T3: Season One, a Ranma + Teen Titans Crossover fanfic

Author's Notes: The "microsode" format I used for T3: Pilot was an experiment for me, but hopefully it didn't turn too many of you off. With the formal debut of Teen Titans Tokyo as a proper series, I'll revert to a more standard format. I hope you'll enjoy this little... fusion fic? Crossover? Whatever you want to call it!

There's already a fledgling TVTropes page for this work, so it'd be great if you could give it some love! And I'd love to commission some art for this fic, as I did with Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse, so if you want to toss me a bit of spare change on Ko-fi, every little bit helps!

Episode 1: Trial by Fire

Blackfire allowed the chattering of the excited crowd to wash over her, their adulation and excitement like a soothing balm on her soul after she had been forced to scrape and fight her way across the galaxy since her wretched little sister had exiled her from Tamaran. She tuned out the inane babbling of the reporter, instead putting on a winning smile that she had been practicing since she was a little bumgorf back on Tamaran.

"I'm sorry, but we really don't have any time for further questions! But you'll see us again soon, for whenever evil threatens, Teen Titans Tokyo will be there to see it fall!"

'X'hal preserve me, I sound ridiculous... Oh well, these backwater rubes are eating it up!'

Without waiting for any further questions, Blackfire took advantage of the fact she still had her new minions (sorry, new allies) by the wrists and took flight. With the joy of her recent success flooding her veins, it was effortless for her to lift off, carrying the surprised earthlings (or whatever the one with the reptilian features was; maybe some kind of halfbreed?) with her as she flew away from the scene.

As she hurtled into the skyline towards one of the taller skyscrapers, she glanced back at her "passengers" as she carried them. The girl was doing her best to not visibly panic, but Blackfire could see the shock in her eyes, something that made a warm glow of triumph faintly flicker in the Tamaranean's heart. But the boy, on the other hand, seemed to be completely unbothered - no, if anything, he was actively enjoying soaring through the air!

'Interesting... you may have more guts than I thought, handsome... And even you have some will, girl. You might just be useful to me...'

She placed them gently on the rooftop of the skyscraper - no need to antagonize them this early in their working relationship, after all, but remained floating gently in the air above them. She placed a hand on her bosom and flashed a winsome smile, a gesture that had made countless others succumb to her charms in the past.

"Sorry about the sudden exit, but I just had to get out of there, and I'm sure you felt the same. No hard feelings?"

Her words, delivered in that sweet and innocent, yet slightly flirty tone that had worked such wonders with the real Teen Titans when they first met, seemed to wash off of the girl - "Ryumimi" - like water off of a zal'trop's back. The guy, "Ran", was staring up at her with fascination - not lust, she was used to lust, but genuine excited intrigue.

"How d'ya do that?! Pops 'n' me've been training in midair combat for decades, but even we can't fly!" He demanded, those surprisingly cute blue-gray eyes gleaming in the waning sunlight.

"Oh, it's pure natural, cutie. I'm a Tamaranean; flight's our natural ability, along with strength and fortitude. And what about you? I take it you're both metahumans?" Blackfire asked, her polite tone covering her genuine interest.

Ryumimi interjected, pointing first to herself and then to Ran as she dryly proclaimed, "Magical curse; aspiring martial arts god."

"Aw, c'mon Na- I mean, Ryumimi! There's nothing so special about what I do," Ran asserted, blushing slightly and sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

"My little sister is a martial artist... you make her look like a completely untrained novice," Ryumimi's rejoinder was blunt, but there was a faint, affectionate smile on her lips as she spoke.

"So, you two evidently know each other in your secret identities," Blackfire interjected.

"You might say that," Ryumimi crossed her arms, smirking at Blackfire and obviously enjoying that she could hold this card to her chest.

"Aw, come on; we're going to be teammates! Shouldn't we know this kind of thing so we can work together?" Blackfire pouted as cutely as she could, the expression requiring just a little bit of extra tailoring when she was looking down at her target rather than upwards.

"Depends; do the other Teen Titans know each other's real identities?" Asked the 'magical' reptoid, the sarcasm only barely hidden behind her words.

Blackfire didn't actually need to feign her thoughtful expression as she placed a finger to her lips and slowly shook her head. "Honestly, they tend to just live in their hero identities twenty-four-seven. I don't know that they even remember who they were before they took up the mantle... of course, my sister and I are somewhat different - we don't have 'secret' identities at all."

"You run around calling yourselves Starfire and Blackfire," Ryumimi pointed out.

"Oh, that's just for ease of communication! My name is Komand'r; it literally translates into English as 'Blackfire'. I think in Japanese the equivalent might be 'Kurohi'?" Blackfire made a gentle wave, metaphorically dismissing the topic.

"But I suppose it's only fair. Now, I don't suppose I can drop you off somewhere? Since you have secret identities and all, I expect you'll need to go and get your cover straight before we officially start working together, hm?" She added, with practiced nonchalance.

She watched as the two earthlings looked at each other, looked at the edge of the roof, and then looked back at her. When they silently raised their arms for her again, she smirked with equal parts amusement and triumph before lowering herself just enough that she could lift them into the air with her.

Ten minutes later...

"Home sweet home," Nabiki sighed in relief as she and Ranma hurried through the back streets towards her home.

'Could have just asked her to drop us right here, but what's the point in a secret identity when you spell it out for people?' She mused to herself.

Ranma trotted quietly along behind his fiancée, a guilty expression on his face. As they were about to reach the back door into the grounds, he finally found his courage and spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Nabiki..."

"For what? It wasn't you who decided to have a supervillain attack us on our first date," She glibly pointed out.

"Not for that... for volunteering us. I-I never should'a..."

"No, you shouldn't have," Nabiki cut him off, letting some of her anger leak through, her words as chilling as a gust from a blast freezer. Then she sighed and added, "But let's be fair; you only volunteered yourself, and I can't blame you for that. Daddy used to make similar speeches to what you made. I was the one who got swept up in the moment and made a fool of myself by volunteering too..."

"Hey! You were incredibly brave back there - all the more because I know you ain't trained in years. What you did took real guts, Nabiki - if any of us is a hero, it's you," Ranma insisted fiercely, only for what he'd said to register in his mind and for him to blush.

'Damnit, why do I never think before I talk?!'

"Please; everybody knows the real hero was the flying girl who vaporized them all with a wave of her hands," Nabiki scoffed. But despite her words, there was a faint dusting of pink on her cheeks.

"Anyway, we can talk about this whole 'Teen Titans Tokyo' thing later. We've got bigger things to worry about right now," she darkly warned him, even as she gingerly swung open the gate and furtively peeked around the gateway.

Ranma blinked in surprise, even as he stepped into the gateway. "Like what? Yow!"'

He ducked at the last moment as a small dumbbell came flying through the air where his head had been and embedded itself in the brick wall across the street.

"What the hell were you thinking, dragging my sister into danger like that?!" Akane shrieked like a demon, weighing up her other dumbbell as if judging whether or not to launch it like its predecessor.

"Saotome, what kind of morals did you instill in your son?!" Roared Soun, whose head suddenly seemed to loom over them all like a gigantic monolith of inhumanly pale flesh, tongue lashing like a serpent as shadows swallowed the sky, Ranma shrieking in fright at the sudden apparition.

"Like dealing with daddy and Akane," Nabiki moaned glumly.

As Soun continued to rant and Akane to scream, with Ranma trying to placate the former and arguing back with the latter, Nabiki doing her best to support Ranma all the while, none of them realized they were being observed.

High above them in her second-storey bedroom, Kasumi giggled to herself as she stood in her window, watching the private show being played out in her own backyard.

'My little playdate with sister dear and her new swain might not have worked out how I planned it... but this is pretty entertaining, too.'

The fledgling supervillain winced in exaggerated sympathy as Akane lost her temper and grabbed a baseball-sized stone from the edge of the koi pond before throwing it into the back of Ranma's head whilst he was distracted arguing with her father. The gesture was rather undermined by the savage grin of amusement on her lips.

'I must tell Rae-Rae about what's going on here; she'll be just dying to know this!'

Giggling like long-forgotten schoolmates, Kasumi practically skipped over to her bed, smiling excitedly as she reached under her mattress and reverently drew out a small hand mirror. Its frame and handle were all of one piece, ebon-black wood stylized to resemble intertwined thorny vines, and four bird feathers had been tied into a knotted charm made with green silk thread around its handle. Staring into its depths, oblivious to the infatuated look on her face, Kasumi whirled around and carelessly flopped onto her bed on her back before whispering the charm - the first incantation she'd ever learned.

"Azarath... Metrion... Zinthos..."

The smoked glass of the mirror rippled like water in a pond that had been caressed by the wind, its formerly opaque surface resolving into the face of a girl who most certainly was not Kasumi. The corpse-gray skin and the four crimson eyes were dead give-aways.

"Somebody's been a naughty little girl," She purred, and Kasumi's heart nearly skipped a beat at that smokey, seductive tone that seemed to be drizzling honey all over her skin already.

"Aw, Rae-Rae, you say the nicest things! It was just so boring here, I had to step out and stretch my legs!" Kasumi giggled. "I should have known you'd sense my magic."

