Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ One straw ❯ Chapter 3 ( Chapter 3 )

One Straw

 

Chapter 3

 

Disclaimer)- Everyone knows what goes here right? Come on a show of hands anyone who's confused that the writer of this fanfic doesn't own the characters and isn't making any money out of them.

 

Authors notes, I was a little surprised that no one seemed to pick up on the fact that the interpreter in the hallucination from the last chapter was the same name as the real interpreter that Agent Simons used in interview room one. Just a thought but what can it mean, does it mean anything? Ah-hah and you thought I'd tell you when you can continue reading my fanfic and find out?

 

Oh yeah, and seriously, please review. Let me know what you think of this so far. You may notice that scene breaks are denoted by this / \ from now on in the centre of the page. Oh look there's one directly beneath this line now.

 

/ Let the story begin \

 

`Damn, that smarts,' he thought as he shifted on his seat trying to gain some level of comfort even as the vibrating sheet of hard plastic began to send his backside blessedly numb. Looking out of the window he could see a small town and a fair bit of farmland as the plane he was currently in banked to make a course change heading in a northerly direction. They hadn't told him where they were taking him at this point but the large military transport was only a medium range plane so it had to be somewhere on the mainland.

 

Across the aisle the small figure of Kuzinori Ota sat, he looked a little glum to be on such a primitive plane when there were more comfortable options available. The translator was there to make the transition to wherever they were taking him as smooth as possible, a known face would make things easier or so they said.

 

All in all Ranma preferred this, his second flight to the first. The noise was deafening and the plane shook at times with turbulence letting him know that they were indeed in powered flight. The airliner had been smooth and almost noiseless which he'd found to be un-nerving after a while. The incessant whine of noise suppressed jet engines was nearly as annoying as Hikaru Gosunkugi when he started whining about the injustice of his life when Akane wouldn't even acknowledge his existence.

 

Gradually over the next hour or so the terrain below changed, the farmland disappeared to be replaced with red rocky outcrops and large desert like plains with sparse vegetation. Though he could be mistaken about the sparse bit as they were currently at ten thousand feet and it was hard to truly judge. Ranma was just beginning to wonder where they were going when one of the marines on the plane came over and spoke to Kuzinori who then relayed the information that they'd be landing in half an hour. Satisfied that he had a rough idea of what was happening now he closed his eyes and began to go over some of his memories of his flight from Nerima.

 

/ flashback \

 

It'd been late afternoon when Ranma finally made it back to the Tendo Dojo, he'd never call that place home again, not after all the crap those old bastards had put him through. Then when he did walk through the door they'd pounced on him to begin anew. Luckily for them he'd had a good long talk with the good doctor and was feeling marginally in control, though it was a truly near thing and ended up slipping away real fast towards the end.

 

“Tendo, I swear I don't know what I ever did to deserve such a disrespectful child…”

 

“Ya want that in alphabetical or chronological order old man?” Ranma smacked the bald man straight in the mouth, too fast for the vastly experienced martial artist to even begin to counter. He went through the garden doors in a flat trajectory and barely missed the outer wall of the property.

 

“Don't talk to your father like that Ranma, you should respect your father,” Nodoka's assertion fell on deaf ears, he'd lived with the consequences of his old mans lifestyle for too long to give him any kind of reaction other than the one he just had.

 

“As if! I respect him just fine mother, every bit as much as he deserves.” He cast an eye at the wall to make sure his father was down for the count.

 

“That's a rich attitude from someone who destroyed my family's dojo.” Soun Tendo butted into the conversation.

 

“I did what? I'd choose your next words with care old man.” Ranma glared at the weeping man incredulously wondering what the hell he was talking about, in fact that would probably be his next question.

 

“You heard me just fine.” Sulking really didn't suit a grown man if he could loosely apply the word man to Soun Tendo.

 

“Yeah you're right, I heard ya just fine. Ya know what if I'm gonna be blamed for it I might as well be the one that did it!”

 

“What are you talking about? You did quite enough damage yesterday boy!”

 

“Me? I'm the only reason there's anything left of the dojo you stupid fucker!” Finishing what he'd intended to say for the moment he stormed out into the yard and faced the jagged remains of the dojo. “Ya wanna take a last look at the so called dojo?” he yelled, “Then I suggest ya get your lazy arse out here.” He clenched his fists as he began to gather as small an amount of ki as he could into a sphere as the rest of his extended `family' came out into the garden at a run.

 

“Don't you dare!” Soun roared completely shocked out of his funk. Determined to stop Ranma he ran off the porch whilst forming his demon head attack, which he noted had little effect on the enraged Saotome youth.

 

“Mouko Takabisha!” Ranma released his ki attack and watched in satisfaction as the two remaining walls and the wooden floor to the old building disappeared in a torrent of red tinged power. When the light show from his attack died down and the smoke cleared there was a shocked silence as they saw how much damage he'd done with one of his low end attacks. The remains of the dojo had disappeared as had the section of compound wall behind it and a good portion of the street beyond, in fact there was a trench some fifteen metres long and a couple of feet deep that wasn't there before.

 

“Now you can blame me for the dojo! An' while we're at it, did ya want me ta take responsibility for all the holes in the roof from when Akane mallets me?” To make sure they understood exactly what he meant he formed two new spheres of ki and directed his attention upwards.

 

Soun must have realized they'd pushed the boy as far as they could and now he was starting to push back and was wondering how to keep a lid on this new development. Deciding things really couldn't get any worse he threw caution to the wind and opened his mouth to shout. “How could you! That was my girl's inheritance, now I've nothing to give them.”

 

“Like you ever gave `em anything in the first place. You're worse than pops, you know that don't you? At least the fat bastard was there for me, not that it did me much good except in the art.”

 

“You're a guest in this house and as such you'll act with respect towards this family.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, but I notice none of ya follow those rules do ya?”

