Forcibly United
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Chapter 4
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Driving through the city, unbeknown to Ranma, Ryouga, or Shenhua, a tiny mushroom spore which had endured valiantly for months in a forgotten fold of Ryouga's backpack was disturbed as the Lost Boy rifled through the bag in his search for a more presentable shirt for their meeting with Chang. The way the young man flipped the top flap of his bag open dislodged this spore, which was now free to float through the air.
A gust of wind carried the spore east, looping over a bar and slowly drifting aimlessly through the air. Curiously, this spore did not just settle and die on some roof. Another random gust of wind carried the spore into a grocery store, where the air conditioning which cycled the air carried the fateful beginning to finally land in a dark, damp spot which was, coincidentally enough, right above a basket of mushrooms.
Within hours, the spore had borne fruit and several mushrooms now dangled above the basket. Growing all together, the batch reached between thirteen and seventeen centimeters of length before the weight of themselves snapped them free from their precarious place of birth and dropped them amidst many others. The bunch of mushrooms split apart, mixing with the regular mushrooms in instants.
Nobody noticed that these mushrooms were not quite like the others as they were purchased. The mushrooms were taken to various kitchens across the city to be prepared for dinner. Only two people in all of Roanapur knew just what those mushrooms could do to someone's age and were familiar enough with the taste and sight to identify them. These boys knew that these powerful mushrooms grew only in a certain forest in Japan and knew that these mushrooms were the source of worldwide fables of The Fountain of Youth.
Sadly these mushrooms would not make their way to Boss Chang's table, where Ranma and Ryouga sat and discussed their problem. Had those mushrooms made their way to that table, many problems about to emerge would have been avoided.
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"So let me get this straight: You went out of your way to antagonize Two Hands?" Chang asked with a broad smile, sitting back in a comfortable chair and sipping his coffee. The two boys sitting on the couch across from him exchanged a look.
"Wait, her name is Two Hands? I thought her name was Revy?" Ranma pondered, scratching his jaw.
"It's a nickname. Given because the only person better with a pair of pistols in this entire city is me," Chang informed them with a grin. The Triad boss chuckled as he shook his head. "So not only do you piss her off, you manage to survive the encounter without a scratch? Kid, there's maybe half a dozen people in all of Roanapur who could make that claim."
"Feh, she was pretty fast, but not as fast as me," the pigtailed boy preened, leaning forward. "So, the old ghoul mentioned that someone in this city might be able to do something about these stupid armguards?"
"Yeah, Aunt Kuh Lon did ask me to look into that. There's a rather interesting old man in the south end of Roanapur named Wong Fei Chin who deals with a lot of rather curious items," Chang confirmed with a nod. He spread his hands wide. "He pays his protection fee on time and yet, curiously, he seems to do almost no business at all. He turns away pretty much everyone who comes into the shop, insisting that they'd cause more problems than they'd solve by using his services."
"He's the guy Granny wrote to you about?" Ryouga asked politely, getting a nod in return.
"I'll have Shenhua take you there first thing in the morning," Chang confirmed, then sighed. "Unfortunately, I've got to go take care of some business. Your rooms are downstairs and, per my Aunt's instructions, they're separate but share an adjoining bathroom. The beds have been moved to take this curse you suffer from under consideration."
"Which one?" Ranma muttered with a dark chuckle, standing. He bowed to his host. "Thanks."
"I'm always happy to help out a friend of my aunt's," The older man admitted with a smile. "And I'll admit, after seeing that redhead you've got stashed away, I'm beginning to agree with Kuh Lon that this place you two come from seems like a rather lively part of Tokyo."
"You don't know the half of it, Chang-san," Ryouga said, standing.
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Balalaika was a woman of reason and intellect. A vicious intellect, one centered primarily on making war to be sure, but many of her methods of operation were based around this sharp intelligence and the insights into human behavior which she had grasped. Thus, she was used to dealing with Chang and could sometimes read the man very well.
He was not joking in the least: The warning he had just delivered concerning the two young men in the photographs on the laptop screen were genuine. The contradictory part was that the two boys were also a few months shy of their eighteenth birthday. They weren't even especially large or intimidating looking.
