[Ranma/Xover][FanFic] R-no-baka, Chapter II
Cat Who / Time
All my fics can be found at http://www.catwho.net/fiction/fanfics/ ,
including Chapter I of this fic.
C&C to cat...@catwho.net
*****
Ranma had been with Relena for several weeks when she told him to take
the day off. "Dorothy, Heero and I are going shopping for Noin's
birthday. You can come along if you want, but we'll have Heero with us
so you're not really needed if you don't want to come."
Ranma thanked her a little more profusely than was probably necessary,
and looked forward to spending the entire day as himself. Having to
stay in his girl body twenty four hours a day was getting to him. Cold
showers...no hot liquids...the emotional flashes... The other day he'd
found himself having a strange craving for chocolate. Milk chocolate.
Nothing else would sustain him. He'd raided the candy jar on the table
and nearly choked when Dorothy patted him sympathetically on back and
said "That time of the month, eh?" No, it was definitely time for him
to go to his REAL body for a change.
When the girls were safely out of the house, he eased himself into the
hot tub. Oh, that felt wonderful...
He stayed in there for a good half hour before getting out and toweling
himself off. He still had the chocolate cravings, though. Not good.
He tied a towel around his waist and wandered out into living room,
where the now half empty candy jar stood. He was just about to enjoy a
Hershey's Kiss when the front door opened and a beautiful blonde
stranger appeared.
Ranma stood up, checking to make sure the towel was in place. To his
horror, the other person was a guy...that looked a LOT like Relena...
In a flash Ranma found himself picked a full foot off the ground, the
stranger's hands grappling his throat, choking him. The other man was a
trained warrior, but Ranma knew he could beat him
easily...if...only...he could...BREATHE...
"Who are you and why are you in my sister's apartment????" The blonde
man interrogated angrily.
"I...can...explain..." Ranma gasped, struggling for air.
The blonde man punched Ranma in the stomach once for good measure
before releasing him. "Your explanation better be damn good, or else
I'll have to hurt you."
Ranma glared angrily at the blonde, doubled over due to the blow. That
had hurt...was he getting weaker from being in his female form so long?
He'd been training every day...couldn't be... "I don't think you could
even touch me if I was ready," he said. "But I'll give you your
explanation anyway. I'm her bodyguard. I got a day off." Ranma stood
up straight again, hastily adjusting the towel.
"Relena told me she had young girl for a bodyguard. With red hair."
Zechs continued to bristle at the outrage he percieved on behalf of his
sister.
Ranma saw no other way around it. He had long since gotten used to
explaining his dilemna.
"Look, d'ya believe in curses?" he asked, shrugging on a tank top and
walking to the kitchen. He turned the tap water on and filled up a
glass. "Cause I've got one. Whenever I get splashed with cold water,"
he poured the contents of the glass on himself for a demonstration, "I
end up looking like...this." The thing Ranma hated most was the voice
change. He sounded like he had inhaled helium. He filled the glass up
again, this time with hot water, and changed back.
The blonde goggled.
"Look, Relena doesn't know, and I prefer it to stay that way for now.
She's more comfortable this way. Don't worry, I haven't been making
advances on her...God knows I've had too much trouble with girls
already...."
"Are you..." the blonde hesitated..."are you a man or a woman, then?"
Everyone always asked that. "I'm a guy! I've been searching for a way
to break the curse for years, but nothing ever works. Just a warning,
don't ever go to a training ground in China called the Jusenkyo..."
The blonde blinked a few times. "I'll remember not to. I'm Zechs
Merquis." The blonde extended his hand for a shake. "Sorry I punched
you. She IS my baby sister, after all..."
"Yeah, yeah," Ranma said, but quick as a wink, he kicked Zechs on the
shoulder without hardly seeming to move. All Zechs knew is that
suddenly his shoulder hurt like hell.
"Eye for an eye," Ranma said simply.
"Not bad. I'd like to have a real match against you, someday. But for
now, I must go." The blonde man narrowed his eyes at Ranma. "But if you
so much as look at my sister, I won't hesitate to bring all my force
against you."
Ranma dumped cold water on himself, and crossed his arms over his chest
in an unusual show of modest. "Got it," he sqeaked.
*****
Several days later, Ranma was driving Dorothy and Relena to a
conference when he got his first real chance at bodyguard duty. He was
driving until Relena found a new chauffer who wasn't afraid to work with
her after the shooting, even though they'd replaced the windows of the
limousine with bullet proof glass.
It started with a roadblock on near the central potion of the colony
Side. No one knew why there was a roadblock, but traffic was backed up
for miles on either side.
"Ranma, is there any news on the what the holdup is?" Dorothy asked
crossly from the backseat.
"No," he said as he struggled with a PDA. Data rolled across the
screen, but none of it gave any clue as to what blocked the colony
roads. "All I see is a bunch of military junk."
"What?" Relena said in surprise, and nearly leapt over the seat to look
at the screen for herself. "Military channels? What's going on that
the military needs to come in for? This is a peaceful colony! Ranma,
can you crack them?"
