Disclaimer: No real dragons were hurt in the making of this work of
fiction. Ranma 1/2 is owned by Viz and Rumiko Takahashi.
Chapter 1: Scales of Justice.
The day was a normal one. There were no aliens coming down to attack the earth and enslave its population. That was yesterday.
Today Ranma had only been poisoned once by his 'loving' fiancée Akane at breakfast. It was supposed to be pancakes; however he didn't think that pancakes were supposed to move under their own power. Right now it was swimming around in the koi pond. Strangely enough it left the koi and him alone. (He found this out when Akane punted him into the pond for refusing to eat an intelligent life form) Anybody else it snapped at. It was funny when Akane tried to fish it out of the pond and force feed it to him.
On the way to school Shampoo managed to tag him with her bicycle of doooooom. Akane immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was having sex right in the middle of the fence with Shampoo's bike. Of course since Shampoo was still on the bike and since Ranma was having sex with the bike he was by extension having sex with Shampoo as well.
This earned him a one way high-speed express trip right towards school. Waiting for him at school was the coalition of Kuno, Mousse, and amazingly enough they had managed to get Ryoga to stay in one place for long enough that he didn't get lost. They were all accusing him of the same thing, holding onto their loves like some evil sorcerer.
Kuno was the first to fall as he didn't want to be bothered during his fight with Mousse and Ryoga. Mousse, predictable as usual, opened with his trademarked hail of chains with sharp pointy objects on them. He quickly dodged them and let Ryoga take the brunt of them. Ryoga who wasn't as fast got tangled for a few seconds. That was all the time that he needed to engage Mousse and pummel him into unconsciousness.
By the time Ryoga had untangled himself from the chains he was hopping mad. As usual for the pig he started out by hurling dozens of spinning bandannas at him. He had to admit that the strategy of keeping an opponent at a distance was a good strategy unless the opponent also had a ranged attack that could disrupt your attack.
Of course he had just such an attack.
One Mokou Takabisha later and a few well placed punches and shiatsu strikes and Ryoga was down. He wasn't unconscious but all of his voluntary muscles were locked up.
When he had gotten to his homeroom he had just gotten to his seat when the O Violent one had come up and smashed him in the back of the head with a chair for picking on poor Ryoga. Ukyo, good old Ukyo, had come to his aid like a good friend. Of course Akane thought that she was rushing off to have sex with him in the middle of the classroom. How did he know this? Because she screamed it at him just before she punted him out of his seat and out the open window.
Of course by that time Ryoga had recovered and they went at it for round two.
When he got back he was sent into the hall for being late even though there were several people that vouched that he was in the class until Akane punted him out the window.
Of course he was the only one sent to the hall.
Back in the present he was suffering through one of Mrs. Hinako's "Engrish crasses". Gods he could teach the class better than her. If you're wondering why somebody who's barely managing a C in the class could possibly claim that he could teach it better than the teacher.
The prime tenant of the Anything Goes school is deception.
If the opponent thinks you are weaker or stupider than you really are, then they will make a mistake that you can capitalize on.
This is known as Anything Goes Education.
Ranma hated having to hide his true skill level and intelligence from everybody, however his old man had beaten it into him that he had to hide just how smart he was from people.
During one of his infrequent visits to school he decided to go against his father and show everybody just how smart he was. The teachers were thrilled with his performance but the kids called him a nerd and shunned him. When he beat them up he got into trouble. His young mind made the connection that maybe his father was right about this acting stupid as his father acted stupid all the time.
Over time he managed to figure out that the old man wasn't acting.
"Ranma will you read the sentence on the board." Hinako called out to him.
He'd almost been asleep damnit.
He looked up at the board and read the sentence in his head. 'The quick dog blows goats.' The temptation was there, he really, really wanted to read that sentence and then go up there and point out the mistake. He sighed as he slumped in his seat. That would be showing his intelligence again and they would call him weird and a nerd again. Either that or they'd declare the end of the world.
Uh-oh Hinako's getting out that damned coin of hers.
"I is sorry but I no speak engrish." He was laughing on the inside really he was.
Of course he was not laughing a few minutes later when he was a withered husk after Hinako drained him.
Little vamperic bitch.
The boys in the class silently gave him a pat on the back for his noble sacrifice. Ranma was glad for that at least.
He just wished that he could ogle her body as well. The fact that he was currently a dried up husk floating/lying on his desk made that difficult. He barely was able to turn his eyes to look at Akane. She of course was glaring at him just daring him to even peak at Hinako. Gods some times he just wanted to smack her so hard for being the hypocrite she is.
He recalled the time Kasumi had asked him to clean up Akane's room while she was in the dojo breaking bricks. When he was flipping her mattress he found several magazines and photographs. Looking at the magazines first he immediately noticed a trend. Most of them were dominatrix type where the female was in tight black leather with a whip and the poor schmuck was under her boot. He had a brief flash of Akane in the outfit and him under her boot except she had that damned mallet of hers. He had shuddered at the thought. There was one magazine though that was different than the rest. It was a big breasted lesbian mag. Flipping through it was a bit of a turn on, but there wasn't a guy to be seen in its pages. He briefly wondered about just why she would have such a thing, that was until he caught a glimpse of the photo's that were with the magazines.
This was not good.
All of the photos looked to be Photoshop retouches. In them Akane was wearing the dominatrix outfit and there was a girl in the kneeling submissive position. He instantly recognized the face but not the body. It looked as though Akane had somehow stuck his girl side's face on somebody else's body. He shuddered as he thought he recognized the girl in another picture as being Yuka, one of Akane's friends.
He quickly put everything back the way it was originally and finished his cleaning and left before Akane got back. He never heard anything further about it and assumed that Akane never noticed.
Contrary to popular belief he was not lazy he helped Kasumi clean up around the house. Of course since everything is about training, add to that the fact that if the old man ever caught him doing 'woman's work' he'd probably disown him on the spot. When he helped Kasumi clean he not only did the cleaning but he also got to practice those stealth techniques he learned from that ninja village that he and the old man went to. Laundry would suddenly appear on the line, beds would be changed with the occupant still in the room, and floors mopped right under the old man's nose while he and waterworks were playing go.
The only people who knew that he actually helped out around the house were Kasumi because he asked her what she wanted him to do and Nabiki because she caught him changing her bedding once. She laughed her butt off that he was doing 'Anything Goes Housework' and how he'd have all the lonely housewives all over him.
It took two weeks allowance and Kasumi threatening to make her do some of the work to get her to keep quiet about the whole thing.
It was nearing the end of class now and Hinako had reverted back to her child form. She had somehow stuffed ten lollipops into her mouth and couldn't speak with any clarity. Since it was the last class of the day, the rest of the class just ignored her talking with their neighbors about what they were going to do this weekend. Of course Ranma already knew what he was going to do this weekend and it made him a bit melancholy. The guys would come by and try to kill him to free their 'loves' and the ladies would try to get him into the sack. Well except for Akane she'd side with the guys except for Kuno.
It was kinda depressing really how his life hat gotten into a rut recently.
The bell rang and everybody piled out of the classroom except for Ranma. He decided to just skip out on that and jumped out the window. Scanning across the field he spotted Kuno, Mousse, Ryoga, Tarou, Happosai, his father, and waterworks all standing together. He guessed that they were waiting for him to punish him for some reason. He sighed as he wandered over to get this over with. Separately he could deal with them but together and with Tarou's cursed form he knew that he didn't stand a chance.
It was different so it would be interesting at least and maybe he could get them to turn on each other so that he wouldn't have to worry about them for the weekend.
"Hey guys what's up?" He asked as he got within Mokou Takabisha range.
"Saotome how dare you still hold my loves Akane and the Pig Tailed Girl hostage and yet claim innocence!" In ancient times when the wind failed some ships always had a Kuno on board for sonic propulsion.
"Ranma because of you I've seen Hell!" Actually Ryoga had seen hell. He took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up on the ninth level of the abyss.
"Ranma I'll free Shampoo from your evil clutches!" If he could figure out which blob was Shampoo first though.
"Boy you will marry Akane!"
"Son you must marry my daughter!"
Guess.
"I'll have you wearing these yet!" Happosai crowed.
"Old freak says that I gotta pound you to get my name changed so no hard feelings, Femboy." Support the cattle industry eat Canadian Beef.
Ranma just regarded the assembled idiots. He felt so tempted to just let go and trash each and every one of them. That was when it happened.
It was just a small bit of dust, composed of dirt, hair, linen, dust mites, etc, however it made the dreadful mistake of being inhaled at just the wrong time up Ranma's left nostril. True to form his body's automatic defense systems came online detecting the foreign particle irritating the lining of said nostril. The standard reaction for such an occurrence was to expel large quantities of air at a rapid pace through the mouth and nose expelling said particle.
"Ahh"
"Saotome you fiend!" Kuno started to charge.
"Ahh"
"I'll kill you for this!" Ryoga joined in.
"Ahh"
"For the sake of the schools!"
"AHH"
"Nothing Personal."
"I'll free Shampoo!"
"CHOO"
"Well that's something you don't see every day." Happosai commented as he pulled out his pipe.
The red silk shards that were once part of Ranma's shirt slowly drifted to the ground. All of the attackers had stopped in their tracks staring at this new development and wondering what the hell to do next.
Standing among the remains of his clothes Ranma immediately noticed that something was seriously fucked up with his body.
He was a dragon; that much was plainly clear as he slowly inhaled and exhaled; He was about 15 feet long from his snout to the tip of his tail and about 4 feet tall at his shoulders. His face had been elongated into that of a dragon. There were two horns on his chin two on either side of his jaw and several along his head crest. He could feel the frill that went down his long neck to his shoulders. He flexed the muscles around that area and found that he could move the spines up and down and that the webbing was actually a leathery substance. Moving on he felt his powerful wings the actual muscle groups that powered them were on his shoulders but the leathery substance that made up a good portion of them extended from his shoulders to the base of his tail.
His tail was quite obvious to anybody as it swayed back and forth. The same frill that was on his neck was also on his tail except it was shaped in such a way that it would make a great fin in the water. Moving downward to his legs both looked to be powerfully muscled, his front legs more than his back. Between his front legs and his body there existed webbing that felt a little softer than the stuff on his wings and tail.
His feet had three toes each and a claw on each toe. His hands had three claws that touched the ground and one vestigial claw where his thumb was supposed to be. Between his fingers and toes was the same kind of webbing that was between his front legs.
Finally everything that wasn't covered in the leather was covered in scales. They were about 3 cm long by 2 cm wide by 3 mm thick. They were a darker yellow colour although some of them were a light green. The green ones were arranged into vertical tiger stripes. The stripes started at the base of his head crest and went all the way to the base of his tail.
He was a bronze dragon although that little fact seemed insignificant at the moment as the mob was starting to gather. He seriously wondered where the hell they got those pitchforks and torches from. Or for that matter why the hell they would need torches in the middle of the day anyway. As the mob started advancing he saw his classmates including Akane but excluding Ukyo advancing. Taro had switched over to his cursed form and was now hovering in the air. His father was one of the ones that were hanging back like he knew something and was afraid it would come to bite him in the ass. If he survived this he'd have to remember to beat whatever it was out of the stupid panda.
Survival first though.
Ok he was a dragon. He was surrounded by a mob of students and people who generally wanted to kill him, he was unfamiliar with this body, and he was hungry. This was not good.
