Half Metal Panic

By Lord Raa

Chapter 2


Disclaim-me-do: your fiend, Lord Raa, is not responsible for any pain or discomfort experienced during the reading of this fic. He is responsible for… hang on a minute, it's round here somewhere. Ahh, there it is. He is responsible for the "humour content", however low it may be.
Previously on Half Metal Panic-

"Ranma, how would you feel if I annulled all the engagements"

And now the continuation...


At the Mithril field headquarters, Kaname Chidori was getting a dressing down from Lt. Melissa Mao.

"Just how could you allow the subject to be hospitalised? On the first day of the assignment, no less."

"But it wasn't my watch" Kaname protested. "You knew that I have to socialise with some girls from school to maintain my cover. I phoned in at lunchtime."

Kurz looked nervous when Lt. Mao turned to him. "Really? I wonder who forget to tell me."

"Hey! I'm a soldier, not a secretary," Sgt. Webber protested.

"You're lucky Ranma survived," Mao berated her subordinate, "in spite of your incompetence as a messenger."

'So it's Ranma now, is it?' Kurz wisely kept his observation to himself.

Mao glared at Kurz as she continued her tirade. "We're lucky that I was by the police scanner when the call came in."

Mao didn't mention that she'd infiltrated the hospital, disguised herself as a nurse and taken pictures of a naked, unconscious Ranma.

For identification purposes, you understand. And to assess the wound.

Not at all as part of an apology to the Captain for allowing Ranma to be hurt.

No, that would never happen. Never at all.

And most certainly not for her own private collection of beefcake photos.

Shame on you for thinking that!


At the same time in Nerima General, Nodoka was discussing the engagement situation with Ranma.

"Ranma, how would you feel if I annulled all the engagements?"

"To be honest Mom, I'd rather not be engaged just yet" Ranma replied. "I mean Ukyo's cute and all but she acted too possessive. I don't belong to nobody."

Nodoka nearly flinched at the look in Ranma's eyes when he made his declaration. "Yes, of course son."

There was an uncomfortable silence between the Saotomes that Nodoka broke when a thought occurred to her. 'He needs his freedom, but I want to be with my son. Perhaps...' "Ranma, how's this for an idea. There's an apartment block near our house, I could set you up with a place of your own. It's only a few minutes walk from your father and me, but it will give you enough space to be your own man."

Ranma looked at his mother. "Are you sure you're not disappointed with me?"

"No, no Ranma. I think that it would be good for you to get some space" Nodoka placated the injured young man. 'Besides, it will allow him to be manly without too many disruptions,' she added silently.


That afternoon, Mithril's surveillance of the Saotome home picked up on the plans to move Ranma into his own place. It just so happened that the apartment Ranma would be moving into was overlooked by the Mithril field HQ.

It took a bit of manipulation from the Mithril team, including a few greased palms and an application of feminine wiles for Lt. Mao, but it happened easily enough.

Genma, of course, protested about the pledge to unite the schools. "But No-chan..."

"But nothing, dearest" Nodoka held firm. "If you want Ranma to be a true man, then you will have to allow him to make his own decision about who he spends his life with. Besides, if you're correct about Akane Tendo being the one for Ranma, then they will work out their problems."

Genma kept his grumbles to himself and conceded the argument. "Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Shall we get Ranma's things from the Tendos?"

"Yes. I shall inform Akane myself, so don't worry about having to give her the bad news," Nodoka spoke as she prepared for the journey.


When the Saotomes arrived, the Tendo dojo, Soun did not like the look on his old training partner's face.

"Soun, it's not good," Genma spoke in the thinner man's ear.

"What do you mean?" Soun asked Genma.

"Nodoka has decided to do something rash."

"What?"

"Soun, could you get Akane? I need to tell her something important," Nodoka stated calmly as she sat down.

"Yes of course. I'll get Kasumi to bring in some tea."

When the younger Tendo girls entered the room, Nodoka sipped her tea. "Akane, I'm afraid that I have some bad news about the engagement."