"I'm no hacker. But even the local news has some info. Some sort of
weird spacecraft landed, then disappeared."
"Disappeared? You mean it took off, right?"
"No, it disappeared. The entire area is roped off."
Relena sighed and leaned back in her seat. "What else could possibly
go wrong today?"
Several hours later, they hadn't moved more than two blocks. Relena
and Dorothy had given up and began to work on Relena's next campaign
plan. Ranma had gotten bored and leapt onto the roof of the car to
practive his forms. He'd gone back to girltype form permanentlty after
the incident with Zechs Merquise (the older brother had later threatened
him with death by Tallgeese if he so much as looked at his sister the
wrong way. Ranma had seen the Tallgeese on TV, and while he could
probably knock it out with a solid key blast, he had too much respect
for mobile suits in general to argue.)
A sudden movement caught the corner of his eye, and before Relena and
Dorothy could even react, a small redhead leapt lightly onto the roof
with Ranma.
"Ranma...?" Relena began, and opened the window. The second redhead was
about the same size as Ranma, but her entire manner was different.
Instead of blue eyes, this redhead sported a pair of wide, catgreen eyes
and the widest grin Relena had every though possible. Her red hair hung
nearly to the pavement outside the car. The little girl waved at
Relena, and Ranma relaxed slightly. She was a cute chick, even if she
was a little young.
"Who are you?" he asked, evenly.
"Oh, no one," the redhead chirped brightly. "Just a wandering
traveler. Don't worry, I haven't got any business with you. It's HER I
want." The little girl pointed at Dorothy Catalonia through the back
windshield and gave Ranma another silly grin. "Have to check up on
those genetic experiments, you know..."
By now, everyone in the car was thoroughly confused, and the redhead
took advantage of it by slipping into the passengers seat. Ranma dropped
into the drivers side window, and hung upside down. The girl had a
sleeping rabbit in one hand that was munching contentedly on a carrot in
its dreams.
"My name's Washuu," she said openly, and showed both her hands, which
were devoid of weapons, excluding the catlike rabbit. "I'm so glad I
finally found you. I've got some hoverpads mounted on your car...let's
get out of here." She pulled a remote control from her pocket, causing
Ranma to stiffen in alert, but she ignored him and fiddled with a tiny
joystick on the control. The car smoothly rose out of the traffic, and
gently floated down the street, much to the astonishment of both the
passengers of the car, save Washuu, and all the others trapped in
traffic below. "I'm sorry I caused so much ruckus...there was nowhere
else to land Ryo-ohki without attracting a lot of attention. I barely
made it through the Side wall, too."
"Who ARE you?" Relena finally managed to gibber out. Ranma took it all
much more calmly than the women in the backseat. He was from Nemira.
Strange things happened there all the time.
"I'd advise you not to shoot me. I just got you out of a traffic jam
that'll probably last for days, and I'm the only one who knows how to
work this," she said, holding up the remote control. " And I told you,
I'm Washuu. I'm the greatest genius scientist in the whole galaxy! Now,
I'll just set us down here," she said, and did so, here being a
relatively empty alleyway, "and then I can run my tests on Dorothy and
be on my way." She popped open a tiny kit, and reached across the seat
to pluck a hair from Dorothy.
"Ouch!" Dorothy cried, then shot the girl a look of pure venom.
"Ranma, why are you letting her get away with this?"
Ranma gave her a helpless shrug. He didn't hit girls as a general
rule, especially little ones. And she didn't appear to be that much of
a thread.
The redhead was lost in a world of her own. She had placed the single
hair into a solution which boiled red, then purple, and finally blue.
"Drat. You're not the one. Oh well, your uncle wasn't either. So much
for THAT line..." She packed up and prepared to leave the car.
"Oh no you don't," Relena said, and grabbed the girl's shirt from the
backseat. "I don't know who you are, or why you...just did
that...experiment," she said, feeling absurd. The girl couldn't be more
than twelve. "But I want to know what you meant by Dorothy not being
"the one." The one what?"
"Why, the one who'll bring the World Revolution, of course," Washuu
said, and this time she opened the door. "It looks like that stupid
fallen angel will beat me to the punch again...he swears up and down
he's got the perfect candidate, Oh well, back to the drawing board!"
Washuu sang, and ducked around a corner.
Inside the car, Dorothy, and Relena simply stared at where the girl had
last been, dumbfounded. Ranma quietly slipped back into the drivers
seat, then turned around to face the girls.
"I don't know what just happened, but I feel violated," Dorothy finally
complained, breaking the silence.
"Ah, geez, Dorothy, all she did was pluck a hair. It's probably just
some wacko kid out to freak people in the traffic jam."
Relena paused thoughtfully. "I'm not so sure. My last attacker
claimed to be looking for someone to bring the "world revolution" as
well. They could be connected."
"Did she try to kidnap you?" Ranma shook his head. "Trust me, its just
some kid. And hey, look, we're moving again." The traffic had indeed
begun to crawl again, and Ranma started up the groundcar. They'd missed
Relena's appointment by hours, but traffic on Colony One was iffy on a
good day, and chances were that her conference group members had been
stuck somewhere as well.