He decided to use the Saotome Final attack. He jumped into the air and did a wing over and then started flapping like hell. He headed straight up hoping to get out of everybody's ranged attacks as soon as he could. He felt one of Ryoga's bandanas rip across his back. It hurt but not as much as it SHOULD have. He couldn't spare a glance back to see how bad it was as he had to dodge a couple of ki blasts. Since when did waterworks know how to toss around ki like that? He always thought it was confined to that demon head technique he kept using on him.
He was out of range of the rest of the mooks when he felt a hoof crash into the side of his head.
Oh yes, Tarou.
Since being a dragon was new to him he was flying extremely awkward. If it wasn't for his aerial training in Anything Goes he would be having a much harder time of this. As it was he still couldn't figure out how to actually fight. So if fight was out then flight was his only option. Banking and weaving he flew as fast and as hard as he could, trying to shake his pursuer. Tarou for his part kept up pretty well.
About half an hour after the chase began he was about 30 km from the school. He had really hustled it and was now just getting over the ocean. Deciding to see if bull butt could swim he pulled in his wings and went into a shallow dive. Tarou followed attempting to catch him before he hit the water. At the last second Ranma pulled in his feet and dove into the ocean at a 45 degree angle. He immediately engaged his webbed feet and started swimming as fast as he could. Not visible from the outside he changed into a female. Although from just a glance you'd never tell the difference. Sparing a look back he noted that Tarou was just hovering above waiting for him to come back up.
Deciding to take a huge gamble he blew out all of his breath in one go to make it look like he'd drowned. Now the question was how long could he hold out with no air.
Five minutes later Tarou was still hovering overtop waiting for him to rightfully drown. Judging from the way his lungs were burning it wouldn't be long now before that became a reality. He reflexively opened his mouth and took a breath. Instead of coughing up water he found that he could breath. It was a lot harder than air to breathe but to swim like a fish he didn't mind too much.
Ranma decided to let Tarou stew out there for a while. He had much more important things to do like figure out what he could do now that he was a dragon and to see if he could change back into a human. First thing was first though. Food. He was bloody hungry.
After swimming around for a while he came upon a school of small fish. Like a shark he dove into the middle snapping up several fish in his jaws. They could use some wasabi but other than that they were just crunchy sushi. A few more passes and he was relatively full.
Deciding to explore a bit he decided to see how deep he could go. Turning himself into a nosedive he started swimming straight down. At about 300 feet the pressure was starting to get to him. Well that and around 350 feet everything went black and white with some grays. He had just decided to turn around and head back to the surface when something off to the side caught his eye. He started swimming towards it.
It was a cliff face where the island dropped off into the depths of the ocean. What had caught his attention though was the cave that was in the cliff face. Unlike everything else down here the entrance to the cave had a slight yellow glow to it.
The entrance was quite large so he didn't think that there would be any chance he would get stuck. The only problem would be if the cave went down farther as the water pressure at this depth was really starting to bug him. He didn't know how much farther he could go. Deciding to check it out for a bit he started inside. Almost immediately the cave started arcing up.
Ranma swam for another ten minutes and eventually broke the surface of the water. The underground cavern was extremely large and he was left wondering exactly how it managed to stay intact all this time let alone how the air was fresh as if he was in a field instead of hundreds of feet underground. Off to the side there was a huge mound of what looked like coins with a huge skeleton on top of them. He jumped back in fright and his foot hit a glyph that was on the floor that was mostly covered in centuries of dust.
Light like hundreds of torches flooded the cavern illuminating everything with a soft light. He saw shelves with various weapons like shields and swords. Other shelves held scrolls and vials. Still others had things on them that he had no idea about. Then there was the dead dragon lying on top of a huge mound of gold and jewels. Nabiki would have an orgasm just looking at such a stash he thought to himself as he cautiously approached.
Suddenly he was caught! He couldn't move his muscles. He looked up to see the skeleton moving. Its head rose from where it was laying on the pile. Ranma would have been shaking in his boots if he wasn't caught in some kind of trap... or if he ever wore boots.
"Speak," Came the booming voice of the dragon in seemingly all languages all at once. It was extremely strange to be able to understand only the Japanese from the cacophony. "Speak and be heard! Be ye Friend or Foe?"
The words came automatically to his lips as if they were born to be there.
"Friend." He said in draconic, quite surprised to hear his voice was the same as when he was human.
"Greetings friend. I am sorry that I can not greet you in person but I am dead. I have left this message to any who come to claim my horde. Gold and jewels there are plenty but knowledge is the greatest treasure here. Learn all there is and do not forget us. Tread wisely young dragon."
And with that the skeleton crumbled to dust.
A bit of knowledge slammed into Ranma's head. It was like a GPS indicating where the cave was. He was sure that he'd be able to find it at any time from anywhere in the world.
Fortress of solitude indeed.
Ranma sighed as he began the arduous task of cleaning up his new home.
Superman never had to house keep did he?
------------------------------------
It had been a week since Ranma disappeared and everybody was still on high alert. Mousse and Kuno were patrolling trying to find any trace of him in Nerima. Ryoga's search area was much larger. Happosai had informed Cologne about what had happened at the school. Shampoo was always on the lookout when she was on deliveries and Cologne always subtly pumped information from her customers. Tarou of course had come back and told everybody that Ranma had drowned. Nobody believed him.
Nabiki had used her contacts to try and find him as well, although her methods were much more refined than just going out for a walk. She also employed the nerds of the school to try and find out all they could about dragons. What she got was a 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster manual. When she showed her little sister the pictures of the dragons she had immediately pointed out the bronze dragon as the one he most looked like before stating that she would rather marry Kuno than that monster.
It's a good thing she had her tape recorder going or else she'd have missed that juicy bit of information.
It was Wednesday and Kasumi was busy hanging the laundry. It was a beautiful day out and she was thinking of going to visit Dr. Tofu to return one of his books that she borrowed. She was wondering how bad he was going to be today. She would giggle at her little game. It was very flattering to know that at 19 she still had enough beauty to reduce a normally calm and composed man to a gibbering mess.
If only the others knew that it was only a game to her and that Tofu was way too old for her to consider marrying the man.
She let out a small titter as she grabbed the next piece of laundry. It was one of Ranma's boxers. She seriously wondered if he was actually a monster like everybody said he was. From what she'd observed of him he seemed like a very nice boy. Couldn't keep his mouth shut for the life of him, but he was always helpful and courteous when it came to her. She started hanging the article of clothing on the line when a voice from behind her startled her.
"So what's so funny about my boxers Kasumi?" Ranma said from directly behind her.
Kasumi eeped and spun around dropping the boxers in the process. She was treated to the sight of Ranma standing behind her smiling like nothing was wrong. Once she got her heart rate under control again she took a moment to study him. Overall he looked the same as when she last spoke to him except for his clothes. She'd heard that his clothes were destroyed when he changed into that dragon. He was currently wearing a silver shirt and black pants. His feet were clad in the same silvery material. Around his right wrist was a black bracelet that looked like it was made of obsidian. She also noticed a small hip pack on his side that looked to be made of burlap or canvass.
"Oh my Ranma kun I didn't hear you come up." Like she ever heard him she thought ruefully. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" She asked with just a hint of a frown.
"Yeah well I'll go to school just as soon as I have a little talk with the old man." He was currently playing a game of shoji with Mr. Tendo on the other side of the house. "Do you know where he's at?"
"Of course he and father are on the other side of the house playing their game." She said. "Ranma... are you really a monster like everybody says you are?" She asked hesitant about the answer.
"Nah I'm no more a monster today than when I was born. Oh that reminds me I've got a present for you." He said as he reached into the hip pack and withdrew a flowing gown made of the same silvery material as his shirt. It had a long flowing skirt with a plunging back and neck line. It was tasteful and sexy at the same time and absolutely screamed 'expensive'.
"Since you've shown me nothing but kindness ever since I got here, you deserve this." He said as he handed it to her. "Although you may want to wash it before wearing it."
"But there are no washing instructions! I don't want to ruin it. It's such a pretty dress I..." Kasumi was fretting as she'd never felt this kind of material before.
Ranma gave a hearty chuckle before responding.
"Kasumi if you can destroy that I'd be amazed." He said as he leaned forward and gave her a peck on her cheek. "Don't worry about the dress. Just throw it in the washing machine with the rest of the clothes." She gave him an incredulous glare. "Ok fine hand wash it in cold water, little bit of soap and line dry it. I'm going to go talk to the old man." He said as he turned around and walked off.
Kasumi watched him walk around the house. She looked down at the beautiful dress in her arms. She couldn't understand it. If Ranma was such a monster why would he give her such a nice gift to thank her? She looked at the dress. It wasn't dirty per se just a little dusty. She gave the dress a flip to knock out some of the dust. She grinned evilly.
Dr. Tofu would have a heart attack if she showed up in this.
Ranma walked away from Kasumi. He was glad that she enjoyed her gift. A mithril dress was expensive but in his opinion she was more than worth it. He walked around the corner of the house and spotted his old man playing shoji with Mr. Tendo and lamenting about his worthless son. Nothing new there.
"Hey old man we've got to talk." He said as he calmly walked up to the duo.
-------------------------------------
Ms. Hinako was currently butchering the language called English when the door at the back of the class slid open and Ranma walked in. Several people turned to see just who it was. Everybody gasped as they saw Ranma in his nice and shiny shirt. Ms Hinako was in her child form and was looking for somebody to drain.
"Mr. Saotome do you know that you're late?" She said getting out her coin.
"Yes." He responded walking towards his desk.
"And do you also realize that you've missed a week of work?" She said as she took aim.
"Yes." He said as he sat down.
"Care to explain where you were?" She said getting charged.
"No." He said bracing himself.
"Happo Go En Satsu!" She shouted as chi began streaming from his body into hers.
Seconds later it was over. Hinako stood over a weaving Ranma in her full adult form. Ranma shook his head and sat up straight in his chair. He looked like he still had a few hit points left in him.
"I'm ok." He said as he started pulling out his books from his bag.
Seeing that he might be willing to learn today and a little afraid that she couldn't drain him dry she sauntered back to the front of the class. She made a mental note to check ever so often if Ranma was staring at her breasts like he was staring at her ass now.
"Alright class, settle down. I'm sure you can bombard Mr. Saotome with questions at lunch, however now is not the time for that." She said daring anybody to disagree with her.
"Alright Mr. Saotome since you've missed so much would you read this sentence." She pointed at the board at one of the more complex phrases.
Ranma shakily got to his feet. He wasn't in as good of shape as his front made him out to be.
"The congressional party that wins the most votes makes up their own rules about how things should work." He said.
In English.
Without an accent.
With no hesitation.
There was a massive shuffling as students attempted to clear a space around Ranma. Ranma actually getting an answer right in class was akin to one of the signs of the apocalypse.
"Mr. Saotome since when have you been able to speak English?" Ms. Hinako said as she crossed her arms under her breasts her left eyebrow twitching.
"I learned English when I was twelve." He smiled back.
"Then why up until now have you only been just passing my class?"
He thought for a couple of seconds before responding.
"Oh that. I was just screwing with your minds." He said with a happy smile.
The sound of the entire class facefaulting almost drowned out the bell.
Not wanting to stick around, Ranma quickly packed his books in his book bag then jumped out the open window. He quickly ran over to one of the trees that had escaped Kuno's wrath and jumped into the branches. Little did he know that he was spotted by several people and that his little tactic to have a quiet lunch was totally useless.
