[Ranma/Xover][FanFic] The Bet- Reluctant Bet segments 1-13
Gregg Sharp
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.
--------------------
Prologue: A Reluctant Bet
---------------------
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:"
----------------------
"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?"
0000000000000000000000000000000
segment 1: Here's... Genma?
"At last, at long last," Soun wept as he reread the
postcard for the fifth time. That odd feeling that it should
say something else persisted.
Hi.
Coming from China.
Need help with Ranma.
Genma
That feeling returned when, after telling his three lovely
and dutiful daughters about the engagement, a panda entered
the house and made a beeline for the kitchen.
After the panda changed back into his old buddy Genma, the
heavyset man had explained Jusenkyo and this whole weird
sensation of "something slightly off" returned with a
vengeance.
"Whatta ya mean 'marriage'?!" Akane glared at the old man.
They weren't suggesting she marry HIM were they? This could
be even worse than marrying Kuno.
"Oh dear, oh my." Kasumi wondered how the wa of the home
would be maintained.
"So where is he? Is he cute? Is he rich?" Nabiki looked
over Genma and crossed that last off the list. "Is he cute?
Is he intelligent? Does he have a nice bod?" Nabiki had her
priorities after all. If the boy was nice and cute, she'd
have a boyfriend and as long as he didn't go pushing her
buttons (like flirting with Akane, she couldn't *stand* how
all the guys fawned over little sister while ignoring her)
then she'd thaw the Ice Queen image a bit.
Akane was easily scandalized. "NABIKI?!" How could anyone
go along with such an archaic system? And this boy was a
BOY, and Akane was well acquainted with them: stupid,
egotistical, perverted, greedy, domineering, violent BOYS
were something she loathed so badly she could taste it.
"Oh my, I hope he's not too young." Kasumi frowned ever so
slightly. Young would be improper. Though she *was* almost
twenty now and it wasn't like she had a lot of prospects.
Maybe he would turn out to be cute and intelligent and
well-behaved. And if he had a nice butt, that wouldn't hurt.
Hmmm. Maybe she'd have to settle for polite, an attention to
manners could excuse a lot of faults.
"So where is Ranma?" Soun started looking around, even
though it was plainly obvious that the panda had arrived
alone.
"Well, Tendo... there were some problems. After my son had
declared that he wanted to train at Jusenkyo..."
---------------------------
Ranma fell into the pool, and Grey got out as that was the
point he had been inserted in. The forcefield kept the water
away from him, and frankly he preferred things that way. He
still wasn't quite sure what would happen when a full
conversion cyborg fell into Jusenkyo, there was a good
chance nothing would as living flesh wouldn't be in contact
with the waters, but why take chances?
Though the outer casing had been altered to look more
human, the whole thing didn't look like the Ranma that had
fallen in. It was still a Triax VX-500 Manhunter (though a
different one from the First Labor due to damages received
then) with the jetpack replaced by antigrav, most of the
various pop-up weapon systems removed, a forcefield
generator and fusion miniplant retained, a single secret
compartment in the left arm, and a strength and stealth
upgrade.
Which meant that the basic dimensions remained the same.
Eight feet (2.4m) tall, four feet (1.2m) wide, and three
feet (0.9m) thick. The overall package looking like some
massive blond bodybuilder.
"Genma. Die." Grey launched himself across the ground,
grabbed the panda, performed a quick airplane spin, and
launched the panda.
"Oh sir. What you do? You send other sir to Amazon
Village."
Grey groaned and sped off in the indicated direction to see
what could be done about minimizing the damage. Though he'd
wanted to do something like that for a long time.
--------------------
"And so my son, driven insane by the changes inflicted upon
him at Jusenkyo, threw me into a nearby village during a
long battle. Fortunately, I landed safely in the women's
bath area, and after escaping found a feast that had been
laid out for some later contest. Naturally, in keeping with
the Master's teachings, I determined there was no owner
claiming it and helped myself. No telling when you'll get
the chance to eat again, after all." Genma nodded and
attempted to look wise.
"Ah yes, I remember those days," Soun nodded, rejoicing in
that those days were past.
"Yeah right," said Nabiki whose BS meter had long since
pegged itself.
---------------------------
"Argghhh," Grey said through clenched teeth. The VX-500
chassis was capable of running at just roughly 100mph
(160kph) and his in particular was a little slower at 95mph
(152kph). TOO slow, it appeared.
A panda was tied up and hanging over a cooking pit.
It was tempting, VERY tempting, to just leave. If it had
been a cookpot, he probably would have. Genma would have
dropped into some boiling water, turned back to human, and
likely spent the rest of his life working off his debt. A
roaring fire, on the other hand, meant panda steaks.
Grey finished running into the village and sized it all up.
Yes, his arrival had made a definite impression. Well, at
least he had the translation program. "Load Mandarin
Language."
*Mandarin datapak: file not found.*
"Oh crap." Grey wondered what else hadn't been loaded.
"Okay, activate primary weapon system."
*EM containment field: stable.*
*Primary weapon: ready.*
Momentarily cursing the "in genre" modifications that he
had to name an attack or activate various functions, Grey
centered the crosshair appearing in his vision on the rope.
"Razor Beam."
A pencil thin laser beam shot from a popup mount on his
right forearm to cut through the rope.
Genma fell into the firepit, scattering logs and running
around the village with smoking fur a moment later.
"Oh crap," Grey repeated. Yup, there was a certain Chinese
girl (odd that her hair wasn't purple), stalking up to him
yelling in Mandarin. "Would you believe i'm with the Sierra
Club?"
There were a few groans in the crowd, indicating that some
of the Amazons were familiar with the name.
