Chapter three of Soun and Genma's… Operation Conquer the World!
"Ouch!" was all that Ranma could say after being hit upside the head with the table.
"Now, Ranma my boy, it's time for you to choose." Soun said with a giant smile that would have given Ranma nightmares if he could have seen it.
"Choose what?" Ranma asked as he pulled himself out from under the table.
"One of my daughters!" Soun said excitedly. "Choose one, choose one!"
"For what?" Ranma asked, clueless as to what Mr. Tendo could be talking about.
That was when Genma backhanded him with a sign that read "To marry! He wants you to pick one to marry!"
"Well said Saotome!" Soun said, "Now pick one Ranma."
'Eh? What? Is this why pops pulled me al the way down here? I can't believe this! He didn't even tell me I was going to be choosing my wife today! Why do I have to choose now anyway? And why does it have to be one of this guy's daughters?' Ranma sighed and looked from daughter to daughter to penguin to daughter.
Kasumi spoke up relieving Ranma of the spotlight for a few moments. "Akane would be perfect for him! I mean she didn't kill him, that's got to be a sign from God!"
"Yeah!" Nabiki chimed in agreeing, "And Akane can't stand boys and Ranma's only a boy part of the time." Nabiki closed her eyes and nodded, putting her best 'its-a-perfect-plan' face on.
"What?" Akane sputtered. "Why are you trying to dump him on me?"
"But Akane, he's perfect for you!" Kasumi protested. 'And he's simply too young for me, I mean what would people say?'
"That's right," Nabiki agreed, "But if you don't want him I'll take him?" Nabiki smiled at Akane in the same manner as when she'd sold Akane's doll collection on e-bay… along with her bed and schoolbooks.
Akane paled, she couldn't let Ranma come to that sort of fate… He was a jerk and all, but he was still human and nobody deserved that. "Well… Alright." Akane grumbled, "But he's not sleeping in my room, and you have to feed him and pay him." Akane pointed at both of her sisters respectively.
"HEY!! I'm not some sorta dog or something!" Ranma protested indignant at the implications… until he saw the maniacal gleam in Akane's eyes.
"ALL BOYS ARE DOGS!!" Akane screamed in his ear, causing it to start to ring in time to his heartbeat. Ranma paled at the outburst and just sat down quietly, perhaps the smartest thing he'd done all day.
"Well, boy, good job. Now that the Tendo School of Anything Goes Tae Kwon Do will be joined with the Saotome School of Quantum Logic!!" Soun said boisterously as he danced around the room.
"Yes, boy," Genma said in a joyfully tone, "you do your father proud!"
Ranma just looked dumbly at them all.
"Ranma?" Genma questioned, a bit softer and a bit of concern edging his voice.
"SPEAK UP!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" Ranma shouted at the top of his lungs.
- - - - - - - - - -
Ranma woke up to the sensation of falling, at first he thought it was part of a nightmare he'd had where he'd been chased by a penguin claiming to be his fiancee who was then joined by another and then another. That was when he woke up to the koi pond in the back of the Tendo's rushing up to meet him.
Ranma splashed around as she made her way to the edge of the pond. "What'd ya do that for?" The irate redhead demanded of older man who was standing smugly on the back porch.
"You're getting soft boy! You didn't even hear me when I yelled that breakfast was ready." Genma explained.
"Breakfast!!" Ranma echoed when the word was spoken, "I'm starved!" Ranma rushed into the Tendos so fast that Genma was knocked off the porch and into the rose bush at the side of the door.
"Ouch! Ranma you, ow, just wait until I, yow!, get out of here!" Genma said as he fought to disentangle himself from the painful plant.
"You'd better hurry up Ranma." Nabiki said dryly as she finished her breakfast, handed the dishes to Kasumi to the kitchen and stood to leave for school, "School's in thirty minutes."
"School? What about school?" Ranma asked in between wolfing giant bites of the breakfast pancakes down. "I don't need to go to school or nothin, pops taught me plenty of other stuff than the Art when we were travelin."
"Oh, Ranma, you've just got to go to school!" Kasumi then informed him that they'd already prepared by registering him and everything, "Besides, You'll be going with Akane and Nabiki." Kasumi finished.
"Well, I suppose it won't hurt nothin… but I still think it'll be a waste of time." Ranma snorted, "It's not like I ever used all that other stuff pops taught me either!"
"Just go to school Ranma!" Genma growled, almost thinking of taking the boy over his knee, God knows sometimes he needed it!
- - - - - - - - - -
Ranma walked along behind and above Akane as he walked on the chain-link fence beside the sidewalk whistling an aimless tune.