Ukyo was the first to reach him. He really didn't feel like talking to her right now but if he ran now she'd just chase him. If he managed to lose her she'd just bean him with that spatula of hers. He watched as she jumped into the tree and landed on a branch opposite of him.
"Hey Ranchan."
"Hey Ucchan what's up?"
"Oh nothing much except if you count the fact that my fiancé turned into a dragon!" She yelled the last bit.
Ranma wiggled his finger in his ear.
"Could you yell a little louder? I don't think they heard you on the other side of campus."
"Ranma talk now!" She emphasized her point by laying the bladed edge of her battle spatula against his neck.
"I'd rather only say this once." He said calmly as he removed the blade from his neck. "Tonight at the dojo right after school."
She nodded and then screamed as their world suddenly started tipping over. Ranma grabbed Ukyo and leapt out of the tree just before it hit the ground. As soon as he it the ground he put her down and stepped away from her so that she wouldn't get into the confrontation that he knew was coming. He looked around and saw that about fifty other students were crowding around the tree waiting for a show. He spotted Hiroshi and Daisuke standing next to Yuka and Sayuri. He waved to them. He also made note of Nabiki and Akane in the crowd. Akane was pretty easy to spot what with the towering inferno of ki that she was putting out. He was kind of impressed. If only she could harness that power when she wasn't mad enough to leave holes in her defense wide enough to drive a steamship through.
"Foul monster how dare you defile these hallowed grounds with your presence!" Kuno hollered as he readied his bokken for another strike.
"Kuno you really should calm down. Being vengeful all the time has to be bad for your blood pressure." He said as he reached into his hip pack.
Kuno shook with rage at the implied slight. Then of course his insanity kicked in and warped reality to fit his vision of the world.
"Verily it falls upon me to rid the world of your foul presence as was the job of the samurai of old. Have at thee!" He said as he lashed out intending to strike his foe dead with one blow.
Only his target had ducked the slash and tossed a small bag at his feet. He smiled a bit as he closed his eyes. Everybody was stunned a second later when the bag exploded into a brilliant light that blinded everybody that saw it including Kuno, Akane, Ukyo and most of the people in the front row. When their vision had cleared there was no trace of the pigtailed boy.
Kuno started making inquiries about where his mortal enemy had fled to. Most of the crowd that hadn't been blinded confirmed that he'd jumped over them and taken off for someplace off school grounds. Kuno immediately ran off to slay the foul beast and claim his maidens as rewards.
Nabiki being slightly more intelligent than a mollusk decided to talk to the only person that had spoken to Ranma. After confronting Ukyo she now knew what his plans were. She decided to rush home after school so that she could have everything set up in the dojo.
-------------------------------------
Ranma hated using that flashbag. While the dragon had stores of chemicals they were all labeled weird and he had no idea what their modern names were. He would hate to use up something only to find that he couldn't get that specific chemical anymore. He made a mental note to supply the chemistry club with samples of the chemicals so that they could identify them. He frowned as he thought of what they would charge him. Pictures of his dragon form in poses of their choosing and maybe a scale or two. He just wished they were normal perverts and asked for naked pictures of his girl side.
As he was rounding a corner he felt somebody watching him.
"Hello son in law. I was skeptical when Happosai came to talk to me. Imagine a dragon in this day and age. I still had my doubts until I saw Kasumi walking around in that dress you gave her." She smiled. "A mithril dress, and enchanted at that!" She cackled a bit. Do you happen to have another one of those as I'm sure your wife would be jealous that you're giving expensive gifts to other women."
"For the last time I'm not your son in law! So what if I'm a dragon who I give gifts to is my decision. Kasumi is the only one of the lot of you that's treated me with any respect or kindness." A thought ran through his head which made his blood run colder than it already was. "You didn't." He said as he narrowed his eyes and got into a fighting stance.
"Of course not." She scoffed. "Although if I were you I would tell her exactly what that dress is and how much it's worth." She smiled as she reached into her dress and pulled out a PDA. She turned it on and showed it to him. "Of course the good doctor was very appreciative of it."
The pictures she showed him were from a digital camera. The first picture was of Kasumi in her dress. Ranma had to admit that she did look damned sexy. The dress' glamour spell was apparently still functioning correctly after all of this time. The next picture was an animated gif showing Kasumi walking into the clinic and Tofu going absolutely nuts... before he fell over in a drooling heap.
"You know she is quite effective in that dress." Ranma said with a smile. "Do you know if the doc survived?"
"Yes the lovesick fool will live. You really should tell Kasumi to stop playing with him." Cologne chided as she put the PDA away.
"She's playing with him? I thought she liked him that's why she went over there so often." Ranma asked obviously confused.
"Goodness no. Didn't you notice her leaving him crumpled on the floor? If she really liked him she would have at least helped him into a better position. No she's just playing with him until a better prospect comes along." She leveled a glare at Ranma. "You are NOT to become a better prospect. Not as long as you're married to my great grand daughter."
This only seemed to enrage Ranma as he leapt to the top of the building.
"How many times do I have to tell you I'm not married to Shampoo!" And with that he bounded away.
"Oh son in law you just don't get it do you?" Cologne shook her head.
Ranma was obviously not Genma's son so all of the deals the fat panda made were not legitimate. Her great granddaughter was the ONLY one with a legitimate claim on his dragon ass. She sighed and headed off towards the Nekohanten to get her granddaughter. Things were going to get interesting.
This was the most fun she'd had in a century.
--------------------------------------
Ranma dropped by the clinic to check on Tofu. The good doctor had apparently closed for the day as he was unable to concentrate on his patients. Not wanting to be at the mercy of the doctor should he have a Kasumi relapse. He wandered around on the rooftops for a while before he got board and headed back to the dojo. Kasumi was there so he changed himself into a small lop eared rabbit stashing his clothes in the obsidian ring which he then changed into a collar. He then hopped closer hoping that she would mistake him for a cute bunny so that he could spy on her and possibly catch a glimpse of the real Kasumi beneath the nice smile... if there was one.
He hopped onto the veranda and twitched his nose in what he thought was a cute manner. He looked up to see Kasumi dusting. She kept on dusting for quite a while not noticing him. After about ten minutes of this he decided that being too quiet just wouldn't do and that he'd have to do something to get her attention. He noted Nabiki's Dreamcast on the floor next to the TV. The power button was on top so he guessed he could make it look like an accident.
Kasumi turned around as she heard Nabiki's game machine turn on. She walked over to where it was to turn it off and saw the most adorable lop eared rabbit sitting on top of the machine. As she got closer it turned to look at her and twitched its nose in an absolutely cute manner that would have made Azusa go into diabetic shock if she'd seen it.
Actually she would have grabbed him, named him Jean Marc and put him in a cage.
Kasumi of course was not that bad. She just picked him up and cradled him to her breasts all the while cooing about how cute he was. He made a note to lay off Ryoga when Akane was cuddling with him as it actually felt so good. Kasumi lifted him up to get a better look.
"Oh my you're somebody's pet Usagi-san." She fingered the collar. "But there's no address as to who your owner is." A brilliant smile lit up her face. "Well Akane has p-chan so I guess I can have you as a pet until we find your owner!" She said as she put him into the apron pocket. "Come on now we've got to go shopping for Ranma's welcoming home feast." She said as she grabbed her shopping basket from its place in the hall closet.
The resulting shopping trip was surreal to say the least. Ranma noticed that on no less than six occasions Kasumi would use her feminine ways to get a better deal or more products for the same amount of money. Since he used his girl form to snag free food he was relieved that Kasumi wasn't a perfect saint. He watched as she flirted with the old men while leaning over a lot. He would have admired her technique if he hadn't been stuck in her apron pocket.
When they got home they found Nabiki moving some stuff to the dojo. Ranma was curious about it but Nabiki was a bit of an enigma to him as he could never figure out what she was thinking.
"Oh my Nabiki did Ranma go to school today?" Kasumi asked as she slipped off her shoes and put on her house slippers.
Nabiki seemed startled as she didn't notice Kasumi.
"Ahh he was there but he was attacked by people so he took off. He's going to be here any minute I've got to get things set up in the dojo." She said as she walked off.
"Well Usagi-san it looks like supper is going to be quite late tonight. I should make snacks so that people don't get hungry." She said as she moved off to the kitchen to work her magic.
------------------------------------
By the time Kasumi had finished making her snacks everybody had gathered in the dojo. Present were her little sisters, Shampoo and her Great Grandmother, and Ukyo. They were all arranged in a sort of circle and for once they were talking reasonably. Well reasonable for this group. Nabiki was trying to swindle money out of the group for some information.
"Ok 5000 yen each. This is good stuff." Nabiki said trying to convince her customers to buy the information that she had.
Kasumi put the snacks in the middle of the circle and sat down next to Nabiki. She took the rabbit out of her apron pocket and started playing with it.
"Of course the fact that I already know most of what you are going to say. 3000 years of Amazon history and all." Cologne said.
"All right so what do you know?" Nabiki said as she crossed her arms under her breasts daring Cologne to spill what she knew.
"Well first of all son in law just happens to be a bronze dragon. There are two types of dragons chromatic and metallic. The metallic dragons are usually good in nature, bronze dragons are extremely reluctant to kill sentient creatures, and they prefer other methods of dealing with problems and will only kill if absolutely necessary. They are extremely noble creatures and as long as you don't betray them they can be quite loyal companions."
"But what about Herb?" Akane asked hoping to poke holes in the old woman's story.
'Herb is only 1/10 dragon and his ancestors mated with a white dragon. Not only are whites the stupidest of the dragon species they are also evil. Nice try though." Cologne chuckled.
"You forgot one thing though." Nabiki piped up. "Bronze dragons in Ranma's age category and older like to polymorph themselves into small furry creatures like Kasumi's bunny so that they can observe human behavior." Nabiki said smugly. It took a whole three seconds for her to register what she'd just said.
"Kasumi where did you get that rabbit?"
"Usagi-san? Oh I found him on top of your Dreamcast. I know he's somebody's pet because of the collar, but there's no address or anything. Seriously though who names a rabbit Ranma?" Kasumi said still oblivious to what was being said.
"Not very perceptive are you?" Cologne said. They weren't quite sure if she was talking about Nabiki or Kasumi.
"Alright Ranma enough playing P-chan." Cologne said as she reached out with her cane and plucked the rabbit from Kasumi's grasp.
The rabbit hopped out of the dojo. Everybody scrambled to get to the door. When they got to the door they saw the rabbit glow. The next thing that they were looking at was a young bronze dragon. The first person to speak was Kasumi.
"How cute! You can do tricks too Usagi-san!" She said as she rushed out and hugged Ranma around his neck. "I know I'll name you Skippy!"
Insert facefault here.
"Kasumi my name is Ranma." He said.
"Skippy." She said as she nuzzled his side.
"Ranma."
"Does Skippy want deluxe sushi?"
"Skippy."
"I'll go make you some."
"Oh yes and Kasumi could you go get that dress that I gave you."
"Ok Ra.. Skippy."
"She's screwing with me isn't she?" Ranma said as he hung his head.
"Of course she is Skippy." Nabiki teased as she walked up to him.
She ran her hand over the scales. They weren't slimy like she'd expected from a reptile rather they were smooth and leathery. She had to smell him though as he had a faint sea spray smell about him.
