Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma ½™ in any way, shape or form, nor do I own the concept of Red Dwarf™.
Author's Notes: though my fanfiction writing career is technically over/on quasi-hiatus due to lack of inspiration/ideas, I've had requests for this story and I had enough inspiration left that I tried to at least give it a go by posting the opening chapter. The creation of further chapters however depends entirely upon you, the readers. Reviews expressing interest and –especially- reviews with your ideas about what might happen to the Spacebound NWC will result in chapter creation from me. Who knows? If this is popular enough I might be able to resurrect Sacrifice ½, Twizted Matchups or even Chaos Calls To Chaos!
Chapter 1: The Final Frontier School of Martial Arts, or; In Space, No One Can Hear You Ki-yah!
"This emergency meeting of the Nerima Ward Council is now in session. I trust you're all aware of why we're here?"
A chorus of half-seen headshakes and assorted negative sounds answered him, at which the chairman sighed in exasperation.
"This meeting has been called to address a grievous problem that has been plaguing our fair district for too long now, a problem which this meeting is intended to solve. I am speaking, of course, of nothing less than the 'super martial artists', commonly referred to as the Nerima Wrecking Crew, who have been terrorising this district. Mr. Ichi, would you please start the slideshow?"
The named individual, just another shape in the shadows, activated something that turned out to be a slide projector. A series of photographed images flickered onto a screen as the chairman spoke.
"As you are most certainly aware, Nerima has been suffering from a terrible series of events whose occurrences and very nature can only be described as 'freakish'. These events can all be traced back to the same set of individuals. Now, none of these characters intentionally cause the mayhem and havoc they wreak, but the destruction occurs all the same and it is proving a serious threat to the safety, indeed, the very survival of Nerima."
As the other council members began murmuring to each other, the chairman made a gesture to Mr. Ichi, who promptly changed slide batches.
"Now here are detailed physical depictions of the culprits who are to blame behind all of this. Firstly, we have one Saotome Ranma, a freshman in our own Furinkan High School. Saotome's history has proven very difficult to unveil, and much is still in shadows, but he is known to be the son of one Saotome Genma and Saotome Nodoka, both of whom live in this very ward. At the age of three, Saotome Genma, Ranma's father, took the boy away from his mother to undergo a sort of pilgrimage, during which he trained the boy extensively in martial arts… and virtually nothing else."
"The result is that the boy, like his father, is something of an idiot savant; an indescribable genius at martial arts, but almost completely helpless in regards to any other subject. However, whilst his father is the same by nature, Saotome Ranma has been rendered so by nurture; our reports indicate that the boy has received only the barest minimum of education during his pre-adolescent years, and even now that he attends Furinkan High School his studying skills are still atrocious due to his father's influence; he is both uninterested in his studies and he is often drawn away from class to attend various martial arts matches. He is one of the two individuals who have been defined as 'lynchpins'."
"Now this is Tendo Akane, the second of the two lynchpins for the Nerima Wrecking Crew. Miss Tendo is the youngest of three daughters, the children of absentee member Mr. Tendo Soun, and was born and raised in this very district. However, she has always been something of a 'chaos-magnet', see the report on her relationship with Kuno Tatewaki, and the arrival of Saotome Ranma as her fiancé has only made things worse. She doesn't tend to being the direct instigator of trouble, but whilst her martial arts training has gifted her with the super-human strength common to all of these super martial artists she has learned nothing of the attendant control and discipline. As a consequence, she combines her great strength with a fiery temper and fierce sense of pride, a most dangerous combination indeed."
"This is Hibiki Ryoga. He was the first of the Nerima Wrecking Crew to appear after Saotome Ranma and his father moved here. Of all the Crew he is the most outright destructive, combining his incredible strength and a secret technique that lets him destroy rock and steel with a touch with an over-emotional nature and an absolutely horrendous sense of direction. Despite the fact he only appears in Nerima occasionally, he has caused perhaps the most destruction. Originally, he sought revenge on Saotome Ranma for the fact that he fell into the Jusenkyo Spring of Drowned Piglet, but now he remains because he desires to win the affections of Tendo Akane."
"This is Kuonji Ukyo. Like many of these youths, her presence in Nerima is directly tied to the presence of Saotome Ranma. At a young age, Saotome Genma agreed to engage his son to her, despite the fact his son had already been engaged to marry a daughter of the Tendo household prior to birth. Saotome Genma dealt with this moral dilemma by simply running off with Kuonji's dowry, the family okonomiyaki-vending cart, and leaving her beside the road. She dedicated her life to pursing Saotome Ranma for revenge, but when she finally caught up to him here in Nerima she instead choose to become an official contender for his hand in marriage, opening up a restaurant to support herself."
"Shan Pu is from China, specifically she is a member of the Joketsuzoku, also known as the Chinese Amazons. They are an ancient matriarchal tribe of martial artists from deep within the Bayankara mountain range. She is here pursuing Saotome Ranma in accordance with her tribal laws, which state she has to marry Saotome Ranma because he defeated her in combat."
"Also from the Joketsuzoku is Mu Tsu, a practitioner of Hidden Weapons Style martial arts who specializes in ranged combat, despite his poor eyesight. This, coupled with his emotional instability, renders him the most actively destructive of the Nerima Wrecking Crew, alongside Hibiki Ryoga. He came to Nerima to try and win Shan Pu's hand in marriage, and works alongside Shan Pu and Shan Pu's great-grandmother Khu Lon in a Chinese restaurant."
"The final members of the Nerima Wrecking Crew are Kuno Tatewaki and Kuno Kodachi. These two have been troublemakers since before Ranma even arrived, remaining untouched despite being amongst the weakest of the super martial artists by virtue of their massive wealth. The two wouldn't actually be so much trouble if not for their unstable psyches."