 

“Whatever do you mean?” Soun made the mistake of meeting Ranma's eyes, he shivered as he contemplated how it was possible for fire and ice to reside in the same expression.

 

“You ever notice how it's, `You're a guest' until you need me and then it's, `Protect the honour of the dojo' when you need someone to take a challenge match. I just wanna know how I'm responsible for the honour of the dojo if I'm only a guest? I would have thought that being engaged to your daughter made me more than a guest. Or are you dissolving the engagement, cos if you are just let me know in advance will ya? Not too much advance mind you, I mean it's not like I've got much to pack.”

 

“Oh no! You will marry my little Akane, it's a matter of honour!”

 

“Honour? You're a regular laugh riot ain't ya? You and pops wouldn't know honour if it came up and smacked ya in the face.”

 

“Ranma! How dare you question your father's honour?” Nodoka began with a frown.

 

“I didn't question his honour, I know all about his so called honour and anyway it's not like anyone gives a damn when it's my honour in question. Ya all expect me to act the way you want so that your honour is protected, but not one of ya thinks about how it affects mine. You know what, with how flexible honour is around here you can just go and fuck honour.”

 

“It's not manly to swear like that son,” she reached into her obi and withdrew a piece of yellowed paper while she fingered the tie on her katana to remind him of the leverage she held over him, and then yelped as both items vanished from between her fingers.

 

“Ya know what? This piece of paper is more trouble than it's worth.” He waved the paper in question as he thought what to do with it. “I reckon if I took this to a lawyer he'd tell me that it ain't legal or bindin'. Ya know why? That would be because I wasn't old enough to understand the contents of the contract I was so called `signing'.”

 

“That doesn't matter, your honour is tied up in that paper.” If Ranma had ever looked into a mirror when he was fighting a halfway decent fighter then he would have recognized the expression on his mother's face, like she knew he had no answers to her words.

 

“Oh I think you'll find it does mother. Ya see I can't sign a legally binding document till I'm twenty and that means the only person who's honour is affected is you and pops for holding a child responsible for that crap. That's what all this is about if you think about it, I ain't able to sign legal documents because Pops and Tendo-san here would be our legal guardians, which means they could make us do pretty much anything they wanted.”

 

“Come off it, anyone would think the world revolved around you.” His mother didn't seem to know the two men very well even though she'd been coming here for months before she'd finally found out about her son.

 

“You know what? I reckon for most of the people I know it does.”

 

“That's a little paranoid don't you think son.” Soun paused in his crying to look askance at Ranma, in his friends absence he didn't really want this line of conversation to continue.

 

“Heh, it's only paranoia if they aren't out to get ya. Lets face it, both you and pops wanna retire and live off my back for the rest of your miserable lives. Mother here wants me to give her grandchildren, and she ain't particular about how she gets them. Then there's Happosai…”

 

“Don't say that name, you know he'll come.” Both Soun and Genma were making shushing motions to shut the boy up.

 

“Good,” he waited for the protests to die down before continuing, “cause as soon as I see tha freak I'm gonna kill him for stealing my Jhusenkyou cure.”

 

“That was a mistake, you heard him, he thought it was sake.”

 

“Riiiigght, an' if ya believe that I've got a nice timeshare you can buy for the Tokyo tower. He just didn't want me to lose this curse, so he can try to grope me when he wants. You all think I'm stupid or something?” Ranma growled out the last question. After that the situation degenerated into general name calling which ended with his father being returned to a crater near the Koi pond, the Tendo's father unconscious on the roof and Ranma-chan stomping into the house after a brief rain squall fell out of a seemingly crystal blue sky.

 

Nodoka tried in vain to remove the blade of her katana from the practice post where Ranma-chan had thrown it in a fit of pique. A foot and a half of the fine steel blade protruded from the far side of the foot thick oak post. She was either going to have to apologise to her child or go and get some tools to help remove the prized possession. As it turned out pride won the contest and she left for a couple of hours, she'd try to get the sword in the morning.

 

Dinner that night had been a strained affair as everyone avoided talking about anything that might set Ranma off again. Akane was sulking when she arrived home, while Nabiki scowled at the little thief. Ranma on the other hand enjoyed the peace for a while. The food when it arrived had been good and he'd enjoyed it but there had been something missing and it had irked him that he couldn't put a finger on it. Soon after the meal was finished they'd all headed off to their respective beds for the first really early night they'd had in a long time. Only three people wished for something different on the following day.

 

/ \

 

The pig-tailed youth glanced up, startled that anyone would be able to sneak up on him. He must have been really deep in his memories, then again they stirred powerful emotions in the youth.

 

“Ranma-san we'll be landing in a couple of minutes, maybe you should put your seat restraint on now?”

 

“Er, thanks Kuzinori-san.” He fumbled with the belt restraints for a second before he heard it snap into place. It wasn't very long until he felt the plane start to descend. They'd informed him that they were going to drop him off in a dry lake bed slightly to the south-east of Edwards air force base which would be the nearest civilization being only ten kilometers away. The plane shuddered violently as it made contact with the dry lake bed and ran on for quite a few hundred metres before coming to a halt inside the massive dust cloud being kicked up by the engines and the landing.

 

The attachment of marines that was on the plane quickly went about grabbing the gear that had been set aside for him and marched off of the plane leaving two men to struggle with the forty-five gallon drum of drinking water, Ranma decided he'd help and walked over he gestured the annoyed looking marines away from the drum. Grabbing the nearest top edge he rammed his foot into the side of the blue polyethylene drum, the massive weight pivoted around the fulcrum of his grip and swung up into the air. As it swung past the point where his right handed grip was secure his left hand gripped the new bottom edge while his right eased it down to his shoulder making sure it sat securely he bent his knees to pick up his pack and sauntered down the rear ramp of the plane leaving the two stunned military men to pick up the barrels stand so that it could be set up in his base.