"Just like the book said." She murmured.
"What book?" Ranma asked swinging his head to look at her.
"This one." She replied holding up the monster manual. "It's for a game but so far everything it's said about dragons, specifically bronze dragons, has turned out to be true."
"So, can I breathe fire or something?" Ranma asked. He was quite new to this dragon thing and hadn't had a chance to look through the elder dragons books. Most of which were written in languages that he didn't recognize.
"No." She thought for a minute. "Ok the first one is free the rest will cost you." She gave a wicked smile. "Three gold per piece of information."
"You're out of your tree! Five copper." He retorted.
"One gold three silver." She countered.
"Three silver and I'll take you flying."
"Deal." She said as she motioned for him to lift his front foot. She grabbed it and shook it. She opened the book to the appropriate page. "Ok as a bronze dragon you have two types of breath weapons. The first is a line of lightning and a cone of repulsion gas. For your age class your lightning can do a maximum of 6d6 hit points worth of damage and your repulsion gas will make somebody move away from you for 1d6 3 rounds." She said as she closed the book.
Ranma thought about it for a few seconds. He swished his tongue around in his mouth. He had wondered what those two bumps in his mouth were for. The problem was he still didn't know how to spit lightning.
"What a haul! What a" Bzap.
25 HP lightning bolt save for half.
"Ranma m'boy I see you're back from the dead. Of course since you can't actually drown that story of your demise was a bit fishy." Happosai said as he brushed the soot off of his clothes before latching onto Akane's breasts.
Gain 13 HP.
"You letch!" Akane screamed as she started jumping around trying to get rid of the old freak.
Ranma would have helped her. He really would have except for one problem.
"Skippy, food!" Kasumi called from across the yard as she stepped out onto the veranda. She was wearing her new dress that he gave her and was carrying a huge plate of sushi. How she managed to get changed and still have enough time to make that much sushi nobody could explain.
Skippy moved with Ranma's fluid grace as he scampered across the yard. He reared back on his hind legs and tucked in his front legs. Cologne almost fell over laughing at the sight of a dragon begging like a dog.
"Here you go." Kasumi said as she put the plate down on the veranda and took a step back.
"Thanks Kasumi." Ranma said cheerfully as he got back down on all fours and proceeded to devour the fish and seaweed concoctions that were on the plate.
It was just after this that the rest of the people there saw exactly what Kasumi was wearing. Nabiki was first as the dress screamed expensive. Well it didn't actually vocalize it as it didn't have that specific enchantment on it but it looked expensive and that was enough to get Nabiki's juices flowing.
"Oh my god sis. Where did you get that dress!?" Nabiki asked as she almost teleported to her big sisters side.
"Is very pretty dress." Shampoo said as she visualized herself wearing it.
"Oh this? Ranma gave it to me this afternoon." She gave a twirl to show it off better. "He said it was a gift to show his thanks for all the things I do for him."
"Oh so you whore yourself out to him?" Akane said. She immediately regretted it as soon as she said it.
Kasumi's smile fell.
"Oh she'd have to do more than that I'm afraid." Cologne said as she pogoed over. "Mithril dresses are quite expensive. Enchanted mithril even more so. No if she was only putting out for son in law it wouldn't be enough. Alas I do not know enough of the old magics to be able to discern what enchantments are on this dress." Cologne said as she looked at Ranma who was still eating.
He looked up from his food to see everybody staring at him. Kasumi didn't have her usual smile on which worried him greatly.
"Umm what's going on?" He asked.
"Wahh! Akane called me a whore, Skippy!" Kasumi cried as she flung herself at him and sobbed into his neck... with the usual results.
"There, there Kasumi. I gave you that dress because I really wanted to. Akane doesn't deserve a mithril dress as an uncute tomboy like her would just ruin the effect." Ranma said in his female voice.
"Why you!" Akane yelled as she charged him with mallet raised.
Ranma let loose with a cone of repulsion gas which caught Akane square in the face. She immediately turned around and started running in the opposite direction.
"Heh this stuff isn't so bad after all." Ranma said as he/she went back to comforting Kasumi.
Cologne of course was curious about the magic on the dress.
"So son in law care to share with the rest of us exactly what that dress is?" She asked, her left eyebrow raised.
"Well it's a mithril dress as you said. It's worth about 1,600 gold with labour. It has a 3 Armor bonus, a 3 Enchantment to make the wearer resistant to cold, umm a 1 glamour so that it can be made to look like normal clothes or to change the design, and a couple of cantrips to clean and repair minor damage." He said as he started tallying things up in his head.
"So that's about 64,000 gold for the magic and 1,600 for the dress itself, it's worth about 65,600 gold. One gold piece is worth about $340 USD and carry the one. It's worth about 2.5 billion yen. Well ok add another couple billion because it's magical and magic is pretty rare in this day and age." He said calmly.
"Hurk!" Thud.
"I do believe that Ms. Tendo just had a heart attack." Cologne said just as calmly. She'd already guessed that the dress was worth a fortune. She reached out to tap a few points on Nabiki's body to restart her heart.
"Four BILLION YEN!" Ukyo yelled causing Ranma's wings to flutter.
"Yeah that's about right." He said as he shrugged and went back to his food.
"Four billion yen." Ukyo repeated as she started hyperventilating.
"And you just gave it to her." Nabiki croaked out obviously still feeling the effects of Ranma's heart stopping revelation.
"Well yeah I know it was a bit much but you love your... Nabiki...." Ranma got to his feet and wrapped a wing protectively around Kasumi's shoulder. She had stopped crying a while ago and seemed quite shocked that he would give her such an expensive gift. "Get that look off your face right now!" He yelled. "You are NOT going to take it from her."
"Summon Lizard."
A small green lizard appeared on Nabiki's shoulder. Its tongue darted out and swirled around in her ear. She carefully turned her head and looked at the little lizard on her shoulder. The lizard darted his tongue out again and stuck it up her nose.
"Yahhhh!" She screamed as she took off running around the yard waving her hands in the air. She continued running for a couple of minutes after the summon spell ran out.
"Anybody else?" He said looking specifically at Happosai.
The grandmaster of the school took out his pipe and lit it. He sat down and took a couple of puffs on it.
"Well... it is a lot of money and normally I would be very tempted." Ranma upped his glare and prepared to fire off a lightning bolt. "However there is a problem." He took another puff from his pipe. "Both the dress and the girl are protected by a FREAKING DRAGON!!!" Happosai's voice steadily rose in pitch until he was screaming at the end.
"Well yes that is true Happi but dragons aren't that scary." Cologne said rolling her eyes at him.
"Shows how much you know." Happosai chuckled. "I'm probably a match for a young adult; anything more would crush me like a bug." He shuddered at the end. "In fact the only thing that would be worse would be if one of those overgrown lizards got a hold of the..." He froze and started choking on something.
"If one of us overgrown lizards got a hold of the Anything Goes style." Ranma finished his mouth turning into a grin. "It is one of the most powerful styles ever created. Add to that the power of a dragon and you've got a fighter of unparalleled power that you can't stop." He finished by spreading his wings out to their maximum extension, puffing his chest out and opening his mouth. He even formed his tongue into a sine wave form like he'd seen in a tapestry once.
All in all the cool effect that he was going for was ruined when Akane nailed him from behind with her 1 Mallet. His head was pounded into the ground by the blow. With a mighty heave he pulled his head out of the ground spraying the area with dirt and grass.
"You're still a jerk you know that." Akane said as she let her mallet rest on her shoulder.
"Yeah well who'd want to marry an uncute tomboy like you anyway?" He said as he spat out a glob of grass and dirt that had gotten into his mouth.
"Well you won't have to worry about that. There's no way I'm going to marry a monster like you!" Akane shouted.
Cologne stepped forward and cleared her throat.
"You really don't have to worry about that." She said with a smile. "Since Ranma is not actually Genma's son all of the agreements made by him to marry off his 'son' are not valid." She gave a chuckle. "Since Shampoo's engagement is entirely his own doing..." She trailed off letting him figure it out for himself.
"Aiyah! Shampoo so happy!" She squealed as she rushed up to hug her airen.
Shampoo scampered up to where Ranma was standing and used his neck as a handhold to swing herself onto his back. She had to be careful not to impale herself on one of his spikes. She started stroking his neck affectionately. She wasn't sure about her husband being a dragon. Contrary to popular belief she actually did like the boy and was really eager to get to their honeymoon. With this latest complication she wondered what their kids would look like. She gave a mental shrug and went back to petting her husband. Such thoughts about children would be a couple of years off as Ranma was exceedingly skittish about such things and was in no way ready to have children yet.
"Wait a minute! Hold up here!" Ukyo yelled. She'd been moderately quite throughout the entire affair but she couldn't hold it in any longer. "You're saying that I'm no longer engaged to him! But my fathers cart! That's got to count for something!"
"Yes it does. Your father was trying to buy stolen goods and got burned." Cologne said. "If you would like a refund I suggest that you take it up with the elder Saotome." She calmly reached over to where Happosai was sitting and snatched his pipe. She took a couple of drags on it before she continued. "As for the Tendos I suggest you get back rent and food bills from them as Ranma is no longer going to marry any of you."
"Actually elder the agreement was to unite the schools of Anything Goes. That was to be through marriage and so it doesn't matter whether or not Ranma is Genma's son as he IS the heir to their branch of the school and as such the engagement stands."
Everybody including Ranma turned to look at Kasumi.
"Oh my, I think I should go get supper started. Would Skippy like some more food?" She said not so subtly slipping back into her airhead persona. She got up and headed back inside.
It was several minutes later that Ukyo decided to break the silence.
"So basically I'm the only one that's shit out of luck?" She sighed and hung her head. "Well at least I can get some revenge." She walked up to Ranma so that she was standing nose to snout with him. She noticed a faint aroma of the sea around him. "Where can I find him sugar?"
"General Tokugawa hospital, west wing, third floor, room 325 bed one." Ranma responded not wanting to get hit anymore. Even if he was a dragon getting hit by that spatula would still hurt.
"And why exactly is he in the hospital?" Ukyo asked.
"Hmm let's see. Cracked collarbone, two broken femurs, cracked ulna, two broken radials, multiple skull contusions, five cracked and three broken ribs, cracked pelvic arch, and oh let's see here umm I think he also went 'ow my spleen'. That's about it." He said giving his old friend the dragon equivalent of a smile.
"What I meant is why is he in the hospital not what he's in there for!" She yelled.
"Oh that. Well I had to ask him some questions and he was reluctant to give me the answers." He said as he backed up a step.
Ukyo advanced a step to get back into his personal space. "What kind of questions?" She asked with a menacing glare.
"Uhh, you know the where did I come from. Where are my parents? What happened to his original son? How do they get the caramel into the caramilk bar? You know those kinds of questions."
"So what were the answers?" Cologne asked as she was curious as to where Genma managed to find a baby dragon let alone polymorph it into a human baby.
"Well that is a long story." Ranma said as he lay down on the grass.
Authors Notes:
Anything strange here? Nope this is Nerima weird is normal. The main source of chaos suddenly being revealed as being a dragon is not too out of the ordinary.
What's going to happen? I really have no idea. I just thought I'd type this out to work out some of my frustrations. Will it be continued? Maybe. I lost my backpack that had my monster manual in it. I'll try to finish it without that but no guarantees.
