Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ and its characters and settings belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon belongs to Takeuchi Naoko, Koudansha, TV Asahi, and Toei Douga, and DIC.

The big ugly robot thing climbed out from under the makeshift projectile, unharmed as far as Ranma could tell. The girls hadn't so much as moved a millimeter. Maybe he shouldn't have introduced himself like that? Oh well, it looked like he would have to lead the creature away from the girls before they got hurt. Then again, he could just go ahead and destroy it… Yes, that would work best.

"Mouko takabisha!!!" The cry was little more than nostalgia— and a partial plan to one day force all those who would attack him to cringe involuntarily at its mere mention. It was working rather well, actually. Back to the point: from each of Ranma's hands lanced a beam of solid energy, white hot and implacable in their power.

After a short pause— all the robot really had time for— it swept its flightless wings forward, forming a skeletal cocoon that would have been entirely ineffective if they hadn't become surrounded with a shimmering wall of yellowish-green force. The beams hit, instantly charring the nearby uprooted tree and turning the grass around the robot into ash, yet were unable to penetrate the shield. The construct's shield wavered and rippled, losing its brightness slowly as its protective energy was drained, but it held out just long enough to force Ranma to cut power to the attack or risk scorching his hands.

"Aha. Tough bastard, eh?" Ranma commented to himself, a grin of anticipation flashing across his face. That attack hadn't really been anything special, so Ranma wasn't worried. A negligible exercise of will brought his battle aura into focus, automatically providing the equivalent protection of several inches of steel armor.

With a metallic whisper, not unlike that of a sword being unsheathed, the robot surged toward Ranma in a blaze of speed. Ranma met the charge calmly, ducking under one arm blade, and catching the other on his aura reinforced forearm. Sparks flew and the creature slipped past the martial artist, only partially controlling its retreat as its misplaced momentum carried it forward.

The robot gouged its clawed feet and bladed arms into the turf, stopping itself moments before colliding with a large bronze statue of some historical figure or other. Once again it charged, but this time it met with a more unforgiving resistance. In his hand, Ranma held a jagged and slightly amorphous blob of energy. Halfway to its target, Ranma's attack caught the robot in a scintillating bubble of energy that expanded and engulfed the machine.

With the kind of desperation inherent in an injured and cornered animal, the robot began to claw at its prison, first with its arms, then taloned feet, and eventually the skeletal wings on its back. Despite its efforts though, none of the razor-sharp appendages could pierce the bubble, doing little more than creating a slight bulge before sliding harmlessly inward. Ranma shouted, clenching his hand into a tight fist and willed his creation into non-existence. In the span of a heartbeat, the multi-hued energy sphere collapsed in on itself. Before it could be crushed or at least damaged to the point of shutdown, the robot locked its metallic limbs in place.

Metal groaned and shrieked, and several joints emitted reluctant sparks, but the creature's superstructure held firm, and when the attack had run its course and was no more than a speck of energy floating within its empty ribcage, the robot roared its triumph.

"Well, I couldn't expect it to affect a robot in the same way it would a person, I guess," Ranma said.

"Kinda reminds me of a cat playing with a really ugly mouse," Jupiter finally said. At least she had managed to say 'something'. Everyone else seemed to be in one level of paralyzed shock or another.

"Yeah," Moon agreed weakly. "Luna would probably enjoy it." And slowly, over the span of five minutes, the others came back to the world of the sentient.

All eyes turned to Ami. What was she supposed to tell them? She was more worried about making herself breathe at the appropriate times than anything, really. Was he human? And if he wasn't human, what did that make her? Belatedly, Mercury realized that she had a nifty little supercomputer at her disposal that did very nearly everything short of making curly fries— and she wasn't sure it couldn't do that, too.

Ranma finished the combination arm-rip/chi blast/kick to the metallic groin, with flying bitch-slap courtesy of the robots very own arm. Blue and yellow sparks hissed as the head tore from the connected ring gaskets and servomotors that served as its neck. With a disgusted sigh, Ranma tossed the limp and amazingly light piece of mangled machinery to the ground. Not so much of a challenge really, though a few of them together would make excellent sparring partners.

"Let me get this straight," Rei growled. "He's physically only eighteen years old, though he looks almost old enough to be your dad, is composed of eleven percent pure energy, and just tore apart a robot like it was made from aluminum foil?" Ami nodded dazedly. "And he's human?" Once again, the Senshi of Mercury nodded. Rei eyed the man as he walked back towards their little group, from where his 'battle' had led him. What exactly did it mean to be partially composed of pure energy, anyway? These and other questions flashed through the minds of all the girls, along with a few other naughtier thoughts (except for Ami, of course, you hentai!).