 

An hour later the squat looking transport roared into the sky leaving behind nothing but a slowly dissipating cloud of dust and an extremely angst ridden teenager.

 

All in all the commanders tent was perfect as far as Ranma was concerned, the high roof allowed him to walk around inside in an upright position and was spacious inside, enough that a table and chairs could be set up for meetings and the like, not that he'd be having visitors, it could be too dangerous at the moment but who knew what he'd feel like later. He finished positioning his personal items and sat down in one of the comfortable camp chairs he'd been provided with to contemplate the solitude.

 

It didn't take long for his attention to turn away from the seemingly near horizon, and to the reason that he'd been placed here. He winced in memory of the action that Jake Remora had initiated…..

 

/ flashback \

 

Ranma would be the first to admit that life never went as he planned, as he was into improvisation that was easy to understand. Just how things had gone so wrong so quickly was beyond him though. One moment he thought he was in total control of his life and then it turned sour.

 

Since then he'd been showing symptoms of combat fatigue and Dr Tofu had decided he should know what that entailed, the most important one to remember was the hyper-arousal state, which wasn't as hentai as it sounded, basically boiled down it meant that his senses were being stretched to detect any and all threats to himself.

 

In a normal case that might mean that the victim would have extended hearing to say double normal range, eyesight would pick up any movement and the persons sense of smell would be working overtime, this could lead to irritability, insomnia and a slew of other symptoms as their brain tried to deal with the influx of incoming information it wasn't designed to handle. The thing is that in a normal human brain there are safety mechanisms that stop us from taking in too much information about the world surrounding us. It gets taken in but its importance is so small it's mostly ignored unless it triggers an automatic response.

 

Ranma Saotome was anything but normal, he actually had more senses to work with, the one that was the most concern however was his ki sense, with it he could sense anything up to a kilometer away if he strained and augmented his normal senses with ki. This would mean that he was trying to keep track of every living thing within a one kilometer radius and that could be a lot of people when you were talking about somewhere like Tokyo or Los Angeles. He could dismiss most of the information he sensed as unimportant however when you take into account the fact that he could also use ki to sense the intent of the people around him.

 

Take for example the room he was currently in, Agent Simons was angry towards him and Jake Remora on almost equal terms. The interpreter had almost soiled himself in fear as things progressed, and Ranma felt the need to apologise for that at some point later on. Jake Remora was a sullen pit of barely contained fury where Ranma was concerned and the killing intent beat against Ranma's psyche relentlessly no matter what his boss had told him. The other two agents in the room were a cross between scared and confused as things had developed almost too fast to comprehend. Out beyond the room were many normal people, and then there was a small group heading…his mental reverie was disrupted as Simons decided to get verbal.

 

/ \

 

Ranma looked past the small pile of brass and lead, interspersed with the black magazines of the agents' pistols at the shocked expressions on the faces of those selfsame officers of the law. He'd kind of been hoping that it was one of those hallucinations he'd been having infrequently over the past half year or so. That of course wasn't to be, nothing was ever that easy where he was concerned. The good things that he dreamed never were, and the bad things always seemed to be made of pure shit. Ranma figured there had to be some major karma involved there. Nothing could go this wrong without the intervention of the Kami.

 

The one whose ki told him he was the head of the group was trying to watch both ends of the table, something like a spectator at a tennis match watching the ball go back and forth. Other than that he looked ready to explode, and wasn't sure who he'd like to yell at more. Trying to take a little control Ranma sat up very carefully so that no one would notice as he tensed in readiness. The strain of trying to contain the urges running through his mind was beginning to tell and the vaunted Saotome patience was beginning to fray.

 

/ \

 

Agent Simons couldn't believe just how fucked up one interview could get, someone was in a great deal of trouble here and he'd probably be taking a rather large piece of the flak himself. Jake Remora on the other hand would be lucky if he didn't serve time over this, and if by some stroke of luck he escaped prison time his job options just got reduced to asking `would you like fries with that?' Typically someone who worked at McDonalds would have a higher security clearance than his one time agent would. Twenty years as a senior field officer might buy the man a slight reprieve but he wasn't going to count on it.

He turned carefully to view the other end of the table, after all his years in the field he had a kind of sixth sense for trouble, many officers did. Their gut told them things, the hairs on the backs of their necks would rise, or as in his case he'd feel a chill in his spine. The only time he'd ever ignored that feeling he'd walked right into an ambush that `intelligence' said couldn't be there. This time he didn't feel a chill; this couldn't be called a chill because half his body just turned to a block of ice just like the eyes of the young man he found himself looking into. How he missed it he didn't know, maybe because Ranma didn't seem to have classic symptoms before, but he did now. He could see sweat from here, his eyes were visibly dilated and darting from side to side in motions so rapid it almost seemed like they remained still. The fingers of his right hand were rhythmically clenching the table edge which really wasn't alarming not in the least, except for the small fact that the oak was splintering under the pressure. If he was any judge he reckoned he had a couple of minute's tops to calm this down or walking out of here today might not be an option.

 

“Remora! Get the hell out of here now! Report to personnel, by the time you reach headquarters there'll be an official reprimand on file. You can expect my recommendation that this be investigated, now move, and leave your gun and badge.” He waited patiently as Remora complied slowly with his request the large mans eyes never left the ice blue orbs of the young man down the length of the table as he placed his badge down on the useless chunk of metal that his weapon had become.

 

A sense of bitterness threatened to overwhelm Remora's towering anger that was directed at that disgusting piece of filth as he contemplated twenty years of wasted effort. He'd been near to retirement age, maybe another three years and he'd be out with full pensions for the rest of his life, and at only forty seven he was young enough to enjoy it. Now it was all gone. Ranma watched the big blond leave the room, he didn't know what had set the man off but then he had vast experience of being blamed for stuff that had nothing to do with his own actions.