Again many thanks go out to my prereaders: Axekeeper, Lord Raa, and Chi Vayne
Chapter 1: Scales of Justice.
The day was a normal one. There were no aliens coming down to attack the earth and enslave its population. That was yesterday.
Today Ranma had only been poisoned once by his 'loving' fiancée Akane at breakfast. It was supposed to be pancakes; however he didn't think that pancakes were supposed to move under their own power. Right now it was swimming around in the koi pond. Strangely enough it left the koi and him alone. (He found this out when Akane punted him into the pond for refusing to eat an intelligent life form) Anybody else it snapped at. It was funny when Akane tried to fish it out of the pond and force feed it to him.
On the way to school Shampoo managed to tag him with her bicycle of doooooom. Akane immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was having sex right in the middle of the fence with Shampoo's bike. Of course since Shampoo was still on the bike and since Ranma was having sex with the bike he was by extension having sex with Shampoo as well.
This earned him a one way high-speed express trip right towards school. Waiting for him at school was the coalition of Kuno, Mousse, and amazingly enough they had managed to get Ryoga to stay in one place for long enough that he didn't get lost. They were all accusing him of the same thing, holding onto their loves like some evil sorcerer.
Kuno was the first to fall as he didn't want to be bothered during his fight with Mousse and Ryoga. Mousse, predictable as usual, opened with his trademarked hail of chains with sharp pointy objects on them. He quickly dodged them and let Ryoga take the brunt of them. Ryoga who wasn't as fast got tangled for a few seconds. That was all the time that he needed to engage Mousse and pummel him into unconsciousness.
By the time Ryoga had untangled himself from the chains he was hopping mad. As usual for the pig he started out by hurling dozens of spinning bandannas at him. He had to admit that the strategy of keeping an opponent at a distance was a good strategy unless the opponent also had a ranged attack that could disrupt your attack.
Of course he had just such an attack.
One Mokou Takabisha later and a few well placed punches and shiatsu strikes and Ryoga was down. He wasn't unconscious but all of his voluntary muscles were locked up.
When he had gotten to his homeroom he had just gotten to his seat when the O Violent one had come up and smashed him in the back of the head with a chair for picking on poor Ryoga. Ukyo, good old Ukyo, had come to his aid like a good friend. Of course Akane thought that she was rushing off to have sex with him in the middle of the classroom. How did he know this? Because she screamed it at him just before she punted him out of his seat and out the open window.
Of course by that time Ryoga had recovered and they went at it for round two.
When he got back he was sent into the hall for being late even though there were several people that vouched that he was in the class until Akane punted him out the window.
Of course he was the only one sent to the hall.
Back in the present he was suffering through one of Mrs. Hinako's "Engrish crasses". Gods he could teach the class better than her. If you're wondering why somebody who's barely managing a C in the class could possibly claim that he could teach it better than the teacher.
The prime tenant of the Anything Goes school is deception.
If the opponent thinks you are weaker or stupider than you really are, then they will make a mistake that you can capitalize on.
This is known as Anything Goes Education.
Ranma hated having to hide his true skill level and intelligence from everybody, however his old man had beaten it into him that he had to hide just how smart he was from people.
During one of his infrequent visits to school he decided to go against his father and show everybody just how smart he was. The teachers were thrilled with his performance but the kids called him a nerd and shunned him. When he beat them up he got into trouble. His young mind made the connection that maybe his father was right about this acting stupid as his father acted stupid all the time.
Over time he managed to figure out that the old man wasn't acting.
"Ranma will you read the sentence on the board." Hinako called out to him.
He'd almost been asleep damnit.
He looked up at the board and read the sentence in his head. 'The quick dog blows goats.' The temptation was there, he really, really wanted to read that sentence and then go up there and point out the mistake. He sighed as he slumped in his seat. That would be showing his intelligence again and they would call him weird and a nerd again. Either that or they'd declare the end of the world.
Uh-oh Hinako's getting out that damned coin of hers.
"I is sorry but I no speak engrish." He was laughing on the inside really he was.
Of course he was not laughing a few minutes later when he was a withered husk after Hinako drained him.
Little vamperic bitch.
The boys in the class silently gave him a pat on the back for his noble sacrifice. Ranma was glad for that at least.
He just wished that he could ogle her body as well. The fact that he was currently a dried up husk floating/lying on his desk made that difficult. He barely was able to turn his eyes to look at Akane. She of course was glaring at him just daring him to even peak at Hinako. Gods some times he just wanted to smack her so hard for being the hypocrite she is.
He recalled the time Kasumi had asked him to clean up Akane's room while she was in the dojo breaking bricks. When he was flipping her mattress he found several magazines and photographs. Looking at the magazines first he immediately noticed a trend. Most of them were dominatrix type where the female was in tight black leather with a whip and the poor schmuck was under her boot. He had a brief flash of Akane in the outfit and him under her boot except she had that damned mallet of hers. He had shuddered at the thought. There was one magazine though that was different than the rest. It was a big breasted lesbian mag. Flipping through it was a bit of a turn on, but there wasn't a guy to be seen in its pages. He briefly wondered about just why she would have such a thing, that was until he caught a glimpse of the photo's that were with the magazines.
This was not good.
All of the photos looked to be Photoshop retouches. In them Akane was wearing the dominatrix outfit and there was a girl in the kneeling submissive position. He instantly recognized the face but not the body. It looked as though Akane had somehow stuck his girl side's face on somebody else's body. He shuddered as he thought he recognized the girl in another picture as being Yuka, one of Akane's friends.
He quickly put everything back the way it was originally and finished his cleaning and left before Akane got back. He never heard anything further about it and assumed that Akane never noticed.
Contrary to popular belief he was not lazy he helped Kasumi clean up around the house. Of course since everything is about training, add to that the fact that if the old man ever caught him doing 'woman's work' he'd probably disown him on the spot. When he helped Kasumi clean he not only did the cleaning but he also got to practice those stealth techniques he learned from that ninja village that he and the old man went to. Laundry would suddenly appear on the line, beds would be changed with the occupant still in the room, and floors mopped right under the old man's nose while he and waterworks were playing go.
The only people who knew that he actually helped out around the house were Kasumi because he asked her what she wanted him to do and Nabiki because she caught him changing her bedding once. She laughed her butt off that he was doing 'Anything Goes Housework' and how he'd have all the lonely housewives all over him.
It took two weeks allowance and Kasumi threatening to make her do some of the work to get her to keep quiet about the whole thing.
It was nearing the end of class now and Hinako had reverted back to her child form. She had somehow stuffed ten lollipops into her mouth and couldn't speak with any clarity. Since it was the last class of the day, the rest of the class just ignored her talking with their neighbors about what they were going to do this weekend. Of course Ranma already knew what he was going to do this weekend and it made him a bit melancholy. The guys would come by and try to kill him to free their 'loves' and the ladies would try to get him into the sack. Well except for Akane she'd side with the guys except for Kuno.
It was kinda depressing really how his life hat gotten into a rut recently.
The bell rang and everybody piled out of the classroom except for Ranma. He decided to just skip out on that and jumped out the window. Scanning across the field he spotted Kuno, Mousse, Ryoga, Tarou, Happosai, his father, and waterworks all standing together. He guessed that they were waiting for him to punish him for some reason. He sighed as he wandered over to get this over with. Separately he could deal with them but together and with Tarou's cursed form he knew that he didn't stand a chance.
It was different so it would be interesting at least and maybe he could get them to turn on each other so that he wouldn't have to worry about them for the weekend.
"Hey guys what's up?" He asked as he got within Mokou Takabisha range.
"Saotome how dare you still hold my loves Akane and the Pig Tailed Girl hostage and yet claim innocence!" In ancient times when the wind failed some ships always had a Kuno on board for sonic propulsion.
"Ranma because of you I've seen Hell!" Actually Ryoga had seen hell. He took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up on the ninth level of the abyss.
"Ranma I'll free Shampoo from your evil clutches!" If he could figure out which blob was Shampoo first though.
"Boy you will marry Akane!"
"Son you must marry my daughter!"
Guess.
"I'll have you wearing these yet!" Happosai crowed.
"Old freak says that I gotta pound you to get my name changed so no hard feelings, Femboy." Support the cattle industry eat Canadian Beef.
Ranma just regarded the assembled idiots. He felt so tempted to just let go and trash each and every one of them. That was when it happened.
It was just a small bit of dust, composed of dirt, hair, linen, dust mites, etc, however it made the dreadful mistake of being inhaled at just the wrong time up Ranma's left nostril. True to form his body's automatic defense systems came online detecting the foreign particle irritating the lining of said nostril. The standard reaction for such an occurrence was to expel large quantities of air at a rapid pace through the mouth and nose expelling said particle.
"Ahh"
"Saotome you fiend!" Kuno started to charge.
"Ahh"
"I'll kill you for this!" Ryoga joined in.
"Ahh"
"For the sake of the schools!"
"AHH"
"Nothing Personal."
"I'll free Shampoo!"
"CHOO"
"Well that's something you don't see every day." Happosai commented as he pulled out his pipe.
The red silk shards that were once part of Ranma's shirt slowly drifted to the ground. All of the attackers had stopped in their tracks staring at this new development and wondering what the hell to do next.
Standing among the remains of his clothes Ranma immediately noticed that something was seriously fucked up with his body.
He was a dragon; that much was plainly clear as he slowly inhaled and exhaled; He was about 15 feet long from his snout to the tip of his tail and about 4 feet tall at his shoulders. His face had been elongated into that of a dragon. There were two horns on his chin two on either side of his jaw and several along his head crest. He could feel the frill that went down his long neck to his shoulders. He flexed the muscles around that area and found that he could move the spines up and down and that the webbing was actually a leathery substance. Moving on he felt his powerful wings the actual muscle groups that powered them were on his shoulders but the leathery substance that made up a good portion of them extended from his shoulders to the base of his tail.
His tail was quite obvious to anybody as it swayed back and forth. The same frill that was on his neck was also on his tail except it was shaped in such a way that it would make a great fin in the water. Moving downward to his legs both looked to be powerfully muscled, his front legs more than his back. Between his front legs and his body there existed webbing that felt a little softer than the stuff on his wings and tail.
His feet had three toes each and a claw on each toe. His hands had three claws that touched the ground and one vestigial claw where his thumb was supposed to be. Between his fingers and toes was the same kind of webbing that was between his front legs.
Finally everything that wasn't covered in the leather was covered in scales. They were about 3 cm long by 2 cm wide by 3 mm thick. They were a darker yellow colour although some of them were a light green. The green ones were arranged into vertical tiger stripes. The stripes started at the base of his head crest and went all the way to the base of his tail.
He was a bronze dragon although that little fact seemed insignificant at the moment as the mob was starting to gather. He seriously wondered where the hell they got those pitchforks and torches from. Or for that matter why the hell they would need torches in the middle of the day anyway. As the mob started advancing he saw his classmates including Akane but excluding Ukyo advancing. Taro had switched over to his cursed form and was now hovering in the air. His father was one of the ones that were hanging back like he knew something and was afraid it would come to bite him in the ass. If he survived this he'd have to remember to beat whatever it was out of the stupid panda.
Survival first though.
Ok he was a dragon. He was surrounded by a mob of students and people who generally wanted to kill him, he was unfamiliar with this body, and he was hungry. This was not good.