"That, and the television still works fine here... So, that boy with your delectable little sister Nabiki; that would be the infamous Ranma Saotome you told me about yesterday, hmm?" She asked, her tone shifting from dry and snarky to seductive purring in an instant.

Kasumi groaned and rolled her eyes. "Ugh, yes, gag me with a dumpling! Everything I ever hated about boys all rolled up into one package! I did tell you that he even goes so far as to write off that adorable little redheaded alter-ego of his as a curse? What a waste!"

"Oh, I don't know, he looks strong and handsome... I'd prefer your sister, but I wouldn't necessarily kick him out of the bedsheets first," Mused her girlfriend.

"Rae-Rae! You know I hate it when you talk like that!" Kasumi cried, screwing up her face in an indignant pout of dismay.

"Oh, baby, you know you're my one and only! But we both know that when it comes to a fine lady in your bed, more is always better..." Cooed her beloved teacher, batting her eyes in that way that always melted Kasumi's heart to mush.

In the face of that longing, lustful expression, Kasumi's resistance lasted as long as a chocolate teapot on a scorching summer's day. "Okay, I'll forgive you! Still, it's a shame he doesn't see what his other side could really be..."

"Well, maybe we can fix that... It's time you moved on to the next phase in your lessons when it comes to manipulating spiritual energies... and Jusenkyo is just the kind of raw magical clay that's such a delight to play with..." the girl in the mirror purred, her peals of laughter eliciting a delighted giggle from Kasumi in kind.

"Ooh, a midnight rendezvous! You do know how to treat a girl! But... what about Blackfire, and this 'Teen Titans Tokyo' business?" She asked, allowing her concern to show on her face.

"Bah, it's obviously a ploy! I can see the darkness inside the Tamaranean's heart beckoning to me. Let them play their silly games, sweetheart; we have our eyes set on the true prize," she assured Kasumi, who nodded her head.

"Okay, Rae-Rae. I'll see you tonight. I love you," She kissed the mirror, but by the time she lifted her lips from its glassy surface, it was still and empty once more.

The next morning...

"Ugh, man, your sister really doesn't like me, does she?" Ranma complained as he and Nabiki briskly closed the distance towards the gates of Furinkan High.

"Akane's always been stubborn, I'm afraid. Once she makes her mind up, she's very reluctant to change it," Nabiki conceded absently, more focused on trying to rotate her cramping shoulders.

'Sheesh, I've only been in human form all night, why are they so sore?! Maybe Ranma can sneak me a backrub...' Then her memory helpfully reminded her of her reaction to her last backrub, and her cheeks briefly flushed pink. 'Up on the roof where I can't be heard, at least...'

"I mean, I get why she hates these bozos," Ranma made a rude gesture at the gathered mob of would-be boyfriends waiting for Akane, who glowered at him, but then looked at Nabiki and seemed to decide that silence was the best option, "But what've I done since getting here that's so bad, huh?!"

"Gee, you only almost ended up being engaged to her because our daddies are both old-fashioned idiots. And she happens to be nursing the biggest little-girl crush on our local chiropractor, Dr. Tofu. Add in the fact she's always been overprotective-"

"I said I was sorry!" Ranma hated when he whined, it made him sound like his father, but the words slipped out before he could stop them.

"But the real problem is you keep arguing back with her. I love my little sister, but she tends to expect to get the last word, and you don't do much of that, do you?" Nabiki smiled at him, and Ranma's heart seemed to miss a beat. There was just something about that look on her face, and the way the sunlight glittered in her hair.

"I... uh..." Ranma articulately responded.

'Snap out of it! You're better than those stupid losers you used to see in middle-school swooning over their first crushes!' He scolded himself.

Somehow, Nabiki seemed to realize what was bugging him, because her expression took on a triumphant cast, before she nonchalantly changed the subject. "But I must say, your father surprised me last night when he actually managed to talk daddy down..."

"Uh, yeah. I did say, he's the one who taught me that martial artists are supposed to protect the weak, right? And your dad, he'd get that - they trained together, they must think kind of the same way, right?"

"Well, considering daddy never dragged us over half of Asia since we were little kids, I think I'd argue my dad was smarter than yours," Nabiki giggled.

"Hah, no arguments there! My old man isn't winning any brain contests any time soon!" Ranma cackled, the words only slightly bitter on his tongue.

Then he noticed the questioning expression on Nabiki's face and he quickly changed the topic, "Anyway, what'd'ya think about... uh... our new club?"

"I think it's probably best we save that for after school; we had better get inside soon, or we're going to be late," Nabiki replied casually, glancing pointedly up at the clock tower.

Ranma followed her gaze and flinched. "Oh, crap! Uh, yeah, see ya later, Nabiki!"

Nabiki watched as Ranma seemed to just disappear in a blur of motion and fondly shook her head as he vanished, before turning and setting off on her own route to her class on the top floor.

Ten minutes later...

Nabiki stared over the balcony with Kikuko and Ryonami, listening to their chatter about the 'Teen Titans Tokyo' with half an ear as she watched Akane devastate her would-be admirers with her usual brutal efficiency. As the last of the bodies crashed to the ground, Akane skidded to a halt, taking a defensive pose and glancing warily around in anticipation of the next attack. A full minute ticked past before she blinked in surprise, then shook her head and sprinted full-tilt for the front door, racing to get to class on time.

"That's funny... where's Kuno baby?" Nabiki wondered aloud, the mockingly familiar moniker instinctively springing to her tongue.

"Maybe he decided against getting knocked out this morning? Mr. Maki was warning him that he was going to start giving him detention for missing so many first classes, principal's son or not," Kikuko suggested, shrugging her shoulders helplessly.

Nabiki smiled approvingly as she thought of their wiry, elderly homeroom teacher, who was legendary amongst the school for his refusal to give Tatewaki Kuno any special privileges. "That sounds like him, alright... come on, ladies; if there's no more fun to be had, we might as well sit down..."

Lunch time...

The last of the chimes signaling the start of the day's lunch period had barely faded away when the school intercom system crackled to life. "Will Saotome Ranma and Tendo Nabiki please report to the principal's office? Repeat: will Saotome Ranma and Tendo Nabiki please report to the principal's office?"

In rooms 1-F and 2-E, two teenagers looked up in confusion, their classmates staring at them in surprise. Whilst Nabiki's classmates in 2-E knew better than to start gossiping where she could hear them, the students of 1-F immediately began to whisper to themselves as they stared at the confused Ranma. He glanced over at Akane, but she looked as confused as he did, even forgetting her normal disdain in her surprise and curiosity.

With no clue what was going on, but no reason to refuse, Ranma and Nabiki did as they were instructed, grabbing their school bags and heading for the principal's office. Once they met at the door, they paused long enough to exchange mutually confused looks before they swung it open and stepped inside.

Contrary to what the rumor mill would assume, Ranma Saotome didn't really have that much experience with the inside of a principal's office, so he couldn't really say anything specific about the interior. His attention was instead drawn to the people waiting inside the room - not the old man sitting calmly behind his desk, but a passingly familiar youth, as well as a girl he didn't recognize at all.

"Ah, greetings, Nabiki Tendo and Ranma Saotome. I suppose you're wondering why I have arranged this little meeting?" Tatewaki Kuno smoothly proclaimed.

"You arranged?" Ranma repeated, somewhat incredulously.

"My apologies, I forgot we haven't been introduced. I am Tatewaki Kuno, age seventeen; rising star in the kendo world, champion of Furinkan High's kendo club... and heir to the house of Kuno. You will, of course, be familiar with KunoTech?"

"Never heard of it," Ranma immediately replied.

Tatewaki nearly fell flat on his face in shock, and both Nabiki and the as-yet unintroduced girl - whose mask, single eye and platinum blonde hair made it abundantly clear that she wasn't anybody Ranma had seen before - stared at Ranma in naked disbelief.

Ranma let the awkward silence hang over them all before he smirked and declared, "Kidding! I ain't never had much dealing with the stuff they make, but I know KunoTech is one of the big science companies of Japan."

"Th-That's right. We pride ourselves on standing on the cutting edge of many disciplines in the scientific field, even those that other, more mainstream corporations have traditionally been content to write off as science fiction," Tatewaki explained, striving to regain his dignity and control of the situation.

"He's also the son of Furinkan High's principal, who left him to act as honorary substitute principal whilst he's away in America, right, Kuno-baby?" Nabiki interjected, always relishing the opportunity to prick Kuno's overly abundant ego.

"Viper-tongued wench!" Tatewaki spat, bristling indignantly and glowering at Nabiki, who met him and the sudden sharp gaze of the one-eyed teen with a coolly aloof smirk. Then he coughed, inhaling deeply through his nose before exhaling through his mouth, visibly calming himself down.

"My apologies; it is unseemly to act in such a manner when conducting business..."

Now it was Nabiki's turn to look puzzled.

"Business, Kuno? Since when do you have me called into the principal's office for business? And why is Ranma here?" Nabiki asked coolly, an eyebrow raised and her arms crossed across her chest.

"I suppose I should be more accurate; my business is not with the two of you, it's with Ryumimi and Ran... honestly, did neither of you have better ideas for nom de guerres than that?" Kuno asked, giving them both a hugely disappointed look that would have been hilarious, had Ranma and Nabiki not both been staring at him with horror.