"What are you doing up there?" Akane asked her new fiancee rather irritatedly.
"Keepen' in practice, the Saotome School of Anything Goes specializes in mid-air combat… so you've got to have a good sense of balance." Ranma explained as he crouched down to talk to Akane.
"Whatever…" Akane said as she rolled her eyes and finished rather peevishly, "just don't make us late for school."
It was a very close call, Ranma almost had an accident when one of the resident's automatic sprinklers went off almost soaking the poor lad.
Ranma and Akane ran into the schoolyard mere minutes before the school bell was to ring. Ranma just stared at the mass of boys that were crowding the space between the gate and the entrance to the school building. It looked like it was the entire male populace of the school body was amassed for something… "Hey, Akane, what's all this?"
"Nothing I can't handle Ranma!" Akane virtually screeched as she started to run into the mob of boys violently knocking them out and causing their bodies to fly all over the place.
Ranma hopped down and started to plow through the mass as well, much to Akane's irritation. "I can do this by myself you jerk!" She yelled as she took a swing at him.
"What!?" Ranma yelled back in surprise, "I was only tryin' to help! Besides it wouldn't do to let a weak girl like you get beat up!"
"RANMA!!" Akane yelled as she viciously attacked him, or rather tried to, he was never where her punches were landing. 'What's with this guy? Is he reading my moves or something?'
"Halt!" a voice yelled drawing the attention of both Akane and Ranma, "You there why do you provoke such a beautiful flower to such burning anger? You foul knave, I, Tatewake Kuno shall defend this fair damsel from the likes of your evil… for I am the undefeated kendo champion, the True Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, the Giant Squid of Doom and I shall not rest until I see that the justice of heaven, slowly yet surly, shall smite you into nothingness!!" Kuno declared with fervor as lightning illuminated the background adding a certain, and impressive, dramatic backdrop to his speech.
"What?" Was all that Ranma could say, he had an urge to fall over in uncontrollable laughter but he successfully defeated it by blinking stupidly at his opponent.
Kuno said something that Ranma couldn't quite hear but it ended with "age seventeen." Kuno then turned back to face Akane, "Fear not my love, I shall save you from this insolent fool, and then you shall be free of him!"
Akane was on the verge of actually thanking Kuno when he added "Free to date me!!"
"I don't wanna date you Kuno!!" Akane yelled at the swordsman.
Kuno just calmly and replied "Yes you do."
"Alright! You've asked for it!" Ranma yelled at the wannabe swordsman and took a fighting stance, "I'm Ranma Saotome and, in the name of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, I shall punish you!"
Kuno rushed at Ranma swinging his sword in what to the untrained observer looked like wild strokes, but to the trained observer were in fact sloppy, wild strokes.
Ranma dodged out of the way, just barely, just because the strokes were sloppy didn't mean that they weren't fast.
'Wow, he's good…' Ranma thought as he tried once again to breach Kuno's defenses. Dodging, twisting and slipping through Kuno's strokes. 'Just a little more…'
'Amazing!' Kuno thought as he continued his wild assault on the martial artist, 'He's dodging all my attacks, that's impossible!' Kuno felt a brush across his forehead as Ranma flipped behind him and kicked the back of his knee sending him crumpling to the ground. 'He can't be human… unless…'
Ranma turned to Akane and said "Come on, we don't want to be," Ranma was interrupted by the tardy bell as it rang throughout the school grounds, "late…" he finished trailing off. 'Oh well.'
- - - - - - - - - -
"You just had to open your mouth you idiot!" Akane was tempted to throw the bucket of water at Ranma. "So far you've managed to get us both punished like this for every class we've had today!" Akane was seething, she didn't know how she'd been caught up in half of the things Ranma had done to get punished like this but it was getting old quickly.
"What!?" A male voice screamed in surprise, "I won't allow it! I simply cannot allow it! There is no way that I, Tatewake Kuno, could sit idly by and let such a vile occurrence transpire!" Kuno yelled as he rounded the corner into the hall where Akane and Ranma were standing with their buckets of water.
"No!" Akane blurted out as it donned on her why Kuno was so upset, but it was too late…
"I will never accept the engagement of Ranma Saotome to Akane Tendo!" Kuno bellowed in a voice that had probably been heard in neighboring schools.
"Oh, no..." Akane sighed as she slid down the wall.
Ranma on the other hand was busy trying to dodge Kuno's wooden sword when the entire student body suddenly seemed to appear clogging the hallway and making it not only stupid to fight but dangerous as well. "Kuno, this is no place for a fight… if you wanna fight follow me!" Ranma said while dodging Kuno's swings, then he turned and ran down the hall.