He decided to use the Saotome Final attack. He jumped into the air and did a wing over and then started flapping like hell. He headed straight up hoping to get out of everybody's ranged attacks as soon as he could. He felt one of Ryoga's bandanas rip across his back. It hurt but not as much as it SHOULD have. He couldn't spare a glance back to see how bad it was as he had to dodge a couple of ki blasts. Since when did waterworks know how to toss around ki like that? He always thought it was confined to that demon head technique he kept using on him.
He was out of range of the rest of the mooks when he felt a hoof crash into the side of his head.
Oh yes, Tarou.
Since being a dragon was new to him he was flying extremely awkward. If it wasn't for his aerial training in Anything Goes he would be having a much harder time of this. As it was he still couldn't figure out how to actually fight. So if fight was out then flight was his only option. Banking and weaving he flew as fast and as hard as he could, trying to shake his pursuer. Tarou for his part kept up pretty well.
About half an hour after the chase began he was about 30 km from the school. He had really hustled it and was now just getting over the ocean. Deciding to see if bull butt could swim he pulled in his wings and went into a shallow dive. Tarou followed attempting to catch him before he hit the water. At the last second Ranma pulled in his feet and dove into the ocean at a 45 degree angle. He immediately engaged his webbed feet and started swimming as fast as he could. Not visible from the outside he changed into a female. Although from just a glance you'd never tell the difference. Sparing a look back he noted that Tarou was just hovering above waiting for him to come back up.
Deciding to take a huge gamble he blew out all of his breath in one go to make it look like he'd drowned. Now the question was how long could he hold out with no air.
Five minutes later Tarou was still hovering overtop waiting for him to rightfully drown. Judging from the way his lungs were burning it wouldn't be long now before that became a reality. He reflexively opened his mouth and took a breath. Instead of coughing up water he found that he could breath. It was a lot harder than air to breathe but to swim like a fish he didn't mind too much.
Ranma decided to let Tarou stew out there for a while. He had much more important things to do like figure out what he could do now that he was a dragon and to see if he could change back into a human. First thing was first though. Food. He was bloody hungry.
After swimming around for a while he came upon a school of small fish. Like a shark he dove into the middle snapping up several fish in his jaws. They could use some wasabi but other than that they were just crunchy sushi. A few more passes and he was relatively full.
Deciding to explore a bit he decided to see how deep he could go. Turning himself into a nosedive he started swimming straight down. At about 300 feet the pressure was starting to get to him. Well that and around 350 feet everything went black and white with some grays. He had just decided to turn around and head back to the surface when something off to the side caught his eye. He started swimming towards it.
It was a cliff face where the island dropped off into the depths of the ocean. What had caught his attention though was the cave that was in the cliff face. Unlike everything else down here the entrance to the cave had a slight yellow glow to it.
The entrance was quite large so he didn't think that there would be any chance he would get stuck. The only problem would be if the cave went down farther as the water pressure at this depth was really starting to bug him. He didn't know how much farther he could go. Deciding to check it out for a bit he started inside. Almost immediately the cave started arcing up.
Ranma swam for another ten minutes and eventually broke the surface of the water. The underground cavern was extremely large and he was left wondering exactly how it managed to stay intact all this time let alone how the air was fresh as if he was in a field instead of hundreds of feet underground. Off to the side there was a huge mound of what looked like coins with a huge skeleton on top of them. He jumped back in fright and his foot hit a glyph that was on the floor that was mostly covered in centuries of dust.
Light like hundreds of torches flooded the cavern illuminating everything with a soft light. He saw shelves with various weapons like shields and swords. Other shelves held scrolls and vials. Still others had things on them that he had no idea about. Then there was the dead dragon lying on top of a huge mound of gold and jewels. Nabiki would have an orgasm just looking at such a stash he thought to himself as he cautiously approached.
Suddenly he was caught! He couldn't move his muscles. He looked up to see the skeleton moving. Its head rose from where it was laying on the pile. Ranma would have been shaking in his boots if he wasn't caught in some kind of trap... or if he ever wore boots.
"Speak," Came the booming voice of the dragon in seemingly all languages all at once. It was extremely strange to be able to understand only the Japanese from the cacophony. "Speak and be heard! Be ye Friend or Foe?"
The words came automatically to his lips as if they were born to be there.
"Friend." He said in draconic, quite surprised to hear his voice was the same as when he was human.
"Greetings friend. I am sorry that I can not greet you in person but I am dead. I have left this message to any who come to claim my horde. Gold and jewels there are plenty but knowledge is the greatest treasure here. Learn all there is and do not forget us. Tread wisely young dragon."
And with that the skeleton crumbled to dust.
A bit of knowledge slammed into Ranma's head. It was like a GPS indicating where the cave was. He was sure that he'd be able to find it at any time from anywhere in the world.
Fortress of solitude indeed.
Ranma sighed as he began the arduous task of cleaning up his new home.
Superman never had to house keep did he?
------------------------------------
It had been a week since Ranma disappeared and everybody was still on high alert. Mousse and Kuno were patrolling trying to find any trace of him in Nerima. Ryoga's search area was much larger. Happosai had informed Cologne about what had happened at the school. Shampoo was always on the lookout when she was on deliveries and Cologne always subtly pumped information from her customers. Tarou of course had come back and told everybody that Ranma had drowned. Nobody believed him.
Nabiki had used her contacts to try and find him as well, although her methods were much more refined than just going out for a walk. She also employed the nerds of the school to try and find out all they could about dragons. What she got was a 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons Monster manual. When she showed her little sister the pictures of the dragons she had immediately pointed out the bronze dragon as the one he most looked like before stating that she would rather marry Kuno than that monster.
It's a good thing she had her tape recorder going or else she'd have missed that juicy bit of information.
It was Wednesday and Kasumi was busy hanging the laundry. It was a beautiful day out and she was thinking of going to visit Dr. Tofu to return one of his books that she borrowed. She was wondering how bad he was going to be today. She would giggle at her little game. It was very flattering to know that at 19 she still had enough beauty to reduce a normally calm and composed man to a gibbering mess.
If only the others knew that it was only a game to her and that Tofu was way too old for her to consider marrying the man.
She let out a small titter as she grabbed the next piece of laundry. It was one of Ranma's boxers. She seriously wondered if he was actually a monster like everybody said he was. From what she'd observed of him he seemed like a very nice boy. Couldn't keep his mouth shut for the life of him, but he was always helpful and courteous when it came to her. She started hanging the article of clothing on the line when a voice from behind her startled her.
"So what's so funny about my boxers Kasumi?" Ranma said from directly behind her.
Kasumi eeped and spun around dropping the boxers in the process. She was treated to the sight of Ranma standing behind her smiling like nothing was wrong. Once she got her heart rate under control again she took a moment to study him. Overall he looked the same as when she last spoke to him except for his clothes. She'd heard that his clothes were destroyed when he changed into that dragon. He was currently wearing a silver shirt and black pants. His feet were clad in the same silvery material. Around his right wrist was a black bracelet that looked like it was made of obsidian. She also noticed a small hip pack on his side that looked to be made of burlap or canvass.
"Oh my Ranma kun I didn't hear you come up." Like she ever heard him she thought ruefully. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" She asked with just a hint of a frown.
"Yeah well I'll go to school just as soon as I have a little talk with the old man." He was currently playing a game of shoji with Mr. Tendo on the other side of the house. "Do you know where he's at?"
"Of course he and father are on the other side of the house playing their game." She said. "Ranma... are you really a monster like everybody says you are?" She asked hesitant about the answer.
"Nah I'm no more a monster today than when I was born. Oh that reminds me I've got a present for you." He said as he reached into the hip pack and withdrew a flowing gown made of the same silvery material as his shirt. It had a long flowing skirt with a plunging back and neck line. It was tasteful and sexy at the same time and absolutely screamed 'expensive'.
"Since you've shown me nothing but kindness ever since I got here, you deserve this." He said as he handed it to her. "Although you may want to wash it before wearing it."
"But there are no washing instructions! I don't want to ruin it. It's such a pretty dress I..." Kasumi was fretting as she'd never felt this kind of material before.
Ranma gave a hearty chuckle before responding.
"Kasumi if you can destroy that I'd be amazed." He said as he leaned forward and gave her a peck on her cheek. "Don't worry about the dress. Just throw it in the washing machine with the rest of the clothes." She gave him an incredulous glare. "Ok fine hand wash it in cold water, little bit of soap and line dry it. I'm going to go talk to the old man." He said as he turned around and walked off.
Kasumi watched him walk around the house. She looked down at the beautiful dress in her arms. She couldn't understand it. If Ranma was such a monster why would he give her such a nice gift to thank her? She looked at the dress. It wasn't dirty per se just a little dusty. She gave the dress a flip to knock out some of the dust. She grinned evilly.
Dr. Tofu would have a heart attack if she showed up in this.
Ranma walked away from Kasumi. He was glad that she enjoyed her gift. A mithril dress was expensive but in his opinion she was more than worth it. He walked around the corner of the house and spotted his old man playing shoji with Mr. Tendo and lamenting about his worthless son. Nothing new there.
"Hey old man we've got to talk." He said as he calmly walked up to the duo.
-------------------------------------
Ms. Hinako was currently butchering the language called English when the door at the back of the class slid open and Ranma walked in. Several people turned to see just who it was. Everybody gasped as they saw Ranma in his nice and shiny shirt. Ms Hinako was in her child form and was looking for somebody to drain.
"Mr. Saotome do you know that you're late?" She said getting out her coin.
"Yes." He responded walking towards his desk.
"And do you also realize that you've missed a week of work?" She said as she took aim.
"Yes." He said as he sat down.
"Care to explain where you were?" She said getting charged.
"No." He said bracing himself.
"Happo Go En Satsu!" She shouted as chi began streaming from his body into hers.
Seconds later it was over. Hinako stood over a weaving Ranma in her full adult form. Ranma shook his head and sat up straight in his chair. He looked like he still had a few hit points left in him.
"I'm ok." He said as he started pulling out his books from his bag.
Seeing that he might be willing to learn today and a little afraid that she couldn't drain him dry she sauntered back to the front of the class. She made a mental note to check ever so often if Ranma was staring at her breasts like he was staring at her ass now.
"Alright class, settle down. I'm sure you can bombard Mr. Saotome with questions at lunch, however now is not the time for that." She said daring anybody to disagree with her.
"Alright Mr. Saotome since you've missed so much would you read this sentence." She pointed at the board at one of the more complex phrases.
Ranma shakily got to his feet. He wasn't in as good of shape as his front made him out to be.
"The congressional party that wins the most votes makes up their own rules about how things should work." He said.
In English.
Without an accent.
With no hesitation.
There was a massive shuffling as students attempted to clear a space around Ranma. Ranma actually getting an answer right in class was akin to one of the signs of the apocalypse.
"Mr. Saotome since when have you been able to speak English?" Ms. Hinako said as she crossed her arms under her breasts her left eyebrow twitching.
"I learned English when I was twelve." He smiled back.
"Then why up until now have you only been just passing my class?"
He thought for a couple of seconds before responding.
"Oh that. I was just screwing with your minds." He said with a happy smile.
The sound of the entire class facefaulting almost drowned out the bell.
Not wanting to stick around, Ranma quickly packed his books in his book bag then jumped out the open window. He quickly ran over to one of the trees that had escaped Kuno's wrath and jumped into the branches. Little did he know that he was spotted by several people and that his little tactic to have a quiet lunch was totally useless.