"How did you-?!" Nabiki hissed - literally hissed, pupils narrowing into slits and teeth audibly creaking as they started to twist in her gums, grinding their edges to razors on each other as her nails started to stretch into claws.

"Oh, the House of Kuno has always kept its onmitsu - mine simply happens to be better than the rest."

Here, Kuno stole a glance towards the one-eyed girl that a far less distracted Nabiki would have been shocked to realize accompanied an uncharacteristically shy smile. But since she was currently wrestling down the urge to launch herself squarely at her old nemesis' throat, she failed to notice. Fortunately for Kuno, his distraction lasted only an instant before he reorientated back to the fledgling superheroes.

"But I have no quarrel with you! In fact, I believe we can help each other..."

The statement was so surprising it snuffed out Nabiki's sudden, inexplicable surge of defensive rage, her features smoothing back to their original humanity as she blurted out, "Help us? How?"

Now Kuno looked embarrassed. "Um... this is perhaps easier shown than explained... Mr. Yamaoka?"

The man behind the desk, whom Nabiki would later clarify to Ranma was their school's vice-principal, pressed a hidden button, and the whole room suddenly moved, dropping steadily downwards.

"Since when is the principal's office an elevator?" Nabiki asked, trying her best to sound casual, even sarcastic with her quip.

Tatewaki hung his head and groaned in exasperation. "Like so much wrong in my life, it has to do with my father... But I digress! Ranma Saotome, Nabiki Tendo, welcome to...Project Sentai!"

Instinctively, Ranma and Nabiki looked, and beheld as the lift descended into a vast cavern, filled with steadily-forming infrastructures and mechanical components.

"Whoa...Just like a TV show," Ranma marveled as he took in the sight before him. "Wait - are those robots!?"

"How long has this been down here?!" Nabiki demanded, turning to Tatewaki for emphasis even as she gestured towards the expanse.

"The cavern was here, but admittedly much smaller, when we started. Project Sentai is my father's brain-child to construct a base of operations for a team dedicated to tackling extraordinary threats. With the Tokyo Troopers in disgrace, and most of their manpower revealed as ink constructs created by Brushogun in the first place, it's only fitting that somebody rise to the challenge of taking their place! After all, as recent events have proven, with Daizho incarcerated, the real villainous elements that he had driven underground are experiencing a resurgence..."

Tatewaki's audible pride trailed off into verbal darkness, the glowering look on his face making it clear that, for all his faults, he clearly disapproved of the idea of supervillains running rampant in his hometown. As the office-turned-lift docked, he shook his head and threw himself back into his spiel.

"And that's where you come in. And, of course, Lady Blackfire as well, as soon as we can find her to give her the offer. The Teen Titans have their T-Tower in Jump City. So, of course, the new 'Teen Titans Tokyo' will need their own base of operations in Furinkan... and I'm offering you the chance to use Project Sentai to fill that need."

Ranma simply blinked slowly, his gaze shifting from the robot construction workers to Tatewaki and back again. Nabiki narrowed her eyes, staring suspiciously at Tatewaki.

"What do you get out of this? Why are you making this offer?" She asked him.

"...Nabiki Tendo, you and I have seldom seen eye to eye, I will admit that. But know this: I have always sought to live up to my status as a samurai. So, when I saw the video-footage of the Teen Titans battling Uehara Daizo, I knew that I had found a way I could truly live up to that lineage once more," He clenched his hand in emphasis, staring up at the heavens so high above through layers of steel, concrete and stone.

'...Are those tears?' Nabiki wondered in disbelief.

"So why us? Why not use this place yourself, if you want to be a superhero so badly?" Ranma asked, his words bringing a short lived smile to Nabiki's lips as he spoke what she was thinking.

"Alas, there are so many demands on my time, I simply could never find the time," Tatewaki replied, and he genuinely seemed to be mourning the fact. "I hope to change that in the future, but for now, my role is better suited for that of the patron."

"...You'd really be willing to work with us, Kuno?" Nabiki asked.

"If it's for the good of Furinkan, then yes, I can work with you, Nabiki Tendo. And your associate, too," Tatewaki replied, running his fingers through his hair in a gesture he clearly thought looked cool.

"My fiancé, Kuno-baby," Nabiki corrected him, grinning when Tatewaki grimaced.

"I was hoping to avoid using that word in connection with you, Nabiki Tendo," He muttered sourly.

"I'll ignore that, for now. But alright, Kuno; we're not going to say yes yet," She glanced aside at Ranma, and was gratified to see him deliberately keeping his mouth shut, making it obvious he was willing to defer to her leadership in this. "But we'll consider it... perhaps a tour of the facility is in order?"

Tatewaki smiled brightly at her words. "But of course! Come; I'll introduce you to somebody - she can be a little... insufferable at times, but you'll find there's no better scientific mind around!"

As he spoke, he ushered them towards an enormous central monitor, whose screen suddenly lit up, displaying a pure white backdrop against a single magnified kanji character: ケイ

"You're a fine one to talk about insufferable. Have you finished telling them they'll be joining Project Sentai?" Boomed a feminine voice through speakers.

"They haven't made up their minds yet, Dr. Kei. They're going to take the tour of the facility first... and why weren't you here to greet them, like I asked? ...Are you down in the basement-level working on those giant robot schematics again?" Tatewaki asked, glaring suspiciously at the monitor.

It suddenly switched off, and he growled in irritation before shouting at the blank screen, "Contemptuous harpy, I keep asking you - what are we supposed to do with a mecha?! This is an urban environment! We're expecting human-scale opposition, not kaiju!"

Further silence greeted his tirade, and he snarled wordlessly in exasperation before turning to them with an expression of forced politeness. "I assure you, she is brilliant... eccentricities aside. But come, enough about her!"

Meanwhile...

Kasumi sighed hugely as she switched off the television. 'Bored, bored, bored-bored-bored! Bah, I feel like I'm about to go insane! Father and Ranma's father decided to go out for the day, so I'm stuck here all on my own... stupid old fools are probably going to get blind drunk and congratulate themselves on how well Ranma and Nabiki seem to be working out. Don't they realize the two have barely known each other more than a day? It's a little premature to be planning their wedding! But what can I do? I don't know how Kuno arranged to get those wards put up around Furinkan High, but either way, I can't go there... I suppose I could get my Gameboy, but my Ninetails is already level 100...'

"You see panda?"

"Go away, you crazy foreigner!"

Kasumi blinked in confusion, looking over towards her window. She stood up and slid it open so she could peek out into the street running adjacent to her home. There, she saw a beautiful young girl, easily Akane's age, with long, flowing blue hair, trying to speak to some man about her father's age who was looking at her with contempt.

"Please, am looking for panda and red hair girl. You see?" The girl, obviously a foreigner, asked insistently.

"You wanna see a panda, go to the zoo, you little tramp!" The old man spat.

The girl promptly punched him in the face, the blow hurling him across the street to crash into some garbage cans like a human bowling ball.

"Be polite!" The foreign girl spat disdainfully at her now-unconscious could-have-been informant.

Kasumi burst out into delighted giggles at the sight. 'You go girl! Always good to see the stuffy old men get what's coming to them! Wait, what was she asking about a panda and a redheaded girl for? Could she know about the Saotomes?! Hmm... and she's strong, too. Yes... I think Rae-Rae will want to meet you, pretty thing. But how to get you there...? Ah-hah!'

Quickly, she went to her wardrobe and pulled out a police officer's uniform, which she hastily threw on.

'Not a perfect set-up, but I don't have time - she could leave any moment now! Besides, I don't need to fool a real cop, just a foreigner... Pity about what happened to the last wearer of this suit, but they shouldn't have come snooping into Rae-Rae's den!'

Properly dressed, she hurried back to the window, only to see that the stranger was already almost to the main street. With a muffled curse, she squeezed clumsily into the windowsill and then launched herself through the air - an action that would have been suicidal three months ago, but which nowadays was practically mundane, thanks to the gifts her beloved girlfriend had shared with her. She soared nimbly through the intervening space and landed silently on the street before hurrying after the foreigner, whispering a minor glamour into life as she went.

"Excuse me, miss? I think I can help you!" She called as she strode as quickly as she could without running outright.

Same time, a different face...

Shan Pu's ears metaphorically perked up as she heard the voice from behind her. She turned and watched as a policewoman - young, yes, but older than Shampoo, hurried up to her.

"You help Shan Pu?" She asked, eagerness and suspicion mingling in her tone as she cautiously eyed the newcomer in case they were a threat.

"I believe I can. Are you looking for a redheaded girl named Ranma Saotome and her pet panda?" The policewoman asked.

Shan Pu's heart skipped a beat and she nodded excitedly, a predatory grin on her lips. "That her! Where she?!"

"I happen to know exactly where they're staying. Follow me and we'll be there soon," the policewoman assured her.

"Shan Pu follow," She assured her, and as the policewoman turned and walked away, with the Chinese Amazon following obediently along behind her.

'Soon, Ranma Saotome! Soon, you shall pay the price for dishonoring a Joketsuzoku warrior! How fortunate I am that my decision to check Tokyo first would lead me here...'