 

Turning back to the young man who'd remained seated so far Agent Simons sighed as a small amount of strain seemed to have left the boys shoulders, on the other hand his eyes were fixed on the wall now and he didn't seem to be paying any attention to the people in the room. He'd heard of hyper-arousal or hyper-awareness as it was more accurately called and wondered where Ranma's attention was fixed. That could probably wait for a few moments though…

 

“Mr. Saotome? I'd like to apologise for the actions of my agent. He went way beyond the orders he was given, this should just have been a quick interview to ascertain whether we could allow you to remain here in America….” He trailed off as Ranma blinked in his direction a few times before some warmth returned to his eyes.

 

To say Ranma was surprised would be an understatement. No one ever apologized to him like this, oh maybe if they were threatened they might admit it was a bit of a mistake, but apologise? No.

 

“Uh, that's okay Simons-san, it happens all the time to me. Er..You do know that there are six armed men on their way here don't you?”

 

Simon's blinked as the conversation segued in a totally different direction; of course he knew what that meant. Six men, armed, in the airport terminal could mean two things. Terrorists which was highly unlikely, or SWAT, and he knew which he'd put money on.

 

“Damn it who pressed the panic button?” Looking up and down the table it didn't take long for him to realise it was probably Remora. He looked down the table and tried to reassure the young man that it was nothing to worry about. “I'm sorry Ranma but that's SWAT out there. Please don't provoke them as I really don't want anyone to get hurt today.”

 

Ranma didn't say anything as he continued to survey the situation, Jake Remora stopped one of the SWAT members as he was rushing by and spoke urgently, and while Ranma didn't know what was being said he could feel the change in the mans life-force as he became amused in a Kodachi kind of way.

 

“I'll try Simons-san but Remora just spoke to them and I don't think he said nice things.” Simons looked at him in horror, talk about digging a hole and burying everyone.

 

“Ah shit!”

 

“Hey, I tol' ya I didn't wanna hurt no one, an' I'm gonna try, I just may not succeed.” The team by this time had made the office ad were quietly directing staff to evacuate in preparation to storm the dangerously insane man in IR1, there were agents in there who needed saving. Ranma watched as they efficiently secured the area and took up covering positions around the door. He gestured for the agents in the room to back up and stay on the floor as he didn't want anyone to be caught in the crossfire.

 

Watching carefully he figured that the man with the metal ram would strike the door then back away to one side or the other, and taking into account how he held it Ranma figured it would be to his left.

 

 

Agent Simons took Ranma's request at face value and indicated that his team should do the same, leaning his back against the side wall he watched in surprise as a small pinprick of blue light formed between Ranma's hands, it quickly swelled to the size of a basketball showing that it was formed of many strands of different shades of blue energy. Whatever it was it made the hair stand up all over his body. He opened his mouth to protest but Ranma had already released the ball towards the doorway just as said door crashed open.

 

/ \

 

Edward Coan slid into place with casual ease knowing that the rest of his team were where they needed to be to cover his exposed ass. He loved the job, what wasn't to like, there were guns, and explosions, and the women seemed to like the uniform. And did he mention there were guns? When he'd joined the force twelve years ago he never knew he could get this far, but he'd excelled in his training at the academy and five years of good service on the beat and he'd qualified for a position in SWAT training, the washout rate was truly horrific if you were ambitious but he'd managed to scrape through and never once thought of looking back.

 

The alarm had gone off exactly two minutes ago, and team one had been in ready response, bolting out the door with weapons slung and full kit. They'd met an FBI agent halfway to interrogation room one and he'd explained the situation. Some young guy had gone insane and grabbed an unsecured weapon as he was entering the room and was now holding the people inside as hostages. He'd claimed the youth was highly irrational and wasn't responding to verbal cues or questions at all. This led them to formulate a plan for extraction instead of calling for a negotiator as was procedure. The FBI knew the risks so they would know what was about to go down, you had to trust the judgment of someone who was highly trained in such a situation otherwise you'd be forever second guessing the intelligence you received.

 

Coan positioned the heavy ram against the door and swung it back before ramming it just above the lock. The frame gave way and the door swung inwards exposing the room to the interlocking field of fire of the rest of his team, but he was already swinging to his right and came to rest with his back against the solid concrete just in time to hear a massive crump that sounded like a grenade or something. The wall behind him shattered outwards as the shockwave from the detonation blew a hole in it, coincidentally picking Coan off his feet and spinning him through the air and several office partitions to come to rest draped across a desk completely unconscious.

 

That's not what it looked like to the rest of his team however and they opened up on the guy in the red shirt at the far end of the room for killing their teammate. Yeager, O'Brien and Stearne advanced under covering fire towards the door expecting little resistance now that they'd seen the youth spin around after being hit, they didn't expect to see him blown into the air though, or to see his hand strike the edge of the table in the room.

 

/ \

 

He'd felt the change in the atmosphere before the man at the door even struck it, whoever he was his mind was focused on removing the threat in the room as quickly as possible and was showing signs that he'd use deadly force without a second thought, and maybe not even a first one. Ranma chose to release the ki attack he'd been holding in reserve as a threat against the SWAT team as he really didn't think they'd listen to him. The ball streaked the length of the table causing the varnish to melt and bubble as it flew straight where he wanted it to be, the wall lasted less than a second before it became so much shrapnel firing into the mans back in a spreading cone of destruction. Luckily the man was wearing a flak jacket that absorbed the impact, well most of it. He still went sailing through the air in an uncontrolled tumble. Ranma realized that the situation had officially hit the fan, the damage was done and now he'd have to reap what he'd sown.

 

Ranma felt the incoming rounds as a stream of kinetic energy, he wasn't stupid enough to believe he could be hit with something like that and walk away without damage, so his mind did what it did best in a bad situation, he improvised. The bullets struck the sub space pocket exactly as he planned taking care of any damage he might receive from them, only to be taken by surprise as the kinetic energy of the bullets transferred to the anchor point on his wrist causing it to be flung backwards and dislocating his shoulder with a sickening crunch that told him that was gonna hurt very shortly.