"Then follow you I shall!" Kuno said chasing the pigtailed martial artist.
"Hey! Wait for us!" The student body yelled, intent on not missing such a fight.
"Alright! This way!" Ranma said as he spied an open window and proceeded to jump out of it.
"You'll not escape me that easily Saotome!" Kuno yelled as he jumped headfirst through the window.
"Wait, aren't we on the third floor?" One of the students, Hiroshi, asked another, Daisuke.
"Yeah, but the pool's down there, so they might be ok." Daisuke replied.
Akane sighed, "That's the pool the principal keeps a two-inch thick steel cover on."
There resounded a double Clang! to underscore Akane's observation.
Daisuke winced at the sound while Hiroshi went to the window and peered down. "That's gotta hurt." he sagely observed.
"I want to look away… but I can't." Yuka wailed.
"Oh, come on Yuka! I thought you wanted to be a nurse!" Sayuri chided her friend teasingly.
- - - - - - - - - -
Soun sighed as he sat down to turn on the tv, it was harder then one would think running and operating a penguin hatchery in addition to teaching Tae Kwon Do. Now he could relax and watch some television.
What he saw made his blood run cold though, "Genma!! Genma!! Get in here quick!"
"What? What is it Soun?" Genma asked as he came rushing in.
"We've got to go save Ranma! It's going to rain!" Soun wailed, thinking of how he would get teased by the other martial artists in town if the learned that he'd engaged his daughter to a part-time girl.
"Well, I'm sure he'll be ok, I mean he is under the school's roof, right?" Genma tried to reassure his friend.
"But he doesn't have an umbrella!" Soun wailed, thoroughly unwilling to be comforted.
"Don't worry then!" Genma said snatching an umbrella from it's place in the closet. "We'll take one to him."
- - - - - - - - - -
Meanwhile, on a severely dented steel pool-cover below, two figures stirred and seemed to come to life at the same time. The amazing thing was that they could still move considering that they'd come crashing into a solid steel plate.
"Alright Saotome!" Kuno said bringing his bokken to bear. "Now we finish this!"
"Fine Kuno!" Ranma growled, "Let's dance."
Kuno blinked several times before asking, "What kind of dance, ballroom? Square dance? Swing?" Then Kuno became angry, "Why would I want to dance with you anyway?"
"I don't know…" Ranma replied, then added flippantly, "I thought it might be fun."
Kuno's eyes boggled, "I'm not that kind of guy Saotome!"
"Good, cause I ain't either!" Ranma said as he charged.
Twenty minutes later Ranma and Kuno were both panting when the first few raindrops fell from the sky. "I'll get, huff, huff, you yet, huff, Saotome!"
"Right, huff, like you cou, huff, huff, ld even hit the, huff, broad side of a, huff, huff, buildin!" Ranma replied.
"Ranma!" Akane yelled as she ran up carrying a pot full of hot water.
"What!?" the redhead turned then recognized the change in his voice… 'Oh no, when did this happen? Just what I need! Kuno knowin my secret.'
Just then Soun and Genma came running up with an umbrella.
"What's going on here?" Soun demanded. In a voice that told them that there was no way that he'd accept anything less than a complete and detailed explanation.
"Kuno knows my secret!"Ranma said, glad for a chance to catch her breath.
Kuno looked up, "Where'd Saotome go?" he wondered aloud then continued in thought, 'I know not where that foul one went, but whom might this lovely goddess of beauty be?'
"You, fair one, I am Tatewake Kuno, and I wish to take thee on a date!" Kuno said as he suddenly seemed to gain all the energy he'd spent fighting the cursed Saotome that dared to stand between him and Akane Tendo!
Genma smiled, this was the perfect time, "Ranma! Use Quantum Logic!" he said as he handed his son the umbrella and doused him with the hot water Akane had brought.
Kuno stood mouth agape, there where the beautiful pig-tailed girl had stood was the hated Ranma Saotome! "What on Earth was going on here? What happened to that beauteous red-haired pigtailed girl?"
Ranma looked at Kuno rather nervously, "Hey, Kuno, you know that the sun can play tricks with the light and all… " Ranma didn't notice Genma wince, this wasn't Quantum Logic, "it was just the sunlight playing tricks on my hair!" Ranma laughed a thoroughly unconvincing laugh.
'What has he done with her!? That foul sorcery using pervert!' Kuno shook with rage, "What are you trying to do, outsmart me you insolent cur!? The mind of Tatewake Kuno is too much for one such as you, whelp!"
Ranma just stood there dumbfounded for a moment before punching Kuno in the face.
"My son…" Genma sighed and shook his head "is useless."