Ukyo was the first to reach him. He really didn't feel like talking to her right now but if he ran now she'd just chase him. If he managed to lose her she'd just bean him with that spatula of hers. He watched as she jumped into the tree and landed on a branch opposite of him.
"Hey Ranchan."
"Hey Ucchan what's up?"
"Oh nothing much except if you count the fact that my fiancé turned into a dragon!" She yelled the last bit.
Ranma wiggled his finger in his ear.
"Could you yell a little louder? I don't think they heard you on the other side of campus."
"Ranma talk now!" She emphasized her point by laying the bladed edge of her battle spatula against his neck.
"I'd rather only say this once." He said calmly as he removed the blade from his neck. "Tonight at the dojo right after school."
She nodded and then screamed as their world suddenly started tipping over. Ranma grabbed Ukyo and leapt out of the tree just before it hit the ground. As soon as he it the ground he put her down and stepped away from her so that she wouldn't get into the confrontation that he knew was coming. He looked around and saw that about fifty other students were crowding around the tree waiting for a show. He spotted Hiroshi and Daisuke standing next to Yuka and Sayuri. He waved to them. He also made note of Nabiki and Akane in the crowd. Akane was pretty easy to spot what with the towering inferno of ki that she was putting out. He was kind of impressed. If only she could harness that power when she wasn't mad enough to leave holes in her defense wide enough to drive a steamship through.
"Foul monster how dare you defile these hallowed grounds with your presence!" Kuno hollered as he readied his bokken for another strike.
"Kuno you really should calm down. Being vengeful all the time has to be bad for your blood pressure." He said as he reached into his hip pack.
Kuno shook with rage at the implied slight. Then of course his insanity kicked in and warped reality to fit his vision of the world.
"Verily it falls upon me to rid the world of your foul presence as was the job of the samurai of old. Have at thee!" He said as he lashed out intending to strike his foe dead with one blow.
Only his target had ducked the slash and tossed a small bag at his feet. He smiled a bit as he closed his eyes. Everybody was stunned a second later when the bag exploded into a brilliant light that blinded everybody that saw it including Kuno, Akane, Ukyo and most of the people in the front row. When their vision had cleared there was no trace of the pigtailed boy.
Kuno started making inquiries about where his mortal enemy had fled to. Most of the crowd that hadn't been blinded confirmed that he'd jumped over them and taken off for someplace off school grounds. Kuno immediately ran off to slay the foul beast and claim his maidens as rewards.
Nabiki being slightly more intelligent than a mollusk decided to talk to the only person that had spoken to Ranma. After confronting Ukyo she now knew what his plans were. She decided to rush home after school so that she could have everything set up in the dojo.
-------------------------------------
Ranma hated using that flashbag. While the dragon had stores of chemicals they were all labeled weird and he had no idea what their modern names were. He would hate to use up something only to find that he couldn't get that specific chemical anymore. He made a mental note to supply the chemistry club with samples of the chemicals so that they could identify them. He frowned as he thought of what they would charge him. Pictures of his dragon form in poses of their choosing and maybe a scale or two. He just wished they were normal perverts and asked for naked pictures of his girl side.
As he was rounding a corner he felt somebody watching him.
"Hello son in law. I was skeptical when Happosai came to talk to me. Imagine a dragon in this day and age. I still had my doubts until I saw Kasumi walking around in that dress you gave her." She smiled. "A mithril dress, and enchanted at that!" She cackled a bit. Do you happen to have another one of those as I'm sure your wife would be jealous that you're giving expensive gifts to other women."
"For the last time I'm not your son in law! So what if I'm a dragon who I give gifts to is my decision. Kasumi is the only one of the lot of you that's treated me with any respect or kindness." A thought ran through his head which made his blood run colder than it already was. "You didn't." He said as he narrowed his eyes and got into a fighting stance.
"Of course not." She scoffed. "Although if I were you I would tell her exactly what that dress is and how much it's worth." She smiled as she reached into her dress and pulled out a PDA. She turned it on and showed it to him. "Of course the good doctor was very appreciative of it."
The pictures she showed him were from a digital camera. The first picture was of Kasumi in her dress. Ranma had to admit that she did look damned sexy. The dress' glamour spell was apparently still functioning correctly after all of this time. The next picture was an animated gif showing Kasumi walking into the clinic and Tofu going absolutely nuts... before he fell over in a drooling heap.
"You know she is quite effective in that dress." Ranma said with a smile. "Do you know if the doc survived?"
"Yes the lovesick fool will live. You really should tell Kasumi to stop playing with him." Cologne chided as she put the PDA away.
"She's playing with him? I thought she liked him that's why she went over there so often." Ranma asked obviously confused.
"Goodness no. Didn't you notice her leaving him crumpled on the floor? If she really liked him she would have at least helped him into a better position. No she's just playing with him until a better prospect comes along." She leveled a glare at Ranma. "You are NOT to become a better prospect. Not as long as you're married to my great grand daughter."
This only seemed to enrage Ranma as he leapt to the top of the building.
"How many times do I have to tell you I'm not married to Shampoo!" And with that he bounded away.
"Oh son in law you just don't get it do you?" Cologne shook her head.
Ranma was obviously not Genma's son so all of the deals the fat panda made were not legitimate. Her great granddaughter was the ONLY one with a legitimate claim on his dragon ass. She sighed and headed off towards the Nekohanten to get her granddaughter. Things were going to get interesting.
This was the most fun she'd had in a century.
--------------------------------------
Ranma dropped by the clinic to check on Tofu. The good doctor had apparently closed for the day as he was unable to concentrate on his patients. Not wanting to be at the mercy of the doctor should he have a Kasumi relapse. He wandered around on the rooftops for a while before he got board and headed back to the dojo. Kasumi was there so he changed himself into a small lop eared rabbit stashing his clothes in the obsidian ring which he then changed into a collar. He then hopped closer hoping that she would mistake him for a cute bunny so that he could spy on her and possibly catch a glimpse of the real Kasumi beneath the nice smile... if there was one.
He hopped onto the veranda and twitched his nose in what he thought was a cute manner. He looked up to see Kasumi dusting. She kept on dusting for quite a while not noticing him. After about ten minutes of this he decided that being too quiet just wouldn't do and that he'd have to do something to get her attention. He noted Nabiki's Dreamcast on the floor next to the TV. The power button was on top so he guessed he could make it look like an accident.
Kasumi turned around as she heard Nabiki's game machine turn on. She walked over to where it was to turn it off and saw the most adorable lop eared rabbit sitting on top of the machine. As she got closer it turned to look at her and twitched its nose in an absolutely cute manner that would have made Azusa go into diabetic shock if she'd seen it.
Actually she would have grabbed him, named him Jean Marc and put him in a cage.
Kasumi of course was not that bad. She just picked him up and cradled him to her breasts all the while cooing about how cute he was. He made a note to lay off Ryoga when Akane was cuddling with him as it actually felt so good. Kasumi lifted him up to get a better look.
"Oh my you're somebody's pet Usagi-san." She fingered the collar. "But there's no address as to who your owner is." A brilliant smile lit up her face. "Well Akane has p-chan so I guess I can have you as a pet until we find your owner!" She said as she put him into the apron pocket. "Come on now we've got to go shopping for Ranma's welcoming home feast." She said as she grabbed her shopping basket from its place in the hall closet.
The resulting shopping trip was surreal to say the least. Ranma noticed that on no less than six occasions Kasumi would use her feminine ways to get a better deal or more products for the same amount of money. Since he used his girl form to snag free food he was relieved that Kasumi wasn't a perfect saint. He watched as she flirted with the old men while leaning over a lot. He would have admired her technique if he hadn't been stuck in her apron pocket.
When they got home they found Nabiki moving some stuff to the dojo. Ranma was curious about it but Nabiki was a bit of an enigma to him as he could never figure out what she was thinking.
"Oh my Nabiki did Ranma go to school today?" Kasumi asked as she slipped off her shoes and put on her house slippers.
Nabiki seemed startled as she didn't notice Kasumi.
"Ahh he was there but he was attacked by people so he took off. He's going to be here any minute I've got to get things set up in the dojo." She said as she walked off.
"Well Usagi-san it looks like supper is going to be quite late tonight. I should make snacks so that people don't get hungry." She said as she moved off to the kitchen to work her magic.
------------------------------------
By the time Kasumi had finished making her snacks everybody had gathered in the dojo. Present were her little sisters, Shampoo and her Great Grandmother, and Ukyo. They were all arranged in a sort of circle and for once they were talking reasonably. Well reasonable for this group. Nabiki was trying to swindle money out of the group for some information.
"Ok 5000 yen each. This is good stuff." Nabiki said trying to convince her customers to buy the information that she had.
Kasumi put the snacks in the middle of the circle and sat down next to Nabiki. She took the rabbit out of her apron pocket and started playing with it.
"Of course the fact that I already know most of what you are going to say. 3000 years of Amazon history and all." Cologne said.
"All right so what do you know?" Nabiki said as she crossed her arms under her breasts daring Cologne to spill what she knew.
"Well first of all son in law just happens to be a bronze dragon. There are two types of dragons chromatic and metallic. The metallic dragons are usually good in nature, bronze dragons are extremely reluctant to kill sentient creatures, and they prefer other methods of dealing with problems and will only kill if absolutely necessary. They are extremely noble creatures and as long as you don't betray them they can be quite loyal companions."
"But what about Herb?" Akane asked hoping to poke holes in the old woman's story.
'Herb is only 1/10 dragon and his ancestors mated with a white dragon. Not only are whites the stupidest of the dragon species they are also evil. Nice try though." Cologne chuckled.
"You forgot one thing though." Nabiki piped up. "Bronze dragons in Ranma's age category and older like to polymorph themselves into small furry creatures like Kasumi's bunny so that they can observe human behavior." Nabiki said smugly. It took a whole three seconds for her to register what she'd just said.
"Kasumi where did you get that rabbit?"
"Usagi-san? Oh I found him on top of your Dreamcast. I know he's somebody's pet because of the collar, but there's no address or anything. Seriously though who names a rabbit Ranma?" Kasumi said still oblivious to what was being said.
"Not very perceptive are you?" Cologne said. They weren't quite sure if she was talking about Nabiki or Kasumi.
"Alright Ranma enough playing P-chan." Cologne said as she reached out with her cane and plucked the rabbit from Kasumi's grasp.
The rabbit hopped out of the dojo. Everybody scrambled to get to the door. When they got to the door they saw the rabbit glow. The next thing that they were looking at was a young bronze dragon. The first person to speak was Kasumi.
"How cute! You can do tricks too Usagi-san!" She said as she rushed out and hugged Ranma around his neck. "I know I'll name you Skippy!"
Insert facefault here.
"Kasumi my name is Ranma." He said.
"Skippy." She said as she nuzzled his side.
"Ranma."
"Does Skippy want deluxe sushi?"
"Skippy."
"I'll go make you some."
"Oh yes and Kasumi could you go get that dress that I gave you."
"Ok Ra.. Skippy."
"She's screwing with me isn't she?" Ranma said as he hung his head.
"Of course she is Skippy." Nabiki teased as she walked up to him.
She ran her hand over the scales. They weren't slimy like she'd expected from a reptile rather they were smooth and leathery. She had to smell him though as he had a faint sea spray smell about him.
"Just like the book said." She murmured.
