minds, nothing hidden. Only true thoughts. True feelings."
"I see," Ukyo mused. So this was the reason. Shampoo's ancestor sure was resourceful. "So what?" She added moments later, brow creased into a slight frown. Eavesdropping on other people's thoughts was a strange, yet potentially interesting notion.
"We take, airen take, we find out who airen loves," Shampoo nodded emphatically. It was ironic how she could call Ranma airen and still not be his. She sighed inwardly. It had become mostly habit now. Her expression turned thoughtful. "Make sure take the right amount though. Too much, link becomes two-way. Great-Grandma warns."
"Not like we don't know who Ran-chan fancies," Ukyo retorted. "Isn't that the point of us, and Kodachi, stalking Ran-chan and being a general health hazard? So that we can somehow force him away from Akane?"
"Shampoo tired of playing game," the other girl snapped back, and she was. "Point of this is to prove airen's real love. If not," Shampoo paused at this, and a slightly pained look appeared on her face, "Great-Grandma says, Shampoo no choice but perform Kiss of Life, accept Mousse's proposal and go back to China."
"Anyway," she resumed, shifting position and leaning on the counter. "Shampoo need spatula-girl's help to give potion. Airen no trust Shampoo's food or presents." She mock-pouted.
"I wonder why?" Ukyo deadpanned. Shampoo had the grace to blush. "So you're telling me that I'm to mix this potion thing into my okonomiyaki and give it to him?"
"Of course."
"I have personal and business ethics concerning this, you know," Ukyo responded sharply, slightly startled at her own vehemence. "I don't want Ran-chan, and Akane by default, to mistrust me. Plus it goes against the grain of being a professional chef."
"Potion say, is hard to tell unless link is two way. We aim for one-way," Shampoo said reassuringly. "Shampoo take blame otherwise." was added as an afterthought.
"Comforting." Ukyo replied dryly, responding to an order by spreading batter onto the hot grill and adding the ingredients deftly. She ignored the girl and contemplated the situation and Shampoo's proposition while she served the customer, then turned back to her. "But sure, I'm game."
"Good," Shampoo enthused, signs of life returning to her stiff, waiting pose. "Bring potion tomorrow, Great-Grandma mixing today." Standing up turning to go, she halted, and then spun back to face Ukyo. "Shake?" she offered tentatively, extending one hand as if it was headed towards a possibly fatally venomous snake.
She was surprised by Ukyo's quick response and firm handshake. "Truce," the chef's eyes twinkled with amusement. "I'll bind you to your word, then." Shampoo nodded mutely. "One less health hazard to look out for." The Chinese girl smiled back with sudden agreement. It was an interesting feeling, this making of friends with once-enemies...
They were abruptly aware of the incredulous stares the regular patrons were giving them. "What?" Ukyo spoke into the sudden silence, a steely glint in her eye. "Food not good enough for you?"
Conversation resumed rather hastily.
"Are you gonna buy anything?" she grumped irritably at Shampoo as they released each other's hand. "Or did you just come in to sit and jabber?"
Shampoo paused and investigated the contents of her purse. "One shrimp and one special, take-away," she decided, triggering an instant reaction in Ukyo. "Great-Grandma like shrimp."
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Some distance away, one Saotome Ranma sneezed. Several times.
"Are you coming down with something?" Akane inquired, pausing in the middle of her kata and tilting her head sideways to look at Ranma.
'The tomboy's cute when she does that,' he mused almost absentmindedly. "Nah, nothing to worry about," he replied airily, a finger rubbing at his nose. "A strong, healthy martial artist like me rarely comes down with anything."
"Well, sorry I asked!" his fiancée snapped back irritably, completing the kata swiftly and proceeding with a set of stretches in a taut manner.
Ranma, in a rare, perceptive mood, noticed the stiffness in Akane and crouched down next to her. "Hey, loosen up, stretches aren't supposed to be like that. You'll hurt yourself if you keep that up." Unthinkingly, he ran one hand down her back, correcting her posture. Akane reacted instantly to the contact, her annoyance flaring into anger, and quite without reason, Ranma thought a fleeting instant later.
"Pervert!" she growled, releasing her mallet to the mallet plane and surveying her handiwork: one fiancé, flattened in one newly formed hole in the floor of one dojo. The door slammed shut behind her as she stormed out.
Ranma groaned and examined himself for injuries, plucking out the splinters expertly. Wooden floors were not fun things to be embedded into. "She's way too sensitive, that tomboy," he muttered to the empty air of the dojo, wincing as he found a sore spot. "Man, that hurts."