On and on the two young women walked, wending their way through the streets of Furinkan. Their route twisted and turned, winding like a drunken snake until Shan Pu was quite thoroughly lost - not that the proud Joketsuzoku would have ever admitted! Finally, the young policewoman brought Shampoo to a house. A humble little two-storey place, a bit on the older side, and looking like it had recently been abandoned. The door was shut, the windows closed, and despite it being the middle of the day, it somehow looked shadowed and forbidding. Apart from a single figure slumped against a wall on the far side of the street, a young girl in a black outfit that somebody with more conventional fashion sense than Shan Pu would have labled "goth-punk", there wasn't a soul to be seen.

The policewoman nodded to the door as she stepped aside. "The girl you're looking for has been seen camping inside, and should be here right now. All you have to do is go in and get her..."

"Shan Pu do! Thank you!" She chirped in delight, smiling viciously to herself.

'Even a foreign lawmaker recognizes the debt of honor! I was surprised to find so reasonable a personage amongst the barbarians... now, Ranma Saotome; prepare to die!'

She eagerly reached out and seized the doorknob, ready to swing it open - or tear it off its hinges if need be. But no sooner had her fingers closed around the metal sphere than white-hot agony suddenly blazed through her body. Her hair stood on end, her heart jackhammered inside her chest, her bones jolted - she tried to scream, to rage, but her teeth snapped together so tight it was lucky she didn't bite her tongue off, and all that escaped was a high-pitched whine. An eternity of seconds passed before the pain ceased and Shan Pu collapsed like a doll whose strings had been cut, her skull smacking hard against the pavement.

The world whirled around her like the time she'd tried some of her grand-aunty's moonshine when she was younger, and darkness stretched up its icy fingers to swallow her. The last thing she saw was the policewoman smiling down at her.

It was not a nice smile, with far too many teeth.

Back at Furinkan High...

"So what's this room supposed to be?" Ranma asked politely, looking at the bleak beds, the glass-fronted cabinets, and the frankly rather worrying array of surgical implements mounted on various holders.

"This is the infirmary. Not much point sending you into the meat grinder if we can't patch you up afterwards," declared Dr. Kei, speaking to Ranma over her shoulder even as she busily typed away at a keyboard attached to a fancy looking computer monitor... then again, Ranma had never owned a personal computer or game console in his life, so any kind of computer device tended to look fancy to him.

Dr. Kei was a mystery. Oh, her appearance was simple enough to describe - she was a young Japanese woman in a labcoat over a Furinkan High girl's uniform, which should have raised some questions about exactly how old she was, but she acted like she was in charge enough that nobody really seemed to ask them. She alternated between ignoring them and focusing on them with laser-tight focus, at no real predictable interval. She was adamant on being addressed as 'Kei' or, at most, 'Doctor Kei', never as 'Mrs or Doctor Hakase'. And she was so bluntly spoken that she made Ranma feel like an exemplar of tact and diplomacy by comparison.

"Since we're here, we should undertake a basic medical examination of the two of you, in order to create a baseline of your physical health. You first, girl; step over onto that platform there," She gestured to a circular platform that looked more like a half-assembled teleporter from some sci-fi anime, complete with a strange lense-bearing device hanging from the ceiling directly over it.

Nabiki looked at the contraption warily before turning to Tatewaki.

"If I die; kick his ass, Ranma," she declared, never taking her eyes off of her classmate as she spoke.

"Oh, come now, Nabiki Tendo! Do you truly believe I'd allow you to come to harm?" Tatewaki protested, even as Ranma rolled his head on his shoulders until his neck cracked, popping his knuckles in a show of evident willingness to obey his fiancées orders.

"Just making sure we understand each other, Kuno-baby," Nabiki smugly declared, before striding over and stepping somewhat gingerly onto the platform.

"Hold still," Dr. Kei ordered her, fingers flying across her keyboard.

Nabiki held her breath as the lens above her whirred into life, a cerulean glow washing over her from head to toe, sweeping up and down three times with no apparent effect.

"Mmhhmm... good, readings stable... Your other form now. Come on, hurry up!"

Nabiki glanced at the other teens in the room, who immediately grasped the issue and looked away to give her some semblance of modesty. Heaving a soft sigh, the girl reluctantly removed her school shirt and gently placed it to the side of the platform before pulling her panties down lower around her hips, after which she kicked off her shoes and tugged off her socks, placing them next to her shirt. Then she changed.

'You'd expect going from human to ryumimi to take some effort... but it honestly feels more like I'm untensing a muscle I didn't even know was tensed. That makes this damn curse all the creepier...' Nabiki mused absently to herself.

Readjusting her panties to sit as high up as her tail would allow before picking up her shirt and using it to cover herself, the transformed girl called, "I'm ready!"

"I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to remove the shirt?" Dr. Kei mockingly suggested.

Once again the lens whirred into life, this time with a crimson light that began to sweep up and down Nabiki's altered form, more slowly than before.

"While we're at it, we might as well add this to our files. When did this alternative form manifest?" The scientist brusquely demanded.

Nabiki inhaled slowly, before exhaling with a sigh. "It has to be almost six weeks ago. I was pursuing repayment of a very sizable and overdue debt from one of my clients - I'm sure Kuno-baby has told you all about my little business ventures?" She cut herself off.

"Yes, he's informed me. Selling photographs of your sister exercising, impromptu gambling amongst the students of Furinkan High, facilitating romantic gestures - tawdy wheeler-dealing of that manner," Came the dismissive response.

Despite herself, Nabiki felt a vein twitch in the corner of her temple, her lips curling into a snarl that exposed sharp fangs before she forced it into a strained smile instead. "Oh. You know. Anyway! This kid came to me and she offered me a deal; an antique coin in exchange for wiping the debt clean."

"A poor bargain," Doctor Kei stated, nodding to herself.

"That's what I thought. She insisted it was worth my time - said it was the last coin minted by and in honor of some ancient German nobleman - a 'Lord Fafnir'. Claimed it was worth hundreds of thousands of yen to the right buyer, maybe millions," Nabiki elaborated.

"Just how much did she owe you?!" An appalled Ranma interjected.

"That's the funny thing; she only owed me fifty thousand yen! Which was a lot, it was the biggest debt I had at the time, but still, this coin would more than cover the debt. So I said yes and I took it... and how I wish I hadn't..." She snarled angrily at the memories.

"What happened?" Doctor Kei demanded of her.

"So, I took the coin, thought it was my lucky day. It was late, so I decided to hide it in my room until I could arrange to get it checked out and sold off. I had this big glass jar full of 1 yen coins that I'd been collecting since I was a little kid, so I buried it in amongst them and went to bed. That night, I had the weirdest dreams..." Nabiki trailed off, looking distracted for a few moments.

"Do you recall what they were about?"

"...No..." Nabiki replied after a moment's hesitation. "All I remember clearly is what happened when I woke up the next morning..."

"Go on..."

"Have you ever eaten a big meal? I mean a really big meal. So big that you're not really sure how you're not just throwing up from how full you are? That's how I felt when I woke up. That, and weighed down - there was this huge weight centered around my middle. I tried to get out of bed, still half-asleep, and I nearly fell on my face. That's when I saw my precious yen jar was on the floor by my bed, completely empty... because all of the coins were inside of me."

Nabiki shook her head in disbelief. "I can still remember looking down and seeing this big round potbelly sticking out from under my pajamas. I looked like photos of mom when she was pregnant! And when I touched it, it was solid and heavy to the touch - and I could feel and hear the coins clinking as they moved around inside me."

"What didja do?!" Ranma breathed, staring wide-eyed at his fiancé - whilst she had told him that she was cursed when she got engaged, this was his first time hearing the full story.

Nabiki gave him a crooked smile as she answered. "What do you think? I screamed! Daddy and Akane came running into my room, and they screamed too! Once we finally accepted what we were all seeing, they rushed me to Doctor Tofu's..."

"Who?" Ranma interjected, unable to help himself.

"Our family doctor; he's been looking after Akane her whole life. Nice enough guys, even if his crush on Kasumi would be creepy if it weren't so pathetic," Nabiki waved a hand in dismissal of the subject.

"Anyway, we get there and he runs through the basics - checks my pupils, my heartrate, my breathing, all that stuff. Then he starts to examine my stomach - I mean he started to rub it. Maybe it was some shiatsu thing, I don't know. All I know is that my stomach started to get a lot lighter, but it wasn't really shrinking, and the more he pushed and poked at it, the worst I felt. I started to tell him to stop it and... I burped," Nabiki confessed, blushing brightly at the memory.

"Contrary to popular belief, girls burp," Came the sarcastic commentary from the rapidly-typing Doctor Kei.

"They don't usually burp acid fumes," Nabiki dryly shot right back.

"Acid?" The older woman asked, actually looking up from her computer for once.

Nabiki shrugged. "Well, it could have been some kind of poison for all I know. It was purple mist that ate a hole in the wall and burned a swathe of death through his garden before it dissipated - what else could it be? By the time we all stopped staring at that, my belly was back to normal and I felt fine, but I looked like this."

She gestured at her altered self for emphasis, then scrambled to catch her shirt before it could expose her near-nudity to the boys, who were gracious enough to turn their heads immediately.

"And what exactly are your abilities in this form?" The doctor asked, charging on ahead to the next topic with what they had all realized was her standard bluntness.

"Well... Apart from the whole 'breath of death' thing, and the spitting fire and ice gimmicks, which I still haven't figured out how that works... I'm basically a lot stronger in this body. At least as strong as Akane is. I haven't really put it to the test," Nabiki admitted.

