[Ranma][FanFic] Biker 1/2 book 2 chapter 8
Doghead Thirteen
ARGHBEETLESGETTHEMOFFMEGETTHEMOFFMEGETTHEMOFFME!
Previous chapters of this monstrosity (including the entirety of book 1)
can be found in several places - the TASS/RAAC archives (for some reason
their bots didn't put book 2 in the Biker 1/2 folder) fanfiction.net and
Studio Asynjor (a.k.a http://www.asynjor.com/fanfic/index.html) which
for now can be counted as the official Biker 1/2 webpage until I finally
manage to get something more personalised written. Don't get onto me as
to what the heck everything's arranged like on the above sites - the
only involvement I have in them is A) guy who posts stuff on RAAC and B)
satisfied user.
I'd advise first-time readers of Biker 1/2 to go to one of the above
sites and read book 1 since I sincerely doubt you'd be able to work out
what the heck's going on if you didn't; this is the second of a series
of 100,000+ word books.
Words in "{this}" kind of brackets are spoken in Cantonese. Those in
"[this]" are in wolf-speak.
Biker 1/2 Cycle 1 - Birth of a Modern Legend, book 2: Severed.
Chapter 8: Paradise City.
"Take me down to the paradise city where the grass is green and the
girls are pretty, Oh won't you please take me home" - Guns 'N' Roses,
'Paradise City'
"Nerima had changed a shitload by th' time I got home - suprisin' how
much two an' a half weeks can change somethin', ain't it?" - Ranma
Saotome.
***********************************
Ranma sat back; he had a stunned look on his face.
"Well I'll be a fuckin'... That's Nabiki."
"You know her?" Willow asked.
Ranma nodded. "Yeah, sure I do. She's me sister-in-law. Tendo's middle
daughter. Look here Andrayov, what th' fuck were she talkin' about?
Blondie killed yer mum? That's a bit fuckin' weird."
Willow clenched and unclenched her teeth.
"I don't know. When I catch her I am going to talk to Buffy Summers. I
don't know what the hell is going on around here. But I am going to find
out."
Ranma snorted. "Tendo, Herb, Willow - yer all comin' wiv me. Spike, get
any shit ya want ta take ta Japan tagether an' bring it. Oh, an' th'
stuff ya need ta disarm that collar Willow's wearin'." He ejected and
pocketed the videotape, picked up his nice new RPK and stuffed Willow
into her sack, gathering her wrists and ankles into a bunch and tying
the sack shut round them.
Soun and Herb looked at each other; they silently picked up the beer and
Soun's weapons then followed Ranma.
Ranma heaved Willow onto his shoulder and glanced over at Spike.
"Get yer shit over ta th' Japanese consulate buildin' in half an hour.
Later."
***********************************
Willow couldn't help mumbling 'Here we go again' as Ranma dumped her in
the boot, packed the beer and the half-built bike in with her, stowed
the guns, added some chain to the rope pinioning her arms and legs then
slammed the boot. The Hummer roared into life; she was bounced around a
lot as the vehicle rocketed round Miami at Ranma's usual breakneck
speed. The engine dropped to a tickover; she made out some low Japanese
conversation then the vehicle moved on a bit and reverse parked.
The boot popped open and Ranma heaved her out, slung her back across his
shoulder and started walking at a rapid, heel-jarring pace.
"RANMA!" a woman's voice yelled. Willow felt herself drop, felt a
crashing blow on the back of her head then everything went black.
***********************************
"Akane! Nabiki! You are not going to fucking believe this!"
Nabiki turned round from her laptop and glared at Rally.
"What now?"
"Get your ass into gear girl." Rally jerked her thumb out the door. "I
think you'll want to see who just walked in the door."
Nabiki heaved herself upright, grabbed Akane's shoulder and steered her
sister out the room.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who Shampoo was presently
firmly attached to the middle of.
"Ranma Saotome, where the hell have you been?"
Ranma looked over the mass of purple hair. "That's my line! What th'
fuck took ya so long? I wrote ta Mum about twenty times, an' Tendo wrote
ta ya guys twice that number! An' what th' fuck's it wiv yer goddamn
phone? I've been tryin' ta get through ta ya three, four times a day fer
two fuckin' weeks an' I couldn't get through th' whole fuckin' time!
