Avenging

Act V

Chapter 6

The Dead Parade: Aftermath

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tsommer

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Here's a great reference guide for many characters and objects in the Marvel Universe.

www marvunapp com /Appendix /index. htm

Last Chapter: Kang's plan to eliminate the Avengers failed, partially due to his own people betraying him and a bit of luck. Now everyone got sent back where they came from, or in some cases new times and locations.

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The Avengers found themselves back in their headquarters, returned in the same second they disappeared, all in the exact same places they had been snatched from. In the same fashion as when they had first been abducted, it took them a moment to reprocess where they were and what was happening around them.

Daredevil and Hawkeye both looked around until they spotted one another, than ran to each other making sure they were all right. It would have been suspicious behavior to all but Tigra had other events not taken up the rest of the team's attention.

The pair were aware enough to keep their voices low as each spoke. Hawkeye asked, "Are you all right?"

"Yes," Daredevil assured her.

She looked at him curiously. "Are you sure?"

For a moment he was about to insist he was, it was the standard reaction for this sort of situation, but when it came to her, he felt a different urge. "I'll tell you about it later." The admission took him by surprise, but he found he wanted to share this, well burden was what it was, with her. It was as though she had earned the right.

Tigra was the first to spot an unconscious Captain Japan on the ground. She gave a loud, 'Aiyah!" and rushed to his side. The disturbance garnered Iron Rose's attention and she raced to his side as well.

"Is he all right?" she asked, then was stunned when a voice within her helmet asked if she wanted to run a bio-scan. She gave a "Yes," and a sensor in her armor assessed his medical condition. She was relieved when it only listed a series of minor injuries and case of exhaustion. She informed the others. He started to come around as she finished her assurances.

Wasp returned to her normal size, her clipped wing disappearing, only to have a terrible pain now in her shoulder. She hoped her wings healed as quickly as the rest of her. Without flight her combat abilities were sorely limited. It wasn't like she could go into battle on a tiny propeller or a flying ant. It just had to heal.

As she fretted about her state she noticed an unconscious Hulk on the floor. "The Hulk's out, too."

Iron Rose ran a scan on him. He was in slightly worse shape than Captain Japan, but was healing quickly. The armor was full of surprises, and she couldn't wait to delve into them. Truly she was a genius to have developed such technology.

Thor looked around furtively, but saw no flesh golems. She was still uneasy, but started to relax.

"This here's a mighty strange place."

All eyes turned to the busty gunslinger: Rushuna Jones. Everyone except Hawkeye and Iron Rose tensed at the stranger in their midst. It took a quick explanation by the pair about her identity to put them at ease. Then they explained what they had learned from Kang, with Rushuna filling in what she could during her tenure as one of the Dead Parade.

No one was comforted by the information.

Thor said, "This is problematic. How do we counter one who can pluck us from any moment in time?"

"Actually, I'm trying to figure out why he hasn't already done it," Iron Rose pondered. "It would have made more sense to attack us a second time the moment when we returned. For that matter, he probably would have won had he grabbed us after a battle with the Mandarin when we were weakened, or even Mandrill when our forces were halved. Why grab all of us at the same time when we were at peak strength?"

"I don't think Kangaroo was as all powerful as he liked to say he was," Rushuna said. "I could tell he was always worried about us turning on him. Also he wanted us to take you out for him instead of doing the job himself. Heck, you took him down with hardly any effort," she said to Iron Rose.

"Surprise had much to do with that. His armor was extremely powerful," Iron Rose assured her. "Yet you are correct. Why did he not look into his own future to see if he would be successful? While he was dangerous, and his plan potentially lethal, I can think of several things myself that would have increased his chances of success. To go about it in this manner makes little sense."

Captain Japan held his hand to his chin in thought. "In any case, can we do anything to prevent him from grabbing us again? Or attacking us whenever?"

None of the other could figure out any type of counter to those kinds of attacks. "It's obvious there is some sort of limits to his abilities," Iron Rose said. "But there is nothing in science that has anything to do with time that is anything other than theoretical. There's no shielding I can create, nor do I have the slightest way to track him."

"Since no magic was involved, even the All-Father would have difficulty in determining his location," Thor said, still unnerved at the idea of seeing a flesh golem again. She hoped Kang had run out of those.

"The advantage of attacking from unassailable position," Tigra agreed.

"No point in worrying about maybe getting hit by a meteorite, since it can happen to anyone at any time and you can't stop it. You got to get on with life," Captain Japan said, as though the matter were settled.