Clickety-clack went the keys. "Drawbacks?"

"It's hard to stay in my real body for long periods of time. I get these awful backaches eventually and they only go away when I change into this form. Also... I, uh, I have a hard time handling yen coins now," She confessed, blushing faintly as she did.

"...You can't touch money?" An incredulous Tatewaki Kuno asked, looking at her in disbelief.

"No. It's just... if I'm holding a yen coin, I... uh... I have a hard time resisting the urge to eat it. The more valuable the coin, the sweeter it tastes. Notes are fine, it's just the coins."

Nabiki was obviously blushing by this point, fidgeting nervously.

"Fascinating. Metahuman biology is certainly full of surprises," Doctor Kei observed, her tone indifferent as she continued pouring over whatever details her scanner was providing.

"Metahuman? I'm cursed, not some kind of mutant!" Nabiki snapped back. "Naturally, I had some geeks that owed me some favors do a little research the first day I got back to school - apparently, this 'Fafnir' character wasn't a lord like I was told... they were a sorcerer who turned themselves into a dragon using cursed gold stolen from... some kind of European yokai, I don't know the full details. He was slain by an ancient German hero called Sigurd, who destroyed most of his hoard... but a single coin survived, and it must have been tainted by the magic he used..."

"Bah. Magic is superstitious rubbish believed by the primitive and the deluded," Doctor Kei scoffed, looking up from her monitor with a disgusted look on her face.

"...Excuse me?" Nabiki replied, casting her own icy look of disdain right back.

"Then how do you explain me? Cold water turns me into a girl!" Ranma added defensively.

"Wait, what?!" Tatewaki asked, but nobody was paying him any attention.

"Obviously, that's just your newly awakened and untrained metahuman talent! I assure you; there's no such thing as magic!" Doctor Kei asserted confidently.

Meanwhile...

'Ohh, my poor aching... everything! Great-grandmother's training sessions never hurt this badly... wait a moment... that traitorous harlot, what did she do to me?!'

Shan Pu's eyes flew open as she tried to lunge upright, only to find herself held taut by chains that wrapped around her wrists and bound her against a table.

"You let Shan Pu go!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, trying to use sheer volume and tone to substitute for her sub-par spoken Japanese.

Even as she protested, her eyes flashed across her environment, trying to take in every detail in hopes of spotting a vital element that might get her out of this mess. She was chained to what honestly looked kind of like a dining room table in a room that was perfectly ordinary, save for all the blinds being drawn to plunge the interior into darkness. The only lights came from long candles of red and black wax, their flickering light hinting at strange shapes lurking in the shadows that Shampoo couldn't quite make out, and which some part of her really didn't want to. Jars, knives with impractically ornately flanged blades and hilts, books, scrolls, and other paraphenalia that screamed "magic!" to a Chinese Amazon's eye were draped seemingly carelessly across every available surface in the darkness.

"You do bring me the most fascinating toys, my love," purred a seductive feminine voice, and Shan Pu's attention immediately snapped to the two figures who were standing over her.

One was a figure in a black and crimson mask stylized to resemble a fox's face, and a long, flowing costume that probably would have meant something to a Japanese person, but meant nothing to Shan Pu. The other figure was a girl of perhaps Shan Pu's age; a Westerner, by the look of her, wearing a black mini-top and leather jacket, artfully torn black jeans, and high, lace-up black leather boots. Short magenta hair framed a beautiful but cold face, arcane sigils carefully inked across the forehead and upon each cheek. Magenta eyes studied Shan Pu as if she were nothing more than a rabbit in a hunter's snare, and the Chinese Amazon fought back a sudden surge of fear.

"Aw, Rae-Rae, you say the sweetest things!" Giggled the masked one.

"Shan Pu no say again! Let Shan Pu go!" The Joketsuzoku teen roared, pulling against her bindings with all her might. Steel creaked torturously, but despite the fact Shan Pu had been wrestling bears and tigers for the last six years, she still couldn't break free.

"Strong... fierce... mmm, yesss, this one has potential," Purred the unmasked girl, black-painted lips curling into a twisted smile. "And that's without taking her heritage into account..."

"If you know Chinese Amazons, you no mess with Shan Pu!"

"Chinese Amazons? Oh, dearie... you don't even know what you are, do you? My love, pass me that athame, then take up that chalice..."

Shan Pu's eyes went wide in horror as the masked girl passed a long-bladed knife to the speaker, who took it by the hilt without ever removing her gaze from Shan Pu. She threw herself against her bonds with all her might, thrashing fiercely in a desperate effort to break loose.

"Save your strength, sweetmeat. You're going to need it," chided the speaker in that same horrible seductive tone. Without flinching she ran the edge of her knife across the base of her own wrist. The masked girl was there at an instant to catch the blood which ran freely from the wound, audibly spilling into the chalice.

The knife-wielder let her blood pour into the chalice for three seconds, and then her eyes pulsed with witchfire. Magenta flames briefly kissed the gash in her flesh, and when they faded her skin was smooth and unbroken once more. Shan Pu's hackles stood up as the obvious sorceress began to murmur an incantation just barely under her breath, twisting around to gather small reagents and add them to the contents of the chalice - a crystal crushed to powder, three petals, a tiny vial of something that shimmered blue, and a black egg that poured forth a putrescent green ichor when she cracked it.

Thick miasmic fumes began to rise from the chalice's contents as the witch stirred it with the tip of the same blade she had used to open her wrist. They spilled over the rim of the cup and flowed down its shaft, dissipating into nothingness an inch or two below it. The nameless witch nodded in satisfaction as she put the blade aside and took the chalice from her accomplice.

"There we are... one dose of the black mother's milk. Drink it up, and awaken to the glory that is your birthright," She crooned, lowering herself to a position where she could try and feed the noxious brew to Shan Pu.

The wide-eyed Chinese Amazon immediately grit her teeth and recoiled, then snapped her head forward in an attempt to knock the chalice from the witch's hands. She almost succeeded, but the spellcaster recoiled at the last moment, catching her unholy tincture before it could spill from her hands.

"Wicked girl! Struggle is futile; accept your destiny!" She hissed at Shan Pu, who snarled a tooth-gritted defiant snarl in response.

"Such a naughty little girl - luckily, I know just how to make bad girls take their medicine!" Chirped the mask-wearing witch, before her hand shot out and latched onto Shan Pu's nose, pinching it shut with a merciless grasp.

Shan Pu writhed and squirmed, fighting as hard as she could, but the masked woman's grip was like iron. Her lungs burned from lack of precious air, her vision growing dark, until finally her body betrayed her and her mouth flew open as she gasped for air.

Before she could snap her mouth shut again, the witch was there, her profane concoction slopping into Shampoo's open mouth. Gullet flooded with liquid, still desperate for air, Shampoo couldn't stop herself from swallowing that first mouthful. The taste was like honey and rot, searing spice mixed with cloying sweetness. Its filmy texture coated her tongue and washed around her teeth, and she gagged and retched, trying desperately to spit it out - but to no avail, as it seemed to sluice down her throat as if it had a mind of its own.

"There we are; see? Not so bad," chided the masked witch even as she let go of Shan Pu's nose, her tone that of a mother disciplining a misbehaving child, and somehow all the more chilling for it.

Shan Pu's spat, gagged a final time, and opened her mouth to deliver a blistering tirade - only to cut herself off with an agonzied scream as her entire skeleton seemed to ignite inside of her. She howled and wailed, thrashing wildly as a millionfold biting ants began to gnaw at her flesh and thorny worms began burrowing through her guts.

"Yes, you can feel the warp overtaking you! It is a good pain! It will make you stronger!" Cackled the unmasked witch in delight.

Shan Pu bellowed in anguish, continuing to thrash. Somewhere, through the fire and the flames that were burning her up from the inside out, she found previously untapped wells of strength suddenly roaring into life within her. She heaved against her bonds once again, and this time a chain sundered with a metallic snap. Screaming in agonized defiance, she wrenched again with all her might, her bonds shattering around her as the table was crushed to slivers. Her conscious mind fell away, leaving only pure animal instinct to take control, consuming her with the single all-mighty urge to escape her torment.

She surged forward, slashing wildly at her tormentors with her arms, crushing through whatever was in her way until she hit the wall and went through it like a runaway wrecking ball. The sudden surge of noonday sunlight was like white-hot knives stabbing into her eyes, the clanking of chain links dangling from her wrists further goading her panic. Her sense of reason completely lost, she roared like a beast and charged blindly off, running for the sake of running, her only driving thought to be away from the house of pain...

"...Huh. You were right, Rae-Rae. She was a hanyo like us," Kasumi observed docilely as the drastically altered form of the Chinese Amazon faded into the horizon.

"Gozu heritage. Interesting. Wasn't expecting that... Still, she should provide an interesting test for the Teen Titans Tokyo," Her companion mused, even as she gestured her hands and unleashed a shapeless wave of dark crimson energy that began to remake what Shan Pu had torn asunder.

Minutes later...

"That's not possible. It's simply not possible... this is impossible! How are you doing this?!" Doctor Kei demanded, pounding on the monitor she was studying in a sudden outburst of rage.

