Chapter 3
Lum listened attentively as Seiji explained the situation, (leaving out some very crucial details of course). One part she found particularly interesting was the "love triangle" that kickstarted this whole mess, and how it eerily reflected the dynamic she had with Ataru and Shinobu. "Yeah, it's funny how it went the other way with me, isn't it Mom?" Said Seiji when she brought it up; "sometimes your true love just shows up out of the blue, and sometimes they've been right beside you all along. For you and Dad it was the former, for me and Aka it was the latter."
It didn't take them long to find Zira, Seiji spotted her walking in front of a café. She had donned a new (more feminine) disguise, but was still wearing the bright yellow backpack from before. As Lum and Seiji began to descend, Zira noticed a teenage girl with periwinkle hair coming around the corner on a bicycle. Thinking quickly, she immediately changed form to that of a boy, grabbed the girl off her bicycle, and drew her in for a kiss. Both Lum, and especially Seiji were struck dumb with surprise; Zira definitely wasn't gay, but she sure knew how to fake it. She even managed to get the other girl into it from what Lum could see. Seiji's shock quickly wore off however, as he marched right up to his disguised nemesis, and ripped her from the girl's embrace. "Nice try Zira" he said, holding her up by the handle of her backpack. "But I've already seen your backpack. Even if you had changed the color, your little giraffe keychain still would've given you away." Normally, Zira would've gone into her act, to convince the girl that she was who she thought she was. But both she and Seiji were taken by surprise, when another girl with brown hair came running out of the other café across the street wielding a giant spatula. "Let Ranma go!" She shouted, as both she and the periwinkle haired girl began to attack Seiji at once. Seiji had no choice but to drop Zira in order to effectively defend himself; Zira tried to sneak away but this time Lum was there to catch her. "Give me back my darling!" She yelled, but before Lum could grab her, Zira shape-shifted into a large eagle and took to the sky with astonishing speed. Lum wanted to go after her, but she remembered that Seiji was still in trouble. "Don't worry about me" he grunted, "I can handle these two, don't let Zira get away!" While he seemed to be holding his own remarkably well, Lum couldn't bring himself to leave her son behind in a jam. So she quickly gave both girls a light shock to knock them unconscious. "I told you I could handle them" grumbled Seiji as he placed the girls gently down in the second café. "What kind of mother would I be if I didn't protect my son. Besides you don't have time to roughhouse, we've got to save your father." It still pained him that he wasn't able to finish the fight on his own, but he knew his mom was right, and the two of them took off after the eagle.
As they flew, Lum asked Seiji if it was Aka's father who taught him how to fight so well. "Yes" he answered, "but I also learned a little for her mom, and from Aka herself. To be honest, part of the reason I wanted to fight those two is because I recognized them." That last comment made Lum curious, "who were those girls? Or more accurately, who will they be?" She asked with a chuckle. "Aka's Aunt Shampoo & Aunt Ukyo" he answered. "Although they're not really her aunts by blood, they've been friends with her parents for years, and thus she calls them her aunts. They owned separate cafés in this time, but in 2025, they'll decide to merge their businesses and become partners. In my time, they own one of the best restaurants in Tokyo with their husbands Ryoga & Mousse, and their kids go to school with Aka & me."
Both Lum and Seiji were rapidly closing in on Zira; Lum suggested taking her down with a lighting bolt, but Seiji warned her that she might cause harm to Ataru. Zira saw the two coming up behind her and came up with a sneaky plan on the spot. Much to the surprise of our heroes, she reverted back to her normal form (including freeing Ataru form her makeshift backpack), sending them both into a free fall. Seiji knew it was another trick, but he couldn't risk his father's life, so both he and his mother raced through the sky to catch them. It was here that Lum found out that her future son was a much faster flyer than she was, (just what Zira was counting on). Once he was close enough, she opened a time-warp portal beneath herself and Ataru, thus breaking their fall and pulling Seiji in along with them. Unfortunately, the portal closed up before Lum could reach it, and with no means to time travel herself there was nothing she could do besides hope that her son would somehow find a way back to her, and that Ataru would survive so that he and her could eventually conceive Seiji. But then she got an idea; while she might not have been able to travel to wherever or whenever they landed, she could figure out where and when they were. As quickly as she could, she made her way back to Ataru's house to access the advanced technology of her people.