 

He was tough but not that tough. To lessen the damage he leapt into the air at almost the same instant the force of the bullets traveling at nearly two thousand feet per second transferred to his body causing him to spin like a top in the air. Focusing on his next move he reached out with his good hand in a reflexive swipe as he smashed it into the edge of the table picking up the four hundred kilo piece of furniture and throwing it the length of the room. Smashing into the already weakened section of wall, it gave way under the immense strain and slammed into the three unwary men as they came level with the doorway in preparation to storming in and finishing the probably mortally wounded youth quickly. They weren't prepared to be struck with a large table, to be honest few people are. Yeager was clipped with the corner of the table and was spun away with a number of broken ribs. O'Brien and Stearne weren't quite as lucky as the full weight of the table pinned them flat thus rendering their feeble attempts to remove the dead weight resting on them as futile.

 

/ \

 

Gaelyn Caruso, commanding officer looked on stunned as his orderly progress was obliterated in mere seconds, it didn't help that the smoke from the spent rounds had set the fire alarms and sprinklers off. Then there was the fact that the youth shimmered for a second just before disappearing. That was probably when he got the feeling this was going to be possibly the worst day of his life.

 

/ \

 

Ranma winced at his stupidity, of course it had seemed like a good idea at the time. It often did when he improvised. He now knew two things, one, never attach the sub space pocket to his body when trying to stop bullets and secondly that while he'd taken damage the basic idea was sound. Of course he was in the air spinning like one of those children's tops but that didn't matter to him as he almost casually struck the edge of the table to stop his momentum. This caused the table to be thrown across the room and also stopped him enough that he landed on his dislocated shoulder slamming it back into the socket. He turned slightly green with nausea as the pain washed over him a second time but at least he could move it now without suffering further damage, he hoped.

 

/ \

 

Agent Simons was yelling for a cease fire when Ranma sank into the Umi-Sen-ken technique and vanished from his sight. He wasn't sure what the hell had just happened, he'd been about to stand up and call for a cease fire when the action began and stopped almost as quickly as it started. After the table passed him by doing a credible impression of a freight train when it struck the wall he'd decided that he could be heard just as well from his position flat on the floor. He wasn't a coward by any stretch of the imagination, jumping in front of bullets to save important people in the spur of the moment, not a problem. The Saotome youth on the other hand was as scary as anything he'd ever seen and he may not be a coward but he wasn't stupid either.

 

/ \

 

Ranma knew that he hadn't scored any major brownie points for taking out two thirds of the SWAT team. He had to approach this as quickly as he could or it would truly blow up in his face, and he wasn't stupid enough to think that this was as bad as it could get.

 

There were only two men left when he walked through the doorway as bold as brass, no one could see him veiled as he was in one of his fathers sealed techniques. The Umi-sen-ken only had one flaw as far as he could fathom and that was that as soon as he showed even the slightest intention of attacking the invisibility aspect of the move failed. He'd discovered a way around that though, and it came to him after he thought about combining the Umi-sen-ken with the `Soul of ice', with the two he could convince himself that he wasn't attacking the man; he was just arranging his body, the fact that his fist moved through the space currently occupied by one of the SWAT members heads was merely a coincidence.

 

/ \

 

Gaelyn watched as his final team member span around his axis and slumped slowly to the ground as if someone was lowering him gently to the floor. He pointed his machine pistol at the air over his teammate and was about to shout a challenge when something that felt like a finger came to rest against his right temple. He tried desperately not to move, the madman had gotten more than the drop on him, sweat beaded on his face as he watched the young man appear out of thin air. The first words out of the youths mouth were a true surprise though as he heard.

 

“Hi, I'm Ranma Saotome. Sorry about this.” The sheepish smile on his face as he waved a hand over the carnage that surrounded them infuriated the seasoned veteran and he was thinking of making a move even though he knew it would probably be the last thing he did when he heard a groan from behind him. The only team member that he knew was behind him was Coan which meant that he probably wasn't as dead as they thought he was.

 

Which meant…. He looked closely at his downed team and began to see signs of movement in some of them. Figuring with the way the pig-tailed youth scythed through his team he knew that they could have all been dead instead of incapacitated. His finger moved very slowly off of the trigger and clicked the safety on as he moved to place the weapon on the floor. If he'd been a little more focused he'd have known that Ranma had already put the safety on in his own special way.

 

/ \

 

Andrew Simons stood in what had once been the doorway to interrogation room one and surveyed the detritus of the fight between Ranma and SWAT team one. It was hard to believe that an unarmed youth could do anything against the highly trained tactical response team, the fact that he'd walked all over them was simply stunning. This was going to take a lot of explaining especially as he was inclined to help Ranma repair some of the damage to his mind, at least as much as he was able. One of the first things he'd noticed in the file was that he'd only ever talked about his problems to the local chiropractor, who while knowledgeable in a wide number of medical fields wasn't a specialist in any given subject other than alternative medicines. If they let Ranma stay in the country there would be conditions.

 

He could feel the headache coming on already as he thought about how he'd explain this up the chain of command.

 

/ \

 

“The Director is expecting you Agent Simons,” the secretary wasn't at her desk as was normal but standing by the wooden doors to Director Bergheim's office.

 

“I'll just bet he is,” Andrew Simons knew there was going to be flak about his actions in interrogation room one earlier that day, but this was beyond a normal reaction. The doors opened and the secretary stepped away to usher him inside. The office was large, being almost twenty metres square; the décor mainly consisted of dark finished timber paneling and furniture with brass fixtures and fittings. The wall behind the massive desk looked out over the city of Los Angeles in all its smoggy glory. The sun was above the horizon denoting that there were a few hours till full `dark', not that the city ever actually got completely dark. The sunlight struck the far wall of the room illuminating the gold letters on the books in the recessed bookshelves.