"That's an… interesting outlook," Daredevil said.

"So we add Kang to the list of people out to get us, but we can't do anything about it." Wasp sounded exceptionally frustrated.

"Not unless we come across someone that can time travel, no." Iron Rose admitted.

"Then that leaves us with our unexpected new companion," Hawkeye said, indicating Rushuna. "Any idea why you ended up here and now with us?"

She shrugged. "Time travel's not my thing either."

"You're dealing with being hurled into another time rather well," Daredevil said.

"Well, I fought lots of oddballs in my time. Guys dressed up like rattlesnakes. Shamans casting magic. Even fought two different talking totem poles. Get this, one of them said he was from 'another world'." She pointed upward. "Like there's anything other than the moon and stars up there."

The others laughed nervously.

Iron Rose took command. "Since we have no way of sending you back, we'll do our best to help you assimilate to your new time period." She considered that. "I think I have a solution which might help. In the United States, where you come from, there are such things as 'Dude Ranches' which people pay to live in conditions similar to your time period. I believe they even let you herd cows."

Rushuna scratched her head. "You all pay to herd cattle? In my day they paid you to do it."

"Yes, well, some people have odd tastes," Iron Rose admitted. "In any event, the conditions should be similar enough to put you at ease. And I'll hire someone to help explain what things are and how things have changed."

The gunslinger shifted her feet uneasily. "I don't like owing people stuff."

"Consider it repayment for your assistance. Things might not have turned out as fortuitous as they did had you not turned on Kang at great personal risk."

"Okay. I guess I got a lot of catching up to do. I'll trust your judgement. Pay to herd cattle? People from the future sure do things backward," she muttered mostly to herself.

Iron Rose had Sasuke escort Rushuna to a guest room in the manor while she and the others reassessed what had happened and tried to come up with some solution, which never presented itself.

It seemed no matter what they did, Kang held the upper hand.

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Abe Kosaka was immediately unimpressed with his contact's quarters. Tatsuhiro Sato lived in a tiny apartment and was basically a NEET. Although with all of the clippings, pictures of various people, structures, and maps it made it seem like he was plotting logistics in a war, or in the middle of a murder investigation, or maybe both at the same time. He was busy one.

"…and you must never, ever trust a Skrull. Whenever you discover one they always come up with some sob story of how they're someone's victim and they're just trying to hide and assimilate to their new world, but they're really a race of infiltrators that shapeshift and take over worlds. And to them it's perfectly fine since it's what they do. People always make the mistake of thinking alien cultures are like theirs so the aliens must see things the same way and share their value system. That's not the way it is at all. Aliens are who they want to be, not what you want them to be. And in the case of the Skrulls, they have no compunction against making you into what they want you to be. Which is subservient to them since they are smarter than you, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to sucker you into letting them infiltrate and run your society. They never allowed any other species to do it to their worlds, after all."

This was the third conspiracy theory Abe had to listen to. The first was the U.S. secretly terraforming some land in Antarctica into a tropical paradise filled with dinosaurs (it was the inspiration for the movie, Sato assured him). The second was something about a government agency known as the N.H.K putting chemicals in the water that made the younger generation into NEETs (which he supposed was the rationale for Sato living here). And now he had moved on to Skrulls. At least Abe had heard of that one. It was a favorite of conspiracy theorists.

He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help himself. "And how did you learn all this?"

"Captain Lum Oni. She's actually from an alien empire that has to deal with these shapeshifters. She also says Dire Wraiths are great guys that get a bad rap from everyone, even if they are alien shapeshifters, too. She says they aren't very good at it, since no matter what they turn into, Oni can always recognize them for what they are. She also says they're great at practical jokes. Once they made a practical joke by declaring war on the Oni Empire, so the Oni played one on them by blowing up their homeworld, which was apparently the source of their power. She says they always complain about getting one upped with that one, and that they're hilarious at parties."

So Captain Lum Oni was insane. That was good to know.

"Now let me tell you about one I recently discovered. You know that German villain Brain Drain? The one that's a brain in a jar with two eyes attached to it? It's really Hitler's brain in that jar. Don't believe the idiots who say some Swiss biochemist created a clone and put his consciousness in it. Brain Drain is really Hitler."

This was now out of hand. A Hitler's brain theory made it official. "Actually I want to know about Phantom Cats."

Sato rolled his eyes. "Phantom Cats are so passé. Some disease wiped them out. It didn't affect humans since the Phantom Cats were some demon species and had an alien physiology. Are you sure you don't want to know more about Brain Drain? You should definitely let the public know about the danger."

