T3
Kasumi went into her wardrobe, taking down the mask that her mother had once worn, now a jet black due to the magic of her girlfriend tainting it. She was doubtful that working with that daemon had tainted her, as she pulled on the rest of her ensemble. Time to meet her adoring public, and let them know this villain was not the second coming of Brushogun. Even if she had admittedly..."borrowed"... some of his ideas...
Soon afterwards...
"So, what do robins have to do with acrobatics?" Ranma asked out of the blue as he and Nabiki wended their way through the afternoon crowds of Furinkan.
Nabiki stumbled as her surprise caused her to miscalculate a step, Ranma's hand lashing out like a striking snake to catch her wrist and make sure she didn't fall.
"I-I don't know? Why would you bring that up?" She asked, turning to him in confusion.
He shrugged nonchalantly as he replied, "Eh, during the PE class, we had to do some stuff on the high bars. The other guys watched me and then started comparing me to a robin, an' I still don't get why..."
Before she could stop it, Nabiki let out an amused laugh. "You don't - I'm sorry, you were out of the country two months ago, weren't you? They weren't comparing you to a robin; they were comparing you to Robin! He's the leader of the Teen Titans - a group of teenage superheroes from America who visited Tokyo and left quite the impression."
"And they thought I was like him?" Ranma asked bemusedly, an eyebrow raised in surprise.
Nabiki smiled and shrugged her shoulders lazily. "Well, when you take down a giant ink-monster being controlled by the country's former most respected police commander, revealing he's actually been secretly faking every supervillain attack for the last decade or more, all while armed with nothing but your wits and martial arts techniques, you leave an impression..." Nabiki offered, adding, as an aside, "Why do you think that I wasn't even phased attacking those shadow ninja? They're expendable minions, nothing more…"
Ranma blinked as he assimilated that information. Then he looked at Nabiki again, smirking as he playfully observed, "I guess that includes you too, hm? You sure seem to know a lot about them..."
Nabiki rolled her eyes and blew air through her lips in a faux raspberry. "Oh, please. They were all over the TV for weeks! You couldn't go anywhere in Japan without hearing about them at least once a day - the girl Titans even have fanclubs at Furinkan High. But no, I have no interest in them. I mean, can you imagine me as a superhero?"
She pointed to herself for emphasis, chuckling softly at the absurdity of the idea.
"I think you'd be hot stuff…" Ranma offered, only for her to give him a look that, if she was in her dragon form, he suspected he'd be a burnt stain on the ground. She held the look long enough for Ranma to bow his head in contrition before she smiled again.
"Now come on; this is one of my favorite cafes, and since this is our first date, just this once, it'll be my... treat?!"
Nabiki's mouth fell open in shock, and Ranma was in no better state. They'd been so involved in their conversation that they'd failed to notice the usual crowd crush had changed from a two-way flow into a one-way stampede as panicking civilians fled the street onto which the two newly affianced teens had just stepped. The reason why: easily two dozen identical counterparts to the shadowy ninja-thing that had attacked Ranma at the Tendo Dojo the previous evening, which were busily tearing apart the shops along the street. And they weren't picky about their targets; broken forms lay scattered on the streets, blackening puddles of crimson seeping along the pavement and oozing into the gutters.
"Change of plans - run!" She cried, grabbing Ranma's arm and starting to run back the way she came.
She nearly fell over at the resistance; it was like trying to drag a parked car! She twisted back to Ranma, her hazel eyes wide in dumbstruck confusion as he gently slipped her fingers from their grip around his upper arm.
"You get outta here, Nabiki - I've got to try and stop them. As you said, they're expendable. I don't think the people caught in the crossfire were…" he said plainly. His voice had adopted a tone she'd never heard before; firm with determination that was mirrored on his face.
Nabiki stared at Ranma as if he'd suddenly sprouted a second head. "Are you crazy? There's two dozen of them, and only one of you! I know you're good, but this is something the police should be handling!"