What th' fuck took ya so long? An' what th' fuck happened ta Akane's
face?"
Nabiki looked doubtfully at Soun.
"You wrote to us nearly forty times? Dad, what the hell address were you
writing to? 'Nabiki Tendo, Nerima, Tokyo' or something?"
Soun glared at her. "Don't be dumb Nabiki. We're going to have to get to
the bottom of this - I smell a rat."
"Right, what th' fuck we waitin' fer man?" Ranma asked. "Let's get th'
hell outta here - I've had it wiv talkin' English th' whole fuckin'
time, it's like tryin' ta brush yer teef while chewin' gum an' whistlin'
th' national anthem backwards."
Shampoo scratched her head.
"Er, Ranma - Xian Pu know why Nodoka no get mail... she still in
hospital."
There was a short blank silence; Ranma glared at Nabiki.
"Okay, gimme th' bad news. All o' it. An' like I said before, what th'
fuck happened ta yer face Akane?"
Nabiki started counting points off on her fingers.
"Mint's dead. Nobody's seen Mortise. Genma's still in a coma-"
"What th' fuck? I thought Dad wuz dead?"
"You stopped him bleeding to death when you pulled that chunk of road
out of him. Nodoka got shot in the back, she's paralysed from the waist
down. Ranko lost her memory. Akira's dead, your dad ate his head. All in
all there's 106 of ours dead, 143 comatose. But your bike's alright and
so's the house."
Ranma started his own process fo counting off points on his fingers.
"That means Ryoga's alright, Kasumi's alright, Mu Tze's alright, Mi
Soon's alright, yer alright, Shampoo's alright, Tiger's alright, Mao
Xing's alright, Happosai's alright, around 400 others alright. Yeah?"
"Yeah... Oh, and there's a couple of Nodoka's truckie pals have been
hanging around Doctor Tofu's place."
"I'm sort of okay." Akane commented. "I got a hand grenade in the face."
"Er, Ranma," Nabiki asked, "Who's in the bag?"
"Hand grenade?"
Akane nodded. "I'm blind but I'm otherwise okay."
Herb snorted.
"We'll see about that."
"Mi Soon already tried fixing it using that bodysculpting thingy...
apparently there's a load of shrapnel still stuck in my skull and it's
loaded with wolfsbane."
"Ranma, who's in the bag?"
Herb shrugged.
"Well, there always has been more than one way to skin a cat. Tendo,
Saotome - have either of you ever heard of the Moss of Life?"
Soun nodded.
"Yes."
"Ranma, I hate to sound like a stuck record, but who's in the bag?"
"Oh, her? Local witch, I brung her wiv me ta make sure Spike don't blow
her head off, he planted a bomb on her neck."
Herb paused, isolated it as not being part of the conversation he'd been
having with Soun, glared at said person and asked "What's that tone for
Tendo?"
"You got any idea how difficult that stuff is to get?"
"Yes. However, one of my favourite people needs that sort of miracle
cure. And since there's so few people I actually like I'm not going to
leave any of them to suffer if I can possibly avoid it."
"Moss o' life?" Ranma asked. "What th' fuck's that?"
"A very rare plant, only found in a specific area of a forest up into
the mountains to the north of Tokyo. It's a genuine miracle cure,
Saotome. Unfortunately it's rather hard to get to."
"Rather hard? Meanin'?"
"Meaning it only grows on the head of a unique dragon."
"Dragon? This is gettin' kinda far-fetched."
Herb shrugged. "It's the result of Donna Skel experimenting with
bodysculpting, magecraft and a bunch of crocodiles. The reason the damn
stuff only grows on it's head is due to how useful it is - all the other
patches have been wiped out long since, but Red Hanovan seeded a bunch
of it in the cave Donna Skel left her critter in. Guess what, the
remaining chunk is now latched onto a certain creature's forehead."
"Look, how do you know this?"
"Because this isn't going to be the first time I used it."
"This is gettin' complicated."
Herb shrugged.
"Let's get the hell home. So is Spike coming with us?"
"Far as I know. He bloody better, I want him ta defuse that bomb."
"Mr. Saotome, sir!" a voice called across. "This character claims to be
with you."