Nabiki casually leaned in closer as Kasumi poured the tea.

"What is it Auntie Nodoka?" Akane asked, showing some concern for her fiancé.

"I saw your behaviour at the hospital yesterday. I don't think that your engagement to Ranma is what's best for him - you did strike someone who'd just returned from surgery for a wound sustained during your defence."

Akane winced.

Nodoka continued. "I know that you're sorry about it now, but I have decided to annul all of the engagements. If you want to be with my son, then you will have to win his heart the old fashioned way."

This made the other inhabitants of the room sweatdrop, as Nodoka Saotome was known for her somewhat twisted notions of proper behaviour. And with her, the old fashioned way could mean anything from a formal arranged marriage meeting to wearing skimpy clothes and laying legs akimbo on Ranma's bed saying "come and get it, Big Boy."

"Does this mean that Ranma is moving out?" Nabiki asked.

"Yes," Nodoka confirmed as she sipped her tea. "You sound somewhat disappointed, Nabiki."

Nabiki didn't rise to the bait. "Oh, no I'm not interested in Ranma that way. I was more concerned with the bill he and his father ran up."

Nodoka saw what the middle Tendo daughter was doing. "And just what services did you provide, Nabiki? Did you help him with his school work? His martial arts? Or perhaps you took care of his manly needs?"

Nabiki had found out that Nodoka was sharper than Ranma, and so she was able to keep her mask in place much more easily. 'Touché Auntie Nodoka, touché.' "No, it was more along the lines of the grocery bills. I take you know just how much Genma and Ranma can eat?"

Nodoka continued the game with Nabiki. "Ah yes, I should have realised that you're not the type my son would go for."

Nabiki's eye twitched. "Really? And just what is your son's type?"

Nodoka smiled. "I thought you would have found out by now, having spent over a year with him, Nabiki. But anyway, we must be going and I'd like to get Ranma's things. I want to set up Ranma's new apartment before he gets out of the hospital."

"He's moving out on his own?" Kasumi asked.

"Yes, Kasumi. I thought that it would be best for Ranma if he was allowed some space."


The following morning, Ranma was discharged from the hospital with the blessing of the doctors. The younger members of the nursing staff were a bit less pleased to see the pig tailed martial artist's departure.

Unsurprisingly, the reason for this eluded Ranma but not Nodoka. She was asked by several women if Ranma would need nursing back to health at home.

Ranma overheard one of these questions and insisted that he would be fine on his own.

On the way to Ranma's new home, the Saotomes made a detour to Furinkan high.

Nodoka walked at her son's side with Genma in tow. The panda was looking particularly brow-beaten by Nodoka.

As they approached Furinkan, one of Nabiki's associates noticed them and signalled her "boss" to the window when the teacher stepped out of the classroom.

"What is it, Megumi" Nabiki was still a little unsettled thanks to the latest Ranma-related events.

"Ranma's here with that panda and a strange woman."

"You have no idea how strange she is, Megumi. I see that Ranma's mother is here to officially inform the school about his change of address."

"That's Ranma's mother?" Megumi turned to the middle Tendo.

"Yep," Nabiki nodded.

In the corner, Tatewaki Kuno was happy. It seemed that his fierce tigress was now freed from the grip of his nemesis, the foul sorcerer. Now, if only he could liberate the pigtailed goddess. Of course, his plan of action was distracted by a naughty fantasy about things that would boggle the mind of the average Japanese citizen.

The rest of the school was awash with gossip concerning their favourite source of entertainment.

First of all, it seemed that Ranma was not invincible, his recent stay in the hospital confirmed that even he could be caught unawares.

Second of all, his mother had pretty much declared him unattached by annulling all of the engagements.

The girls were discussing who had the best chance of pulling Ranma, when Kaname walked up to them.

"Who's this Ranma?" she asked innocently.

The girls turned to the blue haired girl. They were about to roll their eyes in disgust, but then they remembered that Chidori was new to the school.

"Ranma's the guy with the pigtail. Things always happen around him," Shinobu Hayami replied. She then proceeded to tell the Mithril operative about some of the things that had happened to Ranma during his time in Nerima.