"And how long will it take them to get here? Nabiki, my old man taught me a lot of things, but one thing he always, always insisted was that a martial artist's duty is to help the weak! I have to try an' stop them! I promise, I'll come back, but I gotta go now."
And with that, he turned and ran right towards the thick of the fray, weaving nimbly through the remaining civilians that were trying desperately to get away. The shadow ninjas hadn't even noticed Ranma and Nabiki's arrival, intent on their rampage... until Ranma launched himself through the air in a flying kick right to the closest ninja-thing's head. It was an impressive looking attack, and the fact the blow snapped its head around with such force that its neck broke with a retort like a gunshot only added to that impression.
Ranma rode the recoil, curling into a ball and spinning backwards to land nimbly on his feet, hands held before him in a combat stance even as his first opponent crumbled lifelessly to the street.
"Okay, jerks; who wants to go first?!" He spat, eyes cold as he tightened his guard.
The answer was, evidently, 'all of them', as every single shadow-ninja suddenly rushed towards him - some armed with blades, others with elongated, talon-like fingers.
The melee was eerily familiar to Nabiki - it reminded her a lot of Akane's morning struggles. If any of the lustful idiots chasing her baby sister had been crazy enough to bring naked steel to the affair! She stood there as if frozen, eyes fixed on the battle as the last stragglers fled behind her, watching as Ranma moved with impossible speed and flexibility. He flowed around attacks like a reed in the wind, bending in ways that made her spine ache in sympathy, and countering with devastating blows.
'What am I doing?! I should be getting as far away from here as I can - I'm not like Akane, I'm not a fighter! But... my feet won't move. Why?!' She wondered desperately to herself.
Icy fingers seemed to wrap themselves around her heart and squeeze as she saw Ranma avoid a talon-fingered spear-hand thrust by the skin of his teeth; the displaced wind alone sliced open his cheek and set crimson spilling down his face. Ranma didn't even flinch, instead grabbing the attacking limb and brutally twisting it in a direction it wasn't intended to go, snapping it like a dry stick.
But that reaction was just what the other ninja who were swarming around Ranma had been waiting for. One lunged and grabbed hold of Ranma's extended arm before he could release his initial victim, and though Ranma hoisted that first assailant aloft as though they were a feather boa, the attention required proved a further distraction. More long-fingered, skeletal hands grabbed at him, dragging his arms and holding him in place despite his struggles, clearly setting him up for one of their number who was taking careful aim with its sword.
"No!"
Nabiki prided herself on her intellect, and even more so on her ability to control her emotions, to tame the raging of teen hormones and bend her body to her will - a trait that, in conjunction with some other minor pastimes, had earned her the nickname "Ice Queen" at Furinkan High. Nobody would dare use it to her face, except maybe Tatewaki Kuno, but secretly, Nabiki wore it as a badge of honor; further proof of her willpower and her control over herself.
But as her clothing tore around her shifting form - Nabiki would be grateful for how long the Furinkan High girl's skirt was, considering what her tail did to her underwear - unleashing the beast she had been forced to become since she foolishly accepted that cursed coin as payment for a debt, it was pure emotion that drove her. Fingers clenched newly-sprouted talons into her palms until blood welled between them, and her scream of denial carried with it a billowing wave of incandescent blue-silver flame that washed over Ranma and his assailants in a surge of crackling energies.
And in its wake, the ninja-things froze solid... quite literally. Thick sheets of rime gathered in the folds of their clothing, thinner patches glistening in the light of the afternoon sun, spindly icicles dangling from outstretched arms. Ranma twisted in locked-tight grasps once again, and this time clenched fingers came loose with a choir of perversely musical tinkling cracks. He struck out - not even intentionally, more an instinctual pressure from his arms in pursuit of greater mobility - and the man-shaped creatures broke apart like window panes struck by a runaway wrecking ball. Even the sword-wielder broke apart into a cascade of icy, almost crystalline fragments, and Ranma hadn't even touched that one.