The 5'2" Chinese girl continued to berate him. Grey
shrugged and tried to indicate he didn't speak Mandarin.
Shampoo swung at him when it was apparent that this boy
didn't understand her.
Grey, not being Ranma, took the blow square on. Shampoo was
getting angry about the dent in her bonbori when Grey
further demonstrated that he was not Ranma.
Sensors locked onto the presence of water nearby, and
determined a high probability that THAT was the bath-house
(though there was a panda-shaped hole in one side). A hand
moving much faster than Shampoo expected spun her around,
grabbed the back of her collar, and threw her 200ft (61m)
into said large body of water.
Shampoo was just coming out of the pool, radiating angry,
when the big outsider appeared again. She yelled and
attacked. The big outsider spun her around then dunked her
in the pool again.
Another attack, another reply. Grey didn't like this, but
if ANYONE tried to beat on him, he didn't care if it was
Kasumi, he'd respond in kind. If opening a door for a girl
was considered Sexual Harrassment (and therefore a greater
crime than armed robbery in America at least) then chivalry
was dead and hell if he was going to give a girl deferential
treatment. Any anger at Miya dumping him to become yet
another Apollo groupie was purely incidental, right?
After the third time her head was submerged, Shampoo
surrendered by being unconscious. At which point, not being
able to communicate with the locals and get someone ELSE to
do it, Grey tried a couple of other methods before using
mouth-to-mouth to rid the Amazon of way too much excess
water.
Then, naturally, knowing how this would likely be
construed, he fled while carrying Genma. He had questions
that the overweight patriarch could only answer.
-------------------------
"Ah, my son defeated their champion. Naturally, as the
Anything Goes style is much more powerful than some tribal
martial artist." Genma beamed proudly for a moment. "We
escaped the village with packs of vicious headhunters in
pursuit..."
"Headhunting Chinese Amazons?" Akane held her hands in a
"time out" gesture.
"Oh yeah. The headhunters were last year. Anyway, my son
braved the village to rescue his loving father, indicating
that he had mostly recovered from whatever had driven him
insane." Genma moaned and bewailed the Heavens briefly
before returning to his narrative.
"What did you do that could have driven him insane?"
"Well, there was the Catfist training, and there was the
Touched Soul, and the..." Genma went on for two minutes
giving a tantalizing view of the gentle care and scholastic
upbringing he'd given Ranma. "...and then there was that
time I sold him to some pedophiles. But I stole him back
before they'd gotten too involved."
"Catfist? Touched Soul? Lion's Cub? Pedophiles?" Soun
inquired.
Genma explained the terms briefly.
Kasumi's expression was calm and serene. This was mainly
due to the fact that she'd gone into shock, which was
revealed by the way her hair was sticking straight up.
Akane excused herself to go run to the bathroom, she hated
BOYS but this was a level of cruelty beyond her. Nabiki just
had her eyes clenched shut and twitched occasionally. Even
an Ice Queen has her limits.
"Ah, the life of a martial artist is fraught with peril."
Soun nodded sagely. Hmmm. He hadn't done *any* of that with
his daughters. But then they were frail little girls who
wouldn't have withstood that sort of training. "So what
happened then, Saotome?"
"It was horrible, Tendo, he wanted to know where he could
find some childhood friend. Naturally, keeping our agreement
in mind, I refused to say. The joining of the schools is of
the utmost importance! Ranma was relentless, however. He
threatened to do inhuman, terrible, things to me if I didn't
tell him." Genma sniffled. "He even built a fire to torture
me with!"
-------------------------
Grey let the fish crackle over the fire before turning his
attention to where Genma was tied to the tree. "i told you
already. You can eat WHEN you tell me where to find Ukyo.
She's already spent too much time living on some vengeance
quest. Maybe if i get to her NOW she can still have a life
and get some outside interests."
"I... don't know why you'd want to see that boy. RANMA! How
dare you treat your father so!" His mouth involunarily
watered from the smell of the fish.
"i ain't Ranma. i'm just a substitute. Besides, you've done
this to Ranma enough. Paybacks a cold mistress, ain't it?"
Grey turned the fish to let them cook evenly. "i didn't know
they had trout in the Bayankala range. Neat, huh?"
"Ranma. You break your father's heart." Genma licked
slobber off his lips. His son had set the cooking fish up so
that it was upwind of the bound martial artist. Well, the
info wouldn't do Ranma any good anyway. "Ukyo was in the
Kansai area, Osaka to be precise, we met them on the..."
----------------------------
"I held out as long as I could, Tendo, but eventually he
beat the truth out of me."
"Where's the burn marks and broken bones?" murmurred Nabiki
just loudly enough that her two sisters could hear.
Akane and Kasumi nodded as one. Holding out against that
sort of torture (beatings, hot irons, and sodium pentothol)
for three days, one would expect the man to be scarred. Or
at least thinner.
"And then," Genma sobbed with crocodile tears, caught up in
his brilliant acting. "And then, that girl from the village
found us again!"
-----------------------------
Grey finished recording the directions and lifted his pack.
Judging from the way Genma eyed it, it wouldn't be safe to
leave it around him. How fortunate that he and the Saotome
patriarch were parting ways now. It wouldn't be difficult.
Genma's top running speed would be below ten miles an hour.
And there *were* other methods.
Genma's eyes bugged out as his overly tall and muscular son
cut him loose and then rose silently into the air. Graceful,
silent, dignified.
Except that the girl from the village leapt out of a tree
and wrapped herself around him before he'd cleared that
level. Then Genma was stuck watching the combined dot vanish
into the distance. Tendo. Tendo would know what to do!