[Ranma/Xover][FanFic] The Bet- Reluctant Bet prologue (repost)
Gregg Sharp
parts of Gregg's fic and truncated many, many lines. Hence, this is a
repost of the Reluctant Bet fic.]
4/1/00
NOTE: Several times i was accused of writing an SI (this was
especially nasty with Future Tense and King Of Fighters)
based on the Perfect Ranma (not sure which fic this was
supposed to be)
So... here we go with something that is just meant to be a
momentary amusement where i actually do what i've been
accused of.
uhm. this is even less seriously written as a fic and more
an attempt to have fun by bending the traditional SI
conventions. however, as some ideas presented here have not
(to my knowledge) been done, and could be interesting in a
fic of their own, they are presented.
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Prologue: A Reluctant Bet
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Asgard
If one visited Heaven, one would find it was divided into
sections. This was partly because one person's Heaven was
another's Hell (or at least irritating), partly because the
various Faith systems that had developed were the "blind men
and the elephant" but were represented anyway, but mainly
because it was sufficiently big that there was no reason not
to.
In a section known as Asgard, there was a magnificent
citadel wherein was housed the "Goddess Relief Office",
which could access Yggdrasil directly and which made use of
the Ultimate Force to grant wishes to their clients -
mortals of a pure heart. A building of crystal and silver
that fit into the splendor of its environment perfectly. The
employees were all powerful goddesses, and those that
weren't beautiful were at least attractive. Its scope was
the Universe.
Not far away was its nominal rival, in an equally
magnificent set of towering buildings, the Earth Assistance
Hotline. It shared resources with its rival agency including
the Ultimate Force. Which had both gods and goddesses, all
powerful and quite attractive. Its scope was the Earth,
though humans of other planets also fell into their purvue.
Turning one's attention from the gleaming streets linking
these shining buildings, one would be hard pressed to notice
the dingy alleyway two streets down. One could quite easily
mistake it as a shadow, flanked on one side by a heavenly
ice cream parlor called "The Heart Of Darkest Chocolate" and
the other side by a place known as "The Gods Gym" even those
who noticed it tended to discount it. The alley led to a
rundown little place that was often described as a "hole in
the wall" or "grungy little rathole" by those who even knew
of its existence. Where a neon sign with two letters that
refused to light up (the v and the f for those curious, and
the lack of funds to pay for repairs) proclaimed this the
"Rival Relief Office." A place that attempted to fix
problems and grant requests to the needy, though they had to
make use of something with the unflattering name of the
"Barely Adequate Force." As the amount of magical energy
from the BAF was often not adequate without a *lot* of
tweaking or stealing from other sources, it wasn't terribly
accurate.
Where the beautiful and powerful worked at the GRO and the
EAH, the RRO was staffed by a different sort. The most
powerful individual was a scruffy god of male potency known
as Mambo Jack (Third Class, Limited) and the most beautiful
was a fairly cute if airheaded goddess named Kitchiri (any
resemblence to a Galaxy Police Officer named Mihoshi was
purely accidental.)
But then, even in Heaven, someone's got to do the scutwork.
It's just rarely as bad as cleaning toilets in an anchor
store or any of a large number of other things that a
certain frequently-depressed human turned quite-reluctant
incubus turned largely-complacent combat cyborg had done
before a mischievous being had decided to get involved.
And as he was a relatively powerless, non-beautiful, being
who had done worse jobs, his complaints were mainly the
venting of displeasure at a situation he couldn't affect
anyway.
And not too far from his place of work, in a Hall Of
Judgement, that very individual (despised by many, liked by
a few, and actively hated by a powerful few) was getting the
latest in a long string of assignments that seemed
calculated for maximum annoyance.
"NO! Nononononono!"
"Look what happened to the first of your Twelve Labors,"
chided Eris, idly tossing her golden apple up and catching
it. "You screwed up the Test. You screwed up the Makeup
Test. You didn't do well at all. Be grateful to your betters
that we simply didn't ship you off to Hades' domain."
Hades shrugged silently. He was inclined to give the poor
fellow a break himself, and there was always a need for
skilled bricklayers.
"You not only failed to reconcile the correct couple, you
violated rules against interfering in a major war between
Good and Evil without permission." Ares frowned at the
pathetic little mortal.