"I didn't know you could do that," Ranma observed in surprise, idly kicking at one of the larger chunks of ice.
"Neither did I!" Nabiki confessed, nervously holding a hand over her mouth and cautiously breathing into it. To her relief, nothing happened, other than a strange and short-lived scent of mint in her nostrils.
"Oh my, oh my; you two like to play rough, don't you? You've broken all my toys..."
Ranma and Nabiki looked up as a strangely familiar giggle echoed eerily through the now-empty street. The heir to the Saotome School of Anything-Goes Martial Arts instinctively stepped in front of his newly appointed fiancée, part-dragon or no, as he studied this new threat.
She seemed to materialize from out of the gloom of a dark alley. A tall young woman, clad in a traditional o-inari outfit; long, almost dress-like pants paired with an archaic, long-sleeved top. With the traditional full-faced fox mask she wore, the kind that you saw for sale at every carnival or on any holiday, she could have looked like she was out for a festival. Except that normal o-inari masks were white with red stripes, and hers was black as the night. And the two white-tipped black-furred fox tails lashing behind her? Well, it took a very, very dedicated cosplayer indeed to come up with a costume that could achieve such intricate motions!
"Who are you?! And what the hell kind of game you think yer playing, lady?! People have gotten hurt!" Ranma snapped, gesturing angrily at the streets around them.
The stranger giggled with almost child-like amusement. "I'm just having a little fun, that's all. This town is so dull... I've been bored for far, far too long. I was hoping the two of you might play a little game with me..."
"A game?! This ain't no game, lady!" Ranma cried indignantly, and Nabiki instinctively nodded along before she caught herself.
"Party pooper. No cake for you," The faux-kitsune scolded, waving a finger at Ranma in reproach.
Ranma's hands clenched so tightly that Nabiki could hear the knuckles crack from where she was standing. "Y'know, I don't really like to hit girls, but that don't mean I won't!"
"Ohhh, I'm sooo scared. Oh, boys?"
She snapped her fingers, and suddenly every shadow and patch of gloom on the street gave birth to a new ninja-creature. The darkness literally took solid shape, molding itself before Ranma and Nabiki's disbelieving eyes like ink-black clay until at least a dozen of the pseudo-ninjas now stood all around them, silent as ever and poised to attack.
The stranger laughed, a sound devoid of any sense of mirth or warmth. "Gloomwraiths. Simple shadow-spawned simulacra. But more than enough to deal with you..."
She gestured lazily with her wrists, and the 'gloomwraiths' immediately rushed forward to attack the two startled teenagers, Nabiki musing that she'd have preferred the origami ninjas from the television. They could be stopped by a stiff breeze…
Meanwhile...
Blackfire blinked lazily as she took in the scene unfolding below her, having been idly cruising across the Tokyo skies as she tried to decide where to go to alleviate her boredom for the day. She had arrived only minutes before to see two teenagers - a human boy and an apparently nonhuman girl - fighting with what she could readily identify as some sort of expendable humanoid drone, even if she didn't recognize the specific model. She'd watched them dispatch their original adversaries, and now she'd had a front row seat to the second round, which she was quite intent on observing.
'Interesting... let's see what these two can really do...'
Back on the ground...
Ranma punched the first three to come after him resoundingly in the face, flowing from blow to blow like water. One tried to leap past him to tackle Nabiki, but he caught it in mid-air before pulling it into a suplex that drove its head into the road with enough force to leave its skull buried in the asphalt. He backflipped over that one, nimbly evading a taloned slash at his spine in the process, glancing over at Nabiki and preparing to leap to her defense.
'...Huh. Stronger than she looks,' Ranma observed, absently ducking under a claw-swipe aimed at his neck before upper-cutting his assailant hard enough to launch them off of their feet, all the while never taking his eyes off of the sight of Nabiki with both hands wrapped firmly around the throat of one gloomwraith, which was trying desperately to pry her fingers loose.