Ranma turned round, singularly failing to unlatch Shampoo, Akane and
Nabiki from his person. "Oh, there ya are Spike." He emptied Willow out
of the sack and waved the semiconscious witch at him. "Well go on,
defuse it then."
Spike snorted.
"No point. Scissors will work perfectly well."
"I thought ya said-"
"Yeah, it's got a load of tamper-proofing, but that won't do anything
since I intentionally made it a dud."
"Ranma," Nabiki warned. "We can't leave her here - the CIA are after her
ass."
"What? Wuz that who I hadta kick in when we wuz kidnappin' her?"
"Oh for... Let's just get the hell home."
***********************************
The next several hours contained a long flight in a certain military
transport aircraft and that was about it. Well, apart from Nabiki giving
Willow a very involved explanation, Ranma getting treated as an
oversized pillow by Akane and a suitably airsick Shampoo, Tiger looking
smug and Spike arguing politics with Herb.
***********************************
Ranma stalked out of the plane; he ignored the Hummer, Spike's car and
the bikes being unloaded behind him.
He only had eyes for the large black shape that had just been unloaded
from a JGSDF truck.
There was a few more dents and scrapes in the bodywork. A bit more
mileage of the fight kind, but his bike was otherwise alright.
He settled himself on it, stuffed the keys into the ignition, flipped
the killswitch to run and stomped on the kickstart.
BRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNGGGGG!!!
He settled his guns - the RPK and the AK47 - into a more comfortable
position on his shoulders, noted Soun piling into Kasumi's Corvette,
Spike stowing Willow in the boot then piling into his car, Shampoo and
Nabiki mounting up, varied Amazons and Akane piling into Willow's
Hummer, Herb shrugging and flying off on his usual substantial ki-burn,
the Amazon reception committee coming to attention and, more
importantly, the arrow-straight freeway into Tokyo off the airbase.
He snapped his Gixer into gear, pointed it at the way out and grinned
like the maniac he had always been.
"Watch th' fuck out Tokyo, I'm back."
The assorted cars, bikes and trucks stormed off the airbase in formation
and hit the road home with the pedal to the metal.
***********************************
Kenji Yamazaki was not a happy werefox.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead, lit up yet another kingsize rollie
and slid the truck's gearbox up into twelfth, his eyes glued on the road
the whole time. He was running light; the Mack juddered violently due to
the complete lack of a load on board, but the difference was taken up
between chassis and extra-wide low profile tyres by the racing
suspension he had fitted. It just did it's best to make you seasick.
Either that or shake the roof off. Unladen articulated lorries do not
give a very smooth ride by definition; they're really designed to have a
few dozen extra tons keeping all that bulk in a tight relationship with
important things like the tarmac. Therefore driving round like a raging
wanker without said extra load tends to prompt the rig to try to
repeatedly kick your backside in.
Not a comfortable experience, and not that Yama presently gave a flying
fuck; he'd only gone and upset his former clan by nicking a canvas-side
forty foot three axle trailer off them. Being a reasonably sensible
werefox (certainly by express trucker standards) he was presently
engaged in the time-honoured art of making himself scarce. And there was
far worse ways of doing that than scarpering to Tokyo, a city presently
recognised as Clan Saotome turf. And since he was a close friend of the
mother of the present Lord of Clan Saotome, he was willing to bet good
odds on being able to hole up with Clan Saotome for a while in their
present Nerima headquarters.
He wasn't totally sure what the present organisation of Clan Saotome
looked like, but that was okay. By all accounts neither was Clan
Saotome.
Yama flicked another glance into his rear view mirror and immediately
saw that his current dose of bad news was still with him. He still
hadn't managed to shake the duo of Clan Hakkenan owned street racers
that had been on him since Osaka. He drew back his lips into a more
typical feral grin.
"Alright, boys - we're in no-man's-land. Time for the old tonnage
contest."
He nudged the brakes and downshifted, allowing the two cars to close
with him.
"OK, I get the picture, here, have your trailer back."
He hauled the wheel across and yanked a black and yellow striped lever
on the roof; the trailer slewed out to the right then came free of the
truck as he hammered the throttle right down. The trailer flipped over,
rolling itself up into a knot of mangled wreckage. One of the street
racers managed to dive through the rapidly closing gap; the other piled
straight into the wrecked trailer, lost contact with the ground and
cartwheeled itself to oblivion. He tabbed a switch; a series of hisses
from the floor and a slight change in the tractor's stance told him the
suspension had reconfigured itself for running without a trailer
perfectly.
