Here it is! The next part, sew tell me what you think!
----
Evening fell on Nerima...
"Has anyone seen Akane?"
"AKANE MISSING?!?! NOOOO!!!! My little girl!!!"
...Akane is nowhere to be found...
"RAAAAAANNNNNNMAAAAAA-KUUUUUUUNNNNNNN!!!"
"Um, yeah Ojisan?"
...and as usual, Saotome Ranma gets the heat.
"How dare you sit there while your fiancee is missing!!" Soun bellowed at
Ranma, blowing a couple of chips that Ranma was snacking on into the next
time zone.
"Oh, gimme a break, Ojisan!" Ranma poo-pooed, "The tomboy can take care of
herself. She's probably of with her friends or something."
Soun growled, and then bellowed, "SAMURAI!!!"
** BA-GOOON!! **
A shock-wave smashed the tatami mats under him as the Samurai Armor (tm)
appreared from... somewhere. The armor assembled itself around its caller,
and Soun inflated himself with the righteous rage of a father's concern for
his daughter.
Ranma bigsweated as Soun's face dominated his vision. "On the other hand,
I'd better check anyway." Ranma disappeared in a Ranma-shaped cloud of
dust, which quickly disippated.
****************
PATCHWORK
By Wyrm
CHAPTER 2:
Discord
****************
Somewhere in Nerima, a girl with wavy dark-purple hair was having an
argument with herself.
"I'm going back to the Ucchan and that's final!"
Literally.
"Surely, you jest! Do you expect I, the great Kunou Kodachi, the rising
star of St. Hebereke, to set foot in a commoner's home? It is to laugh!
Verily, not a bad idea... HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!!!"
"I'm not 'jesting', and don't call me Shirley!"
The girl winced to herself, "That was an awful pun, Ukyou..." then agreed
with herself, "Haiyah! Is very bad joke!"
"Thanks. I try," the girl beamed. The beam turned to a frown when the girl
(Ukyou) realized that the other street-users were giving them _plenty_ of
room. "Aw hell, Kodachi! You're making us look like a loony!" growled the
girl.
"Since Crazy Gymnast Girl live in head, they right," the girl (Shampoo)
giggled.
She (Kodachi) frowned, and growled, "I heard that!"
"Of _course_ you heard that, you nimrod! We're all in the same damned
body!" the girl (Ukyou) shouted.
"And people call *Shampoo* dumb!" she (Shampoo again) snorted.
Within the confines of the girl's skull, Akane stewed in a dark corner of
their shared mindscape. She mulled over the very real (not to mention
frightening) possibility that she would share a body together with the
other three rivals for Ranma's hand.
What made it worse is that all four of them had access to the body's
movement facilities; they discovered this when they started walking back to
the city. The body was trying to walk in four gaits at once, and ended up
actually doing none of them. A few painful crashes to the ground, and the
quadruplet of minds finally figured out how to stumble home.
Three hours later, their walking was much better. There was only the
occaisonal stumble here and there, but otherwise the gait was normal. It
hardly took any thought to keep the body going...A nasty thought occured to
Akane, and she voiced a concern, "Uh, guys..."
"Yeah, Akane?"
"Who's driving?"
* D O N G *
******
"Jeez! Where is that tomboy!" Ranma mumbled as he scanned the streets of
Nerima, looking for someone resembling Akane. After ten minutes of this,
Ranma was getting downright annoyed.
"You'd better not be turning into Ryouga on me, Akane. That would suck!"
Ranma remarked, then mimiced the Jyusenkyou guide, "Is tragic story of
Hibiki Ryouga who drown there two weeks ago! No everyone who fall in spring
get no sense of direction!"
Just then he saw a wierd girl with a kick-ass spatula on her back walk
right into a telephone pole. Ranma, being a decent humanitarian dispite his
upbringing with the piece of utter scum that dare called itself his father,
immediatley dropped to the street and rushed to her aid.
Ranma carefully patted the girl's cheeks (no, not *those* cheeks, you
pervs!). She stirred, blinking her eyes open. "Are you okay, miss?" Ranma
asked her with concern.
Four minds recognized him at once.
"AIREN!" "RANMA-SAMA!" "RANCHAN!" squealed the girl and grabbed him up into
a great and powerful hug. Ranma's eyes grew in surprise as he tried to deal
with the possibility that he had Yet Another Fiancee (patent pending).
Suddenly, the girl's demeaner changed from insanely joyous to seriously
pissed. "RAAAANNNNMAAAAA NO BAKA!!!!" the girl roared, pulling out her Big
Ass Hammer (tm). The mallet decended...