 

Director Anthony Bergheim wasn't an imposing man in the physical sense; he was short at five feet six inches. His appearance seemed to be that of an average sixty year old man, except for the eyes, they were the eyes of a man who'd seen more than his fair share in a lifetime of law enforcement, and the white hair atop his head bore silent witness to that. What made the director imposing was his presence; he had a sense of gravity about him that made sure everyone who came into contact with him paid very close attention to anything he said as he'd never waste time with trivialities.

 

“You'd better have a good explanation as to why I have a level one security threat on a C-130 heading for Edwards Airforce base Agent Simons or your Agent Remora won't be the only one suspended pending an investigation.”

 

“I believe I can explain sir,” Simons paced to the centre of the room and waited for his superior's next question. One thing you learned over the years was to never offer information that wasn't necessary.

 

“I don't have all day Agent Simons, and let me explain how good this had better be. If I don't concur with your actions at the end of this briefing I'm going to sink you in a whole so deep and dark you'll think you're half way to China. Do you understand me?”

 

“Yes sir! I'll need the tapes from the interrogation room, all eight cameras sir. Also I need the files on Ranma Saotome and the other members of the Nerima Wrecking Crew. At the same time pull up files on Genma Saotome.”

 

“And this is all pertinent to the current situation?”

 

“I believe it is sir, but I'll let you draw your own conclusions. As you know I've served as a profiler before sir. Three years, I wasn't the best, but I did sufficiently well to gain promotion to my current position.”

 

“I have your personnel records Simons, tell me why it matters, or I assure you it won't.”

 

“On meeting Ranma Saotome for the first time I drew a gut level reaction to him, sir.”

 

“I don't want to hear any `The hairs on me nekio told me,' tales Agent Simons. I want cold hard facts, and I want them ten minutes ago! I don't want to have to tell the President that one of my men let a potential threat into America on a gut feeling!”

 

“I assure you Director that I have substantially more to go on than that. On first blush it's a peculiar tale, disturbing in its way, but I'm going to need you to suspend your disbelief for the next few hours sir.”

 

“You can't speed things up? I have to be home in time for my grand-daughters recital tonight or my wife is going to do unpleasant things to me. You have one hour to make me a believer, or at least enough of one that I don't bust you or arrest you for treason do I make myself clear?”

 

“Fair enough sir. It started two years and seven months ago, roughly.”

 

“Roughly?”

 

“The early stuff is all anecdotal evidence sir, it was several months after Ranma's arrival back in his homeland that he piqued the interest of local CIA assets attached to the embassy. At first he was taken for a martial artist of high caliber. This is unusual because he was sixteen at the time.”

 

“Why is that unusual Agent? My nephew has a rather impressive swag of competition medals on the mantle at home.”

 

“Sir I don't think you understand, Ranma Saotome at that time was probably the sixth ranked martial artist in the world. His skill isn't measured in black belts because he wouldn't be able to move with that many wrapped around his waist.”

 

“I think you've made your point. So why did this Saotome boy suddenly come to the interest to the CIA?”

 

“At about the three month period the first explosion in Nerima was reported. Before you ask there were no explosives or chemical residue at the explosion site, none of them had the ability to create a bomb. The initial finding proved inconclusive, but it was enough to leave a presence to watch for further information. The surveillance crew began to feed live video from several of their suspects almost immediately, and the results were shocking to say the least.”

 

“Spit it out already.”

 

“Have you ever seen a Chinese martial arts movie sir? A chop-socky production?”

 

“Of course I have, I don't think I ever laughed as much as some of the action sequences.”

 

“Yes sir, I understand. The video footage you're about to see is taken by CIA agents, while they are creative with the truth sometimes, I can guarantee that they weren't capable of creating this.” Agent Simons walked over to the table at the side of the room and pressed a button. “You've got to understand that these are some of the early fights sir, later on they get more unbelievable.”

 

Up on the big screen several of the Nerima Wrecking Crew were facing off, the next moment they seemed to blur together, fourteen seconds later a young man in traditional robes staggered out of the fight to collapse with his bokken still firmly grasped in his hand. Followed thirty seconds later by another boy wearing a bandana around his neck. The action itself was so fast that it barely possible to register half of the blows that were made. When the dust settled the scene of the fight was a complete wreck, walls were broken, windows smashed and there were holes in rooves all over the area.

 

“We have tens of thousands of hours of tape of fights just like this one sir, or more violent. Depending on who was involved. My personal favourite is this man,” he pressed a button to bring up an already earmarked file. Mu Tse stood facing off against Ranma near a junkyard. “The man in the white robe is a Chinese national from a remote region, his name is Mu Tse and he practices an art called `Hidden weapons' which I'm assured is different from concealed weapons. This boy could walk through air port security carrying any kind of weapon and no one would know, even after going through a metal detector.”

 

“So he uses some kind of synthetic material for his weapon?” It seemed a logical assumption to make.

 

“No, we have samples of weapons that were left behind after his fights; they are good but not especially high quality steel. Watch this,” he pressed a button and motion resumed. After thirty seconds and a couple hundred kilos of steel hardware the Director of the FBI sat back down to regain his composure.

 

“That's not natural, how the hell?”

 

“Don't bother asking me, I've watched it a few times and don't even have clue one how he carries that kind of weight let alone moves like that.”

 

“This is relevant in what way?”

 

“Just letting you know what we're dealing with. Normal rules don't necessarily apply to these people. Like I said you need to suspend your disbelief.”

 

“I'm willing to listen.”

 

“About a month before they returned to Nerima the Saotome's visited an ancient training ground in China called Jusenkyou, there're a number of spring fed pools that are each cursed. We don't know specifics but prior to seven months ago a number of people received curses that turned them into various different things.”

 

“Why seven months ago?”

 

“I'll get to that later sir. I thought we'd take this in chronological order. Ranma fell into a pool that cursed him to become a girl.”