"I need to know about any government agency that had been assigned to deal with them," Abe insisted.

"Oh, Hound. They were run out of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. As off the books as they could manage. Had lots of paramilitary equipment to deal with Phantom Cats. Typical government black ops unit. I can tell you the bases they used to operate out of, though with the Phantom Cats wiped out, I have no idea what they do now. Probably just sit around and collect paychecks for doing nothing. You know how impossible it is to get rid of a government program, even a secret one. No one wants a budget cut for any reason."

"Now that would be useful."

So Sato started rounding up the information, while regaling Abe about letting the world know Hitler's brain was still out there, hiding in plain sight while hypnotizing people with his eyes.

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Ukyou sat at a stool next to her grill, Mousse perched on the one next to her as he informed her of his ordeal in Kang's citadel.

As he finished up, Ukyou said, "That sounds horrifying."

Mousse shuddered. Even the memory still did that. "It was. I'd never felt so terrified before. Except for Bullseye. Having someone try to kill you is one thing: having them do it while they declare their love for you is something else, and way worse.

Ukyou said, "Well, there are definitely times when I want to strangle you, but I'll never want to kill you."

That brought Mousse up short. "When have you wanted to strangle me?"

"I admit it hasn't happened yet, but trust me, there are always times in a girl's life when she wants to gleefully strangle her boyfriend. Some are better at hiding it than others."

"That sounds horribly sexist."

"Not really. There are times in a girl's life when she would gleefully strangle her female friends and teammates as well." She laughed. "But don't worry. I accept that you're not perfect, so I'll become normal angry instead of irrational angry when you upset me."

"Ha, ha," he said dryly. "And for the record, you're not perfect either.

It was her turn to be brought up short. "How so?"

"You took a bow to a gun fight."

"Ha, ha," she repeated just as dryly. "I would like to point out that normally I have the advantage in those sorts of fights since I really am that damn good. But that Gunhawk is something else. I can almost believe she can shoot a bullet out of mid-air." She paused for a moment, then said, "You want to try tracking down this Mr. Fear character? Maybe we should preemptively put him out of commission instead of waiting for him to come to you, like he threatened?"

Mousse considered it, then nodded. "It might not do any good. Kang was grabbing our foes from every when as well as everywhere. He might be from ten years down the line for all we know. And even if we can locate him, I'm not sure what we can do. How do you stop someone who's already dead?"

The two pondered the matter well into the night.

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Ranma managed to get his father alone at the Tendou Dojo. Mindful of prying eyes and ears (even Nabiki's,) he started a conversation with him.

"Hey, Pop. Question for you. Any reason someone would want my blood. And I mean literally not as a simile for denoting anger toward me."

"Metaphor, boy! That's a metaphor! Get it right!"

Ranma rolled his eyes. That was such a stupid pet peeve with his father. Who cared about the difference between similes and metaphors? There wasn't even some insane super villain that gave a damn. "Anyway, do you know why someone would want my blood?"

"Vampires, boy. They're real and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Werewolves are real as well. They operate mostly by night. Mummies come in both good and bad versions. Even Manphibians are real. About the only thing they got wrong is a Frankenstein Monster. It doesn't exist."

"Yeah," Ranma said slowly. Leave it to his father to be a font of useless information. "Would my blood be useful to anyone besides being a source of nutrition for the undead?"

Genma considered the question for a while. "Transfusing your blood into someone else wouldn't give them the Super Soldier Serum or make them into one if that's what you're getting at. It only replicates itself with you since it initially bonded to you. You'd need another untainted dose of the serum to repeat the process in someone else. Even then it only maximizes potential. You still have to work out like anyone else to stay in shape, and you need a master like me to train you into a real fighter. So don't think you can take any shortcuts."

"Definitely not what I was getting at," he assured the man. He'd heard the lecture a million times about the difference between potential and actualization. "What I mean is if someone said they needed my blood to stabilize their own? What might that mean?"

Again he pondered the question with an unusual amount of seriousness. "If they got some imperfect version of the Super Soldier Serum and there was some issue with it, theoretically a perfect version might correct whatever issues they had. They might be close enough to yours that a transfusion would help. But I'm no hematologist or bio-engineer, so I don't know."

"Great." That made horrifying sense, given his opponent was a near physical equal. And it was only near since lucky punches that knocked you out didn't count. Time to try to narrow things down as to the identity of this Super Patriot clown. "Is there anyone you revealed my secret identity to?"