The boy in the red had a slight build, somewhat muscled but certainly nothing to raise more than a passing curiosity. His friend in the yellow and green was a little more thickly built, but not enough to make a difference. Both boys wore outdated clothes, carried no weapons (save for anything hidden in the umbrella, perhaps), and were otherwise typical Japanese men: Not especially tall or strong.
"What is the danger with these two, Chang?" Balalaika finally asked, tapping the screen with one fingernail. "Believe me, I'm willing to take it at face value that these two boys are not opponents we want to make. That lovely little maid who came here six months ago certainly proved that looks can be very deceiving. What are their credentials? What have they done to warrant caution from Hotel Moscow?"
"Well for one, I wouldn't go after these boys," Chang said with a sheepish smile. The man was hiding something, but he was speaking the truth here at least. "They've got a little problem which can only be solved here, but my contact Kuh Lon told me that they're here for a little while."
"Anything else? Anything tangible you could perhaps share?" The Russian Captain pressed, taking a slow drag off her cigar. She waved her hand. "What, specifically, have these boys done which would prevent my men from gunning them down if they get out of hand?"
"Balalaika, would you pit any of your men, unarmed, against Two Hands?" Chang asked, folding his hands and leaning forward to stare the woman in the eye. He turned to the two other occupants of the room, spreading his hands wide in an all-encompassing gesture. "Any of you three. Do you have any enforcers working for you who you could trust to reliably fight Revy unarmed with her packing those two pistols of hers?"
"That's crazy talk, man!" The Columbian head scoffed. "That girl is muy loco. Give 'em a gun and yeah, maybe I put one of my guys up against her, but unarmed? Is that even a question with more than one answer?"
"Indeed, Chang. It seems rather odd for you to ask a silly question like that," Balalaika pointed out.
"Silly, huh? I would have thought so, too," Chang admitted, moving the mouse on his computer and clicking a video file. "This is footage from the Yellow Flag earlier today. As you can see, Ranma Saotome decided it would be a good night to pick a fight with Revy unarmed."
"He in a bodybag yet, or is old Bao still cleaning what's left of him off the floor?" The Columbian chuckled.
"Be quiet," the room's lone woman snapped, leaning forward as Revy snagged the boy's shirt. He didn't appear to flinch once as Revy pulled her gun on him. Then Revy fired and the boy's head had moved? "Chang, could you play that back slower?"
"Believe me, it won't do you any good," the Chinese mobster said with a grin. He tapped the paused image with a finger. "Bao only has the low-res stuff for his security set up. The cameras only record at twenty four frames per second. Our pigtailed friend moved faster than that. He's about to be shot in one frame and then his head is tilted in the next. No frames in between."
With no more word, Chang hit the play button and the video resumed.
Balalaika raised one eyebrow as the boy dodged several more shots. Her other eyebrow joined the first as he casually leapt over his Chinese-American foe. Her jaw dropped slightly as the young man turned his back on the woman and yet still avoided the shot which should have splattered his brains all over the wall.
The most amazing moment was when the fight appeared to be over. The boy slowly stood to his full height, relaxing his stance. He was all but inviting an attack, lacking the ability to twist out of the way. Balalaika had noted that while the boy was inhumanly fast, he still seemed more or less bound by the laws of gravity, inertia, and momentum. With nothing to push off of and his feet tight together, he had no way to dodge as Revy fired one more shot.
Balalaika grabbed the cigar from her mouth before it could fall and burn her shirt, leaning forward and watching as the bottom of rum on the bar exploded an instant after Revy fired. A bottle of rum that was at a ninety degree angle compared to the boy, who now stood wide-eyed, his arm raised to ward off an attack.
Chang paused, then reversed the film, pausing again on the most important frame: Ranma Saotome's arm was raised and a spark of some sort was flashing on the armguard.
"Chang, I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing, am I?" Balalaika whispered incredulously, leaning forward back in her chair to take in the enormity of what she was seeing.
"If you think you're seeing him deflect a bullet with his damned arm after Revy pulled her fast one on him and got him off guard, you are," the Triad boss confirmed.
"Madre de Dios," an awed voice whispered from the Russian's left.