 

“You have proof of this?”

 

“Yes sir, it was one of the first things we asked. Ranma confirmed it with a demonstration with no prompting. Full video proof of the existence of magic from no less than eight video feeds, plus testimony from four FBI agents and the translator.”

 

“Yes about that, what happened with Agent Remora?”

 

“We still don't know, but up till the demonstration of magic he was acting normally as far as I could tell. There may be strong religious connotations to his actions; he may believe Ranma is a witch which is anathema to some deeply religious people. That is only an opinion at this stage; he showed no prior evidence of being inclined that way.”

 

“I'll take that under advisement Agent Simons. Now what else do you have for me?”

 

“Once Ranma popped up on the CIA's radar they began full background checks, whilst keeping surveillance on him and several of his so called friends. Over the time Ranma was in Nerima the operatives on surveillance noted abusive and derogatory behaviour perpetrated against Ranma by almost everyone around him. Now this in and of itself wouldn't be news if you didn't also cross it with the information that he's a highly trained martial artist who prides himself on being in total control of his body and mind. It's a pity that outside of those things he had little control. Thanks to the actions of his father he has many fiancées who have legitimate claims on his honour, and none of them were willing to give up their claim or share as his mother seems to expect .”

 

“You're telling me he has women throwing themselves at him and he's got a problem?” Bergheim who'd been married for forty two years seriously wished he had that problem at that age.

 

“It's the manner of the throwing sir, he doesn't particularly care for any of them and I believe that most of them see him as some form of trophy to show who's the better fiancée. From what I can see Ranma's an attractive young person, physically fit, probably the best martial artist on the planet, and that's in either gender by the way sir. If I had to make a guess at his earning potential, he could model, act, become a world renowned athlete, you name it and rich wouldn't even begin to cover it either. Plus he has an eidetic memory when it comes to things that interest him.”

 

“You can prove that?”

 

“No, but on circumstantial evidence, he picks up other peoples techniques after seeing them once or twice. That doesn't happen unless there's something working for him. It could be that he's a savant when it comes to the martial arts, but I doubt it.”

 

“So you're saying what?”

 

“He was a young person used to being in control, under insane amounts of stress, who has had that very sense of control over his life removed forcibly by those around him. Taking into account the history we've uncovered about the ten year training trip and a certain seppuku contract his mother had his father and Ranma sign the stress he's under must be enormous. By the way Ranma was five years old at the time he signed the contract with finger paint, so I doubt such a contract would hold up in court, even if seppuku weren't illegal now. If you asked me to profile Ranma's mental state right at this point in time I'd have to say he's suffering from borderline combat fatigue.”

 

“Are you serious? Then why let him into the country?”

 

“Because with all due respect sir, he wasn't going back to Japan until he was ready. I doubt we could have stopped him from leaving and going where ever he wanted either.”

 

“You had four SWAT teams on standby and you couldn't stop him.” The mere thought that an unarmed young boy could be a threat to men holding automatic weapons was ridiculous to a man who'd been in charge of the Bureau for eight years.

 

“I suggest you watch the tape of the interview from after the demonstration of the curse. Jake Remora started to act strange at that point; this is where it gets interesting.” He un-paused the tape and they both watched as the drama unfolded. “Now don't blink because you'll miss this.” Director Bergheim squinted as Ranma leant back in the chair. “They're baiting each other at this stage and Ranma's winning. In fact he won the whole confrontation. Oh did you miss it sir? I'll just wind it back and play it on slow motion. The cameras are capable of thirty-two frames per second, even on frame by frame Ranma appears to be a blur, he struck the ceiling at the halfway point, we can't prove this but he hit feet first and re-inverted himself before landing. He didn't make a sound even at that speed. That was surprising because of that speed you'd expect a thud when someone weighing more than eighty or ninety kilos hits a solid surface.”

 

“My God, how is that humanly possible?”

 

“That puzzles you Director Bergheim? I find it more puzzling as to how he took all the ammunition out of our weapons without approaching us,” he watched as his superiors face went blank as he contemplated what he'd just been told, “Now watch this, walking back down the table he takes the time to do this. The magazines are all oriented so that the rounds point outwards from a central point. Twelve clips in all and ninety rounds of loose .38 ammunition. The loose rounds form a cone six rounds high starting with a base of forty eight shells up to its tip which only has one. He didn't create any kind of vibration when he somersaulted back into his chair and rested his feet back on the table.

 

It was at the point of him getting back to his chair that I noticed his eyes began to shift uneasily, erratically but they kept tracking a point on the wall that was moving towards us, I verified this with computer simulation. Like many things about him his case of hyper awareness is extreme. It seems he tracked SWAT team one from the time they received the silent alarm from Remora and turned their intentions towards him. On average hyper awareness cases tend to pick targets within fifty metres, Ranma picked up SWAT 1 at just over eight hundred metres.”

“Eight hundred metres? If he took it into his head to lose it there wouldn't be anything safe.”

“That distance is a conservative estimate sir. As far as I can tell he can sense people through walls, floors and ceilings. Also it's believed that metal doesn't hinder his senses in any way. As you know sir most cases of combat fatigue become lethargic and withdrawn, only one case in roughly two hundred enter a berserk state. Given Ranma's upbringing I believe he would be one of the berserkers, he would kill without compunction anyone who moved, anyone he deemed a threat of any kind, anyone making excessive noise or running. In LAX alone I believe the death toll could be measured in the tens of thousands.”

 

“Even for someone of his skill surely that's a little farfetched.” Director Bergheim crossed his arms over his chest and let his eyes bore through his subordinate.

