Half Metal Panic!

By Lord Raa

Chapter 4


Disclaim-me-do: For your final section in this examination, discuss the merits and flaws in the logic of the following statement: "Nothing delivers an ass whuppin' like a giant robot."


Previously on Half Metal Panic:

"We shall see how much cash you net me, Mister Ranma Saotome."

And now time for some…something. I don't know anymore. Stop picking on me.


Ranma Saotome had managed to raise his spirits after the lunchtime debacle with an emphatic win for his softball team in PE, though the girls' team managed to put up a good fight thanks to the efforts of the three athletically inclined girls from his class.

He frowned when the memories around that trio surfaced. Ukyo kept trying to get him to go out with her, bringing up events from his childhood that he couldn't remember clearly. She failed to understand why he still needed space.

He was also annoyed with the new girl in his class, Kaname. It was seemed that everywhere he went, she was not far behind.

Plus when he told her not to stalk him, Akane Tendo appeared from nowhere and had started to give him grief for upsetting the new girl.

"Stupid tomboy," he grumbled loudly as he turned the corner.

He just knew that something else was going to happen to him soon.

"I heard that, you villainous cretin!"

There it was: the Blue Blunder had taken it upon himself to defend the good name of Akane Tendo from Saotome's malign slander.

"What do you want now?" Ranma demanded through gritted teeth.

"I heard your slights on the femininity of the fair and beauteous Akane Tendo!" Kuno bellowed as he drew a pair of bokken. "This time you shall face the wrath of my new Two Sword Technique!"

The wannabe swordsman charged towards Ranma, intent on causing serious bodily harm. The plan, so brilliantly formed in Kuno's mind, was to trap Saotome between two horizontal slashes.

As Kuno closed, Ranma saw his blue haired stalker leap in front of the running kendoist. He blinked as the whole scene unfolded before him.

"Stop!"

Kuno, unable to stop moving forward, dropped his practice swords and barrelled into the girl.

"Oof!" Kaname gasped as the wind was knocked out of her. She was too stunned to see where Kuno's head was resting.

Ranma looked at the two tangled bodies in front of him and shook his head.

Kaname lowered her head, screamed "Pervert!" and knocked Kuno back a good metre by the force of her right hook.

"And people complain about MY womanising!" Ranma grumbled. "What do ya think you're doing?"

"Me?"

"No, the fire extinguisher" was the reply.

Kaname was beginning to think that Ranma was a few rounds short of a clip with that statement.

"Come on out, Tsubasa. I know you're hiding there, trying to look up her skirt!"

"Who?" Kaname asked, scanning the corridor for other people.

Ranma strode to red extinguisher and easily lifted it up. After he shook it, a full set of limbs and a head appeared.

"Anything to say for yourself?"

"Err…" the cosplay obsessed boy stammered. "I didn't mean to stare at your new girlfriend, Ranma."

Kaname blushed lightly at the inference, while Ranma roughly shook the boy again.

"She is not my girlfriend, I don't want nothing to do with her."

"What, am I not good enough for you?" Kaname demanded angrily.

"I ain't interested in no interfering stalker," Ranma said as he glared at the girl on the floor. He turned, dropped Tsubasa and left, his increasingly bad mood soured further.


Outside Furinkan, Ranma saw Sagara standing in front of a pile of unconscious male students.

"What ya looking at?"

Sousuke turned to face the pigtailed martial artist. "These boys were knocked out by her," he replied, pointing at a slightly glowing girl.

"Her? Oh, that's just great," Ranma sighed.

"Why is she glowing?" Sousuke asked. This was unlike anything he'd seen before.

"That's just her rage induced battle aura. Just ignore her, and we should be fine," Ranma shrugged,

"Battle aura?" Sousuke repeated. "Is that a martial arts technique?"

"Yep. You know much about the Art?" Ranma asked, hoping to have found a new sparring partner.

'According to Chidori's intelligence, this girl has tried to hurt Saotome. I should get him away from her,' Sousuke reasoned. "I know some self defence, perhaps you can teach me something more advanced from your style? I heard it's called Anything Goes."

Ranma smiled and leapt to the roof of the nearby store. "If you can keep up with me, then I'll train you."

Sousuke nodded, thankful that he had Ranma's physical nature to relate to, rather than bluff his way through popular culture. The one time he'd had to do that had embarrassed him so much that Melissa still teased him about it to this day.

"Agreed."


After a good half hour of roof hopping, Ranma finally landed in the park near his house. He had changed direction several times to make the chase interesting and as a test for Sagara.

A moment later, a sweaty, and slightly winded, Sousuke dropped a few metres from Ranma.

"You didn't drop that far behind," said an impressed Ranma.

"Ready to begin the training when you are, Sensei," Sousuke said as he took up a defensive stance.