Ami had taken the liberty of running a quick DNA scan on her father, just to make sure that he was her father, and sure enough, the answer came back positive. Her mother had a lot of explaining to do.

"All taken care of," Ranma announced, folding his arms across his chest and looking smug. Sure, he was arrogant; it was one of his character flaws (it made him more lovable, in his own opinion), but this action was calculated. An angry woman, much more so than an average man, finds it much more difficult to control herself, letting all kinds of information slip out, as well as throwing themselves off balance for a properly experienced person to manipulate them easily (please note that this is only an observation that I have made of the ladies and insufferable bitches that I have known in my relatively short life).

When he didn't hear any questions, threats, or even applause, Ranma grew concerned. He turned to face the girls, slightly peeved that they were ruining the fun of his fatherly debut. Shock, awe, and fear marred each girl's face; even Ami, his own daughter. Not that he really knew her all that well, but still…

"Hey, come on. Snap out of it," Ranma said, walking up to the girls and waving his hand before the eyes of Rei, the closest to him. She blinked, blinked some more, and then began to stammer.

"Wh-wh-what a-are y-y-you?" she asked haltingly. Ranma cursed himself for overdoing it once again, and tried to think of some way to fix the mistake. It wasn't a very big screw up, but those were the kinds that led to global catastrophes and the acquisition of new fiancées, in his experience.

"The greatest martial artist who ever lived, of course" Ranma answered, fully aware that he sounded like an arrogant ass. Anger was always a good way to divert one's attention.

A minute passed and not a single Senshi said a word. This wasn't working out at all. Any other martial artist would have raised a bitch fit if someone claimed that in their presence, but none of these girls seemed to care. Then it hit him, none of these girls were martial artists. The urge to slap himself grew, but he controlled it. They used magic and love and justice (though he didn't know what good the last two did in a fight) to battle demons and other evildoers; or at least that was what he'd heard. Tentacle monsters were also regularly combated with enormous amounts of lust and passion… Ranma really had to have a talk with whoever directed, drew, wrote for, or watched those movies. Sigh. Maybe when he had a free year or so…

"Uh, girls, this is getting freaky. I know I'm impressive and all, and it's not every day that you see a guy trash a robot, but standing around like a bunch of tree stumps isn't going to do much for your reputation." He was about to give up, throw Ami over his shoulder, and hightail it back to Kasumi's. The others could fend for themselves.

A news van pulled up a moment later, and out poured about twenty or so cameramen and an assorted group of men and women armed with flak jackets and microphones. That's a nice trick, being able to squeeze in more than twice the vehicle should be capable of holding. Improvised hidden weapons? Ranma pushed the thought aside and said, "Hey, look, reporters. I'd better leave before they get too many shots of me." It was a good enough excuse that his conscious didn't bother him about leaving the Senshi to the wolves.

The transition was almost instantaneous. Ami and the others shook themselves kinda like wet dogs then assumed pre-choreographed poses that made them look rather ridiculous, in Ranma's opinion, and exposed even more of his daughter's nearly bare legs. Sweats were definitely going to come into fashion with at least one of the Senshi very soon.

"We are the defenders of love and justice, the righters of wrongs and doers of good, we are the Sailor Senshi!" they all exclaimed loudly, their voices ringing clearly across the decimated park.

Ranma, already cloaked behind his chi and sitting on the roof of the news van, groaned and muttered a few choice obscenities to himself.

"…and the last curse I picked up was about half a year ago. It's not too bad, I guess, but it's annoying," Ranma, no her father, was saying as Ami slipped quietly through the front door of her home.

"Oh, Ranma, what is it this time?" her mother asked, sounding concerned, amused, and exasperated all at once. Ami paused, not closing the door for fear of alerting the adults to her presence and interrupting this talk of curses her father claimed to possess.

"It's kinda embarrassing," he muttered, barely audible to Ami. "I've always been… attractive, I guess— not to brag or anything— but that crazy woman with the broom turned up the old Saotome charm a few hundred notches or so. Now ALL women and a lot of men look at me like a piece of meat. It makes guys reaffirm their masculinity around me a lot too. That's what Midori said, anyway, and she's normally right about that kind of thing. I think it even affected Ami at first, up until she found out who I was. Ugh. Speaking of Ami, you wouldn't believe what I saw today…" Ami didn't need to hear yet another parental rant about her choice of extracurricular activities, but she had all intentions of finding out what her father thought of her and her friends. Then she would find out how the man had become so astonishingly powerful. And what made him think she had ever been attracted to him? Men could be so stupid sometimes. Sigh.

"Hey, our poses are not gay!" Ami fumed as she stepped around the corner and into the living room where for the last few minutes she had eavesdropped… er, listened in on her parents' conversation. "I'll have you know that we spend an hour every week practicing those," she declared lamely under her father's not quite mocking gaze.