"Are you insane boy?!" Genma realized a shout might attract unwanted attention and quieted down. "Given your mother's attitude toward your costumed identity, if I had told someone I'd probably have hunted them down and silenced them to keep her from finding out. I had no problem taking you on this training journey to make you better. It builds character. Why, you could end up just as incredible as me."

"Don't make me punch you in the face repeatedly, Pop."

"But your mother's caveat about making you a paragon of virtue, a pain in the ass. But believe me when I say once your mother gets an idea in her head, and makes you promise to follow through with it, you'd better follow through with it. I'd be more terrified of her if I didn't love her so much."

"You're terrified of mom?"

"I didn't say that."

"You said 'more terrified'. 'More' would mean you already have some and that would just be adding to it."

"Um, well, all women can be terrifying in one way or another once they decide you belong to them."

Ranma was about to disagree with that, but then realized he'd been around enough women to know there was a lot to them that were… terrifying. And not in the ax murderer meaning. Yeah, possessive women could be unsettling all right. Maybe his father had made a good point.

Genma then brightened up. "I have good news on the mom front, though."

"Oh?"

"'Captain Pimp' is no longer number one on her 'Most Immoral' super hero list. Haruka Bloodstone was seen entering a love hotel with identical twin pop idols. It's making all the gossip columns, and your Mother is on television lambasting about her immorality. A lot of guys are agreeing with her, too, but it's probably because a woman scored with a pair of hot twins and not them, so they're envious."

That sounded reasonable. He wasn't envious, though. He could probably score with a pair of hot twins if he tried. He had three potential fiancées practically fighting over him in very roundabout ways so no one would notice. He practically had to fend cat girls off with his shield. Feeling confident in his masculinity was so natural, he didn't feel threatened even when he turned into a girl. He was still all man in the ways that mattered, center of gravity shift notwithstanding

The rest of the information did not thrill him as it did his father. "When you put it that way, I don't feel like I've actually gained any ground on that front." When your mother referred to you as a pimp and your other alter ego as a prostitute, there's no way you could be considered in good standing in her eyes.

"But it's a start," Genma insisted. "Maybe another super hero will do something really depraved and make even a pimp super hero look good in her eyes."

Or maybe he could take the easy way out and let Super Patriot have his blood when they finally met for the first time again. And that phrase was why it was really bad to have time-travelers interact with your life.

And to think, there was a time when he considered his girl side curse to be an actual problem. If only life could be so simple that interacting with cold water was the worst thing that could happen to you.

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Kodachi Kunou was a very upset woman. She felt like hurling things from her desk out the nearby window of her office, but the windows were shatterproof, and even if it did work it would cause people to talk about her, and not in a good way. And if a desk landed on someone, lawsuit city. She already took enough heat for her relative youth, if it wasn't for the actual successful results of her leadership the criticism would be much worse.

The cause of her distress was twofold. The first was the armor from the future. She had been analyzing it since their encounter with Kang in the hopes of reverse engineering it so she could understand its advanced tech. It really shouldn't have been an issue since she had developed it herself, albeit a future version of her did it, but it would have come from the same fertile ground all of her genius ideas sprang from.

The armor was proving itself perplexing. There were some parts she was able to decipher quite easily in the musculature of the armor that she could adapt to anything now, as well as some of the minor systems and a number of relatively small innovations she could see herself conceiving of over time. However it was clear what truly gave the armor its power was its energy source. And that was the mystery since she couldn't tell what it ran on. Whatever it was defied analysis by anything she had. All scans defined it as 'unknown' and even the armor itself only referred to it as 'Celestial Derivate' which explained nothing.

What was even more worrisome was that for some reason it only ran on that. She had no idea why she would limit the armor in such a fashion, but she saw no way of adapting it to a more conventional energy source. Worse, for some reason this Celestial energy was bleeding off at an alarming rate for no evident reason. It was like it possessed some weird half-life and it was becoming inert. By her estimation within three days' time it would be at zero. She hadn't the faintest idea of how to slow it down either. Shutting the armor down completely did no good, and the energy loss remained constant. Once it happened, the armor would largely be a useless hunk of metal, at least until she could figure out how to rewire it, and even then she wasn't sure how to go about it. The whole thing essentially revolved around the energy source. The only saving grace she could come up with was that she would recognize this Celestial energy should she encounter it again.

So much for advancing her armor thirty years in one go. She'd have to do it the old fashioned way of personal ingenuity. And the things she had managed to learn from it could advance it a couple of years at least. Making her current Iron Rose armor more efficient was still a plus.