As for Seiji, Ataru, and Zira; they didn't spend a long-time spiraling through the time warp before they were falling flat on their faces, this time in what looked like a green valley. Unfortunately, Zira was the first to wake up, and when she noticed Seiji coming to as well, she quickly removed his time-wrap watch and placed it on her own wrist. "Don't worry sweetie, I not gonna strand you here." She said straddling his chest and bending down to get uncomfortably close to his face. "I've decided to give you one more chance to dump that red headed heifer and come back to me." Seiji wasn't back 100% yet, but was conscious enough to give a retort. "How many times to I have to tell you Zira, we were never a couple, you just shoehorned yourself into my life because you can't take a hint to save yours" he growled. "Well I guess it's a good thing it's your life that's on the line now" said Zira with a smirk. "I'm just gonna hang around here and put the squeeze on you until you change your mind. The sooner you say yes, the sooner I'll drop your father off in his proper time and the two of us can go back home. But you need to mean it, I'll know if you're trying to trick me." Seiji actually did think about just telling her what she wanted to hear, but if she saw through his deception there was no telling what she might do. She then kissed him, which do to his arms being pinned down by Zira's knees, he was unable to prevent. After pulling her tongue out of his mouth, Zira stood up and said. "You know, this wasn't the destination I intended, but it is rather lovely here. I'm sure I can find a way to use our current surroundings to my advantage. See you around sweetie, and do give your father my regards." She then morphed into a fast alien bird and flew away.
The first thing Seiji did once he was alone, was check to see if his young father was ok. Thankfully he was alive but still unconscious. Seiji tried to gently to wake Ataru up, knowing it's very unwise to be off guard in an unfamiliar place, (let alone an unfamiliar time). While initially sluggish in regaining his senses, Ataru quickly realized that he wasn't in Tomobiki anymore. "Where are we?" He asked Seiji, (being the only person in sight). "Well we're still in Japan; the true question isn't where we are but when we are. Zira said she didn't plan on landing here, which means the time-warp watch must've auto-corrected to a less hazardous period in time." Ataru hadn't the foggiest idea what Seiji was talking about, and Seiji knew it too. So he thought it best to sit his father down and give him a crash course on the rules of time travel.
Luckily Ataru had seen enough sci-fi to understand (and thus skip) rule #1, which basically boils down to don't alter past events: up to and including leaking info from the future to the past. Rule #2: you can never travel to a point in time after your birth, or even your death. Needless to say if anyone saw you after you canonical died, they'd think you were a ghost, and who knows what that could do their mental state. Should you attempt to set your time-warp watch to a future date, it will auto-adjust to a random date in the past. "I imagine Zira set her watch to a date before her birth, but because she jumped into the time warp with you, we were instead transported to a date before your birth." And rule #3: never ever go back to the beginning of time itself. Weather you believe in the Big Bang theory or Devine Creation, you wouldn't survive the creation of the universe or the black void that preceded it. "So no mere mortal can ever truly know how life began or how it will end?" Said Ataru just to clarify the facts. "Yeah, and personally I think it's better that way" Seiji replied. After taking a few seconds to absorb all this information, he asked Seiji. "Well, do you know when we are?" "No" Seiji answered; "Zira stole my time-warp watch which would've told me. And until I find her and get it back we're stuck here." Seiji was about to tell his father that they had nothing to worry about, but remained silent because he heard the faint sound of ominous footsteps coming towards them for every direction. Neither one of them could see what was coming yet, but from the vibrations Seiji surmised that whatever creatures were coming for them were very big. "Do you think we landed in the era of dinosaurs?" Ataru asked nervously. Before Seiji could answer, four giant demons that looked like preying mantis emerged from the tree line and quickly surrounded the two teenagers. "Not likely" said Seiji in an equally nervous tone.