"Itaii..." he complained to the door as he gingerly lowered himself into the steaming hot water in the bathtub. Ranma had found out quite early on that there was nothing like a hot bath to soothe the bruises caused by Akane's quick temper. Settling into a comfortable position, he closed his eyes and sighed in relief. The aches were fading already.
"Akane's good for endurance training, really," the pig-tailed martial artist told his submerged toes, his words partially bubbling out as he sank deeper into the water. 'I should really stop talking to inanimate objects,' he reflected as he soaked. 'Or myself, for that matter. Heh.'
He was just beginning to relax when a soft thump and a short series of scrabbling sounds coming from the window above captured his attention. Ranma twitched as his mind jumped to the most obvious conclusion – cat. A clicking noise, however, snapped him out of his state of semi-panic. Cats didn't click. Something else, on the other hand..
Ranma reached up on an impulse, unlatching and yanking the window open in one deft motion. A squealing black bundle tumbled from its precarious perch and into the tub.
There was a noticeable lack of space in the bathtub, all of a sudden.
"Uh, hey, Ryoga." Ranma smirked slightly. "Hoping to see Akane, eh?"
"I–" cough! "-wouldn't do such-"splutter!"-a thing!" The young-man-who-was-a-black-piglet-some-moments-before retorted indignantly as he surfaced, coughing up water violently, though his faint flush said clearly that the thought had indeed crossed his mind.
"Sleeping with her is alright, though?"
"......"
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "But yeah, okay, whatever. Mind getting off my lap?"
Ryoga seemed to have teleported out of the tub, he moved so fast.
"Unless you have something on you other than that yellow headband, I suggest that you go out as P-chan." Ranma noted with a sigh. "And preferably out the window, since Akane probably think I brought you in here to torture you or something. And no way are you going out as Ryoga." he added. "For obvious reasons."
"Yeah, okay, whatever." Ryoga mocked. "My stuff are somewhere in the vicinity.. That old washerwoman character struck again. Watering your neighbour's roses or something, couldn't tell 'cuz she got me as soon as I passed." He grumbled as he looked around for cold water.
"Knowing you, looking for your stuff will get you lost all over again, huh. Grab a cup and fill it up at the tap."
"I'm not that thick, ya know," Ryoga turned around to look for the sink and neatly slammed his hip into it. His yelp of pain echoed around the bathroom.
"Keep it down!" Ranma hissed. Kasumi's faint call of inquiry floated down the corridor. "I'm all right!" he yelled back. "Which is true." He regarded P-chan doubtfully as the piglet rolled about the floor, bwee-ing in what seemed to be excruciating agony. The cup spun slowly on its side nearby, almost appearing to mock the poor piglet's plight.
A rapid rhythm of footsteps skidded to a halt outside in the hall, and suddenly the barrier of the door was not there any more. Ranma clapped his hands to his ears as a ringing slam reverberated through the relatively small room.
"P-chan!" Akane hurried in and cradled her pet to herself soothingly, oblivious to her fiancé, who sank into the water until only everything above his mouth was visible. He had to breathe, after all. "Are you alright, P-chan?" She turned and glared at the only other person in the room, and thus the only possible culprit. "What were you doing to P-chan?"
He gulped audibly under her angry stare, not quite a wise move; he swallowed a mouthful of bathwater. Akane continued glowering as he coughed and spluttered up the somewhat odd-tasting water. "I wasn't doing anything!" he was finally able to protest. "I was taking a bath when Mister P decided to pay me a visit!" Ranma pointed accusingly at the open window.
"Right," she snorted. "The window just happened to be open, huh?"
"I swear I didn't do anything!" Then, in an undertone, "Get me out of this, Mister P, and I'll get your stuff back."
"What did you say?" Akane shot him a suspicious look.
"Nothing! Ask your precious P-chan if I did anything to him!"
She looked to the black, slightly wet bundle of fur in her arms, which was shaking its head vigorously. "Fine," she huffed.
"By the way.. Do you actually respect my privacy?" Ranma tilted his head towards the door and grinned.
"Nope." Akane half-grinned, half-smirked back.
"Does that mean I have to respect yours, then?" Ranma teased. P-chan squealed with outrage.
"Pervert!" she growled without much feeling and stalked off, slamming the door closed behind her.
"Is that a yes or a no?" Ranma wondered aloud to the silent, long-suffering door.
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Whee. Hope you enjoyed it, that's all for now! Please review.. Reviews are my motivation to write. Constructive criticism is welcome, and will definitely be heeded. I promise substantial quantities of potentially embarrassing and hopefully funny scenes in the future. I wish I didn't suck at titles so much. -laughs- Till next time we meet, ja ne!