With that matter resolved, at least to a degree, she had a far more important one to consider. One that could alter her life solely for the worse. One thing she could be thankful for in the kidnapping and murder attempt was the information that had been handed to her. True, in hindsight she should have realized it since the Avenger's first official adventure, but she was human. When you thought you knew facts that were true, you based additional information around that concept, automatically rejecting others that didn't conform to it. When presented with evidence contradicting what you thought was true, then you came to understand that which you rejected was foolish, and you missed the obvious. Sometime to your eternal regret.

Wakizashi hadn't lied. There was no reason to. Quite the opposite. The mocking tone in her voice, the conceit that she had been in control from the start and the outcome never in doubt, made lying not just pointless, but a gross insult to her ego. That meant she had been telling the truth about everything. She was indeed Kodachi's niece.

And in order to have a niece, you had to have a sibling to produce one.

That meant Tatewaki was alive.

And now she realized Tatewaki was the Silver Samurai.

It was beneath her to slam her head into something hard. Repeatedly. But in many ways she deserved it. He had wielded the KTK-1103B (which would have had a much better name had it not been a prototype). He was an expert with a sword. He was an expert at being obnoxious. Those were the only two things her brother was an expert in. He hadn't even made an effort to disguise his voice. But she had been so certain he had met the same fate as their father, it never occurred to her he was still alive. Therefore she hadn't considered connecting the only two dots she had been given, even though they could only form a straight line.

There only small touch of forgiveness was that there had been one characteristic about the Silver Samurai that was not consistent with her brother: he was no layabout. Her brother had never worked a day in his existence, yet still managed to be the apple… pineapple of her father's eye. He had mooched his entire life and spent money as though it was as commonplace as grains of sand on a beach. But say what one would about the Silver Samurai, being a super-villain was hard work. Especially given some of the beatings she had seen him absorb in both that costumed identity and his Swordsman one. The old Tatewaki used to complain if someone struck him hard during kendo practice. However this villain dealt with the beating and shown perseverance in coming back for more. How ironic that in officially becoming a terrible person, he had developed positive character traits for the first time in his life.

There was a serious problem that was far worse than her brother's new profession: no one knew he was the Silver Samurai, at least not publically. That meant he could discard his disguise at any time, and then lay official claim to the company. Her father's will had been specific in that he was to head Kunou Enterprises. Only his missing status had prevented him from doing so. He didn't deserve the company before, and even more so now. She ran the company even better than her father had. She was the one who created the key inventions which were the lifeblood of the business. He would see it destroyed, or sold off, in less than a year.

He would never assume the mantle of leadership if she had a say in the matter.

There were only two ways to stop him, and since she was *not* killing her brother, that meant revealing his identity to the public. Both his Swordsman and Silver Samurai identities were wanted for a multitude of crimes. That disgrace would not just place him in prison, but remove him from any claim to the company. Her father hadn't been quite that brainless. There were a few exceptions to Tatewaki gaining the company.

The only problem now was in revealing said identity. Getting him captured by the police was the surest solution, but he had proven most dangerous and elusive. He had somehow survived the destruction of the Mandarin's castle in China, after all. Though since he had proven himself capable of teleporting from their last encounter, his method of escape was now obvious. It might be how he had eluded police for so long as well.

There either had to be a way to bring him low, or at the least provide concrete evidence of his identity to the police. He was an official Avengers' foe, so using the team to defeat him would be ideal, but ascertaining his location was difficult. If he had been using Kunou Enterprises' resources in some way, she'd have known about it, and he hadn't been smart enough to hide away funds for his personal use. He must have been supporting himself with his ill-gotten gains. That meant he could be just about anywhere. And she didn't have the resources or time to search everywhere. She also had no bait to flush him out.

Well, there was one method open to her. It was distasteful, but nowhere near as much as her brother getting his hands on the company. Sometimes a black rose had to swallow its pride if wanted to continue to blossom. So she went to her father's private files and began looking up the names of spies. She remembered to cross the Ghost off the list. You couldn't hire real ones after all.

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Ryouga Hibiki was trying to find his way again. He likened his direction sense to that of a defective compass in a land with no magnetic fields. It was broken, and even if you fixed it, it would still be useless. So he'd use signal flares to flag down someone with a working compass in a place with working magnetic fields.

Meaning he'd ask someone for help.

He was in Nerima. He knew because he'd walked past a sign announcing he was entering it, rather than leaving it, and he hadn't passed another sign saying he'd left. Life was like an eternal scavenger hunt sometimes.