 

“I don't believe so sir, the footage you're about to see denote instances at roughly eighteen months ago, ten months ago and seven months ago. The first is Mt. Horaisen; geologists decided that the mountain subsiding into the valley was the result of unstable matrix in the sandstone crossed with an earthquake that measured 6.8 on the Richter scale. Ranma disappeared from Nerima and was seen in the vicinity of Mt. Horaisen shortly before the event, he claims that someone named Prince Herb of the Musk and himself were responsible.” On the two meter plasma screen a satellite image showed a brief flash of light followed by the small mountain disintegrating.

 

“….Do we have any other proof?” He sputtered in shock.

 

“No, there's nothing substantial, but taken in context with later events you may take his claim more seriously. The second event was the island of Togenkyo, a floating island covered in an eternal fog bank, the first evidence we had that this mythical island truly existed was from a spy satellite in nineteen seventy three, the fog bank is absent directly over the island and as such is visible only from space. After Ranma visited that island there was an explosion that was visible in space, the fog bank was dissipated and the island became visible from the sea. The mist is back in place now but this is a verifiable event, and it wasn't reported in any news articles anywhere in the world so he can't be claiming responsibility for something on the news.”

 

The images shifted until they centred on what looked like a tropical storm with a small island in its eye, again there was a brief flash, but this time the results were more spectacular as a shockwave travelled outwards from the explosion dissipating the fog bank in mere moments. Nothing natural could have been responsible for moving that much air around.

 

“The third was actively covered up by anyone who had intelligence on it, as they concluded the same thing as the CIA's initial assessment that an unknown terrorist group had gained access to some form of nuclear device, even though the Chinese government categorically denied it. To avert panic the information was suppressed ruthlessly. That's the third event that Ranma claims responsibility for, and again there is evidence that a teenage boy of Japanese extraction was near the site of the explosion that tore the top off Jhusendo in the Qinghai province.”

 

“I see, that's a rather sobering account. Each event seems to have been more destructive than the one preceding it.”

 

“Not only more destructive Director but they're exponentially more destructive.”

 

“Explain.” He didn't put any specific emphasis on the word but the demand was there all the same.

 

“Sir each of the events was large in scale, firstly Horaisen which was mostly shale and sandstone both of which are notoriously fragile rocks, it crumbled under the heavy damage inflicted by both Prince Herb and Ranma, though Ranma's attack seems to have been the catalyst that destroyed the mountain. In the second instance the actual damage was light, I believe that Ranma directed the force so that it wouldn't do damage to the island, the force of that attack had to go somewhere and it ended up pushing a wall of compressed air outwards from the point of the explosion. The scientists assure me that it takes much more energy to move that kind of area of still air than to knock down an unstable geological formation.”

“So that would mean that Jhusendo was easier to destroy than the second instance wouldn't it?”

“No I'm afraid not, Mt. Horaisen was mainly sandstone which is fragile in terms of stone. Mt. Jhusendo on the other hand was predominantly granite which is not fragile in any way, shape or form; it's a dense stone and extremely hard. Scientists extrapolated that it would take nearly three times the energy that was required to damage Togenkyo, and don't forget he was fighting a creature that was purported to be a demigod at the time. Other than that there's little known about the incident in China as it was very remote and there were few reliable witnesses. Mt. Jhusendo was the source of the water that formed the cursed pools of Jusenkyou, when it was destroyed the waters were released in a massive flood that caused all the pools to mix their respective magic's. What's left is a chaotic miasma of magic that is entirely unpredictable in effect, it also seems to have a rudimentary consciousness that ensnares the unwary traveller and brings them in to be cursed.”

 

“Alright, so we've ascertained that he's extremely dangerous and possibly the most destructive force on the planet. Maybe you'd care to explain why you felt it was wise to let him stay near something as breakable as Edwards Airforce base?”

 

“Sir, I don't see as we had any other choice. While it's true we don't want him to destroy the base, I don't believe that to be a credible problem. As long as no one threatens him while he gets control of his life again. The only other option available to him at the time was the Gobi desert, which he informs me is too close to certain enemies he'd rather not tangle with while he's like he is. The repercussions could be disastrous for all concerned.”

 

“So he's going to sit in the middle of a desert and regain some measure of control in his life?”

 

“Not quite sir, you see I convinced him he'd need help from a professional source to fix the problems he's facing. I convinced him to see a psychiatrist whom we would provide. I suggest we get the best in the field, or as close as possible.”

 

“Hmmmm…. At least that makes sense, alright I believe you've at least tried to make the best of a bad situation. Leave the selection of the Psychiatrist to me, I've got more resources than you do. You're dismissed, I'd get some rest you look like you've had a really bad day.” The old man almost smiled as he looked at his agents haggard appearance.

 

“Thank you sir,” he would have saluted the old man facetiously if he had the energy but with the relief of reprieve he felt the last of his energy reserves falter as he headed for the door. Time enough to think on things tomorrow, maybe get some better answers, he hoped he hadn't seen the last of Ranma Saotome as the young man was an intriguing dichotomy of personalities. Amazingly skilled on one side and yet he was totally naïve at the same time. How that worked in the same body he had no idea but it would be fascinating to find out.

 

/ The end for now \

/ To be continued… \

 

Authors note, this seems like as good a place as any to take a break. For those of you who are curious as to why this took so long to be released I plead the hard drive ate my homework. No really, a nine month old hard drive died a noisy and sudden death. I lost all my backed up work, plus everything I had in skeleton form, idea files and research. All in all the work in progress I lost was more than a hundred thousand words across all of my multi-chapter stories. There was hundreds of hour's worth of ideas in there as well and it all disappeared in a few minutes as I listened to the hardware grind itself to death.

 

I was informed that I could get the information recovered if I wanted but it would cost anywhere from six hundred to two thousand Australian dollars to do, I don't want the information that badly. I mean I'm just a simple shop assistant, I don't have that kind of money just floating around for things I don't really need as much as I need say air.

 

Trust me on this nothing spells doom for motivation like having something like this happen, I mean I'm a grown man and I was hard pressed not to howl at the moon. I'm a lot better now so you should be seeing more out of me.