At the apartment the Mithril had leased, Kaname was relaying her findings to Mao.

Kurz was thinking about challenging Ranma to a friendly sparring match. As a professional soldier, the idea that there was a civilian better at fighting than you would always be a bitter pill to swallow.

Mao was thinking about paying this Nabiki girl a visit for some decent action shots of Ranma.

Chidori was uneasy about the next piece of news she had to give the other members of her team. "I found out that Ranma has several people out for his head."

"Great," Kurz cursed. "Now we've got to watch out for a number of crazies."

"That's not all" Kaname winced. "There are a number of girls out for him."

"That doesn't surprise me. But I've just had a communiqué from the Tuatha de Danaan. We're now going to get some back up," Mao informed her team.

"Who would that be?" Kaname asked, being the new girl in the unit.

Kurz took a guess. "Sagara?"

Mao just smiled and nodded.

"Yes!" Kurz shouted. "The original members of Team Urzu are back in action!"

"What's Sagara like?"

"He's been a soldier since he was eight," Mao answered. "Plus he's one of the finest AS pilots in the world. Generally, he's a lot more professional than Kurz here is."

"Hey!" Webber protested. He relented when he saw the teasing grin on Mao's face. "When's he coming to town?"

"All I know is that he should be here in a few days."


The fourth day after the shooting incident, Ranma made his way to school under his own power and in good time.

Little did he know that with the dissolution of all of his engagements, a new menace lurked in the shadows.

At that same time Furinkan's student body broke for lunchtime, this sinister group made their plans to get what they wanted from the young Saotome.

The rest of the afternoon went as normal for Ranma - in an incredibly boring manner. But he was given a bit of leeway because of his injuries (which weren't really bothering him at all) and was allowed to remain in the classroom, even after falling asleep.


Over the course of the next school week, Ranma had been asked if he was interested in going out on a date by several of the girls in at school. He'd turned them all down, stating that he was still had a lot of changes to deal with at the moment.

It was Wednesday lunchtime when the conspiracy decided to start the ball rolling on their trophy hunt by forcing a younger student on a panty-raid.

During that evening, a black clad figure stalked towards the balcony of Ranma's apartment, causing the motion sensors to alert the team from Mithril.

"Shit!" Mao cursed. "I'll take the AS, Kurz, you take the roof."

As the team of highly trained professionals moved into action, Ranma stepped into his apartment's small shower, unaware of the commotion around him.

Kaname leapt across the gap between the buildings and abseiled down to Ranma's balcony.

Pinning the suspected assassin/burglar to the floor, Chidori held her hand over the trespasser's mouth.

"Be quiet," she hissed. "I have a gun pointed at your head. Do you understand what that means?"

The prone figure nodded gently.

"Good. Now tell me what you're doing here."

Turning around, Kaname's captive removed its mask, revealing itself to be a girl from Furinkan.

"I'm here to steal Ranma's underwear," she confessed at gunpoint.

"Why do you want his clothes?" Kaname asked, confused by the whole situation.

"Because they're Ranma's."

Seeing that the blue haired girl didn't understand, the girl explained. "They belong to the hottest guy in school! Plus when you think about where these" she held up the pair of boxers she had snagged "touch him, it's like indirectly touching him. You know, just here," she added as she caressed the gusset and fly hole.

"Plus you don't have to worry about psychos coming out of the woodwork if you spend more than FIVE seconds a day looking at him."

"I see," Chidori lied. Alarms were ringing in her head - the "Nut Job Alert" alarms.

It was then that Ranma came out to investigate the commotion on his balcony.

"What's going on here?" he asked, as he finished tying the towel around his waist. Unfortunately in his haste, Ranma had grabbed a hand towel.

"Hehehehehe," the pinned girl drooled as she looked up.

"WHAT" he demanded.

Then the towel fell off.

Looking down at himself, then at the two blushing girls, he left them out in the cold, mumbling something about "pervert stalkers" and a "need to install better locks."