'Make that a lot stronger than she looks,' he amended himself as she pulled its head clean off, drenching herself in that ink-like blood in the process. Then two gloomwraiths launched themselves at him and he had to shift focus for the moment.
'Ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-EW! Oh, gross! Why did I have to try and play the hero?!' Nabiki mentally sobbed to herself, shaking her head to clear the worst of the gore from her face. She didn't have long to pity herself, however, as a second gloomwraith attacked her, unperturbed by the disturbing death of its predecessor.
On pure instinct, Nabiki lashed out with her hand, her clawed fingers slicing through its chest, sending a fresh spray of ichor whipping into the air as it fell backwards and crashed on the ground. Without hesitating, Nabiki vaulted forwards, the sudden switch from defensive to aggressive allowing her to wildly hack and slash with her hands at any gloomwraith that got too close - crude, compared to the elegance with which Ranma was dispatching his own adversaries, but effective all the same.
'I may not be a martial artist, but like hell I'm going to just turn tail and run now! Besides, I'm probably safer sticking next to Ranma than trying to run at this point...'
The crazy woman with the fox mask and vulpine tails laughed in manic glee. "Oh, you two are so adorable together! Let's see just how long you can last… I might even win my wager with Rae-Rae. She thinks you won't last an hour…"
She waved her hand, and more gloomwraiths materialized from the shadow, and then yet more. Nabiki couldn't repress a soft whimper in her throat as she saw just outnumbered they were, and she and Ranma instinctively tightened their formation, the cursed girl doing her best to imitate Ranma's defensive stance. The monstrous faux-ninjas moved with total silence, talonged fingers flexing as they stalked hungrily towards the two outnumbered teens, who could only tense their muscles until they ached, ready for the first attack...
The gloomwraiths charged once again, Ranma leaping into action, ricocheting from foe to foe like a human pinball, stomping and kicking with bone-crushing force, the kitsune, for some unknown reason, humming what was clearly the Sonic The Hedgehog theme.
"That ice breath trick would come in handy, Nabiki!" He called to his new fiancée as he vaulted onto one gloomwraith's shoulders, took its head between his hands, and twisted its head completely around before springing off.
"Working on it! The family manual didn't exactly come with instructions for dragonkin!" She called back peevishly, one hand clutching at her throat as she coughed desperately.
'C'mon, c'mon, how do I breathe death? Fire yesterday, ice today, what's the trick?!' She wondered frantically.
Suddenly, a crackling bolt of incandescent amethyst energy came sizzling through the air with a high-pitched shriek. It struck a gloomwraith that had been about to swipe at Nabiki, which evaporated into nothingness in a single flash of energy and a sizzling whisp of smoke. Barely a heartbeat behind it came more energy bolts, a barrage from the heavens that winnowed the assembled beasts down to half their numbers in a single strobing volley.
"What?! Who? How!" Yelped the gloomwraiths' leader, her shock palpable even despite her mask.
"Aw, sorry, but the party looked so fun I just had to crash it," came a new voice.
The melee paused as everyone, gloomwraiths included, looked upwards to see, floating cheerfully in mid-air, the form of a girl who was probably about Nabiki's age. Her skin was a deep, inhuman orange that made Nabiki immediately think of a ganguro, except that there was no way that this girl was merely overusing the spray-tan! Not that there was much of that, as she was clad in an outfit that seemed to combine elements of body armor and leotard in a weirdly back-to-front manner; metallic-looking sleeves, collar and waist connected strips of purple fabric that looked more like a crop-top and mini-skirt, paired with thigh-high boots. Long locks of hair so purple it was almost black fell like a waterfall past a heart-shaped face whose almond-shaped eyes were a strikingly bright purple - even the whites of her eyes had a faint purplish tinge to them - with lips curled into a cocky smile.
Her eyes lit up like amaranth flames as she pointed at the gloomwraiths. Auras of crackling purple energy flared into life around her outstretched hands and then erupted forth, unleashing a second volley of energy bolts that vaporized gloomwraiths. Those few she missed were felled as Ranma and Nabiki immediately pounced on them, taking them down in far more physical but no less effective manner.