Ranma was saved being made into Ranmakonomiyaki when the girl's other arm
grasped the shaft and forced it off course. It made a substantial dent in
the asphalt. The girl sneered and shouted, "Oh no you _don't_, Akane! I
won't allow you to hurt Ranchan!"
"Too too right!" (Shampoo)
The girl (Kodachi) nodded and added, "Quite right, peasent girl! Hammers
should be used on nails and not heads! To use them as instruments of
punishment is unforgiveable! In the name of the Moon, I, Kodachi the Black
Rose, will punish you!"
The girl paused for a couple of seconds. "I take it you're a Sailor Moon
Otaku, eh Kodachi?" the girl (Ukyou) asked deadpan.
"How did you guess?"
"I will NOT be *denied*!!!" With a grunt of effort, she began lifting the
hammer.
"You no do that!" The girl stomped on the mallet's head, pinning it to the
road. "Get off my mallet, you Chinese bimbo!" "NO! You want to smash
Airen's head again! Shampoo no stand for it anymore!"
While this argument was raging, Ranma came to a decision. Namely, get out
of here while she's distracted with herself. He knew from experience that
lunatics were bad news. He carefully backed away, trying to draw as little
attention as possible.
The Law of Murphey, being the cruel law that it is, put a stick under his foot.
*SNAP*
Within the girl's head, Akane's Ranma-Field Detector pinged, and her head
jerked up. Ranma gulped. The day's stresses and the current situation
stoked the furnace of Akane's kami-like anger, which moved from Critical
level to Total Armageddon level.
Being in the same body meant that only the difference in wills mattered in
controlling their combined body, and Akane was now very seriously pissed.
Even the combined wills of the others could not contain the storm.
"RAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" the girl screamed, ripping the mallet from beneath her
foot, and tore down the street toward a very frightened Ranma.
Ukyou's thoughts focused on how to keep them from bashing Ranma's head in.
"Kodachi! Shampoo! On three, open our right hand!" the girl (Ukyou) said to
herselves. "Un!" the other two agreed. "Right! One!"
They were now ten yards from Ranma.
"Two!"
Seven yards now, and the girl heafted the mallet over her head to bash
Ranma into pulp.
"THREE!"
The girl's right hand opened, releasing the mallet. No longer restrained by
the forces exerted by the girl's hand, the mallet followed the geodesic
along the curvature of spacetime in accordance with Einstein's General
Theory of Relativity, and impacted upon the girl's cranium, and had caused
a total disruption the electrochemical signals within the cerebral tissue
in her brain.
** K L O N G ! ! ! **
In other words, the composite girl was clocked on the head with her own
mallet, knocking her out...
******
Letting out a small moan, Kodachi, Shampoo and Ukyou regained
consciousness. Akane was still out. <<Thank goodness for small miracles,>>
sighed Ukyou mentally.
"Hear, hear, Okonomiyaki-slinger!" the girl (Kodachi) agreed with a pained
moan. "This is the last time I listen to one of your ideas, spatula girl."
"I didn't hear you come up with any better ideas, Black Bozo," snapped the
chef as comeback.
"That's 'Black Rose', peasent low-life!"
"Whatever, pompous ass-sama!"
"Um..." The girl blinked. That wasn't their voice, and besides, it sounded
like it was coming from the side. The all three minds turned the head
(*CRACK!*) and the combined effect was turning it too far. "YOW!!" yelped
the girl, and the three carefully brought the head back to look at Ranma...
as well as his father and the Tendous.
Only one word came to mind(s): "Hi."
"Hi," Ranma answered in return. "I'm Saotome Ranma..."
"We know, Ran(ma|ma-sama|chan)." Ranma blinked. Did he just hear a regular
expression? /*And what the heck is a regular expression anyway?*/ "We're
Kuonji Ukyou..."
"...Kunou Kodachi, HOHOHOHOHOHOHO--!"
"...Shampoo. And Tendou Akane in here too."
The three controlling personalities said, in three-part harmony, "...Sorry
'bout this."
** W H U M P ! ! ! **
All but one/four persons won the World Cup for Synchronized Face-Faulting.
End chapter 2...
---------------------
## ## ## ## ####### ## ## AKA Tom Jefferys, Time Lord for Hire
## ## # # ## ## ### ### "Have TARDIS; Will Travel."
## # ## ### ##### ## # ## Wielder of ANVIL and SPAM!
### ### # ## ## ## ## [ Will code for food! ]
## ## ### ### ## ## ## of UT haunts <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>
"Writing is difficult. That's The entropy of a system increases
why there's so little of it over time, as does the number of
that's any good." unmatched socks...
-- Andrew A. Rooney