The next day at school, Ranma was somewhat surprised to see another new student in his class.

The boy introduced himself as Sousuke Sagara.

Ranma appraised the transfer student; he lacked the fighter's grace of the normal challengers he fought, but there was something about the way he scanned the room that unsettled him a little. It was as if the new student was subtly looking for potential threats and ambush points.

Kaname made eye contact with the new student, gesturing that she wanted to speak with him at lunch.

"What are your hobbies, Sagara-kun?"

"I like fishing and reading" he replied politely. "I find them relaxing."

"That's nice, things can get a bit hectic around here. There's a seat next to Saotome-kun over there," Miss Hinako pointed out the place to Sousuke.

"Thank you sensei."

Miss Hinako was in her adult form because of an earlier altercation between Kaname and Ukyo. The okonomiyaki chef had noticed the way Ranma had cast a glare at the blue-haired girl, who was unable to look at Ranma and asked about what had happened.

As a trained military professional, Kaname was not intimidated by Ukyo. That was until the cross dresser pulled out her oversized baker's peel and cut off a lock of her blue hair.

Not wanting to blow her cover just yet, Sergeant Chidori was economical with the truth. She backed off and mentioned that she saw a girl clad in black trying to break into his apartment.

Ukyo knew that Kaname knew more than she was letting on and pressed for further information.

It was when the Mithril operative confessed to seeing Ranma naked in the aftermath of the attempted break in that a fight looked like starting. That was when the chi draining teacher disciplined them.

Halfway through the lesson, Hinako changed back into her child form. As this was the first time something Sousuke had seen anything like this, he turned to Ranma for answers.

"Zzzzz."

As Sousuke picked himself off the floor, Hinako turned to him and frowned. It was not the most threatening face he had seen.

"You're not causing trouble on your first day are you, Sagara?"

"No, it's just that I wasn't expecting Saotome to be asleep in class," Sousuke explained.

The class, including the child teacher, chuckled at the ignorance of the new guy, having assumed that Ranma was (in) famous across the nation for sleeping in class.

"What is it" Sousuke asked. "Is Saotome one of those people that things happen to?"

Hiroshi and Daisuke were impressed by the new guy's analysis of the Nerima situation. "Yep, that's Saotome."

"Ah."

The bell rang for lunch, awakening Ranma from his strange dream of floating numbers and scientific equations.

"Hmm, feeding time. I wonder what Mom made for me today?" he asked no one in particular.

Taking his lunch outside via the window, the cursed martial artist found a spot under a tree, unwittingly going to a place where Kaname would be able to keep him under observation.

The pigtailed martial artist seemed to disappear from the blue-haired girl's vision when she approached the tree in the yard.

Kaname looked around, unsure of what happened until she felt a tapping on her left shoulder.

"I don't like being followed," a voice ominously informed her.

Jumping around, Kaname fell into a combat stance ready to fend off an attacker.

"Oh, it's you Saotome-kun," she recognised the young man that stood less than two metres in front of her.

"Don't follow me around, Chidori. I don't like being crowded. Not even by cute girls," Ranma warned.

Some of the witnessing students were puzzled by Ranma's apparent change in attitude, but chalked it up to the stress of his crazy life and recent stay in hospital.

"Now that that's sorted, I'll be going," Ranma turned to leave.

"But you're in danger, Ranma-kun," Kaname blurted out.

"From what? People that have some kind of grudge against me?" Ranma asked, his tone was far more cynical than ever before. "Perhaps I have to look out for peeping toms and panty thieves?"

The Mithril agent blushed at the memory for the previous night.

"Yeah, well, whatever."

Sousuke walked up to the quarrelling classmates. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Miss Chidori."

"That's her," Ranma pointed to the embarrassed girl. He moved in to whisper to Sousuke. "Be careful, she's a bit..."

A growl interrupted Ranma's description of the blue haired girl. He turned around to face an unhappy Akane.

"Ranma!"

"What?" came the curt reply.

"I see you're upsetting girls again!" the short haired girl yelled at Ranma.