"My friends, my contact has personally assured me that Ryouga Hibiki, this pigtailed boy's friend, is every bit as exceptional as he himself is," the Chinese man said with a grin. He closed the video file, leaving the trio of his compatriots staring at their profiles. "They're not any particular threat to us. They're not here to kill anyone important or make a huge mess of our home. However let's all do ourselves a favour and not change that by pissing them off, alright?"
"Preventing hostilities would probably be preferable to neutralizing them," the blond woman conceded, taking another drag from her cigar. "Of course, if I have to deal with these two, I will. But I see no profit in unduly stirring things up in our fair city."
"I'm glad you agree," Chang said with a nod. His eyes traveled around the room. Getting affirmative nods. "I'll be playing host to them for the next few days, but after that they should be available for some work. The problem they need solved is going to be an expensive proposition for them, and I promised not to intervene on their behalf."
"I'm sure that I can find some use for their talents," the Russian mobster admitted, tapping ash into the tray on her end of the table. She paused, a slightly puzzled look on her face. "What did you say their problem was?"
"I didn't," Chang groaned, looking... sheepish? He wiped a hand on his face before continuing. "Look, if I thought you'd believe me, I'd happily tell you all what it is. You'll have to experience that particular brand of insanity yourselves."
"I'm looking forward to it," Balalaika said, standing. She paused, turning back to the Chinese man with curiosity. "Chang, has anyone else seen that file?"
"Are you kidding?" Chang snorted, pressing a button on the laptop and ejecting a DVD. He tilted it, revealing in sloppy, handwritten English: 'Revy Embarrassed By Newcomer'. "It's only been a few hours since it happened and Bao's been making a killing selling these things to everyone that girl's pissed off."
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Eda grimaced to herself, checking the shopping list one more time. She'd grabbed the tomatoes, lettuce, mushrooms, and carrots. She'd grabbed something the supermarket claimed was ground beef, though she put the odds of that at around fifty-fifty. She wondered if it said anything about her hometown that it was easier to get twenty one year-old single malt scotch than it was to get a quality cut of actual beef.
"Eda," A voice grunted, and the blond nun turned with a grin.
"Revy, not a bad little match you had with that kid last night. It's a shame you couldn't tag him," Eda's voice was filled with sympathy, and of course the Chinese-American gunner saw right through it, simply growling once more. The tattooed woman's basket also had mushrooms and some soy sauce. "So what's the deal with that? Can't afford anything better?"
"Quiet, you. Rock's making some Japanese dish for the entire crew tonight, and the dumbass forgot not to visit Mohommad's place if he wants quality ingredients," Revy said with a scowl, shaking the basket. "Dutch is busy with the boat and Benny's talking to his girlfriend on the phone, so I decided it'd be easier to come myself than trust Rock not to fuck things up again."
"Trouble in paradise?" The CIA-trained woman grinned, earning another growl from the woman.
"So you gonna pay or are you just going to keep wasting my time, bitch?" Revy snapped, jerking her head forward. Ahead of her, a Russian was bundling his groceries up and walking out.
"No need to be rude," Eda lilted, turning to the cashier and plopping her groceries on the counter. She turned to her rival as the cashier started tallying the items, and the brunette was glancing at the mushrooms with a small frown.
"Lucky I got here when I did. Between you and Balalaika's chef, all the mushrooms are gone," Revy snorted, shaking her head.
"Must be something special about them," the nun said dismissively, paying for the groceries and slinging the bag over her shoulder.
She had no idea how right she was.
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Author's Notes:
Sorry if you were looking forward to more Ranma and Ryouga stuff. By doing this crossover, I want to include the whole cast of Black Lagoon into the preceedings, not just Revy, Rock, Dutch, and Benny. Eda and Shenhua are going to be playing major roles, as will Balalaika and Chang.
The mushrooms are... Well, let's just say that some of Roanapur's denizens are about to get a firsthand experience with magic which will lend Ranma and Ryouga's claims the weight of truth. It should shake things up quite a bit. Poor, poor...
Well, that would be telling.
As a side note... With this entry I've beaten the NaNoWriMo challenge. By accident. Between what I wrote for someone I'm beta-reading for, this story, Echoes of the Past, and Purity Amidst Madness, I somehow managed to write over 50,000 words within twenty-five days. I didn't even realize how much work I've done until the other night.
Yeah. Complain about my output now.