"Have a seat, Ami. I was wondering when you join us. You really should try not to bite your fingernails when you're impatient. It's a bad habit." Ranma's chiding tone disintegrated into a hearty chuckle that ended up in full belly laughter that nearly had the man doubled over. "Sorry, sorry, I couldn't help it."

Ami ignored the entire exchange and looked at her mother. She realized that she was being awfully emotional about this whole situation, not at all like her normal calm self.

Kasumi's raised eyebrow was enough to keep Ami quiet. "Well, Ami, why don't you show me one of your poses, so I can see for myself?"

Ami winced. The thought of performing in front of her parents alone was more than a little embarrassing. "But, mom, it won't look right without the others." That excuse had only a slightly better chance of working than a snowball had of surviving in the pits of Hell.

Ah, what the hell? The worst they could do was laugh at her, right? With a deep breathe, Ami closed her eyes for a moment, then exploded into action. When she opened her eyes, she saw her mother staring back at her with a perfectly neutral face. Kasumi maintained that for about three more seconds before she joined Ranma in a round of uncontrollable laughter.

Ami huffed in indignation and was about to make her opinion known, loudly, when she caught sight of herself in one of the medium-sized mirrors on the nearby wall. Hunched over, her legs spread slightly with her knees bent outward and her arms held wide open, the pose that should have formed a support base for the other Senshi made Ami look like a bowlegged chimp with a bad back. All her intentions of grilling Ranma on his abilities flew out the window. Ami had to call the others and put a stop to this ridiculous institution before the Sailor Senshi were regarded as jailbait and idiots, instead of just jailbait.

A few minutes after Ami left, Ranma and Kasumi managed to pull themselves together. Only then did they notice that their daughter had made her escape while they had been occupied with trying to breathe.

"Ranma, who's this Midori woman you mentioned a minute before Ami interrupted?" Kasumi asked in a deceptively innocent tone of voice.

Ranma, being Ranma, didn't even think before answering the question. "A friend of mine. We had one of those month-long flings by the beach; lots of fun and all, but we agreed to just be friends afterwards. You wouldn't believe what she could do with her tong—" Ranma's eyes widened and he looked at Kasumi in horror. "Uh, would you believe me if I said that was just a joke?" Ranma gulped as a hazy green battle aura appeared around Kasumi.

"Don't blame me for them. It was your idea for the stupid things anyway," Rei snapped at Usagi. True to her nature, Usagi's eyes welled with tears and she started to wail like a child whose favorite toy had been stolen.

Minako sighed. Another meeting that didn't show any signs of being even remotely constructive. If only Ami had waited a day to make the revelation about their poses. Minako was still a little miffed about that, too. She had liked doing them, even if they did make her look stupid.

"Guys, aren't we forgetting something?" Makoto queried peevishly. With the exception of Usagi, who continued to sob, all eyes turned to Makoto. "We still don't know who or what Ranma is. He may not even be Ami's father, regardless of what her computer says. Shouldn't we be more worried about that right now?"

Ami was the next to come under scrutiny. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I would have asked later, but mom and Ranma were playing some weird sex game or something. I sure wasn't about to interrupt that. Therapy sessions would probably get in the way of me being Sailor Mercury." Ami didn't want to think about her mother chasing Ranma around the house with a glowing mallet, or that her mother was also glowing, or even that her father had been mostly nude at the time.

Profoundly uneasy silence hung in the air after Ami's announcement. Some of the girls were embarrassed by it, others surprised that Ami would even say it, but all of them were sad that Ranma seemed once again involved with Ami's mother. It just wasn't fair.

'And in other news' the TV news reporter droned, 'a recent Senshi battle has seen the debut of yet another monster-fighting proponent of love and justice and all that crap. Unlike the mysterious and under-clad Sailor Senshi, however, this newest appearance has a name.' A picture of Ranma appeared in the upper right hand corner of the screen. 'Sources here at Tokyo News have identified the man as one Ranma Saotome. While his current location remains unknown, it is our sincere wish that Mr. Saotome continue to aid the city's defenders in these trying times. For more information on Mr. Saotome, please visit our thrice daily updated webpage where a dossier has been established that covers many events of note in this man's early life and some of his current exploits working with several government operatives.'

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." Just for good measure, Ranma continued to repeat the mantra in his head.

To be continued.

Author's Notes: This might be extended further if I decide to lengthen the robot beat-down. My life has calmed down a lot in the last few days, and with most of my major worries behind me for the foreseeable future, I plan on picking up writing fics on a regular basis once again. So let's all hope I can get the momentum back up and begin cranking out a chapter every couple of days. C&C welcome at dark_phoneix@hotmail.com

Webmaster: Larry F
Last revision: May 21, 2007