He checked six again. The remaining car was closing rapidly. He did a
lightning lane-change and simultaneously floored both clutch and brake
pedals. The car managed to swerve clear as it flew past him; he wasn't
overly disappointed. He hadn't expected to get them like that anyway.
"And the hunter becomes the hunted."
He dropped down to third and hammered the throttle back down; the truck
spat two lines of blue smoke up as it rocketed forwards. A muzzle flare
from the passengers side of the car and a series of sparks from his
frontal bodywork showed him the Hakkenan clanners were discovering how
much armour he had fitted to his truck; he aimed squarely at them and
continued accelerating, closing until he was about twenty feet from the
back of the car.
He spotted the string of three Mitsubishi car transporters and developed
an even nastier grin. His hand descended towards the nitrous oxide
trigger.
"Hey, why don't you guys check out the engraving I had Morty do on my
front bumper? Incidentally, it's eight inches of titanium. Look!"
He hit the nitrous trigger. There was a loud 'Crunch' and the charging
Mack wiped the street racer into the path of the middle car transporter;
this was rapidly followed by another crunch and a cloud of flying
wreckage. The Mitsubishi driver put his foot on the brake; his pal went
straight into the back of him ramming the other Iveco Ford over the top
of the battered street racer. What was left of it and it's occupants
flew out one side, bouncing down the verge and coming to a halt in a
fairly deep ditch. Yama flashed an insulting gesture out the window,
dropped off the happy gas and opened the truck right up.
"Later, dudes."
Thinking about it, he decided it was a bit of a shame, seeing two
Lamborginis wrecked so totally in such a short time.
Ah well, shit happens.
Yama headed for the nearest industrial estate, found an unattended
flatbed trailer and absconded with it.
***********************************
Ranma swept his gaze round the Tendo dojo garden; the only real change
since he had last seen it was the burnt-out tank stuck in one end of the
workshop, the memorial shrine someone had erected near the Koi pond and
the fact there wasn't bullet holes in everything. Genma's V8, both of
Soun's bikes, Ryoga's jetbike, Herb's trailbike, Akane's CB, Nabiki's
CB, Lime's trailbike, Mint's now ownerless trailbike, Shampoo's CB,
Kodachi's Bandit, Nodoka's rig, Mortise's hog, Ranko's '45, Kasumi's
'rod, the hummer, Spike's Thunderbird and his Gixer stood in a line at
the bottom of, along and outside the driveway, bearing mute testimony to
the number of present occupants, even though there was now at least
twice the number of vehicles as there was people living there.
"Well, fuck. It's good ta be back."
Spike examined the line of vehicles.
"Quite an impressive collection. What's with the Kenworth?"
Ranma shrugged. "That's Mum's wheels. She's onea them big car folks. Th'
V8 thing's Dad's ride, th' rusty blue CB an' th puke green
streetfighter're both Tendo's, th' blue dirtbike wiv a Rover engine's
Herb's... ya get th' drift."
"I get the feeling your extended family are by definition vehicle
obsessed."
Ranma shrugged again. "Wheels're useful if ya gotten an engine ta go wiv
'em. We don't really need so many but what th' fuck, we're mostly bikers
an' bikin's more fun if ya all gotten rides. Make yerself at home, get
ta know th' gang. I gotta deal wiv a loada shit. Firstly I gotta check
out Mum an' Dad. Catch ya later."
"Yeah, see you in a while Saotome."
"How many times I gotta tell ya not ta call me that? Every time someone
sez that I look fer Dad." Ranma looked across at Shampoo, who was
propping up the corner of the house. "Mum's at Doc Tofu's, right?"
"Yup."
"Right." Ranma kickstarted his bike and roared off. Shampoo watched him
go, sighed and shook her head.
"What a fucking mess."
She started looking for something to beat the shit out of.
***********************************
Nodoka's eyes snapped open like someone had thrown a switch. She pushed
herself as upright as she could get with her hands, staring wildly about
the room.