Grey grumbled slightly but acknowledged the point. "But
why... this?! It's so cliche!"
Belldandy rose from her position. "May I speak?"
"The chair recognizes Belldandy of the Goddess Relief
Office," Apollo smiled.
"Grey-san got Keichi-san past his reluctance to fulfill
Japanese tradition and ask Father for formal permission to
court me. Doesn't that count for something?" Belldandy
looked hopeful. Keiichi, at her side, blushed and nodded.
He'd been a bit reluctant to proceed past a certain point
without addressing that condition, but approaching the
Almighty on such a matter had intimidated him a bit.
"It may be that being dumped by Miya, among others,
devoured by flayworms, mindwiped, turned into an inhuman
looking cyborg, and spending the entire Quest being reduced
to ineffectual comic relief had some influence on his
behavior." Urd spoke up from her position. As far as Urd was
concerned, just getting Keichi to propose to Belldandy
seemed to qualify as a Herculean labor. That those two were
now openly mutually affectionate, Urd felt that she *owed*
daemon-boy a favor.
"Doesn't make any difference." Apollo winced at the Miya
reference though. The Chinese Amazon had dumped Grey to join
Apollo's groupies with little more than a friendly wink.
"Look, three planewalking heroes went in and manipulated one
of the Bet timelines. You remember Hephaestus' entry? Ranma
became a sabretooth? Went on to marry Shampoo and adventure
across the world, eventually settling in Canada? Well, they
'corrected' it so that Ranma never received psychiatric
help.
"Unfortunately, instead of their intent - returning the
timeline to the original course where Ranma and Akane were
turned by Tatewaki Kuno's wish into his personal loveslaves,
they neglected a secondary ripple. And freezing this
timeline is out of the question, there's been too much
manipulation and damage for such heavyhanded measures. So
look at what the prediction program states will happen:"
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"I can't believe it," Nabiki said with a smirk before the
paralyzed Ranma. "The great Ranma afraid of a little
kitty-cat?" She placed a few more on him to observe this
phenonema.
"You're not afraid of these kitties, are you?" Kasumi held
two extremely ugly cats and walked up to Ranma as tear
tracks formed on the martial artist's cheeks. "They're so
cute!"
"Eeeeee," Ranma managed, shaking and rolling his eyes.
Genma stopped and scrutinized Ranma as Soun held up another
cat. Years on the road, and before that with Happosai, had
given Genma a certain danger sense.
"Here's another!" Soun placed the cat on Ranma's head.
"Mrow?" came a noise out of Ranma's throat.
"This is so fun," said Nabiki, making a lapse in judgement
that she would regret for years thereafter. "Let's see how
many he can hold!"
The Cat came out. Enemies surrounded him. Enemies who hated
him. Enemies who teased him. Enemies who wanted only to
taunt and tease and humiliate and hurt him. He reacted
completely in character for a feral cat.
-----------------------
"The part of Akane played by Lucy Van Pelt," quipped Edema
in drow sign language.
"When isn't it?" snickered Mambo Jack aloud.
"Ahem," said Apollo with a glare, not getting the
reference.
Belldandy and Kasumi9 didn't notice, too busy flinching at
the violence erupting in the simulation.
"Well, it's unusual to see Ranma strike back against people
torturing him, I'll grant that," Ares said. "More
surprising, they survive. Though nobody ever quite forgives
Ranma after the way he treats 'two rival tomcats' and three
'uppity female cats' even though he has no clue as to what
happened. He's institutionalized, and it all becomes Ranma's
fault as no one is advocating his position."
"Wasn't it a temporary line?" Urd asked, recovering from
the scene first. After all, it was just a simulation.
"It was up until the line was destabilized by this
secondary intervention," Apollo's voice was appropriately
dry. "Toltiir, for all his faults, *is* sufficiently good at
these things that he can contain problems. Now it shows
signs of stabilizing as a particularly dark and unpleasant
timeline."
"So, cutting through it all you want me to take the place
of Ranma from just prior to Jusenkyo until the timeline is
stable. Once everything is stable enough, and Ranma's been
prepped, you can stick him back in and retro it." Grey
sighed. "Fine, is this my Second Labor?"