"You still bothering me?" Ranma asked the enraged girl, a look of disgust clearly visible on his face. He left the stunned students to continue their discussions, his appetite now absent.


After school, Kaname grumbled and about streak of bad luck that plaguing her latest mission. Sousuke was with her, and had tuned a lot of the repeated gripes out.

"What's up Kaname?" Mao asked her subordinate.

"You know that Ranma saw me on his balcony last night?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"The girl thought was trying to break in had a pair of his boxers in her hand when he came out to see what was going on. Now he thinks I'm some kind of pervert," Kaname sighed. "That and I saw him naked."

"That's it?" Mao, being the woman that she was, didn't see what the problem was.

"He's got women crawling out of the woodwork trying to drag him to the altar," Kaname shot back. "I hear stories about warrior women that want to drag him off to China and fiancées from arranged marriages that cemented the deal with dowries that consist of a mere meal. Anybody who shows the slightest bit of interest in him romantically is bound to set him on edge."

"What strange notions of romance you have if they involve theft of underwear, Chidori," Sousuke commented as he cleaned his Glock 26.

Kurz appeared at he doorway with some food from the local convenience store. "Theft of underwear? Just what have you to been up to while I'm off getting food?"

"Nothing, you idiot," Melissa fired off a half hearted put down at the letch of her team. "Now what you got for us?"

"There was a special on canned crab, so I picked up a few tins."

Melissa Mao's face lit up. "Kurz, fire up the stove and I'll break out a cold six-pack."

"Yes ma'am," Kurz saluted.

Sousuke finished reassembling his pistol and stood up. "Lieutenant, Captain Testarossa told me that she was upset that Ranma was injured so soon into the mission. With your permission, I shall go out on patrol to keep watch out for potential assailants in the area."

"Go ahead, Sergeant."


Ranma was returning from an evening training session with his father. He was a little sceptical about the meddling Kaname Chidori's warning that he was in danger at first, but a few memories came back about people trying to kill him at all hours of the night helped him decide that a little extra training would hurt him.

Of course an unfortunately timed bucket activated his Jusenkyo curse and turned him into a "her", complete with remodelled plumbing.

As the redheaded girl walked to her apartment, Mao noticed that something was up. Ranma was receiving a female visitor – one that had a key to the front door.

"Who's that?"

"I've never seen her before," Kaname responded to the lieutenant's question. "She's not in any of the intelligence."

"Is she hot?" Kurz asked.

"She's cute," Mao answered. "She's getting in the shower."

"Sweet!" Kurz exclaimed. "Let me see."

"No," Melissa still refused to allow Kurz to leer at the redhead.

The jostling for position at the telescope caused the team to miss the temporary cure for a Jusenkyo curse.

"Stop peeping on her. I'm going over to see what's going on," Kaname volunteered.


Ranma, now male, stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Drying himself off, he put on a clean shirt and threw the dirty one in the laundry.

The doorbell rang, causing Ranma to consider who would want to see him at this hour.

After checking that he was decent, he opened the door to see Kaname smiled cutely back at him.

"Can I help you?" he asked through the slightly opened the door.

"I wanted to apologise about last night."

"Ok. I forgive you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm tired." Ranma started to close the door on Kaname.

The blue haired girl was under the impression that Ranma had another reason to go to bed early that evening.

"What happened to the girl that came in here?"

Ranma froze and turned to his visitor. "Why are you worrying about her?"

"It's got something to do with the stalker from yesterday."

"She ain't stalking me. YOU'RE stalking me," Ranma explained.

"But where'd she go to?"

"I ain't telling you that," Ranma dismissed troublesome student. "Go away."

With that, Ranma slammed the door shut in Kaname's face.


To be continued…

Thanks go out to the poor soul who is being forced to pre-read this rubbish, Chi Vayne. You should all appreciate his sacrifice.

Again, this is the changes are part of a rewrite suggestion by someone who emailed me. You know who you are.

Any questions, comment or complaints, you should know how to contact me by now.

Laterer.