But it had been a while, and he needed someone to help point him in the right direction again. He'd eventually get it right. Once he was close enough, he'd probably stumble on his intended destination. That was what usually happened.

He saw someone's back and started to asked, "Excuse me, could you direct me to the Tendou residence?"

"Second star to the right, and straight on until morning."

Ryouga was confused until the person turned around. "Ranma! Just the guy I've been looking for." He observed he was in front of Furinkan, and that he had attracted the attention of some of the students that were heading toward school.

Ranma was amicable at seeing his old friend and being able to acknowledge it was an old friend. He'd nearly slipped up a few times as Captain Japan acting too familiar with a depowered Hulk. They were 'just teammates' after all. "Been a while. So why were you looking for me?"

Ryouga blushed furiously. "Something great happened to me and I needed to tell someone. It's like the best thing that happened to me in my life. Even better than when all that money was thrown into the street and I grabbed a ton of it. Oh yeah, I might need you to help me find an ATM so I can take some out later."

"Sure. So what was it that has you smiling ear to ear like that?"

His blush deepened. "I have a girlfriend… I mean some girl I'm seeing. And she likes seeing me, too. And she means it since she's always very patient and waits for me when we're supposed to meet since it's almost impossible for me to get anywhere on time."

"Sounds like a keeper," Ranma told him.

"I just had to share the news with someone," he gushed.

"I'm glad for you, Ryouga." At least until she found out he was the Hulk and freaked. But until then he should be happy. He deserved it.

With the floodgates opened, Ryouga continued. "She's perfect. She's nice to talk to, and I rarely say stupid things around her. I mean normal stupid that I'd say to anyone, and not the usual stupid when I talk to attractive women. And when I do say something stupid, sometimes she doesn't understand it's stupid, which is a real plus. And she likes hanging around and talking with me. We'll do it for hours and we're sorry when we have to part company. And she likes it when I don't treat her like she's special."

That one caught Ranma's attention. "Most women like it when you treat them like they're special."

"Well everyone treats her special even though they don't know her. It's different when I do it because I know her and she's special because of who she is. So I treat her normal special, rather than just special. She likes that."

That didn't make a whole lot of sense, but it was Ryouga talking about a girl, so that was sort of a given.

An errant thought occurred to Ranma. What if it was an Ukyou situation and Ryouga was dating a super heroine? While it sounded unlikely, hey, it was unlikely the first time, too. What if it were secretly Iron Rose or Wasp? Or even Thor? Nah, it couldn't be her. Ryouga knew what she looked like as an Avenger, and he'd recognize her immediately. Still what if it were one of the others? Perhaps he should vet this girl. "Any chance I could meet her?"

"Actually you've probably seen her before." Ryouga started looking around in every direction. Finally he pointed in one said, "That's her."

Ranma looked where he was pointing, but no one was there. Not even a stray dog, which would have made things really confusing. "Where?"

"Right there. The billboard."

Squinting wasn't helping. "Nope, don't see anyone by the billboard. She doesn't shrink to the size of a wasp by chance, does she?" That would explain everything.

Ryouga let out a sigh. "I mean on the billboard."

Now Ranma took a look at that. It was a beautiful woman with green skin and blonde hair hawking some sort of perfume.

Ranma stared at Ryouga hard. "The chick on the billboard is your girlfriend?"

"Yep."

Ranma laughed so hard it was a roar. All the other students nearby did the same. Ryouga just looked on in confusion. "Why are you laughing?"

Barely reigning in the laughter enough to respond, Ranma said, "Ryouga, when you want to pretend you have a girlfriend to impress everyone, you don't say they're a model. You say they're hot then say no one can see her because she's overseas on business." And he returned to laughing just as hard as before.

"But she's really my girlfriend."

"And I'm dating Thor and Tigra at the same time!" Which was only unbelievable since they didn't get along and they wouldn't let him date both at the same time. Either one singly would be possible, though.

Ryouga's skin took on a slightly greenish hue. "Damn it, Ranma! This is just like the time with that invisible girl when we were kids!"

Ranma's laughter abruptly trailed off. When they were younger a bunch of kids had accused Ryouga of bullying them, only when Ranma confronted him about it, Ryouga claimed he had bullied them because they had been bullying a girl who had turned invisible, which was why Ranma hadn't see her. Which of course had been absurd and not the least bit believable.

And that had been exactly what happened.

"Wait, you're serious about dating Jarella?"

"Of course!"