"Well? Come on, then, I don't have all day - what else do you have up those oversized sleeves of yours, hm?" The floating stranger mockingly called to the kitsune-themed mistress of the gloomwraiths.
"You-You'll regret this, I promise!" Shrieked the robe-clad figure, who violently gestured at them with a sleeve-wrapped hand. What happened was like a flashbang, but in reverse; a sudden explosion of utter darkness so intense it blinded them all, and when they could see again, she was gone as if she had never been there.
"Pft. Wimp," sneered the flying girl, who leisurely floated down to earth to land with a grace that a ballerina could only envy.
"I don't know who you are, but thanks," Ranma told her sincerely, dabbing at the shallow cut on his face.
"Aw, no need to be so formal; I was in the neighborhood, looking for some action, and I just happened to find you. You're not bad at fighting, for an earthling... sides, it would have been a shame to let a pretty face like yours get all messed up," she purred, casting him a smoldering look.
Ranma blushed, instinctively stepping backwards. Nabiki, equally instinctively, wrapped herself possessively around one of Ranma's arms, staring daggers at the admittedly beautiful stranger as an unfamiliar surge of jealousy writhed in her stomach like a live eel. Her reaction only seemed to please the self-admitted nonhuman, who smirked in satisfaction.
Before any of them could breach the silence, they became aware of a choir of cheers, claps and whistles that caused them to look towards the far ends of the street, where they could see crowds had formed - onlookers, police, ambulances, and even news crews!
"Oh, now the police get here," Nabiki grumbled, wiping vainly at the gore splashed on her face.
"When did they get here?!" A shocked Ranma blurted out.
"They were watching before I arrived; you never noticed?" The copper-skinned alien beauty asked.
"Little busy fighting for my life," Ranma dryly shot back.
The stranger smirked approvingly at his snark, but before the conversation could get any further, the trio realized that a woman had pushed through the dissolving bodies and debris and was now standing before them, speaking into a microphone as she stared into the camera that was trained on her - and, by extension, the three of them!
"This is Chie Sonoda for Fuji News Network with a special live report! I'm standing on Chika Street in Furinkan, where the mysterious ninjas have attacked once again in an unprecedented and brutal daylight assault on people and property! But before police could arrive to contain the situation, an unexpected assistance came in the form of three teen superheroes, one of whom seems to be none other than the famous Starfire of the Teen Titans! Starfire, what brings you to Japan? And why the sudden change in your hair and eye color?"
Only Ranma had the perceptional training to notice the way that the nonhuman girl's eyes momentarily pulsed with purple light before she smiled hugely, a hand raised in front of her mouth in a demure gesture. "Oh, I'm sorry, you're confusing me with my sister! I'm Starfire's elder sister, Blackfire, of the planet Tamaran!"
"Fascinating! And who are you two? Does Furinkan now have its very own super-protectors?" The reporter asked, turning on Nabiki and Ranma without a moment's pause, thrusting her microphone in Nabiki's face.
"I'm - ah - Ryumimi!" Nabiki threw out the first code-name to come to mind, only sheer willpower keeping her from grimacing in disgust as she realized what she'd said.
'Seriously? The best I could come up with on the spot is a portmanteau of 'dragon' and 'kemonomimi'?! Oh, well, it's not as if I'll ever need to use this name again...'
Ranma, unfortunately, wasn't so quick-thinking in the face of the confrontation. His father had trained him in surviving a lot of crazy things, but somehow a news interview had never come up in those lessons. "An-An I'm Ran-"
"Ran! He's just called Ran! Because we superheroes need to keep our real names a secret, after all!" Nabiki interjected, her panic at Ranma's near-blunder galvanizing her mind into overdrive, only the unblinking attention of the camera keeping her from glaring at Ranma to make sure he got the hint.