The roar she had though was part of a dream remained present, closing
rapidly down the street. She recognised that roar. It was unmistakable -
there was only one vehicle in Japan that sounded like a supercharged
Suzuki GSXR1100 with no silencers. Ranma's bike.
Her son - her crazy, hairy, biker son - was back.
The engine coughed to a halt outside the clinic. Booted feet clumped on
the floor of the waiting room; she couldn't make out Doctor Tofu's words
through the wall, but she could hear him speaking, then that rough
cigarette-deepened voice replying. The door crashed open.
"Hello Mum." said Ranma Saotome.
End chapter 8.
NOTES
Next - Oh dear, zombies.
Laters,
Calum 'Doghead' Wallace.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Alternator - Higher tech version of a generator.
Artic - The UK term for a semi truck. Short for 'articulated lorry'.
Astro-Creep 2000 - The title of a White Zombie album.
Binned - crashed. Normally means written off. Derived from 'bin' as in
'rubbish bin' (the British term for a trash can)
Chain lube - Motorbike chain lubrication oil. Comes in a spray can and
looks a bit like snot.
Conrod (connecting rod) - The bit of metal that connects the piston to
the crankshaft. Shaped approximately like a flat dumbbell.
Engine clicking - An internal combustion engine heats up when run. Run
it hard and it heats up more, then when you switch off the engine will
start emitting a series of sharp clicks as the metal cools and
contracts.
Final drive - the drive chain that goes from the gearbox to the back
wheel and the cogs (final drive sprockets) that it runs on. Not to be
confused with the primary drive - the chain/sprocket or belt/pulleys
between the engine and gearbox.
Gasflowing - trimming off excess metal from inside the cylinder heads to
aid the burn rate of fuel within the engine. Gives a small horsepower
boost.
Gixer - Slang for a Suzuki GSXR (one of the craziest bikes they make).
Happy gas - See 'Nitrous oxide.'
Header tank - Tank that contains the spare water for the radiator on a
sealed cooling system as found in most cars and some high performance
bikes.
Honda CG125 - Small single - cylinder 4-stroke road bike. Not very much
of anything but supremely reliable and dirt cheap. It's reliability
stems from having very little to go wrong and a low - revving 4-stroke
engine.
Honda 250 Superdream - CB250. The next up the Honda model range from the
CG125 and just a bigger version of the same.
Honda 500 Superdream - CB500. A CB250 with a bigger bore and heavier
frame.
Honda Fireblade - Insane Honda sportsbike. Mad but beginning to show
it's age.
Kill switch - The engine's 'off' switch. Turns off power to the
ignition.
Kuso - As far as I know this is the Japanese translation of the word
'Shit'.
Lid / skidlid - Slang for a crash helmet.
Nitrous oxide - Laughing gas. A petrol - nitrous mix burns faster than a
petrol - air mix therefore produces more horsepower and more wear in the
engine.
Ratbike - A motorbike made to look as fucked up and unroadworthy as
possible while still being street legal. Normally painted flat black.
Steering damper - a long, thin shock absorber that fits between the
forks and the frame. Helps steady the steering. A steering damper is
essential for disabled bikers who have lost the use of one arm as
without it there's no way you'd be able to steer at low speed or pull
away one armed.
Stocker - unmodified factory-built vehicle; I think this comes from the
term 'sales stock'.
Supercharger - A pump driven off the crank that forces more air into the
engine thus forcing it to run faster.
Toby - An Inverness Collegeism; slang meaning something along the lines
of widget, gizmo or thingy. Derived from angling parlance (toby = a
small wooden fish used as a lure.) May be related to the epithet 'Toby
Tishbein' and can be said 'Tobyracho' for no apparent reason. (I'm not
making this up! Honest!)
Top yoke - The yokes are two pieces of metal that hold the front forks
together and to the bike. The top yoke is the upper one. Known as
triple clamps in the US.
JASDF - Japanese Air Self Defence Force. The Japanese air force.
JGSDF - Japanese Ground Self Defence Force. The ground forces arm of the
Japanese military.
JSDF - Japanese Self Defence Force. The collective Japanese armed
forces.
What likes - Slack Scottish grammar. Means something along the lines of
'please could you explain that'. Only considerably less posh.
Wheelie bin - a square green plastic trashcan about the size of a normal
bin, with a flip top and two wheels.