"Something wrong, doc?" Ranma asked from where he was hoisting a set of mechanized weights, not even trying to hide his amusement at her reaction.

'I may not have wanted to take it over, but where does she get off with calling the Tendo Dojo run-down and parochial compared to her fancy exercise room?! ...Okay, I ain't too sure what parochial means, but it sure sounded like an insult...'

"How are you this strong? These measurements would indicate that your strength is beyond anything human!" She barked, finally looking from her machinery to Ranma.

"Uh, I'm a martial artist?" Came the instant response, toned for maximum flippancy.

"So are Tatewaki Kuno and Rose Wilson, and they haven't given me numbers even close to these!" The doctor protested angrily.

Ranma shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. "Well, maybe I'm just better at martial arts than they are."

"More likely the computers need a debugging - their programming must be glitching," Doctor Kei declared in disgust.

"Keep tellin' yerself that, doc," Ranma replied, before he put the weights down.

Suddenly, klaxons began to sound throughout the underground base, previously concealed red and blue lights flashing to emphasize the audible assault. The klaxons ended, but the lights continued flashing as speakers boomed, "Warning! Warning! Paranatural criminal active! Warning! Warning! Paranatural criminal active!"

"...Did you set that up or did she, Kuno-baby?" Nabiki idly asked, flicking her tail as she spoke.

"It's a work in progress," Her classmate grumbled in response.

"More importantly, that means I gotta go!"

"You mean we have to go, Ranma," Nabiki corrected him, politely yet firmly.

He turned to her with an appalled expression. "Wait, what?! But you don't know how to fight, and this could be dangerous!"

"Believe me, I'm not thrilled about the idea either... but I already said I was going to be part of this new team you signed up for on national television. If I don't show, it could raise some really bad questions - I'm sure your daddy gave you plenty of lessons about the importance of face growing up. Mine sure did..." Nabiki grumbled this last part more to herself than to Ranma.

Ranma looked stricken, but his traitorous tongue couldn't find any words to rebutt her assertion. Finally, he sighed and hung his head in resignation.

"Yer right... Pops always used to say, a martial artist lives or dies by his reputation... Alright, but you stay back, okay? Let me take care of the dangerous stuff!"

"Don't worry, I had every intention of doing just that," Nabiki assured him.

"So... do you intend to take on whatever it is in a schoolgirl's uniform and a ratty old traveling suit, or do you want to make the impression that you're real superheroes?" Doctor Kei interjected bluntly.

"Well, of course we'd like to wear proper costumes, but it's not like they just grow on trees," Nabiki dryly shot back, ignoring Ranma's indignant protestation as she did so.

Doctor Kei... didn't smile. But she did radiate undiluted smugness. "Luckily for you, I have just what you need..."

Moments later...

"You have gotta be kidding me..." Ranma announced flatly, holding up the costume that Doctor Kei had so enthusiastically thrust into his hands.

"This is your nanopolymer battle suit, since clearly you have no idea about concepts such as secrecy, subtlety, discretion or similar. It has the ability to mask your appearance to video cameras…" Kei began to elaborate, only for Ranma to brusquely cut her off.

"Are you nuts? It's a spandex bodysuit that looks like somethin' out of a sentai tokusatsu show! All that's missing is the fancy helmet!"

And that was the rub of the matter. The costume Ranma had been given was a one-piece body-suit that would cover every inch of his body, when paired with the accompanying elbow-length gloves and calf-high boots. It was a deep leafy green color, with white swirls on the chest, boots and gloves to evoke the classic symbol of blowing wind. A belt adorned with a stylized "T3" was also provided to cinch it tight around Ranma's waist.

"It's not SPANDEX!" Kei roared like a lion, Ranma and Nabiki both springing back in fear at the sudden, uncharacteristic outburst from the scientist. She coughed in a surprisingly demure fashion and then resumed speaking.

"In fact, I have the helmets right here... and yes, you do need it, because apparently you can't seem to keep your identity secret to anyone, so I'll have to use the 'fancy helmet' to hide your identity. Unless you plan to tell half the district your address next!"

She gestured to a shelf nearby, and sure enough, there were two helmets sitting there. Nothing as fancy as you might have expected - they almost looked like old-fashioned mannequin heads, being oval-shaped and completely featureless. If it weren't the clear distinction between the black of the visors and the colored material of the helmet's armor, they kind of would have looked like motorcycle helmets.

"...Lot less fancy-looking than I expected," Ranma unthinkingly confessed.

"So I haven't had the time to properly customize them yet. I'm supposed to be getting this base working first... besides, I'm a scientist, not a tailor," Kei declared, shrugging her shoulders.

"And exactly how am I supposed to fit? I'm built a little differently to the average girl," Nabiki drawled, holding her own costume up between forefinger and thumb. It was the same design as Ranma's, except purple in color and with white flames instead of wind spirals, including a design across her upper thighs that would give her leggings the semblance of a miniskirt when she was wearing it.

"Count yourself lucky that I got tailoring advice from Edna Mode, that's how…" Kei grumbled, muttering 'Spandex, he called it spandex, Barbarian' under her breath, before calming down and pointing out some padded slits in the back, "Wings, tail, and I left off the gloves and boots since your claws will shred them without any effort, at least until I can get something properly tailored… Now then, unless you want me to teleport you completely naked to right outside your house, no equipment whatsoever, you'll put them on right now…"

"What does my house have to do with anything?!" Nabiki demanded sharply, a hint of fang behind her lip as she fixed a slit-pupiled gaze on Kei.

"The reports say the paranatural threat is approaching your home address," Came the cool, collected response.

"My stuff! My sister! C'mon, Ran!" Nabiki shrieked, already yanking on her own costume.

Such was the emotion in her voice that Ranma instinctively obeyed. Between his speed and the surprisingly well-designed nature of the costume, it slid onto him like a second skin. He locked the gloves and boots into place, stuffed the helmet over his head, and then hurried to catch up with Nabiki, who was already pelting down the corridor after Doctor Kei.

"Right behind you Nabiki - uh, Ryumimi!"

"Now, this teleporter isn't pretty, but it is functional, so just stand there and I'll have you deployed in a second."

Ranma and Nabiki looked askance at the purported teleporter - a disc-shaped platform with cables and mechanical widgets visibly hanging from rents in its superstructure - but Nabiki bravely stepped up onto it, her desire to protect her sister and her belongings outweighing her natural reluctance to put herself in harm's way. Ranma immediately followed, and Doctor Kei's fingers flew across the keyboard.

"Any reason we're teleporting?" He asked, unable to stop himself.

"It sure beats walking. Initialize!" Kei yelled triumphantly, slamming her fist down on a big red button just to the right of the keyboard.

The teleporter surged to life with a sound like a neon light magnified as loud as a jet engine. There was a staccato crackling, a blinding flash, and then the two teens were gone.

Across town...

"You miserable witches! You will pay for what you tried to do to me! You will restore me to my human form, or suffer!" Shan Pu roared in her native tongue, slamming a fist into a nearby wall for emphasis, reducing it to ruins without even thinking. She stamped her foot, leaving an imprint in the asphalt as if it were the mud of the lake near her village, before loping towards the house she remembered being near before that phony policewoman had lured her into a trap.

'Start here, work my way back... I do not know what you did to me or why, but I WILL be restored!'

As she clenched her delicate fingers into not-so-delicate fists, she was aware of her ears flattening against her skull, the autonomous reaction a palpable reminder of the way her body had mutated in response to their eldritch serum, and it only stoked her rage higher.

Suddenly, a bolt of iridescent lightning slammed into the street just in front of her, the altered amazon instinctively hopping back and shielding her eyes from the glare. When it faded, she found herself confronted by two strangers - about her age, maybe; it was hard to tell when everything looked so much smaller. They were clad in the strangest looking armor that Shampoo had ever seen; a boy in green with wind designs and a girl in purple with flame designs, both wearing helmets that were nearly featureless, save for cyclopean black glass visors over the upper halves of their faces. More importantly, the girl was very clearly not human, with vestigial wings, a lashing serpentine tail, and reptilian paws for her hands and feet.

Forgetting about the language barrier, Shan Pu roared defiantly, "Are you agents of those two witches?! If not, then stand aside! If you are, I will crush you first, and then your miserable mistresses!"

On the other side of the street...

'Whoa, okay, that's disorientating...' Ranma blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the natural side-effects of his first teleport. Then his surroundings registered and he snapped into a defensive stance, adrenaline burning through the haze.

A trail of destruction had been blazed towards the Tendo Dojo, which now stood at his and Nabiki's backs. Shattered walls, footsteps gouged into sidewalk and street alike, and toppled utility poles stretched down the block as far as the eye could see. There was even a car that had apparently made the mistake of crossing this new villain's path, and its front had been hammered so hard it was almost squashed flat, the wheels having burst like balloons.

The source of this destruction was a woman... but she was the biggest woman that Ranma had ever saw; over six feet tall, maybe even approaching seven feet! Which might not have sounded like much to a Westerner, but Ranma was Japanese; she towered over him by a very clear margin. But she wasn't just tall, she was big in other areas, too; even from here, Ranma could see visible muscles lining her arms, which rippled with silent power as she moved. And her clothes... well, the shredded remains of what had once been a long-sleeved blouse and ankle-length pants, anyway... they clung to what the guys at Ranma's last Junior High School leeringly referred to as "the three measurements" in a way that Ranma couldn't help but blush to see.