Ranma sighed and turned to the crowd. "All right everyone, Ryouga legitimately believes he's dating Jarella. And he might be, although he might be misinterpreting things with her and he only thinks they're dating when in reality they're just hanging out together."

"Wait, you think that's true?" Ryouga went from being angry to scared.

"But that's absurd," one of the student's said.

"Maybe she's got a thing for guys with terrible direction sense. Who knows with models? They tend to be odd. But in any case Ryouga has had weird stuff, make that lots of weird stuff, happen to him in his life, so maybe something good weird happened to him. In any case we need to stop laughing because the possibility exists we're making complete fools of ourselves since that's exactly what happened."

Being high schoolers, the very idea of being regarded as a fool by other students was repellent to them. Garlic and vampire repellent. The laughs at Ryouga could be turned on them if it were true. Social lives could end in a single moment of mirth. While disbelief prevailed, the crowd of students broke up and went to their classes.

Ranma turned to Ryouga. "Let's get out of here, and we can talk about this in private."

The pair went to a park near the school, in a small area that had a lot of bushes and poor visibility which afforded them the privacy they wanted.

Ranma turned to his friend. "Are you sure you're meeting the real Jarella? I've seen girls go around copying the look in green make up and blonde wigs. Maybe it's someone impersonating her?"

"It's really her and her skin is really green."

Ranma rolled his eyes. "Name one person with green skin."

"The Hulk."

Okay, that being Ryouga's go to guy made sense. "Fine. Name someone else."

"The A-Bra-Mination."

This conversation was not going the way he envisioned. "So you're saying you're dating a model."

"I didn't know she was a model. I thought she was a Hulk fangirl."

"I don't think those actually exist."

"Probably not. Anyway I bumped into her on the street and—"

It was at that moment the sprinklers in the park came on, dousing the pair in decidedly cold water.

Ryouga turned into a piglet. Ranma already knew about that.

Ranma turned into a buxom redhead. Ryouga did not know about that.

Shock at Ranma having what was obviously a Jusenkyou curse got kicked to the curb as Ryouga's mind hit the recognition button. There was something real familiar about the athletic redhead. The encounter had been brief, but it had been memorable.

She was the girl that kicked him into Jusenkyou.

Rage filled his body and Ryouga began to change.

Ranma saw what was happening and said, "Whoa, simmer down, Pork Rind, I can explain everything. Let me get some hot water."

The offer of a valid explanation calmed Ryouga slightly. He'd listen to Ranma's rationale, then kill him.

It took him a few minutes to come back with some. It turned out a watched coffee pot does boil, or at least get warm enough to reverse a curse. They reverted back to their original bodies.

Ryouga couldn't wait and let Ranma have it. "You kicked me into Jusenkyou, you jerk!"

Ranma stared at him. "What are you talking about? I didn't kick you anywhere. Okay, I used to kick your ass when we sparred, but I didn't kick you into any magical pools."

"You were chasing a panda, you jumped on my head, and you knocked me into that damned pool!"

The panda thing triggered a memory. He remembered trying to kill his father for his stupidity. He remembered his father running for his life. He remembered using some person's head as a springboard. He remembered it allowed him to gain some distance on his father. The head had black hair and a bandanna.

Oh hell.

Ranma bowed his head low. "I am so sorry, man. Believe me, I would never knowingly give anyone one of these curses. Turning into a girl is not my idea of a good time. And you've already had it pretty hard, so you deserve it even less than I do."

"Yeah?! Well…." Ryouga found his rage starting to subside. Damn Ranma for acting properly apologetic for something that was his fault and demonstrating empathy for Ryouga's predicament. That was like cheating when someone had a well-deserved ass whooping coming their way.

Also something else was registering. Ranma had a curse, too. Ryouga hadn't known that. They did suck. Being human was better than being a piglet, but he pictured looking like a busty chick like Ranma and thought he might prefer being a piglet. It really wasn't a problem being one, not after he was at ground zero of a Gamma Bomb detonation. Whenever anyone tried to cook him he changed into 200 pounds of porcine rage and escaped. Turning into the Hulk was a bigger hassle.

Only it wasn't really the issue it had been at first. He had friends to hang around with now. They accepted him even when he was the Hulk, which was pretty awesome. And when he was Ryouga, which was also pretty awesome. He didn't even mind changing into the Hulk either, since he felt pretty mellow after bouts of gamma induced transformations. And now that he had Jarella in his life, he was probably in a better position now than ever before.

His anger turned into irritation.

Ranma said, "Look, if I ever get only one cure, I promise to give it to you."