Fortunately, the news reporter didn't seem to really care about either of them, because she was already turning her attention back to Blackfire. "And what brings you to Japan, Blackfire? As the elder sister of Starfire, are you here in an official Teen Titans capacity?"
"Why, yes, I am!" Blackfire announced, beaming proudly. "After that sordid business with Uehara Daizo, the Teen Titans have concluded that Tokyo could only benefit from an outreach program! I have been formally sent here to gather like-minded teen superheroes of Japan together to protect this glorious nation from evil - a Teen Titans Tokyo, if you will! And I think Ran and Ryuhime would be perfect candidates as founding members of the T3 team!"
There was an uproar from the onlookers, and the reporter began to spit questions like bullets from a machine gun, but Blackfire ignored her to instead turn a winning smile on Ranma. "Well? What do you say? You in?"
She didn't need to fake her delighted grin as she watched "Ran" for his reply. 'Strong, fast, flexible, and a martial arts master - oh, yes, you're easily a worthy challenge for Robin! And, bonus, you're not bad on the eyes either... maybe I'll see if what they say about humans is true...'
Ranma looked like a deer caught in the headlights, mind swimming as the alien's offer bounced around inside his forebrain.
'Me? A superhero? But I don't know the first thing about superheroes! But... what was it Nabiki said? Superheroes fight evil, an' help the weak? Ain't that what pops always told me that martial artists were supposed to do?'
He glanced over at the bodies in the street, a pang of guilt stabbing in his heart. His spine stiffened, he turned a firm gaze back to Blackfire and nodded. "Yeah, I'm in."
"I'm in too!" Nabiki blurted out impulsively, then fought to suppress a wince as she realized what she said.
'I don't know what you're up to, but I can smell something isn't right here... Plus, I do not like that look in your eye when you look at my fiancé!'
Blackfire coolly assessed the reptile-featured...metahuman? 'Well, you might have some potential. If not, it shouldn't be too hard to arrange an accident; superheroics is a dangerous business, after all...'
Mind made up, Blackfire smiled and stepped forward to where she could take Ranma and Nabiki alike by the wrist, raising their hands over her head as she crowed, "Then it's official! We are Teen Titans Tokyo!"
In the shadows...
Kasumi watched as the onlookers went ballistic, eating up the spectacle on display before them, and shook her head.
'This was... unexpected. Although I suppose I should be glad for the interruption... still, this complicates things... oh, well; it'll be all the more fun for the challenge! And I'm sure Rae-Rae said Blackfire was good news if she came into the area. Admittedly, I've been lying to my family for weeks…'
At the Kuno estate...
Tatewaki Kuno watched the television with a fixated expression. When a telephone suddenly rang at his side, he didn't even look to where Sasuke was holding a phone on an ornamental pillow, instead reaching out and taking the receiver.
"Yes, Kei, I'm aware that you want them for Project Sentai… We'll be over as soon as I can get them to the principal's office. We need to get that classroom sorted, or even that 'juice bar' you were talking about…"
T3: Pilot: END
Normally, when I write, I go for more of a "slow burn" approach, carefully building up my fanfic so readers can be eased into how my fanfic differs from the usual canon of Ranma 1/2. This was an experiment in doing something different, and I'm cautiously optimistic that it might pay off.
In case it's not obvious at this point, this is a crossover between Ranma 1/2 and the 2003 cartoon version of Teen Titan Go, under the premise that the Teen Titans finale movie, "Trouble in Tokyo", took place several months before Ranma Saotome arrived in Furinkan. This had some knock-on effects, who you'll find out more about in the upcoming Season 1.
And no, this isn't a multi-crossover, but since the central premise of the idea was to have Ranma become part of a "Japanese offshoot" of the Teen Titans, I felt it only appropriate to include homages to sentai and magical girl series, which are to Japan what superheroes are to the west. I will freely admit that the sentai homaging is largely the department of my brain-storming team, though.
And with this microsode, "T3: Pilot" is complete! If you're intrigued, look forward to the first story in the series proper, "T3: Season One" to debut in January. See you in 2024!