'Wow, an' I thought my girl side was stacked!' Came the mad thought that flashed across his mind and then mercifully vanished.

But it wasn't just her height that marked this woman as an aberration. Long, sharp, cow-like horns sprouted from her temples, and Ranma realized that she even had cow-like ears flattened against the sides of her head in rage, an equally bovine tail swaying behind her. Very much not cow-like was the third eye that stared hatefully from the center of her forehead, peeking out from the fringe of blue hair worn in an odango and twin-tail forelocks design that was weirdly familiar. Nor did the claws glinting on her fingertips or the wolfish fangs she bared in her rage as she spat something in Chinese look like anything Ranma had ever seen on a cow before.

"I don't suppose you know what she just said?" Nabiki asked softly, trying to sidle behind Ranma without overtly looking like she was doing that.

"Nah, I speak only slightly more Chinese than I read," Ranma confessed, equally quietly, before turning his full attention to the cow-woman-monster-thing.

"Alright, lady! I don't know what yer beef is, but ain't not reason to be taking it out on innocent people! I'll give ya one chance to settle down an' come with us, or we're gonna have ta fight, ya hear me?" Ranma barked, thrusting a dramatically levelled index finger at the creature.

She responded with a bestial bellow of fury, spitting something in Chinese that Ranma couldn't understand, and then exploded into action, charging headlong towards Ranma.

'I don't like hitting girls... makes me feel like a bully. I'll get this done quick and fast, an' without hurting her-!'

Ranma Saotome was fast. Anyone who had ever fought him ever in his life would have agreed on this assessment. Trying to catch hold of Ranma was like trying to snatch greased lightning. And almost as painful, given how he would punish a slower assailant for trying and thus giving him openings to account for.

So when the mutant she-beast rocketed across the street and clocked Ranma in the face faster than he could block her, that wasn't normal in his world-paradigm.

And then he hit the wall surrounding the Tendo Dojo and he found his train of disbelieving thought effectively derailed by a sudden surge of pain and the little issue of being buried in a mass of bricks.

"Ran!" Nabiki yelled in concern, then squealed in fright as a fist nearly as big as her head (or at least, so it seemed at that moment) almost took her head clean off, helmet or no helmet. Thankfully, natural instincts and long-buried lessons from when she was a little girl and plain old dumb luck allowed her to duck at just the right moment.

"Paws off!" She shouted defiantly, and slammed her assailant with a sumo-style double palm thrust right into the solar plexus with all her magically-enhanced might. It was a blow that, based on what she'd seen of Akane's morning fights, should have propelled the monster away as if she were straddling a runaway rocket.

It did nothing.

Well, okay, it drove the breath from the she-beast's lungs and made her stumble back several steps, visibly grimacing in pain, but compared to what Nabiki had hoped to achieve, that was still a big fat load of nothing in her book. Especially when, practically an instant later, the mutant was grinning savagely at Nabiki, clearly ready for round two!

"You gotta be kidding me!" Nabiki unthinkingly blurted, before a surge of adrenaline kicked in. Fight or flight screamed in her head, and this time, she chose fight. She launched herself at the beast-woman, swinging out in the first punch she could remember consciously throwing in a long, long time...

Only for her target to grab her hand in mid-flight, Nabiki's scaly fingers disappearing inside the larger palm. Her heart hammered against her ribs as she saw the unchanged savage grin on the creature's face, before she started to squeeze.

Nabiki went weak at the knees almost instantly as the bones in her hand ground together, clawed fingertips digging cruelly into her flesh as spikes of pain raced up her arm. She grabbed at her own wrist and tried desperately to yank herself free, but she couldn't move. All she could do was watch as her captor slowly and purposefully raised her free hand and curled it into a fist, whimpering softly to herself in anticipation of imminent pain...

"Let go of her!"

Bricks flew like dead leaves as Ranma erupted from the debris pile like an avenging angel and flew across the intervening space to slam into the monster-woman's legs like a runaway wrecking ball. She buckled, instinctively releasing Nabiki before twisting to defend herself as Ranma launched a vicious volley of attacks, Nabiki watching in stunned shock.

At that very moment...

As the two super-martial artists dueled, they were unaware of the eyes watching them excitedly from within the upper floor, eyes that had no wholesome intentions for either combatant...

"It's just like you said, Rae-Rae! She came right here looking for us! And that set up poor silly Ranma ripe for the plucking..."

"But of course... gozu are such simple, brutish creatures, and their halfbreed spawn rarely diverge far from the mold," Purred her lover, whose beauty was only slightly marred by the fangs peeking between her black-painted lips and the second pair of eyes that had opened above the normal pair, glowing with hellfire. It was a sight that sent off a thrill of almost equal parts revulsion and arousal shivering down Kasumi's spine and setting it burning in her belly.

Indifferent to her girlfriend's reaction to this hint of her true self, the half-fiend witch reached into the pocket of her jacket and drew forth an octagon-cut black diamond nearly a palm's length and visibly throbbing with the energies crackling in its dark heart.

"You know what to do, my love; take this gem and cast the spell, like I taught you. Once it's done, then hide it - I'll be back tonight to finish the ritual..."

"I won't fail you," Kasumi vowed, reaching out to take the pro-offered gem.

"I know that you won't," Her lover crooned, and a woman less besotted than Kasumi might have picked up on the hint of menace in her smile. But Kasumi simply smiled blissfully, watching with a pang of sadness as her beloved made a slicing gesture with one long, sharp nail that opened a gash in the air itself, through which she stepped and was gone in an instant.

'Oh, I wish we could be together all the time... stupid father! Stupid sisters! You robbed me of the best years of my life - made me grow old without ever having been a maiden! ...Of course, it doesn't help that she can't spend too long outside of her wardings without drawing every interfering magical girl in Tokyo down on her head, and that's no fun for anyone... But with this little gem, we might be able to start stretching our wings... or tails... very soon...'

Kasumi clutched her precious prize tighter at the thought, turning her attention back to the window and beginning the incantation...

As it happened...

"You're not an easy person to find."

Blackfire immediately shot into the air, starbolts forming around her hands ready to be launched as she spun to face the speaker.

She turned out to be a young human girl, clad in a simple black bodysuit, which had been reinforced around the limbs with steel plating over rigid fabric as well as a silken mask over the lower half of her face, exposing her dark grey-blue eyes... well, eye, singular; the other was covered with a patch. Showing no fear, the stranger held up both of her hands in what Blackfire knew to be a human gesture of surrender.

"Easy, easy, I come in peace!"

"Who are you and what do you want?" Blackfire demanded, the starbolts dimming, but not fading entirely.

"My name is Rose. I represent someone who has taken an interest in your Teen Titans Tokyo... but that'll wait for later. Right now, you should know that your teammates are currently fighting a monster. You should probably go and help them - you are their leader, aren't you?" The stranger replied calmly.

"Two in as many days? What are those two, danger magnets? But you're right... where are they?" Blackfire asked, finally letting the energy she was building up be reabsorbed back into her body.

"Over in that direction - you should probably hurry," Rose replied, pointing out over the Furinkan skyline, visible from the top of the skyscraper that Blackfire had been relaxing on prior to her arrival.

Instinctively, Blackfire turned to face the direction that Rose had indicated, before turning back to face the mysterious human.

"Fast I can do, but exactly where-huh?!"

Blackfire blinked in confusion as she took in the now-empty vista of the rooftop, devoid of any sign of life save the rubbish from her lunch. "...Okay, she could be dangerous. But first, let's go see what my two new playmates are doing without me!"

And with that she rocketed off into the sky as fast as she could, streaking towards the horizon in the direction where, somewhere, Ran and Ryumimi were supposedly engaged in battle.

Back at the Tendo Dojo...

'...Holy shit. You really were just playing with my little sister, weren't you? Even those gloomwraith things didn't make you go this hard!'

The reason for Nabiki's awe, and the dumbstruck thought that flashed freely through her skull, was Ranma. Even with her altered eyes that had allowed her to perceive things on a faster level than she could before - a cheater's way to martial arts prowess, Akane had half-jokingly grumbled - Ranma was practically a blur. Punches, chops, elbow jabs, kicks, sweeps, palm thrusts and finger jabs flowed from him in an intricate web of combination attacks that Nabiki, never the most dedicated student of martial arts, could barely hope to identify by their stylistic base.

But the monster-woman wasn't a mere punching bag, either! If she'd been just an untrained brute flailing out with raw power, then Ranma could have danced around her, punishing her with vicious blows to vulnerable spots until even the most inhuman of constitutions would be overwhelmed. But this creature, whatever it - she - was, had speed almost to match Ranma's. Worse... she was a legitimately skilled martial artist in her own right. Dodges, parries and counters flowed from her, and whilst there wasn't the variety to her moves that Ranma was using, the expertise with which she executed them was easily his equal.

The battle between the two was balanced on a knife's edge; it could easily have gone either way. But only one could win...

Over-committing to a punch, a mistake born of sheer adrenaline, spelled the monster's downfall. Ranma sidestepped the blow, but even as it pulverized the solid asphalt and stone of the road to create a crater, he was launching himself upwards like a human bullet. He snatched at the she-beast's horns and used them as leverage to twist impossibly around, dropping down onto her back and wrapping his arms around her neck.