Ranma smiled, for he could see that Sagara was no rank amateur. The military boy's posture was one that would allow him to react to almost anything, making it a lot like the advanced ones from the Anything Goes schools.

Deciding that he needn't show off too much, Ranma matched his opponent's stance perfectly.

"Traditionally, the challenger moves first, but I never was big on tradition," Ranma said as he prepared to strike. "Ready?"

"Yes."

"Good."

Ranma ran towards the boy. It looked like he was trying to get a jab into the left side of Sousuke's ribs. Sousuke reacted accordingly and Ranma knocked him off his feet with a sweeping kick that came from nowhere.

Ranma followed up with an elbow drop, which Sagara saw and deftly avoided with a roll to his right.

Jumping up, Sousuke charged in with fists swinging. He was taken by surprise when he found that Ranma had trapped one with his left hand and the other between his legs. Reacting without thinking, Sagara thrust a knee into Saotome's chest, though it didn't connect as well as it could have.

Ranma grinned. This was the most fun he'd had in a while.

Releasing the Mithril agent, Ranma leapt back and went into a Thai boxing stance.

"I thought you studied kempo," Sousuke pondered aloud.

"I studied pretty much everything on my travels. Why do you think it's called Anything Goes?" Ranma replied with a smirk before rushing towards his sparring partner.

Sousuke knew that Ranma was fast, but didn't know just how fast a human could move until his kidneys were pounded by vicious kicks. He lashed out with a right jab to get himself some breathing room.

When it failed to connect, he tried again and again until Ranma dropped to the floor with an axe kick to the head.

The next thing Sousuke knew was that Ranma was standing over him with an outstretched hand.

"Not bad, Sagara. You managed to tag me, not very hard, but that's than Kuno's done for a while."

Sousuke accepted Ranma's hand and thanked him. "I'm trying to place your fighting style. I recognise some elements of it, like the kickboxing, but there're many others in there."

Ranma swelled with pride at the recognition of his skills. "Like I said in the fight, it's called Anything Goes for a reason. It incorporates techniques from all over Asia. This was just Indiscriminate Grappling, or the basics, as Pops called it. The advanced techniques of Anything Goes involve things that'd blow you away."

"Like what?" Sousuke asked, intrigued as to what someone of Ranma's calibre would consider an advanced manoeuvre.

"Something like this." Ranma held out his right hand and held a glowing ball.

Sousuke looked suitably impressed. "What is that?"

"Chi."

"As in the body's energy flows?"

"Yep," Ranma replied before reabsorbing the energy into his body.

Sousuke didn't like where this was going – it messed with his view of the world. "But isn't all that ancient mysticism supposed to be just mumbo jumbo?"

Ranma looked at the dusty boy, before smirking. "Try this: Mouko Takabisha!"

The ball of life energy shot from Ranma's cupped hands and slammed into Sousuke, knocking the teenaged mercenary down to the ground.

"Does that feel like mumbo jumbo to you?"

"No," Sousuke coughed.

"Well, there's some good news," Ranma said as he helped Sousuke up again.

"What's that?" Sousuke asked as he dusted himself off.

"You're not bad. With a bit of training, you could probably get to that kind of level," Ranma answered honestly.

Sagara looked at Ranma. "Really?"

"Yep. But we need to break you of your habit of holding back too much," Ranma said as he stretched.

Before Sousuke could ask "What makes you say that I'm holding back?" his communicator bleeped.

"Excuse me for a moment. Sagara here."

Where are you+ Mao asked.

"I'm learning Anything Goes with Ranma. What's up?"

Our orders have changed. I'll update you when you return.+

"I see. I'll make my way back soon. Sagara out."

"What was that about?" Ranma asked. "I've never seen a phone like that before."

"I've been assigned to protect you," Sousuke answered.

Ranma looked at Sousuke as if he were an idiot. "From who?"

"There are people that are interested in you."

"I know: Ukyo, Shampoo, Kodachi and that stalker, Chidori," Ranma replied, counting the names off with his fingers.

"I don't think that Chidori is stalking you, Saotome," Sousuke tried to deflect suspicion from his team-mate. "But I was not referring to those girls."

Ranma looked at his first student. "What do you mean?"

"You are not a normal teenager, Saotome."

"I know."

"I mean that you've got some special abilities," Sousuke tried to clarify his point.

"You mean in addition to bein' able to hit you with my chi?" Ranma asked with a hint of humour in his voice.

"Yes. In fact we suspect you to be a test subject from the 'Whispered' project," Sousuke explained.

"And what's this 'Whispered' thing?" Ranma asked, mildly intrigued.

"I don't have all the details," Sousuke admitted, "but I'm told that the project involves advanced technologies."

"Like what?"

"Like Arm Slaves."

"Armed Slaves?" Ranma repeated. "I don't want anything to do with slaves."