And he meant it. Ryouga knew Ranma well enough that he would absolutely follow through without a moment's hesitation on that promise. The guy might be egotistical, but he was a friend. And friends forgave friends. Even if they accidentally kicked them in the head and cursed them.

"Fine," Ryouga said as surly as he could manage. "You know this is the second time I've been pissed off with you and you've gotten out of your beating by doing the right thing."

"It's easy to forgive a great guy like me," Ranma said. A thoughtful look crept across his feature and he said, "Since I kind of owe you now, I'm going to let you in on a secret. You can't tell anyone, though. I'm putting my life in your hands as a show of good faith."

Seeing Ranma was serious, Ryouga responded in kind.

Since Ryouga was taking the matter seriously, Ranma said, "You'd probably figure it out before too long on your own since you're the Hulk-."

"Wait, how did you know I'm the Hulk?"

"I'm going to explain," Ranma said. "Since you're the Hulk and you know about my curse now, it would probably be only a matter of time before you put two and two together." He stared hard at Ryouga and reconsidered that. Oh well, it was too late to back out now. "Anyway, I'm Captain Japan and Bucky."

Ryouga stared at him.

And stared.

And stared.

Finally Ryouga spoke, "Thank god I never came on to you while you were Bucky. I would so kill you for that no matter how much you apologized."

Ranma's eyebrow began twitching. "And exactly how would your inappropriate sexual come-ons be my fault?"

"Please. You lose your clothes all the time. No one's that clumsy."

"You've flashed your Hulk junk at me before, and that's way more disgusting. You're green, dude!"

"It's not my fault Gypsy Moth stripped me, or the Scorcher burned off my clothing! Things happen!"

"Well stuff happens to me too!" Ranma huffed.

Once the pair calmed down, Ryouga said, "It's weird how we both became super heroes and ended up on the same team, though."

"It's a smaller world than you think," Ranma said as he recalled Mousse being on the team as well.

Ryouga took on a conciliatory tone. "Don't worry, Ranma. I won't let anyone know you're a super hero who likes to cross-dress and kind of wants guys to pay attention to her."

"Gee, thanks," he said as a dryly as he could.

"What are friends for?"

Ranma kept telling himself it was for the best. Ryouga, or worse, the Hulk, might have figured the connection eventually and either blurted it out in front of everyone or gotten angry and tried to smash him. Emphasis on try since raw power couldn't overcome brains and agility. But this whole incident made him wonder if between Ryouga and Mousse anyone else he knew were a super hero. Kasumi worked for Kunou Enterprises. Maybe she was Iron Rose. Could Nabiki's mercenary exterior be a front for an altruistic Wasp? At least Akane was off the list. No super hero had a limp.

Nah, two was the limit. Coincidences only went so far. But it was a fun mental exercise in playing the 'Who's Secretly a Super Hero' game.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[END CHAPTER]

So another identity revelation and moving things a bit forward. I finally resolved Ryouga's anger toward that redhead that kicked him into the spring (yeah, I did dangle that when he and Ranma made peace back in Act 3) It's also why he never cared much for 'Shield Girl' like he did Hammer Girl. He subconsciously realized it. Kodachi finally figured out the obvious and is taking steps to do something about it. You see why Rushuna wasn't highlighted in the epilogue last chapter. Kang is on the 'to do list' of the Avengers even if they can't do anything about him.

Also had another call out to Defending with Captain Lum Oni. I almost had the Watcher explain the Oni/Skrull/Dire Wraith thing since it amused me. For clarification, Dire Wraiths, arguably more evil than the Brood, are still themselves. They essentially can't do anything to the Oni since the can't disguise themselves around them, they are allergic to Oni to the point even attempting the head drill thing always results in a death so painful a Wraith would sooner kill itself then endure it, and they've been stripped of their magic since their homeworld was destroyed. The Oni are dense enough they think the Wraiths' bile spewing hatred is them clowning around, which amuses them so much they always like hanging with the ever dwindling number of Dire Wraiths in the universe.

No, Brain Drain is not Hitler's brain. That would be just plain silly. You can have a WWII German brain villain and it not be Hitler.

Genma was correct about some things. It's true that Marvel Werewolves operate mostly by Night. Yes, Manphibian did exist and was one of those characters that they kept trying to use and the title would get cancelled before they could launch him until he showed up once in a one shot. And then like 20 years later he was part of a massive group of supernatural characters. The mystical Scarecrow was the same way. He and Tigra were supposed to headline Monsters Unleashed (Which I would have loved and is an underrated magazine), when it got cancelled.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them.