"Alright, lady, I - agh!"

Ranma's words were cut off as his opponent slammed the back of her head squarely into his face with such force that his helmet shattered, splitting down the middle on the vertical and falling away, though Ranma somehow managed to keep clinging on despite this punishing blow.

"Oh, come on! I rated that helmet to stand up to a 50-calibre military sniper rifle!" Kei snarled, slamming her fists down on the table as she stared hatefully at the monitor displaying the remote camera feed from Ranma and Nabiki's helmets. Well, just Nabiki's helmet, now.

"Back to the drawing board, eh, Doctor Kei?" Rose asked, patting her shoulder in commiseration.

"Besides, you didn't like that design anyway, and now you have a chance to redo it," Tatewaki pointed out. If there was an element of smugness in his voice, none present pointed it out.

'Now I remember why I hate grappling,' Ranma madly thought to himself, shaking his head to clear the stars from his eyes. He could feel blood trickling down his face from where the broken helmet had cut his forehead, and he grinned a toothy grin, high on bloodlust and battle-fever.

"Nice trick, but you're all mine now!" He spat, and tightened his grip into a proper chokehold.

The monster-woman let out a strangled roar, spinning and twisting, but Ranma held on for grim death, wrapping his legs around her waist for added leverage.

"C'mon, give up already! You fought honorably, but you can't win this! I don't wanna hurt ya, stupid, so just say uncle and we can stop, alright?"

She tried to say something, but Ranma dug into her windpipe, making her choke and splutter. She started to stagger and to sway as the lack of breath sapped her strength, and finally seemed to accept the inevitable.

"Un-Uncle! Uncle!" She choked out, letting her arms fall loosely by her sides to emphasize her surrender.

"There we are... that's a good girl. I toldja we could've avoided all this," Ranma gently chided her, even as he let go of his chokehold and dropped to the ground behind her.

"You this soft with all the bad guys, or just the pretty girl ones, Ran?" Came an amused voice, before a figure in purple and orange came dropping from the sky in a stylized descent, arms raised over her head in a mock-landing.

"Blackfire!" Ranma happily greeted her, grinning in a way that would have been more charming if he didn't have blood smeared all over his face from that pesky head wound.

The Tamaranean looked around at the damage caused by the demon-cow-woman (and, incidentally, by Ranma in the process of subduing her), placing her hands on her hips and whistling. "Wow, looks like I missed one xh'orcla of a party!"

"And just where were you, anyway?" Nabiki asked her suspiciously.

"I was having lunch on the other side of Furinkan - if that girl with the eyepatch hadn't found me, I probably would have had to find out about this on the nightly news! We really need to get our own T-Coms set up," Blackfire cheerfully admitted.

"...That's your excuse for not being here?" Nabiki asked her, fixing the alien girl with one of her iconic withering stares before she realized the helmet made it impossible for it to be seen.

"Well, it's not like you two didn't have things under control! Besides, you two are the ones who went off without me; how was I supposed to know?" Came the rejoinder, no less critical for being delivered in the same chipper tones as before.

"Girls, c'mon, these things just happen!" Ranma interjected, trying to settle things diplomatically, before he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around and found himself looking up into the face of his former opponent.

An act that was a little more difficult than it should have been, not so much because of her height but because said height meant he was perfectly face-high with... uh... one of the more distracting parts of her anatomy. And though Ranma prided himself on his manners, and he was engaged, even if he wasn't in any hurry to announce that status to the world... well, he was also a healthy teenage boy...

"Nihao," The inhuman woman said, and her voice was soft, hesitant and, now that Ranma could actually listen to it, way younger than he had initially thought.

'Actually... now I look at her... I don't think she's any older'n me! 'Cuz'a how big she is, I thought she was older. S'funny... her face is almost familiar...'

"Uh, nihao?" He tentatively replied back.

'At least I picked up enough Chinese to know what that word means!'

She looked at him, and the look in her eyes would have been inscrutable to Ranma even without the third eye throwing him off. She studied his face for a moment, nodding absently to herself, before she gently tapped him on the chest with one long finger. "You?"

"Me?"

"You ming...? No... you name?" She asked, fumbling for the appropriate word in Japanese and instinctively falling back into her evident mother tongue, grimacing at her lack of linguistic skill.

"Oh! Muh-My name's Ran. Uh, wo jiao Ran!" Ranma replied, digging deep into his very limited Chinese vocabulary in an effort to be polite.

"Ran..." She repeated the word as if tasting it, then smiled. Despite her clearly inhuman traits, it was a surprisingly cute smile.

"Me wo jiao Shan Pu," she added, evidently happy to use Chinese words that Ranma evidently understood.

"Really? Yer name's Shampoo? I knew a... no. No, you can't be!" Ranma gasped in disbelief, going white as a new-washed sheet as he took in those features with a much more critical eye.

The Chinese demon-cow blinked her three eyes in evident confusion, but struck whilst Ranma was distracted, reaching out to cup Ranma's chin and affectionately tilt the paralyzed boy's face upwards. "Wo ai ni, wode airen Ran..."

And then she bent down and kissed him hungrily on the mouth.

"What?!"

"Look at these readings on the monitor! Ryumimi's heart-rate and adrenaline levels just went crazy!" Doctor Kei marveled, fingers dancing across the keyboard.

"Can you blame a girl when another girl kisses her boyfriend right in front of her?" Rose wondered aloud.

"Forsooth, I didn't know Nabiki was capable of feeling jealous," a dumbstruck Tatewaki confessed.

Nabiki grit her teeth until they felt ready to crack, barely even feeling the pinpricks of pain as her clenched fists caused her claws to puncture her palms. "Get your oversized hands off of my RAN!"

Blackfire blinked as she took in the tableau, genuine shock rapidly giving away to amusement as she watched the impending train-wreck. "Your Ran, hmm?"

The monster - named Shampoo, apparently - paid Nabiki no mind, being entirely focused on passionately making out with Ranma. Girlish squeaks and moans and even the odd muffled giggle echoed from their interlocked lips, incongruously girly for such an inhuman figure. She certainly showed no signs of stopping any time soon.

That was the boiling point for Nabiki. Before she even realized she was doing it, the dragon-girl sprinted over and bodily yanked Ranma away from the cow-girl doing her best to kiss him senseless, placing herself firmly in between the two of them. Shampoo was so dazed from her makeout session that she didn't even notice at first, a silly grin spread across her blushing race as she giggled to herself. Then she seemed to realize what had happened and she glowered wrathfully at her smaller rival.

"What you doing?!"

"I could ask you the same question! Is this your way of saying you want to start round two?" Nabiki hissed viciously.

"No, don't! She'll kill you!"

Nabiki didn't even see Ranma move - it was like she blinked one moment and then he was standing protectively in front of her, trembling with fear but doing his best to intervene between the two monster-girls.

"Airen!" Shampoo chirped, reaching out towards Ranma, clearly intent on pulling him into a hug... only for Ranma to cry out in fear and leap away, hugging Nabiki tight as he did.

"Ai-Airen...?" A visibly dumbfounded Shampoo plaintively asked, hurt and confusion on her face as her eyes welled with tears.

"St-Stay back! I - I remember you now! An' I remember China! You won't get either of us!" Ranma cried, trying to sound defiant, but clearly panic-stricken.

"...Shan Pu no know. What wrong, airen?" The mini-giantess pleaded; she took a step forward, only for Ranma to step back. Twice, thrice more they repeated this dance, before Shampoo frowned and stamped her foot, imprinting herself into the asphalt.

"Why you run?! Shan Pu no hurt Ran! Ran Shan Pu airen!"

"Airen, airen, you keep calling me that! What's that word even mean?!" An exasperated Ranma demanded.

"A rough translation would be something like 'beloved husband'," Blackfire interjected.

"Hus-hus-husband?!" Ranma shrieked in disbelief, echoed by an only marginally less frustrated Nabiki.

"It seems a little communication is required. Luckily for you, I happen to be a dab hand at translating... but maybe this is something better done in private rather than out in the street?" The Tamaranean diplomatically suggested.

And that was when the world suddenly exploded in a flash of neon-bright, rainbow-colored light.

To an outside observer, one minute the Teen Titans Tokyo and Shampoo were there, and the next they were gone.

In her room, Kasumi covered her mouth in an instinctive gesture of shock, the sort of thing she was forever doing in her old life. It was rather undermined by the malicious grin she was covering. "Oh, my! Ranma Saotome, you absolute creep! To kiss another girl when you're already engaged, and right in front of her, no less! To call her your wife! Oh, Nabiki got engaged to such a scumbag... couldn't have happened to a nicer girl!"

Then she turned to the glowing crystal in her other hand, which now pulsed like a heartbeat, letting its rippling waves of energy wash over her face. "And between Shampoo and you... oh, yes, things aren't going to be boring any time soon..."

Chapter End & Closing Notes

And there we are, our first taste of the Teen Titans Tokyo in proper action! Things are starting off a bit slow, and I apologize for that, but hopefully they should pick up soon. And I do hope that this has answered some of the questions you may have had after reading T3: Pilot... and raised whole new ones to keep you coming back! Hope to see you here for our next episode!