"Very interesting. But precisely why have you called for this meeting? Exactly what harm have they been doing? From what I heard, they keep their fights solely to their own numbers. Well, except the Saotome kid; he gets called out by wandering martial artists now and then."
The chairman frowned as he tried to pinpoint precisely who amongst the council members had spoken, unable to do so he resumed speaking.
"Generally, it is true they do not fight with anyone other than themselves. However, they generally demolish their immediate surroundings whenever they do so. Hibiki is especially bad at this; he routinely demolishes walls, shatters telephone lines and digs massive craters in the streets. Mu Tsu routinely accosts innocent bystanders when his poor vision leads him to mistake them for Saotome or Shan Pu. Property values are dropping like stones, insurance companies are cancelling their policies due to bankruptcy- people are moving away in droves; they're terrified of being caught in the crossfire or of having their houses torn down around them! Nerima is being bled dry gentlemen, accidently and non-purposely, but it is dying all the same. We must take action against the Nerima Wrecking Crew!"
He pounded his fist on the table for emphasis, startling the other council members.
"Now really Mr. Chairman; are you entirely sure such dramatic measures are necessary?"
CRASH!
The council members leapt up like startled birds as the ceiling suddenly caved in and the table around which they had been sitting was crushed to the floor by an unidentifiable projectile, which slowly sat up and revealed itself to be none other than Saotome Ranma, rubbing his head with a pained look upon his face.
"Ow… damn tomboy, she didn't have to hit me so hard. So I didn't want to eat her cooking- big deal! Who'd want to eat squid and rice stir-fried in dish soap and spiced with drain cleaner crystals?"
As the council members blinked, trying to figure out a reply to that, the ground beneath their feet shook and then exploded, the figure of Hibiki Ryoga tearing his way from below with a ferocious grimace upon his face.
"Ranma! How dare you insult Akane's cooking like that! I won't stand for it!"
As the council members ran for cover, Ranma and Ryoga began one of their usual ferocious brawls; eventually leaping out through the hole Ranma's entry had smashed into the roof and away into the horizon. As the council emerged from their hiding places to take in the ruins of their meeting hall, they unanimously turned to the chairman.
"We're with you one hundred percent! The only problem is, what do we do about them?"
"The one good thing about Saotome's presence in Nerima drawing chaos is that it makes it much easier to find… shall we say… 'unique'… methods of resolving problems. I've managed to purchase, for the meagre price of one million yen, the ultimate solution to our martial artist problem."
Smiling, the chairman pressed a hitherto hidden button and a wall slid back to reveal a doorway. The council members followed the chairman and Mr. Ichi down the revealed steps and gasped in shock at what they found; a spaceship. An actual, gigantic, futuristic spaceship.
"How in the world did this get down here? More the point, who in their right minds would sell something like this for only one million yen?" breathed a councillor, provoking a smile from the chairman.
"Well, the man's business flyer did say he was crazy, but anyway. This is the answer to our problems. The ship is fully automated, equipped with perfect life support systems, an infinite power supply and weapons for self-defense, and it has enough stored supplies to support a group of over elven hundred for several centuries. All we need to do is load the Nerima Wrecking Crew into it and launch it into space. Due to a combination of its programming and the fact the navigation portion of it's A.I. was created from a scan of Hibiki Ryoga's brain, once it is launched they'll never find their way back to earth!"
Now, had this proposition been made to a normal city council, it would have been –at best- laughed out of the building. As this was Nerima, and seeing as how they'd just had Ranma and Ryoga crash in on their meeting, the proposition was met with total approval. Now all that remained was actually capturing the Nerima Wrecking Crew. Surprisingly, that turned out to be relatively easy.
First to go were the Kunos; a small bribe to Nabiki got her to deliver a pair of packages, each loaded with a sleeping gas bomb.
Secondly, Ryoga was neutralized by a female agent (one of the female students from Furinkan, working for the council in exchange for some alterations to her permanent record) armed with one of Kodachi's own black rose bouquet bombs, modified to dispense sleeping gas.
Shampoo, Mousse and Ukyo all fell at once to the same trick; a phoney delivery order that led them to a gas chamber.
Finally, the only two left were Ranma and Akane. And they would fare no better.
"Hello there, you're a fine-looking young lad aren't you? How'd you like a free sample of our latest flavour?"
"Wow, you mean it? Sure, thanks mister!" Ranma normally didn't eat ice cream as a guy, but a free sample was a free sample. He did think it was kind of odd to see an ice cream vendor here in Nerima, but he shrugged off his concerns to enjoy eating it. It had a rather strange aftertaste to it come to think of it… hey, why were the streets getting so blurry? Akane's eyes widened as Ranma slowly slumped to the ground.
"Ranma! What's wrong? Hey! Let go of me!"
No sooner had Ranma collapsed then another agent had stepped up behind Akane and clamped a chloroformed rag over her mouth, the sheer surprise of its attack enabling it to hold on long enough to render her unconscious. The agent who'd disguised himself as an ice cream vendor started hauling Ranma onto his shoulders as the other did the same with Akane.
In the secret launch base, the councillors acted the role of rocket technicians as the chairman counted down.
"Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Ignition."
The switch was pressed and, with a thunderous fury, the spaceship was launched into space, the councillors breaking out into cheers almost despite themselves as it disappeared into the sky.
"Problem solved. The timers on those cryogenic suspension pods will release them in about six months ship time, and they'll be much better off out there, seeing new places and where people like us don't have to put up with them. Who wants to go out for a celebratory meal?"
Okay, probably not the best of openings, but as I keep mentioning I have been suffering terminal writer's block. Reviews will spark further chapters- and make sure to post your ideas for what sort of chaos the NWC could get into in the depths of space with no adult supervision!