"Arm Slaves. They are the next generation of military vehicle, they allow for greater firepower to be deployed quickly."

"Well, I'm sure that that means something to you, but I ain't never been part of a project like that," Ranma dismissed the boy in front of him.

Sousuke could see that Ranma was sceptical about the whole story, but wanted to keep the pigtailed martial artist on friendly terms.

"So then, how could you tell that I was holding back in our match?"

"You only tagged me you reacted on instinct," Ranma smiled, he was back on familiar territory. "You knew that I was skilled, so I figure that you were trying to get an idea of just how good I am."

Sousuke replayed the fight in his mind and found Ranma's assessment to be accurate. "Yes, that makes sense; you can't just deploy artillery without seeing what you're up against."

"You'll do well at Anything Goes," Ranma nodded. "If you can keep this up."

"Mission accepted," Sousuke saluted his new combat instructor.

"Right then," Ranma's face became serious, "your first lesson, is to show me what you're made of. You against me, full out unarmed combat, no death blows."

"Agreed," Sousuke nodded as he fell into his favoured stance.

Ranma took an advanced Wing Chun stance. "I've got some bad news for you."

"What's that?" Sousuke asked, slowly circling Ranma.

"I'm barely warmed up. Ready?"

"When you are."

As the combat obsessed teenagers charged each other, Ranma opted to show off the aerial aspects of his school and nearly took Sousuke's head clean off with the flying kick.

Sousuke neatly sidestepped countered with a rabbit punch to the kidneys, but somehow Ranma managed to dodge the blow in midair. Seeing this, Sousuke followed up with a roundhouse kick, which only struck a glancing hit on Ranma's arm.

Ranma didn't react to the contact, merely opening up with a barrage of rapid punches that stopped any normal opponent from getting a good hit in.

'Damn,' Sousuke thought, 'he's a lot better than the Intel said.'

Sousuke stepped in ignoring the hits he took and gave Ranma an uppercut that the pigtailed boy didn't expect.

Ranma stepped back and spat some blood out of his mouth. "Not bad, Sagara. Not bad at all."

Sousuke tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment of the praise, but remained silent as he considered his next move. When his plan was formed, he grabbed Ranma by the shirt and tried to throw him to the floor and get him in a joint lock.

As Ranma was being lifted through the air, he twisted and flicked a foot out, striking the mercenary in the jaw.

Sousuke staggered back in surprise and was unable to keep hold of Ranma, who had already dropped to the floor in a ready stance.

"I see what you're trying to do. Not a bad plan of action, but," Ranma paused in his assessment of the scarred boy's idea, "You're dealing with someone who's been doing this for a long time."

Ranma blurred and a winded Sagara lay on the ground for a moment, trying to see just how the advanced throw could incorporate the elements of judo, kickboxing and kempo that it seemed to.

"You're a weapon user," Ranma commented. "Short bladed weapon, knife or dagger, am I right?"

"I have drilled with knives as part of my close quarters training," Sousuke acknowledged. "I have also trained with bayonets."

"Where did you do that?" Ranma asked as he helped the exhausted boy up.

Bayonets were an unusual weapon to train with for most martial arts styles that he knew of.

"It was part of my basic training," Sousuke explained as he rubbed his shoulder. "I am a soldier of Mithril."

Ranma didn't expect that response. "And they are?"

"Are you familiar with Gatchaman?"

"Yeah, I remember that. So you fly around in a bird shaped plane?" Ranma asked with a smile.

"No, but I go all over the world stopping terrorists and helping keep wars from breaking out," Sousuke answered.

"Now I know what I have to work with. Meet me here tomorrow at 4.45. Bring something to drink and a towel."

"Where are we?" Sousuke asked. "I don't know Nerima that well."

"We're in a park behind Furinkan High. It makes sense for us to practice here," Ranma said.

"I am experienced at navigating around urban areas," Sousuke replied at the perceived slight against direction-finding skills.

Ranma waved his hands in a placating manner. "Hey, I know a guy that took four days to find an empty lot five hundred metres from his house."

"I find that hard to believe," scoffed Sousuke.

"Just like you find it hard to believe that someone can hit you with their chi, right?" Ranma teased his student.

"I've seen shit that'd turn you white," he added before leaving for his new apartment.


To be continued…

This chapter was pre-read by Chi Vayne, who could have spent the time doing something fun instead.

"Why were this and the previous chapter so short?" and "Why the bloody hell did it take you so long to write a mediocre chapter?" you all ask.

Well, the answer is Unicron.

No, not really. I'm just not terribly motivated at the moment. I don't know what it is: I mean, I now have a proper job with sensible hours and free weekends, but something just makes me tired these days. Perhaps I'm getting old. What this means is that you shouldn't expect my previous rate of updates any time soon.

I'm sure that you're all gutted about that.

Until the next time.

Laterer.