"What book?" Ranma asked swinging his head to look at her.
"This one." She replied holding up the monster manual. "It's for a game but so far everything it's said about dragons, specifically bronze dragons, has turned out to be true."
"So, can I breathe fire or something?" Ranma asked. He was quite new to this dragon thing and hadn't had a chance to look through the elder dragons books. Most of which were written in languages that he didn't recognize.
"No." She thought for a minute. "Ok the first one is free the rest will cost you." She gave a wicked smile. "Three gold per piece of information."
"You're out of your tree! Five copper." He retorted.
"One gold three silver." She countered.
"Three silver and I'll take you flying."
"Deal." She said as she motioned for him to lift his front foot. She grabbed it and shook it. She opened the book to the appropriate page. "Ok as a bronze dragon you have two types of breath weapons. The first is a line of lightning and a cone of repulsion gas. For your age class your lightning can do a maximum of 6d6 hit points worth of damage and your repulsion gas will make somebody move away from you for 1d6 3 rounds." She said as she closed the book.
Ranma thought about it for a few seconds. He swished his tongue around in his mouth. He had wondered what those two bumps in his mouth were for. The problem was he still didn't know how to spit lightning.
"What a haul! What a" Bzap.
25 HP lightning bolt save for half.
"Ranma m'boy I see you're back from the dead. Of course since you can't actually drown that story of your demise was a bit fishy." Happosai said as he brushed the soot off of his clothes before latching onto Akane's breasts.
Gain 13 HP.
"You letch!" Akane screamed as she started jumping around trying to get rid of the old freak.
Ranma would have helped her. He really would have except for one problem.
"Skippy, food!" Kasumi called from across the yard as she stepped out onto the veranda. She was wearing her new dress that he gave her and was carrying a huge plate of sushi. How she managed to get changed and still have enough time to make that much sushi nobody could explain.
Skippy moved with Ranma's fluid grace as he scampered across the yard. He reared back on his hind legs and tucked in his front legs. Cologne almost fell over laughing at the sight of a dragon begging like a dog.
"Here you go." Kasumi said as she put the plate down on the veranda and took a step back.
"Thanks Kasumi." Ranma said cheerfully as he got back down on all fours and proceeded to devour the fish and seaweed concoctions that were on the plate.
It was just after this that the rest of the people there saw exactly what Kasumi was wearing. Nabiki was first as the dress screamed expensive. Well it didn't actually vocalize it as it didn't have that specific enchantment on it but it looked expensive and that was enough to get Nabiki's juices flowing.
"Oh my god sis. Where did you get that dress!?" Nabiki asked as she almost teleported to her big sisters side.
"Is very pretty dress." Shampoo said as she visualized herself wearing it.
"Oh this? Ranma gave it to me this afternoon." She gave a twirl to show it off better. "He said it was a gift to show his thanks for all the things I do for him."
"Oh so you whore yourself out to him?" Akane said. She immediately regretted it as soon as she said it.
Kasumi's smile fell.
"Oh she'd have to do more than that I'm afraid." Cologne said as she pogoed over. "Mithril dresses are quite expensive. Enchanted mithril even more so. No if she was only putting out for son in law it wouldn't be enough. Alas I do not know enough of the old magics to be able to discern what enchantments are on this dress." Cologne said as she looked at Ranma who was still eating.
He looked up from his food to see everybody staring at him. Kasumi didn't have her usual smile on which worried him greatly.
"Umm what's going on?" He asked.
"Wahh! Akane called me a whore, Skippy!" Kasumi cried as she flung herself at him and sobbed into his neck... with the usual results.
"There, there Kasumi. I gave you that dress because I really wanted to. Akane doesn't deserve a mithril dress as an uncute tomboy like her would just ruin the effect." Ranma said in his female voice.
"Why you!" Akane yelled as she charged him with mallet raised.
Ranma let loose with a cone of repulsion gas which caught Akane square in the face. She immediately turned around and started running in the opposite direction.
"Heh this stuff isn't so bad after all." Ranma said as he/she went back to comforting Kasumi.
Cologne of course was curious about the magic on the dress.
"So son in law care to share with the rest of us exactly what that dress is?" She asked, her left eyebrow raised.
"Well it's a mithril dress as you said. It's worth about 1,600 gold with labour. It has a 3 Armor bonus, a 3 Enchantment to make the wearer resistant to cold, umm a 1 glamour so that it can be made to look like normal clothes or to change the design, and a couple of cantrips to clean and repair minor damage." He said as he started tallying things up in his head.
"So that's about 64,000 gold for the magic and 1,600 for the dress itself, it's worth about 65,600 gold. One gold piece is worth about $340 USD and carry the one. It's worth about 2.5 billion yen. Well ok add another couple billion because it's magical and magic is pretty rare in this day and age." He said calmly.
"Hurk!" Thud.
"I do believe that Ms. Tendo just had a heart attack." Cologne said just as calmly. She'd already guessed that the dress was worth a fortune. She reached out to tap a few points on Nabiki's body to restart her heart.
"Four BILLION YEN!" Ukyo yelled causing Ranma's wings to flutter.
"Yeah that's about right." He said as he shrugged and went back to his food.
"Four billion yen." Ukyo repeated as she started hyperventilating.
"And you just gave it to her." Nabiki croaked out obviously still feeling the effects of Ranma's heart stopping revelation.
"Well yeah I know it was a bit much but you love your... Nabiki...." Ranma got to his feet and wrapped a wing protectively around Kasumi's shoulder. She had stopped crying a while ago and seemed quite shocked that he would give her such an expensive gift. "Get that look off your face right now!" He yelled. "You are NOT going to take it from her."
"Summon Lizard."
A small green lizard appeared on Nabiki's shoulder. Its tongue darted out and swirled around in her ear. She carefully turned her head and looked at the little lizard on her shoulder. The lizard darted his tongue out again and stuck it up her nose.
"Yahhhh!" She screamed as she took off running around the yard waving her hands in the air. She continued running for a couple of minutes after the summon spell ran out.
"Anybody else?" He said looking specifically at Happosai.
The grandmaster of the school took out his pipe and lit it. He sat down and took a couple of puffs on it.
"Well... it is a lot of money and normally I would be very tempted." Ranma upped his glare and prepared to fire off a lightning bolt. "However there is a problem." He took another puff from his pipe. "Both the dress and the girl are protected by a FREAKING DRAGON!!!" Happosai's voice steadily rose in pitch until he was screaming at the end.
"Well yes that is true Happi but dragons aren't that scary." Cologne said rolling her eyes at him.
"Shows how much you know." Happosai chuckled. "I'm probably a match for a young adult; anything more would crush me like a bug." He shuddered at the end. "In fact the only thing that would be worse would be if one of those overgrown lizards got a hold of the..." He froze and started choking on something.
"If one of us overgrown lizards got a hold of the Anything Goes style." Ranma finished his mouth turning into a grin. "It is one of the most powerful styles ever created. Add to that the power of a dragon and you've got a fighter of unparalleled power that you can't stop." He finished by spreading his wings out to their maximum extension, puffing his chest out and opening his mouth. He even formed his tongue into a sine wave form like he'd seen in a tapestry once.
All in all the cool effect that he was going for was ruined when Akane nailed him from behind with her 1 Mallet. His head was pounded into the ground by the blow. With a mighty heave he pulled his head out of the ground spraying the area with dirt and grass.
"You're still a jerk you know that." Akane said as she let her mallet rest on her shoulder.
"Yeah well who'd want to marry an uncute tomboy like you anyway?" He said as he spat out a glob of grass and dirt that had gotten into his mouth.
"Well you won't have to worry about that. There's no way I'm going to marry a monster like you!" Akane shouted.
Cologne stepped forward and cleared her throat.
"You really don't have to worry about that." She said with a smile. "Since Ranma is not actually Genma's son all of the agreements made by him to marry off his 'son' are not valid." She gave a chuckle. "Since Shampoo's engagement is entirely his own doing..." She trailed off letting him figure it out for himself.
"Aiyah! Shampoo so happy!" She squealed as she rushed up to hug her airen.
Shampoo scampered up to where Ranma was standing and used his neck as a handhold to swing herself onto his back. She had to be careful not to impale herself on one of his spikes. She started stroking his neck affectionately. She wasn't sure about her husband being a dragon. Contrary to popular belief she actually did like the boy and was really eager to get to their honeymoon. With this latest complication she wondered what their kids would look like. She gave a mental shrug and went back to petting her husband. Such thoughts about children would be a couple of years off as Ranma was exceedingly skittish about such things and was in no way ready to have children yet.
"Wait a minute! Hold up here!" Ukyo yelled. She'd been moderately quite throughout the entire affair but she couldn't hold it in any longer. "You're saying that I'm no longer engaged to him! But my fathers cart! That's got to count for something!"
"Yes it does. Your father was trying to buy stolen goods and got burned." Cologne said. "If you would like a refund I suggest that you take it up with the elder Saotome." She calmly reached over to where Happosai was sitting and snatched his pipe. She took a couple of drags on it before she continued. "As for the Tendos I suggest you get back rent and food bills from them as Ranma is no longer going to marry any of you."
"Actually elder the agreement was to unite the schools of Anything Goes. That was to be through marriage and so it doesn't matter whether or not Ranma is Genma's son as he IS the heir to their branch of the school and as such the engagement stands."
Everybody including Ranma turned to look at Kasumi.
"Oh my, I think I should go get supper started. Would Skippy like some more food?" She said not so subtly slipping back into her airhead persona. She got up and headed back inside.
It was several minutes later that Ukyo decided to break the silence.
"So basically I'm the only one that's shit out of luck?" She sighed and hung her head. "Well at least I can get some revenge." She walked up to Ranma so that she was standing nose to snout with him. She noticed a faint aroma of the sea around him. "Where can I find him sugar?"
"General Tokugawa hospital, west wing, third floor, room 325 bed one." Ranma responded not wanting to get hit anymore. Even if he was a dragon getting hit by that spatula would still hurt.
"And why exactly is he in the hospital?" Ukyo asked.
"Hmm let's see. Cracked collarbone, two broken femurs, cracked ulna, two broken radials, multiple skull contusions, five cracked and three broken ribs, cracked pelvic arch, and oh let's see here umm I think he also went 'ow my spleen'. That's about it." He said giving his old friend the dragon equivalent of a smile.
"What I meant is why is he in the hospital not what he's in there for!" She yelled.
"Oh that. Well I had to ask him some questions and he was reluctant to give me the answers." He said as he backed up a step.
Ukyo advanced a step to get back into his personal space. "What kind of questions?" She asked with a menacing glare.
"Uhh, you know the where did I come from. Where are my parents? What happened to his original son? How do they get the caramel into the caramilk bar? You know those kinds of questions."
"So what were the answers?" Cologne asked as she was curious as to where Genma managed to find a baby dragon let alone polymorph it into a human baby.
"Well that is a long story." Ranma said as he lay down on the grass.
Authors Notes:
Anything strange here? Nope this is Nerima weird is normal. The main source of chaos suddenly being revealed as being a dragon is not too out of the ordinary.
What's going to happen? I really have no idea. I just thought I'd type this out to work out some of my frustrations. Will it be continued? Maybe. I lost my backpack that had my monster manual in it. I'll try to finish it without that but no guarantees.
Again many thanks go out to my prereaders: Axekeeper, Lord Raa, and Chi Vayne